It can get dangerous when you start picking favourite film sequences, as opposed to films, but I’ve avoided a prolific list and opted for five of the greatest, in my opinion, of course.

That the first two are from the same film certainly says a lot for Spike Lee and Edward Norton and their 25th Hour effort – the film itself perhaps being among my top five favourites. Nothing much happens, it’s true, but it’s these two sequences, and another that I refrained from including, that pull the film along with a melancholy grace that so suits Norton and his boy-next-door-gone-bad look.

The monologues and long sequences (including one of the longest and most successful single shots I’ve ever seen) bring a dark nostalgia that is underwritten by Lee’s hesitation to run the plot any quicker than it needs to be. The sense of mistrust and shortsightedness also has many post 9/11 New York references, they say.

The third clip is from Werner Herzog’s 1982 masterpiece, Fitzcarraldo. If you’ve no idea what happens in this film then you’re probably best suited to watch this clip of Klaus Kinski tackling the jungle with an awkward certainty; poised above his ship with opera as his welcome gift. You need to see this film.

A classic clip from David Lynch’s elusive, disturbing and, in some ways, disappointing 1997 film Lost Highway. While many certainly do, I don’t feel this is a cinema great – but this scene is hard to forget.

Finally, The Old Man Who Read Love Stories. There are no clips online for this film as, I believe, there is no distribution of this film outside Spain and Australia. It’s a shame, as many in Australia haven’t seen it anyway. Should YouTube have some scenes, I’m not sure I could select just one anyway – the entire film is a visual and emotional indulgence that ticks over with an alluring and calm pace. It culminates to a powerful climax with reaches far beyond the colonial setting, and with much relevance to many current environmental and social debates. You’re just going to have to watch the whole thing!

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Us Australians have never been that inventive. We seem to have stolen Mickey Mouse’s famous Disney song in our latest tourism campaign.
As well as being un-inventive, we seem to not even know our country very well, or our rules. Skip to 1:01 and see if there’s anything wrong with this situation? Maybe the girl is driving on the wrong side of the car for us down-under? Nice work Australia, I’m sure proud of my country!

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The time has come, May 31st is Quit Facebook Day! Annoyed about Facebook’s privacy settings, or don’t have enough friends? Worse yet, has your ex blocked you from stalking their account? Well whatever it may be, it’s time to quit.

The quit Facebook campaign begun due to Facebook’s apparent lack of privacy settings. It seems to have taken off with over 24,000 signing a petition to remove their account. The real question will be how many people actually do it, can you really afford to be the only kid in school or the only person in your office without FB? Well thats probably not an issue, most people that will be deleting their account probably play WOW and are scared that Troll they killed 3 weeks ago will find their Facebook and hunt them down, damn privacy!

The big push has come from this website, QuitFacebookDay which lists the day to quit FB as tomorrow. They go onto explain how FB has no respect for you or your friends, they compare it to smoking in its addictive nature and the difficulties in going cold turkey.

Personally I won’t be quitting Facebook, I’m too afraid of the situation below.

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Here’s some great posters by BPGlobalPR on their twitter account. These guys are offering some great solutions to solving the oil leak such as stuffing BP executives down the hole!

(more…)

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Saw this great pool table the other day. Could be a little off putting though?

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It’s always inspiring to see some innovative advertising amongst the volumes of bland marketing messages that are sent to us each day. Elevator ads haven’t been a specific favourite of mine in the past, but I just had to share these!

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If you remember getting excited about a 10mb hard disk, then you most likely remember some of these classic ads. I was of the Commander Keen generation, so I just missed out on these – but great, all the same.

Thanks Abduzeedo for collecting these.

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There has been lots of reports of young Jessica Watson who is about to become the youngest person to ever solely sail around the world in her little pink boat “Ella’s Pink Lady”. Its a pretty impressive feat, if only she had done it properly. It was only about 2 months ago that Jessica went off on her journey, running into a boat before even leaving Australian waters wasn’t the best start for her. Yet she pioneered on and began to circularly navigate the globe.

Jessica is expected to arrive back in Sydney on May 15th. But will she be rewarded by her efforts? According to the “World Sailing Speed Record Council” one must sail a distance of 26,000 nautical miles to achieve the feat. Sadly for Jessica she has fallen short of this mark by around 2000 nautical miles.

It’s a bit sad if Jessica is robbed of this achievement. It takes some serious guts for a 16year old girl to sail off and sail around the world without touching land or speaking to anyone for months. To be fair, it takes even more guts to do it in a little pink boat!

I think she deserves what ever she was after with this journey, most 16year olds are out gratifying up trees and stealing wine for their Dad’s cellar.  If you would like to read about her journey or track her progress visit her site at http://www.jessicawatson.com.au/

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The biggest point drop ever for the Dow Jones today has been caused by a slip of a finger by one big Wall Street player. This littler mistake wiped around $1trillion off the market through widespread panic. The market fell into despair after a trader pressed “B” instead of “M” when selling Proctor and Gamble shares resulting in the sale of billions of shares.

This trade set off a chain of events as scepticism hit the market and a mass of selling was done. The results were devastating and somewhat unbelievable. P&G fell from$61.56 down to $39.37 whilst other stocks effected included management consulting firm Accenture who fell from $41.78 to $0.01! After hitting rock bottom at 1c the share recovered back up to $41.09. How freaking unbelievable!

So how do we view all of this? I’m sure millions of traders down on Wall Street lost a bundle today, but for those lucky enough to buy in at the right times or short sell some stocks they probably made enough to retire on. Pretty ironically the person who executed the original trade which sent the market in chaos may have made enough for a healthy pay day himself.

So now we can only wait to see how the market will react in coming days, but with this huge shock on the market and the continuing uncertainty of the markets in Greece, most spectators expect more falls in the coming week!

Here is a visual representation from the day on the Dow Jones. Pretty crazy stuff!

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Now I’m not usually one to complain about technology or its uses. But last night I was invited to the local pub with a few mates to have a couple of rounds of trivia. So I head out and face off with the trivia buffs of my area. After I sat down and played a few rounds, have a few beers I noticed a worrying trend. People around me were cracking out their iPhones and other devices too check their “answers”. Even the oldies were doing it!

Personally we were never going to win, however it would have been nice to have some fair competition! Whats the point of winning if you are just getting the majority of your answers off the beloved Google? So in the end after I had gotten fairly drunk, stumbled home and passed out, I awoke the next day and decided to write this exact article.

So is trivia going to the best Googler? Yeah probably. But I’m not sure if I’m just angry at everyone getting their phones out and going on the internet, for instance it does annoy me my phone is too old and incompetent to go on the internet, and two, I don’t think I got a question right all night.

So I will be going back next week? For sure, there is cheap drinks, good mates and the ability to oggle all the other teams, what more could you want?

And just to finish up, I’ll hit you up with one of the trivia questions, just too see how good we are at Google.

How did Carrie Brown earn her living in the 1800’s?

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Craigslist, like Gumtree, is a momentous collection of human despair and idiocy, as well as a great place to sell your bicycle.

Trawling the pages of the Best Of or the Seeking pages has long been one of my favourite time killers and the absolute best post in the dramatic history of online classifieds would have to be, for me, the vagina couch.

Some more classics from the depths of The Best of Craigslist:

Time Machine

Desperately need a time machine to take me back 6 weeks in time, plus or minus a day. If you have a time machine and are willing to let me borrow it, or know of someone with an impending trip back in time, please let me know ASAP!

I will pay big bucks to have myself warned to NOT sleep with that tramp at the One and Only Bar on the Boulevard.

Tell me that she is very, VERY fertile that night in question, and has a whopping 3 STDs that I will get if I copulate with her.

Turn me into Furniture

I am a submissive white male living in london looking for a female, or couple, of artists who would like the challenge of designing human furniture which is comfortable for the user while objcetifying for the person being used. I would be in the role of furniture model, and could be a footrest, table, chair, etc. I would pay 200 Pounds an hour for this, and am looking for a female or couple which have a dominant personality. There is no nudity or sex involved whatsoever.

Super Mario Brothers

Do you love to play Super Mario Brothers on the Classic Nintendo System? Do you like to get tagged from behind while you do it? This is the post for you then.

You must know your way around the game before we meet, must be open to anal sex, also able to fake an orgasm is a plus…

Milf Magnet

This is a Batavus “PERSONAL” delivery bike. It’s black, has one speed, a coaster brake, a kick stand, chain case, racks, and a dynamo lighting system. I discovered it in the basement of the Smith and Butler boutique in Carrol Gardens last October.

I am selling this bicycle because my therapist suggested I need to come to terms with my attraction to african-american women. No sister is going to date a 34 year old systems administrator riding a european grocery bike. However, when I would cruise slowly down Park Slope’s fifth avenue, panties would literally fly off of every white or asian woman with a stroller and a master’s degree.

I live in Williamsburg now and the bike confuses most of the women here. If I grow my moustache out a little and explain it only has one speed “like a fixie” I can sometimes get to second base. But for the most part I might as well have a soul patch and collect classic cameras. If you want to get some action I’d only take this baby out south of Atlantic Avenue.

Spring is coming and if you like flat-assed waspy moms who went to Vassar, this is the ride you need.

Huge Bathroom

I am a female in my mid 60’s and I am looking for a room mate. Times are tight and I need some extra money.
I am willing to rent out my bathroom in my 1 bedroom east village home.

My bathroom is large. You can easily put a twin air mattress in there. I only ask that when I need to use the bathroom, you or your air mattress are not in it.

I do ask that when you are in the apartment, you confine yourself to the bathroom. I do not feel comfortable with a stranger walking around my living room. This might change as I get to know you better.
You may have guest over as long as they are cnfined to the bathroom as well. This might seem a bit odd but please remember the rent is $400 and the bathroom is large.

Ketchup Collection

This is a collection of ketchup packets from around the world. approximately 25 countries are represented here, including japan, finland, estonia, greenland, brazil, and portugal. none of the packets have been opened and they are labeled with their home country.

Collection comes in decorative box with ducks on it.

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I’m not too squeamish but this story really made me feel uncomfortable.

A man in China has died after an eel was reportedly inserted into his anus.  It is said that the man’s friends eventually confessed to inserting the eel into their friend after a long bout of drinking.

I have done many a crazy a thing whilst intoxicated, but this one… No. I can’t write about it anymore.

Seriously.

No.

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This looks awesome!

I always want to learn how to Skate board.. Maybe it is time for real before I’m too old…

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Do you know the feeling on Christmas morning when you know, for sure, that your present is safe under the Christmas tree, well, discovering new good music, for me at least, is like finding a present under the tree when it’s not even close to Christmas day.

My recent visit to Rough Trade Records in East London has rewarded me with a fine discovery, which is Morning Benders, produced in-house by Rough Trade itself. Rough Trade is well known for being the label for The Smiths and the most recent, Belle and Sebastian. And here I found, on the Rough Trade Youtube Channel, a video of Morning Benders playing “Excuses” from their debut album in a studio packed with people. Enjoy! It’s a happy day for me.

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Awaking from that huge night, head pumping feeling like death, stomach aching, the taste of beer still fresh in your mouth. You head to the kitchen, drink water, feel slightly better, hit the milk, quickly regret it! Then comes the struggle to find the perfect hangover cure. Bacon always seems to be the first point of call, or anything fried in its own fat for that matter. You feel much better, but after all that grease and fat consumed by your body you go back to feeling sorry for yourself.

Why feel sorry for ourselves! There is a yellow friend that has been overlooked for years, the banana. A recent study showed bananas are the best hangover cure! They contain potassium which you loose when you drink, they are a natural antacid and they are high in magnesium which will stop that constant throbbing in your head.

So next time you awake with one terrible hangover. Maybe a banana should be your first point of contact. Personally I’d do it in the shake form, however others will prefer to cover their banana in bacon for the ultimate hangover killing sensation.

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