have they tried Craigslist?

The Canadian navy has once again demonstrated beyond all doubt that, for Canada, this whole "blowing people up" thing is just really, like, not our thing.

They lost a torpedo. Check out the honest-to-god lead:

Damn the torpedo: navy loses practice weapon off British Columbia coast

Beachcombers in British Columbia take note: the navy has lost an expensive practice torpedo that may wash up on shore somewhere.

Supah. I should head over there right away. If they don't offer a decent reward, I can always use a new torpedo. Or, this being the Canadian navy we're talking about, an obsolete torpedo. Think of it as the Gremlin hatchback of torpedos.

The frigate spent three hours in vain looking for the errant object, known as a "hottorp" for Honeywell Operational Training Torpedo, the name given by the original manufacturer.

"All firing conditions were met and torpedo launched successfully, but did not resurface," says a censored report on the incident, obtained under the Access to Information Act.

"The hottorp may rise to the surface . . . and eventually wash ashore. . . . (Request) that local authorities be notified in case the torpedo surfaces at a later time."

"It hasn't popped up yet," Cmdr. Rod Hughes said in an interview from Esquimalt, B.C.

"We think it's sitting on the bottom out there. We're actually going to go back and look for it this summer. We'll probably recover it."

It is, by the way, somewhere around the mouth of one of the busiest harbours on the West Coast. What the hell, don't they call Victoria "God's Waiting Room?" And who ever minded having a shorter stay in a waiting room, eh?

fark that

There is a very obvious reason Fark dominates online news. Over CNN? Pfffffft yeah. Wolf vs Drew?

Check out a typical CNN headline vs a typical Fark headline. Fark simply employs (or, more likely, simply buys beer for) the best headline writers in the biz.

Fark:

British authorities name new teenage sex-help phone line "Sexual Health Action Group." Acronym-alarity is now ensuing

CNN:

Uh, no actual comparative headline, because CNN doesn't cover stories like that. Sure. Although they do have a story about a malfunctioning penile implant. From my experience with penises, that would have to be WAY outtaline to be newsworthy.

Actually, my fave Fark headline is (and this has to be re-created from memory because I'm too lazy to look through the archives):

Woman arrested for sex with 14-year-old boy, with pic-MY EYES!!! MY EYES!!!!

Memo of the Week: Team America, NC-17 or NSFW?

Here is a snippet from the memo Matt Stone sent the MPAA censors regarding the breakthrough cinematic work Team America, World Police South Park: The Movie. I am sure they were as delighted to receive it as Stone was to send it.

Not!

Stone Memo

Via Boingboing and The Hot Blog. God, wouldn't it be lovely to make any movie you wanted and then send memos like that to professional prunes? Almost worth putting up with Hollywood.

Overheard on Gawker

that Overheard in New York is being gamed by out-of-towners. The horror! The horror! Here's what Gawker's intrepid (can you imagine, she was noting things to blog about while vacationing! we certainly don't know anyone like that around here) not-offically-a-reporter-but-rather-a-blogger discovered last week.

So we caught up with our old college friend Ben while we were on vacation last week, and he excitedly informed us they’d he’d recently made it onto Overheard in New York

He’d been in New York and hadn’t called? No, Ben explained, it was actually Brian’s story; Ben thought it would be good for Overheard and so submitted it. Brian lives in New York now? No, Ben continued, Brian lives in Florida. So how did Brian’s story, not-actually-overheard in Florida by Ben, make it onto Overheard in New York.

“Oh, said I heard it in Central Park.” Ben smiled.

I guarantee that all Overheards (over)written in these pages…uh, pixels, were actually overheard. By me. Here. Unless I say they were there. Like, not New York there, but elsewhere there. You know what I mean and don't get existential with me young man! 

China: Olympic Fuckup

Via Japanprobe, video proof from the Chinese Marathon that China can't pour water out of a boot if the instructions are printed on the bottom.

Good luck with instituting their "no spitting" "no smoking" and "no critical thinking" initiatives in time for the Olympics.