Speaking of holidays....

Ever wondered what to do with all those tacky holiday momento's you get every summer?

Well, Michael Hughes, who works as a freelance photographer in Germany, has created a set of optical illusions in which tacky souvenir replicas of famous landmarks are placed in front of the real thing...




























































More here--- > clicky!

Thank you BBC!

The award for the most syndicated TV show on the planet goes to…………………

’Dancing with the Stars’!

Excuse me?

Dancing with the Stars (or Strictly Come Dancing as it is known in the UK).

Now, as far as I am concerned Dancing with the Stars has a lot to answer for. The emergence of every city, town and village hall suddenly being turned into a bloody ballroom so the plebs can go along and hope to be ballroom experts in an hour. At the end of the day it’s an excuse for old people to turn up, swap partners and rub their dried up genitalia against anyone who will oblige. My friend, who is a straight up, die-cast Yorkshire man, had to endure a night of watching this vomit inducing activity because ‘our lass wants to try Salsa’ (I would rather dip my Dorito’s in it).

Add to this the mind numbing, insipid conversation that I have to endure on a Monday morning by the females in the office for whom this spectacle has become the most important thing in their lives.

The only remotely entertaining thing that has ever happened on this show was on the American version when Marie Osmond, WHO WAS A CONTESTANT, was so bored by the whole thing she actually fell asleep.

Live on air.

The Phoenix Mars Polar Lander has died.

The Phoenix Mars Polar Lander has died. It stopped transmitting data last week as the Martian winter approaches and the power the Sun has to recharge the solar cells is diminished.
The last signal was received by NASA on November 2nd and concludes what is deemed an incredibly successful mission.

Phoenix was launched on August 4 2007 and touched down over 8 months later on May 25 2008. During its time on Mars the Lander dug trenches to reveal ice, dug holes and transferred regolith to the onboard ovens. The biggest accomplishment was the discovery of water ice below the surface which the NASA engineers were able to watch sublime away.

Along with these discoveries Phoenix transmitted more that 25,000 pictures of the surrounding terrain and the local environment around the craft.

Meanwhile in an incredible feat of endurance the 2 rovers Opportunity and Spirit are still roving the surface gathering information about the history of the red planet.

Well done to the boffins at NASA for another successful mission and I look forward to the next major Mars adventure.

Inspiration comes in many forms

Next time someone says it cannot be done or it's just too hard show them this guy...

Props to you KitsuneNoYume and your friend Mark Felling for reminding us able bodied fools how easy we really have it.
http://kotaku.com
and more
http://boardsus.playstation.com

Just booked my holiday for 2009

Don't have much time for this blog...got stuff to do

Its a place called St Maarten in the Carribean, never heard of it myself. Which is a good thing. It must be really quiet and untouched. I'm not normally a beach kind of guy but would kill for a week in the sun doing nothing.
Found a thing on the web about it..will have a proper look later. Hope its nice.

This is NOT naturewatch

But sometimes you see something and have to share it with the world.


Following on from Mr_Fett's parasitic foot story below (the one where he blamed it on a spider) I was reminded of an extraordinary piece of footage of the male jumping spider (Salticidae, fact fans) and the lengths it will go to to put on a pretty little dance for a bit of female attention. Hardly seems worth it if you ask me.


In the words of the late, great Phil Lynott - "If that female jumpin' spider dont wanna know, forget her"

(Oh, and turn your speakers up)