Wheelie Bin Stickers

I'm very confused. A dead baby is found in a recycling center. That's happened before. But then the authorities issue "wheelie bin stickers" as a response. Did they look like this?

Posted By: Paul - Wed Oct 21, 2009 - Comments (6)
Category: Death, Babies and Toddlers, Foreign Customs, Europe

The Redneck Games

Despite the French captioning and source, this video is all in English, for your Redneck Enjoyment.

Posted By: Paul - Fri May 22, 2009 - Comments (1)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Contests, Races and Other Competitions, Ethnic Groupings, Regionalism, Stereotypes and Cliches, Stupidity, Foreign Customs

Weird Canadian Commercials

In an effort to prove to Nethie that not all Canadian commercials are horrifically realistic scenes of brutal workplace accidents, I am pleased to present some of the weirdest commercials to grace our northern TV screens.

These are all part of the same campaign of ads for Mac's Milk's Frosters drinks. Basically, it's convenience store advertising some new flavours (not flavors) of slush drinks that they had just come out with. At least, I think that's what they were advertising. The whole WTF line of ad more or less just gave us insight into how deanged ad-men really are.



Yeah, I think Hate Crime is a good place to start. It really says nothing about the product in question, but speaks volumes about the sanity (or lack thereof) of those invoved in creating the commercial.

More in extended >>

Posted By: kingmonkey - Thu May 21, 2009 - Comments (2)
Category: Dreams and Nightmares, Food, Advertising, Surrealism, Foreign Customs

Tribute to the Doner Kebab

Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 09, 2009 - Comments (7)
Category: Food, Music, Foreign Customs, Cartoons, Middle East

Strange Congo Signage

World-traveler Peter Danssaert contributes this photo of a sign he saw in Kisangani, the Congo.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Mar 04, 2009 - Comments (11)
Category: Business, Advertising, Money, Signage, Billboards, Foreign Customs, Africa

Japanese Food Fair

How many of these foods can you identify?

For the answer key, go here.


Japanese Food Fair from timtak on Vimeo.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Jan 25, 2009 - Comments (7)
Category: Food, Foreign Customs, Asia

Fantomas

We are approaching, in 2011, the one-hundredth anniversary of the creation of Fantomas, villianous antihero adored by the French. But something about Fantomas just doesn't translate to American tastes, and he's never been popular here.

Somehow I don't think this trailer from Fantomas's 1964 self-titled film will help win over the US audience.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 23, 2009 - Comments (4)
Category: Costumes and Masks, Movies, Scary Criminals, Foreign Customs, 1910s

The Camisards

A group of fanatical religious terrorists, holed up in their mountain redoubts and battling an occupying government. Surely this description must apply to some modern-day group and situation, such as in Afghanistan, or perhaps Africa...? And the terrorists will in all likelihood be Islamic, right?

Well, not all the time.

Consider the French Protestant dissenters known as the Camisards.

I learned about this historical incident from reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey. (You can find the entire text of the book here.) Stevenson traveled through the region once ruled by the Camisards, and evoked the romance of their rebellion.

There, a hundred and eighty years ago, was the chivalrous Roland, "Count and Lord Roland, generalissimo of the Protestants in France," grave, silent, imperious, pock-marked ex-dragoon, whom a lady followed in his wanderings out of love. There was Cavalier, a baker's apprentice with a genius for war, elected brigadier of Camisards at seventeen, to die at fifty-five the English governor of Jersey. There again was Castanet, a partisan in a voluminous peruke and with a taste for divinity. Strange generals who moved apart to take counsel with the God of Hosts, and fled or offered battle, set sentinels or slept in an unguarded camp, as the Spirit whispered to their hearts! And to follow these and other leaders was the rank file of prophets and disciples, bold, patient, hardy to run upon the mountains, cheering their rough life with psalms, eager to fight, eager to pray, listening devoutly to the oracles of brainsick children, and mystically putting a grain of wheat among the pewter balls with which they charged their muskets.

Pretty weird, huh? And right in Europe, not all that long ago.

The last sentence from Stevenson is particularly intriguing, since it conjures up comparisons to the Mai-Mai rebels in the Congo today, who believe that certain magical charms protect them against bullets; that their own bullets are invulnerable to counter charms; and that ritual cannibalism of their enemies is still a grand idea.

Once Europe had its own Mai-Mai's. Perhaps someday Africa will be rid of theirs.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 22, 2009 - Comments (10)
Category: Cannibalism, Death, Frauds, Cons and Scams, History, Historical Figure, Magic and Illusions and Sleight of Hand, Paranormal, Religion, War, Weapons, Foreign Customs, Africa, Europe, Eighteenth Century

Strange Russian Cartoon

If anyone has any idea what is going on in this cartoon, please tell the rest of us!



Everytime I see a foreign cartoon like this, I am reminded of the parody of same once seen on The Simpsons.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Jan 18, 2009 - Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Foreign Customs, Cartoons, Russia

The Tattoo Connection

Feast your eyes upon what one commenter at YouTube has deemed "the worst martial arts movie ever made."

The first clip is the trailer for The Tattoo Connection--NSFW, by the way, with a naked woman visible in spots--while the second is part one of ten for the whole film.

Don't be confused by the abrupt opener on part one: that's how the DVD begins, with credits several minutes into the film.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 15, 2009 - Comments (4)
Category: Stupid Criminals, Martial Arts, Foreign Customs, 1970s, Asia