According to the new "Rough Guide to England" travel book, England is a nation of "animal-loving, tea-drinking charity donor who love nothing better than forming an orderly queue."

That, and "an irritating and insular country full of overweight, binge-drinking, reality TV addicts," the guide warns tourists:

Gone, it seems, is the image of a genteel country awash with Englishmen politely tipping their bowler hats, groping through the London fog and being kinder to pets than kids.

The writers confess to bafflement over the quirky English, concluding that of the 200 countries the guide reviews there is none "so fascinating, beautiful and culturally diverse yet as insular, self-important and irritating as England."

They said the English are proud of their multi-culturalism and are united by one thing -- their sense of humor.

But there are constant contradictions. In a country priding itself on patriotism, they have a Scottish Prime Minister, an Italian football coach and a Greek married to the Queen.

Even with all that, my trip to London some years ago was the best vacation I've ever had! Link

Watch out beer-loving, porn-watching, iPod-listenin', yacht owners! The big meanie State of California is out to tax you:

As state leaders hunt for politically palatable solutions to the swelling budget shortfall, some Democrats are proposing unorthodox ways to generate cash.

Strip clubs, six-packs, grocery bags and iTunes downloads are all in their sights as alternatives to broad income or sales tax hikes. So are gas guzzlers and yachts -- and a tax loophole for criminals. [...]

Calderon said he was moved to push for levies on downloads such as iTunes because state sales tax laws do not reflect the high volume of purchasing that Californians do online. Consumers can download music from the Internet through Apple's iTunes and other services tax-free, Calderon noted, while they pay sales tax for buying the same music on a compact disc at a store.

His proposal would empower state authorities to collect sales tax on the downloads, increasing the cost of a typical 99-cent song to roughly $1.07. Calderon projects that the bill (AB 1956), which could also apply to pornography downloads, cellphone ring-tones, online books and feature films distributed on the Internet, would raise about $500 million for the state budget.

The idea stalled in committee this month in the face of fierce industry opposition. But like the other proposals, it could be revived at any time, most likely when legislative leaders hammer out a budget agreement this summer.

Calderon said the resistance to his bill did not surprise him. But he is perplexed that he hasn't been able to get more traction for another proposal: a 25% tax on sex toys, strip shows, pornographic magazines and videos and anything else sold in an "adult entertainment venue."

Assemblyman Charles Calderon's bill, needless to say, are unpopular:

"Some people are e-mailing, threatening to come and slug me," said Assemblyman Jim Beall (D-San Jose), who hopes to see a $1.80 tax added to the price of every six-pack of beer sold in the state. "We're getting some pretty nasty comments."

But at least, it's bringing some people together:

A coalition of porn stars, strippers and others in adult entertainment roamed the halls of the Capitol recently to lobby against the Calderon bill (AB 2914).

Evan Halper of the Los Angeles Times has the story: Link

Car ads usually feature cars so clean you can eat off of the hood, not one so dirty we wouldn't even dare write "wash me" with our fingers. Well, leave it to Volkswagen to advertise its Touareg SUV with ... mud!

By the way, did you know that the Touaregs are nomadic people who live in the Sahara desert?

Previously on Neatorama: Scott Wade's Dust Art

In December 1975, Steve Sasson invented something that would, decades later, revolutionize photography: the world's first digital camera:

It had a lens that we took from a used parts bin from the Super 8 movie camera production line downstairs from our little lab on the second floor in Bldg 4. On the side of our portable contraption, we shoehorned in a portable digital cassette instrumentation recorder. Add to that 16 nickel cadmium batteries, a highly temperamental new type of CCD imaging area array, an a/d converter implementation stolen from a digital voltmeter application, several dozen digital and analog circuits all wired together on approximately half a dozen circuit boards, and you have our interpretation of what a portable all electronic still camera might look like.

It was a camera that didn't use any film to capture still images - a camera that would capture images using a CCD imager and digitize the captured scene and store the digital info on a standard cassette. It took 23 seconds to record the digitized image to the cassette. The image was viewed by removing the cassette from the camera and placing it in a custom playback device. This playback device incorporated a cassette reader and a specially built frame store. This custom frame store received the data from the tape, interpolated the 100 captured lines to 400 lines, and generated a standard NTSC video signal, which was then sent to a television set.

http://stevesasson.pluggedin.kodak.com/default.asp?item=687843 - via Presurfer

Photo: blueblythemonster [Flickr]

Flickr user blueblythemonster has the best craft project EVAR: a hand-dyed and embroidered felt Underwood typewriter! Actually, she has more. Lots more: Link

And congrats to blueblythemonster for winning the 2nd Annual Softie Awards for the category "Embroidered to Death"!

Sure the price of gas is hurting a lot of us right now, but there are some that say $120 oil is actually good for consumers in the long run:

"Nobody at Goldman Sachs wants to see a fuel truck pull up and say "Ok, here's your 60,000 gallons of gasoline,'" said Michael Cosgrove, president of the commodities brokerage Amerex Brokers, which handles transactions for both banks and end users of oil like refineries. "Ultimately, it's the consumer."

Which is one reason why $120 oil is necessary - to limit demand in a supply-constrained world.

"I think the market is working," said Joseph Stanislaw, an independent energy adviser at the consulting firm Deloitte & Touche. "It forces us to make decisions as individual consumers that will change our behavior. It needs to be done."

Link

Emily Jo Cureton has a fantastic blog featuring her NY Times Crossword Drawings. These are illustrations inspired by the daily New York Times crossword puzzle, where she cleverly incorporates two or more answers from the puzzle in her art!

Link - via Drawn!

Attention gamers: do you have a hard time firing? Perhaps you're suffering from a medical condition called P.D. (Projectile Dysfunction). But worry not, there is a cure: Stroyent (humanifil killemal).

Here's the viral ad from Enemy Territory: Quake Wars: hit play or go to Link [YouTube] | Stroyent website - via AdFreak

"The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."

- Oscar Wilde, author and playwright

Artist Elsa "Elsita" Mora created these fantastic (and cute to boot!) sculptures out of bits and pieces of flowers and leaves, called
"Flower Girls."

Check out many more examples at her blog: Link - via ohdeeoh

UK online retailer drinkstuff.com has this clever drink coaster set shaped like an "American burger" (I suppose us Yanks just call it "burger"). The buns, tomato, meat patty, cheese, and lettuce all function as drink coasters, and when you're done - stack 'em all up like a burger!

Link - via I Like Totally Love It, thanks Malte Goesche!

This creepy (but kind of neat - in a creepy way) baby face tile is made from clay by Sue Kniffin Davidson.

You can check out her other "baby" ceramic sculptures (don't miss the baby face planter) at her Etsy shop: Link - Thanks lilydustbin!

Le Train de Nulle Part (The Train From Nowhere) is a 233-page French novel written by Michel Thaler. It is written without a single verb.

Sample (from Wikipedia):

Quelle aubaine ! Une place de libre, ou presque, dans ce compartiment. Une escale provisoire, pourquoi pas ! Donc, ma nouvelle adresse dans ce train de nulle part : voiture 12, 3ème compartiment dans le sens de la marche. Encore une fois, pourquoi pas ?

Fool's luck! A vacant seat, almost, in that train. A provisional stop, why not? So, my new address in this nowhere train: car 12, 3rd compartment, forward. Once again, why not?

Thaler said this about verbs: "The verb is like a weed in a field of flowers. You have to get rid of it to allow the flowers to grow and flourish. Take away the verbs and the language speaks for itself." (Source)

If you're looking for a new job, here's a tip: have a firm handshake.

In a new study, scientists put 98 students through mock job interviews with businesspeople. The students also met with trained handshake raters who, unbeknownst to the students, rated their grips. Separately, the businesspeople graded each student's overall performance and hireability. The two group's scores were then compared.

Students who got high handshake marks were also rated most hireable.

"We've always heard that interviewers make up their mind about a person in the first two or three minutes of an interview, no matter how long the interview lasts," said study leader Greg Stewart, associate professor of management and organizations at the University of Iowa. "We found that the first impression begins with a handshake that sets the tone for the rest of the interview."

Link - Thanks Geekazoid!