There is always ... hope

There is a packet of cigarettes in my room (vestiges of Japan trip .. and yes it remains untouched - why am I justifying?) that embodies such delicious irony.



I'm not sure if it is deliberate mockery, but hey, if a tobacco company can get away with "hope", we deserved to be mocked. I wonder if the characters in the box is a caveat of some sort, which is a perfect segue to an article I read on forbes.com titled "Seven Laughable Warning Labels". My faves were:

Product: Frankel's Costume Superman costumes

Label (on Web site): Warning: This costume does not enable flight or super strength.

Product: Rowenta's irons
Label: Do not iron clothes on body.


So I have promised myself a quasi-epicurean banquet of the arts this year. I started off with a Beyonce entrée. Irreplaceable Bootylicious Beyonce probably fails the remoteness test for arts, but pop culture can be considered artistic - ask Nicole Kidman, who turned up with her daughter. She is the lady on the left side of the 5 empty seats (1st photo). Highlights included the all girl band, the inclusion of a variety of musical genres, and the various set designs/costume changes.

Banquet mains featured a serve of faux foie gras - Swan Lake @ the Capitol Theatre.


I must admit, ballet is not my preferred choice of artistic expression, but there's something rather majestic and spine tingling about 32 human-swans gracefully moving en masse in perfect harmony. So if you are complete ballet-newbie like me, you will not have known that many different endings exist for Swan Lake, ranging from romantic to tragic. We got a tragic ending, for more reasons that than one. The principal Prince Siegfried injured himself just before the intermission and couldn't continue on to Acts III and IV. His understudy was not particularly adept at twirling the swans, and was also slightly vertically challenged.

I now understand why there is a Matthew Bourne version of Swan Lake. The Prince did seem rather obsessed about dancing with the boys. The only thing that pulled his attention away was a swan, despite a plethora of willing female suitors.

More banquet mains basting in the kitchen ... stay tuned ...

Virtual World

All these virtual worlds are getting out of control.

Starting with Second Life where the following real-life cases have taken place:

someone suing the game developer for wrongfully seizing his virtual land. The case is actually going to the Fed Courts and the guy is expecting $8,000 in restitution. Only in America ...

virtual rape case whereby Brussels police were called upon to enter Second Life and conduct an investigation. Wonder if they had to create policeman avatars?

FBI investigation of virtual casinos

Virtual child abuse case where two avatars (one adult male and one child) were engaging in depicted sexual conduct. Turned out that the child avatar was actually an adult recasting him/herself as a child. Did someone say Michael Jackson?

Not to mention virtual adultery, virtual riot etc ... it's all virtually ridiculous.

As if all this isn't bizarre enough, it seems that someone has been trading my blog on a fantasy blog-stock market?!? There is one majority shareholder monopolising 80% of the shares (4000) and the price is currently at $127.37. My opinion - highly undervalued!

Hmmm ... perhaps I should create a virtual miss-universe pageant.