Hmm

We were supposed to get six inches of snow last night, but none of it materialised, so we just have the last couple of days' slush. Part of me's glad I didn't have to excavate the car this morning, but I'm still a little disappointed.

In other news, I have every Friday off between now and Christmas (only three of them, but it's three long weekends!), and our work Christmas party is this weekend.

Internet Social

I'm fascinated by "social networking tools" (which I think is a stupid name for them, but whatever) and blogging stuff in general. Which is really weird, when I think about how highly I regard my own opinion (that being, not at all), and how frankly pointless I think putting it online at all is (which, now that I think about it, might be a major contributor to the demise of my anime blog/news site).

But still, I get drawn into Twitter (and Twitpic), upload occasional YouTube videos and had to stop myself from requesting a 12seconds account; as cool as the idea is, I can't see myself vblogging, really - not when I blog "properly" so infrequently. And that's without having to really identify myself to the wider internet. I was still more excited than I probably should have been when I discovered that I could post (and watch) YouTube videos from my phone, though.

I still enjoy seeing how The Internet (by which I mean, the people and entities connected to and via it) finds new ways to communicate with itself. On their own, individual Twitter posts are just pointless minutae (and in a lot of cases, seem rather narcissistic), but there's something interesting about how they form a single cohesive narrative over days and weeks and months in a way that self-contained blog and journal entries don't. There's a lot to be said for the minute-by-minute reactionary nature of Twitter too; it made watching the second Presidential debate much more interesting, for instance, to see hundreds of other people's reaction in real time as it progressed.

That sort of thing isn't maybe what the creators of Twitter had in mind when they started it, but I find it fascinating to see how The Internet has adapted to the application and how they've adapted the application itself for their own way of communication.

[/ramble]

No appropriate headline will fit.

I cannot possibly encapsulate this story in a headline short enough to get across all of the pertinent information without it being almost a paragraph by itself.

A consultant psychiatrist yesterday argued that a "delusionary insane" Tory donor had been "rational and logical" to leave millions of pounds to the Conservatives to fight "satanic monsters" and "dark forces" around the world.

[...]Branislav Kostic, Zoran Kostic's father, had been "delusionary insane" since 1985 when he divorced, broke off relations with his son and sister and claimed there was an international conspiracy of more than 100 people masterminded by sexually perverted pharmaceutical company executives to destroy "freedom, democracy and human purity".

Death-detecting cat

There's a story doing the rounds (on the BBC, The Register, and other places) about a cat living in an American old folks' home that can apparently tell when someone is about to die.

A US cat that is reportedly able to sense when a nursing home's residents are about to die is baffling doctors.

Oscar has a habit of curling up next to patients at the home in Providence, Rhode Island, in their final hours.

According to the author of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, the two-year-old cat has been observed to be correct in 25 cases so far.

Staff now alert the families of residents when he sits down next to their ailing loved one.

Normally I wouldn't bother with this kind of thing, but the final line of the BBC article is just too awesome to pass up.

A doctor who treats patients at the home said she believed there was probably a biochemical explanation, rather than the cat being psychic.

I can has tombstone?

Iran arrests 14 squirrels

Either Iran is getting really paranoid, or somebody tipped them off big-time about these things. I mean, what would cause you to arrest squirrels for spying?

What's even more incredible is that the animals were actually carrying espionage equipment, at least according to the Iranians.

"In recent weeks, intelligence operatives have arrested 14 squirrels within Iran's borders," state-sponsored news agency IRNA reported. "The squirrels were carrying spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence services."

Iran claims the rodents were being used by Western powers in an attempt to undermine the Islamic Republic.

Apparently, information about what sort of spy gear the rodents were carrying is thin on the ground.

Edit: Boing Boing have also reported on this, with the awesome headline, "Cry havoc, and let slip the squirrels of war".

I like spam

Not the packaged meat product, the unwanted email kind. At least, I like the funny stuff. The viagra ads with odd, medical textbook penis diagrams creep me out.

This one is the good kind, though.

Hello my friend!

I am ready to kill myself and eat my dog, if medicine prices here ([url cut]) are bad.

Look, the site and call me 1-800 if its wrong..

My dog and I are still alive :)

It's been a while since I've seen a really innovative subject line, though - my favourite is still "tyrannosaurus en verde".

Good Lord II: Gears of War

This Etch-A-Sketchist bloke is bloody mental. Following up to the outstanding Street Fighter sketch, he's taken on Gears of War.

UK forces accused of badger panic

Locals in Basra, Iraq are blaming the British armed forces for an outbreak of what they're calling "strange man-eating, bear-like beasts". One housewife described the terrorizing animal as "swift as a deer... It is the size of a dog but his head is like a monkey".

In fact, the creatures are apparently an indigenous species of honey badger, which a local vet insists that the animals have been living in the area since 1986.

The best quote of the piece goes to UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer:

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."

Although, the Iraqi man who claims to have seen a badger eating one of his cows is pretty damn close.

Halt!

Both stolen from chorazin, although I'm not sure who did 'em originally.

Sanrio are whores

Or maybe pimps, considering they're willing to sell Hello Kitty to just about any product manufacturer wanting to plaster their stuff with Japan's favourite corporate mascot.

Seven New Wonders

A worldwide poll to decide on the new Seven Wonders of the World (given that only one of the originals is still around) came to a close last week, with the seven winners announced on Friday.

The new Wonders are:

• The Great Wall, China
• Petra, Jordan
• Christ Redeemer, Brazil
• Machu Picchu, Peru
• Chichén Itzá, Mexico
• The Roman Colosseum, Italy
• The Taj Mahal, India

Photos of all of them are available on the official site.

The one thing that surprises me is that the Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt didn't make the cut - it's just one of the runners-up. The pyramid is the only surviving original Wonder, on top of which it's an astounding feat of engineering.

To be honest, I'm not sure why Christ Redeemer is in the top seven instead of the Great Pyramid. Yeah, it's a brilliant landmark and very impressive, but it was built less than a century ago. Compared to the Great Wall (built 5 BC), the Roman Colosseum (completed 80 AD) and even the Taj Mahal (finished 1648), Christ Redeemer is brand new.

I don't know that it inspires "wonder" the same way the others do.

Phallic bollards offend Oregon

A $20,000 installation of more than 50 concrete posts at an intersection in Keizer, OR has gotten a rise out of some residents, who are claiming the barriers look like male genitalia.

The City of Keizer is taking heat for installing a group of cement posts designed to protect pedestrians from cars, but which some say is a phallic symbol.

A total of 52 of the posts were installed at a busy intersection in Keizer and they are getting a lot of second glances.

A number of residents have complained to the city that the posts resemble male genitalia.

"I can't disagree with that," said City Manager Chris Eppley. "They certainly did not turn out the way we anticipated."

Some people are far too sensitive. Honestly, I wouldn't have looked at that and thought, "ha ha, cocks" if it hadn't been pointed out to me.

Upside uʍop

This is pretty cool, although it might get BoingBoing'd into oblivion pretty soon.

It's a little (java?) application that takes any input text and flips it upside down using Unicode characters that look like inverted letters.

Here's this entire post, upside down:

:uʍop ǝpısdn 'ʇsod ǝɹıʇuǝ sıɥʇ s,ǝɹǝɥ

.sɹǝʇʇǝ1 pǝʇɹǝʌuı ǝʞı1 ʞoo1 ʇɐɥʇ sɹǝʇɔɐɹɐɥɔ ǝpoɔıun buısn uʍop ǝpısdn ʇı sdı1ɟ puɐ ʇxǝʇ ʇnduı ʎuɐ sǝʞɐʇ ʇɐɥʇ uoıʇɐɔı1ddɐ (¿ɐʌɐظ) ǝ1ʇʇı1 ɐ s,ʇı

.uoos ʎʇʇǝɹd uoıʌı1qo oʇuı p,buıoqbuıoq ʇǝb ʇɥbıɯ ʇı ɥbnoɥʇ1ɐ '1ooɔ ʎʇʇǝɹd sı sıɥʇ

Via BoingBoing.

Good Lord

I could never draw anything on an etch-a-sketch; this is just taking the piss.