Zonked Yak
YAKNESS

I'm The Yak

I, unlike cows, GRUNT, rather than MOO

Yaks have horns, and long shaggy hair. "The word Yak is also used to describe an irritating or disagreeable individual" - Wikipedia


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    Welcome to Zonked Yak where yak is, well, generally zonked. Oh, move your cursor over my balls to make cyber yaklings

    Thursday, September 28, 2006

    If you read something today, make it this


    A history of Cape town unlike any you've read before. Respek.


    Posted by the yak at 3:57 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Creating the ultimate woman PART TWO, THE STOMACH



    Today, the yak will come even closer to understanding mankind, as we bring you the results of the second part of our investigation into creating the ultimate human female.

    Using only the most scientific yak methods we intend to find out what it is that you humans like in your women. Thus far we had success using the top 50 results for varying Google searches to determine our sample from which to deduce what it was that society found sexy.

    (See our entry on legs here, with the winner of the best legs here)

    Hunting for the perfect stomach has proved much more elusive than finding the perfect legs. Google searches reveal very little in the way of lists of schlebs with sexy stomachs and hot abs. There were some results, but nothing to give us a real hint of what public opinion determines to be the sexiest stomach in the world. We still used internet searches to determine popularity, but this time had to deal with a data pool of over 700 women, mostly unknown.

    Our hypothesys therefore was simple. We started with the male god of women, Hef:

    1. The waist, and it's relation to the hips

    A study of recent Playboy Playmates of the month reveals some details about women that men consider sexy: they have an average waist of 23 inches, average hips of 32 inches, and therefore a hips to waist ration of 1.33:1. And no, no boobies yet.



    Looking at the abs of a standard playmate (yes, they do actually all look alike), some definition is revealed, particularly on the sides of the stomach. Most playmates have some definition, be it on the sides or a more defined line down the middle of the stomach. This is also their only means of communication.

    2. Fat percentage

    Sexy stomachs are quite defined, but the web reveals that men like their woman to look shapely rather than ripped. This image, for example, illustrates a fantastic set of abdominals, but falls short of being sexy to most men:

    A fat percentage (strangely akin to that of our previous study of sexy female legs) of between 16 and 23 percent is deemed to be within the sexy range. Anything less is just scary, anything more can be improved.

    3. The ribs

    Ribs can be prominent regardless of fat levels, and often make an appearnce on sexy pics. While too much rib falls in the same category as the ripped women, a nice showing of ribs is not necesaarily offputting:

    A fine balance beteen skininess and muscularity seems to be your ideal, which should result in the beach babe bod which is the favourite fantasy:

    4. General observations

    • Tatoos are ok, but not necessarily desirable. They deract from the finer details of a good set of abs.
    • Belly rings make regular appearances, and occur in 50% of the women men seem to think are sexy.
    • Pregnancy makes little or no difference to the stomach's potential to be rated sexy again

    In honour of our generous sponsors, we'll build incredible tension, and reveal the winner with our next installment!



    Posted by the yak at 3:24 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Wednesday, September 27, 2006

    Perfumes and the Diddy Dawg


    For the record, I don't wear cologne. I have a rich, natural musk that attracts females and scares away flies. I do however, believe it or not, know someone in the fragrance industry. Ok, so she works behind the perfume counter in Edgars, but she's an expert. And always trying to get me to smell like some abstract concept: Truth. Be. Eternity. (No really, and those are just the ones by CK.)

    So, anyway, yesterday I came across a new bottle on the shelves, one by none other than America's Sean (John, Puffy, P. Diddy, Diddy) Combs. I spray the testers on myself so my musk doesn't scare people at the coffee shop.

    Now the Diddy's latest offering (and the number one seller in the US!) is called Unforgivable. Like the Diddy, it's aggressive, black, and covered in gold:
    The beauty of the product, however, is it's slogan.

    "Living life without passion is UNFORGIVABLE"

    I almost feel like saying that again.

    Are you telling me this escaped the million dollar executives who must have been in charge of the advertising campaign? Is Diddy so vain that he came up with it himself and every copywriter in the building was too scared to point out the obvious to him? Your product IS living life without passion!? Wow.

    Next time, I'll just rather have CK have me smell like immortality. Or maybe bestiality.


    Posted by the yak at 2:46 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Creating the ultimate woman, WINNER, PART ONE: THE BEST LEGS IN THE WORLD


    Our hunt to construct the ultimate human female is going places!

    Following our own hypothesis set out yesterday we have found the woman with the best legs in the world. These legs adhere to all the rules and ratio's we found that men desire, and in addition, we could find enough photographic angles and images of this particular set of legs to maybe possibly perhaps one day be able to splice them on to the other body parts we will find later in this investigation, and photoshop the perfect woman.

    But so, without further ado, the best legs in the world belong to (no surprises here) JESSICA SIMPSON:

    Not bad. Not bad at all. Our insights into the male mind continue to grow. Next, we examine

    the stomach!


    Posted by the yak at 2:19 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Tuesday, September 26, 2006

    Creating the ultimate human female


    Make no mistake, us yaks find human women attractive. Especially those with a decent ammount of body hair.

    The internet has however given us access to unlimited hotness, and pictures of things of great beauty. As an ongoing project in order to determine what it is that men find sexy, we have decided to partake in a little unscientific experimentation, to attempt to judge what it is that men find attractive in women. To make this process more fun, we'll take it body part by body part, and eventually hopefully be able to create the perfect female form.

    So without further ado, let's hop to it. Join us, as we examine just what it is that men seem to like about

    THE LEGS


    Part one of constructing the ultimate woman. It starts. (Insert manic laughter here)

    Because our opinion doesn't really count, and we want this to be a popular consensus, our method entailed a couple of Google searches for things such as "best legs" and "sexiest legs" etc. If you do one of them yourself you'll see the results are massive. Only looking at the top 50 (not too horribly frighteningly pornographic) results, and using only the top 10 of each link, we managed to get a population sample from which to draw our legs.

    As a diversion, we found a lovely article (http://www.ezilon.com/information/article_10874.shtml) on "How to get sexy legs in just three steps". It's amazing how easy it is! The three amazing steps are
    1. Tone your legs
    2. Wax your legs
    3. Flaunt your smooth, well toned legs

    As easy as that. Amazing. I bet the author Janice Wee gets paid ten times the annual GDP of South Africa as well.

    And with that on to the construction of our ultimate woman...

    Oggling images of sexy legs is easy (very easy). Surprisingly, analysing them was just as easy. We have found the following relations in our results, which applied universally to ALL the hottest women/leg pairings, and will illustrate by way of example, using the rather fantastic legs of random spotting Chrissa Boyle:

    (yes, you can click on her for a larger image)

    We found the following rules apply universally to all the hot legs on the net, from Maria Sharapova to Nicole Kidman.

    1. Length of legs in relation to length of body

    The subjects (objects) all had an upper body length to leg length ratio of 1.1 to 1. We honestly have no idea what this means, but it does seem to indicate that women with legs up to their armpits generally have shapeless carrot legs.

    2. Calf width in relation to ankle width

    The women humans regard as having sexy hot gorgeous legs all have somewhat muscular calves. While the definition varies, and the muscularity varies largely, all the subjects have a calf to ankle ratio of 3 to 1!

    3. Thigh width in relation to calf width

    Babely legs have a thigh that is 1.55 times the width of the calf in cross section. This taken along with the observed sexiness of more muscular calves, makes the preferance for somewhat defined and muscular legs, rather than boney ones.

    4. Other observations

    We tried and tested many other measurements and relation, but none of them revealed any common ground in the legs of the sample population. The following observations are however pertinent:

    • Judging by the average build, as well as numerous images studied of naked and half naked pictures of these women (all in the interests of science), a fat percentage of between 16 and 26% is present in women with truly hot legs.
    • "The Gap" between the legs up top does not seem to be considered sexy. If there is one, it should be slight, and not create the appearance of having ridden a horse since birth.
    • Scars on the knees are not a bad thing. 67% of our sample population had some visible scarring on the knees.

    So the science is complete, now who fits the profile...

    Some examples...

    While Sharon Stone topped a poll (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-09/01/content_370762.htm) to determine the sexiest leg moment is cinema history, we put that down to the fact that she showed some fur. Her calves are undefined by international standards, and miss out on the 3 to 1 ratio.

    Ana Hickman had to be counted in, especially as she supposedly has the guiness record for the model with the longest legs. When it came to the measurements she both had a big gap between her things, and showed serious lack of calf and thigh definition, missing both our cuts (and of course, the 1.1:1 length ratio).

    The hunt has been long and hard. A couple celebrities made the original cut, but lost points either because they don't have enough material on the web, or slight flaws in definition and tan levels.

    In the interests of doing thorough research, and of course to keep our sponsors happy,

    the winner will be revealed in our next installment, as we move up from the legs...



    Posted by the yak at 6:27 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    How to make R2.5 billion. Solving South Africa's world cup woes.


    South Africa is hosting the Soccer World Cup in 2010. This phrase is not news to anyone who hasn't been spending the past year in a coal mine on the far side of the galaxy (or isn't American), but does somehow provide the locals with a slight case of heeby-jeebies. What gets more fascinating by the day is the rush and shambles to construct or renovate the massive stadii that need to play host to the spectacle that billions around the world watch (or hope to watch, we should almost fearfully say). It's impossible to put a price tag on these renovations, it seems, as newspapers around the country continually quote varying figures (and venues!) for the world cup showhouses. Where on earth this money is to come from, is always an interesting debate. Us yaks decided to contribute, by coming up with a way for the South African government to make R2.5 Billion.

    Now, bear with me. I use my coins to pay car guards (an interesting, and brilliantly South African phenomenon, generally looked upon as philanthropy on the part of most wit mense). But the going rate for even these sometime useful, generally discomforting services is now a lot higher than a mere copper (nickel, bronze, whatever) coin. And it probably goes up as you jump tax brackets, and your conscience can't let you get away with having buffalo leather seats and not afford to give a dude who's clearly not at the top of the happiness (read: money) pile a buck or two.

    This brings me to the smaller denominations. Those that even car guards shun. What, for example, can we do with one cent coins? They are too small to even find on the floor when you drop them (and certainly not worth the time to retrieve). They are NEVER used as legal tender, partly because if you do have them they hibernate to the far corners of wallets and pockets where they make molecular bonds with the material and are impossible to retrieve, and partly because nothing ever costs R2.01. So why bother. Even the mint hasn't minted one of the things since 2002. The yak's proposal: Abolish the things! Now here's why:

    In the US, the National Association of Convenience Stores has estimated that handling pennies (one cent coins) adds on average 2.5 to 3 seconds to the time of a cash transaction. Now, the yak has proven himself inept mathematically on the very pages of this internationally acclaimed site, but that's useful information. If we assume everyone makes one such transaction on average a day (excluding Sandtonites from the mean because they are just ridiculous) the average South African presently earns around R36 000 per annum, or 0.5 cents per second. Stuffing around with one cent coins therefore costs you R5.48 per annum. Multiply that by the national population, and you get just over R2.5 Billion.

    Once again, a pleasure.

    Oh, and to all of you in Cape Town wondering just what on earth is happening with the stadium, and where it is going to be built, the Yak heard first hand last night from one of the contractors that the stadium WILL be built on the premises of the metropolitan Golf Club. Yep, no Greenpoint renovation, no Newlands do-up, and no more Met. Apparently the golf club will be given new land. Use it, don't use it.


    Posted by the yak at 4:24 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Friday, September 22, 2006

    Top 100 music videos of all time, or how to spend the long weekend


    Stylus magazine just made a list of the 100 best music videos ever. The fun part is, each video comes with a handy youtube link so you can see it right then and there. Have a good long weekend.


    Posted by the yak at 4:55 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Wednesday, September 20, 2006

    Ching chong cha to millions


    Last year, a Japanese company made Sotheby's and Christie's play paper, rock, scissors to determine who would get to auction off their gazzilions of dollars worth of paintings. Christie's got some help in from some teeny boppers, and won, correctly assuming that Sotheby's would not go for the more obvious "rock".

    They should, in retrospect, probably have visited the website of the World Rock Paper Scissors Society, home of the World RPS championships, and also a project of the authors of this very handy RPS strategy guide!


    Posted by the yak at 6:29 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Lotta pot. Zonked Nelson. Rich Nelson.


    It's not news to anyone that Willie Nelson recently got arrested for possession of Marijuana and magic mushrooms (the same ones that make you see Gnomes!)

    What pokes at the yak's interest gland (yes, we have those) is that he was arrested with 1.5 POUNDS of the vitamin green. That's almost three and a half kilo's!!! What would you do with that much weed? And what would it cost?

    Hmm... dreadlocked yak confirms that anyone who recently put a marijuana leaf on the cover of their CD would definitely not smoke anything but chronic. And in Yakville, you're not laying your hands on good chron for less than R100 per gram. That means Nelson must've probably got a bulk discount on his purchase of R33 000.00! Not the kind of purchase you make from the Rasta in the mountain.

    (ok, for completeness sake, dreadlocked yak insists we include the two other options in Yakville. If it was a nice hydroponic swazi, I'm led to believe it would have set him back a total of only R3300, and the local car guards could have filled his 3.3 kilo suitcase with Tarries and seeds for about R1000. But that's all hypothetical.)

    What could you buy for that... a segway?

    Update: And as you've all realised (Thanks Chiz), yaks are not very good at addition. At all. But you get the point. Sorta. Maybe.


    Posted by the yak at 5:16 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Not perfect, we know


    We needed something to make the site more zooty, more zany, more hip, cool and trendy... Well, that, and we really just needed something a bit more Zonked.

    The yak isn't mad about it. But it's a start. Hope you like the yaklings anyway...

    Go ahead, move your mouse over the yak's balls above. You know you want to.

    And more technically adept yaks have been recruited to attempt to get the comments back up!


    Posted by the yak at 4:08 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Tuesday, September 19, 2006

    The story to end all stories. College antics come to an end.


    This story could upset sensitive readers, and is rated PG.

    You know the story. The one where you got trashed and stole something that belonged to the US government, and were only saved because your best friend happened to have wingmanned a US senator that night. Substitute any of the words in bold, and your great story is sumarised above. Or maybe not. It no longer matters. Never again will any story be cool. Someone has gone and done it. They have ruined our juvenile lives, and our attempts at one-upmanship.

    And the best bit is, this story has been confirmed 100% true. No names, just in case the FBI is monitoring.

    A South African (a Stellenbosch boy) is living in a cottage in the midlands of the UK with a mate, two Ausies and a Kiwi. They decided that it was high time they tried Schrooms. Being rookies at the drug game, they bought in the region of 15 grams one Sunday.

    The aforementioned rabble live about 5K's out of town, but it's a nice Suday, and they decide to walk to town to shop for a braai. Hungover Kiwi remains behind on the couch.

    When the shopping party return, they notice that the shrooms are almost all gone. At first they are angry, but then curiosity gets the better of them. They find the Kiwi on the couch. This is the hypothetical conversation that ensued:

    "Err.. (Insert random Kiwi name here)... did you chow the schrooms?"

    "Jip"

    "Well? ... How do you feel?!"

    "Chilled. Fine. Relaxed."

    "Emm, when did you munch them?"

    "Just after you guys left."

    "AND? ...I mean, what happened? What did you do?!"

    "Oh, I went to the park."

    "Ja... and did you feel anything?"

    "Not really... Oh, but THERE WERE GNOMES!"

    "Gnomes..."

    "Yes. Oh, AND I CAUGHT ONE!"

    "....!"

    "IT'S UPSTAIRS..."

    Before you can say "holy mother of all things ridiculous" they boys have run upstairs. Here they are confronted by a cupboard that has been jammed shut by having a hockey stick rammed into the handles.

    And inside, they suddenly hear a loud THUD!.... And again!

    Now when confronted with such a situation, precautions should possibly be taken. Have they lied to us again? Is this one of those Santa scenarios, where we only get to find out that there are gnomes on our 30th birthdays? Is it dangerous?!

    20 Minutes later, they decide democratically to open the cupboard.

    Inside, they find...

    A laundry bag. With something angry and jumping inside!

    Unable to take it anymore, they open the bag.

    And find...



    ...





    ...









    ....





    A DOWN SYNDROME CHILD!




    I can't take it. It's too sad, too frightening, too damn funny, too damn emotional, too scary, too weird. It wins. Hands down.

    Anyway, they took it to the police station. ("Hi there, we found THIS in the park...")

    Confirmed true. Insane.


    Posted by the yak at 4:35 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Monday, September 18, 2006

    Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo


    "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo". A complete and gramatically correct sentence in the English language. (seriously)

    All I'm really reminded of are the thoughts that come to mind whenever our beloved minister of health opens her mouth:

    Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.


    Posted by the yak at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Saturday, September 16, 2006

    Ooh, the ghost of apartheid! Still makes the spine tingle.


    Plettenberg Bay is a pretty place. See for yourself. (Turn eyes to left, examine image. Sigh. Then realize that that sort of view will set you back a minimum of about R6 Million. Sigh again.)

    The impression that Sandtonites just covered the whole place in razor wire to keep the undesirables out from November to January, is however not all that far off. During those times, the place is pretty much an SUV bunfight - grab your iPod and head for Woolies, it's every St. John's boy for himself!

    So not everyone's idea of paradise. But what if (South Africa being a liberal, democratic, rainbow-coloured, constitution-governed nation) you decided that this was a place you would like to own property - this is a view you would like to sip single malt to. You would imagine that you could then splurge the GDP of Eritrea, and purchase your own bit of yup heaven. (Incidentally it's actually no longer the thing in Jo'burg to go to Plett in December. Now the ultimate in cool is to have a mansion in Plett, and NOT go.)

    Ok, so I'm getting sidetracked. But the point is this: I have here an excerpt from a title deed of a Plettenberg Bay property:



    You will note how the relevant clause sixteen bans all darkies, coloureds, brownies, honkies and anything vaguely related to Africa or Asia from owning, renting, or generally coming within a ten kilometer range of the property. The ghost of apartheid, rearing a distinctly black-and-white head...

    Wow. What a strange place that world was.


    Posted by the yak at 5:08 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Thursday, September 14, 2006

    Yak well hung. And the theory of perpetual motion. Also a solution to ESCOM's woes. And how UFO's work. Wow.


    The nice thing about being a yak is that you're always on holiday. When I was growing up I thought to myself that I want a job where people pay me just to be me. So I became a yak. We're protected. You should really try it. It's not as lucrative as other options (cows in Germany, for example, earn 3 Euro's a day, just for being cows. Gotta love state agriculture subsidies), but the more well paid animal jobs tend to end you up slaughtered. Or at the very least violated (imagine being milked daily). Plus not good for the family unit.

    One of the down sides of being on a permanent holiday is that you can't permanently make good and viable excuses to avoid drinking. This often results in friends' waking you up in the morning with a tequila, to help you avoid the onset of hangovers. It was such a day yesterday. But without it, we would never have managed to discover just how it is that ufo's work.

    Oh, and now you know what this cat to the left is about. It relies simply on a number of facts and theories:

    Fact 1: Cats always land on their feet.
    Fact 2: A buttered piece of toast always lands buttered side down (this is scientifically backed up by Murphy's Law)

    Therefore strapping a buttered piece of toast to a cat's back, buttered side up, would cause an interesting reaction if this cat-projectile was thrown for example, out of a window. The cat would fall, and level out above the ground, and then start rotating. This is the ultimate energy source. Of course, when the cat dies, you'd have to replace it with a new one. (Or, of course, the option of putting the cat in a box comes to mind, as Schrodinger would have us believe, the cat can therefore not die)

    The question, of course arises, if the toast is necessary. Buttered crackers, for example, would work just as well. It is therefore hypothetically possibly that in mass production you would simply only have to butter the cat.

    Anyway, it is apparent that in order to reach some kind of equilibrium, the cat and toast will not fall. This must be how UFO's stay afloat.

    It's a pleasure.


    Posted by the yak at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Tuesday, September 12, 2006

    The aliminium mind-control deflector beanie!


    The two things that continually amaze us yaks about humans are your intelligence, and your ability to use it to innovate and think. But that's no fun. We much prefer it when you completely lose the plot.

    Research done under scientific conditions at MIT (by legend students who know how to properly spend their time) claims that tin foil helmets do not help prevent evil genii (Or, as some claim, the the US government) from controlling our (human?) minds.

    As in any good scientific debate, there are those who disagree.

    This particular yak will have to side with the MIT dudes, mainly because of their institution's contribution to furthering the use of the term "Yak shaving".


    Posted by the yak at 6:39 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    The ultimate South African blogging scenario. Injokes, aplenty.


    Yaks don't come from South Africa. Only the Himalayan Tahr made it that far (and only through a daring escape and much gorilla warfare tactics have they managed to survive). It is however the country where for legal and tax reasons we had to base our servers. So we have a relationship - we bribe members of parliament to let us keep it there.

    Because of this, we have people on the inside checking out the South African blogosphere. We need the insight into the minds of the local human blogreading population. (That, and mainly, we want to see how many hits everyone else seems to be getting. This is partly an exercise in vanity, after all.)

    The yak wanted to post something insightful, something meaningful, something that would make you laugh, and cry, and change your life. But having come to the conclusion that there are many other people out there who read and visit all these other South African blogs, we have decided to make their day, and pray for their ultimate newsworthy scenario to occur. This is how we imagine their ultimate blog post:

    aquilaonline: I took this picture of this sexy celebrity's vanity plate with my new top of the range digital camera while driving in my new Volvo (while caught in traffic).

    2Oceansvibe: While drinking cocktails on the balcony of a mansion overlooking the atlantic, I snapped this video with my new miniature cellphone-cum-15mm camera-cum-spaceship. Behold as I capture Paris Hilton having sex with the TBG in a restaurant I reviewed yesterday while in Spain, my angels.

    Impersonation failure: INTEL, SCO patent TCP/IP and Ubuntu source, sue ATI, EA. Microsoft responsible somehow. Download open source snippets of stuff we wrote to cure all that here.

    Jo'blog: At a recent (unbelievably successful) mass presentation for all of the world's media we witnessed the best new slash punk metal rock band and ended up in the pit with them! Here are pictures of their tattoos of us, as drawn by us. *Insert random insightful marketing comment here*

    Chumpstyle: Here are some naked pictures of us getting drunk on a golf course with Jessica Alba, Kate Beckinsale, and every Playboy playmate since 1980. Here are the pictures of them hitting a giant bong and then (surprisingly tastefully) vomiting on this funny looking dude.

    Cherryflava: In a mass marketing move Apple, Samsung, Levi's, Glenmorangie and Coca-Cola all combine to produce the ultimate phone/mp3 player/shirt/tasty beverage. Now available in green!

    Apologies for leaving out a vast number of them. And those whose writers have moved to London. You can count yourselves honorary yaks. For today.


    Posted by the yak at 3:14 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Monday, September 11, 2006

    9/11 - The Bush administration fucks the bus



    Five years down the line, most of us have an opinion on George Bush's reaction to the terrible attacks of 9/11. Most of us don't care. But the yak is a pacifist, and on a day when the world's most powerful nation collectively mourns and relives the memory of the horrible mass devastation of the September attacks, I can't help but think just how badly Bush has buggered up.

    Now I accept that the voice of a lone yak is hardly powerful. But uniting the million-odd readers of this site in protest must count for something. Besides, as minorities, yak's have a more powerful voice than most. And if Arnie succeeds, maybe one day a yak will be able to stand for US president.

    But it's not just the yaks that are unhappy, with a glance around the more respectable publications of the world confirming the world's summaries of just how badly Bush has gotten it wrong. The Spanish El Pais sums it up succinctly when they say that "The result, five years after, is a more dangerous world".

    Yak's aren't the brightest, but we like justifications to make sense. To us, it seems, George's "War on terror" has managed to escalate the position. When he's done, no-one will feel safe. The British Press are also no longer on the bandwagon, with the Times going as far as saying that "the way the Bush administration has trampled on the international rule of law and Geneva conventions, while abrogating civil liberties and expanding executive power at home, has done huge damage not only to America's reputation but, more broadly, to the attractive power of Western values".

    We mourn for the devastation, and the victims of this day, but more so we mourn for the terror that Dubya has managed to grow, groom, and give direction to.


    Posted by the yak at 6:59 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Friday, September 08, 2006

    The science of yesteryear aka more conclusive proof that people from Florida are loony.


    Popular Science - No 4, 1940

    "Fair Floridians who fear freckles have adopted the odd hooded cape pictured in the photograph below, taken at an Atlantic beach resort. Made of a polka-dot print fabric, the freckleproof cape has an attached hood equipped with built-in sun glasses to further protect the wearer from the effects of strong sunlight."

    We can but assume that freckles on the legs were considered ok.

    I suppose you can't fault them on effectiveness... the yak reckons it would work. Watch out for one gracing the beches of Clifton this coming season!


    Posted by the yak at 3:32 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Statistics made real - death as candy




    The yak realizes that most of the known world are not geeks like he is. Therefore most people are not fascinated by statistics (or economics, the territory where the yak likes to roam). But when statistics are made real, as in this exhibition, they become a bit more cool.

    An art installation that represents the casualties in news reports as an ever-increasing random constellation of bright yellow sweeities.... a computer program continuously scans the headlines of 4,500 English-language news sources around the world, looking for people who have been reported killed. the algorithm determines the number of deaths, & instructs a specially designed ceiling-mounted mechanism built with Lego NXT parts to drop one yellow BB per person. as a result, BBs will accumulate on the floor, ultimately forming a sort of aesthetic monument.

    Cool.


    Posted by the yak at 3:09 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Wednesday, September 06, 2006

    The Lonely Planet thinks we're all on drugs


    The yak is a fan of lonely planet guidebooks. More so of their phrasebooks. They can literally help you have an entire conversation with a weird painted tribesman verbatim from the book. Sometimes, however, I'm amazed at some of the phrases they think we're likely to want to use. These are some of my favourites:

    Hindi:

    Is there compulsory voting here?
    Kya: sabhi: logõ ko vot dena: parta: hai?

    I believe in destiny/fate.
    Mai~ bha:gyava:di: hu:~.

    Then our faithful guides hit a bong or two, and return with these choice phrases in Vietnamese:

    What is your monthly salary?
    wôl-gûp-i ôl-ma-im-ni-kka?

    Who lived here?
    nu-ga sal-ass-jûm-ni-kka?

    And of course, every steroid/heroin/crack junkie's favourite phrase, particularly handy:

    Indonesian:

    I have my own syringe.
    Saya punya suntikan saya sendiri.

    What more can I say. Geniet die dag, jou ma naai vir viskoppe.


    Posted by the yak at 3:46 AM | Permalink | Comments

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    Tuesday, September 05, 2006

    Sharing the happy - Part 1a - Advertising


    Some things just provide us with happy. It would be wrong of the yak not to share his happy with the world. Who knows, it might just make you grin, and you just might share it, and soon everyone would be running around, happy, and taking their clothes off, and giggling madly while spanking... err... sorry... but you know what I mean.

    This series of ads for the VW golf V must be of the best ever. Not only does it feature a sexy, perky, busty german blonde, but the always fun acting talents of Peter "Abruzzi" Stormare have never failed to delight the yak.
    Enjoy:

    Unpimping ze auto

    And just when you thought it was just one brief leetle moment of happy, the cool ad turns into an brilliant series of ads! You know you have to:
    And that, is what the yak likes to call sharing the happy.


    Posted by the yak at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments

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    Yakkidy yak


    Hello. I'll try to neaten up. But Yak's are notoriously filthy. And unkept. And spit. Which is what this is all about. Being horribly, revoltingly, and sometimes hairily honest with myself. Someone has to say it....

    Like most people, I've had enough of the herbalising arty-farty airy-fairy earth-mother soy bean set types who try to persuade people they shouldn't be on Cipramil or any other serotonin reuptake inhibitors because they'll suck out their souls or clog their chakras or desiccate their chi or use up all their happy or whatever the hell it is. It's one thing to dance naked around a fire of a Friday night with ivy in one's hair and menstrual blood painted on one's toenails, but it's quite another to naysay decades of medical science.

    I've had enough of them, of our 4x4 key toting, mansion inhabiting, criminal minded ruling class; the idiots who get to run businesses, spend shareholder money on flat complexes full of taiwanese prostitutes, and then lecture us on ethics; heck, I've had enough of all of you. So don't read this. I'm not a nice person.

    You get the point.


    Oh, and hello. Welcome. Now go do something meaningfull with your time.


    Posted by the yak at 6:34 AM | Permalink | Comments

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