Monday, August 9, 2010

The Dark Side of the Internet: A Guided Tour

First of all, before anyone asks, I have no idea how I found any of these. No idea. I follow a lot of random links and then instantly forget how I got there. Just like in real life.

Regardless of where they came from, I have a nice little collection of these online oddities filed away in a bookmarks folder labelled, simply, 'wut'. These are a few of my favourites.

To set the tone, here is the dude with the World's Biggest Chin
.
That is so much chin. It's like four separate chins all combined to form one massive chinny appendage on one poor guy's face. I could die happy if I saw him eating in a restaurant and had the opportunity to say to him, 'Sir, you have a bit of chicken on your... chin,' and it is a whole chicken leg. The poor guy is actually trying to raise money for an operation to have it removed by offering the sale of advertising space on the chin. As my housemates pointed out, this is not a very good offer. Imagine: he finds a sponsor and gets their logo tattooed. Investors grin surreptitiously at each other. Then, he wanders across the street to the hospital and has the whole thing lopped off and tossed aside. Not a lot of bang for your advertising buck. Unless, I suppose, you are promoting an expensive new product that would appeal to surgeons.

So we've started off with a few light-hearted laughs at somebody else's torment, let's move onto something that will almost (if not definitely) knock your socks off.

Time Travel Police

If the title alone hasn't convinced you, you should hurry up and read that. It may be pretty much one big run-on sentence, but it is worth it.

The very first thing the author of this site does is declare that what he is about to say is totally not a hoax. Here's a hint: saying 'THIS ISN'T A HOAX I SWEAR I SWEAR!' before you even tell anyone what you're talking about isn't a good way to convince people that you're telling the truth. Before you have even finished that sentence people will be looking at you with shifty eyes, subtly working out where the nearest exits are.

As soon as the author has established that he is totally not foolin' y'all, he goes on to inform us that the UK government has established some kind of Time Travel Safety Net. Now here's the thing: I don't think that happened. I'm sorry to seem skeptical, mysterious anonymous conspiracy theorist, but I think if a major first world government started spending parliamentary time discussing time travel, I feel like I would have heard about it.

He goes on to say:

You are receiving this E-Mail from the Synchronity Time Police (UK Division) it is a general announcement bringing you News of a New Organisation against Time Travel Crime, our Web Site is still under construction and we are aware that we are the VERY FIRST Synchronized Community fighting Time Travel Crime, but how can we do this if Time Travel is not yet possible? we can't actually arrest any Time Criminals because there aren't any yet but we have set up this service because we think that people should do something NOW to prevent Time Travel ending up in the wrong hands and we don't want it to end up like the internet which is very hard to control and police because it is not owned by one single individual,

I had to cut him off mid-sentence because that last sentence was about three paragraphs of rambling about the internet. First of all, can I just say how much I love the things he chooses to capitalise? Synchronicity Time Police makes sense. But Web Site? News of a New Organisation? Those do not need capital letters, sir and/or ma'am. As for the content itself, well, it kinda speaks for itself, doesn't it? I think any comment I could make would do little but take away from this natural wonder. That being said, I totally call first dibs on doing a Time Travel Police song. Keep your greedy mitts off it, the Gregory Brothers.

Let's move on...

...to the GREAT BAMBOOSICAL.

As far as I can gather, this is a movie musical that aspires to teach people about the benefits of bamboo. Sounds kinda dodgy, but dodgier ideas have worked. The first sign that this isn't one of those comes when you see that their tagline appears to be:

 "You'll laugh the beef right off the menu!"

I... I just... thankyou, the internet. Just. Thankyou.

Despite promoting the apparently hilarious side of bamboo knowledge, this is an issue the producers of Bamboosical take totally seriously. They have a list of facts promoting the health benefits of bamboo-based food products. Hell, they even have a picture of Beck eating a burger, captioned with the phrase 'Beck loves it!'. The best thing about this is that you know I'm not making it up because here is the damn link right here.


But what of the music of Bamboosical? They don't appear to have any sample songs, but here is the product description of their CD:

Ridin' Ranger is the mute hero from the film "The Great Bamboosical." He brings the top secret recipe of the Bamboo Burger™ plant-based patty to feuding Bambooyans and Rednecks. This CD includes 6 cosmically cool cuts from the film Soundtrack for only $9.99 (plus S&H). Profits go towards the cost of filming "The Great Bamboosical". Order your CD today and enjoy a rhythmically rocking ride with Ridin' Ranger!
Obviously the message of Bamboosical is a subtle one. Also, the hero is mute? Isn't it a musical? Isn't he supposed to be preaching the gospel of bamboo through song? A mute hero in a musical could actually be a really good idea, but I am willing to wager that the idea has not been brought to it's full potential here. There is a lot more to see on that site (I am particularly disappointed that the link marked simply 'COWS' doesn't appear to be working), but I can't possibly go through it all. Mainly because I want to go have a hot shower and a lie down and being on the computer is preventing me from doing that.

And so, our tour ends here.

-Smackie Onassis

P.S. If you haven't voted on my poll you are officially not my best friend.