I may have posted this as one of my reader items from the last week or so – but if you’re seriously concerned about cutting environmental corners wherever you can ( so you can drive a 4WD or commit other justifiable environmental homicide), then this is the font for you. It’ll possibly save you money too.
Ecofont - inspired by silkworms
nanananananananananana Batman
I grew up watching reruns of the 1960s Batman serial starring Adam West. I bought the DVD of the Batman Movie spin off from the same series for about $7. It’s probably the worst Batman movie ever made. Even worse than the one with Arnie as Mr Freeze. But I digress. The thing that made that Batman series so good was the super imposed, jagged edged, comic book style “sock”, “pow”, and “zap”. Action onomatopoeia at its best.
If, like me, you grew up wanting to pack a punch like Batman – then this 950,000V infusing knuckle duster will give your self defense a real “wham” effect. The best bit – a set of these – for your own fists of fury – will only set you back $US100.
Zap, Pow, Wham
See what’s happening here? It’s the X-Men effect. Asking “what would your mutant power be?” is a great ice-breaker. And today’s inventors are going about developing all the cool mutant powers you can think of… these knuckledusters will help aspiring Surges (from the “new X-Men”) discover their electric personalities.
It seems invisibility isn’t far off either. What would your mutant power be?
Uncle Santa needs you
According to some Christian’s it’s no coincidence that Santa is an anagram of Satan. My wife doesn’t think fondly of St Nick. Who by all accounts was a lovely guy who anonymously and generously gave to the poor and downtrodden of his community.
There’s a long and passionate debate regarding the evils of Santa – and specifically the evils of teaching your kids about Santa. Is it a lie? Probably. But I’m not overly worried by it – if you’re going to tar all “fiction” with the same brush then go for it. Hate Santa, as much as you hate Harry Potter. Ironically, Harry Potter is probably considered evil by most people who hate Santa.
The other refrain as commonly heard as “Jingle Bells” at this time of year is that Christmas has been commercialised. That commercialisation is evil. That modern Christmas has been stripped of its meaning. Well yes. Christmas is commercial. That’s no reason not to support it. Particularly this year. Christmas means jobs. We’re facing the “economic downturn” since the great depression. Jobs are good. Spending money is good. Do it wisely.
I wonder sometimes if our spirit of Christmas protectionism – it’s our holiday and you guys can only celebrate it if you remember our God – damages what could be a great PR opportunity for the church. People are generally thinking nice things about us Christians at this time of year – we get them a “holy day”, they sing carols that often contain the gospel message. And here’s the church, harping on about commercialisation.
Did you know that in Scotland Christmas was banned for almost 400 years – right up until the early 20th century. In fact – the good old Presbyterians were so keen on the ban, they made their signing of a treaty with England contingent on its introduction there.
Scottish Presbyterians, when called on for support by the Puritans of the English Parliament in 1644, did so on the understanding that their allies would in exchange impose the ban on Christmas. For over a decade traditional English Christmas festivities were prohibited
Really. A ban on Christmas. That’s a public relations disaster. Like the “war on Christmas” being waged throughout churches world wide now.
Christmas in Australia is big business. $37.2 billion worth of business. If you divide that by the average Australian wage – or an aggregated household average wage of $115,000 – that’s 328,000 households who keep their jobs because of Christmas (unless I’ve got my zeroes wrong in the billions bit of the calculation… it’s nine in Australia right?). In very poor economic modelling. Of course, retail workers earn less per hour than the “average wage” – which probably means more jobs rather than less… and because we import a lot of the stuff being bought and sold a lot of the money leaves the country, and trickle down economics is dead… anyway. Christmas means jobs. Christmas means food on the table for families this Christmas.
In a second set of calculations – Mastercard reckons the average Australian spent $800 on Christmas last year. That comes up with a figure about half that of the above methodology. 20 million people, multiplied by $800 is $16 billion, which works out to 320,000 jobs paid at $50,000 per year – nice round figures. Whichever way you look at it – Christmas means jobs.
Unemployment is set to surge. Be a good citizen. Celebrate Christmas in the spirit of St Nick – who gave generously and anonymously. And buy me something useless from here… oh wait, that’s a Japanese site. In a slightly related note – the CASE blog has an interesting post about “ethical shopping” that’s worth taking into account. It’s not that fair trade garbage that has taken over people’s sensibilities when it comes to coffee – it’s just biblical advice for shopping with a clean conscience.
For those of you unconvinced by my argument – or more convinced by this (satire warning) those of you who want your children to believe Santa is evil – here’s an evil Santa generator – if you put pictures of Evil Santa all round your house your child will thank you for it later – and be much less messed up than they would be were they to believe in Santa. What do I know anyway, I’m not a parent yet.
– If you’re looking for a cricket fix between now and Boxing Day – and anyone wanting to compile video evidence that Ponting is the worst Australian Cricket Captain since federation – this could be for you.
– I wonder if this gives credence to my parent’s theory the cheap wine in the microwave = good wine.
– The death of the business card – in tacky “hello kitty” inspired design form.
Please be aware that my Facebook account has been hacked by a Nigerian Scammer who wants to steal all your money. I am not in London, and I am still friends with my wife.
I will let you know here when I resume control of my account.
If you are still my friend on Facebook – can you view my profile, check the email address the hacker is using – and report it here – http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=report_fake_profile – the user link to report is: http://www.facebook.com/s.php?k=100000080&id=572440487
is constantly trying to keep his unread google reader items under 1000+
Rules for public Christianity 101 – If you’re going to put a stupid Jesus fish on your car – don’t put it under a massive advertisement for your fake ID business.
Want faith with that?
Clearly the guy behind this business isn’t the smartest cookie in the Cookie Man store (mmm cookie man, incidently Townsville has a combined Cookie Man and Baskin-Robbins the two nicest smelling franchises in the world)… anyway. If you’re going to have a Jesus fish on your car:
These are all reasons not for me to put a stupid Jesus fish sticker on my car. And probably for you not to put one on yours. Here are some reasons you shouldn’t have a Jesus Fish on your car from urban dictionary. If you want people to know you’re a Christian – tell them the gospel. Or wear a good novelty T-Shirt.
Anna Coren now works for CNN. CNN reporters travel to work. If they worked for the Chinese Police Force she could travel by segway. It seems segways are a great way to steadily hold and aim standard issue Chinese weaponry.
When Segways attack
The Segway was meant to revolutionise personal transportation. Other than Arrested Development’s Gob they haven’t had a lot of success. They’re pretty much banned in New South Wales because they can’t travel on footpaths or roads (they can travel on bike paths though – but you’d just use a bike for that wouldn’t you?). They do have a distribution arm in Queensland, a basic model will set you back about $9,000.
The wise man built his house upon the rock
The rains came down and the floods came up. Hurricane Ike took out the neighbours – but this house stood strong. If I was the builder, and I was designing my brochures for the new year – this photo would be the “hero image”.
– A website recommendation tool with possibly dire consequences…br”The uses for this are many: if you’re on YouTube, and want to see the video that most people went and viewed after the one you’re currently loving, Fast Forward can help you find your next favorite video. On Flickr, let Fast Forward take you through popular images, based on the one you’re looking at.”
– Sputtr’s search service sounds vaguely useful. It features a keyboard like layout of major search engines, blog hosts, auction/shopping sites, social media, image, video, dictionaries and encyclopedias… and you can jump from one to the other with just the click of a few buttons.
Being late to leave for work in the morning has its perks. This morning I was able to catch the Wiggles on the Today Show. Exciting stuff. They’ve had a song every day for the last week. It’s a nice Christmassy way to start the day. But. I’d hate to be a parent today having to explain to my child what “Santa’s randy reindeer” means. Everyone in our house this morning thought that’s what they said.
– Find your next airport thriller with WhichBook.
– Useful tool for web design – or anytime you need to impress someone with the RGB colour value of their skin.
– Another cloud computing storage option – and some comparisons – from lifehacker.
– There are so many applications for this service that would get me in trouble that it’s almost worth ignoring. Still, someone else may be able to use it for good not evil.
– Boing Boing’s guide to gadgetry.
– Some summer projects courtesy of Lifehacker.
The Map
We’re about to hit the road for our garage sailing techstravaganza. So that any of you following with interest know just where we’re going, here’s a map:
The Map
If you click through to the map page you’ll see a list of the sales and their advertised descriptions (if you scroll down).
First Stop - just around the corner
A Compact Bow - with no arrows - just $15. Robyn said no.
She sells sea shells
The pieces fall into place
Our first stop met with success – a brand new, old chess set complete with glass pieces. They offered $5, we offered 3 and the deal was closed at $4.00 – downward negotiations faltered on the basis of a complete set with new box.
Pictures here
Garage sailing came to a close today at about 11:50am. You can check out geotags on the images in Craig’s album linked above.
I’m calculating my total spend from today – and will get figures from Robyn, Craig, Teagen and The total so far is $84.90 – but I still need to get a figure from Chris, here’s the purchase summary:
1. Glass chess set – Nathan – $4 (asking price $5).
2. Table – Chris – $4.50 (asking price $5).
3. 3 tealight candle holders – Chris – $2 (asking price 2 for $2).
4. Set of magazines/recipes/craft books – Craig and Teagen – 4 for $1 (asking price 3 for $1).
5. Four playstation one games (to be used on a playstation bought at a previous garage sail) – Nathan – $5 (asking price – part of a $35 bundle).
5a. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego PC game – Robyn (for educational purposes) – $0.20 (by negotiation)
6. Round plate/platter/dish – Chris – $3 (I’m a bit shady on that price) (asking price around $5).
7. Set of dominos – Craig – $0.20 (asking price unspecified but original recommended retail price $1).
8. Round the Twist complete episodes DVD bundle and A-Team DVDs – Nathan -$15 (asking price $20).
9. Craig got a $0.20 platter thrown in free with my purchase.
10. The guys selling the DVDs (and the platter) had a tub full of unopened Star Wars figurines from about three years ago for sale for $5 each. 13 in total. The gentleman in question used to collect Star Wars merchandise with a friend. His partner was clearly not as enthusiastic about Star Wars as he and his friend – so we took the collection of figurines off his hands to sell on eBay. We will list them after our Summer Holiday – but if anyone wants to make an offer in the meantime leave a comment on this post. We bought the lot for $35.
At this point we were feeling pretty good about ourselves and were on the home stretch. We made one last stop. En route to our home base. Where we found the best garage sale ever. Everything was for sale. Even the house. The neighbour was piggybacking on the sale – selling books on the street.
11. Two books – Corcisan (some sort of gangster thriller) and The Douglas Adams Dirk Gently Omnibus (a book I leant somebody years ago and haven’t seen since. You know who you are. Ben.) – Nathan – $2 (asking price $2. I offered $1.50 and was refused).
We probably spent an hour at this next house. Which had been lovingly renovated in a really classy way by a former surgeon who due to a horse riding accident no longer works. It was a really nicely furnished Queenslander – and she’s selling it herself hoping to move to Mexico. Craig became a real estate photographer – and I’ll add a link to the listing when I find it.
There was some great stuff for sale from her collection of jewellry, kitchen appliances, clothings, shoes, antiques, furniture, glassware – you name it. It was for sale. Under the house there was this wooden box with two massive grindstones in it – it was an old grinder used by farmers to grind wheat and barley for their beer. She used it for bread. I almost bought it. But instead settled for my next purchase:
12. A hand turned chrome coffee grinder – Nathan – $10 (asking price unknown – price agreed on by negotiation).
13. A bracelet – Robyn – $3 (again price agreed on by negotiation).
14. A funky tealight candle tree thing – Chris – price unknown.
15. A set of coffee cups – Nathan – free on the basis of Craig’s photographic services.
Craig’s had so many freebies off my back that I thought it only fair to get in on the action.
Here’s the photo of our swag…
Our purchases