"Delicate" Art

The Centre for Recent Drawing art gallery in a London, England, suburb scheduled a series of 55 works by artist Jordan McKenzie, called "Spent," even though they consist merely of canvases onto which he had ejaculated and covered with carbon sprinkles. McKenzie maintained that the works were "heartfelt and delicate."

Metropia - Our Future?

Swedish animated feature film for adults is taking place in a near future in Europe. The world is running out of oil and the net of undergrounds has been connected, creating an enormous web underneath Europe. Roger from a Stockholm suburb tries to stay away from the underground, however one day he finds out that his life is controlled in every detail (Matrix?). He tries to break free, and in order to succeed he needs super-model Nina to help him...
It is a mix of animated and non-animated scenes. Voices by Juliette Lewis (Natural Born Killers) and Vincent Gallo (Buffalo '66). Sounds like a good one.

If My Nose Was Running Money

Southern Culture at its Best

Hexes and Sexes

FBI was investigating Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), and found that the deputy director of that office, Ginger Cruz, a self-described Wiccan, had been threatening to place hexes on employees if they co-operated with outsiders' evaluations of the agency. The Director of SIGIR, Stuart Bowen, who was a former aide to President Bush, commissioned a book telling the history of the SIGIR, and also claimed printing cost of the book to be millions of dollars. He was "dating on government time", had unexplained absences from work and did some cover ups on time sheets to hide the absences. Former employees accuse him of taking non-work related trips to Texas and France, but counting it as paid time.
Bowen inteds to run for congress in Virginia...

Satellite on the lookout

As you know, an out-of-control the size of a small bus US spy satellite, whose engine had failed, is plummeting out of its orbit and is expected to crash somewhere on the planet within weeks. It has been claimed that a spy satellite heading uncontrollably towards Earth is not an uncommon event. Satellites come out of orbit and fall back to Earth harmlessly on average once a year. Normally, when US spy satellites reach the end of their lives, they are disposed of through a controlled re-entry and dumped in the Pacific Ocean, so that no-one can learn their secrets (!!!!). However, older satellites are often more difficult to de-orbit properly.
When they re-enter they usually burn up in the atmosphere because a lot of heat has developed and there is a lot of friction. Only heat-resistant or very heavy objects will survive. There is a risk in this case that something will hit the ground.
Officials have no idea where it might land but they are keeping other countries abreast of the situation. By now the satellite is around 200km up, and it's falling by almost 1km a day. So it is expected it will hit the top of the Earth's atmosphere by the end of February or early March.
24 hours before it hits the ground they can predict ground track very well (the line over the Earth where the satellite is overflying). An hour or so beforehand experts might know roughly where the satellite will land - but it is only rough because the line is something like 10,000km long.
The pieces are believed will drop into the sea somewhere ( given that almost three-quarters of the Earth's surface is covered by water). There is the possibility, however, that they could land in Russia or China. Now, with all the "secrets" aboard, we'll see what happens next!

Oh, Almighty!

Relative to strengthening their commitment to Islam, many men in Egypt suddenly appeared to start getting dark calluses on their foreheads ("raisins") as a signal of perhaps-overenthusiastic daily praying. The five prayers require, in all, 34 contacts with the ground (of forehead and nose), and additional personal prayers add to the total. Rumors persist that some men use sandpaper to darken the calluses to appear even more pious...

*************

At Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian clerics share space at the site thought to be the birthplace of Jesus, some Orthodox faithful wandered into the Armenian section during Christmas season, and officials of both faiths squared off and flailed at each other with brooms before being separated by Palestinian police...

XYu - Dinamit

Tocak, Bocek, Krle, Bata Kostic, Dragi Jelic...

Don't drop the Soap!

The "creative" son of the governor of Kansas has invented a board game with his school mates called Don't Drop the Soap. The prison-theme game made his mother, governor Kathleen Sebelius, and his father Gary very proud of him. John Sebelius, a 23-year-old design student, has launched his game on the market through the internet and he is selling it at $35 . The internet page describes the game as a complete simulation of a prison cell where you can experience all the charms of life in prison: Escape prison riots, Slip glass into a mob boss' lasagna in the Cafeteria, Steal painkillers from the nurse's desk in the Infirmary, and more.

Makes you want to go through it in a real life, doesn't it? Oh, joys of entertainment...

That's what I call an Inventor!

Michael Windisch, proprietor of the Maltermeister Turm restaurant in Goslar, Germany, solved what has become a crisis for other restaurants since the state extended a smoking ban in August. Windisch opened three holes in an outer wall so that, in cold weather, a smoker need not venture outside but can stick his head and arms through the holes and puff away while remaining inside.

Soup Dragons

A Party in Bordeaux (courtesy of Tvrtko).

Kurosawa's Films

A part of a cult director Akira Kurosawa's opus can be downloaded for free (films like Rashomon, To Live, Stray Dog, They Who Step on Tiger's Tail,...
HERE

R.I.P.

Heath Ledger loved Nick Drake’s music. Drake was a singer and song writer who committed suicide in 1974. Last September Ledger was a guest at the Venetian Mostra festival when he promoted the biography of Bob Dylan, ‘I’m Not There’. On that occasion he spoke about his obsession with Drake whom he described as a very mysterious figure. "I was obsessed with his story and his music and I pursued it for a while and still have hopes to kind of tell his story one day". Ledger filmed and directed a video in his honour. The video has not been published on the Internet, but many describe it as a black and white video featuring the song “Black Eyed Dog”. As the video nears the end, Heath turns the camera on himself and drowns in a bathtub. The video was incorporated into a multimedia installation dubbed “A Place To Be” that was exhibited last September at the Bumbershoot Festival and at last October’s celebration honouring Nick Drake. “Black Eyed Dog” is the last song Drake wrote before he committed suicide with an overdose of antidepressants.

Original video Black Eyed Dog

Aging*

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

"How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!" You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key.

You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

"How old are you?" "I'm gonna be 16!" You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life . You become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony . YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're Just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

You get into your 80's and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30 ; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; "I Was JUST 92."

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!"
May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

*by George Carlin

Alabama 3

OMG

Evangelical Christians seem excited to purchase products that reinforce their religious values - themed merchandise such as Jesus riding a bull, surfing and playing soccer, Jesus air-fresheners and Grapes of Galilee wine. There are also "thongs of praise" underwear with an image of the Madonna and child, and a template to place on a bread slice in an oven to create toast with the Virgin Mary's likeness...

Tennis Look-Alikes

Bush movie

Oliver Stone, who has made an unflattering movie about Richard Nixon, is planning to make another titled "Bush". It will focus on the life and presidency of George W. Bush and will feature Josh Brolin in the lead role. Despite his earlier critical comments about the invasion of Iraq, Stone said he is not looking to make an anti-Bush picture but rather to use major events in the president's life to explain how he came to power. It's a behind-the-scenes approach, similar to 'Nixon,' to give a sense of what it's like to be in his skin (must be really difficult!). Stone did decline to give his personal opinion of the president, though...

Tasmin Archer

That will be all, Mr. Soldier...Thank you.

Soldier Jordan Fox had recently been ordered to return $3,000 of his $10,000 enlistment bonus because his blindness and back injury from a roadside bomb in Iraq, which prevented him from fulfilling the final three months of his one-year Army "commitment."