culture

Friday 8 February

  • 4 Years in Prison for 0.003g of Marijuana (10:37) - A father-of-three who was found with a microscopic speck of cannabis stuck to the bottom of one of his shoes has been sentenced to four years in a Dubai prison. Keith Brown, a council youth development officer, was travelling through... | 0 Comments

Monday 3 December

  • Talking Shit, 1897 Style (14:07) - The Robert Edward Auction House is auctioning a 1897 document originally sent to all national league baseball players banning the use of foul language. Most amazingly, much (if not all) of the trash talking outlined in this document is still... | 2 Comments

Tuesday 2 October

  • Rich F$*%ing Douchebags (10:45) - I must be doing something wrong in life if I can't afford indispensable items... “Today, a megayacht is indispensable,” said Olivier Milliex, head of yacht finance at the Dutch bank ING. “It’s not like 15 years ago, when a yacht... | 2 Comments

Saturday 7 July


Thursday 7 June

  • Are you Racist? (18:37) - Harvard researchers have put together a interactive test to determine if you prefer white people, black people or are indifferent. The current results (as of this posting) show that 70% of those who have taken the test show a preference... | 0 Comments
  • Paris Hilton Free From Jail After 3 Days! (09:58) - For a while I was considering doing a podcast about all things related to Paris Hilton in prison. Good thing I didn't, it would have been short lived. LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Paris Hilton was freed from jail Thursday... | 1 Comments

Saturday 26 May

  • Sushi Bar (18:51) - Very cool video shot by placing a camera on a conveyor belt in a packed Tokyo sushi bar at midnight one night. ... | 2 Comments

Friday 25 May

  • More Education, Less Divorce (11:15) - The Economist takes an interesting look at America's divorce rates and percentage of single mothers with respect to the mother's education. The summary: divorce rates are low and continue to drop for those with a college education, while divorce rates... | 0 Comments

Wednesday 16 May


Tuesday 8 May

  • Taking the Life out of College Life (12:33) - I wonder where Bob Jones University falls on the list of the nation's top party schools with Residence Hall Rules like these. Of course, the easy solution would be to move out of the residence hall... too bad that is... | 0 Comments

Monday 23 April

  • Debris by Farbrausch - Breakpoint 2007 PC Demo Winner (09:47) - The demo scene is alive and well. Debris by Farbrausch [download for PC] was the winner for best PC demo at this year's Breakpoint demo party. At only 177K in size, it is 7 minutes of amazing 3D. If you... | 2 Comments

Tuesday 27 March

  • Small business loans for the 3rd World (09:56) - Kiva.org is one of the coolest things I've found in a while. The site allows you to directly lend money to small business owners in impoverished countries. Most requested loan amounts are less than $1200 and you can do your... | 0 Comments

Tuesday 20 March


Thursday 11 January

  • Catfish Grabblin' (11:59) - and now for something completely different.. From CatfishGrabblers.com: Catfish Grabblin' is the art of fishing with your hands. In the spring of the year the catfish move to shallow water to lay their eggs. Spawning is triggered by the increasing... | 1 Comments
  • 40% of North Korea's Budget for Idolizing Kim Jong Il (11:53) - Seeing American news reports that 40% of North Korea’s national budget is spent on Kim Father and Son idolization propaganda, South Korean citizens are asking themselves if that much money could really be spent on that. Up until now, the... | 0 Comments

Wednesday 3 January

  • NYTimes on Absinthe (10:57) - Today absinthe is legal again throughout Europe, and while it is still banned in this country, it is easy to buy over the Internet. Its reputation, however, remains as cloudy as the cocktails that are made with it. Some welcome... | 0 Comments

Tuesday 18 July


Wednesday 5 July

  • Triple Dub (22:57) - From McSweeny's Recommends: We're going on a decade with people still blathering about "double-you double-you double-you," while the ease and patter of "triple dub" is out there. It's available. We realize other countries are already working on this—"treb" and whatnot—so... | 1 Comments

Saturday 15 April

  • Overheard in New York (15:54) - Man #1: She fucks like a Puerto Rican Man #2: Have you ever fucked a Puerto Rican? Man #1: No. But I've imagined it. --Fort Greene Kid #1: Paper beats rock. BAM! Your rock is blowed up! Kid #2: "Bam"... | 5 Comments

Saturday 18 March

  • Trek Passions (13:56) - Yes.. an online dating service for Trekkies (*ahem*.. Trekkers).... | 2 Comments

Thursday 13 October

  • The Hollywood Scene (10:12) - Hey all. Sometimes I feel the distance, and just wanted to get some feedback from friends back home on movies and stuff. For most movies there is a delay of a minimum of 4 months, so just wondering what to... | 5 Comments

Wednesday 31 August

  • black people loot, white people find (15:39) - Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store... A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans... [via Philebrity] Update The originals: Looting... | 8 Comments

Thursday 11 August

  • Banksy Owns West Bank Barrier (13:29) - Secretive "guerrilla" artist Banksy has decorated Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. The nine paintings were created on the Palestinian side of the barrier. One depicts a hole in the wall with... | 1 Comments

Tuesday 19 July


Thursday 7 July

  • promises (23:25) - Discovery Times aired Promises this evening, a 2001 documentary that followed 7 Jewish and Palestinian children over several years. The children, residents of Jerusalem and the West Bank, discuss their opinions on the affairs of their people and place in... | 4 Comments

Monday 13 June

  • Fight the Insurgents! (09:51) - I went to Wildwood, NJ for the first time yesterday. Ask anyone who grew up in Jersey or Philadelphia about Wildwood and I am sure they will have stories about spending their summers as a kid on the boardwalk. Wildwood... | 2 Comments

Monday 2 May

  • What is over those walls? (18:14) - On April 24, 2005, Heavy Trash volunteers deposited bright orange viewing platforms in front of three Los Angeles gated communities; Brentwood Circle, Park La Brea and Laughlin Park. The purpose of these viewing platforms is to draw attention to... | 0 Comments

Tuesday 5 April

  • The OK Corral (17:48) - TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - People in Florida will be allowed to kill in self-defense on the street without trying to flee under a new law passed by state politicians on Tuesday that critics say will bring a Wild West... | 1 Comments

Wednesday 16 March

  • Street art for mobile phones (20:51) - Wooster Collective is launching Wooster Mobile an art gallery of images you can download onto your mobile phones in cities around the world. Each artist receives a royalty payment from every download you make of their work. In addition,... | 0 Comments

Thursday 10 February

  • Bar code design (11:34) - Design Barcode, Inc. has developed barcodes inspired by pizza, surfing or noodle (ramen). It's not just a pure arty stuff as some of these barcodes will actually be printed on popular bottled green tea products in Japan. Via RFID...
  • Estonian TV commercials from the 1980s (11:29) - supremely weird; don't miss Kanahakkliha [via] ...

Monday 7 February

  • England's changing voice (20:41) - In the same vein as our thread about American dialects, The Way We Speak takes a look at the changing English dialect from both a geographic and chronological aspect. Give a listen to the earlier recordings, some are nearly indecipherable...

Thursday 3 February


Monday 24 January

  • american dialects (18:43) - This is kind of fun. You are asked to listen to 12 different samples of Americans speaking and then group each person into one of six regions: New England, Mid Atlantic, North, Midland (Midwest), South, West. I only got 6/12...

Tuesday 18 January


Sunday 16 January

  • John Hargrove's Credit Card Prank (21:45) - Credit card signatures are a useless mechanism designed to make you feel safe, like airport security checks. So my question was, how crazy would I have to make my signature before someone would actually notice? ...
  • Philadelphia's Biker War (13:57) - The Hell's Angels are making a strong move for the Pagan's turf here in Philadelphia, prompting an all out biker war. Problems in Philadelphia began about two years ago when the Hell's Angels announced they were interested in taking over...

Wednesday 15 December

  • Japanese Jesus (12:55) - The village of Shingo nestles in a mountainous patch of pine forests, rice paddies and apple trees a six-hour drive from Tokyo. Known for its garlic ice-cream, and the unusually rapid flight of its young to nearby cities, it seems...

Monday 8 November

  • Volunteer to help sex depraved Japanese women (20:05) - TOKYO (AFP) - Craving sex after repeated rejection by their partners, women who felt doomed to join Japan's growing ranks of the "sexless" are being offered a prescription: a squad of well-dressed men ready to assist free of charge....

Thursday 21 October

  • Hanzi Blog (22:17) - HanziSmatter is a blog dedicated to deciphering what silly white people got tattooed on their bodies by other silly (or really funny) white people. Hanzi are the Chinese written characters (or Kanji in Japanese) and people think it's really wild...

Sunday 17 October

  • Feral Children (13:29) - 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....

Thursday 7 October

  • Pocket Sized Realtime Japanese-English Voice Translator (10:26) - The system is about the size of a handheld PDA and converts spoken Japanese to English and vice versa. It is planned for launch in Japan in the next few months.It consists of three components - a speech recognition engine,...

Wednesday 8 September

  • News from the Wired (00:51) - An alternative to Lasik, an implantable, yet removeable, contact lens that takes only eight minutes (!) and some anaesthetic eye drops to install.. from STAAR Surgical. Does having this qualify one as a cyborg? -- Europeans should be aware of...

Monday 6 September

  • Are we being contacted? Part II (23:57) - Update: Seti@home. Is the previous story misleading? via Space.com. You can also check out this video from eBaumsworld. It really has nothing to do with the story above, I just thought it was a sweet vid. Some have suggested the...

Friday 3 September

  • Are we being contacted? (00:05) - Astronomers have been reviewing radio transmissions from deep space for some time now. Recently they came upon SHGb02+141 (signal name). It's being transmitted from 1000 light years away at 1,420 megahertz. Is the signal artificial or natural? They really don't...

Tuesday 17 August

  • I make death look fun (22:12) - Here is what happens when you strap a video camera to a bike messenger's helmet and watch him race through the streets. These dudes have balls, big ones. ...
  • Rap Snacks (10:42) - I was walking down the street last night when I saw an empty bag of chips laying on the sidewalk. On the bag was everyones favorite Ol' Dirty Bastard, Dirt McGirt. The chips themselves were called Rap Snacks. I had...

Monday 9 August

  • Cuddle Parties (17:18) - Cheaper than a hooker, but you get what you pay for: Cuddle Parties. The grab fests are called cuddle parties, and since they started in New York in February, hundreds of people have paid $30 each to touch and embrace...

Sunday 8 August

  • Mario and Dracula with a splash of Chocobo (22:46) - -Some time ago I posted a couple flash movies (original post) called Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom pts. 1 & 2. Finally Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom 3: The Thwart of Wart has arrived. (via Newgrounds. [Tomo turned me on...

Tuesday 3 August

  • Toys in Japan (15:07) - Cardhouse gives us Toys in Japan...
  • Ayu Fans Unite (00:03) - The ancient Mexican artform of painting giant images on your vehicle has undergone hybridization/mutation/exclamation in Japan. Here is one fine example, all of fans of the Japanese pop megastar Ayumi Hamasaki. About Hamasaki Ayumi She is Japanese singer.She sing a...

Monday 26 July

  • Why I hate giant pandas (14:23) - Last night I watched an episode of Nature called "The Panda Baby" I learned that the giant panda is so endearing that people are willing to spend millions of dollars to maintain the species in captivity. Even though giant pandas...

Friday 23 July


Wednesday 21 July

  • Only in Texas (11:22) - Joanne Webb, a mother of three and a former schoolteacher in the town of Burleson near Forth Worth, was facing up to a year in jail after she sold a vibrator at a private party to two undercover police officers...

Monday 19 July

  • Life in Japan (14:26) - A small glimpse into Japanese life through photos. I dig the organization of the site the most....

Friday 16 July

  • Finding Bobby Fischer (12:01) - Infamous chess recluse Bobby Fischer has been detained in Japan after trying to use an invalid US Passport. Fischer has been wanted since 1992 for playing chess in Yugoslavia during a period of UN Sanctions against the country....

Wednesday 7 July


Thursday 24 June

  • Eurobad '74 (20:11) - Welcome to Eurobad '74, an exhibition of Europe's worst interiors of 1974. What is this all about?...

Tuesday 22 June

  • Spiderman India (13:26) - Readers of this series will not see the familiar Peter Parker of Queens under the classic Spider-Man mask, but rather a new hero a young, Indian boy named Pavitr Prabhakar. As Spider-Man, Pavitr leaps around rickshaws and scooters in...

Friday 28 May

  • Zero Cool (01:18) - Has "zero cool" entered mainstream usage? If Thesaurus.com, which uses Roget's New Millennium Thesaurus, is any indication then yes, it has. For a street definition, visit Urban Dictionary. Apparently, it was also the title of an early Michael Crichton book....

Thursday 8 April

  • The Penny Arcade Remix (15:18) - From http://www.yukihime.com/comics/paremix/ The Japanese school system is a funny thing; exams happen three weeks before the term ends, meaning three weeks of students rather unwilling to learn anything new. That being so, I decided to corrupt my high schoolers in...

Saturday 3 April

  • Philadelphia Sex Club (07:39) - Here in Philadelphia there is a "lifestyle club" called Club Kama Sutra. The location of the club is not public, and you must pay $100 to become a member, then pay $100 each night you want to attend. $100 gets...

Tuesday 23 March


Monday 8 March

  • Pink Pistols (23:46) - Pink Pistols is a group of gay and lesbian gun owners. I was introduced to this group when reading an article in The Times about the dilemma of supporting a Republican President pushing for federal ban on gay marriage, but...

Friday 20 February


Wednesday 11 February

  • Street Steez (00:54) - Japanese street fashion (mostly Osaka) versus American street style....

Tuesday 3 February

  • Game Fashions (23:02) - 1up.com's "Game Fashions" features video game-related clothes and where to find them. The above can be found at Hot Topic....
  • Update (02:24) - Some of the later SB ads were better. If there was any doubt before, IBM is seriously trying to mainstream Linux. Even Kurt Vonnegut is getting in the mix. Also, regarding the new Pepsi free music download campaign: Pepsi drinkers...

Sunday 1 February

  • Advertising (22:29) - A member of Negativland, who are known for their culture jamming art and sampling controversies, presents the film Value-Added Cinema, a collage of pure, unadulterated product placement shots. I'm waiting for the rest of the Superbowl ads to get updated...
  • Looking to India for jobs (19:10) - Although Americans aren't relocating to India en masse, it appears to be on the rise. The economy over there seems to be doing quite the opposite of how it's doing here. Their manufacturing companies are doing well and even opening...

Tuesday 20 January

  • Neighborhoodie (00:36) - German Village, Columbus, Ohio is Neighborhoodie of the Week...

Wednesday 7 January


Friday 2 January

  • Super Sea Monkeys (22:14) - I was paging through some of my old comic books the other day when I remembered how much I love the advertisements. I always wanted to buy all the little gadgets. I did order a pair of x-ray glasses once.....

Monday 27 October

  • All Look Same (15:27) - Tracy sent me the link to this test today. Can you tell the difference between the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans? I can't. Sorry. Post yer scores. I got a 5. ; ( I guess I should move to Alabama....

Saturday 25 October


Thursday 23 October


Thursday 25 September

  • Book Signing (20:11) - Outside of the office today some guys set up a table to sign books. They had a stack of books and were offering to sign them. Or they would sign your books. I got the orange book on the...

Tuesday 16 September

  • Laugh at my misfortune (16:04) - Ryan's radiator breaking last week: $$$ Ryan's car involved in a hit and skip yesterday: $$$ Ryan's clutch breaking on his way to work this morning: $$$ The look on Ryan's car when he leaves it in the ghetto with...

Thursday 11 September

  • Gaza Steez (19:05) - "Celebrating the Memory of 9/11 ...Gaza Style. Toys on sale in the streets of Gaza and Ramallah." HAPPY NINE-ELEVEN!!! Meanwhile on the streets of Saud, "religious police have declared Barbie dolls a threat to morality, complaining that the revealing...