Overheard in Hogtown

Best of Toronto Nuit Blanche 2009

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:05:29 PDT

Nuit Blanche is a fantastic event for the art lover, but much like TIFF, it requires preparation. And that can be a daunting task. We’ll make it simple for you, courtesy of Martini Boys.

This year’s Nuit Blanche is scheduled for Saturday night, October 3rd. They have even made an iPhone app, Night Nav. It will be rather cold with 9C and 5 mm of rain. Of all the great things worth watching, we strongly suggest you start with the Vodka Pool, listed last, before it goes away. If the weather is warm, the alcohol will evaporate quickly; if it’s cold, it might disappear through different means

Jeff Koons' 50-foot mirrored stainless-steel rabbit balloon @ Eaton’s Centre

In a recreation of the opening scene of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Shaun "El Conquistador" Leonardo (the artist) fights in Battle Royal with 20 wrestlers and blindfolded members of the audience @ Coach Terminal

The Other Gallery's Paul Butler has invited 30 artists to ask another person to describe their reaction to a work of art @ Various Venues

Ontario/Germany-based artist Gordon Monahan turned a concert hall upside down, with the audience on the stage @ Massey Hall

Artists will paint with light using a device called bombIR (infrared LED). ‘30s Agitprop + graffiti @ 518 Bay Street

Susan Burpee will show a 12h dance based on Simon Critchley's The Book of Dead Philosophers. 24 dancers will perform & 200 philosophers will die @ CourtH

D.A. Therrien's piece suspends four 7m sq alpha-numeric lamps that will randomly display characters between the two towers @ Toronto City Hall.

Fire and Sausage imagines a post-apocalyptic world in which we have returned to our long-lost altruism. You will congregate around a fire and bask in the warmth of Jamie Kennedy's sausage @ Liberty Village

The Sight of Sound has several instalments - in a piece called Urban Echo, audiences can text and twitter messages onto the front of the building, before exploding and scattering @ The Drake Hotel

"Liquor and liquidity bear more than passing associations to banks and money. Intoxicating, like the euphoria of riches; evaporating, like the vanishing of investments during economic downturns." Vodka Pool @ Commerce Court West by DAN MIHALTIANU

A few of the works of art we found in the directory (nb) remind us of Mickey Rooney’s rant re: modern art. Find it in “China’s Andy Rooney..”

Sources / More info: nb, iphone-nb, nb-mb, wiki-nb, nb-dan-mihaltianu, dm-artfacts, yt

Overheard, toronto, canada, nuitblanche, nuit blanche, art, arts, artistic, artistique, culture, white night, white nite, whitenite, whitenight, insomnia

Oana Dragan 4 MuchMusic VJ!

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:09:37 PDT

Though there are many charismatic individuals vying for the coveted MuchMusic VJ title, our favourite is Oana Dragan. Watch her videos and tell us what you think!

Oana has graduated a couple of years ago from Ryerson and will celebrate her birthday on the 18th, after VJ Search’s winner is announced (13th). Her blog is passworded, but her Facebook profile is not, and according to that she’s married to Mirjam de Ruiter, which significantly reduces the few chances potential male suitors had with her .

If you didn’t know, MuchMusic is a Canadian MTV, present in South America, Czech Republic and a few other countries. Every 5 years they also have a VJ Search: The Series which has (d)evolved starting with 2006 into a reality show. Despite the show’s popularity, most VJs are hired directly by MuchMusic, without having participated. Sook-Yin Lee started her career as a VJ as well. Watch her videos below and, until the 13th, if you want her to win, vote her daily! Good luck, Oana!

Sources / More info: vj, fb-od, od-blog, od-group, mm, mm-vj, syl, yt

Overheard, vj, muchmusic, muchmoremusic, contest, endorsement, endorse, oana dragan, video dj, video disk-jockey

Jon Stewart, Mad Men, 30 Rock win again at Emmys

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:27:01 PDT

This year's Emmys have once again honoured the best at the expense of the many. In an effort to increase viewership, the dumb categories have been increased.

Our award for outstanding hog of the year goes to Alec Baldwin for his realistic interpretation of a corporate pig. Baldwin credited Toronto's Lorne Michaels in accepting his award, acknowledging the producer of 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live as a mensch and mentor, ``who thinks of you in good weather and bad weather.''
Our sexual fantasy remains unfulfilled: Jon Stewart, Alec Baldwin & Tina Fey on the set of Mad Men, with the full female cast of that show high on a potent combination of weed and alcohol. It would be loads of fun, not in the least because we'd have no competition..
What follows are what we consider the best direct quotes from our sources:

The TV academy, meanwhile, hoped to avoid an unwanted rerun at the 61st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards: paltry viewership. The 2008 ceremony was the least-watched ever with an audience of 12.3 million.
Acclaimed but low-rated series like AMC's retro 1960s show "Mad Men" are seen as one reason viewers bypassed the awards, so major categories were expanded to increase the odds for more popular fare. There were as many as seven nominees per category, compared with the traditional five.

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, who won an Emmy for best drama screenplay, quipped: ``On a night like this, writing looks like fun - but it isn't.''

Sunday's ceremony, hosted by Harris with an old-school song-and-dance vibe, was a throwback to the glamour and style of televised award shows of the 1970s and '80s, with frequent clips, musical numbers and an on-stage orchestra.
Sarah McLachlan made a last-minute appearance late in the program to sing her elegiac ballad I Will Remember You, for the ceremony's In Memoriam segment.
In the end, though, it was the self-deprecating host that made the evening worth watching.
``Here's hoping Kanye likes 30 Rock,'' Harris quipped, early in the evening.
The first basic cable show to win a top series honor, "Mad Men" had the chance for a second consecutive best-drama trophy. Potential trailblazer "Family Guy" was the first animated series to vie for the best comedy award since a 1961 bid by "The Flintstones."
Sources / More info: Emmys 2009, AP-mad-men, canada-Mad-Men

TIFF ‘09 – what’s left

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:27:22 PDT

The Toronto International Film Festival 2009 is almost over. It is worth taking a look at a few of the movies worth watching in the last days, if you have not seen any yet.

The Festival is known as one of the best tradeoffs between showing movies to the large public and wheeling & dealing distribution contracts. This year, it started with a protest letter signed by a number of well-known artists condemning “disproportionate focus on Israeli cinema at this year's festival”. Eventually, Jane Fonda, one of the signatories, expressed regrets of having signed a letter which she later felt did not help the cause of peace in the Middle East.

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario. The festival begins the Thursday night after Labour Day (the first Monday in September, in Canada) and lasts for ten days. Between 300-400 films are screened at approximately 23 screens in downtown Toronto venues. Annual attendance at TIFF exceeds 300,000 from public and industry audiences. In terms of prestige, it is regularly ranked in the top five alongside Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Sundance.

Founded in 1976, the TIFF is now among the top prestigious film festivals in the world. In 1998, Variety magazine acknowledged that "the Festival is second only to Cannes in terms of high-profile pics, stars and market activity." Quoted by the National Post in 1999, Roger Ebert claimed "...although Cannes is still larger, Toronto is just as great...." It is the premiere film festival in North America, from which the Oscars race begins.

The festival is centered around the Yorkville neighborhood, an upscale area in the downtown core. The festival is known for the buzz it brings to Yorkville and cameras and media have taken to covering the red carpet with fashion and interviews with the stars. Although the Festival has begun to give more attention to mainstream Hollywood films, it still maintains its independent roots. It features retrospectives of national cinemas and individual directors, highlights of Canadian cinema, and a variety of African, South American, and Asian films.

But enough chit-chat. Here’s our recommendation for Saturday.. It’s the movie playing in the Dundas Square – guess what? FREE! Regular tickets are $21.00 in case you were wondering.

Copyright Criminals, an amazing documentary on the history of sampling has its world premiere. It’s worth watching, especially since the Canadian government has just closed its submission period on the copyright legislation..

Sources / More info: wiki-tiff, tiff.net, tiff-propaganda?, copyright-criminals, speak-out-on-copyright, michael-geist-submission, #tiff, #tiff09, #tiffreviews

Overheard,movie, movies, film, films, review, overview, schedule, recommend, recommendation

My neighbour got wood

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:51:11 PDT

This story may not be as exciting as you would expect, but it is nonetheless something I just gotta share with the rest of the world..

There really isn’t much more to say..

Overheard,neighbour, neighbor, neighborhood, neighbourhood, hood, wood, mood, tree, frontyard, photos, photo, photography, instantaneu

Happy Holidays and don't eat the yellow snow!

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:51:43 PST

We look at the light and fluffy side of life around here. And what could be lighter or fluffier than snow? Here’s some advice about a certain kind of snow…

Frank Zappa’s songs have some rather weird lyrics. However, the first two carols in the list below (press the left and right arrows to navigate) are not by him. The rest is, and the very last one is a real treat: he appears on Crossfire back in the 80s defending his right to free speech.

Without further ado,

Happy Holidays!

Overheard,merry, happy, holidays, christmas, xmas, wishes

Vietnamese-Japanese-Canadian man builds fembot with $25,000

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:53:12 PST

33 year-old Trung Le from Brampton, Ontario, managed to build his ideal life partner on a budget. Because of the financial strains imposed by his hobby, he had to move in with his parents.

In a recent interview he declared:

She's not really my girlfriend. Aiko's a robot who can do a lot of things, and hopefully more soon. I have friends – I don't need to create friends. There was a lot of stress. Of creating her, of having almost no money left and finding no sponsor.

We know about Aiko:

Aiko – which means love child in Japanese – can speak about 13,000 sentences in Japanese and English, do algebra, trig and geometry, and tell the weather in foreign cities, courtesy of Internet links.

She can move her hands, nod her head – and shout indignantly if touched roughly. When Le lightly slapped her, she cried out: "It's not nice to touch a girl's head. Touch your own head."

Le is now trying to teach her to make tea and coffee, and do simple household chores.

Warning to all men who hope to duplicate Trung Le’s efforts in the hope of a quieter life: he had a heart attack last year, so we can safely assume she’s not as nice as she seems.

Sources: ts

Overheard,fembot, robot, frankenstein, brampton, japanese, japan, turning japanese

Woman prank calls parents to attend imaginary school meeting

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:51:14 PST

Shelan Waisberg, 34, faces 28 charges after calls were made to parents asking them to attend an imaginary school meeting discussing sexual assault and the mental health of their children.

Carmen Chai from the Toronto Star reports:

The night before, nine anonymous calls were made to parents telling them that their child had been sexually assaulted by a teacher, or the principal had secret files concerning their child's mental health, Det. Steve McIlwain said. The caller said she was a teacher at the school. The parents were asked to attend a meeting with the principal the following morning at the school. "When the parents showed up, the principal didn't know what was going on," McIlwain said.

The woman was charged with nine counts of public mischief, eight counts of personation, mischief interfere with property, nine counts of conveying a false message and criminal harassment and will appear at College Park Courts on Jan. 22, 2009 at 2 p.m.

Source: ts

Overheard,crime against morality, charges, crazy, parents, school, toronto, tdsb

Police Cruiser fully-loaded with 12-gauge shotgun stolen & recovered

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:32:38 PST

A man stole a police cruiser but was apprehended shortly thereafter. Police used the GPS emitter and caught him within minutes.

Henry Stancu and Precious Yutango from the Toronto Star wrote:

Toronto police arrested a man and recovered a cruiser minutes after it was stolen from an accident scene in Weston.

The low-profile traffic stealth car with a shotgun mounted between the two front seats was stopped on Weston Rd. near Lawrence Ave. W. when the theft occurred around 7:30 p.m.

Using Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, police managed to locate the car within minutes.

It was found behind stores on Weston Rd. at Wilby Cres., a short distance from the accident scene.

A 36-year-old man was arrested.

Police said the 12-gauge shotgun was locked in its harness and would have been difficult for anyone to remove.

The car had minor damage to its front fender when it clipped a vehicle on a side street.

Most police vehicles are equipped with GPS tracking systems, said Staff Sgt. Randy Smith.

"It's an officer safety issue," he added.

"We can locate our police cars. We can ensure we know where our cars are at all times."

Source: ts

Overheard,weird, theft, stupid, dumb, gps, toronto, police

Fred Thompson on the economy

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:11:36 PST

Fred Thompson has come up with a message of hope and holiday cheer for all those of us who watch in misery how the world around us collapses.

Watch and listen, it's worth it!

If this didn’t cheer you out and you still feel you’re about to lose the shirt off your back, consider joining a strip poker championship.

Overheard,economy, collapse, prolapse, destruction, fallout

Gay penguins - fathers by stealing eggs

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 02:04:00 PST

At the Polar Harbin zoo in eastern China, a gay penguin couple is stealing eggs from heterosexual penguins and attempt to conceal their theft by placing stones at the feet of their parents before waddling away with their eggs.

Even though they wear suits, heterosexual penguins are not dumb, so they noticed the deception and ostracized the couple. Keepers then physically separated the gay couple from the group to avoid disrupting the hatching.

There are numerous examples of homosexuality in the animal kingdom, but gay penguins have captured the public's attention more than any other species.

A German zoo provoked outrage from gay lobby groups after attempting to mate a group of gay male penguins with Swedish female birds who were flown in especially to seduce them. But the project was abandoned after the males refused to be "turned", showing no interest in their would-be mates.

In 2002 a couple of penguins at a New York zoo who had been together for eight years were "outed" when keepers noticed that they were both males.

Source: tlg

Overheard,gay, homosexual, parenting, steal, penguins, instinct, gayness

China’s Andy Rooney, GNR and Chinese Democracy

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 21:01:01 PST

There’s a lot of talk about China these days. After the lead scare, we are now scared that as economic growth starts to slow down, they will be having massive protests. Even Guns N Roses are picking on their government. What we like most here at OIH is the new and improved Andy Rooney – now in Chinese!

For many-many years, investigative TV reporting was a synonym of CBS 60 Minutes. And every single one of them had a common fixture meant to make you laugh and think at the same time: Andy Rooney. Unfortunately, he is largely unknown to the new Internet generation.

When we first watched the Chinese Andy Rooney we thought it’s hysterical. For many, however, the joke will be lost, as not everybody is familiar with his work. So we made a YouTube compilation of his best, including parodies and an interview with Ali G which you can navigate by pressing the left or right arrows:

Here's the Chinese version, courtesy of ONN:

Source: ONN, YouTube, 60 Minutes

Overheard,Andy Rooney, seniors, decrepit democracy, China, GNR, Gun'n'Roses, Ali G, humour, funny, fun, parody, satire, 60 Minutes

Wars are followed by a baby-boom

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:35:00 PST

As it turns out, this may have very well been the reason for going to war in Iraq: averting a recession and manufacture a fresh new start.

Upon returning from Iraq, most army men have babies. Or at least it seems so at the US military town of Fort Bragg.

Last weekend Rebekah Sandelin, 32, was one of 1,000 mothers from Fort Bragg and the nearby Pope Air Force Base, who attended an event billed as the largest military "baby shower" in history, where local businesses plied the new mothers with baby clothes and other gifts. The baby boom has been so widespread that the Womack Army Medical Centre on the base has had to send military mothers to civilian facilities, where patients have given birth in waiting rooms because of overcrowding. Births were up 50 percent in October at Fayetteville's Ob-gyn clinic. Local shops have run out of baby strollers and cots. Mrs Sandelin, who attended the baby shower with two-month old daughter Rudy told The Sunday Telegraph that when her husband redeployed to Afghanistan earlier this year, "I went to stay with my family in Tennessee. When I came back in August I started noticing pregnant women everywhere.

"The mood is very optimistic right now. Most of the soldiers at Bragg are at home. That's a celebration in and of itself. People are pretty happy about all these births. Resources here are strained. There are not enough doctors and beds but people are taking it in their stride." Sue O'Brien, who leads a group of nurses and social workers who run the New Parents Support Programme at Fort Bragg said: "It's incredible. There are just babies everywhere. You can't go to the market or the stores both on the base and at the mall without seeing them. It's exciting and it is good for morale. We run an informal support group that meets every week. We used to have 30 people at that now we get 100."

Last year the support group employed five people. It now has 19 staff. For the new fathers she runs a Dads 101 class. "It's a hard job to transition from a soldier to being a nurturing dad," she said. "There's been a huge increase in that class too." Fort Bragg officials worked with a community group called Fayetteville Cares to organise the Boots and Booties baby shower, an American tradition where new mothers are given gifts to help with their new arrival.

Kirk de Viere, chairman of Fayetteville Cares, said: "We're getting about 400 births a month at multiple hospitals in the community. Everyone got a bag full of diapers and lotion and a laundry bag full of goodies; some got a bigger present like a car seat and one person won a car.

Source: tlg

Overheard,war, demographics, baby boom, soldiers, military, base

Deodorant – boy killer?

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 01:05:01 PST

Daniel Hurley, a 12-year-old boy, collapsed in January after spraying on Lynx deodorant in the bathroom of his Derbyshire home.A coroner in Britain has determined that a 12-year-old boy died after using too much spray deodorant in a confined space.

He died five days later in hospital because from a cardiac arrhythmia, or abnormal heart rhythms. His father Robert Hurley told the coronial inquest that Daniel was a fit and healthy young man who was proud of his appearance, and lavish in his use of hair gels and deodorants, which he often sprayed all over his clothes.

By spraying the deodorant in a confined space, the coroner found, the concentration of solvents affected the 12-year-old's heart. His death followed a previous incident several weeks earlier, when he had collapsed in the bathroom but immediately recovered.

The New South Wales president of the Clean Air Society, Kerrie Ross, says spray-on deodorant is safe if used properly. "It was not being used in accordance with instructions; it was not being used in accordance with what one would normally call common sense," she said. "In normal use, in normal sensible use, they wouldn't be a problem. [But] if you lock yourself in a room, you have a medical condition, you overuse it, of course you can cause problems. "And if you fail to heed warnings from previous attacks, of course you can get into problems. But that's the same with anything. (…) Just use [the products] with common sense, use them according to the instructions and it should be OK. It seems he was using excessive quantity," he said.

The manufacturer of Lynx deodorant, Unilever, has expressed condolences to the Hurley family; the company says it has never seen a case like this before.

Source: fox, au

Overheard,death, murder-death-kill, mdk, mishap, bathroom, washroom, shower, deo, chemicals, additives, warning label

The Elite Surfer Labrador

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:32:48 PST

James Pearson, 16, is trying for the British surfing team on the Tynemouth beach near Newcastle-upon-Tyne with his dog. His dog just might be better.

Upon seeing its natural ability to surf, a local company has donated a sponge board. Says James:

He's the coolest, most exceptional dog I've ever come across. He was only about six months old when he started going into the water but he never showed any signs of wanting to jump on a board. He has always loved being in the water and has no fear of the sea. He's a real natural and now everytime he is out on his board people stop and watch in amazement. It’s just great that I can now take Harvey on the waves too - I just hope he doesn't get better that me.

Source: tlg

Overheard,dog, surfing, Labrador, fun, furry

Japanese Would Not Leave Mexico Airport Food Court

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:00:07 PST

Hiroshi Nohara arrived in Mexico’s Benito Juarez International Airport on September 2 and has not left since, sleeping over in the Airport.

It is difficult to make sense of his behaviour:

"I do not understand why I am here," Mr Nohara, who is originally from Tokyo, told a local television station through an interpreter. "I don't have any reasons."

Mr Nohara holds a valid visa and local authorities admit they have no reason to force him to leave. All they can do is wait for the paperwork to expire in March. In the meantime, Mr Nohara has become famous and is regularly featured on local television. After three months of living rough, however, Mr Nohara is looking decidedly dishevelled. His beard and hair unkempt and his clothes are in need of a wash. Some people using the food court have complained that he needs a shower.The quietly spoken Mr Nohara replies that he just wants to be left alone and preferred it when he was not in the media spotlight.

His story seems to be the opposite of The Terminal, a 2004 movie where Tom Hanks plays an Eastern European man trapped on NYC’s JFK by a revolution in his homeland and is denied departure by authorities.

Source: tlg

Overheard,homeless, japan, japanese, mexican, shelter, home, hobo

Mother flushed baby by accident

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:40:45 PST

A mother has told an inquest how she accidentally flushed her baby down a toilet before hiding his body in her car boot.

She said did not realise she had given birth until she flushed the toilet at her partner's parents' home in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan.

Source: BBC

Overheard,birth, child, manslaughter, infanticide, abortion, negligence, crime, mother

Viagra enhances sports performance

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 08:55:18 PST

A few years ago, word started spreading that Viagra may enhance athletic performance by relaxing blood vessels and increasing cardiac output and oxygen delivery rate. Not long ago, MaryWOOD University did a study on its effects on lacrosse players.

In our view, there is no doubt that Viagra helps athletes, since a man will run much faster with 3 legs instead of 2.

Source: iht

Overheard,viagra, doping, athletics, sport, athletes, enhance, performance

Carrie Fisher aka Princess Leia and her autobiography

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:38:21 PST

The one most of us know as Princess Leia from 1983’s Star Wars has published her autobiography. It is truly amazing and written in a style that will knock your lightsaber off. So read it in your andropause years.

Rarely is someone so intelligent so famous and so deprived of an eventful life. Yet Carrie manages to find a compelling story to tell. It’s a good read especially for those who are thinking of becoming famous, as it will give you some idea of what that’ll do to your kids.

Most Star Wars fans (me included) swear by her intelligence. And now there is consistent proof beyond her hairdo:

Wishful Drinking: Carrie Fisher: Books

ISBN: 1439102252
ISBN-13: 9781439102251

Here are some choice quotes:

On her parents’ divorce:

Mom and Dad were great friends with Elizabeth Taylor and her husband Mike Todd. Mike died in a plane crash in 1958, when I was two, and my dad flew to Elizabeth's side, making his way slowly to her front. He first dried her eyes with his handkerchief, then he consoled her with flowers, and he ultimately consoled her by sleeping with her. This made marriage to my mother awkward, so he was gone within the week. If Mom and Dad were Jennifer and Brad, then Elizabeth Taylor was Angelina Jolie.

Abouth her father:

I saw more of Dad on television than in real life. He later wrote his autobiography, Been There, Done That - well, he called it an autobiography, but I thought of it more as a novel. I like to call it Been There, Done Them, because it really was just about the women he'd slept with and how the sex was and what their bodies were like (so it is a feelgood read). But after I read it, I wanted to get my DNA fumigated.

This should be enough to get you to read the original article. But just in case, for some reason, you can’t click on the link in the Source, here’s more of the crazy stuff:

I am truly a product of Hollywood in-breeding. When two celebrities mate, someone like me is the result.

I was born on October 21, 1956 in Burbank, California. My father, Eddie Fisher, was a famous singer. My mother, Debbie Reynolds, was a movie star. Her best-known role was in Singin' In The Rain.

In the Fifties, my parents were known as 'America's sweethearts'. Their pictures graced the covers of all the newspapers. They were the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston of their day.

When I was born, my mother was given an anaesthetic because they didn't have epidurals in those days. Consequently, she was unconscious.

Now, my mother is a beautiful woman - she's beautiful today in her 70s, so at 24 she looked like a Christmas morning. All the doctors were buzzing round her pretty head, saying: 'Oh, look at Debbie Reynolds asleep - how pretty.'

And my father, upon seeing me start to arrive, fainted. So all the nurses ran over saying: 'Oh look, there's Eddie Fisher, the crooner, on the ground. Let's go look at him.'

So when I arrived I was virtually unattended. And I have been trying to make up for that fact ever since.

My parents had this incredibly vital relationship with an audience, like muscle with blood. This was the main competition I had for my parents' attention, an audience.

Mom and Dad were great friends with Elizabeth Taylor and her husband Mike Todd. Mike died in a plane crash in 1958, when I was two, and my dad flew to Elizabeth's side, making his way slowly to her front.

He first dried her eyes with his handkerchief, then he consoled her with flowers, and he ultimately consoled her by sleeping with her.

This made marriage to my mother awkward, so he was gone within the week. If Mom and Dad were Jennifer and Brad, then Elizabeth Taylor was Angelina Jolie. I saw more of Dad on television than in real life.

He later wrote his autobiography, Been There, Done That - well, he called it an autobiography, but I thought of it more as a novel. I like to call it Been There, Done Them, because it really was just about the women he'd slept with and how the sex was and what their bodies were like (so it is a feelgood read).

But after I read it, I wanted to get my DNA fumigated.

Anyway, Dad's absence meant my younger brother Todd and I were brought up by our mother in our modern house, which I called 'the Embassy' because it looked less like a house than a place you would get your passport stamped.

It had things most normal houses didn't have, such as eight little pink refrigerators and three pools ... you know, in case two broke.

There was also my mother's closet - which I always thought of as the Church Of Latter-Day Debbie because it was the magical place that she entered as my mom and emerged as Debbie Reynolds.

There was a certain hush, a smell of Albolene cream and White Shoulders perfume. It was quiet and dark.

Huge, like an enormous room, with an entrance and an exit, it was lined on each side by clothes of every kind: gowns, trousers, blouses, shoes and hat boxes.

There was a long, shimmery, white chest of drawers where she kept her underwear and bras and slips and stockings all neatly folded up and smelling of perfumed sachets.

My mother's closet wasn't off-limits, but it was very much hers, therefore Todd and I valued it. It was prized because of how highly we prized our mother.

She was often away, and when we missed her we could go into her closet and put our faces into her clothes and inhale the powdery, flowery scent of her.

Hair-brained idea: Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia - complete with the bizarre coiffure dreamed up by George Lucas - in 1977's Star Wars: A New Hope

When my mother was at home at weekends, we stayed with her as much as possible, which frequently meant we watched her dress and make herself up. Next to her closet there was a huge bathroom with magenta marble and mirrors everywhere.

She'd twirl her hair up into pincurls that she'd use to pull her face tighter, then she'd put on her make-up base with a sponge. Then she applied eye make-up and false lashes, so she didn't need mascara, but there was lots of eyeliner.

Next came lipstick and rouge and powder - great puffs of glittering clouds of powder, followed by hair, which was a big deal, getting the wig on right.

Then came the earrings, then she'd step into her clothes, and then came her stockings and her tiny shoes. When she was finished, her Debbie Reynolds movie-star accent got stronger, her posture got better and she looked incredibly beautiful.

Undressing was also a process my brother and I observed. First we'd watch as she removed her make-up with a wash cloth, then she'd have a bubble bath.

Debbie Reynolds would slowly return to being our mother. The coach was once more a pumpkin, the footmen went back to being mice.

We loved to be with her when she resumed her role as our mother. She was so beautiful, and I dreamed of looking like her one day.

I think it was when I was ten that I realised with profound certainty that I would not be, and was in no way now, the beauty that my mother was. I was a clumsy-looking and intensely awkward, insecure girl.

I decided then that I'd better develop something else - if I wasn't going to be pretty, maybe I could be funny or smart.

When Mom was at home, she did a lot of sleeping because she worked so hard, so Todd and I wanted as much of her company as we could get.

I slept on the rug on the floor next to her bed, and my brother slept on the couch near the window. In the morning when Todd and I got up, we would creep out of her room so we wouldn't wake her.

It was complicated to go out in public with my mother because she was so famous. She belonged to the world. It was like being in a parade. 'Oh my God,' people would say to her, 'I loved you in Molly Brown.' Or: 'I saw you in Vegas.'

So it was not like having private-time with Mom. And I didn't like sharing her.

The first time I took drugs was when I was 13. My family had a holiday house in Palm Springs, about two hours from Beverly Hills, where I grew up.

Periodically, my mother used to rent the Palm Springs house out to some people who, after one of their stays, left behind a bag of marijuana.

Three's a crowd: Eddie Fisher left his wife Debbie Reynolds, right, for Elizabeth Taylor in 1958

My mother came to me and said: 'Dear, I thought instead of you smoking pot where you might get caught and get in trouble - I thought you and I might experiment with it together.'

At the time, and let's face it - even now - I couldn't imagine anything weirder. But my mother got swept back up in the whirlwind of her life and forgot about the idea.

Once it became obvious our proposed experiment had slipped her mind, I snuck into her underwear drawer and stole the pot, subsequently experimenting my brains out in my tree house.

I must have enjoyed it because I ended up experimenting with marijuana for the next six years until it suddenly turned on me.

Where at the onset it was all giggles and floating in a friendly haze, it suddenly became creepy, dark and scary.

I needed to find a replacement drug. This was when I was about 19, while I was filming Star Wars. So, after carefully casting about for a substitute substance, I finally settled on hallucinogens and painkillers.

You know how they say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well, I took masses of opiates religiously.

At a certain point in my early 20s, my mother started to worry about my obviously ever-increasing drug ingestion. So she ended up doing what any concerned parent would do. She called Cary Grant.

In the Sixties, Mr Grant famously did a course of LSD while under a doctor's supervision. So my concerned and caring mother told him that her daughter had a problem with acid and asked him to call me.

Asking a fellow star to intervene in my life seemed normal to my mother.

Some years later, I was in London en route to my mother's wedding to Richard Hamlett, her third husband (I don't like to miss any of my parents' weddings). She called me at my hotel, and when I didn't answer she became concerned.

So she let the phone ring and ring - until finally she panicked. She knew I was in the room so, in her mind, probably the only reason I wasn't answering the phone was that I had overdosed.

So she did what any normal concerned mother might do when troubled about her daughter's well-being. She called Ava Gardner. And she asked Ava to make sure I was not dead.

Anyway, I loved Mr Grant. He was probably the only famous person I was ever really in awe of. He had it all - an easy-going class, quiet confidence, wit - all in this beyond-handsome package.

So when the phone rang and a familiar voice informed me that he was Cary Grant - even a Cary Grant who was going to give me a 'just say no' drug lecture - well, initially I was tongue-tied.

Mother's helper: Cary Grant gave Carrie drugs advice at Debbie Reynolds' request

But then we began discussing my LSD 'addiction', and after a freakishly short time I found myself chatting gaily.

I think I finally convinced him I didn't have an acid problem (which, for the most part, was true). What I did have was an opiate problem.

When our hour-long chat was up, I bade Mr Grant a grateful goodbye, told all my friends, and end of story. Or so I thought.

A few years later my father was at Princess Grace's funeral in Monaco. My father had never met the woman, but had his own reasons for going. Publicity.

So he was at the funeral of one of the few beautiful women of his generation he hadn't slept with when he spied Mr Grant. Something clicked in his brain, the dim recollection of a story he'd only recently been told.

What was it again? Oh yeah - something to do with his first-born daughter. He walked up to my hero and said the first thing that popped into his head, something along the lines of: 'My daughter Carrie is addicted to acid, and I'm very worried. Would you mind maybe having a talk with her?'

Poor Mr Grant gets back from the funeral and in due course calls me again to discuss my drug problem.

If I was embarrassed the first time he called me, this time I was humiliated.

I explained to Mr Grant, after thanking him, that my mother would probably be in a much better position to determine whether or not I was tripping my brain out on a daily basis than my father, with whom I'd spent, on average, one day a year.

Anyway, Mr Grant and I talked for more than an hour. It was great. I immediately bought him a bottle of wine from his birth year, which was something like 1907, and then he called me again to thank me. And in that final phone call, I believe he told me: 'I don't even like wine.'

We're talking about no less than three calls from Cary Grant. The guy was practically stalking me.

A few months later, I was at a charity event and found myself just a few feet away from him. Was I intimidated? Yes.

With my heart pounding in my ears, I tapped him on the back, withdrawing my hand immediately as if I burned my finger.

Whereupon Mr Grant turned, and I started backing away from him. 'Hi. I'm Debbie Reynolds's daughter. We talked on the phone? I just wanted to say hi.'

'Oh, hello, yes. How are you?' I was still backing away.

'Oh, I'm fine,' I whispered. ' Everything's great! Bye!' And I fled.

In 1986 while I was in Australia doing some terrible film, they announced on the radio that Mr Grant had died. And I remember getting this pain - the kind you get when you experience a body blow.

When I accidentally took a drug overdose, I frightened myself and threw myself into 12-step group recovery. I still attend meetings every week. I've had about four or five slips since I first started going to support groups at the age of 28.

I live next door to my mom now. She is still a little eccentric.

Whenever she calls she says: 'Hello, dear, this is your mother, Debbie.' (As opposed to my mother Vladimir or Jean-Jacques.) My brother and I talk this way to each other now: 'Hello dear, this is your brother, Todd.'

Another example of her eccentricity: she suggested several times that I should have a child with her last husband, Richard, because 'it would have nice eyes'. It hadn't occurred to her this might be odd. I think she just thought, you know, my womb was free and we're family.

A consequence of being the child of celebrities is that 'real life' is this other thing - we were always trying to determine what was going on in this distant, incomprehensible place. 'Surreal life' would have been a more appropriate description.

After my second husband, Bryan Lourd, left me, I was invited to go to a psychiatric hospital, and you don't want to be rude, so you go.

My diagnosis was manic depression - today they call it bipolar disorder. In many situations you can hardly tell there's anything wrong with me - I just have too much personality for one person and not quite enough for two.

Periodically, I do explode. Over time, the explosions have become smaller and the recovery time faster.

The symptoms are sexual promiscuity, excessive spending and substance abuse (I know - that's a fantastic weekend in Vegas for some people).

Once, in 1997, I stayed awake for six days when doctors removed my medication after two prescriptions interacted badly.

I wound up psychotic. I thought everything on television was about me. I was admitted to the lockdown ward of the Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles.

When I spoke about my mental illness publicly, I won great acclaim. I waited my entire life to get an award for something, anything (OK, fine, not acting, but what about a tiny little award for writing? Nope), I now get awards for being mentally ill.

I'm actually in the Abnormal Psychology textbook. My family is so proud. When I heard I was in it, I was told it was with a photo. But it's not like anyone called me and said: 'Have you got a snapshot of yourself looking depressed or manic?' so for years I wondered, what picture?

Recently I found it. Anyone who'd wear a hairstyle like that has to be nuts! Right?

Lifelong impact: Carrie with Star Wars director George Lucas and co-star Harrison Ford at a 2002 awards ceremony

George gave me this idiotic hairstyle. I was terrified I'd be fired, so I said: 'I love it.' Yeah, right.

George Lucas ruined my life. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Even now, many years later, people are still asking me if I knew Star Wars was going to be that big a hit. Yes, of course I knew. We all knew.

The only one who didn't was the director, George Lucas. We kept it from him because we wanted to see what his face looked like when it changed expression.

Not only was he virtually expressionless in those days, but he also hardly talked at all. His only two directions in the first film were 'faster' and 'more intense'.

Shortly after I arrived, he gave me this unbelievably idiotic hairstyle. He said in his little voice: 'Well, what do you think of it?'

I was terrified I was going to be fired for being too fat, so I said: 'I love it.' Yeah, right.

When I got this great job to end all jobs, which truly I never thought I would get because there were all these other beautiful girls who were up for the part - Amy Irving, Jodie Foster, Teri Nunn - they told me I had to lose 10lb.

I weighed about 105lb at the time but carried about 50 of those in my face.

So you know what a good idea would be? Give me a hairstyle that further widens my already wide face.

Remember the white dress I wore all through that film? George came up to me the first day of filming, took one look at the dress and said: 'You can't wear a bra under that dress.'

'OK, I'll bite,' I said. 'Why?' And he said: 'Because ... there's no underwear in space.'

He said it with such conviction. Like he had been to space and looked around and he didn't see any bras or panties anywhere.

He explained. 'You go into space and you become weightless. Then your body expands but your bra doesn't, so you get strangled by your own underwear.'

I think that this would make for a fantastic obituary. I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.

Instead of a bra, what do you think I wore for support, intergalactically? Gaffer tape.

I used to think there should have been a contest at the end of the day for who in the crew would get to help remove the tape.

George is a sadist. But despite having to wear a metal bikini, being chained to a giant slug (Jabba the Hutt) and often being about to die, I kept coming back for more.

Why, you might ask. Well, George is a visionary, right? The man has transported audiences the world over and has provided Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford and myself with enough fan mail - and even a small, merry band of stalkers - to keep us entertained for the rest of our lives.

And don't forget, George was the man who made me into a little doll. A doll that one of my exes could stick pins into whenever he was annoyed with me (I found it in a drawer).

He also made me into a shampoo bottle where people could twist off my head and pour liquid out of my neck. Paging Dr Freud!

And then there was a soap with the slogan: 'Lather up with Leia and you'll feel like a Princess yourself.'

The nice people at Burger King made me into a watch. And I'm a little stumpy Lego thing. And now there's even a stamp, which is totally cool.

Among George's many possessions, he owns my likeness, so that every time I look in the mirror I have to send him a couple of bucks. That's partly why he's so rich.

Fraught: Paul Simon wrote about his difficult marriage to Carrie in his songs

Paul Simon and I had a fight - for 12 years

Let's recap: Eddie and Debbie have me. I grow up, sort of, and I marry Paul Simon. Now Paul is a short, Jewish singer. Eddie Fisher is a short, Jewish singer. My mother makes a blueprint, and I follow it to the letter.

Paul and I dated for six years, were married for two, divorced for one, and then we dated again. We were together for more than 12 years (off and on) and we travelled a lot.

The last place we went to was the Amazon, which I recommend if you like mosquitoes.

When we got back, Paul wrote an album called The Rhythm Of The Saints - and on this album is the last song he ever wrote about me - and it's called She Moves On (an ironic title).

Anyway, one of the lyrics of the song goes like this: 'She is like a top / She cannot stop.' So yeah, he knew me. But the lyric I really wanted to tell you about was this: 'And I'm afraid that I'll be taken / Abandoned and forsaken / In her cold coffee eyes ...'

Yep, I'm a bitch. Poor Paul. He had to put up with a lot.

I was good for material, but when it came to day-to-day living, I was more than he could take.

We once had a fight (on our honeymoon) where I said: 'Not only do I not like you, I don't like you personally!' We tried to keep the argument going after that but we were laughing too hard.

Once, when I was flying to Los Angeles, we'd been fighting all morning, so Paul drove me to the airport to get rid of me faster. As I was about to get on the plane, I said: 'You'll feel bad if I crash.' And he shrugged and said: 'Maybe not.'

Todd was shot - and I had to hide the gun

When I was about 16 and my brother Todd was about 14, my mother took a part in a musical in New York, so we moved there for a year. I was out one evening when someone told me my mother was on the phone.

'I'm at the hospital with your brother,' she said. 'He shot himself in the leg with a blank.'

'What?' I said. 'He'll be fine,' she continued. 'He's in surgery now. Anyway, the police are here and they want to come to the house to examine the gun.

'I need you to get to the house before them to let them in, but also I need you to hide all the guns and bullets and - what else ... Oh yes! I need you to flush your brother's marijuana down the lavatory.'

Who knew we had bullets and guns in the house? They were my stepfather's show guns that he wore in some Christmas parade years back, but we were suddenly more like a mafia family than a showbusiness one.

So I rushed home and hid the guns and bullets and flushed an enormous plastic bag filled with pot.

It was Saturday night and you would think that this wouldn't be a particularly slow night for crime in New York. But you wouldn't know it looking at our living room because we had five policemen milling around, asking my mother pertinent questions such as: 'Did you know John Wayne? What kind of guy was he?'

Finally they told us they had established the gun could discharge live ammo, so my mother was in possession of an unlicensed firearm and had to go to the police station.

We got home just before 6am and there was a knock at the door.

Mom went to see who it was and came back laughing. 'It was a couple of reporters,' she said. 'They heard Todd had been shot in the leg and they wanted to know if I had done it for publicity for the show. I so badly wanted to tell them, "Yes, and now I can only do one more Broadway musical because I only have one child left to shoot for publicity."'

Source: Dad ran off with Liz Taylor, Cary Grant lectured me about drugs, George Lucas ruined my life: The extraordinary autobiography of CARRIE FISHER

Overheard,star wars, star power, stardom, carrie, cary, grant, fisher, lucas, autobiography

Today's best photos & videos

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:15:29 PST

We're thus inaugurating Monday's best photos & videos. This list changes so quickly, we had to use steno to print it!

Tell me why.. I don't like Mondays

Actually, once you get to know'em, they're not all that bad.. Let's start with the photos:

We don't only have photos, here are some vids as well:

Here's the list of videos in the playlist above:

Nokia N96 - Bruce Lee Ping Pong
Police dash cam of Meteor over Edmonton, Canada
KTUU 2008 Sarah Palin turkey interview
Bruce Lee plays ping pong with nunchuck.flv
Bike Hero
CNN Reports on President Bush - Where's the Love?
"Katy Perry ""Hot N Cold"" - YouTube Live"
The Monty Python Channel on YouTube
Cat Drives Roomba
Cezary Lech - Long Tail a Pozycjonowanie - II OKEBI
Where the Hell is Matt?
T-mobile G1 multitouch proof of concept video (by RyeBrye)
Le plus horrible jour de ma vie
Fone Bandit Most Wanted
The Black Hole
The Wrestler Trailer
The Matrix Runs on Windows
Collaborative Spreadsheet Art
Ozzy Osbourne World of Warcraft Commercial TV Ad

Bonus:

Gmail voice and video chat
Piotr Bugzel Polski Elvis Mam Talent TVN
Toshiba Timesculpture Advert
Biden: "How Different is John McCain's Policy going to be than George Bush's?"
"Star Wars" - an a capella tribute to John Williams
Twin Peaks - "Audrey's Dance"
m24 sultan
M24 Con Aniki - Vestige D??Un Ancien R??ve - WwW.MeKweN.CoM
Discover Ancient Rome in Google Earth
Special Comment on Gay Marriage ~ Keith Olbermann

Source: M & T

Overheard,viral, video, fun, commercial, Gmail, toshiba, star wars, biden, twin peaks

Top 10 less expected consequences of the recession

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:01:01 PST

The recession is hitting harder and harder and in rather peculiar, unexpected ways. At least so far. We decided to compile a list of such signs collected in the past week.

10. A large number of parents are abandoning their children at local hospitals where social workers dial 911, yet manage to escape custody.

9. Unemployed and mentally disturbed, hungry youngsters assault captive Pandas desperately seeking hugs.

8. Cartographers chart new economic territories.

7. The Baghdad Mayor wants to give his city-dwellers a subway as substitute for running water and electricity.

6. Ginger kids become scapegoats for economic uncertainty based on Southpark teachings.

5. Unwilling to watch their sperm bank investments and certain other body parts in free fall, Guy Ritchie & Madonna file for divorce.

4. No longer willing to trust politicians with decision-making but lacking the cojones to overtake government, DARPA scientists attempt to imitate brain with neural network.

3. Hoping to change course and following US recent elections example, astronauts dump tools in space.

2. PC Magazine tries to save money by cutting ties with reality.

1. You know the economy is bad when even brothels are laying off.

Sources

Overheard,poverty, recession, depression, consequence, results, result, pauperization, sordid, parenting, madonna, map, baghdad, subway, ginger, redhead, tools, darpa, neural network, pcmag, guy, brothel, layoff, abandonment

Sarah Palin – a dead turkey?

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:45:01 PST

A short time has passed since Sarah Palin didn’t make it. Yet she manages to still make headlines. In the following interview, she talks about pardoning a turkey, what she learned and how she still has her values. Meanwhile, in the background, a turkey is being drained of blood.

Other videos in the list above show Alaska in a lesser known light.

I am always in charge of the turkey so I am where I need to be today to prepare for that

she is quoted as saying.

Source: CNN

Overheard,palin, sarah palin, turkey, pardon, oops

suicide live: Abraham Biggs – I wanna die dur

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 11:33:23 PST

The web has seen its share of suicides. Yet the most recent suicide, watched by a large number of people live, is yet another example of Schaddenfreude (sf) that digusts and horripilates us.

Here’s how Abraham Biggs, the latest victim of sf presents himself on his myspace profile, with a remix of “Show Me Love” from Ibiza Music United in the background (1, 2):

Hi there, Mr. Biggs speaking. I'm a good hearted guy, I care a lot about my friends and my family and I would do almost anything for them. I'm the kind of person that is there for my friends regardless of time, I tell all my friends even if it's 3-4AM and they need someone to talk that they can always call and I'll never turn them away. I am very goal oriented, I know what I want to do with my life and I'm working towards it. I'm a nice guy but I'm not a carpet, I don't let people walk on me, so as long as you stay on my good side there won't be any problems. Ok that's all I have to say if you wanna find out more just message me.

Here’s a clip of him playing with his new webcam:

Playing With New Webcam...

How exactly did he end up posting the following on the BB forum (2) remains a mystery:

Ask a guy who is gonna OD (again) tonight anything
To Whom It May Concern,
I am going to leave this for whoever stumbles across my bookmarks later on.
I hate myself and I hate living. I think that if someone who knows me >reads this they will know who I am. So I will leave this unsigned. I am an a@#hole. I have let everyone down and I feel as though I will never
change or never improve. I am in love with a girl and I know that I am not good enough for her. I have come to believe that my life has all been meaningless. I keep trying and I keep failing. I have thought about and attempted suicide many times in the past. I used to think of my failure as some mystical way of telling me that I was really meant for something meaningful. The only thing I dread, besides the pain, is the way my family will suffer. I do not want my mother or father to think that it was anything they did that lead me to kill myself. I never really had any plans of leaving a note. I thought that I would not be able to describe why I want to do this and I am right. There is no way to tell you or anyone else why I dread every new day. My father had such high expectations for me and tried to give me every opportunity to improve upon myself. I let him down. I think
that I am a major disappointment to him. I have a job but I?m always broke and I am in college but barely, I show up to class but that?s about it.
I want my life to end. I am tired of f@#$ing up everything. I am tired of people always telling me that they do not like me. I am tired of trying to be decent. I hope that someone finds this post and I hope that my parents know that I f@#$ed up not them. It is my fault I screwed up my own life.
The hate that rages within me, rages not for those I love so dearly or >those who have crossed my path.
This hate rages full force towards me and only me.
I have long forgiven those who've hurt me, but I have not and cannot come to terms to forgive myself for the things I have done to myself, and the things I've done to hurt those in my life.
You have all touched my life in one way or another, especially those whom I call family.
I cannot tell you how sorry I am for ending my life the way I did. I hope that you can all find it in your heart to see it as way for me not
suffering anymore and that I am finally at rest with myself, for being at rest with the guilt that constantly ate at me for so long.
Please forgive me all for taking my own life so early. I tried so hard
to fight against this strong battle. I have reached out for help so many times, and yet I believe, I was turned away because of the things I did, that it is a punishment I am willing to take, for I know that being who I am has only brought myself and others pain.
I love you all and will forever live within the memories we created.
Forgive me.
Love always and forever,
As for my signature I will leave you with a quote so that if anyone reads this they will know it's me, "Can?t feel pain if your dead? Just Saying"

These are the events in sequence:

- [a poster by the name of] CandyJunkie creates thread telling Misc. [forum] he'll overdose himself again on drugs live on Justin.tv
CandyJunkie posts the amount of drugs he's going to take
Mod[erator]s don't take it seriously
People egg him on
CandyJunkie posts a copied suicide note
People keep egging him on
He pops the pills and goes to sleep; he claims to have taken
“8 bars, 16 mg, I've had 7 roxies and 3 ultram and now I have lexapro left”
He breathes for a few hours, people think he's going to be alright and keep joking and trash talking on his JTV log.
Some time later many people realize he was not moving.
Personal details posted on Misc. by a concerned misc. request people to call the cops.
People tell me he's a troll and nobody calls. Staberella especially is quite a huge cynic and says that he wasn't going to die on that kind of drugs, she insists nothing is going to happen and that people should just gtfo of the thread.
Miami Police called, the people there do not take the case seriously and tell to call the sheriff of his county, and give me the sheriff's number.
post the sheriff's number on the Misc. thread
jjlee138 calls the Broward County Sheriff's office and speaks to them about the situation along with a couple of other people. By the time I called, it turns out 3 people had already called them about it.
People wait for the cops to bust in on the JTV cam.
Some people start thinking nobody called the cops, at least 5 more people call the cops, they were told the cops were on it
25 minutes after the first call to the cops, the cops bust in. They cover the webcam
People speculating whether he's dead or not
At this point of time a lot of people start deleting/editing their posts everywhere.
Friends post messages on his myspace worried about him, no response from him.
His best friend posts a thread on the Misc. and informs the people that he's dead.
Some people still think its a bluff
A recording of the video is posted on livevideo; it can be summarized thus: This link contains footage of the unknown man laying on his bed and shows police entering the room. Early on a piece of wood is shown falling or being thrown onto the body, then a weapon's red dot site scans the lower portion of the bed. The police come into the room with weapons drawn and block or shut off the camera.

Here is LA Times blogger David Sarno describing the mixed reactions:

Though forum members were not initially sure what to make of Biggs' claim, or of the mostly unmoving image of him splayed on his bed, the level of urgency soon began to rise, with several members posting contact information for local authorities and for Biggs himself. They encouraged other posters to call for help.

The cached discussion thread captures the strange and confused way a crowd can react to such an event, with some contributors riding a fine line between baiting Biggs and simply teasing him for what they viewed as a play for attention. When one poster contacted a moderator of the site about the situation, she replied by saying, "He's an attention whore, you should see all the posts he starts, then deletes."

Indeed, it does appear that Biggs, who lived in Miami, had a history of ...

... starting threads relating to drug overdosing, including one from earlier this month, which he titled "I'm gonna have 40 2mg bars of Xanax Tonight!" After discussing his plan to take the drugs, he wrote at the time,"I got banned for a month for attempting sucide and my JTV account was deleted :-(."

Some of those participating in the thread from Wednesday night may have been familiar with Biggs' previous claims, perhaps contributing to a general sense of skepticism even as Biggs, visible via his Web camera, lay unmoving.

Contributing to the confusion was the apparent suicide note Biggs posted to the thread. After a short time, another bodybuilder.com poster discovered that the note itself was not wholly original. And he was right: Biggs appears to have combined text from at least two other suicide notes from elsewhere on the Web, with a short addition at the end. Biggs' note is transcribed here, while the two that he borrowed from are here and here.

Though sad, it is unclear how such a terrible thing can be avoided in the future. There will always be those looking for attention and there will always be those daring them to jump. The movie Untraceable explores such connections, but it did not fare well at the box office. Kevin Whitrick, 42, committed suicide in Britain on Paltalk in similar circumstances (16). Even before the current recession, suicide rates among the baby boomers (and even women, who historically have a lower rate than men), have been rising (9).

The researchers found that from 1999 to 2005, the overall suicide rate in the United States rose 0.7 percent. However, among middle-aged white women, the annual increase was 3.9 percent; among middle-aged white men it was 2.7 percent.

The most frequent method of suicide was using a firearm, although the rate of suicide by this method declined. Suicide by hanging and suffocation rose significantly, accounting for 22 percent of all suicides by 2005. Among men, hanging/suffocation rates increased 6.3 percent annually; among women, the yearly rise was 2.3 percent. Poisoning accounted for 18 percent of suicides, the study found.

The goal should be to identify and treat people who are suicidal, Berman said. "We need to understand better those who are suicidal, irrespective of age or gender or race. We need to understand and observe warning signs, so that we can find and refer and treat these individuals before they become statistics," he said.

In 2004, suicide was the eleventh leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for 32,439 deaths. There are an estimated eight to 25 attempted suicides for every suicide death, according the National Institute of Mental Health.

Some people’s connection to life is more fragile than others’. When hearing about suicides online, most of us still reminisce over 13 year-old Megan’s suicide at the behest of a “friend” and “neighbour”’s mom (15). Sadly, these events will continue to happen.

UPDATE: the story was covered by the New York Times.

Sources

MySpace: Biggs (ForgettingThePastAgain)
show me love - ibiza music united (youtube, deezer)
Bodybuilding Forum - where it all happened
wikipedia: Untraceable
MySpace: More Pics
Reuters: Florida teen kills self in front of live webcam
AP: Florida teen commits suicide in front of webcam
ABC: Florida Teen Live-Streams His Suicide Online
ABC: Suicide Rates Rise Among Baby Boomers
MiamiHerald: Pembroke teen's suicide unfolds live on Web
LAtimes: Strange record of Florida teen's Web suicide persists online
iReport: Suicide on lifecasting site?
NewTeeVee: 19-year-old Commits Suicide on Justin.tv
K&G: Guy bb com
ABC: Witness Recalls Last Messages in MySpace Hoax Case
Times: Police hunt chatroom users over web suicide ‘goading’
Romanian businessman kills himself over 2 mil euro debt

Overheard,suicide, love, hate, goading, schaddenfreude, biggs, abraham biggs, bodybuilding, show me love, forum, blog, lifecast, life, jtv, live, deathcast, suicast

Rodney Carrington porn

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:29:24 PST

I recently discovered Rodney Carrington. He’s the Weird Al Yankovic’s of country music. So I made a playlist with him.

The playlist has about 30 song or clips from his standup routine. Navigate the clips by pressing the left or right arrow.

I’m starting the list with a commercial for a porn TV channel:

You will see it, your kids won’t.

Somehow, I thought it fits.

Overheard,porn, honesty, sincerity, fun, funny, country, music, guitar, cowboy

Woman “invested” $400K with Nigerian scammers

bonobo@inbonobo.com (Indelible Bonobo aka bonobo at inbonobo.com) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:00:00 PST

Rather hard to believe that there are people still falling for those schemes, almost 20 years since they have started. But a registered nurse from Sweet Home, Oregon did just that.

Janella Spears teaches CPR and is a reverend who married many people and also communicates through sign language. Apparently she was duped into this scheme gradually. Here’s part of the article:

So how did this otherwise lucid, intelligent woman end up sending nearly half a million dollars to a bunch of con artists running what has to be one of the best-known Internet scams in the world?

Spears fell victim to the "Nigerian scam," which is familiar to almost anyone who has ever had an e-mail account.

The e-mail pitch is familiar to most people by now: a long-lost relative or desperate government official in a war-torn country needs to shuffle some funds around, say $10 million or $20 million, and if you could just help them out for a bit, you get to keep 10 (or 20 or 30) percent for your trouble.

All you need to do is send X-amount of dollars to pay some fees and all that cash will suddenly land in your checking account, putting you on Easy Street. By the way, please send the funds though an untraceable wire service.

By this time, not many people will fall for such an outrageous pitch, and the scam is very well-known. But it persists, and for a reason: every now and then, it works.

For Spears, it started, as it almost always does, with an e-mail. It promised $20 million and in this case, the money was supposedly left behind by her grandfather (J.B. Spears), with whom the family had lost contact over the years.

"So that's what got me to believe it," she said.

Spears didn't know how the sender knew J.B. Spears' name and her relation to him, but her curiosity was peaked.

It turned out to be a lot of money up front, but it started with just $100.

The scammers ran Spears through the whole program. They said President Bush and FBI Director "Robert Muller" (their spelling) were in on the deal and needed her help.

They sent official-looking documents and certificates from the Bank of Nigeria and even from the United Nations. Her payment was "guaranteed."

Then the amount she would get jumped up to $26.6 million – if she would just send $8,300. Spears sent the money.

More promises and teases of multi-millions followed, with each one dependent on her sending yet more money. Most of the missives were rife with misspellings.

When Spears began to doubt the scam, she got letters from the President of Nigeria, FBI Director Mueller, and President Bush. Terrorists could get the money if she did not help, Bush’s letter said. Spears continued to send funds. All the letters were fake, of course.

She wiped out her husband’s retirement account, mortgaged the house and took a lien out on the family car. Both were already paid for.

For more than two years, Spears sent tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted.

Spears said she kept sending money because the scammers kept telling her that the next payment would be the last one, that the big money was inbound. Spears said she became obsessed with getting paid.

An undercover investigator who worked on the case said greed helped blind Spears to the reality of the situation, which he called the worst example of the scam he’s ever seen.

He also said he has seen people become obsessed with the scam before. They are so desperate to recoup their losses with the big payout, they descend into a vicious cycle of sending money in hopes the false promises will turn out to be real.

As you might know, Nigeria is an oil rich nation. Unlike a similarly rich nation, Norway, Nigeria squanders its riches in corruption and infighting. And, recently, satellites. As it turns out, Nigeria’s $340m Chinese-made satellite failed in space. It had to be brought down, like an old, sick dawg (2).

But the most disturbing news about Nigeria is undoubtedly the use of the OLPC. Apparently the laptops, supposed to promote learning and literacy, are used to surf for porn and possibly to promote the schemes Janelle fell for. As Tribbler said:

These fortunate black males will now also see ads for penis enlargers. We will never be able to catch up with them... ever.

To avoid that, they will be fitted with filters (3).

Sources

1. Katu2 (/.)

2. BBC

3. OLPC Porn

Overheard,Nigeria, Nigerian, scam, scammers, fraud, FBI, Western Union