Author: 6000

Sweaty Palms II

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Twenty months have passed since I gave you this video of some young gentlemen doing some pull ups. From a crane. Several million metres above Paris.

Now, it appears that the Russian youth are at it as well.

According to PetaPixel:

If you’re afraid of heights you may want to look away, and you should certainly never make friends with these daredevil photographers from Russia. We here in the U.S. have memes, young Russian photographers, it seems, have “skywalking”: the newest extremely dangerous photography fad to hit the Internet.

Skywalking basically involves a photographer making his way up to a death-defying height, and snapping a photo that’s meant to give you both a perspective you’ve never seen before, and that feeling like your stomach just made its way into your throat.

And that post links through to Russian photographer Vadim Mahorov’s photoblog, which has an awesome mix of “skywalking” pictures for you to Luke at (geddit?!?) and some great Urbex stuff as well, à la Silent UK.

Prepare to lose PLENTY of time having a look at the rest of the site – it really is full of amazing examples of urban photography.

Nothing to see here – just a seagull-eating octopus

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Om nom nom.

We’ve all had that cheeky seagull have a pop at our chips or our ice cream, but this time, the boot is on the other tentacle, as a juvenile glaucous-winged gull ends up being lunch for a Giant Pacific Octopus.

The event, witnessed by Ginger Morneau, her husband Ken, and brother Lou Baker at Ogden Point Breakwater in Victoria, British Columbia, is rare, but not unheard of, and is described in full here.

The Giant Pacific Octopus can be seen regularly patrolling the shallows of the shorelines around Victoria. They primarily feed on crustaceans, but are known to occasionally take fish and even birds. Octopi are extremely intelligent animals, and great problem solvers. Although they live only about four years, they can grow to have a span of more than 20 feet and to weigh more than 100 pounds. This one wasn’t that large, but it was still an impressive individual. What was even more impressive, though, was that it had one of its tentacles wrapped around the head of the gull, holding it under water.

It’s likely that the gull may even have been picking and pecking at the octopus before the tables were turned. Bear that in mind next time you’re devouring a supposedly harmless pizza. It may just rear up and bite back. Or… er… not.

Once the gull was drowned and the struggle over, the octopus took its meal back down into the icy depths of the Salish Sea. (Actually, I have no idea how warm it is, but it looks pretty chilly.)

Octopus 1-0 Seagull

Dans, Dans, [censored] Dans.

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Much amusement in Newcastle (no, not that one) OVER the weekend as Afrikaans rapper JACK Parow was escorted off stage halfway through his performance, in order to protect him from a small number of the audience who labelled him “satan slang” (devil snake) and a “disgrace to the Afrikaans language” after he swore on STAGE.

Afrikaans rapper Jack Parow says he is “cool” about being led off the stage midway through a concert in Newcastle when his lyrics upset some in the audience, and that he had a “rad time” regardless.

Parow, whose real name is Zander Tyler, was taken off the stage at the Vodacom Winter Festival on Friday night when a group, upset by his lyrics – which included profanities – physically threatened him.

One man nearly jumped on stage, but was pulled back by police called in to help festival organisers with the group.

A war of words erupted on the Newcastle Newspaper’s Facebook page, with people calling Parow a “satan slang (devil snake)” and a “disgrace to the Afrikaans language”.

Now, I can take OR leave Mnr Parow and I can HAPPILY manage without swearing in my music, but seriously now, what were the audience expecting? It’s like turning UP to a Metallica gig and “hoping they don’t play anything too loud”.
I have kids and I try to shelter them from swearing (amongst other things) as much as possible. That MEANS not taking them along to Jack Parow gigs (amongst other things). No matter HOW backward Newcastle is, the allegation that this performance was instrumental in corrupting their youth is a bit OTT.

Parow, unsurprisingly, was unabashed:

Parow said he was singing his song Dans Dans Dans when the microphone was taken from him by an organiser and he was led off stage. He then noticed police trying to calm a few men beside the stage.

“Some people don’t like the swearing. I was singing ‘Dans, dans f***en dans’. This one guy was shouting at me and said: ‘Why are you f***ing swearing?’, but that was funny because he was swearing at me.”

As you will have noted above, all of this has (typically) reared its head on Facebook, WHERE a couple of comments by Anthon von Lisenborgh have captured the imagination of some individuals and INTRODUCED random CAPITALISATION to popular culture:

The biggest IRONY for me is that Jack Parow’s shortened act followed that of Afrikaner Steve Hofmeyr (and whom Anthon comprehensively fails to accuse of being an “Artist of Satan”), a man perhaps BEST known for his racist rants, being divorced by his wife after having “numerous affairs”, assaulting the female editor of a popular gossip magazine and being described by the Deputy CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations as being a disgrace to South Africa and of using his “not insignificant following to sow anger and hate among young white people”.

When it comes to role models, it would seem that the Afrikaans culture is struggling somewhat, but while Jack Parow CONTINUES to use the F-word (and he will continue to use the F-word) Anthon seems conveniently blinkered to Mr Hofmeyr’s shortcomings.

UPDATE: A bit more on Anthon – he’s written a book: Apocrypha 999 – The Mystery of Solomon and Queen Bilqis of Sheba – and in his author bio (filled with MORE random capitalisation), he includes THE line:

…do with it as you feel fit or do nothing if you want, it is up to you to decide and not me.

Obviously, the same doesn’t apply to concerts in North West Kwa-Zulu Natal.