29 April 2007

Web search for the humor in technology, world news, celebrities and mad events | 06 May 2007 | 22 April 2007

About You

Ed the Editor's personal blog corner

The title is About You, but more accurately it should be called About Me, but I am shy.

About Me pages are the first port of call when I do a MyBlogLog Sunday mini review or a full review. They should be the easiest way to find out what a web site is about and at least dish some dirt on the blog meister. Invariably, they are sparse dour affairs, though, and only occasionally do they actually say something about a person that makes you go, oooh, let me read some of that!!

I made an effort with the About Me page on The Pisstakers, aiming for a fair and accurate load of old bullshit that you may or may not believe.

Yesterday's penance, so willingly undertaken by Linda, was to truck on over and see what a dynamic person I am.

The free penance on offer today is a trip to this enterprising Scotsman's About Me page on eBay. It got me thinking! OK, it is garish and ugly, but this approach to content could form the basis of an About Me page for a blatant money-making blog. Or be adapted to give lots of links to your favorite music and films and books. Or is that what MySpace is for? I will quit while I'm ahead with the germ of an idea.

If you ever miss a day without Pisstakers, you can find a daily snapshot of The Pisstakers Satire Blog Posts (ie the homepage) in the archives

Enjoy the content.

Participate in link-a-post

"Your name" is a Kiva lender	"Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget	Funny HQ humor store

...

Gravity is great

Filed in: Ed's blog spot

Ed the Editor's personal blog corner

Gravity is the only thing keeping us from floating around the earth like gormless grinning cosmonauts. Somehow the invisible force works 24-7 keeping our feet firmly on the ground, pinning stones and sand and sea to the floor, preventing too many dreamers from literally having their head in the clouds. So until it fails and we are all partying in the stratosphere, I thought I would highlight a couple of gravity related stories so we can appreciate its contribution to our well-being.

Gravity defying children

Imagine a young mother happily ironing away downstairs in her lounge, appreciating the peace and quiet as her youngest mad kid sleeps upstairs. Lah de dah de dah, singing along to music, she catches a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye, turns and ... sees nothing to attract her attention.

60 seconds later she feels a tug on her skirt, and looks down to see her dishevelled 2 year old looking up at her, grinning from ear to ear. When she sees the grass stains on his knees, and relives the cursory glance a few seconds earlier, her heart stops beating. She rushes over to the window, and sure enough, the grass is beaten down, where once it had stood upright and proud.

Suffice to say, her husband had the task of installing a child-proof device on the kiddy's bedroom window to stop him from ever again defying gravity in such spectacular fashion.

Gravity defying cats

Then there was the story of the roof rolling cat. There is a contrived porch contraption on the front of our house and the cat has a habit of sunning itself on the tiles. Luckily a feline has 9 lives and enjoys the ability to always land on its feet. Picture if you will the look on its face as it rolls, then rolls some more and finally plummets out of control off the edge of the roof down into the garden below. Priceless, and if only gravity could have worked slow enough for me to have run inside to get a video camera.

Gravity defying sense

And finally, let's just say it annoys me to the point of apoplexy to see highly trained scientists using a $40bn space program for fun purposes. Oooh look at me I'm defying gravity, I'm weightless and can poo upside down into a jar. Ooh look at me Im a 60 year old scientist with a forehead the size of Cape Canaveral and I can roll 3 times before banging my million dollar helmet on the bulkhead. Smashing.

If you ever miss a day without Pisstakers, you can find a daily snapshot of The Pisstakers Satire Blog Posts (ie the homepage) in the archives

Enjoy the content.

Participate in link-a-post

"Your name" is a Kiva lender	"Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget	Funny HQ humor store

...

Role models, who needs them?

Filed in: Ed's blog spot

Ed the Editor's personal blog corner

Lip-syncing, slim and sultry, Britney is back on track to stardom. I don't understand the media interest in such a normal banal singer from the boonies, but details of divorce, infidelty drugs and baldness should never get in the way of a good role model.

To be or not to be a role model...

Just to be clear, the way I look at it, the term role model should be banned when applied to pop and sports and entertaining icons. These talented but flawed individuals exude more the model, less the role of wholesome and humble human. Perhaps if Mother Theresa had been a mean slam-dunker on the basketball court, I would change my mind, but she couldn't, so I stick to my guns on this one.

Why do we even need role models?

I can understand how people of all ages and persuasions need someone to look up to for guidance especially in moments of weakness. It is just sad that some of us make bad mistakes with choices, like the choice of parent to bring us into the world. I jest not. There are people who think you choose your parents. I can't recall where I heard this, but it doesn't say much for the babies who chose Stalin or Britney, does it.

Britney, role model extraordinaire

Just look at the chaos that the icon and model, Britney Spears, is creating with the girl next- door-but-two to me. In her favor, boy, can she sing, even drowning out the Britney music she plays at number 10 on the Richter scale boom bass. However, unlike Britney, she makes a song and dance out every single, (rather than Britney's every other) minor incident at home.

I only have the screeching between her and her parents to go on, but I think I am correct in thinking that Britney's influence is loud and clear. She squeals into the crib, "Baby, one more time..." and when it doesn't feed she yells to her mom, "Hey I'm going to hit me baby one more time, oh oh oh." And mom yells back, "That's not the way I planned it."

I am sure it wasn't the way she planned, although those whackos I mentioned earlier would say that was exactly how she'd had it mapped out, pre-conception.

Conclusion

I don't know if this particularly delightful young neighbor would look good hairless, I could care less, but she sure plays a mean drunk. And she is only 13. Rock on role model Britney.

If you ever miss a day without Pisstakers, you can find a daily snapshot of The Pisstakers Satire Blog Posts (ie the homepage) in the archives

Enjoy the content.

Participate in link-a-post

"Your name" is a Kiva lender	"Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget	Funny HQ humor store

...

The 5 senses

Filed in: Ed's blog spot

Ed the Editor's personal blog corner

Better late than never. I was out being healthy today, and luckily it generated a post! If you ride a bike, as opposed to ride in a car, you get a different perspective on your surroundings. For a start, all 5 senses work in a different way.

Instead of your car passenger's perfume and doughnuts, you can smell first-hand the diesel, gas fumes, cow crap and pesticide spray in the fields. Yummy.

Instead of a dumb ass radio shock jock, you can hear the cackling mothers and foul-mouthed kids yakking on street corners. Listen out for the musical noise pollution too, emanating from passing vibrating cars, and appreciate the racket penetrating through bedroom windows shimmering under the pressure of mad bass beats. Life on the open road is sooooooo rewarding.

Instead of tasting the recycled air-con in the car, you can perpetually recycle your gummy spit until it becomes unbearable and then you, you know, make a space for some more!

Instead of seeing the rear of the car in front of you, you get to look into the passing cars, and because you are wearing shades, if you see someone interesting who is keeping under the 25mph limit, you can keep up and study them really hard without giving too much away.

And finally, the sense of touch. Like, how touching when arrogant fat-assed kids walk extra slowly across the road so they can get a close-up view of a healthy person in action. And how touching that you can almost feel their defiant breath on your cheek as you weave out their way. Or plough straight through them, in my own defiant way, staring them out through my shades, wishing them a good day and wishing they would get a life. Like they care.

Yes, cycling is a great hobby, enervating and relaxing and extra sensory. I recommend it, as long as it is conducted in the countryside away from civilisation.

If you ever miss a day without Pisstakers, you can find a daily snapshot of The Pisstakers Satire Blog Posts (ie the homepage) in the archives

Enjoy the content.

Participate in link-a-post

"Your name" is a Kiva lender	"Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget	Funny HQ humor store

...

Follow up to one day blog silence

Filed in: Ed's blog spot

Ed the Editor's personal blog corner

To follow up on what happened on the blog day of silence, here are a few quotes that caught my eye. Peter was on the money as usual,

We have somehow gotten desensitized to this problem. We read about it in the paper and watch it on TV and there is no longer any sense of outrage, anger or even a loud cry to do something about it.

especially if it were put into the context of "once the media decides to move on to something else!"

Linda said something I believe in, hence why I posted something here, I guess.

Perhaps silence speaks volumes but more importantly - voices carry. They carry messages that we all need to pay attention to

. Silence can be deafening, but a lot of little squeaks really gets a rise out of people. If every blogger had said something, that would have been quite a statement.

Anyway, thanks for the kind comments on my post, I am never quite sure how people take me when I am being serious for 2 minutes. No punchlines yesterday, just a punch, I hope.

And seriously, if you have kids or nephews or nieces in their 20's and 30's, afford them the opportunity to go and see the world that lies outside the tourist trap. It shouldn't be too hard to find something out there to affect / mend their thinking for the better.

As a clue, 75% of the world is so materially poor yet often spiritually rich, it would make you sick if you didn't change after spending time absorbed in faraway lands. And because most of the world is destitute, it is cheap when you get there. So there is no financial reason whatsoever why most people couldn't go traveling - but if you want excuses, you don't need any help from me to dream them up!

If you ever miss a day without Pisstakers, you can find a daily snapshot of The Pisstakers Satire Blog Posts (ie the homepage) in the archives

Enjoy the content.

Participate in link-a-post

"Your name" is a Kiva lender	"Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget	Funny HQ humor store

...

One day blog silence

Filed in: Ed's blog spot

Ed the Editor's personal blog corner

Sorry for the victims at Virginia Tech, sorry for the victims of Columbine and similar incidents, and sorry for the victims of the next inevitable atrocity.

To me, there is no point to a day of silence if you just trot off a list of victims and shake your head in sorrow. There is nothing gained, either, in my opinion, if you simply blame the US or Europe or multinationals for Third World death and misery and then tomorrow go back to doing what you were doing yesterday. The point of a day of reflection is to consider a solution to the terrible events going on all around you and all round the world.

Here's a solution. Forget curing the world's ills! You can only really make a difference to life from where you are at.

So the students at schools and universities around the world, accept that you probably don't know 95% of your fellows, even by sight, but if you make the effort to look out for the well-being of the people in your immediate sphere of influence, maybe one of them won't end up going on a killing spree.

Therefore, from tomorrow, do not to alienate the weirdoes.

That kid or student who never says anything to anyone, go speak to them.

That student who you think is a whacko, go talk to them.

That student with a black depression hanging over them when they walk around, make the effort to befriend them.

Look out for each other and the chances are students will all live happily ever after.

If it troubles you that more people die from malaria than any other disease or tragedy on earth, put aside some income to support agencies that help tackle the issue in the field. If it troubles you that poverty is wrong, change your buying habits and/or pay a bit more for your coffee and bananas. If you hate the idea of polluting your atmosphere, cycle to work or turn your furnace down a few degrees. Appreciating what you have and moderating your own behavior a little is much more sustainable and helpful in the long term than big emotional knee jerk gestures for a day or two.

Hard, isn't it, realising that on reflection, we are ultimately all responsible for making sure everything goes well with the world around us? Can't go blaming governments or multinationals or nutcases for everything. When necessary, think hard and then step up to the plate in a modest way. And if everyone does the same, boom, you have effected a huge change.

If you ever miss a day without Pisstakers, you can find a daily snapshot of The Pisstakers Satire Blog Posts (ie the homepage) in the archives

Enjoy the content.

Participate in link-a-post

"Your name" is a Kiva lender	"Your site's screenshot" SmartLink Widget	Funny HQ humor store

...

MyBlogLog Sunday 7

Filed in: MBL sunday

Today's the day for MyBlogLog Sunday part 7 at the Pisstakers. Time flies.

Sorry guys, I seemed to be ill this morning. I thought it was Lime's Disease, then cholera, but the symptoms have gone after an extra snooze. So, it is a delayed coffee in hand, a snapshot and the 10 MyBlogLog bloggers who last visited the Pisstakers. These early morning/late night visitors will be the main feature on the homepage later today and will be here on view in some shape or form all week.

As this is week 7 and there seems to be a good formula in process, the following spiel is the same as last week's and is for for the benefit of newcomers. Thanks for your patience. Oh yeah, and Callie Ann won the gummi bears and review for sending most traffic to The Pisstakers. Congratulations Callie Ann.

By next Sunday the mini reviews will be farmed out for posterity to the archives, a permanent reminder of their glorious moment, a permanent back link, blah blah.

Whether you are a super surfer or a blogger, I hope you enjoy reading my one-liner summary before visiting 10 diverse blogs.

MyBlogLog Sunday prize winner

A pound of gummi bears and a review like these is on offer to which ever of last week's featured blogs refers the most traffic to The Pisstakers before midnight Saturday.

This week's MBL Sunday winner is Callie Ann, in case she missed the first mention.

MyBlogLog Sunday info links

All hot mini reviews on MyBloglog Sunday!

Internet buzz on MyBloglog Sunday!

How to participate in MyBloglog Sunday!

Weekly round-up of MyBloglog Sunday!

Other contests this week

Tango Cherie has a great link to a Win-a-Steak contest. Pure Argentinian beef, hormone free, happy cow meat, and lots of it.

Blog About Your Blog have upped the ante and sooner rather than later one of the first 200 to subscribe to their RSS feed will win a mini fridge. Hurry hurry.

The Pisstakers "You won't win a Zune" contest was launched quietly last week. The first one to guess what the mystery prize is from the clues, winzzzzzzzz. (Last week's introductory clue was, Anyone with taste will like it!) Today's second clue: It looks like a mouse but isn't furry.

We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search our keyphrase web satire. It is a win-win, perhaps!

Be back later.