Yummy Wakame

FEATURED BLOG: All of today’s links were found on Enschede a/zee:

Working from an office can make you feel like a hamster in a cubacle maze. The boredom can drive you to extremes… like these hamsters at Office Olympics…

Need to know if you’re going to need a jacket when you go outside?
Do I Need A Jacket . com

For the person who pierces everything - pierced glasses! Extremely easy to install and comfortable to fall asleep in.

This guy made a V8 engine out of PAPER and it actually runs… check out the movies. So clever!

FeralChildren.com
“Feral children, also known as wild children or wolf children, are children who’ve grown up with minimal human contact, or even none at all. They may have been raised by animals (often wolves) or somehow survived on their own. In some cases, children are confined and denied normal social interaction with other people.”

2PAC - Keep Ya Head Up

“You know it makes me unhappy (what’s that)
When brothas make babies, and leave a young mother to be a pappy
And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it’s time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don’t we’ll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies
And since a man can’t make one
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one
So will the real men get up
I know you’re fed up ladies, but keep your head up”
~ Full lyrics

Amanda’s Amazing Spirit Photos

B3TA: “Office Christmas Parties
My office this year is having Christmas lunch. In the office. On some desks we are going to clear the monitors off. The computers underneath will keep running as we are behind on some deadlines and need to keep rendering.

OK, so some people aren’t getting anything, but how Scrooge-like are your bosses when it comes to Christmas?”

Read/Post replies

Bad Science Awards
“The Bad Science Awards are out. These should put a smile on any science geek’s face. Prize gems include: shrinking water molecules, anesthetic condoms, and a plan to send homeopathic AIDS remedies to Botswana.” ~ KDan

Procter & Gamble have a flaming cheek!!!!

As if its not bad enough P&G, one of the world’s largest consumer product companies, have been branded the “world’s worst” corporation for their continued poisoning and killing of animals in the development of new cosmetics and toiletries, and on top of the irony of using animals to advertise their animal tested products such as Pringles and Febreze, I have just read in MARKETING WEEK:

“P&G to target green market with ‘natural oils’ Flash range.
Procter & Gamble is to launch a range of cleaning products based on natural oils under its Flash brand next year. The products are not environmentally friendly but they are being targeted at the environmentally aware consumer. The Flash Naturals all-purpose cleaner range will include products that have extracts of grapefruit and green tea, fresh lemon and sea minerals. Industry sources say P&G hopes the products will tap into the growing popularity of products that are seen as environmentally kind. The company already sells an orange-based variant under Flash, although sources say the new line will carry a much stronger “nature” message.”

Grey London handles advertising for this brand, the campaign worth over £3m.

Other P&G “natural” products to watch out for: Fairy antibacterial dishwashing range with natural ingredients; Febreze fabric conditioning has been launched with more natural-sounding ingredients like Meadow Rain and Summer Splash; and we all know about Herbal Essences which promises to be orgasmic as well.

Please consider boycotting this highly unethical giant. They couldn’t care less about animals, but they do care about how the public percieves them, and they care the most about profits. If enough people show their disgust and stop buying their products they will be forced to change their animal testing approach.

Other P&G animal tested products I have found: IAMS & Eukanuba, Oil of Olay, Max Factor, Hugo Boss, Head & Shoulders, Nice ‘n Easy, Bounce, Mr Clean, Vicks, Arial. Remember next time you pick up your favourite product on the shelves to have a close look for the P&G label, and have a good think about the various imaginative ways they have decided to test that product on restrained animals skins, eyes and digestive systems.

Other items of interest:

• “P&G refuses to stop testing its products on animals, despite the fact that these tests are not required by any law, and despite the fact that more reliable and humane alternatives do exist.”

• “Internal Memo Exposes P&G’s Agenda To Bypass EU Animal Testing Ban“

Remember, 10 out of 10 cats prefer not to be vivisected by IAMS/EUKANUBA.

I wish I had time to sit down and make stuff like this!!!!!!!!! These guys are brilliant!

Building a Balancing Scooter
“Self-balancing scooters, like the Segway™ are often thought to be technological miracles, but it is not actually very hard to build one.

I built the one described here in about a week using off-the-shelf parts. I spent another week tweaking the high-speed stability, improving the steering control, and writing about it.”

“Local school officials in a suburb of Houston, Texas, are investigating how it was possible that a school police officer handed out calendars to students that featured explicit details on satanic and sexual rituals for every day of the month.

The school police officer who handed out the calendars was supposed to deliver a positive anti-gang message to the students last Monday, according to the report…”
Oops!

MIDNIGHT EYE
The Latest and Best in Japanese Cinema

Feeling voyeuristic? Take a peek into my day yesterday:

The tiny desk in my tiny office where I do my freelance design work (mostly at night).

Pleccie my sail-fin plecostomus, munching on a large algae ball. Tins and I like to compare plecs. He was freeing a lot of stinky old debris so the other fish came to investigate. That stick in the front is Twiggy, my twig fish, aka bony Tony. Keyhole chichlid on the right - a magnificent, strong and perfect specimen although a little blurry in the pic. One of the peppered corey’s under the algae ball. And the big neon streak is my only surving cardinal. He is incredibly fat and very chilled out, probably why he survived the trip from the Amazon. It broke my heart when his siblings died.

These apples were an old shot I found on the cam. I bet you won’t believe where they were made…

Well that’s it for now.

Hidden Turkey
I just received my brochure in the post today. It is luxuriously thick and packed with very exclusive, hand picked boutique hotels, private villas with pools as well as gulet and yacht cruising.

I heard about them through my mom and Jem who haven’t stopped raving about their unforgettable holiday last year. Their prices are surprisingly reasonable and are inclusive of flights and most include jeep or air-conditioned car too.

Imagine staying here, here or here or on this!

You just have to order their glossy brochure online, which is more like a book its so heavy and thick, even if you just drool over it and paw over the breathtaking photographs. It’s free and will be posted to your door. Go on!

Matching Leather iPod Mini Wallets
“These iPod mini Wallets from MacAttire/Acme are rather attractive, folding over like a day planner or a diary, and covered in Italian leather dyed to one of three mini-matching colors. If you’ve got a Blue, Pink, or Lime mini you can pick one up for £38 (apparently the other three colors aren’t chic enough).” ~ GIZMODO

Originally found on La Petite Claudine

Wow I can’t believe this program is still running… I’d forgotten all about it:

SETI@home
The search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

“SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data.”

120 Years of Electronic Music
Electronic Musical Instrument 1870 - 1990, starting with the “Musical Telegraph”.

British Trivia:

Until the mid 1850’s British husbands could sell their wives
“Until the first Divorce Court was established in 1857 it was common practice for men to trade their unwanted spouses like any other possession.

Before the Divorce Court was established, the only legal way of disposing of an unwanted spouse was by Act of Parliament. This process would have cost about £3,000 in the 19th century (That’s over $42,000 in modern day values). It was firmly established in the popular mind that a wife could be bought and sold in the same way as any other good or service.

In Staffordshire for example, a man in search of freedom took his wife to market, with a length of rope attached to her neck. He paid a toll that gave him the right to sell merchandise, then paraded her around the market extolling her virtues. Interested males would then bid for her in a general auction. Once a bid was accepted the husband would hand over the toll ticket as proof of ownership, and the trio would then retire to the inn and seal the deal with a beer or two.”

AskOxford:
• Quick Crossword: December 2004
• Cryptic Crossword: December 2004
• Entire Crossword Archive

How clever is this?!
• CUSTOM CROSSWORD GENERATOR

Useful for solving crossword puzzle clues:
OneLook’s reverse dictionary lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. Your description can be a few words, a sentence, a question, or even just a single word.

Incredible! A man who plays the piano with his balls!
Thanks Miko!

Church Anger Over ‘Devil’ Santa
Church leaders in York say the Christmas display at one of the city’s tourist attractions could expose children to “evil forces”.

As well as meeting the alternative Santa, visitors to the grotto are handed “gifts” such as severed fingers, and can write on a scroll to sign their souls away. On its website the dungeon says the festive attraction includes elves impaled on spikes and robins roasting over an open fire with Santa being put in a witch’s cauldron and boiled.

A spokesman for York Dungeon said, “There are many people who are tired and weary of the commercial aspect of Christmas and for those people our attraction comes as a light relief… It is all tongue-in-cheek and our visitors love it.”

Thanks Bsti!!

An executive MASSAGE pen? Hmm…

Millennium Dome to host homeless workshops
The Millennium Dome in London is to be used as one of six venues for this year’s Open Christmas campaign by homelessness charity Crisis.

Alongside providing food and basic medical care, the charity will be offering a training fair. Some 800 homeless people in London are expected to take part in a wide range of workshops from plumbing and IT to activities like yoga and circus skills. The initiative, dubbed “Be inspired”, will take place from 23 to 30 December.

A spokeswoman for Crisis said, “We have over 3,000 volunteers, but this year we may need more. If anyone wants to volunteer, we particularly need volunteers from 31 December until midday on 3 January to help us clear up.”

Click here to volunteer now.

An Australian detainee held at the American base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba has provided a detailed account of torture in a sworn statement.

The first British lawyer to visit the American detention centre at Guantanamo Bay accused Foreign Office officials yesterday of complicity in an offence against humanity. He said that the conditions under which his client was being held were “worse than any death row I have ever seen”. Mr Begg had been held in solitary for more than 18 months.

Red Cross finds abuses at Guantánamo Bay

Kangaroo court in Guantanamo Bay

Pentagon pursues permanent detention center at Guantanamo Bay
Even as federal judges review the Defense Department’s power to detain and try suspects in the war on terror, the Pentagon is quietly planning for permanency at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Pentagon planners are now seeking $25 million to build a state-of-the-art 200-cell concrete building meant to eventually replace the rows of rugged cells fashioned from shipping containers at Camp Delta.

Soweto gets Christmas lights
“Soweto (South Western Township) is the biggest township in South Africa. Situated on the south side of the city of Johannesburg, it’s home to between 4 million and 4,5 million people and it was the site of some of the fiercest anti-government protests during the Apartheid era. For the first time in its 100-year history; Christmas lights were switched on in the township last Wednesday and the night was filled with good cheer.

The perennial problems of Soweto have, since its inception, included poor housing, overcrowding, high unemployment and poor infrastructure. This has seen settlements of shacks made of corrugated iron sheets becoming part of the Soweto landscape. Apartheid planning did not provide much in terms of infrastructure, and it is only in recent years that the democratic government has spearheaded moves to plant trees, develop parks, and install electricity and running water to many parts of the township.”

For more information about Soweto visit websites www.soweto.co.za or www.joburg.org.za.