toilet training the singing, dancing, automated Japanese way

Leave it to the Japanese to make a toilet training device with no sense of shame but an overdeveloped sense of theatre and the bizarre. Stolen from JapanProbe, here is the Shimajiro Toilet Training video. Over at JP they have the actual sounds the machine makes as MP3 files as well: if only this little device looked like the Dora the Explorer aquapet, my day would be complete!

motivational video of the year: Impossible is the opposite of possible, by Michael Cera

Stolen from Gawker. Sure, Aleksey Vayner‘s video was so over the top as to constitute unintentional self-parody, but I’m all for piling on when you smell blood, and Vayner‘s been hemoragging ever since Dealbreaker got ahold of the damn thing and broke it worldwide. Wonder what he’s doing now? I expect the phrase “Would you like that Venti-sized?” figures large in his workday.

In any case, here is Michael Cera, former Arrested Development star, kicking sand in the eyes of the hapless Uzbek. I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that I was the first person to question whether or not that was him in the skiing section, a point obviously not lost on Cera.

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weirdness roundup: also-rans

weird al mona lisaHere’s a brief taste of weirdnesses I cruised or missed which didn’t make it into the ol’ raincoaster blog, for one reason or another. If it’s Santa-related or Squid-related, you can assume the reason it didn’t get into the blog has to do with the fact that I copied it to the hard drive at home before the cable went out and haven’t been back to get it. Otherwise, it’s the kinda thing where I looked at it and said Nah, we’ve had too many Darth Vader Sticks Up a Drive Through stories recently, and I just skipped it.

He-Man Sings Four Non-Blondes. The reason I didn’t post this is simply that I figured everyone on Earth had seen it, but I found out today that’s not true. So here it is. Break out the rainbow legwarmers and glow sticks and put on your dancin’ shoes!

An Aussie roundup of world-wide weirdness, all of which escaped the blog except the Brazillian who blowed himself up.

I’d a used this one if I’d seen it in time:

In Cologne, a plastic surgeon cheated out of payment by two women using fake names gave “wanted” pictures of their enlarged breasts to police.

I’ll BET they were wanted!

Rich people getting ripped off on luxury items. You see these from time to time and every time I think: This is news? This is justice, baby!

The best of Dear Prudence. I’ve read it. There IS no best. Dear Prudence, please shut the fuck up.

Predictions, particularly by people who were wrong in the past, and who start their prediction stories by listing instances of them screwing up last year. What hurts most when I read these is realizing he was paid just as much for “I was wrong when I said Britney and K-Fed would have a girl” as “And today the the weird eyeSudan was invaded by Ethiopia…”

Public opinion polls, particularly contradictory ones. If I wanted to know what the common people thought, I’d go to the bloody beer store and I’d ask them.

Praise be to Fark, which is a year-round source of insanity upon which I have come to rely. And some day I’ll even figure out how to register there. Maybe.

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sex lives of the Great Old Ones

Saturday Night Undead!

Seriously, if this is how they choose to do it with one another, is it any wonder that gods generally prefer to do it to humans? At least they can’t fight back!

Forget Zeus and all that bestiality schtick, and never mind that eggnog is the ectoplasmic emanation that really got the Virgin Mary pregnant. This is what happens when they go at it one-on-one, hidden by the numinous dark in the depths of the sea. Cthulhu ain’t no Valentino, that’s for sure.

“The male giant squid has to use a puny 15-gram brain to coordinate 150 kilograms of weight, 10 metres of length and a 1.5-metre-long penis,” he says. “He physically plunges this penis into the female’s arms, which are rather unfortunately right next to her beak. Because he is coordinating so much with so little, I think occasionally bits get chewed off when they inadvertently get too close to the beak.”

Oh, but you know he likes it rough! Still, an excellent lesson in how NOT to ask for oral sex. Guys, are you taking notes? I really don’t want to have to go through this again. Which reminds me, what is Bill Clinton doing these days?

Oh! My virgin eye! (Psst, wanna t-shirt of this? Click on it!)

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would you watch Saddam Hussein die?

This got started in the comments section of another post, but it seems to me more than deserving of its own post; it is far more important than Saddam Hussein’s last words. I started to watch the Daniel Pearl video, then I stopped it and did not go on. But I have read all kinds of banned documents, including the manual of Afghani Jihad, and I think I would watch the Steve Irwin video if his family would allow it to be released, so why I draw the line here but not there, I am not really sure I know.

Here’s the debate so far:

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