Category: I can haz internets

Posted on // 5 Comments

The Smoke

The Smoke seemed destined to be the greatest British band of the 60’s.  Read on for their sad tale of record industry greed, radio station indifference, distribution mishaps, managerial exploitation, personal tragedy, substance abuse, mental instability, and an apathetic, capricious and philistine public…

Just kidding!  They seem to be a classic 60’s case of one-hit wonders.  I’d never heard this song until it popped up in my YouTube feed the other day.  It became a big hit in Germany in ’67 (the year I moved, so I never heard it), but in England its progress up the charts was knee-capped by the BBC for drug references (the BBC did such a great job keeping young Brits off drugs).  The most remarkable thing about this band is that not one of them did anything noteworthy before or after this song.  Usually when you look into British bands with a hit during this period, you’ll find that at least one or two of them before or after played with someone you’ve heard of.  But not these guys.  Anyway, it’s a pretty good song and worth hearing.

Posted on // 10 Comments

The Other Other German Composer

John Groves, born in Hamburg to English parents.

I came to appreciate his genius when a vintage Mentos commercial recently appeared on one of my devices.

At the time it came out (1992) I had the same reaction as everyone, i.e.
WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS. But this being in the before times, prior to Makerbot inventing the internets, I had to simply wonder how the abomination arose, and wallow in ignorance.

But now…
Enter Bastard Research Division.

The candies, in various formats, have been around since the 1930’s, and are owned by the Perfetti Van Melle, an Italian-Dutch corporation. Van Melle hired the ad agency Pahnke & Partners out of Hamburg, to come up with the ad spots. Groves composed the theme, which is available in extended format!!

The bulk of commercials were shot in South Africa, and aimed squarely at the US and Canada.

Viewers who spotted the ads when they premiered in July 1992 were driven to distraction by one intangible: The ads seemed disconnected from actual human behavior, and the song itself was critiqued for appearing to be an English translation that didn’t get the lyrics quite right.  

When Van Melle was asked “what the actual fuck?” they responded coyly, realizing they had a phenomenon on their hands. The less they answered, the more interest there was. Sales went from $20M in 1991 to $140M in 1996, worldwide. In the late 90’s, Altoids caught fire and were blamed for a decrease in Mentos market share.

The singer is allegedly Richard Ryan Graves (aka Frank Ryan), who takes zero credit for it on wikipedia or elsewhere. He was in Hamburg at the time, so he remains a likely suspect.

Posted on // 5 Comments

Blinding Me With Science

Between Chat GPT, Midjouney AI image creation, and now these robots, it’s only a matter of time before all these computers start talking with each other and take us all over. This is cool technology for sure, but no doubt will be used to do bad stuff. Do you think we will be living in the prequel for The Matrix?

Posted on // 4 Comments

Nowhere In The Bible Does Jesus Have A Sword Fight

I think i may have posted about this guy on Bastard Blog 1.0, but the information super highway suggested that I revisit his site and read his new stuff, and note that he has a new book coming out December 8.

David Thorne is hilarious, and his website 27B/6 is full of his snarky correspondence with various people and they’re all gold. Here’s a few samples…

I understand the importance the resurrection story holds in your particular religion. If I too knew some guy that had been killed and placed inside a cave with a rock in front of it and I visited the cave to find the rock moved and his body gone, the only logical assumption would be that he had risen from the dead and is the son of God. Once, my friend Simon was rushed to hospital to have his appendix removed and I visited him the next day to find his bed empty. I immediately sacrificed a goat and burnt a witch in his name but it turned out that he had not had appendicitis, just needed a good poo, and was at home playing Playstation.

Short lesbians with Blondie t-shirts always make for good employees. Anyway, apologies if you already knew about this guy, but if not, click here more more hilarity

Posted on // 1 Comment

Spying On The Scammers

Fascinating stuff. This is part 1 of 4.

When a scammer connected to my PC, I was able to reverse their connection and discover that they had CCTV. You’re going to see the most detailed exposé of a tech support scam ever seen on YouTube. The company were called Faremart.com – A travel agency in Delhi who use their buildings and VOIP telephony to run various scams. They are one of hundreds of scam call centres in India and this one group will make over $3 million per year with scams.