Alex Santoso's Blog Posts
Officials in the Philippines have just issued health warnings for people to get tetanus vaccinations before they ... flagellate themselves and are nailed to the cross!
Previously on Neatorama: Filipino CrucifixionThat's because on Good Friday dozens of devout Catholic Filipinos re-enact the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in a very real way:
The health department has strongly advised penitents to check the condition of the whips they plan to use to lash their backs, the Manila Times newspaper reports.
They want people to have what they call "well-maintained" whips. [...] And they advise that the nails used to fix people to crosses must be properly disinfected first. Often people soak the nails in alcohol throughout the year.
In the northern city of San Fernando alone there will be three separate improvised Golgothas - the biblical name for the hill where Jesus was crucified.
Four people there have pledged to have their feet and hands nailed to wooden crosses, while others will flog themselves while walking barefoot through villages.
Japan has just appointed a new ambassador: Doraemon the robot cat!
Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura appointed the cat an "anime ambassador," handing a human-sized Doraemon doll an official certificate at an inauguration ceremony, along with dozens of "dorayaki" red bean pancakes
— his favorite dessert — piled on a huge plate.
Komura told the doll, with an unidentified person inside, that he hoped he would widely promote Japanese animated cartoons, or "anime."
Link (Photo: Itsuo Inouye / AP) - Thanks Sal!
Photo: cybele [Flickr], based on Marie Tess [Flickr]
Happy Easter, everyone! More fun Happy Easter Island peeps-themed ePostcards at Candy Blog - Thanks Cybele!
Jeremy Barker of Popped Culture blog wrote to us about this: a compendium
of 50 pop culture versions of Leonardo da Vinci's iconic painting The Last Supper.
This one above is The Simpsons Last Supper:
Depicting Homer Simpson with his beer-swilling disciples at Moe's is inspired, but my one complaint is how many minor characters there are in the bar, making some guy I don't even recognize as Judas. The image comes from the end of Thank God It's Doomsday.
Link - Thanks Jeremy!
In this 1974 cult favorite documentary by Jamie Uys, titled Animals are Beautiful People, there is a segment where they showed that animals are just like (some) people because ... they like getting drunk, too!
... But after a few weeks the Merulas get overripe and they start dropping from trees. Then all of the animals wade in and gorge themselves on the rotting fruits. It starts fermenting in their tummies and turns into very a potent brew. So on the way home, things start happening to them ...
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] to see how hammered animals look like! Thanks esa!
I'm a big fan of David Chen's Always Watching blog and I like typography, so this post is like a dream come true: a list of the neatest kinematic typography ("moving text", where words are used in lieu of people in a particular movie dialogue): http://www.alwayswatching.org/features/great-scenes-television-and-film-told-using-only-typography - Thanks Jon Jason, Andy and Devindra!
If you like the post above, you'll love this one: a typography pop-up book ABC3D by Marion Bataille.
Fubiz got the video clip: http://www.fubiz.net/blog/index.php?2008/03/20/1491-popup-by-marion-bataille - Thanks Guillaume A.!
Want to go to places no tourist ever dream of visiting? Like Chernobyl, Beirut, and Congo? Well, the VICE Guide to Travel is the the travel guidebook for you!
But even those places don't compare to where Shane Smith and his team managed to go next: North Korea, the Hermit Kingdom.
The first leg of the trip was a flight into northern China. At
the airport the North Korean consulate took our passports and all of our money, then brought us to a restaurant. We were sitting there with our tour group, and suddenly all the other diners left and these women came out and started singing North Korean nationalist songs.We were thinking, “Look, we were just on a plane for 20 hours. We’re jet-lagged. Can we just go to bed?” but this guy with our group who was from the LA Times told us, “Everyone in here besides us is secret police. If you don’t act excited then you’re not going to get your visa.”
So we got drunk and jumped up onstage and sang songs with the girls. The next day we got our visas. A lot of people we had gone with didn’t get theirs. That was our first hint at just what a freaky, freaky trip we were embarking on...
http://www.vbs.tv/shows/north-korea/ - Episode 1 of their trip (scroll down the right-hand side "related videos" link for the rest of the installments) - Thanks Dave!
Consider this: you have a balance on your credit card and you've been diligent in paying the statements on time. Then BAM! Your credit card company double or even triple your interest rate for no apparent reason.
Welcome to the world of universal default:
When Ed Schwebel was whittling down his mound of credit card debt at an interest rate of 9.2 percent, the MBNA Corporation had a happy and profitable customer. But this summer, when MBNA suddenly doubled the rate on his account, Mr. Schwebel joined the growing ranks of irate cardholders stunned by lenders' harsh tactics. [...]
"I paid the bills the minute the envelope hit the desk," said Mr. Schwebel, who had accumulated $69,000 in debt over five years before the rate increase. "All of a sudden in July, they swapped it to 18 percent. No warning. No reason. It was like I was blindsided."
The practice, called universal default, started after a rash of bankruptcy filings in the mid-to-late 1990's and has increasingly become standard in the industry. While MBNA declined to comment on any specific customer's account, its general counsel, Louis J. Freeh, the former F.B.I. director, said in a statement that it was being prudent by raising rates when it had reason to think the risk of not being repaid had increased.
Lenders decided they needed to watch for signs of trouble elsewhere, like missed car payments, he said. In those cases, he added, there are only two logical responses: "We're not going to let you have this credit card loan anymore and we're going to say, 'Pay it off,' or we can say, 'You're now more risky; we're going to raise your rate.' "
If you think that the Fed lowering interest rates would bring down your credit card's interest, think again. Here's an interesting article by Patrick McGeehan about how regular people get squeezed by crazy high credit card rates: Link
See also Frontline's Secret History of the Credit Card - Thanks MoonCake!
And why are these credit card companies able to charge usury-level interest rates? Because they're incorporated in states that have repealed or don't have usury rates (From an old sister site of Neatorama)
The game play of Puzzle Boy flash game (designed by Atlus) is simple, but the game is maddeningly addictive!
All you have to do is guide the little boy in a blue hat from one end of the screen to the goal by navigating through a series of obstacles. It's not as easy as it looks ...
Link - via Blue's News
Dicewars is a pretty old game, but I've never learned to play it and the website doesn't have any instruction.
On the umpteenth time it's suggested to Neatorama, I've finally played it for the first time ... and I'm hooked!
Here's how you should start playing it: select the 2 Players mode (you'll be purple). When it's your turn, click on a purple area, and then click a neighboring green area that has fewer dice. The computer will "roll" the dice for you and if yours come up higher, then the area attacked will turn purple. You can end your turn at any time, but it makes sense to attack until you can't win anymore.
If this is too easy, then you can move to the 3, 4, 5 players and so on mode.
Link [Flash] - Thanks (and darn you for introducing such an addictive game) Jerse!
Ever see the mall kiosk that lets you put your mug shot in a pose (then print it on a t-shirt)?. Well, this is the web-equivalent: Face in Hole.
Face in Hole makes it pretty darn easy for you to put your face (or those of your co-workers) in a famous person's body. Like the James mono-Brond that I made using New York cabbie Azize Hasad's photo from a previous Neatorama post (sorry, Azize!)
Loads of fun :) Link [Flash] - Thanks Carlos Alves!
We've posted about Radhakant Bajpai's unusual world record of longest ear hair before, but it seems that his ear tufts won't stop growing: the Indian grocer ear hair now measured almost 10 inch (25 cm), nearly double his 2003 record of 5.19 inches (13.2 cm).
Don't believe me? Just watch the video clip: hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - Thanks Emperor!
Shaun McLane just posted a neat list about some obscure Disney facts on Listropolis blog. Some are new to me, like this cheeky one:
5. Flash Mountain - No, not Splash Mountain, Flash Mountain. Flash Mountain isn’t really a place. It’s actually a phenomenon where woman flash their breasts as they’re going down Splash Mountain. It’s much more common than you’d expect, and if you watch the logs coming over the drop, you’re bound to experience Flash Mountain. A picture is snapped as you go over the falls, and now they are heavily monitored for flashes, middle fingers, and gang signs. If any of those show up, the picture won’t print, and you’ll be left with only a story to tell.
You'll just have to go to Listropolis to find the Flash Mountain link as it's NSFW.
http://www.listropolis.com/?p=68 [Don't worry, the list itself is SFW] - Thanks Shaun!
Email This Post to a Friend