Category: Strange World

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I received an odd email today which consisted solely of:

Call out Gouranga be happy!!!
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga ….
That which brings the highest happiness!!

A little Googling, and apparently gouranga is a Hare Krishna term for happiness, also used in the sense of “be happy” and is mysteriously scrawled on bridges in the UK. (Hmm, reminds me of the “Anzel is Love” signs someone plastered all over UCI for a few weeks in the mid-1990s.)

It also seems that the gouranga spam has been around a while.

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Remember the guy who noticed the same model in a ton of spam and started stringing the ads together into An Unsolicited Commercial Love Story?

In the past week I’ve noticed the same model showing up in ad banners on various sites, particularly IMDB and Comics.com—some of them using the same stock photos. (And someone should tell Comics.com that they’re being extremely rude by not only bypassing attempts to block pop-ups, but popping up two windows per visit. Stick with the banners, willya?)

Incidentally, the mystery model was eventually spotted eating lunch in a cafe in Auckland by a reader of cockeyed.com, and she added her own comments to the story.

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Maybe it’s the housing costs, but people in San Francisco need a little extra incentive to give out their computer password than people in Liverpool. Last year a survey found that 71% would reveal their password for a chocolate bar. A similar survey this month in San Francisco found that 66% would give it up for a coffee.

At least Verisign made good on the offer—with a $3 Starbucks gift card.

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Driving through the lava fields of North Kona, you’ll see signs like these:

Donkey Xing Donkey crossings at dawn and dusk

After coffee companies stopped using donkeys for transportation, they turned them loose, and a herd of wild donkeys roamed the fields. They apparently picked up the nickname “Kona nightingales” from their, uh, “singing.” They’ve since been moved up to greener—and less traveled— pastures on the lower slopes of Mauna Kea, but the signs remain.

One can only assume the Kona nightingales were the inspiration for Surfin’ Ass Coffee Company and their signature island confection:

Surfin' Ass Coffee Company: Donkey Balls Factory Outlet

For the record: 1-inch macadamia nuts dipped in chocolate.

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Back in 2002, people all over the net started getting email from a “time traveller” looking for a dimensional warp generator. Most people assumed it was a joke, and some decided to play along by setting up fake stores or even arranging a drop-off. The “time travel spammer” was eventually identified as spammer Robert Todino, who, unfortunately, was quite serious in his belief that time travelers were interfering with his life. The fake store, the mock DWG made from old computer parts, the offers to supply his equipment, all unwittingly fueled his belief.

This all came out in mid-2003, and aside from immediate fallout and a brief spate of (probably copycat) AIM appearances late last year, the field seems to have been quiet.

Well, guess what showed up in the spam traps over the weekend!

Hello <address removed>,

I’m looking for a good trans_universal transportation unit. Do you have the Mccoy g series self generating watch or similar newer models available? I also need other items you may or may not have available. Please send a (separate) email to me at: <address removed> if available and let me know your terms on doing business.

Thank you
Paul

They’re baaack!

Other sightings: here [archive.org], here [archive.org], and here. Edit: Somehow it seems appropriate that these sightings are now only accessible via the Wayback Machine. (July 28, 2006)

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Just what I always needed! Proving that “you can sell anything on the Internet,” it’s Prairie Tumbleweed Farm [archive.org], purveyor of “organically grown,” “100% Y2K-compliant” tumbleweeds.

It wouldn’t be much use here in Orange County, where all you have to do is pull over to the side of the road at the right time of the year. Maybe in the off-season.

(Via the Daily Sucker. You have been warned.)

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From the Astronomy Picture of the Day, it’s the remnants of a two-billion-year-old nuclear reactor discovered in 1972 in a mine in Oklo, Gabon.

Apparently in the old days there was enough uranium-235 in the Earth’s crust that, under the right conditions, nuclear fission could occur naturally. Over time the fuel was used up, and now uranium deposits are mostly 238U, so we don’t need to worry about any new nuclear reactors popping up without our help.

What’s really odd is that this reactor produced plutonium naturally. There’s still some there. Most periodic tables I’ve seen label plutonium as a synthetic element, so the idea of natural plutonium takes some getting used to.

Kind of like the idea of a natural nuclear reactor.

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