| |
Friday, January 16, 2004
Name that film
Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Dumpster diving the Dear Leader
Kim Jong Il's trash is available for review, and the Weekly World News is there:
Underpants emblazoned with the phrase "Home of the Whopper," one pair of which turned up in his trash like clockwork every other day along with empty boxes of a cheap Chinese Viagra knockoff labeled, "Real American Veagero. No Counterfeit. This Real Thing. Make You All Man."
Highly detailed maps of Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul and his own capital city, Pyonyang, dotted with fireballs and mushroom clouds and marked, "Nuclear Test Sites" and "Boom-boom."
A dangerous do-it-yourself liposuction kit of the type that is used by desperate fatties throughout the Orient. Hundreds have died while using the kits. Kim obviously came through the ordeal alive, although observers have noted that he still has one love handle and a lopsided pot belly.
(WWN)
You can't make this stuff up!
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
The plane truth via Lileks.com
Today's bleat has a link to his review of fifties Iraqi travel literature. Pretty neato stuff. especially the last page which hawks two types of obscure charter aircraft. Naturally I decided to google them.
The Vickers Viking is a twin engine, low-wing prop. Nothing special -- it's a clone of the Martin 2-0-2. The other featured plane is the De Havilland Dove. It's not just a neato airplane, it's the answer to something I've been wondering for a long, long time.
Remember the Sam Jones sci-fi opus -- Flash Gordon? For years I've wondered what plane Flash and Dale fly in the beginning of the film. Now we know: it's the Dove.
Thanks Mr. Lileks!
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Those perfidious Belgians
...and their Inspector Gadget style bunny chasing cars:
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian police have caught two bunny poachers whose armour-plated getaway car was kitted out with so many gadgets it would not have been out of place in a James Bond film.
(Reuters)
Read the whole thing!
Who cut the cheese?
...a laser expert, that's who:
MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A researcher from the University of Wisconsin at Madison has figured out a better way to slice cheese - just use a laser.
"At any other university, people would have just laughed. But this is Wisconsin. It's cheese. And this is no laughing matter," said Xiaochun Li, a mechanical engineering professor and laser expert.
Traditional cheese processing has a number of shortcomings, he said.
(AP)
This is one of those What a Country! moments: we can successfully land four robots to Mars ( Viking 1 and 2, Pathfinder and Spirit (and Opportunity is due to land soon)), and we can blast slices of cheese apart with our lasers.
Really, Al-Qaida: what were you thinking when you picked a fight with us?
Monday, January 12, 2004
Grappling with the issue of crime
Sumo neighborhood watch. Why didn't someone think of this sooner?
A group of professional Sumo wrestlers has started a neighbourhood watch scheme in a crime-stricken district in Tokyo.
The 15 wrestlers from the Isenoumi stable pound the streets of Edogawa Ward, eastern Tokyo, in pairs or groups of three from 11pm until dawn, reports Kyodo News.
Local shop owner Kazuo Ishizuka, 55, said: "Thanks to this patrol, I feel safe and can sleep well every night. I don't think anyone would commit a crime if they encounter a big sumo wrestler."
(Ananova)
Indeed!
|
|
