Book Rogers in the 21st Century

Greetings everyone. Just a quick post today because I have to go and wax my face ready for a meeting with the bank manager. Here’s a few links for all you literary types out there in bloggsville:

Firstly, I’d like to draw your attention to the Librivox project. They guys are in the process of attempting to get every book in the public domain converted into audio and available to download, podcast stylee; pretty cool eh?

But they can’t do it without help from people like you, there are opportunities for volunteers to read a chapter or 5, or an entire book if you like, anyway here’s the link:

http://www.librivox.org

The second literary link is to Unblokt- the collaborative writing experiment. For those of you who don’t know about this its essentially an open source novel written by whoever, whenever, one line at a time. The page generates two lines that others have written, which you then have to write the line in between. Be warned, this could be a little addictive:

http://www.eigology.com/unblokt/index.php

Oh yeah you can click on a link on the bottom of the page to read what has been so far, it’s a bit mad.

That’s all for now folks


DWB

Breaking News: Buttmunch Channels Celestial Being Through Spam

Good afternoon guys, here’s another quick post which could save you guys from some unwanted emails. The other day I was looking for some information on web marketing techniques, and I stumbled across http://www.wilsonweb.com/ (I wouldn’t bother if I were you). At first glance this site seemed to offer all the info that I was looking for and promised me that if I subscribed I’d get 5 free E-Books covering several aspects of web marketing and promotion. Now I know your probably thinking wow the DWB must be some kind of tool if he fell for that one; but against my better judgement I signed up using a spare email address.

Sure enough I got an instant response from someone called Dr Ralph F. Wilson sending me a link to the page to get my free goodies. When I clicked on the link and the page was as blank as bats retina, I thought oh well every site gets a bit of down time I’ll try again tomorrow.

The next night (about 22 hours later), I checked my emails and to my dismay found 24 emails off Dr BUTTMUNCH of Wilson web. Infuriated, I immediately clicked on the unsubscribe link and a few days later received an email notifying me of my removal from the mailing list. But then, just when I thought my angst had finally been subdued, I noticed that Dr BUTTMUNCH had appended his email with links for bible studies with the Joyful Heart Ministries!

Who would have though that Butt-munches God type figure would approve of these sort of devious, underhand, viral-marketing techniques in order to ensnare more people into dismissing science in favour of blind faith.

Now before religious zealots come round to burn down my cave and boil me in oil I’d like to clarify one thing:

The DWB neither condones nor recommends ANY religion or belief system
because frankly I don’t give a rats-ass what you believe. However, I DO resent
being sent religious links in response to emails about marketing because the two
are completely unrelated!!

Anyway, just though I’d better let everyone know at least one way to avoid unsolicited crap in your inbox. Avoid wilsonweb.com.

Take it Easy

DWB

Government Health Warning: 80s Movie Parody May Churn Stomachs

Good morning everyone, I’d like to take a moment to apologise for not updating my blog for a while. The truth of the matter is I’ve spent the last two weeks shaving my bare-arsed monkey Royston in preparation for the Jethro Tull tattoo he wants for Christmas.

Like me, some you will undoubtedly know some media studies students/film buffs that may (or may not) have told you about the apparent ‘homo-erotic’ subtext of 80’s high-octane cheese flick Top Gun. When I first heard of this I thought fair enough, but to my dismay this morning when flicking through the music channels I discovered a Top Gun parody with a less than subtle ‘BENT’ subtext.

Those of you in the UK may be way ahead of me on this one, but the (ah ‘hem) artist I’m talking about is Will Young. The snivelling shmuck originally of pop idol fame has really outdone himself this time, wearing a helmet labelled cowboy he’s made himself look fruitier than a male wedding planner’s salad bowl. And that’s not all, the video is interlaced with clips of Mister Young & Co. playing beach volleyball, and the moustached Goose character looks so stereotypically fruity he’d have looked over the top as an extra in the Blue Oyster Club in the Police Academy movies.

Of course it goes without saying that the song is lyrically and musically weak, but that’s hardly surprising. Luckily for me I flicked over the channel and caught an episode of ‘How Its Made’ on Discovery about making envelopes. Which reminds me I’ve got to return to my Telly Box to see how disposable plastic cups are made.

Whether you’ve enjoyed this article or not, feel free to leave a comment and make a Wog Beast feel loved.

DWB

If It's Money For Nothing, Are the Chicks Still Free?

A friend of mine recently told me about a long-term investment offer he discovered on the Internet. Now, the theory behind this was sound, change a few hundred bucks into Iraqi Dinah’s (for which you get 2,500 to the pound). Wait until the war is over in Iraq and the country sorts itself out then change the money back with a few thousand percent profits.

When enquiring about IQD’s, anyone selling them is likely to quote the 1982 value of 3 US Dollars to the IQD as proof of Iraqs haylcon economical stability. But, the fact of the matter is that this rate was set by Saddam and was never traded openly on the world market. These days, the IQD is not used for any significant transactions and the total amount of business conducted through Iraq’s national bank equates to thousands of Dollars making the Dinah pretty insignificant. Also, the ICQ is not traded on the FEX market and can only be bought legitimately from Iraq.

All this aside, the theory still works provided Iraq can sort themselves out economically at some point in the future. The dudes running these ‘unique investment opportunities’, love to quote the recovery of Kuwait’s economy after the Gulf war. However, it is important to note that before the war Kuwait had a stable government and generated more of its income through foreign investments than oil. The war resulted in them losing 100 billion dollars in investment, but despite this the value of their currency increased thanks to a stable government, solvent economy and intact infrastructure. Now lets look at modern day Iraq, which has no stable government, little or no infrastructure, and no foreign income apart from its oil. Additionally, Iraq had entered the war with $125 billion USD debt.

Being a humble cave dwelling being, I’m not trying to suggest how you should or should not invest your money. I’d like to think that 30 years down the line Iraq can sort themselves out, but presently the fact is that as a country Iraq makes less money than a British fish and chip shop. Even if you love betting on long shots I suggest you find out as much as you can about this malarkey so this is good place to start:

http://www.xe.com/iqd.htm

Anyway, that’s all for now. If you liked this article, or have anything you’d like to see on DWB please feel free to leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do.

Take it easy

DWB.

Excuse me for living in a cave, but has the whole world gone crazy?

Good evening troglodytes, I hope all is well. Now before I kickback in my central-heated hole in the ground and play Guess Who with Clint the Stalactite, I have one quick question:

Q: What do Isaac Hayes, Kirsty Alley, Tom Cruise & Beck all have in common?
A: They're all FREAKING NUTS!!

According to Wikipedia these guys, amongst other famous dillweeds are all self declared scientologists. Awesome!!! I hear you say, "it's nice to see Chef from South Park doing his bit for academia and the progress of mankind". So I bet your wondering how Tom Cruise had the time to become an eminent scientologist in between humping the American dream for the last two decades. Well it was easy; all he had to do was sign up with the church of scientology.

For those of you who don't know, the church of scientology is a peculiar 'cult' type of movement that was set up in 1951 by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard who's quasi-religious doctrines allegedly bear distinct similarities with the writings of occultist Alistiar Crowley.

Now I’ll give you a quick background on this Hubbard character before explaining the gist of scientology.
In 1981, reporter Nieson Himmel spoke of time he spent with Hubbard in 1945 and has been quoted as saying:
"Whenever he was talking about being hard up he often used to say that he thought the easiest way to make money would be to start a religion."
Sam Merwin, a sci-fi magazine editor has also been reported to have said about Hubbard:
"I always knew he was exceedingly anxious to hit big money - he used to say he thought the best way to do it would be to start a cult."
For more quotes and literary references please visit http://www.bible.ca/scientology-1million-start-a-religion.htm

So, now you know a bit about Hubbard, the sage of scientology you must be dying to find out what he cooked up to make his 'million bucks outta shmucks (Hollywood or otherwise)'.
Scientology's central beliefs are as follows:

1. People are immortal spirit beings (called thetan's), who possess a mind, body and a lesser genetic entity.
2. Thetans have had many past lives, and memories of these can cause problems in the present day.
3. People are basically good, but are "aberrated" by the memories of traumas.
4. Total infallibility of everything Hubbard (Source) has written or spoken.

Apparently, all our Thetan's flew to Earth 75 million years ago in an interstellar plane that looks exactly like a Douglas DC-8. If you don’t believe me here's a picture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera_in_Scientology_doctrine

So, if all this has wet your appetite for a trip down the garden path into the mind of Hollywood Flakes with more money than sense, I suggest that you read the entire Wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ScientologY#Beliefs_and_practices

You can find out what other saps have subscribed to the newsletter of nonsense that is scientology here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_Scientologists

Now here's the fun part, check out operation clambake’s site that’s been breaking scientology's balls for nearly a decade: http://www.xenu.net/

And last but certainly least (and to show as little bias as possible on behalf of myself), the official website of scientology http://www.scientology.org/

Over and Out

Welcome One & All

Welcome to the new blog of the DWB (Disgruntled Wogbeast), a dark and cynical creature that lives in the bowels of the earth just below a little country called Wales in the UK. Since the Interweb is a whimsical new addition to my subterranean abode, I have no real idea where to begin.

Once upon a time in a cave not too far from here, a friend of mine told me a beautiful joke that I have subsequently told to a dozen people, most of whom did not get it. So now, without further ado, I tell this joke to you:

Why is it that when royalty has a baby they fire a 21 gun salute, but when a nun does all they do is fire a dirty old canon.

Anyhoo, that's all I have time for today because I've got to visit the surface to catch my lunch, hopefully I'll be lucky enough to make lichen & whelk stroganoff, just like Granny used to make.

All the best

Your friendly neighborhood Wogbeast.