Black And WTF
WTF is the only rational response to many of the images in this ongoing collection of "found" black and white photos from yesteryear. LP Hartley wrote that the past "is a foreign country, they do things differently there", but on this evidence the past is another planet where everyone is insane. Dip in and you will find pictures of some hilariously unconvincing bearded ladies, disturbing clowns, all manner of giants, twins and dwarves in various juxtapositions (big people in small cars, always a classic), the most alarming beauty contest of all time, vintage racism and some disturbing tattoos. One marked difference between now and then is how society treats animals, unless the information that sheep enjoy smoking and dogs like wearing hats has been suppressed for decades.
Jon And Al
Jon and Al Kaplan are the geniuses behind current YouTube hit Conan The Barbarian: The Musical, Arnold Schwarzenegger's mongol grunt-fest miraculously transformed into a musical. In the clip, sung in faux-Arnie accent, we learn about the Mighty Crum, the crushing of enemies and, of course, "the lamentation of the women". The pair's own site houses this masterpiece alongside other examples of music and video tomfoolery. Earlier this year they staged a musical version of Silence Of The Lambs, and here you'll find a Lego version as well as their musical take on the movies Total Recall and Fatal Attraction, plus an entire rock opera based on season two of 24, and a song based on Morgan Freeman monologues.
Blog roll: Maps
Resource to share and remix maps - from antisocial behaviour data to global Big Mac prices.
How to find your way around Alton Towers in 1986 plus other vintage theme park maps.
Brilliant blog with a rare glimpse inside Shenzen, the city where they build iPods; plus atlas design and World Cup TV studios.
The transport geek motherlode, full of inner-city train and tram maps.
Finding a photo for every square on the Ordnance Survey map of Britain and Ireland.
Where the "Twittering classes" live, finding Marge Simpson in mainland Europe, and hard-boiled cartography.
What we learned on the web this week
How Michael Jackson made the Thriller video
Some inappropriate songs for weddings
What it was like on the set of the Muppets Movie
Frank Sinatra thought George Michael should loosen up
101 uses for an old bridal gown
The best ways to hide a corpse
A brief history of female robots
Who the Google Street View Horse Boy is
Why the dark side will always win on penalties
