Yikes another terrible web game - this one is on TheSimpsons.com - kill all the zombies. Play it for any amount of time though and you’ll realise it’s just a horrible loop. Perhaps thats the real horror, people playing the game for days, hoping for some change, when really they’re stuck in a loop for eternity. The other spooky thing is, if you don’t shoot anything, you’ll never loose. You’ll never win either, but so what. Crap. (via.)

Viewropa is a new community weblog focusing on European issues. It’s sort of a metafilter.com for Europeans. Sounds like a really nice idea and has lots of support so hopefully will become a really nice resource.

Bad news if your an American youth:

…the SSS is in fact preparing for the real possibility of a Skills, Medical and Combat Draft for 2005. Congress of course must still pass a 1-page trigger resolution reauthorizing current conscription law, but the Selective Service will by early 2005 have geared up the entire draft system and be prepared to register more than 40 million Americans for a new Skills Draft and the Medical Draft; they will be using complex forms that will track a person’s skills—man or woman.

There’s a huge amount of detail about this at this site here with links to claimed official documents relating to the draft and an extensive timeline of actions in government about it. (via.)

Fantastic. Hank-makes-it-flat.com. Check it out today and maybe one day you can be like Hank: Wherever something needs flattening, Hank will be there. And his big ass digger ‘Betsy.’ Make sure you watch the video.

Go here: http://www.ybmakeup.com - then click on gallery, then Before and After. Have a look at those images. Unbelievable. (via.)

The statue of Saddam Hussein getting pulled down was one of the enduring images of the early part of the war in Iraq - now you can own a piece of that history courtesy of this auction. Get Saddam’s leg today. (via.)

Funny photoshopping on Fark. ‘Photoshop this soldier building a habitat’ - With excellent results.

Thank the gods, Lindsay is going to be ok. She had a high-fever (103) and a headache. But she’s going to be just fine. Thank fuck for that. Link to Yahoo News article. A quick google news: 9 U.S. Marines killed in blast near Fallujah. Japan Confirms Japanese Hostage in Iraq Beheaded. Car Bomb Kills 7 at Al Arabiya TV in Baghdad. Poisonous gas gush kills 15 miners. Boy rescued from earthquake rubble wants mom. Yep, hypocritical I know, given the vacuous crap that comes out of this site on a per-second basis, but all the same, thank god Lindsay is going to be ok.

Buttiglione has stepped down from the EU Commission.

Italy’s nominee to the European Commission, Rocco Buttiglione, has said he is stepping down in the wake of the controversy over his candidacy.

He told a news conference in Rome he was offering his resignation to smooth the way for the commission.

Last Wednesday its incoming president, Jose Manuel Barroso, was forced to withdraw all his nominees for the executive because of opposition in the European Parliament to Mr Buttiglione’s views on homosexuals and women.

Yesterday the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, hinted that his government would name another candidate for the job.

Thanks for that RTE.

Worth1000 has a nice photoshop series up - take normal photographs and make them ‘rock.’ The photoshopping talent as always is off the scale.

Nice shockwave game - Courage the Cowardly Dog - Creep TV - very nice old school pixelated adventure game where you, Courage the dog have to save your owners who have become trapped in the TV by poltergeists. Do the quick tutorial and off you go. (via.)

Just watch this incredible card trick. Seriously. It’s unbelievable. That is of course, if it’s real. (via.)

The BBC Radio 4 website has an updated version of the Hitchhiker Adventure Game by Douglas Adams on their site. Check it out. If you’ve never played games like this it’ll be a bit infuriating, so let me get you started with a hint: turn on the light.

Amazing Church made entirely of lego. Check out the photos. (via.)

Check out these printable-outable Star Wars masks just in time for Halloween! They’re from the 1983 book, The Star Wars Book of Masks. (via bb.)

Nice tetris style game called dinky ball. (Via.)

“A Do-It-Yourself Guide to This Season’s Quickest, Least Expensive, and Spooky-Ookiest Halloween Costumes”
For example:

The Littlest Prisoner at Abu Ghraib

Your child will be the hit of the neighborhood costume parade in this recreation of the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal’s most indelible image. As an added bonus this easy-to-make costume will remind everyone on your child’s trick-or-treat route of our national shame! Simply roll a cone from a sheet of 24″x38″ black cardstock, making sure to cut out a hole for the face. Drape with two yards of black felt, and add leftover wires from your last lamp-rewiring project. VoilÀ! So easy, so quick, and so terrifying!

Total cost: Under $20.
Total time: Under two hours.

Charming.

Check out the Thinking Machine 4 - it’s Chess, but the amazing thing is it shows you what the computer is thinking while you are playing.

Thinking Machine 4 explores the invisible, elusive nature of thought. Play chess against a transparent intelligence, its evolving thought process visible on the board before you.

The artwork is an artificial intelligence program, ready to play chess with the viewer. If the viewer confronts the program, the computer’s thought process is sketched on screen as it plays. A map is created from the traces of literally thousands of possible futures as the program tries to decide its best move. Those traces become a key to the invisible lines of force in the game as well as a window into the spirit of a thinking machine.

The Economist has gone on for Kerry.

John Kerry says the war was a mistake, which is unfortunate if he is to be commander-in-chief of the soldiers charged with fighting it. But his plan for the next phase in Iraq is identical to Mr Bush’s, which speaks well of his judgment. He has been forthright about the need to win in Iraq, rather than simply to get out, and will stand a chance of making a fresh start in the Israel-Palestine conflict and (though with even greater difficulty) with Iran. After three necessarily tumultuous and transformative years, this is a time for consolidation, for discipline and for repairing America’s moral and practical authority. Furthermore, as Mr Bush has often said, there is a need in life for accountability. He has refused to impose it himself, and so voters should, in our view, impose it on him, given a viable alternative. John Kerry, for all the doubts about him, would be in a better position to carry on with America’s great tasks.

(via.)

This site has a nice array of movies to help inform the US vote. Go check it out, I think I’ve seen most of them but it’s nice to have them all collected in one place. (via.)