I'm Off To See The Lady Boys In Bangkok

I realise I've been slacking a little bit since St. Patrick's Day (still haven't recovered fully, will be hearing the voice of fat, hairy hobos discussing Fellini and Italian cinema in my dreams for the rest of my life), but this is gonna be my last post for a minute as me and the lady are hitting Thailand, Vietnam and then Hawaii.

So just talk amongst yourselves.

I might pop up every now and then, unpredictably, like an inopportune erection, but I'm not making any promises.

Some important shit coming up; Arsenal v Villareal in final 8 of the Champs league (and their pursuit of 4th spot in the EPL), The Socceroos v Uzbekistan in a World Cup qualifier (if we win, we're going to South Africa, in my opinion), not to mention Celtic trying to get that 4th. consecutive SPL title, and the ever-present David Lee double-double watch.

The new J Wess single Do Anything For You featuring myself and Jerson Trinidad should be about ready to hit TV and radio when I get back, too.

Anyway, as Muhammad Ali used to say, be cool and watch out for the ladies(boys).

Peace And Love, Peace And Love

Find Out Instantly If She/He Gave You Crabs

Lazily clicking through Slashdot (as, you may know by now, I am wont to do when I'm completely out of my own ideas), I found this interesting little number about the possibility of receiving constant 'health updates' on your body.

Years from now people will look back and find it unbelievable that heart attacks, strokes, hormone imbalances, sugar levels, and hundreds of other bodily vital signs and malfunctions were not being continuously anticipated and monitored by medical implants.

Yeah, right. Just like The Jetsons was supposed to be a vision of society in the '90s. Besides, I like being surprised by the dizzying array of curve balls my body throws me.

Midget Tossing (Not That Kind.... You Sick Bastard)

Fight All Forms Of Censorship

The Australian blacklist of soon-to-be banned web sites leaked today, and as my man Break said, "If this shit stick, I'm moving to Europe. For real."

Pretty much sums it up for me too. It all reminded me of Ice T's excellent album The Iceberg: Freedom of Speech... Just Watch What You Say.

Oh, and try accessing the wikileaks document that helps provide this type of information that the public definitely ought to know.

Shouldn't We Call It McMenage a Trois?

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I'm So Ronery..... But Not So Hungry

I kinda just wanted to make a post about Kim Jong Il so I could include something from Team America, but the fact that he's 'allowing' pizza in North Korea now just sweetens the deal.

Never mind the fact that most of the population can't afford to eat the dirt under their feet, this is a big step forward in the pursuit of freedom, Coca Cola, McDonalds, and fat cat golden handshake payouts. And it's a much more wholesome fixation with the west than his alleged porn addiction.

Real Life Mario Bros Type Shit

Check out these images of the deepest step well in the world.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Wherever you are, whoever you be, get yourself to a pub that serves Guinness (on tap, none of that tall can crap) and knock one back at some stage today.

If you can't handle it in beer form, maybe you can make yourself some nice Guinness ice cream instead.

Slainte.

Death By Espresso

Tek sent this through the other day, it's a quick and easy way to work out how many espresso shots you need to have to kill yourself. Important information we all need to know.

Falling Record Sales = More Live Shows

Someone told me that Michael Jackson has signed up to do 50 shows in the UK, which seems absolutely nuts - until you realise it's happening everywhere. Pink is doing 12 shows in Melbourne, how does that make sense in any context other than pop stars increasing their shows because they're making fuck all from record sales?

So if you're a live music fan, the climaxing cluster fuck that is the record industry these days is almost certainly a good thing for you. Especially in an out-of-the-way country like Australia. Ten years ago there were hardly any hip hop acts touring out here, and in the last few we've seen folks like Lord Finesse and now EPMD get announced.

Hey, I'm not complaining.

Gangster Makes The Forbes List

The new school Pablo Escobar from Mexico has clocked in at number 701 on Forbes' list of richest people in the world.

Some 7,000 people have been killed in drug violence across Mexico since the start of last year as rival gangs fight each other and Mexican security forces. Guzman's enforcers from the Sinaloa cartel are among the most vicious hitmen.

Forbes said Mexican and Colombian traffickers laundered between $18 billion and $39 billion in proceeds from wholesale drugs shipments to the United States in 2008.

Guzman and his operation likely grossed 20 percent of that -- enough for him to have pocketed $1 billion over his career and earn a spot on the billionaire's list for the first time.

Makes sense to me. Donald Trump and them are all crooks too.

More Bold Moves From Evo Morales

I'm just stealing from everybody today. The Kid sent through this article about Evo Morales eating a coca leaf in front of an assembly at the UN, to prove a cultural point.

President Morales, a former peasant coca farmer, brandished the leaf during an impassioned speech, saying: "This is coca leaf, this is not cocaine, this is part and parcel of a culture." He told ministers that the ban on coca was a "major historical mistake".

As The Biz pointed out today, coca leaf has been used to give fortitude to people who's lot in life is harsh to say the least for thousands of years. Banning it in Latin America would be like banning Guinness in Ireland, or banning state sanctioned military torture in the USA.

Ayo Technology

I've got a couple of friends who periodically refer me to the excellent penny arcade, in this instance it was Tek.

Furry Green Walls

When I was in Paris a little while ago, I had spent all day meaning to go to the Eiffel Tower but ended up plowing through a vat of Cinzano first, so I didn't stumble over there until well after nightfall. On the way, I brushed up against the dampest, furriest, most verdant office wall I have ever encountered. Turns out it was the Musee du Quai Branly (pictured above). See here for a bunch of other 'living walls.'

Arsenio Hall Interviews Vanilla Ice About MC Hammer

Come Get Some, You Little Bum

When Reporting Live At The Scene Goes Wrong

No Comment

Obviously there are some pretty fucked up things happening in Northern Ireland right now, and obviously I have an opinion on them. But I'm not ready to share it because I haven't really developed it properly. I need to have a think about it and also see what concrete proof emerges.

Yes, I just posted about the fact that I'm not going to post yet. Yep. Yeah.

Reason(s) # 11(12) Why TWNR

You'll Never Be At a Loss For Live Music Again

During my web wanderings today, I discovered this cool site that can tell you who's touring and performing in your neck of the woods no matter where you are.

There's a tag cloud type thing going on (Melbourne, Victoria is moderately popular but still ain't fucking with Brooklyn, New York), or if you live somewhere that isn't quite cool enough, you can just type in your locale and go for it.

Good Movie, Great Soundtrack

It's Enough To Give You The Willies

Just because someone goes through the rigors of attaining a degree and then goes on to become a fully qualified MD, doesn't mean random acts of stupidity are beyond them.

Alma McQuade told the first medical council fitness-to-practise committee inquiry to be held in public under the 2007 Medical Practitioners Act that Dr Ross Ardill (42) asked her when was she last “close to a man’s naked willy” when she visited his surgery on September 25th, 2007 with flu-like symptoms. She had been ill for a few weeks.

Kudos for using the term willy, which definitely doesn't get enough play these days, but I'm gonna have to call his medical nous into question if that's his line of inquiry about a potential pregnancy. Then again, he's probably a Catholic....

Everything Relates Back To Basketball

Apparently some dinosaurs had some hand skills, and could hold basketballs but not dribble.

The imprints suggest all two-legged meat-eaters, or theropods, carried their arms in an inward-facing, birdlike posture during the early Jurassic period, much earlier than this trait was thought to have developed.

More shameless jacking from Slashdot.

Whaddaya Hear, Whaddaya Say?

TCM have been running a bunch of old James Cagney movies this month, plus a bio piece on the tough little Mick from Hell's Kitchen (hosted by Michael J. Fox ???), so I thought I'd take some time to run through my favourite Cagney flicks and quotes.

Best Movies:
1. Angels With Dirty Faces
2. The Public Enemy
3. The Time of Your Life
4. White Heat
5. Yankee Doodle Dandy

I've never seen Shake Hands With The Devil (don't think it's been released on DVD yet) but I'm pretty sure I'd love that too.

Best quotes:
1. "Whaddaya Hear, Whaddaya Say?" as Rocky Sullivan in Angels....
2. "Why you dirty no good yella' belly double crosser," as Tom Powers in Public Enemy (I think)
3. Land Lady: "This week's rent is $5."
Cagney: "Stick it on my tab."
Land Lady: "Don't think I won't!"
Cagney: "And don't you think I think you won't" as Eddie Bartlett in Roaring Twenties
4. "I'm always alone when I'm with Matt," as Tom Powers in Public Enemy
5. "Made it, Ma - top o' the world," as Cody Jarrett in White Heat

Get Your Money Right, Just Dress Nice and Don't Thug

Remember when the big debate in Hip Hop music was, "Do you do it for the love of the art, or for the money?" The 'love of the art' dudes were largely underground types and the 'do it for the money' characters ended up being the 'gangstas.'

So in coffee shop circles it became cool to shit on that 'thugged out' stuff. The thugs, responding in kind, were on some 'get the fuck out of my face with that fruity shit.' Both sides were passionate about their position.

I've been listening to some of the new school rappers (or 'unrappers') and there seems to be some serious confusion in terms of what they're about. The aesthetic is almost neo-soul (albeit developed and pushed in a slightly different direction), but the lyrical content is more money-grubbing than the most thugged out 'Pac or Fiddy track you will ever hear in your life. At least with 'Pac and them there was passion. They were on that Scarface shit: first you get money, then you get the power, then you get the women. It was like watching a Bruce Willis action flick, or a Mike Tyson bout when he was in his prime.

Now the same dudes who crack on the gangsta film clips with semi-naked chicks, cars, and club scenes are all talking about shopping bags, cologne and looking cute. They're like some sissy French male-to-male escorts. "Buy cool, edgy, niche gear and gadgets, and this time next year it'll all be played out and replaced." It's probably the most meaningless, empty, 'consumerism for consumerism's sake' style we've seen so far. But the stereotype about the dumb, misogynist thug rapper persists.

These new dudes are way more sophisticated than that. Right?

NBA Pretends To Care About Travelling

Outside of the United States, the debate has raged for years about whether or not traveling is rife in the NBA. I've been playing the game for 20 years, and we were always taught along international FIBA lines, only to be confused by highlight reels of Shawn Kemp and MJ taking 43 steps on the way to some spectacular dunk or other. Now, it seems the NBA has admitted ignorance.

The written rule is far more complicated than you -- or indeed most NBA players -- would expect. And some digging has revealed that the way it's actually called in games is far more complicated than that.

I don't think it's that complicated. You can take 2 steps. You can't lift your pivot foot. You can't bunny hop. But having said that, the NBA is probably all the more entertaining for it.

Leave The Gift of Debt When You Die

I know time's are tough, but God damn! I didn't know chasing ghosts for cash was such a lucrative gift.

Dead people are the newest frontier in debt collecting, and one of the healthiest parts of the industry. Those who dun the living say that people are so scared and so broke it is difficult to get them to cough up even token payments.Collecting from the dead, however, is expanding. Improved database technology is making it easier to discover when estates are opened in the country’s 3,000 probate courts, giving collectors an opportunity to file timely claims. But if there is no formal estate and thus nothing to file against, the human touch comes into play.

Apparently an incredibly high percentage of relatives of dead people feel compelled to pay up, even when they can't really afford. If that's not a sign of how f*&ked the human condition is, I don't know what is.

Urban Camouflage

Well, IKEA camouflage really. Quite entertaining.

Bang The Drum

Go here and play the drums.

The Worker Is Working When The Fat Cat's About

Surprisingly earnest article in The Age today about the culture of golden handshakes for Big Business CEOs. Surprising because it's written by an associate editor, who you might expect to yawn and be cynical.

How much money is enough? The pathetic cliche that's used to defend stuffing the pockets of bosses — if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys — still has some currency. Unfortunately, it could well be judged by history to be one of the most damaging notions of our time. As Martin Lawrence, an analyst with shareholder advisers RiskMetrics, told my colleague Ari Sharp last week: "If paying the most gets you the best, then the CEOs of the Wall Street investment banks were the greatest executives of all time."

The article makes some excellent points, but why do we only shine the spotlight up through the glass ceiling during dire economic times? This should never be acceptable.

Because the market for ex-executives is said to be tight, their wage packages have unemployment insurance built in. That's fair enough as far as it goes, but do their employees enjoy similar benefits? I'm yet to hear of an ordinary worker whose salary carries an extra loading because the market demand for their services is poor.

A Couple of Solid Reasons Why TWNR

NYC Street Crime = Knicks Championships?

With the GFC gripping us ever tighter in it's credit-branded claw, folks are starting to worry that street crime will start to rise in New York City.

If a shrinking economy, soaring jobless claims and a troubled financial sector are not angst-producing enough, the threat of increased crime is leading many conversations toward a nagging and persistent question: Will the bad old days of record numbers of murders and ubiquitous street muggings be far behind?

Honestly, my answer would be, "I f*&kin' well hope not."

The Knicks were at the peak of their powers and winning Championships back in the '70s when folks were dropping dead from smack and learning how to fall asleep to the regular sound of rounds busting off.

Paleovirology: Neitzsche Was Right

So it seems that ancient illnesses have helped shape our very makeup as humans.

These viral fragments are fossils that reside within each of us, carrying a record that goes back millions of years. Because they no longer seem to serve a purpose or cause harm, these remnants have often been referred to as “junk DNA.” Although many of these evolutionary relics still manage to generate proteins, scientists have never found one that functions properly in humans or that could make us sick.

That is until Thierry Heidmann who runs the laboratory at the Institut Gustave Roussy, on the southern edge of Paris, brought one to life. Heidmann long suspected that if a retrovirus happens to infect a human sperm cell or egg, which is rare, and if that embryo survives—which is rarer still—the retrovirus could have the evolutionary power to influence humans as a species becoming part of the genetic blueprint, passed from mother to child, and from one generation to the next, much like a gene for eye color or asthma.

I wonder, then, what accounts for my 'outlandish sex appeal' gene? Perhaps a heavy head cold that my great-great-great grandfather caught out on the bogs of County Mayo.

Citizen C.I.A.

...Calling all americans of above-average intelligence...College graduates, apply today...

Come decimate dictatorships and over throw regimes in extoic far-off places,the vacation of your dreams.You'll assemble puppet governments and play the hand of God. We're an equal-opportunity crime fighting squad

-CHORUS-

Citizen C.I.A
Citizen C.I.A

Now I've trained an army for my kids to fight one day. We'll teach them all our secrets and then we'll walk away. We're knee deep in guerillas, yeah the party never stops.
United States of America undercover cop!

-CHORUS-

Five weeks paid vacation and a 401K

-CHORUS-

They said I'd be workin' with Sydney, man this sucks!

This post started off being about how the C.I.A. lied to cover up the fact that it destroyed 92 tapes of interviews with terror suspects, but I had to include the lyrics to the excellent Dropkick Murphys song. And then I had to include the clip for Shipping Up To Boston. Sue me, it's my f*&king blog.

Flicks and $hit

Just saw Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish the other day. Starring Mickey Rourke and Matt Dillon, with support from the likes of Dennis Hopper and Laurence Fishburne (back when he was still calling himself Larry), it's a little 'art for art's sake' but it's excellent. Especially good to see Mickey Rourke as nature intended him to be. Highly recommended.

You Ain't This Kind Of Irish

If you're interested in NYC organised crime stuff, you may know about The Westies. Either way, you should read this article about The Lords of Hell's Kitchen.

THERE IS SOMETHING ALMOST QUAINT IN the image of Irish organized crime, something that calls to mind old movies with Jimmy Cagney lording over a troop of saucy wharf rats. That mythic era of Irish street glory appeared to end with the opening of Manhattan's dark, secretive slums to the forces of development and homogenization. But if the Westies seem like ghosts, they are harrowingly real.

New York law enforcement officials hold the Westies responsible for more than 30 murders during the last 15 years. ''This is the most violent gang we've seen,'' says Michael Cherkasky, the head of the Rackets Bureau of the Manhattan District Attorney's office.

These dudes did some rude stuff (decapitation and dismemberment was standard operating procedure, it's all about corpus delicti don't you know). But don't worry, the neighbourhood isn't called Hell's Kitchen anymore, it's called Clinton. Cute, huh?

Harry Kewell's Greatest Post-Leeds Strike?