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Alternating car plates in Milan

I had to leave the motorbike at home on Thursday since there is too much pollution in Milan. The government continues to use the same workaround as they always have the last years: limit who can drive depending on your car plate. Talk about racism! Thursday was the turn of the odd plates so I was stuck with public transport.

There must be better ways of solving the pollution problem in a big city. What about:

• Reducing prices or give free tickets on public transport when the pollution passes the max limit?


• Always blocking cars/motorbikes that don't have catalytic engines?

I don't give up easily, so I had a look at the official document Circolazione a targhe alterne nei giorni 20 e 27 gennaio, 3 e 10 febbraio 2005 and found that creative people may avoid the ban (even if you drive a crap Hummer or another smog spewing SUV) if:

• there are at least 3 persons in the vehicle. Not an option on my BMW C1 but I guess I can take the kids to work in my car.


• you are an information worker. I work in the sector of informatica (informatics) but I guess that does not count


• vehicles belonging to ministers of faiths of any belief used for the functions of the ministry. Wait a minute, this sounds interesting! Maybe I should change faith and join the Cult of Linux. Nah, better to go for a religion that isn't full of brainwashed people. What about: The Church of UML, The Holy Prompt or The Church of Windows?

To Be Continued (unless I am arrested during the next traffic block)

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Dead man improving

What else can you do, but improve, if you are already dead?

Family members got a call Monday night that Green had been killed when he was hit by a car in the intersection of U.S. 401 and N.C. 39. Several hours later, a trooper with the state Highway Patrol came to tell them that Green wasn't dead - a medical examiner at the morgue had discovered Green breathing.

The team of four people responsible for declaring Green dead are suspended with pay:

Though state law outlines how people can be declared brain dead, no statute says who is authorized to declare a person dead, said Dr. John Butts, chief medical examiner for North Carolina. "As a practical matter, people are regularly proclaimed dead by medical personnel who are not physicians," Butts said.

Wish I didn't know that...

Via [Boing Boing]

 

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Scary hardware

Meeting this thing on the road would scare the crap out of anybody:

Then  you realize it's friendly and not something from the set of The War Of the Worlds.

Via [Neopoleon.com]

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MSN Messenger 7.0 discussion gets out of hand

It started with a MSN Messenger security alert, but quickly degenerated to a competition in writing the most offensive post. I don't think I have seen the F-word used in a page so many times before.

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Disturbing eBay auctions

More disturbing eBay items on Daily Disturbing Auctions!

Priceless crap like BID FOR A DATE WITH THIS FINE YOUNG MAN and SHRUNKEN HEAD WITCH DOCTOR'S MUMMY ZOMBIE SKULL

Via [Gibson Blog]

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Need help? Get your slave today on eBay

This one is just priceless: eBay offers Low Priced African Slaves. Big Selection!

 

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Gay Bomb

Make Love Not War with the Gay Bomb

The US military, planned to use stink bombs, chemicals that cause bad breath, and a so-called "gay-bomb" that would make enemy soldiers irresistible to one another as part of a range of non-lethal, but disruptive and morale-damaging weapons.

 

 

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Crap country lyrics

Heavy metal lyrics can be bad, but country lyrics are worse. The Country Western Song Generator allows you to make even the most creative country artist jealous:

I met her in the Stone Age wrestlin' gators;
I can still recall the neon sign she wore;
She was drownin' in the quicksand with Miss Piggy,
    and I knew no guy would ever love her more;
The judge declared I'd have my rash forever;
She said to me that Rolaids made her high;
But who'd have thought she'd boogie with her guru;
But that's the way that pygmies say goodbye. 

Via [linkfilter.net]

 

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Purring Bill Gates?

I'm not sure what's worse for my health: the Hello Kitty Ferrari or Bill Gates showing what he's got:

Via [The Red Ferret Journal]

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Purring Ferrari

Noooooooooo! I can understand a cute Fiat 500 with a Pink Panther theme, but whoever did this to a Ferrari should have a mental exam

Via [Gizmodo]

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Creative directions with MapPoint

Go to www.mappoint.msn.com and generate directions from Haugesund, Norway to Trondheim, Norway

Start:  Haugesund, Rogaland, Norway
End:  Trondheim, Sør-Trøndelag, Norway
Total Distance: 1685.9 Miles
Estimated Total Time: 47 hours, 31 minutes

Via [/dev/null]

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The worsts disasters ever

The list has not been updated for the earthquake and tsunami disaster yet, but I guess it will end up as one of the top 5 deadliest disasters in the history of mankind.

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Violently sick or possessed?

I never understood what violently sick meant until this weekend. I never asked to learn find out in the first place but after this weekend I know. Just one of life's little lessons I guess.

If you have just eat, or plan to eat in the foreseeable future I guess it's better to move on to the next post as it get's nasty. No pictures but if you see pictures n your mind when reading Stephen King novels or easily get offended I guess you'd better stop.

I don't mind being sick enough to throw up. I was frequently car sick when I was a kid and it never bothered me. If I was lucky enough to eat a chocolate, I would wipe of the chocolate and continue eating like the happy kid I was. But this weekend was a different story, I was about to learn what violently sick meant.

On Saturday afternoon I started feeling "funny" while working on the latest DIY project with my brother in law (a new bathroom in the cellar). It was not finished yet so I decided to end of the day and head for the bed in the mid afternoon. Didn’t last more than 30 minutes before I had to get up and pray to the porcelain God

And pray I did, with all my heart (and then some). Normally throwing up ends with some yucky stuff coming up and that's it. A sip of water and I can head of to bed and sleep a for couple of days until it all wears of. But this time I almost blacked out while puking my guts out. Literally.  I don't know for sure, but I guess it was the stomach acids making my throat hurt for the rest of the evening. I tried a tiny sip of water. It lasted a couple of minutes before I was back at the altar confessing my sins. At times I had a hard time choosing which end of the body to pray with. Roberto Benigni can explain the other end of the story (MP3) a lot better than me.

Slightly better today but still a spaced enough to have a one tracked mind: crap and crapability..

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Crap Hummer

Its no secret what I think about Hummers and other crap SUV's. I just can't help it: they break my balls in a major way.

So, the devil in me had a great time today when I found the news of a 22 year old Jeep rescuing a Hummer stuck behind the crapper. Why bother? Leave it where it belongs!

Via [The Red Ferret Journal]

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USB Cup Warmer

This thing is just unnatural:

take a break when you go for coffee. Good for the brain and the body.

avoid big cups and open bottles close to your PC, especially laptops.

Then again; some people get hot all over by USB gadgets like the USB Cup Warmer:

Why is it that a really good cuppa always seems to cool at 10 times the normal rate when you're working at your computer, it's really very annoying. Well at last there's a suitably techy solution in the USB cup warmer. Simply plug this little gadget into your USB port, wrap the Velcro heat-pad round your steaming cuppa, and it'll extend your drinking time by up to 30 minutes bliss.

Via [The Red Ferret Journal]

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New 'Shark Tank' mail delivery format

I have subscribed to Shark Tank for many years. They used to send the whole Shark Tank for the day in a single plain text e-mail. Just perfect for someone who reads mail on the Pocket PC.

Then, in mid December, they changed and started sending only the intro part of the message with a link to the full contents on the web server. I contacted them via the feedback mail alias (online@computerworld.com) and they explained that the have moved to a web delivery for cost reasons. Probably surely because they earn more money on the web ads than the plain text ads in mail messages.

I got a great Christmas gift though. For a few days during Christmas when they started sending the full Shark Tank again. Then I put my foot in it big time and send this mail..

Hi.
I was -very- happy to receive the full message of today's Shark Tank!
 
I do hope you will continue to deliver the whole Shark Tank next year as well as I frequently read mails on my Pocket PC which does not have the IE 6 features you describe.
 
Thanks!

24 hour later they thanked me for the feedback and fixed the "technical glitch" so I was back to the castrated version again! I hope you have more luck telling them what you think about the new Shark Tank format I did.

I have unsubscribed from the news letter and tried the Shark Tank RSS feed but it shows even less than the mail. I'll get my daily dose of fun from Dilbert and Monty from now on.

 

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Worst excuses for driving too fast

Speed For Life has collected the top 10 execuses for being caught driving to fast in Northumbria over the past year:.

1. I had passed out after seeing flashing lights, which I believed to be UFOs in the distance. The flash of the camera brought me round from my trance.


2. I was in the airport's flight path and I believe the camera was triggered by a jet overhead, not my car


3. I had a severe bout of diarrhoea and had to speed to a public toilet


4. There was a strong wind behind my car which pushed me over the limit


5. My friend had just chopped his fingers off and I was rushing the fingers to hospital


6. The vibrations from the surfboard I had on the roof rack set off the camera


7. I had to rush my dying hamster to the vets


8. A violent sneeze caused a chain reaction where my foot pushed down harder on the accelerator


9. There was a suspected case of foot and mouth and I had to rush to see the cow concerned


10. The only way I could demonstrate my faulty clutch was to accelerate madly.

 

 

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Oddest news from 2004

Yahoo Oddly Enough has published its selection of the weirdest news from 2004.

Some of the best/worst items:

• A cost-cutting German theater was berated for using just four dwarves instead of seven in their Snow White show.


• A Norwegian court acquitted a man accused of raping a sleeping woman after he said he was also asleep at the time.


• A Malaysian man shot his wife dead after he mistook her for a monkey picking fruit behind their house.


• And a Zambian man hanged himself in shame after his wife rushed into their house to investigate a noise and found him having sex with a chicken. The chicken was slaughtered afterwards.

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Are you a Squatter?

What is this?

A support seat for someone with a particularly large butt? No, it's the squatters platform:

Two-thirds of humanity use the squatting position to answer the call of nature.
In those cultures, appendicitis, diverticulosis, hemorrhoids, colitis, prostate disorders and colon cancer are virtually unknown ...

Not only that, it apparently makes you get rid of more crap as well

Recommended by doctors and yoga teachers for easier and more complete elimination.

Wow! I guess my colon should thank me for moving to Italy where public bath rooms are Turkish toilets holes in the floor  (finding a clean one can be difficult at times)

.

Not to be confused with the other type of squatting

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Flying with a possessed kid

The trip back from my vacation started well. So well that it could only get worse.

It did.

My tech support was happy heading home after vacation. Relaxed on the plane, drank the bottle of OJ and was a little angel until the fasten seatbelt sign came on. I don't know what she had against the seatbelt, but it must have been personal. Imagine the scene in The Exorcist where Max von Sydow is trying to exorcise the beast: I talk calmly, sing a bit and promise the impossible when we land but the possessed girl didn't want to be outdone by an old movie, so she started spinning in the belt. Keeping to the script she even threw up. I know it sounds too hard to believe, but she did it on purpose. I know because she continued trying for the rest of the flight while she was screaming Non vooooooooogio at the top of her lungs.

I'm really glad Copenhagen airport is the most kid friendly airport I have been to so she could play and I could recuperate before the next leg.

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Hot moments

It may happen...
that you have been out skiing on a cold winter day. Everything, that can be, is frozen. You shake off the snow, take off the ski boots and head for the thing you have been dreaming of the last hours: the warm oven.

The very warm oven.

As you stand there, you finally start to feel warm all over and enjoy life again. The heat spreads through the body and you feel like a man again. But something else is spreading as well. The smell of burning wood is mixed with a bad smell. The smoke rising over your shoulders gets your attention.  You step away and turn around...

 

2 seconds later you are butt naked in front of a mirror checking your behind for permanent damage...

I haven't seen the naked butt of the victim but he sits without problems so it can't be too bad.