Friday, June 27, 2008

Day Four of the Recession

In the grip of a recession frenzy I've decided to invest in a new mezzanine floor for my home office. Honestly for the last four days of the recession I've been at sixes and sevens just trying to make sense of the whole thing - what does it mean for me, what does it mean for my business, and what does it mean for the wider world? Luckily today I received an email with more solid advice than George Lee and David McWilliams could put together, together. A simple subject line was all it took to reel me in:

Recession-Proof Your Business With Our Economy Mezzanine Floor

Confident, brash and business-savvy, this is a subject line that doesn't even need a full stop. EuroMech couldn't give a fiddler's about sentence structure - they don't have time to! They're too busy installing Economy Mezzanine Floors and recession-proofing people's warehouses to care. I'm considering getting one installed in my bedroom and sheltering underneath it just in case the sky falls on my head.

Weirdest website ever

Check out this mania. Ok so it looks like a
Hollywood interpretation of what a 1990's computer virus looks like.

It took a little while to figure out what the hell it's all about. Apparently it's "html art" and this guy Michael Guidetti designed (?) the site (see original pic, right) before coding it in an epic html splurge.

Mad gear.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Tiny dinosaurs and the other 15,930 animals

"Oooh, I don't like the look of those clouds," said the Cheetah to the Stegosaurus

I love creationists. Everyone needs a mentalist to brighten up their day, and there are few groups of mentalists who can out-mentalize Creation Ministries International. I've learned a lot from these guys, and have recently had to re-evaluate my views of whether or not dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark. According to CMI's website - Creation On The Web - they were. Now I'm a bit of a sceptic when it comes to all things Ark-like, and I used to highly doubt that dinosaurs were even around when Noah did his corralling. Here follows CMI's scientific explanations for the Ark and it's tiny menagerie:

  • On the apparent absence of sea creatures from the Ark:
    Noah did not need to take sea creatures because they would not necessarily be threatened with extinction by a flood. However, turbulent water carrying sediment would cause massive carnage, as seen in the fossil record, and many oceanic species probably did become extinct because of the Flood. If God in His wisdom decided not to preserve some ocean creatures, this was none of Noah’s business.
  • On the apparent lack of space for 60 million creatures on the Ark:
    Horses, zebras and donkeys are probably descended from an equine (horse-like) kind, since they can interbreed, although the offspring are largely sterile. Dogs, wolves, coyotes and jackals are probably from a common canine (dog-like) kind. All different types of domestic cattle (which are clean animals) are descended from the aurochs, 6 so there were probably at most seven (or possibly 14) domestic cattle aboard. The aurochs itself may have been descended from a cattle kind that also gave rise to bison and water buffaloes. We know that tigers and lions can produce hybrids called tigons and ligers, so it is likely that they are descended from the same original kind. Johnathan Woodmorappe tallied up about 8,000 genera, including extinct genera. Thus about 16,000 individual animals had to be aboard.
    Has anyone seen Napoleon Dynamite? A LIGER???
  • On how a still large number of 16,000 animals could fit in the Ark:
    If the animals were kept in cages with an average size of 50x50x30 centimetres the 16,000 animals would only occupy 1,200 m3. Even if a million insect species had to be on board as well, it would not be a problem, because they require little space. If each pair was kept in cages of 10 cm per side...

  • On how Kangaroos made it to Australia from Ararat:
    The continents we now have, with their load of Flood-deposited sedimentary rock, are not the same as whatever continent or continents there may have been in the pre-Flood world. We also lack information as to how animals were distributed before the Flood. Kangaroos (as is true for any other creature) may not have been on an isolated landmass. Genesis 1:9 suggests that there may have been only one landmass. For all we know, kangaroos might have been feeding within a stone’s throw of Noah while he was building the Ark.

  • On how dinosaurs (because they existed at the same time as man) fit into the Ark:
    Certainly, dinosaurs would have been on the Ark: God told Noah
    to take two of every kind of land animal. Dinosaurs were land animals, and they must have been alive then, because so many of them were fossilized in the Flood...dinosaurs had a type of adolescent growth spurt—the pattern is called sigmoidal, or s–shaped. God could well have chosen specimens He knew would undergo their growth spurt as soon as they left the Ark. This would solve the common sceptical problem of fitting and feeding huge dinosaurs on the Ark. That is, they weren’t actually that huge while they were on board.
So to summarize, it's none of your or Noah's business what animals were invited, evolution and mythical creatures can explain the small number of animals who were there to party, the breakup of Pangaea happened sometime in the last 4,000 years or so allowing Kangaroos to float off into the southern hemisphere, and only tiny dinosaurs were invited onto the ark where they slept in those toy cages we talked about earlier.

Honestly I've lost hours reading their FAQ page. Just remember this parting disclaimer from the CMI however:

Seeing that the Bible can be trusted on testable matters, nonbelievers disregard its warnings concerning future judgment at their own peril.

TFJ to Cindy & John

Cindy "recipe queen" McCain has announced her intention to expand her humanitarian work and involvement with charities if her 500 year old husband John gets elected. I'm sure the American Voluntary Medical Team are delighted at the prospect of "Percocet Cindy" ramping up her charity work.

I've got to say that I'm not a fan of that pair. He's a twisted war-mongering relic who has been caught on tape singing Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran to the tune of the Beachboys. And whatever about Dubya, at least he never called Laura a cunt.

Click the links, watch the video (do not view if that word offends...), vote O'Bama.



Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Just what we need

What the hell is going on here? This is seriously embarassing, and to my mind it's more important news than day two of the recession. Bennigan's have two outlets in Ireland. Not one, but two.

For my Irish readers: Bennigan's is the food equivalent of the Supermacs of America, a tacky pub/grill that serves deep fried everything on paper plates with a healthy dose of mock-Irish kitsch (signs that read: Hurling Est 1972). It's over-priced and over-patroned.

For my American readers: stop laughing at us for importing your shit, as it is also a sad day for you because you have created a new term and arrived a new low in the history of commercialism:

RE-BASTARDIZATION: the process of stealing one nation's culture, processing it like plastic cheese, franchising it like Starbucks and throwing in a leprechaun advert just in time to sell it back to the original culture complete with "inner leprechaun" website.

Honestly we do not as a nation need this dirt. Why did someone decide to import a photocopy of their own culture, and why have we not turned this person into a public art installation for dogs to piss on and people to laugh at?

Buckle Up

Dublin, this morning

According to the ESRI we are fucked. Ireland is in "the grip" of a recession - not just receding like male pattern baldness, but gripped like a vice by a big hairy hand. We haven't had a recessive year since 1983 apparently. That makes it all the more interesting that in 25 years of growth we still haven't managed to build even a dual-carriageway between our two biggest cities.

Result.



Monday, June 23, 2008

Sick

What's the world coming to? In a sad weekend where the MDC have pulled out of the Zimbabwean election, it has come to light that Pele was robbed at gunpoint. Now what sick scum would rob Pele?

His chauffeur driven car was surrounded by a gang of 10 in a traffic jam in the scumhole of Guaruja. The incident, which also saw other drivers and passengers robbed, happened close to Pernambuco Beach where Pele has a holiday house. Now I know there's a lot of desperate criminals in Brazil, and maybe they didn't know it was Pele's car. But surely when you bust open the door and see oul' Edison Arantes sitting there in all his glory you'd just say "sorry, didn't know it was you Pele" and go primal on the next car instead?

It's sick. In honour of Pele here's a video of his greatness:



Friday, June 20, 2008

Internets backfires, makes idiot look like an idiot. Online.

On Tuesday somebody posted on boards the following message:

"yeah i cheated my ass of in most exams, had a fully programmable calculator with 1 gig flash card, my examiner was a dope (love her tho she was nice <3)> im sitting at about 500 points i would say, and unless something MAJORLY goes wrong, i have my first choice in the bag."

The resulting thread is quite spectacular in that the above fucktard didn't really do much to disguise their badness, was easily tracked and as a result has been immortalised in a motivational office-style poster:


Looks like a 7 year ban from all State Examinations, and yes Salman that does include the driving test also.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

National Lampoon's European Vacation II

"Oh good one - down low, too slow...he he he he"


"The naked girl with the guitar???"


"Hey English - where's that guy with the funny teeth?"


Terrorista Pugno Colpo


"Over there, that's Poland."


Europe: Bush's Little Bit on the Side

Lisbon....and on...and on....

Does anyone miss the mentalist antics of Cóir? Even a little bit? Wasn't it funny having their poster classics around town: "Monkeys", "Nukes", "Weeping Jesus", "Robot Children" and the likes.

Also their memorable appearances on radio and television: making quiet Pat Kenny bark at Niamh Ní Bhroin to shut up; singing "No no, no na-no no, no na-no no, no-no there's NO LISBON" to the tune of "No Limits" by 2unlimited while Brian Lenihan tried to conduct an interview with RTE.

Well they've left us with a few great memories, and have no doubt enriched some of us with their ideology. I for one am treasuring the leaflet placed under my windscreen wiper last week that beautifully combined water charges, EU-wide conscription and prostitution as a multi-whammy of badness.

But spare a thought for those of us with less of a handle on sarcasm, who may be a bit naive in their golden years, and may have believed some of the batshit crazy arguements Cóir put out there. A neighbour told me today that their elderly mother was delighted with the No vote. Why?

"Ah sure I never got used to that ould Euro. Like play money..."

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The Internets: Critic Central

What do you love about Amazon? More than the great deals, the massive selection, the personalized recommendations, or the free shipping (provided you live anywhere that isn't Ireland)? The reviews. To my mind there is not much better time to be had than reading pages of people tearing up pointless kitchen tools.

So for those of us that for some reason thought that the Bible was immune to reviews, think again! Here's a rundown of the best from the King James Edition of the Bible:

  • "Need a good "Rocky" story? The Bible has the mother of all Rocky stories..."
  • "From the first book, there are glaring plot holes (where did Cain's wife come from???)"
  • "Take, for example, the main character, God."
  • "Of historical interest but a little slow for casual reading"
  • "...at some points the book is almost preachy in tone."
  • "Halfway through we meet Gods son, a gentle peacenik who appears totally unsuited to the task of continuing his fathers battles. However in a transformation similar to that of Michael Corleone in Godfather part II he puts aside his reservations in the famous 'desert scene' to emerge a worthy successor - game on!"

Breaking News: People's Asses Getting Bigger, Quicker

A dutch designer has built an RFID enabled robotic chair for use at an Eindhoven library. All you do is swipe your library card infront of one of the chairs, and go find your book. The chair will follow you around the library so you always have somewhere to sit. Once you go to the checkout counter the chair returns to base, ready for more bunnage.



In other news, there is still no cure for the common cold.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Mugabe taking piss, making R Kelly judge look good.

Robert Mugabe said today that he won't step down, even if rival Morgan Tsvangirai wins the second-round election. The government rag 'Herald' (apparently just as shite as ours) quoted him as saying:

"We shed a lot of blood for this country. We are not going to give up our country for a mere X
on a ballot. How can a ball point pen fight with a gun?"

Mugabe: Making other dictators seem cool for 27 years.

Meanwhile the western world - including Zimbabwe's former colonial owners, Britain - are standing around, tutting at the brazen-ness of Mugabe. British PM and general fucktard Gordon Brown said “(Mugabe’s) criminal cabal ... threatens to make a mockery of free and fair elections in Zimbabwe.” Well done you Gordon, with your tough words and unnerving moral dignity. Even Dubya - the most un-mincing of wordsmiths - had nothing to say: "“The people of Zimbabwe have suffered under the Mugabe leadership and we will work you to ensure this process leads to free and fair elections."

Well I've got something to say too. Leave Ahmadinejad alone, he's a mentalist in the L. Ron Hubbard mode. Leave Kim Jong-Il alone too. He's also a mentalist, but more in the Donald Trump mode. Go after Robert Mugabe - he's a bad man, an easy target and someone who the western world can all agree on is surplus to requirements. Send in Jason Bourne.

Not cool.

Apparently it is now legal to urinate on minors in America.