Unfortunately Named Products

Just a quick blog this week, but I'm sure you'll enjoy it nonetheless. Five of the world's most unfortunately named products...

And I didn't even include Anusol or Vagisil.

5. SARS

Thirsty? Have some SARS.

Surprisingly, this sarsaparilla flavoured beverage is one of New Zealand's most popular drinks, and didn't even change it's name after two global outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

4 - Elephant Balls Ltd.


Elephant Balls Ltd offer a full range of equipment for billiard enthusiasts of all levels, including cues, chalks and plenty of balls.

In fact, they offer several ranges of balls guaranteed to chalk the cues of any fan of the sport.

These include not only the Traditional Elephant Balls range, but also Beautiful Elephant Balls, pictured left, which are all lovingly hand-rendered by staff at the brand's US headquarters.

3 - Ayds

Ayds, a diet candy which was, yes, pronounced Aids, was available throughout America throughout the 1980s. Interestingly, the candy's main ingredient "phenylpropanolamine", is now described on the US Food and Drug Administration's website as "not recognized as safe". Adds weight to that Aids is Manmade conspiracy from last week...

2 - I.beat Blaxx

Germany company Trekstor produce the i.beat Blaxx, an alternative to Apple-hating music fans looking for something to store their mp3s on.

Just to clarify, the range is known as the i.beat range, and this is, obviously, the black version, but still, they could just have called it noir or something eh? Still, i.beat blaxx lol.

1 - Jussipussi

A rather interesting bread product by the Finnish company Primula. Funnily enough, I distinctly remember a guy in my Standard Grade Business Management class coming up with this idea when we were all asked to name a new soft drink. But at least his idea featured juice, and a cat on the front.

This has neither.

In all fairness, Jussi is a Finnish man's name, and Pussi means bag, but Man Bag isn't any better really, is it?

Poor show Finland.

Conspiracy Theories

Carrying on the "strange but true" theme, this week we're going to look at some of the world's best conspiracy theories...

Actually, "strange but true" might be the wrong term to use, as, well, you know, they wouldn't be considered conspiracies if they'd ever been proved to be true. But I digress...

These aren't necessarily the 5 most popular conspiracy theories, because well, you'll already know a lot of them. And, well, some of them aren't that funny. Here's the ones that I thought might make the best blog, walking a thin line between the ridiculous, the informative and the plausible, my five favourite conspiracy theories.






5 - Denver International Airport

Denver, Colorado in the good ol' US of A is home to Tim Allen, Dog the Bounty Hunter, pop-rock band the Fray and the secret headquarters of the New World Order. Well, according to some conspiracy theorists anyway.

The New World Order (or NWO) is described as a "powerful and secretive elite with a globalist agenda, conspiring to end the world through a totaliarian world government which would replace sovereign nation-states and put an end to international power struggles." Wikipedia's words. not mine.

It was also the name of a popular wrestling stable in the 1990s and early 2000s. True story.


Anyhow, many believe that the NWO - made up of high-ranking government officials, religious leaders, entrepreuneurs, nazis and em, aliens - controls all of the world's major decisions, and could have been responsible for, amongst other things, 9/11 and the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.


Some also believe that the organisation's headquarters are in Denver International Airport. They point to the fact that the airport is situated abnormally far from the centre of Denver itself (approximately 25 miles away), and several other interesting facts. The main building is comprised of a white tent structure, which supposedly reminds people flying in to the town of the nearby Rocky Mountains, however theorists believe that this is, in fact, to appease dead Indians buried at the site, as the airport does, admittedly, kind of look like a giant teepee. To add a bit of weight to this theory however, the airport has genuinely been proven to have been built on an ancient burial ground.

Weirder though, are murals in the main terminal, which designers claim were required to use symbols such as a Nazi Black Sun, the Freemasonry logo, and a scene depicting the destruction of a city and a forest with a little girl holding a Mayan tablet prohesying the end of the world. Which is all a bit creepy. And probably the last thing I'd want to see while waiting to check-in for a flight.

Oh yeah, and the terminal itself is called the Great Hall, which any conspiracy theorist knows is a nod to freemasonry. Apparently.

Still, a bit weird though eh?


4 - The Rendlesham Forest Incident

There are few conspiracy theories with as much documented evidence as this, so why have very few people ever heard of "England's Roswell"?

On December 26. 1980 a downed UFO was reported by a security patrol in woodland, near RAF Woodbridge. Servicemen originally thought it was a downed aircraft, but upon further investigation they saw numerous lights eminating from the site. Local police were called to the scene shortly afterwards, but they claimed in an official report that the only lights they saw were from a nearby lighthouse.

However, airmen at the base claim to this day that they saw brightly coloured lights in the woodland area, and a metallic cone-shaped object hovering over a clearing in the area. The object then moved away from them as they approached, and it moved into a nearby field. Some reports of the incident claim that this left farm animals in a state of udder, sorry, utter panic, although records have proved that there were no animals on the farm, so I wouldn't read too much into that.

However, the airmen claim they were then debriefed. In that they were told not to talk about the incident. Not that they had their pants taken off them or anything. One airman claims that he was forced to sign a document stating that the lights he had seen came from the nearby lighthouse, and another claimed that he was warned that "bullets were cheap" when he initially refused to comply. Indents in the grass found at the scene were found to be in an equilateral triangle, thought by many to be dents made by a UFO. Naturally.

Mind you, that theory is probably more plausible than the official line that they were "made by rabbits."

Most conspiracy theorists believe that the aliens were leaving after a "routine meeting" between themselves and UK and US military (the US also had an airbase nearby), where, amongst other things, they talked about what to do with the earth's nuclear stockpiles.


3 - The Alien Base Under Antartica

This theory is so awesome that they even based an entire X-Files movie around it.

In short, it claims that there either are, or were, aliens living underneath the Antartic ice. The aliens then artificially created the ice to cover their base, and, if they are still there, they are "currently working on various experiments studying embryonic alien gestation in the host-bodies of humans." That means they're trying to make aliens that look like humans to you and me.

The strangest part of this theory, is that there's actually a pretty huge piece of evidence that might support it.

And that it involves a pirate.

Piri Reis was an Arabic swashbuckler (how awesome is that?) who charted most of the South Atlantic Ocean in a manner so accomplished that most believe that he didn't actually do it himself. In fact, Piri Reis' map was drawn in 1513, over 300 years before Antartica was actually "discovered" by a Russian expedition. Reis' map precisely matches x-ray, false colour and satellite photos taken by NASA since the invention of this technology, and his map matches these photos almost identically.

So, the popular theory is that it was given to him by aliens, who charted the actual coastline of Antartica, which can no longer be seen, as it's under about a mile of ice. NASA thoroughly disputes this claim, and they reckon that Reis' map is a forgery from the late 1800s. But even under those circumstances, it's highly unlikely that he'd have been able to accurately chart Antartica using technology from that era. In fact it's pretty much impossible.

And there's some that think he just guessed.

But that would ruin the theory that NASA, to this day hides an Antartic alien base that it's in cahoots with in exchange for alien technology. And that wouldn't be much fun.



2 - Paul is Dead

Conspiracy theorists claim that Paul McCartney of the Beatles died in 1966 and was replaced by someone who not only looks just like him, but sounded like him as well. And there are plenty of clues that suggest this is the case. Apparently.

The legend goes that Paul stormed out of a recording session after arguing with his bandmates, then crashed his car and died on the way home. The story is then pieced together by his grief-ridden former bandmates via various Beatles songs:

"He didn't notice that the lights had changed" ("A Day in the Life"), he crashed into a lamp-post (a car crash sound is heard in "Revolution 9") and was pronounced dead on a "Wednesday morning at 5 o'clock as the day begins" ("She's Leaving Home"). News of the tragedy was withheld: "Wednesday morning papers didn't come" ("Lady Madonna") etc etc.

Oh yeah, and they even had a funeral for him. On the cover of the Abbey Road album nonetheless. John Lennon is dressed all in white like a clergyman on it, Ringo Starr is all in black like an undertaker and George Harrison is in jeans. Like a gravedigger. Obv.

And as if that wasn't evidence enough McCartney is dressed in a blue suit without shoes on the cover, and is walking out of step with the other three. Like you would if you were dead.

And those are the fairly logical explanations. Others include that John Lennon supposedly says "I buried Paul" in the final section of Strawberry Fields Forever and that if you play Revolution 9 backwards you head Paul say "Turn me on, dead man".

And the fact that he formed Wings and married Heather Mills. The real Paul McCartney would never have done that.

1 - AIDS is Manmade

This one claims that the AIDS virus was created by scientists in a laboratory by a secretive agency such as the CIA as an experiment in biological and/or psychological warfare. Or, to either "destroy the black race", "cripple the development of the African continent" or to "get rid of the gays," depending on who you believe.

Some claim that the disease found its way into the population after harmful research materials designed for use in warfare accidentally found their way into the mainstream, although there are a variety of ideologies relating to how this happened, the most popular involves the virus accidentally finding it's way into a polio vaccine.

However, that's not nearly sinister enough for proper conspiracy theorist. Some black militant groups claim that the disease was administered to blacks and homosexuals via deliberately tainted hepatitis vaccinations in the 1970s. They point to the Tuskegee syphillis experiments that took place between the 1930s and 70s, in which African-Americans were legitimitelly INFECTED WITH SYPHILLIS for research purposes when asked for evidence that the government was capable of such a thing (in the experiment, doctors DID NOT give the patients penicillin, which was found to be an effective cure for syphillis in the 1940s, even after they had been infected with the virus for years at a time. Many blacks died and whole black families were infected with syphilils in what has been called "the most infamous biomedical study in US history").

Another theory is that the virus was administered to Africans in a similar "tainted vaccination" form by US mercenaries in the 1970s to cripple the development of the continent and to allow the western world to continue as Earth's dominant civilisation.

Others claim that syringes distributed to drug users by various governments during the 1970s had been infected with the HIV virus in an effort to "scare people away" from injecting drugs.

Either way, it's pretty scary stuff.

What do you all think?

Let me know because it'll be lame if I don't get comments.

The truth is out and about there.
Austin.

Mysterious disappearances

Does anyone else remember staying up late and watching Strange But True when they were younger? You know, that one with the guy from the Antiques Roadshow and This Is Your Life presenting? If you didn't, or, you know, you did more with your Friday nights than me, Strange But True looked at bizarre or paranormal mysteries and was broadcast on ITV between 1993 and 1997. According to Wikipedia anyway.

It was a pretty smashing show, and in honour of the fact that I recently discovered that they show repeats of it The Paranormal Channel on Sky, my next couple of lists will be dedicated to looking at some of the stranger mysteries that have remained unexplainable throughout the annals (lol) of time.

Here's the first - the five most mysterious disappearances....OF ALL TIME!!!!

5 - The Time Tunnel

In at number five we have the bizarre incident that took place in the Lincoln Tunnel in 1975. On that particular night a man named Jackson Wright was driving with his wife from New Jersey to New York City. This required them to drive through the Lincoln Tunnel.

Apparently, once they were through the tunnel, Mr Wright stopped the car to remove some condensation from the windscreen, at this time his wife went to do the same at the back windscreen. So they could resume their journey. Obv. However, when Jackson turned around his wife had disappeared. Gone. Capoot. Etc etc.

A subsequent investigation found no foul play. Leading many to speculate that poor Mrs Wright had just vanished into thin air.

4 - The Norfolk Regiment

Three soldiers claimed to be witnesses to the bizarre disappearance of an entire battalion in 1915. The three men, who were members of a New Zealand field company said they watched from a clear vantage point as a battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment marched up a hillside in Suvla Bay, Turkey. The hill was shrouded in a low-lying cloud that the English soldiers marched straight into without hesitation. And they never came out. After the last of the battalion had entered the cloud, it slowly lifted off the hillside to join other clouds in the sky. When the war was over, figuring the battalion had been captured and held prisoner, the British government demanded that Turkey return them. The Turks insisted, however, that it had neither captured not made contact with these English soldiers.

Sneaky.

3 - The Legend of George Lang

In this, most bizarre case which took place in Tennessee in 1880, two children, George and Sarah Lang were playing, in full view of their family in the front garden of their home. When heading back to the house, George literally disappeared in mid-step. The Lang family headed over in a terrified state, assuming that he might have fell down a well or something along those lines. But it was not to be, he had literally vanished into thin air.

And then, to make things weirder, a few months later the family found that, on the exact spot where George disappeared, the grass had turned yellow and wilted.

2 - The Stonehenge Disappearance

Stonehenge. Ancient burial ground, and topic of one of Spinal Tap's best song. True story. But anyway, in 1971 a group of students visited and never returned...

The pesky students perched a tent in the centre of the stones and built a campfire. Whilst there, they had a few spliffs and sat around smoking and singing. At about 2am however, a severe thunder storm reached the area, striking trees and even the Stonehenge monument itself.

Two witnesses, a farmer and a policeman, said the stones lit up with a blue light that was so bright that they both had to shield their eyes. They heard screams from the campers and the two witnesses rushed to the scene expecting to find injured – or even dead – campers. To their surprise, they found no one. All that remained within the circle of stones were several smoldering tent pegs and the drowned remains of a campfire. The students were gone without a trace.

1 - The Village that Disappeared

In at number one we have the bizarre story of an Eskimo village in Northern Canada. In November 1930, a "fur trapper" named Joe Labelle visited the area, which he and many in neighbouring towns knew as a thriving fishing community of about 2000 residents. When he arrived though, the village was absolutely deserted. All of the huts and storehouses were empty - only a pot of blackened stew remained. The authorities were notified and an investigation began. However, the investigation found that no footprints of any residents were found, all of the villages snowdogs had starved to death under a 12 foot snowdrift and no food or provisions had been removed from the villagers huts.

And perhaps most disturbingly, the Eskimos' ancestral graves had been emptied.

Any of y'all have any theories of what might have happened in any of the cases?
Let me know.


Cause it'll look better if I get comments and that, eh.

Brrap.

The Worst Album Covers In History

Christopher Knab of musicbizacademy.com tells aspiring musicians:

"Your cover is your calling card to the record industry and to the consumer...how well you design it and the other graphics for your release could well determine your success or failure as a musician."

It's a damn shame that some of these artists obviously didn't consult him prior to the release of these, the 20 worst album covers in the history of music.

20 - David Cassidy - The Higher They Climb (The Harder They Fall)

According to Wikipedia, the title of this, the former Partridge Family star's fifth solo release, was meant to allude to the fact that his career had taken a bit of a nose dive as of late. Unfortunately, this cover did little to help turn things around for him.







19 - Rick James - Throwin' Down

As I'm sure you'll see later on in this post, some of the worst album covers of all time feature musicians modelling themselves on Conan the Barbarian. Even Rick James couldn't pull it off, and he's a superfreak.









18 - Waylon Jennings - Ladies Love Outlaws

Ladies might love an outlaw, but perhaps kids shouldn't.
I know that this particular album was made in more innocent times, but still, I think the least said about this one the better.







17 - Whitesnake - Lovehunter

Former Deep Purple star David Coverdale's Whitesnake used this particular image of a woman dry-humping a giant, uum, Whitesnake to sell this, their third studio album.










16 - Saxon - Saxon

British heavy metal legends Saxon scored a top-ten in the UK with this, their debut album. Still, I'd sooner admit to having an edition of Dungeons and Dragons than this particular album, based purely on the cover.









15 - Eddie Murphy - Love's Alright

Eddie Murphy has done some pretty awesome things in his time (think Beverly Hills Cop, 48 Hours, his stand-up concerts) but he also made Meet Dave. And Norbit. And this.










14 - A Flock of Seagulls - Dream Come True

This horrific cover manages to incorporate most of the worst parts of the 1980s. Garish colours, naff suits and, yip, frontman Mike Score's infamously bad haircut.











13 - Tom Jones - a-Tom-ic Jones

Here, the Welsh crooner sings away, seemingly unaware that an atomic bomb goes off behind him. Either that or he just let one off. Would have worked better for his sex-bomb single. In all seriousness.










12 - Manowar - Blow Your Speakers

Remember what I said earlier about dressing up like Conan the Barbarian? And it being a bad idea? Well, contrary to my opinion, Manowar managed to make an entire career out of doing so. And some really awful covers. Whilst all of their albums look more of less the same, this one particularly awful single shows the boys at their He-Man style best. And a group of women who look like they want to blow something other than Manowar's speakers. Probably wouldn't work in real life.

11 - Herbie Mann - Push Push

By all accounts, Herbie Mann was a pretty smashing jazz flautist. But he was not a handsome man. And this shouldn't have been allowed to happen. That's all I'm going to say.














10 - The Handsome Beasts - Beastiality

The fact that I've never heard of these guys before is probably all that's keeping this effort off the top spot.















9 - David Hasselhoff - Night Rocker

Ah, now this is what a real album cover is meant to look like. A real man rocking out, none of this beastiality nonsense. What, you don't like it? Eeehh, me neither, yeah, in fact, I was just about to put it at number 9 on the list. Yeah. I don't think it's cool or anything. Nope. Next?












8 - The Coup - Party Music

In fairness, this probably wouldn't have made the list. Unless, of course, it hadn't been designed in June 2001 and slated for release in October 2001. They did re-design it after the whole 9/11 thing though. Nice guys.













7 - Kevin Rowland - My Beauty

The former Dexy's Midnight Runners frontman actually performed at the 1999 Glastonbury and Reading festivals in the same get-up as he's wearing on this sleeve. Unsuprisingly, he was bottled off. He had balls at least. As you can see to my left.












6 - Michael Bolton - Michael Bolton

Add some leather, a perm, a hairy chest and constipation together to make this. Not very good.















5 - Millie Jackson - Back to the S__t

Absolutely no idea.

















4 - The Rolling Stones - Dirty Work

Understandably, this album is seen as a low point for the Stones. In terms of band relations, album quality and colour coordination, this one never really got off the ground.












3 - Bee Gees - Life In a Tin Can

Watch you don't cut yourself on the sharp edges guys. Might get some of the night fever. Yip, that joke was almost as bad as this particular cover. Slightly nauseating and painful looking - and that's just Robin's shirt. Boom Boom!












2 - Prince - Purple Rain

I know it's a classic, but really, what the fudge is this?
















1 - Prince - Lovesexy

The only man with the dubious distinction of having two entries in here has both numbers one and two. The fact that he looks like he's having a number two on this one doesn't help either. And the fact that it's Prince. Naked.