Activity of the Week : Fantastic Contraption

It's been months since I came across an activity I wanted to doom you, the reader, to.

It will take a bit of patience in the beginning but if you're like me, you'll have completed the first level in just under four hours. I despise this activity. Despise it intensely.

The goal is to build a little contraption which pulls, pushes and drags a wheel into a special area, at which point you win that level. If I've done a bad job explaining it, it's because I despise this activity. Intensely.

Fantastic Contraption

Don't bother commenting how high a level you were able to reach. I won't believe you.

[via Kottke]

Grand Theft Long Loaf

So it was 6.30 this Saturday morning when I ventured out to my local Hot Bread Kitchen to buy hot scones, cheese buns and newspapers.

I followed an odd-looking lady with wild hair into the shop. I write "odd" because there was something off about her. She seemed visibly disturbed and angry and she kind of pushed herself into line. Then I heard her bark some order to the woman behind the counter who started filling bags with bread. After a minute of watching the employee fill up bags, she apparently changed her mind and ordered 24 loaves of white bread.

That's a big order but I assumed she was just purchasing for her entire village.

Dog Joke

Yes..yes...I've been away for a week or so and haven't had the chance to update this blog. I should have mentioned it before I went away. I appreciate all the notes of concern...actually, everyone seemed to enquire whether I had left the country for some reason.

I'd like to lie and write that I was picked up by the local police for some kind of infraction. However, those police officers never have any transport so it's unlikely anyone would believe me.

I'll post something of questionable-value again shortly. In the meantime, here's the joke that I keep reading over and over again.

--

A guy is driving around Tennessee and he sees a sign in front of a house:

"Talking Dog For Sale."

He rings the bell and the owner tells him the dog is in the backyard. The guy goes into the backyard and sees a Labrador retriever sitting there.

"You talk?" he asks.

"Yep," the Lab replies.

"So, what's your story?"

The Lab looks up and says, "Well, I discovered that I could talk when I was pretty young. I wanted to help the government, so I told the CIA about my gift, and in no time at all they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping. I was one of their most valuable spies for eight years running."

"But the jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn't getting any younger so I decided to settle down. I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security wandering near suspicious characters and listening in."

"I uncovered some incredible dealings and was awarded a batch of medals. I got married, had a mess of puppies, and now I'm just retired"

The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.

"Ten dollars," the guy says.

"Ten dollars? This dog is amazing. Why on earth are you selling him so cheap?"

"Because he's a liar. He never did any of that shit."

--

I love this joke so much.

China, Olympics, Conspiracy. Oh my.

The Olympics start tomorrow and I'm looking forward to finally being in a nearby time zone so I can watch many of the events on TV. FijiTV has even secured the rights and have stated their commitment to broadcast many of the games. That's great. On the Chinese side of things, I've been in absolute awe of what that country has built to prepare for these games. The newly designed facilities are truly incredible and amazing examples of architecture. I could stare at the "birds nest" all day.

Great controversy has dogged the build up to this year's Olympic summer games more than ever before, though, and that was to be expected. The crackdown on Tibet in March thrust China's human right's record back into the spotlight but in my opinion, the country shined when it came to their response to the massive Sichuan earthquake in May. I'm not referring to the government's reaction to the quake or even the cause of so much death (apparently, from shoddy construction). What I'm referring to is the way the Chinese people themselves responded.

The Kingdom of Fiji?

From the Honolulu Advertiser today (2 Aug), the headline reads:

50 earthquake rattes Kingdom of Fiji

I may comment on some of the challenges of Fiji's own media organisations insofar as presenting facts right but this piece from Hawaii is a bit of a shocker.

When exactly the REPUBLIC of Fiji reverted back to a KINGDOM is unclear from the article. I'll also assume that Fiji's "rattes" actually refers to the country being "rattled". Lastly, Labasa being spelled with the optional "m" brings the number of factual and grammatical errors in this two paragraph article to three.

The only possible explanation I can see for this bastardisation of journalistic accuracy is the story took place at 5.30 a.m. possibly forcing someone to wake up to publish the news.

I do love Hahwhyeee, though. It's the nicest province in the colony.

Digital Talanoa : Digital Week in Review

It’s been a pretty exciting week out there in digital business. On Monday, a new search engine (www.cuil.com) launched with a great deal of fanfare and the bold claim that it would finally be the one to take on market-leading Google. Their launch, however, turned into a business nightmare filled with web-server errors, empty query results and angry reviewers unimpressed with the overall experience delivered.

Called CUIL (but pronounced “cool”), the search engine does provide some interesting features which Google lacks. However, the results are all that matter at the end of the day. My first Cuil query of “fiji” returned 0 results. Not a good start. By the next day, 21 million results for Fiji were returned so someone must have fixed something. Cuil offers up related information to search queries in a toolbar alongside the page and it is interesting, if not a bit odd. In my “fiji” query, the sidebar included an “Islands of Fiji” section where the islands of Vanua Levu, the Mamanucas, Yasawas and Robinson Crusoe Island were highlighted. Robinson Crusoe??? Viti Levu was nowhere to be found which will no doubt fuel the rumours of the capital’s pending move to Crusoe. You heard it here first.