Are you feeling lucky?

There I was, minding my own business, with the TV on—which is to say, not really paying attention to the screen, when all of a sudden I saw some personage blathering about a colonoscopy sweepstakes.

You heard me: colonoscopy sweepstakes.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at the video here. It features Ozzy and; Sharon Osbourne, so you know it’s legit.

What I wonder is: what's second prize?

Dragon year for high tech

Staying in the holiday spirit of the Year of the Dragon, here’s a story from the NY Times on why US companies are sending operations overseas. The focus is on Apple & China.

Foxconn, highlighted in the story, also manufactures the telecommunications equipment for the company I’m working for (until Friday, when my contract runs out). I myself don’t like the idea that the people in Foxconn’s factories threaten mass suicide because of the working conditions.

But I don’t know where to go, what company or industry to target, where that’s not the case. (Not mass suicide—not yet; just miserable working conditions.)

And I'm just wondering how celebratory the workers at Foxconn and the hundreds of other high-tech feeder factories are feeling about the Year of the Dragon?

Dragon year

Happy New Year. Again.

The Year of the Dragon roared in yesterday, with celebrations around the world. I rather like this video from Helsinki—a little heavy on the drums & then short bursts of dragon & lion dances.

It’s meant to be an auspicious year. I hope so.

You really have to hope for the best from a New Year’s party that lasts two weeks.

Bulken Balkans Part 2

Ah, someone at the Military Channel must have actually watched the “Beast of the Balkans” episode of their “Nazi Collaborators” series. The one about the Croatian Ustasha officer Dinko Šakić.

You’ll recall I noticed during the original broadcast that the banner across the bottom of the screen read “Beast of the Bulkens”:

 

Well, I happened to catch a rebroadcast of the episode yesterday. (Yes, I lead a very sad life.) And they’ve corrected the banner:

 

Someone must have called them about it.

Darkness at noon, Part 2

You should not be surprised to hear that Netizens in droves turned out to step into Wednesday’s Great Wikipedia Blackout void—and churned out masses of fake facts on Twitter.

Some of my favorites:

“Ferrets are a legume.”

“Pluto is no longer a planet due to copyright claims from the Disney Corporation.”

The exceedingly hopeful and time-bending “Arsenal has won the Champions League 8 times in the last 6 years.”

“The Keystone XL Pipeline is the 2^nd-largest size for this project. The others were Keystone S. M, L and XXL.”

“Time travel was invented next Thursday.”

“PIPA is SOPA’s prettier younger sister and gets all the attention on her big day.”

“In 1983 Sweden changed the colours of their flag to blue and yellow after the phenomenal success of the IKEA brand.”

This one is just plain wrong, though: “Lego is a Dutch word meaning ‘lost in a vacuum cleaner’” It’s actually a Danish word meaning “lost in a vacuum cleaner”. Or else “lost in your dog’s digestive tract.” Maybe both.

Tyger, tyger, getting high

I know, Epiphany was a week & a half ago, so I shouldn't be bringing up any Christmas-related subject..

But I think this video of big cats reacting to cast-off Christmas trees like some really potent catnip rather transcends any particular holiday season:

& given that we're heading round third base to the South Carolina primary, I thought we could all use something without any discernible political message.

Darkness at noon (& the rest of the day)

I hope you don’t need to look up anything on Wikipedia today; at least not in English.

The online crowd-sourced encyclopedia has shut down its English-language pages for the day to protest proposed legislation in the US Congress.

Ditto Reddit, BoingBoing and the Cheezburger Network, all of which are social media sites, without the presence of Wikipedia. (Although I know a lot of people who are going to be pissed off about not being able to access LOLCats for a day.)

(And sorry about giving you links to “we’re shut down” banners. Try them after today.)

I don’t think there’s a day goes by that I’m not directed to Wikipedia, because I’m always looking up acronyms I find in my job search. It’s not anything I’d bet the ranch on, but it is a useful quick-&-dirty research resource, and they do a good job of weeding out whack-jobs.

As for LOLCats—well, sometimes you’ve just got to get away from it all. So that's going to be a loss, too

I don’t credit any of our Congressmorons with the ability to find or use any of these sites, but I expect their staffers are going to be bereft for the day. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the Stop Online Pirace Act (SOPA) & Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) bills.

(Look—it’s really hard for me to give you a quick explanation of them because of Wikipedia being down…)

But let me just close with this thought: I'm guessing a lot of homework will be turned in late on Thursday in classrooms all over America.

Silvered Seattle

Brr—the Emerald City is under snow, with heaps more predicted for tomorrow.

Given my own experience with how the area copes with the white stuff, all I can say is: Thank God I’m long gone from there. Chaos will not be the word.

Not Maru, Part 3

You may have missed this in the run-up to the holidays, but apparently:

1.      No. 10 Downing Street (official residence of the Prime Minister of Great Britain) has a rodent problem.

2.      Instead of calling in exterminators (even humane ones) David Cameron adopted a rescue cat, which was expected to mouse for its keep. But Larry the Cat apparently was more interested in feline things like napping than catching rats.

3.      Subsequently Larry has been banned from the Camerons’ flat, which was recently redecorated to the tune of £64K.

4.      There’s a brouhaha over the whole thing in the British press.

As for #4—of course there is.

As for #3—no one seems to have inquired if Larry likes to scratch the Aubusson carpets or has been marking his territory in the high-tech second kitchen. There are limits to the give-and-take of cat servitude. Also, no one has thought to ask whether Larry even notices he’s been kept out of the flat. He’s a cat—if he wanted in, he’d be in.

As for #2—just because he’s a cat doesn’t mean he’s a mouser. If his mama didn’t teach him what to do with rodents, he’s not going to know he’s supposed to kill them.

As for #1—why is no one upset that the iconic seat of British leadership is infested with rats?

I’m just sayin’…

Retailing history

Weird times in retail.

As you no doubt know, Sears has hit the skids, announcing just a couple of weeks ago that they’re closing 120 stores (both Sears & Kmart). Now, in the past few days I’ve seen TV commercials for the “Sears MLK Event”.

That event would be a big sale on appliances.

Yep—the erstwhile giant is marking the achievements of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning adherent of Ghandi by flogging refrigerators & dishwashers. Marked down, of course.

Well, yeah.

I don’t know whether such a crass sale is an outcome of the morass the company is in, or if they’re in trouble because of the sort of strategic thought that comes up with a Martin Luther King “event”.

(I couldn’t find a video of the actual commercial. Closest I could get online was this. Evidently MLK’s life is worth more than just appliances. Mattresses, too.)

Look out for many more “events” next year. You know Macy’s is not going to be far behind on this.