This video depicts an honest-to-goodness attempt to rob a convenience store using a palm tree. The tropical flora bandit is foiled when a man comes at him with a small stool. It's really not all that exciting, but I think people should watch it because something like this will probably never happen again.
My the chickens are coming home to roast: After years of me making fun of the Japanese for their weirdness, the very essence of what makes them so mockable -- their wacky and humiliating TV game shows -- are coming to the United States.
Now it is Americans who will be forced to negotiate obstacles courses dressed as bugs, attempt to eat marshmallows dangled from fishing lines as their face is forcibly restrained by bungee chords, and subject themselves to a "ball slapping machine" -- which does exactly what it sounds like it would do
Of course there will also be farting -- sometimes competitively -- and a fair share of indeterminate goo. If the Americanized versions can also replicate the samurai-like war cries of the host, and the spastic high-pitched squeals of the studio audience I will be very impressed indeed.
Two Japanese-style game shows are premiering on ABC tonight, and a third is scheduled for this fall.
Stuart Krasnow, a producer of one the new shows, believes the motivations are different for American and Japanese contestants.
Americans, Krasnow says, "are in it for the cash and prizes" while for the Japanese it's "true escapism."
In others words Americans will let you pummel their balls with a springy mechanical arm as long as you pay them enough, but the Japanese do it just because it feels right.
A-ha, I knew it! Japan is still weird.
I'm very reluctant to click onto TMZ, let alone recommend others click on anything TMZ-related, because their busy MySpace-style design tends to destroy my computer.
But this is worth it. It's an audio tape of Hulk Hogan's estranged wife calling 911 to claim the Hulkster is stalking her in violation of a restraining order she has out on him.
Only we learn very quickly that by "stalking her" Linda Hogan means she is following him around in her car. Linda expresses genuine surprise when the 911 operator tells her the best way to end this sort of "stalking" is to immediately stop following him. The 911 operator is taken aback by Linda's surprise.
To make matters even sillier, it turns out Linda Hogan doesn't have a restraining order out against the Hulk.
While it is likely only a complete idiot would allow her family to become the subject of a reality TV show , it is also likely being on a family-themed reality TV only makes one significantly dumber.
This is the best office freak out video I've ever seen. It's a little suspicious that no one flees the room when he gets hold of the fire ax but, then again, it would be hard not to watch.
What I like about this guy is that he's so lost his mind he throws paper with the same intensity he hurls computer monitors. So even if it's acting, well done.
And, really, what is the incentive to stage such an elaborate hoax and then have everybody watch it for free?
Update: Fake!!
This is Caminito del Rey, a mountain walkway that has fallen into disarray. After numerous deaths, the Spanish government forbid explorers from testing their luck on the crumbling, rail-less concrete pass. Although, as seen in the video, insane people who are willing to risk it all to prove they are "extreme" have no qualms about defying the government.
What this video has proven is that I'm so afraid of heights I just about lost my balance and fell off my chair simply watching the endless balancing act.
No JSB TV today. I'm having trouble uploading the video. I'll try again tomorrow, so check back over the weekend.
In the past the Chinese government has responded to large scale disasters by imposing press blackouts.
But, with their Olympic coming out party looming, Beijing has been much more willing to let the information flow in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake which has so far killed over 40,000.
How has the Chinese press responded to these new freedoms in a time of crisis? Well, a Chinese magazine called The New Travel Weekly went all Girls Gone Wild in their earthquake coverage by having lingerie-clad models pose amid the wreckage for an issue that hit newsstands on the first day of China's national day of mourning for the quake's victims.
While this may have drove up traffic at the weekly's website, it also attracted the attention of government censors, who declared that the ghoulish glamour shoot "seriously violated propaganda discipline" and was an "extremely evil social influence."
The issue was pulled and the magazine's editorial leadership sacked.
Maybe one day Chinese provocateurs will master the kind of tastelessness that drives so much of the consumer culture China has begun to embrace. But for now its envelope-pushers are making charges like "seriously violated propaganda discipline" sound sensible.
Western-style exploitation isn't as easy as it looks.
The old steeplechase barrier to the nuts routine is always a crowd pleaser.
There is little the humans are more fascinated by than looking at other humans naked. It's the same with our great ape cousins, and that's why the gorillas and chimps seem so distracted all the times and don't have much to show for themselves on the civilization building front.
It's not necessarily only a sexual thing. For example, in my last post, if I had provided a link to a naked picture of Daniel Baldwin (and that is not a link to a naked picture of Daniel Baldwin) I suspect a lot more people would have curiously snuck a peak than there are people sexually attracted to Daniel Baldwin. Perhaps in the whole entire world. In fact, if there is one thing that web site tracking software has taught us, it is that humans always like to look at other humans naked.
Which is what makes this item so sad: In a scheme mimicking the based-on-a-true story plot of the movie Calender Girls, seven middle-aged Spanish woman have posed nude in an attempt to raise money for their town's elementary school. In the movie the English women of a certain age raise over a million pounds. Unfortunately, in real-life 2008, not only did these fleshy senoritas came away with sales far short of that benchmark, but they got stuck with a 16,000 dollar tab for the printing of the calendar, causing much financial distress to their small village.
And that got me thinking: Is there any financial transaction in which the loss of money is more improbable than a transaction involving you taking your clothes off?
All I could come up with is any deal ending with you having one less vital organ than before.
This young man reminds us all that, technically, you don't need to kill yourself to be eligible for a Darwin Award. And that bafflingly bad steering always helps your chances of being so honored.
There are some things the world isn't supposed to see. Topping that list this week is the Heath Ledger drug video -- a clip of Ledger discussing his heavy marijuana use since the improbable age of seven as he possibly snorts cocaine. Entertainment Tonight and The Insider paid a hefty sum for the party footage, and had been teasing it on-air, but have now decided not to run the video in its entirety "out of respect to Heath Ledger's family."
The Internet respects no family. So it's a safe bet the complete video will soon be an easy Google search away. It couldn't draw an impenetrable line even if it wanted to, but the closest the Internet has ever come to self-censorship of moving images concerns a horrific viral video titled Two Girls One Cup.
I'm not going describe what goes on in Two Girls One Cup -- other than it does involve two girls and one cup -- because you wouldn't believe it if I did. And that would encourage you to seek out the video for confirmation. Which is something I could not recommend less. Really, don't watch it. This is not a challenge.
While the video has been rightfully banned from any legitimate file sharing site (although still isn't that difficult to find on-line), some of the most popular YouTube viral videos in the second half of 2007 were so-called "reaction shots" to Two Girls One Cup. The expressions humans make when watching this abomination of humanity are quite entertaining, and well-circulated Two Girls One Cup reaction shots now include the stunned frozen faces of celebrities and even muppets.
These videos have been become a genuine Internet phenomenon, but most media sites (including this space) have been reluctant to write about them because it would encourage people to make the mistake of watching the orginal.
Yesterday Slate let the cat out of the bag and ran a gallery of Two Girls One Cup reaction videos. I found it shocking an online magazine with such a sophisticated readership and high end advirtisers would pull such a stunt. (Of course all shock is relative when discussing Two Girls One Cup.)
Again, DO NOT watch the original. If you do the video is NSFW.
Updade: The gallery is clawing its way to the top of Slate's most read and most emailed lists.
Not only does this clip contain the kind of hopelessly stupid criminal antics you've come to expect from embedded videos on this space, but it allows you the opportunity to laugh at a foreigner who is laughing at foreigner as you laugh at the foreigner the foreigner is laughing at.
With its generic name and central location, Springfield, Missouri could make a good case for being Anytown, USA. Although one can only hope the level of intelligence displayed by Springfield's residents isn't indicative of the broader population the city could represent.
Three residents of Springfield really, a trio which allowed a door-to-door tattoo artist ink them up -- even though one of the eventual victims freely concedes the tattoo gun the unorthodox salesman carried was of the homemade, prison variety.
All three women quickly developed infections, and one passed out and had to be hospitalized.
Let this be a lesson to the feeble-minded everywhere: Just because someone shows up at your door and offers a service, it doesn't mean the vendor is qualified to render said service. This goes double when the offer comes with an outward display of amateurism.
So that UPS delivery man is likely not a licenced masseuse, and it's best to refrain from making a sanitation worker your financial planner. On the other hand, neither of these poor choices would result in greatly increasing your chances of catching AIDS or Hepatitis C.
Although we are barely into January, we already have three leading candidates for worst criminal of the year.
First we start in South Africa, a land known for its staggering crime rates. But collective practice doesn't always make perfect -- at least not for a Pretoria man who walked into a police station last weekend and declared his cell phone had been stolen at gun point. When the detective dialed the phone's number to see if it was still live, it rang in the complainant's pocket. The flummoxed man claimed he had given the officer the number for his other phone, but after it was discovered the serial number on the ringing phone matched the serial number on the allegedly stolen phone, Mr.-Would-Be-Insurance-Frauder was arrested for perjury.
For our second nomination we go to Hell's Kitchen. While the notorious Manhattan neighborhood is no longer the bastion of criminality its name suggests, that's no excuse for James O’Hare and David Daliai, who are both 65 and old enough to have lived through the more colorful days. Yesterday the two friends briefly brightened Hell's Kitchen's fading mottle by attempting the most unusual of crimes: Wheeling, via an office chair, their recently deceased roommate and his 355 dollar social security check into a Pay-O-Matic check cashing store.
But instead of the opulent house party and desirable female company a certain film suggests awaits such ghoulish schemers, the two men were promptly arrested. The police have yet to figure out what crime to charge the duo with.
I once had a run in with a small monkey. He wanted to steal my pen, and I wanted to take a photo of him trying to steal my pen. In the mayhem that followed a tropical hut was trashed and neither of us got what we so desired. But no one was injured and I think we both walked away from the incident with a new found inter-species respect. The toddler in the video above, who tries to taunt a miniature primate with an empty potato chip bag, learned this same lesson the hard way.
In America, reality television usually features super good looking people with perfectly constructed hair who complain of imaginary problems and are often made to eat worms. For their "unscripted" fix, Japanese television audiences seem to prefer watching games of "binocular soccer," which are contested by everyman types in multi-colored horizontally striped jump suits. The match referee is a man in a giant rabbit suit, of course.
I really have little to say about which format is better, or more "realistic", as it were. But it is clear that binocular soccer is extraordinarily difficult. And, I'm sure, if the clip continued we'd learn the losing team was forced to eat worms.
As a high school basketball star, Eddie Griffin was often compared to Wilt Chamberlain. As a collegian and a pro he was known for fighting with teammates, enjoying alcohol, and generally letting everybody down.
But that doesn't mean Griffin wasn't striving for greatness in his own way. In June of 2006 Griffin became the first man in recorded history to attempt to operate a motor vehicle while legally drunk, watching pornography and masturbating. For daring to go where no man had gone before, Griffin paid the price with a couple smashed cars and a civil lawsuit.
Still, that didn't deter the 6 foot 10 inch power forward. Griffin died this summer after crashing his SUV into an oncoming train. While his body was too badly charred for an accurate accounting of what happened, I like to think Griffin died doing what he loved: Operating a motor vehicle while legally drunk, watching pornography and masturbating.
And with Griffin so went humanity's dream of ever achieving the total freedom that is getting totally smashed on booze and then hitting the open road as you rub one out to your favorite porno flick.
Or so I thought. I didn't take into account Cameron Walker, the Irving, Texas man who was pulled over Saturday night and cited for a slew of misdemeanors involving an open container, a ten inch screen showing naked fornication and an "obscene display."
We don't know much about Walker and, since he is not a professional basketball player, his story of wanking in the face of convention and better judgement is unlikely to get the coverage it deserves.
What we do know is that Walker is only 24. Which gives him plenty of time to perfect his craft. So I say ride on, Cameron Walker. Ride on with one hand on the bottle, the other hand on the so-called chicken and your eyes fixed firmly on the thrusts of a shapely adult film actress.
Do it for the rest of us, who dare not.
This morning I posted on Australian Prime Ministerial candidate Kevin Rudd, who was caught on film eating his own earwax. I want to make clear that I'm not trying to single out Australian politicians as earwax eaters. I'm sure there are many American politicians with a similar taste for ear cheese. It's just, due to Americans coming from Puritans and Australians coming from felons, we don't have in this country a prison yard sense of openness, and are more likely to do our unsavory feasting shamefully behind closed doors.
Likewise, you would be a fool to even suggest that American politicians don't enjoy taking photographs of their penises -- I'd be willing to bet there is at least one member of Congress doing so right now. But, as of yet, none of these portraits have ended up all over the Internet. A fate which has befallen Andrew Quah, a now-former Australian parliamentary candidate.
Quah, a music teacher when he's not running for office or taking pictures of his penis, represented Sydney for the Christian values Family First Party. Which is why it is no surprise the photos were first spotted on a gay website. (Considering how susceptible and sensitive religiously conservative groups are to accusations of hypocritical behavior, you would think they would stay away from running male music teachers in elections. Maybe that's just me. . .)
Quah doesn't deny that the pictures are of him, but maintains the penises in question are not his, and have been nefariously photoshopped in.
A last ditch attempt to salvage his relationship with the Family First party? Maybe. But more likely his dick denial is in response to his new nickname, which is, in a parody of a popular Aussie television show, "Australia's Smallest Loser."
When I was in high school I moved to another country. Quickly, I was reassured that my new mates alcohol consumption habits were very similar to my own. That was until one dark night, down in someone's parent's basement, when the revelers began snorting vodka through their noses.
Ostensibly this technique will get you drunk faster -- although it's not like it takes very long for a few traditional shots of vodka to kick in. The downside to snorting vodka is the sharp, almost unimaginable pain it shoots through the sinus cavity and to the back of the eyeballs. The pain does subside, but the eyes continue to water, and you are left with the distinct impression that some of the damage you just did to your brain will be permanent.
Since I thankfully never came across the practice again, I always thought vodka snorting was the unique and misguided domain of a small subset of young people in a far off land. Then a few weeks ago I read an article on how Prince Harry likes to snort vodka, and it is becoming quite the trend. In this day and age, with so many great ways to get high, why anyone would ever snort vodka is beyond me.
If snorting vodka is pointless and painful, what can be said about the huffing of fermented human fecal matter?
It's called jenkem, and it apparently produces strong hallucinations. Jenkem was discovered about ten years ago by Zambian street kids too good for sniffing glue.
Evidence that jenkem has crossed over to those with homes is highly anecdotal, although we do have this recent first person account from a Seattle paper. The author confirms the poop drug's hallucinogenic quality. He also adds "one of the downsides of jenkem is that you constantly have that taste of sewage in your breathing for several days after the fact."
Suddenly snorting vodka doesn't seem so bad.
