my.bicycle

Through a quirk of fate, my childhood was filled with largely less popular Japanese superheroes. While it would be easy to label that quirk “marketing dollars,” as many of the series I am most nostalgic about are not as popular and were therefore cheaper to localize than Kamen Rider and Gundam, some of them were actually pretty mainstream, like Ultraman . We make money not art features links to a an ultra-assload of Ultraman related clips. (thanks, the other michael)

Sometimes hitting the random link in wikipedia can be surprising .

You may remember the cocky martial artist below, and his sad fate: It turns out that the footage you have seen was doctored to remove the cause. The flying, laser-eye wielding head of Patrick Duffy was responsible for the audition-gone-awry, as well as a number of other horrible incidents, worldwide.

Boing Boing: SuperSoaker as makeshift ear-wax syringe

Twelve different artisan bacon delivered to your door each month Informative notes on all bacon selections Discounts on Grateful Palate bacon products and bacons Bacon of the Month Club Membership Card The Bacon Strip—Our monthly bacon comic strip for members only The Bacon of the Month Club Pig Ballpoint Pen A Little Rubber Toy Pig One free Bacon Tee-Shirt “Artisan bacon”?! Holy moly! If I was fabulously wealthy, I would join the Bacon of the Month Club . ( 4rthur )

DS Lite (link is Google translated; original Japanese here ).

(thanks, monty) I respond with equal force: Of note: David’s new album, DAVID HASSELHOFF SINGS AMERICA was released in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on Feb. 2, 2004 and is already at #11 in the Austrian charts! davidhasselhoff.com

Morbid Tendencies: Unfortunate Animal of the Month Club ( Charles Stross’ livejournal )

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese nurse who tried to relieve her work stress by tearing off patients' nails was sentenced Monday to three years and eight months in prison. The 32-year-old Japanese woman, who worked at a hospital in the ancient capital of Kyoto, tore off the fingernails and toenails of six female patients in September and October 2004. The patients were all immobile after strokes or other illnesses. The Kyoto District Court said the woman had committed the cruel acts to relieve stress she was under from extra work forced on her by her supervisors. Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com

“First, let me state one fundamental rule of game design that has emerged from the talk of various game professionals: If something’s important to your setting, you need to have rules that encourage it, provide benefits for it, or suggest rewards for it. Sure, you can play without such rules, but they’re often helpful to get new people on the same page and understand what’s expected of them, as well as reminding Keepers of what should be stressed with regard to the setting.” —Daniel Harms at the Yog-Sothoth.com forum Actually, this rule works not only in games, but in real life, especially in a professional environment. I’ve worked at many companies that said they encourage sharing of resources, and collaboration, and efforts to improve the company culture, but I’ve never seen a anyone publicly acknowledged for their efforts, let alone a reward program in place to support these “play mechanics.” of the office. ( thousand faced ...

This Finnish music video features some of the most intriguing amateur dance moves ever incorporated into a professional music video. Just when you assume that things cannot get any worse, at 2:10, they do.

takeshi terauchi: surf guitar Rocky Horror, in Norwegian Machines vs. Music Culture clash : culturally transgressive music (all: wfmu beware the blog)

Inhabitat sells single-plant terrariums on keychain fobs. Gardens to go.

This weird, big, kamenrideresque thing was showing at Yodobashi Camera in Yokohama on Thursday night outside the hobby section. It flashed the creators names in kanji so stylized that I couldn't read a one. In the end, it listed a “Project GARO” so I went back and looked it up. Turns out it is a Fewture models associate, Keita Amemiya creation; I think he did one of the more grotesque re-imaginings of Kamen Raider, and he has made other inspiring comics like Red Mausoleum . Here is the official site for GARO ; it looks like it will air in Japan this month , but my PSX doesn't see it in the programming guide.

Dear Yahoo!: How did the phrase “three sheets to the wind" come to refer to being drunk? —Tippi Dear Tippi: Drink up, me hearties, yo ho! The sailing life gave us the intoxicating phrase “three sheets to the wind,” although “three sheets in the wind” came first. Among nautical folks, a “sheet” refers to the rope used to secure a ship’s sail. On the square-rigged ships of yore, three sheets were needed to tie up the sails. So, if all three of the ship’s sheets were loose in the wind, the sail would flop about and the ship would go off course -- rather like a drunken sailor staggering around on shore. “Three sheets in the wind” was first recorded in 1821 by Pierce Egan in his work “Real Life in London.” In those days, sailors had a rating system for their inebriation. “One sheet” was merely tipsy, and it went up to “four sheets,” meaning unconscious. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, in...

Iraqi Invasion: A Text Misadventure Revision 88 / Serial number 54892 Oval Office You are standing inside a White House, having just been elected to the presidency of the United States. You knew Scalia would pull through for you. There is a large desk here, along with a few chairs and couches. The presidential seal is in the middle of the room and there is a full-length mirror upon the wall. What do you want to do now? > INVADE IRAQ You are not able to do that, yet. > LOOK MIRROR Self-reflection is not your strong suit. (thanks, monty!)

Hardcore Gaming 101 features Japanese Artwork of Western Games . It is interesting how many times I prefer the Japanese box artwork to the western art choices. It, at the very least, tends to be less garish.

This weird aberration was created for the PSP AMAZE ME contest.

The new Sony Skype handset and mouse ; as dumb as Maxwell Smart’s shoe-phone; both gadgets will prevent you from doing something that you should otherwise be able to do while making a call. The shoe-phone will prevent you from walking while holding a portable phone. The Skype handset will prevent you from using your computer while taking a call at it.

Also check Prince Adam's blog . ( KDBryan )

Dark: Kompressor covers Girl from Ipanema , nicely redefining the tone of “each one she passes says, ‘Ah...’” Light: Kidz Pop covers Since You Been Gone , a pop phenomenon with which I had been previously unacquainted. I think I shall hide the presence of this from my children. Funny: Kill Bill with Super Mario sounds included. Not funny: thought-provoking Greenpeace advertisement (all via KDBryan ) Kompressor at Google Video :

(thanks, timk)

Graham Chapman’s eulogy is almost inappropriately funny.

The Mechanical Contrivium ; Trivia about Brian Wanamaker: Bananas don’t grow on trees—they grow on Brian Wanamaker. Brian Wanamaker has a memory span of three seconds! Ninety-six percent of all candles sold are purchased by Brian Wanamaker. Brian Wanamaker has enough fat to produce 32 bars of soap. Brian Wanamaker is physically incapable of sticking his tongue out. Most bottles and jars contain at least twenty-five percent recycled Brian Wanamaker! Only twelve people have ever set foot on Brian Wanamaker. Research indicates that Brian Wanamaker will be attracted to people who have recently eaten bananas. Moles are able to tunnel through 300 feet of Brian Wanamaker in a day. Devoid of his cells and proteins, Brian Wanamaker has the same chemical makeup as sea water.

goatsefloppy-1.0 Update Oct 8th, 2004: Answers to common questions: No, it's not a virus or something to permanently cause harm to the computer it's booted from, that's why I included the source code. The idea of defiling computer stores was not my idea. Goatse Rescue Floppy Related: a Flickr slideshow of peoples’ first encounter with goatse . (worksafe, since the pictures are of reactions to goatse, not goatse itself)

Garfield Randomizer ’s random-cell output is at least as funny as the actual comic.

You could tell William Shatner that you hadn’t lived until you’d seen his one-man production of Se7en . He”d probably tell you to “get a life.” ( Chad Underkoffler )

Sometimes when I need a pick-me-up, I peruse the latest additions to I Used to Believe : Like a lot of other people, I believed that there were people underground at all the intersections making the traffic lights change. But for some reason I specifically thought that it was a group of out-of-work pirates.

Watch as Morning Musume battles Bob Sapp . (Google Video)

One of the big disadvantages of the iPod Shuffle is that it has no display screen. In the days when I bought most of my music on CD, it was no problem to keep track of what I was listening to; it was whatever single CD I had placed in the stereo. Lately I download a lot of free, legal music from the web, and enjoy all the new sounds; but it is hard to know what I am listening to at any given time. So when I hear something I like, and it’s in my collection but I don’t know how to find it, telling people what I am listening to and enjoying becomes very difficult. Collide ( iTMS ) is one of those bands that keeps cropping up in that way. They’re a little like This Mortal Coil, a little like Swarf, Garbage, Kate Bush, Natassja Atlas, and other international/global, dark techno bands. The vocals are particularly entrancing. While you can get several albums from iTunes Music Store, including the 26-track remix album Vortex ( iTMS ) for USD9.99, you can pick up three tracks...

Americans get hot and sweaty over seeing screenshots of HALO characters in the Dead or Alive 4 game . For the same game, during a recent trip to Osaka I saw a major electronics and games retailer, Sofmap, dedicate a 60 inch plasma display to showing an HDTV freeze frame of a girl-on-girl battle that featured a panty shot.