Taking Life's Final Exit - It is common for people in the last stages of life, the bedridden and the dying - to talk of taking a journey, meeting with people, or being in a preparatory stage of transit. What does this mean, for us, our loved ones, and consciousness? [LA Times link - reg. required - use buttafucco/demanteca as login/pass or check out the Yahoo News version of the story]

Curious George: Playlists. Why are MP3 playlists all over the Web? Google finds countless thousands of hits. What ends does posting a list with 1000+ songs serve, besides the fact that one simply can? Just curious... I seem to run up against tons of such superfluous content when I'm searching for music details.

Postal Experiments. Deer tibia. Our mailing specialist received many strange looks from both postal clerks and members of the public in line when he picked it up at the station, 9 days. The clerk put on rubber gloves before handling the bone, inquired if our researcher were a "cultist," and commented that mail must be wrapped. more inside

Spirits of dead climbers haunt Mount Everest - and funeral rites need to be performed to aid their transit into the 'next world' (or whatever). So says Pemba Dorji Sherpa. And he should know, because he's the climber who got to the summit of the world's highest mountain in the record time of 8 hours 10 minutes. more inside

Cybersex in a "The Sims"-like world! Yes, who wants to play a massively-multiplayer online RPG that allows you to tenderly caress the avatars of boys pretending to be girls? Hot pixelated pictures within! [Via the site I linked to.]

Crispin Glover On David Letterman Need I say more? [wmv file]

Hook 'em while they're young, and keep 'em hooked when they're older.

Disastrous? The European election thing didn't turn out the numbers of voters the men-in-grey-suits wanted. They called the election a disaster. No, what's disastrous is that people don't feel that voting will influence anything. What's disastrous is the fact that many people consider their nominal representatives non-representative. What's disastrous is the failure of a pan-European democracy. Sorry 'bout the News-filter. Wanna buy a hole on the Intarweb? A wedding dress?

Oh, this is much fun. Schoolchildren illustrate idioms, drawing pictures of "a bee in her bonnet," "a hill of beans," "a penny for your thoughts." One of my faves: What it looks like to "have a crush on someone." Heh.

Curious, George: Decent Chat? Several recent posts seem to suggest that we monkeys are looking for some decent virtual conversation. Are there any quality chat rooms online? more inside

Khazaria [map]. The Khazars [wikipedia] were a Turkic people [wikipedia] that settled in contemporary southern Russia and Ukraine and converted to Judaism. more inside

Pen Pr0n

Hhmmm, if I ever get hard-up for cash I may consider this approach.......... Andrea Fraser, a well regarded artist, admits "This is one of the most complicated pieces I've ever done." Yeah, it's tough going thru the whole Kama Sutra with an unidentified American collector who paid $20,000 to participate. The results; an hour of 'art'.

Web comics! Dr. Fun was the first comic on the world wide web. Where the Buffalo Roam appeared earlier in a Usenet group Now, there are so many to enjoy.

Could This Be The Most Ridiculous Thing I've Ever Posted? Just hitting this could be a colossal waste of your time. It could be completely unredeeming. Futile. Later, flames of rage could engulf you, causing you unmanagably risky behavior. The whole world would be like that movie with all those zombies at Marks & Sparks. I use the slangy form to show you I'm with it, but all it does is forever taints me as an ass who pretends to shop in london. And if I really wanted to pass myself off as an English Person, I'd have said "film", not "movie". And I would have mentioned Daleks, or started humming a Sting song, or said "Merseybeat" or "Gear" like the Beatles did. I bought a Clash record once. I've eaten curry. I could be English. So Feck Off, Chum-- I'm English. more inside

Black People Love Us! Is it a joke? What kind of joke? Should we be offended or endlessly amused? The letters page certainly doesn't clear things up.

Herb Walker's Archive of Books I stumbled over these archived books while looking for information on herbs -- some titles are available elsewhere online, but others seem to be unique to this site. Anyway, here's Herb Walker's Full-text Archives and an unpredictable and eclectic collection it is, with over 220 titles. Happy exploring.

So, you've got a News Satire site, and you want to get some attention. What do you do? What do you do? Attack the Onion, of course. please beleive me that I have no vested interest in promoting this site. Honest. Really!

Jurannessic. "At a time when there were no film makers, no technicians, no cameras and even no lights, a caveman created the first porno." [Flash, possibly NSFW.]

CIA Torture Book Curious about those super cool torture techniques that the CIA used in Vietnam. Learn more from this Washington Post article. Believe it or not, the methods are very similiar to what were used on Iraqi prisoners. (via Talk Left)