It’s back. TONIGHT! the 27th of June at the Great Britian Hotel in Richmond, Melbourne.

After a hiatus of a few months, we have returned from the clutches of apathy to present to you again the famous, the grand, the spectacular: Underground Ping Pong at the GB! A 16 player knockout tournament in the Bazement of Amazement! The winner will take home a slab and the eternal glory of having their name inscribed upon the prized Golden Bat. Can someone knock Mr Shiney off his slippery Pong throne? As Mike Whitney says: WHO DARES WINS!

7pm signup at the Great Britian Hotel, Church St, Richmond.

Somehow I have been mispronouncing several words. Silent letters can be troublesome and I have been victim to embarrassment and humiliation because of this. I will, however, still pronounce Phnom Phen without an awkward ‘P’ at the beginning. After being proved wrong about my silent P, I found a man who gives me more options. Check this website for correct English pronunciation http://www.howjsay.com

Other commonly mispronounced country names:

Belarus (I thought it had a silent ’s’) I was wrong

Azerbaijan (some think there is a silent ‘j’ that becomes a ‘y’) wrong too

Ibiza (the way it looks it correct, no Spanish ‘th’ in there okay)

Chile (the same as chili)

Paris (not Pari, there is an s, yes!)

Just when you think Dubai has enough cool buildings, they come up with this:

The Da Vinci Tower (also known as Dynamic Architecture Building) is a proposed 313 m (1,027 ft), 68-floor tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The tower is expected to be architecturally innovative for several reasons. Uniquely, each floor will be able to rotate independently. This will result in a constantly changing shape of the tower. Each floor will rotate a maximum of one full rotation in 90 minutes. The entire tower will be powered from turbines and solar panels, and five other buildings in the vicinity will also be provided with electricity. The turbines will be located between each of the rotating floors. They will generate 1,200,000 kilowatt-hours of energy from the movement of the floors, and the solar panels will be located on the roof. Construction of the Da Vinci Tower is expected to be completed in 2009.

It will also be the world’s first prefabricated skyscraper. 90% of the tower will be built in a factory and shipped to the construction site. This will allow the entire building to be built in only 18 months. The only part of the tower that will be built at the construction site will be the core. Part of this prefabrication will be the decrease in cost and number of workers. The total cost will be 23% less than a normal skyscraper of the same size, while only 90 people will work on the construction site. The majority of the workers will be in factories, where it will be much safer. Architect: David Fisher.

This is from an article about itching, and a particularly extreme case of compulsive scratching led to this horriffic outcome:

…the itching was so torturous, and the area so numb, that her scratching began to go through the skin. At a later office visit, her doctor found a silver-dollar-size patch of scalp where skin had been replaced by scab. M. tried bandaging her head, wearing caps to bed. But her fingernails would always find a way to her flesh, especially while she slept.

One morning, after she was awakened by her bedside alarm, she sat up and, she recalled, “this fluid came down my face, this greenish liquid.” She pressed a square of gauze to her head and went to see her doctor again. M. showed the doctor the fluid on the dressing. The doctor looked closely at the wound. She shined a light on it and in M.’s eyes. Then she walked out of the room and called an ambulance. Only in the Emergency Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, after the doctors started swarming, and one told her she needed surgery now, did M. learn what had happened. She had scratched through her skull during the night — and all the way into her brain.

ARGHHHHHHHH!!! BBBBBRAAAAAAINNZZZ!

via Kottke

Made by a man far clever than my face, Matthew Kozak has been reported to have a brain the size of a several medium sized brains.

Click the link below to see a robot making a robot making a robot making a robot making…

http://screamyguy.net/fractal/index.htm

Press keys A and Z to zoom in and out and drag your mouse to change the angle.

Math.

For those of you following my misadventures concerning a certain white van, an audio system of dubious quality and a thorough waste of a reasonable amount of cash, I present the third and final installment of my saga. If you’re not up to speed, read Part 1 here, and then Part 2 here.

Basically I got conned into buying a shit stereo by two guys in a white van. Some would say, “Marty, you’re an idiot for buying anything out of a van.” And of course they’d be right.

So after a brief and humorous eBay exploration (several systems for sale at $500 Buy It Now prices with various lame explanations: unwanted wedding present, won in a lottery, etc) my only recourse, was, of course, to throw my stereo off the balcony and smash it to bits.

Closure. Catharsis. The only reasonable course of action. Call it what you will. Here it is. And the end result was almost, almost, worth the $500 I paid for the stereo.

I made this strange collection of shapes for a poster that never happened. So, instead of disregarding it completely, I had a fiddle with the shapes in flash and made a ‘Peeper Wobbler’. Stare at this video with your peep holes for its entirety, then have a look at your hand or someone’s face or something that doesn’t usually wobble.

I heard this on my cycle ride into work today and it made me smile. Then I watched it on YouTube and it made me smile again. So here it is for you.

And while we’re on the subject of incredibly fun 60s dance parties, check out this clip of Stevie Wonder doing Superstition. You just have to check it out, it’s got some of the best dance moves ever danced. EVER!