Flickr

I made a Flickr account. You can click HERE! to see some totally awesome pictures I took with my Lomo. Make sure you check out page 2.

uniHOSP call

Someone please send in a uniHOSP picture. You can draw it or photoshop it or whatever you want. (If you don't know what I'm talking about scroll down until you see some pictures of unicorns wearing lab coats.) First one in gets 100 points.

Cool people who have already sent uniHOSP pix in: Justin, Abbey.

Don't you want to be cool?

Cheers.

First female riot police force in China

The Public Security Bureau in Jinzhou city, northeast China's Liaoning Province, set up China's first female riot police force on Dec 26, 2003. The average age of the 25 members in the force was 26. Half of them held college degrees, and the remaining held bachelor or master degrees.







Link to story

Space Exploration is pointless

Thanks for running a 5-year-old story, CNN, really

CNN.com just ran this headline: Clinton offered 40 goats, 20 cows to marry Chelsea...

It's a story from 5 years ago, and nobody cares, but I just thought the headline looked funny.

She's so pretty.

Link

Newsflash: She's Dead, People, Just Stop it

Listen, Natalee Holloway is dead. Stop looking for her. As much as I hate to say it, we all know it's true; it's horrible, but it's true.

CNN, MSNBC, Fox News -- quit covering it. When they find the body you can do a story about it, but for now, cut it out. Seriously. Since you've been smearing your media goo all over this case we've gotten a rash of other missing-persons stories in the news.

News makes more news, it really does. If you publish a teen suicide story, teen suicides will jump like crazy; so really, it's best to just let it be, don't shove it in every depressed teen's face. Same thing with violence and school shootings. It glamorizes it for people with mental disorders. If a kid who's been thinking about shooting up his school sees it all over the news, he'll think, yeah, that's the way to go out, that was on CNN, wow.

So, let's report the news, not ass-rape its cold corpse.

Acting is pointless says Scarlett

Scarlett Johansson says she is not proud of her films and thinks acting is a relatively pointless profession.

In an interview with German daily Financial Times Deutschland, she said: "As actors, we make movies, we don't save lives. What I do, it's actually not that important."

She added: "I'm also not proud of my films. That was never a criteria."

She said she always just wanted to make movies that she herself would pay to see, adding: "I definitely want to be in a Tim Burton film. That's right at the top of my list."

She also revealed she would like to direct; she added: "I would even make an advert if I had to, if it meant I could direct at least once. As long as it wasn't for tampons or something embarrassing."

Batteries hate me

I don't know why, but my body emits some kind of pulse or force that kills any battery nearby. If I don't completely kill the battery, I just zap the charge out of it, so whatever it's running will only last a couple of minutes at a time.

Here's a list of my batteries that have died:
-- iBook laptop (battery holds charge for 12.4 seconds)
-- my last car (battery died, alternator died)
-- cell phone (holds charge for one 30 min. phone call; I have 4 batteries lying around my house for this phone and none of them work for more than an hour)
-- my deceased PC (CMOS battery in motherboard been replaced twice, will not last)
-- my new car (2002 Acura RSX, battery died first month I had it)
-- my last digital camera (battery works for 3 seconds)
-- my new digital camera (eats 4 AA's in 2 hours)

There are probably more that I can't remember right now.

I have an iPod and I'm just waiting for the battery to crap out. If I ever have to get a pacemaker I'm screwed...

A Couple of Retard-Newscasters I Hate

Up first is Charlie Gibson. He's retarded. You know it, I know it -- he's a retard. When they aired the Jackson verdict he was like, "Jackson has been convicted on all counts," and the person on-air was like, "No, Charlie, not convicted," and Charlie started over like he hadn't even said it. "ackson has been cleared of all counts of ..." which one is it Charlie?

And I hate how he's always talking during shit. Like the shuttle launch today, he was talking while the NASA command center people were talking about how the launch was going. "That's the shuttle there and it's a going to the moon right now with the 'rocket-blasters' pushing it up into space, which is where aliens live..." while the NASA guy is talking about numbers and statistics and things that are importtant.




Next is Nancy Grace, who just sucks. I think her new banner pretty much sums it up.

She is such a bitch.

OK, post a comment of news people you hate. There's so many bad ones, this should be easy.

Japan introduces liquid hand ads

After being bombarded by commercials on the way to work and watching promotions pop up on the Internet, the Japanese consumer could soon be hit by advertisements where they least expect it: on their hands.

Link to full story

Russia’s Biggest Spammer Brutally Murdered in Apartment

Link to story on mosnews.com

Leave it to Japan ...

Japan's Sakakibara Machinery Works has unveiled its version of a sit-in walking robot, dubbed Land Walker 2.

The 3.4m, one-ton robot walks at 1.5km/h. It is operated by four pedals in the cockpit.

A monitor showing the feet area helps the driver watch their step.

Air guns on each side of robot shoot a rubber ball 20-30m. The company sells it for 36 million yen ($43,500).

I wonder how that guy in Alaska who made his own mech feels... Because his looks pretty crappy compared with this one. I mean, Japanese people made this one. It looks kinda nice.

The funny thing is that it's cheaper than a Land Rover.

Link to pix and video

NASA says "fuck it," plans to launch shuttle even if fuel gage problem recurs

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- NASA says it plans to go ahead and launch Discovery tomorrow morning, even if that pesky fuel gauge is still not working right.

Deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale says engineers still don't know what caused the problem that grounded the flight two weeks ago. But he says since it hasn't happened again they're willing to write it off. He also says that it's possible that all the investigations of the problem may actually have fixed it.

Hale stresses, however, that they're not taking chances. If a problem develops with a different sensor, the countdown will be stopped and Discovery won't go up.

Discovery is set to lift off tomorrow morning at 10:39 Eastern. That's the same time that Columbia took off on its doomed mission in 2003.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Richards is a Pirate

Keith Richards will definitely appear alongside Johnny Depp in "Pirates Of Carribean" series, it has been confirmed.

The Rolling Stone legend has long been rumoured to play Depp's fictional father in the sequels to the original movie.

Captain Jack Sparrow, Depp's character in "Pirates Of The Carribean" is understood to have been based on Richards, prompting the idea to pursue the guitarist for the subsequent films.

Fellow cast member Bill Nighy has now confirmed the reports, which gathered momentum last month when Depp said he was confident Richards would sign-up.

Nighy explained: "I can confirm, Keith Richards will appear in 'Pirates Of The Caribbean" 2 or 3. I'm not sure which one, because they are being filmed back to back."

Speaking about Richards' involvement in the movies recently, Deep said: "You talk about a dream come true, you get to be a pirate with Keith Richards, does it get any better than that?"

Virtual Street Reality

Julian Beever is an English artist who is famous for his art on the pavements of England, France, Germany, USA, Australia and Belgium. It's peculiarity? Beever gives his drawings an anamorphosis view, his images are drawn in such a way which gives them three dimensionality when viewing from the correct angle.

Link to page with more pix

Roman Polanski wins libel suit

LONDON (AP) -- Roman Polanski has won his libel suit against Vanity Fair, after the magazine published an article accusing him of propositioning a woman while on the way to the funeral of his murdered actress-wife Sharon Tate.

The 2002 article alleged that Polanski put his hand on the woman's thigh and promised her, "I'll make another Sharon Tate out of you." The publisher maintained the article was substantially
true even while admitting the supposed incident hadn't happened before Tate's funeral.

The week-long case in London featured lurid testimony about Polanski's sex life and testimony in his defense from movie star Mia Farrow.

Polanski, whose film credits include "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby," has been awarded about $87,000.

Tate was killed along with four others at her Beverly Hills estate in 1969, by followers of Charles Manson.

Judge says Jackson investigators must return items seized (porn)

SANTA MARIA, Calif. (AP) -- The judge in Michael Jackson's child molestation case has ordered prosecutors to return to the singer hundreds of items taken by investigators.

The items were seized from Jackson's house by authorities looking into allegations that Jackson molested a 13-year-old boy two years ago. A jury last month acquitted him.

The items to be returned include computers, books and adult magazines.

Judge Rodney Melville says items introduced in court as evidence also will be returned to Jackson after news reporters have had the chance to review them. Because of privacy and copyright issues, the judge isn't allowing reporters to see videotapes featuring Jackson or his accuser.

Attn: Unibomber Fans

If you've been itching to get your hands on a first edition of Ted Kazay-zay's much-loved manifesto, here's your chance.

A federal appeals court Thursday ordered the government to sell Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski's writings and other materials seized in 1996 from his Montana cabin, and use the proceeds to compensate his victims.

Ready? Link (CNN)

Go Warriors

This is the best mugshot ever. Guess what he got arrested for?

Link to story on thesmokinggun.com

Looks like Boo Boo grew up...

Free mp3 from Ellen Allien

Ellen Allien is a DJ/Producer/Label owner (bPitch control) from Germany. I think she's cool, OK?

Here's a free mp3 of Cross Town Rebels.

Here's more info about her on allmusic.com.

Link to ellenallien.de

Disney to use BIOMETRICS to validate tickets

This is scary. Disney is going to start using fingerprinting to validate customers' ticket purchases.

Link to story on newsday.com

Just click it, come on...

Unicorns helping humans cope with brain deficiencies

Please help decipher ...

OK, last night one of the reporters here at WWAY a reported posted the top story with the following headline: High Speed Chase: Officials say OK, Motorist get Wrecked.

What does that mean? I don't understand. The story was about a police chase that ran a woman off the road. Unfortunately my roommate and I were trying to set up a new router last night and I couldn't edit it from home.

Please post comments detailing what you think he might have meant. I have no idea.

Link to story on wwaytv3.com

Pastor arrested for secretly videotaping women

A pastor in Surf City, NC just got arrested for secretly taping women on the beach, in bathrooms and changing clothes. He had a videocamera attached to his metal detector, which should have been the first clue not to trust him. Creepy.

Would you let this man pastor your eternal soul?

Link to story on wwaytv3.com

Death Star Subwoofer on eBay

This is a home subwoofer. Um ...

Link to eBay listing

The large onion was basically round but needed to be rounder.. So the plywood was covered in fibre glass - it's worth noting this is when we learned that power sanding fibre glass whilst wearing a T-Shirt was not our best idea, all the tiny glass fibres stick in your arms, hair, clothes etc. Safety first kids, goggles, breathing masks and overalls!

Study: ethanol and biofuels use more energy than they produce

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- A new study suggests ethanol and biofuels aren't worth the energy they produce.

Researchers at Cornell University and the University of California-Berkeley found it takes 29 percent more fossil energy to turn corn into ethanol than the amount of fuel the process produces.

For a biofuel plant like switch grass the difference is even greater -- 45 percent.

The scientists conclude the US would be better off investing in solar, wind and hydrogen energy.

About 3.6 billion gallons of ethanol were produced last year in the US, according to a trade group.

The ethanol industry claims using 8 billion gallons of ethanol a year would allow refiners to use 2 billion fewer barrels of oil, a figure the oil industry disputes.

On the net: Renewable Fuels Association: http://www.ethanolrfa.org

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

/// But then again, maybe the government just paid for this study and it's all a big lie. Who knows. Have a good day!

Finally, I can stop crying myself to sleep at night

Steven Seagal, action icon and star of such films as "Hard to Kill," "Under Siege" and "The Glimmer Man," is planning an early 2006 U.S. release date for his debut album, "Songs From the Crystal Cave."

The set, which features guest appearances by Stevie Wonder, Lt. Stitchie, and Lady Saw, is already available in France and will be sold in Asia come September. The martial-arts master culls from a wide swath of musical influences on "Cave," including blues, rock, pop, Jamaican dancehall and traditional Indian music.

Tomorrow (July 16), Seagal will host the "Full Circle" ceremony near San Francisco's Pier 39, a memorial dedicated to the victims of the Hiroshima nuclear bombing. A Japanese ship will deliver "the atomic flame," a fire kindled from burning embers left over from the 1945 blast that has been protected over the decades by a group of Zen monks. The monks will then embark upon a 1,600-mile journey from California to the Trinity test site in Almorgado, N.M., where they plan to extinguish the flame.

For his part, Seagal has pledged $100,000 in order to diffuse a "high risk" Russian nuclear weapon.

-- Jordan Heller Weissman, N.Y.

Bad News, MySpacers -- Rupert Murdoch pwns You

Rupert Murdoch is buying MySpace for $580 million. There's gold in them hills, and them hills is being an online friend-whore. I guess Murdoch wants to get in on the hot user profile/message board action.

Link to Chicago Tribune story about it, with real facts and stuff.

Pulp Fiction in 30 seconds with Bunnies

Yeah, all you really need for this one is the title and the link.

The title is above all of this stuff.

And here's the link.

Viva Tarantino.

Happy Rock Day

Wanna see the birthday card I gave my friend Justin? You know you do. He just hit the double-deuce (22).

Once you get there, scroll down for some Lifetime movie reviews and a heavy metal band called Full-Blown AIDs.

Cheers!

The Nanny Blogs

A nanny in New York started a blog about her life. OK, who cares -- but, she sent the blog to her employer, which was weird, and then wrote about her employer (negatively) on the blog. Guess what happened? She got fired.

Link to NYT article about it.

Prefuse 73 Reads the Books

On my iPod right now is Prefuse 73 Reads the Books, an EP by Prefuse where he remixes some Books songs. These are two of my favorite people in music right now, so if you like to hear good things cut up, check these two out.

The EP isn't amazing, but it's a Prefuse release, so it makes me feel all good and shit.

I would recomend anything by Prefuse or the Books, but would start out with One Word Extinguisher for P73, and Thought for Food from the Books.

Prefuse73.com ||| thebooksmusic.com

Pack of dogs kills Australian birds at Indianapolis zoo

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- All the birds in an Australian exhibit at the Indianapolis Zoo have been killed by a pack of stray dogs.

The dead birds include two black swans, three magpie geese and three emus. It is not known how the dogs got into the zoo.

Authorities say zoo employee discovered the strays early Sunday morning as they were attacking birds in the Australian Plains exhibit. Officials think the dogs were spotted within moments of their break-in, and workers quickly called for help.

Police arrived and used shotguns to kill four dogs. An adult male pit bull was captured with a wire noose and a sixth dog is still on the loose.

The pit bull will probably be put to death after a quarantine of ten days. The zoo might request a rabies test.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Asheville library first to get autographed 'Harry Potter'

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- A public library in Asheville was awarded the first autographed copy of the US edition of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."

The announcement was made yesterday morning, about 14 hours before the book hit store shelves, but the library staff knew at least ten days ago that the special copy was coming.

The supervisor of the West Asheville branch of the Asheville-Buncombe library system says the staff was sworn to secrecy.

Author JK Rowling signed the book in the United Kingdom, and it then traveled across the Atlantic in a locked steamer trunk aboard the Queen Mary 2 under tight security.

The library got the book yesterday from New York. It's not allowed to go into circulation.

More than 9,000 libraries nationwide entered the contest for a chance to win the book.

Rowling also signed 49 bookplates to be placed inside special library-bound editions of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" to be awarded to one library in each of the remaining 49
states.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Original Policeman in the Village People is arrested

DALY CITY, Calif. (AP) -- The original policeman in the 1970s music group the Village People is in legal trouble.

California police say Victor Willis was arrested earlier this week after a gun and drugs were found in his Corvette.

They say Willis had an outstanding felony warrant for possession of narcotics.

It's not clear what prompted the traffic stop, but a police report says rock cocaine and drug paraphernalia were found in his vehicle. It says he didn't have a valid driver's licence or
identification -- and initially lied about who he was.

Police say they also found traces of cocaine and other drug paraphernalia in his Daly City home.

Willis posted $100,000 bail and has a court hearing next month.

He co-wrote the disco hits "Macho Man" and "In the Navy" before leaving the Village People.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

That was a real story. I found it on the AP wire. Oh, the irony... But seriously, what else is a retired Village Person supposed to do? At least he can still operate a Corvette, right? Well, at least he probably has a pretty good understanding of the California penal code, right? Right? Ha. Oh, that was silly.

98% Lohan-Free!

I would like to mention the dearth of Lohan-related material on my blog.

I was going to say that it was 100% Lohan-free, but merely mentioning her name ruins that... Damn you Lohan. Damn you to hell.

I got blogged

Well, hot damn, I just got blogged. Thanks much to Michelle for the link on You Can't Make it Up. I have a new blog to check everyday at work -- my only reason to be ...

Hollywood Maniacs + Flash + Extra Time

This is pretty funny. It's an animation about Scientology. Justin sent this to me.

Enjoy.

LINK to page

Jah Division

So, following that last post I thought I would link to an MP3 by this band Jah Division. It's a Reggae Joy Division tribute band. The link is to "Dub Will Tear Us Apart," obviously a play on "Love Will Tear Us Apart," which has also been covered/redone/remixed by the likes of Squarepusher, Calexico and I'm sure a whole bunch of nobodies.

Dub Will Tear Us Apart (mp3)

Cheers.

Bubbles Will Tear Us Apart

OK, people, here's the big news story in Wilmington right now: Some guy downtown has had a bubble blower outside of his store. A downtown worker filed a complaint against the store owner, and the city made him take it down.

The bubble guy started a petition to get the bubble blower back on the street. Apparently 300+ people want those bubbles blowing again downtown. It's nice to see people united and mobilized behind a good cause: bubbles.

So then the newspaper ran the story and released the complainer's name, Tab Ballis. Tab didn't want his name released, for obvious reasons. Nobody wants to be the guy who shut down the bubbles. Everybody hates him now, which is hilarious.

Ballis said that his reason for filing the complaint was because he wanted to make the downtown atmosphere more welcoming and comfortable for visitors and downtown employees. How do you do this? Kill the bubbles.

Ballis works at Insight Counseling Center and said the bubbles annoy him and his clients as they walk to his office across the street.

Here's a link to the story with video.

Take a Look at these Clouds

Look at these clouds. They don't even look real. I want to be around when something like that happens.

Link to more pix.

On an unrelated note, I just turned around and saw a field trip passing by my office.

Rob Thomas Denies Humping Tom Cruise

Rob Thomas is "outraged" that people are accusing him of "man-humping" Xenubite Tom Cruise.

"If I were gay, Tom Cruise wouldn't be on the top of my list. It would be Brad Pitt," he said. "I'm more offended by the rumors saying I'm Scientologist."

To me it sounds like Thomas is just mad that Cruise is pretending to love Katie Holmes and is rubbing it in his face that:

(a) Cruise is bad in bed,
(b) Thomas would much rather have done Brad Pitt, and
(c) that Scientology freaks him out more than being a closet celebrity homo and he only slept with Cruise in the first place because Cruise gave him $500,000. And he was drunk.

Give 'em Enough Rope

Last night I cut up some things from the Clash album Give 'em Enough Rope and came up with this: rope2.mp3.

I got bored.

Booze Graveyard

We're going to keep track of the booze graveyard on our back porch. Next time it swells there'll be a new picture for you.

Cheers.

Hurricane Slave Theory

A co-worker just came in and told me a thoery about hurricanes.

He said maybe they're the ghosts of old slaves, because they start up in Africa, head towards N. America, hit the islands and land somewhere in the south-east...

"Put that in your pipe and smoke it," he told me.

Jean butt fetishist hurls acid on women

A Tokyo man suspected of hurling acid on the buttocks of several women wearing jeans because he was thrilled by their appearance has been arrested, police said.

Tsukasa Saito, 34, a company employee from Katsushika-ku, was arrested for willful destruction of property after allegedly throwing sulfuric acid on a woman last month.

Saito is also suspected of several identical cases of attacks on women in the ward in June and again in May and June last year.

He admits to the allegations.

"It really turned me on to see a butt in a pair of jeans," he told the police.

Police said the specific case for which Saito was arrested involved him riding his mountain bike up behind a 33-year-old dental nurse as she walked through Katsushika-ku on June 20 and hurling acid on her buttocks as he passed her by. The acid burned holes in her jeans.

Saito is believed to have picked up the acid from the metalworking company where he works. He was working at the same company in June last year, police said. (Mainichi)

Story

$900 jeans on eBay

I was wandering through eBay and found these Levi's 501's from the '50s. They're cool, and, you know, $909 right now, with 26 bids.

I like them a lot, so if someone wants to spend about a grand on some jeans for me, here you go.

Link to auction.

UPDATE: The jeans sold for $1,194.69.

UK Stencil

I found these stencils online somwhere, I don't remember how I got there. That happens a lot...

Anyway, here's the link to more of them: pix.

And here's the main page: banksy.co.uk.

New Amanda Egge podcast

Amanda Egge has a new podcast up. She accidentally deleted the first version of this week's (late) release, so had to re-record it. Enjoy.

Link to Podcast

amandaegge.com

Wait a minute

OK, here's what I don't understand. You've got a group like al-Qaida that supposedly keeps blowing up civilians. Now, everybody knows they're crazy and dangerous, and that they basically want to keep blowing innocent people up, so why don't we just get rid of them?

I'm not suggesting war or invading anybody. With the technology we have today I think it would be pretty easy to just wipe out terrorist groups. Just find out where they are, and send in some stealth planes or some special unit that has advanced killing know-how. It can't be that hard.

And nobody likes al-Qaida. It's not like anybody wants to see them on trial. After what they've done I'm pretty sure most people just want to see them burn, which, in all reality -- if they did what we think they did -- is only fair.

Now, I know this all amounts to a modern day hanging, but maybe that's what we need to do.

And again, I don't claim to know what's going on. Maybe it's much more complicated than I can imagine. But if there are specific terrorist groups responsible for public bombings I think we should put those people away for a long time, or you know, just light them all on fire -- I don't know ...

Oh, and if you don't know what's going on, check out:
wwaytv3.com
CNN.com

Philosophomon!

Philosophomon!

Enlightenment Era Philosophomon -- gotta debate the fundamental beliefs of them all!

Link to pokemon-philosophers.

P. Diddy to remix McDonald's? WTF

McDonald's might have P. Diddy, Tommy Hilfiger and/or Russell Simmons (among other corporate tools) redesign their employees' uniforms. Because then working there would be really cool. And you know how cool McDonald's is.

Link to a real report about it.

Man Bitten By Alligator At Greenfield Lake

This happened in Wilmington. Some guy jumped into the lake and an alligator bit him. Everybody interviewed for the story said they expected as much.

Link to full story with video.

The glory that is gmail

If anybody wants a gmail account, e-mail me at chasblackman@gmail.com and I'll send you an ivtite. Technically it's still in BETA mode, so the only way to sign up is if someone else invites you.

You get 2 Gigs of server space and can search the message and body of any e-mail. I like it a lot.

Liquid Man

This is a cool flash animation I saw on boingboing. I don't understand how people make things like this, but it's very nice to look at.

Link.

Link to animation creator's site.

18-ft. Mecha for sale on eBay -- maker solidifies position of ultimate nerd for all eternity

Somebody in Alaska has made a 18-foot, $40,000, 3,000 lbs. Mecha suit and listed it on eBay...

So, if you want to be able to punch a hole through your neighbor's house, now you can. Or maybe you just want to step on some cars or something, who cares.

I'm glad Matthew Broderick could make it to the photo-shoot. The guy on the right is the builder I think

Link to eBay listing.

Neogentronyx site with videos.

PS - This is real.

PPS - I just watched a video of the thing walking and it looks like it's really drunk. At least it had flames kind of shooting out of its hands. Well, then again, it is an 18-ft. dune buggy with legs, so nice job guys.