Blame it on the weatherman…. August 18, 2010
Posted by jasoncondie in News, TV, Web.Tags: bbc, flicking off, flipping the bird, giving the finger, TV, weather, weatherman
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Watch a BBC weatherman caught giving colleagues the finger before deftly playing it off. Me thinks he’ll be relegated to 3am regional news from now on.
YouTubing July 21, 2010
Posted by jasoncondie in Advertising, Web.Tags: US commercials, US ads, shakewight, ads, shakewight ad, shakeweight commercial, hoveround, hoveround ad, berlusconi, Italian police woman
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Shakeweight Ad
Whilst indulging my QVC fetish stateside, I happened across the commercial for Shake Weights. Get ripped whilst simulating male masturbation. Caution, excessive use may cause cramps and blindness. Check out the ad by clicking here.
Hoveround Ad
More U.S. commercial gold. Synchronised wheelchair action to a pseudo-Beach-Boy soundtrack. And an inventor calling himself Tom Kruse (surprisingly no relation). Check out the ad by clicking here.
Berlusconi Inappropriateness
Italian Prime Minister, media millionaire and alleged sexual deviant. Past verbal blunders have included complimenting Obama on his suntan and telling the homeless survivors of the L’Aquila earthquake to view the experience as a camping holiday. Click here to see his most recent physical gaff involving a female police officer.
Mini-snakes on a plane July 6, 2010
Posted by jasoncondie in News, Thoughts, Travel, Web.Tags: Thoughts, bbc, news, Travel, maggots, maggots on a plane, plane, air travel, flight, Atlanta, US Airways, spoiled meat
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If you have no ears to pop, altitude induces gigantism
OK, I know I said no posts for a fortnight but this news nugget was too quote-stuffed and vacation-topical to resist. A US Airways flight was forced to return to Atlanta airport after maggots started dripping from an overhead luggage locker. The cause: spoiled meat. No liquid containers greater than 150ml but rotting flesh, have a nice flight. Nobody tell Ryanair or next time you fly to an airport in a different time zone from your desired destination, you’ll have to opt out of the ‘maggot charge’. Notwithstanding the ridiculousness of this cargo passing security unchallenged, the passenger quotes were priceless:
“felt like they were crawling all over me because it only takes one maggot to upset your world”.
“I see a maggot looking back at me and I’m thinking, ‘These are anaerobic, flesh-eating larvae that the flight attendants don’t have to sit with.’”
Perhaps I’ll try to smuggle my inevitable hooker-bride back from Vegas in my checked baggage.
This sh*t is bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s June 24, 2010
Posted by jasoncondie in News, Thoughts, Web.Tags: animal attack, attack, evil chimpanzee, killer whale attack, macaque, Metro, monkey, monkey attack, Monkey Island
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When monkeys attack... a re-enactment
Similarly ludicrous to the “killer killer whale” story of a couple months ago, last week the Metro offered another animal attack gem. Attempting to conquer her lifelong pomfretphobia (fear of primates), Dee Darwell visited Monkey Island (no, not the point-and-click PC puzzle game of the 90s) off the coast of Phuket.
Again I would like to caveat this post with the disclaimer that I don’t condone or find unprovoked monkey ambushes amusing. However the resultant quotes are hilarious. The full story is available on the Metro website but for your reading pleasure I’ve listed a few choice excerpts below.
She had a fear of primates after her father brought up a ‘positively evil’ chimpanzee. Surely some explanation is necessary as to why her father owned a chimpanzee. Child from a failed first marriage? Michael Jackson fan? Furthermore how did he successfully instil the evil? À la Chris’s evil monkey from Family Guy.
‘The next thing I noticed, this monkey walked up next to me and I thought, “Oh dear”. Imagine a knee-high macaque swaggering toward Dee like a drunken hoody and the exclamation of such an emotive epiphany as she realised the monkey’s intentions were not pure.
‘There was one man, a tourist, and when he saw the monkey bite me, he screamed and ran off’. Unless the onlooker had watched Outbreak (atrocious movie recently released in Thailand) the night before, I put it to you that that man was a coward.
Tour leader Yongyut Buasod said: ‘We can’t control the monkeys if they decide to bite someone.’ Classic denial of liability.
The curse of the Nike ad June 22, 2010
Posted by jasoncondie in News, Sport, Thoughts, Web.Tags: ad, advertisment, Cannavaro, Drogba, Federer, football, Homer Simpson, Kobe Bryant, Madden curse, Nike, Nike ad, Nike curse, Ribery, Ronaldhino, Ronaldo, Rooney, TV, Wayne Rooney, world cup, world cup 2010
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Token African striker (OK, Drogba) beats numerous defenders before chipping the keeper only to be denied glory by a goal-line overhead kick from Canelloni (sorry Cannavaro). Insert Italian celebratory song and dancing girls. Rooney chests down the clearance before playing a sloppy intercepted pass. Insert failure montage culminating with a bearded Wayne exiled to a caravan. Inspired by this dystopic future, Rooney chases down Ribéry and slide tackles. Insert alternative success montage – Rooney is knighted, Britain’s crippled stock market recovers, newborns are named Wayne en masse and Federer is defeated at ping pong. Brazil’s Ronaldinho dazzles with some fancy footwork to swing in a cross. Insert worldwide dissemination of his step-over move including replication by Kobe Bryant. Finally enter golden boy Ronaldo, accompanied by an autobiographical movie, Homer Simpson and a 3-storey blinged statue.
Despite an impressive plethora of sportstars, the Nike World Cup ad is fatally flawed in several respects. Kobe Bryant is best known this side of the Atlantic for a sexual assault case that was later dropped. Similarly Ribéry, embroiled in an underage prostitution investigation, was banned from the Champions League Final. Ronaldinho, fancy footwork or not, was considered too old to be selected for this year’s Brazil squad. Football faux pas indeed but nothing in comparison to the stars’ underperformance in the World Cup to date. At the time of writing (20/6/10) Drogba, Rooney, Ribéry and Ronaldo have played woefully in the opening games and Cannavaro has just handed New Zealand a(n arguably offside) tap-in. Even Federer struggled in his opening Wimbledon game against relative unknown, Alejandro Falla.
The Nike curse is well-documented. Previous ads featured Eric Cantona, subsequently dropped, and Dennis Bergkamp, before uncharacteristically Holland failed to qualify. Only the Madden Curse, where American football players appearing on the videogame box art suffer a degradation in performance, is comparable in terms of expense and embarrassment. To quote the commercial’s only character not cursed… D’oh.
Shrek upgraded from the swamp before MTV Cribs came a knocking
Movie geek tech May 18, 2010
Posted by jasoncondie in Movies, TV, Technology, Web.Tags: back to the future, hoverboard, JQ Sabres, lightsabre, movie geek, movie tech, Movies, robert zemeckis, star wars, technology
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Zemeckis even predicted that pink would be acceptable for 'teenies' men
I vividly remember being 9 years old and watching Back to the Future 2, excited and awestruck. Robert Zemeckis’ futuristic utopia foresaw flying cars, auto-resizing sneakers and hoverboards by 2015. Unfortunately 2010 has arrived and Mattel still haven’t patented anti-gravity. Help is at hand however for frustrated wannabe hoverboarders courtesy of a Gadget Show How To. Now, where can I find a Delorean.
Alternatively have you ever pranced around weilded a glowing stick and humming? Underground raves and insanity aside, you’d have been practising the ancient art of the Jedi – the lightsabre. We’ve all seen (and “confiscated”) the chunky, collapsable Argos efforts but UK-based JQ Sabres offer more authentic, polycarbonate blades suitable for light fencing. Anybody fancy a duel?
Paging Dr. Youtube May 4, 2010
Posted by jasoncondie in News, Web.Tags: cheerleader, flu injection, flu shot, foreign accent, House, medical disorders, migraine, news, one in a million, videos
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Anybody who’s ever enjoyed an episode of House will appreciate the ghoulish peculiarity of one-in-a-million medical disorders. Two such ‘cases’ were brought to my attention recently and since both have online news videos, sharing was inevitable. Plus after spending a week Eurotripping, I’m copping out of opinionative postings until my sh*tardation dissipates. Simply click on the links below.
Cheerleader gets a flu injection and now can only run and walk backwards
Deception and Slaughter … BUY NOW April 29, 2010
Posted by jasoncondie in Art, Thoughts, Web.Tags: A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter, Art, auction, auction websites, Buy Now, Caleb Larsen, Deception, drunk eBay, eBay, online auction, perpetuity, Slaughter, Thoughts, Web
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We’ve all done it. Retired home after last orders and decided life was incomplete without an ornate cuckoo clock, hotel-spec trouser press or second-hand wedding dress. Checking your Inbox the next afternoon, you’re apparently the highest bidder for all three in eBay auctions. Prayers to the god of drunken decisions unanswered, you subsequently ‘win’ said items. Once delivered you decide to keep the clock and re-auction the trouser press (smells like burnt ass) and wedding dress (too small).
Maybe your online auction adventures differ slightly (deciding instead to keep the wedding dress “for a rainy day”) but after such an expensive e-commerce episode I had a couple of thoughts. Firstly, Firefox should be initiated via breathalyser and secondly, certain unwanted items must exist on eBay in perpetuity – purchased and then resold ad infinitum. Artist Caleb Larsen has intentionally embodied the latter theory in his most recent piece, A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter.
The dumbed down Rubix cube for the Playstation generation
Like a part-time prostitute, Larsen’s 8″x8″x8″ black acrylic cube sells itself every 7 days. The black box features a micro controller and Ethernet connection which, according to the artist’s conditions of sale, must be perpetually online with the exception of in transit. Once delivered to a ‘temporary collector’, the technology reconnects to the Internet and posts a new eBay auction ending in 7 days, effectively rendering itself an artistic timebomb primed to disappear within a week.
Assuming purchasers agree to the 18 detailed conditions of sale, a return on the transaction is still realisable. The artwork has no RRP – each new collector can designate a fresh starting price for the artwork intended to be reflective of current market expectations. The collector pays any resultant eBay fees and 15% of the increased value to the artist. The initial auction by the artist ended 28 January 2010 at $6,350, not bad for an Internet-ready paperweight. At the time of writing, the value of the cube had increased to $6,858 with 8 hours left and zero bids. If unsold, the collector simply keeps the piece in perpetuity until one of the weekly auctions is successful. The coding is even “platform agnostic” to allow it to outlive eBay should the site self-destruct in the next dot.com bubble. The art could potentially live forever… the raison d’etre and holy grail for the majority of artists.
VEGANS – Their lies make penguins cry April 13, 2010
Posted by jasoncondie in Thoughts, Web.Tags: 80s, 90s, corporate, motivational posters, offices, posters, very demotivational, yuppies
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During the yuppy utopia of the 80′s and 90′s, motivational posters adorned corner office wallspace combining buzzwords with powerful imagery of dolphins, fighter jets and penguins to preach corporate virtues. Teamwork. Leadership. Ass-kissing. Maybe made up the last one. Thankfully as middle management was downsized by the ruthless efficiency of the 00′s, so too was office decor. Very Demotivational showcases image submissions mocking the corporate overexuberance of motivational posters. I know it’s Tuesday (arguably the worst day of the working week) but I dare you not to laugh. A few of my favourites are below.
@Armageddon April 9, 2010
Posted by jasoncondie in Thoughts, Web.Tags: apocalypse, armageddon, black hole, CERN, Facebook, Large Hadron Collider, particle accelerator, tweeting, Twitter
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Despite blogging and spending the odd weekend stalking prey via the Book of Faces, I’ve never really understood Twitter. Perhaps my life just isn’t interesting enough for perpetual status updates. Or maybe it’s too interesting. Regardless, I discovered this week that even the Large Hadron Collider is twitting/tweeting/twatting as @CERN. I always thought the particle accelerator was just a magnetic tunnel intended to collide protons to discover the Higgs Boson, extra dimensions (for movie directors to misapply) or new quark flavours. Or create a world-ending singularity on the Franco-Swiss border.
But apparently (despite being half-Swiss) the LHC has thoughts, feelings and opinions just like the rest of us. Some choice tweets from the synchrotron:
“Now stabilizing the beams”
“Experiment have seen collisions!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Final sequence for collapsing is starting!”
Does anybody else find over-exclamation a touch worrying? OK, so it’s a researcher or social media consultant as opposed to the machine, but still. I’d rather get instantaneous notification of the apocalypse from @CERN than wait for Pestilence, War, Famine and Death to update their Facebook group. Imagine….
“Now we have stable colliding beams-first time ever at this energy!”
“Why is everybody running!!!!!!!”
“What the $&£* is that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Why has my watch stopped and my hand spaghettified!!!!!!! AAAAAAGGHHHH!!!!!!”
“What do you mean there’s a special place in the afterlife for exclamatory Continental Europeans”
Follow the LHC’s progress towards Armageddon here
SACRE BLEU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
