“Your disturbing image for the day: Gromit bending Nicolas Cage over a clay log, whispering in his ear that nobody even remembers that National Treasure was a hit.”*

I strongly suggest you also see the full size version of this shot.

© Bára, as ever.

Aokigahara, a forest at the foot of Mount Fuji, is known as Japan’s hottest suicide spot… (and) scavengers are finding the forest to be a rich source of resalable items such as driver’s licenses, credit cards and even cold, hard cash, all of it taken from the bodies of those who’ve decided to end their lives there.

“I’ve heard rumors about the trade several times,” a reporter for a regional TV station located near Aokigahara (says). “I suppose if you gathered up everything to be found there, it’d probably end up being quite a tidy sum.”

Japan has witnessed more than 30,000 suicides a year for the past four years. Precisely how many people have taken their own lives in Aokigahara remains unknown, but the number is estimated to be fairly significant. A reporter claims to have perused Aokigahara and unearthed an unexpectedly bountiful booty including several credit cards, valid commuter rail passes and even commemorative coins. omoyuki Takimoto, director of “Ju no Umi (Sea of Trees),” a movie about Aokigahara and also a name popularly given to the forest, also found a wallet containing 370,000 yen in cash while scouting for shooting locations in the woods…

On October 28, 1990, the head and feet of William Newton were found in a dumpster in an alley behind Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood, Calif. Newton, a gay man, was also known as porn star Billy London. His gruesome murder was never solved.

Detective Wendi Berndt, now supervisor of the LAPD Homicide Unit, Hollywood Division, told GAYVN today that after 15 years the case is being reinvestigated.

Berndt, the original detective on the case, had subsequently been assigned to different Divisions over the intervening years. Returning to Hollywood Division as supervisor, she has decided to reinvestigate the Newton murder…

Via 3quarksdaily: “A “malang” (a Sufi dervish) plays a drum and dances at the shrine of Baba Mekka Shah in Hyderabad. Pakistan, 1988.”

I think it’s important to note that Katie was one of the people asking for more bums the other week. She actually tried to get me to request more bum pictures over the weekend.

Buy a print from Katie to cheer her up. Because I am cruelly withholding bums from her.

I’m on the 1.5.2 build of Strayhorn, and since I upgraded there’s been a problem. Neither the category links nor the archives show more than five days’ worth of posts, with no previous/next links or anything.

Warrenelliscom’s main page is set to show five days’ worth of posts, which I don’t find uncoincidental. But, frankly, I’m nowhere near clever enough to puzzle out how to fix this.

Anyone with WP experience who knows what I’m talking about and who knows how to fix it, please drop me a line at warrene@aol.com. Thanks.

EDIT: Dave Wessell found me what I needed. Search, archive by month and archive by category should be fixed in the next five minutes. It turns 0ut 1.5.2 doesn’t actually bother to operate a public archive properly.

– W

“The Home Office has begun a consultation process on plans to strengthen the criminal law in respect of possession of extreme adult images. The government is currently discussing plans that could lead to people being imprisoned for downloading images from the internet. This is a step too far from a government determined to regulate every aspect of our lives and quash individual expression. Backlash is the campaigning organisation bringing together individuals and activist groups to oppose this legislation.”

Matt Buckley just sent me to this wonderful review of the TRANSMETROPOLITAN series.

I attended this last Hallowe’en, and it was fucking brilliant. I’m jealous of any and all of you who can make it there tomorrow:

The Apparat Programme broadcast at ninety-six kilobits per second in broadband 3: news from nowhere and you never bloody call

(32.38 mins) (22.4MB) (direct download)
Pick up The Apparat Programme automatically via podcasty thing or fucking iTunes using this address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Apparat

All music donated to the Programme by the artists. The running order for Programme 3 is:

“oneRedPix” – Miniluv
“Play In Traffic” – Vanessa John
“Dry County Blues” – Eric Wrong And The Do-Rights
“Married, Buried Or Gay” – Jen Rathbun
“Her Indoors” – Si Jubb Carruthers
“The Bloodwerk” – Viktoria Matthews
“Bengalesium” – Zombie Skull Death Cult
“Fliers” – Theory Anesthetic
“The Happy Song” – We’re Not Really A Group

As of last night, the Apparat Programme has 372 subscribers. Programme 1 was also direct-downloaded 1,865 times. Programme 2 was direct-downloaded 1146 times. Direct downloads of previous Programmes: 1 | 2

If you want your music to be included in an Apparat Programme, send your mp3s to warrenellis@gmail.com.

And if you enjoyed the Programme, please spread the word, linking back to this post. You can also vote for the Programme here.

R Stevens’ DIESEL SWEETIES does Spider today: click over to the main page today to find some very kind comments about TRANSMETROPOLITAN.

Just a reminder: if you’re making music, and you’d like me to listen to your work with regard to being included on an Apparat Programme, you can email me mp3s at warrenellis@gmail.com. I’m listening to everything I’m getting, and, with the intent to produce a Programme every Friday, I’m going to be burning through stuff pretty quickly…

As reported on ProMED by Dr. Luciano Goldani:

Hematophagous (vampire) bats are proliferating because of forest devastation in the state of Maranhao, northeastern Brazil. 20 cases of fatal rabies have been clinically documented. The population in the area is protecting their houses with wire nets to prevent bat bites.

(Thanks to Conrad)

The apparent suicide of a woman found hanging from a tree went unreported for hours because passers-by thought the body was a Halloween decoration, authorities said.

The 42-year-old woman used rope to hang herself across the street from some homes on a moderately busy road late Tuesday or early Wednesday, state police said. The body, suspended about 15 feet above the ground, could be easily seen from passing vehicles…

(Found by Xeni Jardin, thanks)

Go to the Frappr map for warrenellis.com and add yourself and your location. It’ll be interesting to see where we come from.

Note: Frappr always starts on the US. Use the arrows in the top left to shoot away from America and into the rest of the world.

$207 million to remake a flick about a giant monkey?

$207 million?

I mean, when the new Superman flick was reported to have gone to US $250 million, I assumed they were, you know, literally making Brandon Routh fly. For $207 million, you can grow your own giant fucking monkey.

NASA and ESA put satellites into orbit around Mars for less money.