Weird

I’m very fond of ecoburials. This biodegradable coffin is made from starch plastic and holds the deceased in a fetal position — via BoingBoing

Capsula Mundi is planted in the earth like a seed. Above it, to signal the presence of occupied space, is a shallow concave circle dug out of the ground. In the center of which, a tree is planted, the essence of it chosen in life by the dead one, the care of this tree is the responsibility of everyone. The aim is ecological burial, literally a more natural way to decay.

The cemetery will, then, acquire a new look. No longer the overpopulated urban environment with congested architecture, it will be a natural one in contact with the earth, enveloping expansive areas, entire hills consecrated to the cult of the dead. Summarizing, it is a different landscape devoted to the worship of our ancestry: a sacred forest.

Let me set the scene for you here, before I get into the sordid details. I live in an apartment block, on the east face of the building. There are a handful of two-storey ground floor apartments on this side of the building, each with a fence, and a (two-storey) floor to ceiling window giving a view of the park opposite.

Inside each apartment is a mezzanine overhanging the lounge room — I think it’s intended as a bedroom, but I’ve got my DJ gear up there so I can play music when we’re having a party without being too antisocial. Anyway, you get the idea: two storeys, glass wall, internal balcony halfway up.

So, moving right along. On the weekend I opened a frosty beer and took the cat for a walk in the park opposite my place. While the cat was climbing trees and having a frolic, I glanced back at the apartment block to see how my new fence cladding was looking. ‘Looks sharp’, thought I, ‘not like the crappy fences on the other apartments’. And indeed the other fences did look crap: most were covered in tatty shadecloth, and one particularly nasty looking example featured shadecloth festooned with random loops of barbed wire.

Eventually the beer was empty and the cat was done bouncing, so we took a leisurely stroll back home past the various crap fences. When we drew level with the barbed wire apartment, my curiousity got the better of me and I peeked in through the shadecloth. Could there be something incredibly valuable inside, that the barbed wire was there to protect? Was it the home of a paranoid old lady, scared of the world without but not yet ready for a nursing home? Sadly, it was none of the above; it was something far more fucked up than my beery imaginings.

Inside the aprtment were two black guys standing aimlessly in the lounge room, framed by the huge swastika flag hanging from the mezzanine above them.

An Italian criminal famed for his multiple prison escapes has done it once again. The 45-year-old professional thief broke out of a jail in northern Italy under cover of nightfall. It was the fourth in a string of escapes pulled off by Max Leitner from prisons in both Italy and Austria. On checking the cell of Leitner and another prisoner who escaped with him, guards discovered cloth puppets tucked up in their beds

A Croatian armed robber abandoned a bank hold up after the cashier, safe behind behind bulletproof glass, laughed at his order to stick ’em up, rang her boss to say she was being robbed and asked him to call the police

Nudists, grab your yoga mats and head for San Francisco. City prosecutors on Wednesday said it was not illegal to perform naked yoga in the city — even at the crowded tourist destination of Fisherman’s Wharf. Prosecutors dropped charges against a limber nudist, known locally as the Naked Yoga Guy, who made a habit of striking yoga poses in the buff in order to promote a book and his lifestyle

A gun safety demonstration went awry and landed Monroe County coroner David Toumey in the hospital after he shot himself in the leg. Toumey said his gun discharged as he was checking to make sure it was unloaded and a bullet struck him in his left leg during the demonstration to a group of people at a Lake Monroe boat ramp

The retarded monkey boy‘s network of snitches (concerned citizens) called the Feds on a neighbour informing, them that he had a potentially threatening bumper sticker on his car. The Feds, of course, over reacted and scared the crap out of the guy

Actual letter of resignation from an employee at Zantex Computers, USA, to her boss, who apparently resigned very soon afterwards &#8212 via lucie

Dear Mr Baker,

As an employee of an institution of higher education, I have a few very basic expectations. Chief among these is that my direct superiors have an intellect that ranges above the common ground squirrel. After your consistent and annoying harassment of my co-workers and myself during the commission of our duties, I can only surmise that you are one of the few true genetic wastes of our time.

Asking me, a network administrator, to explain every little nuance of everything I do each time you happen to stroll into my office is not only a waste of time, but also a waste of precious oxygen. I was hired because I know how to network computer systems, and you were apparently hired to provide amusement to myself and other employees, who watch you vainly attempt to understand the concept of cut and paste for the hundredth time. You will never understand computers. Something as incredibly simple as binary still gives you too many options. You will also never understand why people hate you, but I am going to try and explain it to you, even though I am sure this will be just as effective as telling you what an IP is. Your shiny new iMac has more personality than you ever will.

You walk around the building all day, shiftlessly looking for fault in others. You have a sharp dressed useless look about you that may have worked for your interview, but now that you actually have responsibility, you pawn it off on overworked staff, hoping their talent will cover for your glaring ineptitude. In a world of managerial evolution, you are the blue-green algae that everyone else eats and laughs at. Managers like you are a sad proof of the Dilbert principle. Seeing as this situation is unlikely to change without you getting a full frontal lobotomy reversal, I am forced to tender my resignation, however, I have a few parting thoughts.

1. When someone calls you in reference to employment, it is illegal for you to give me a bad recommendation. The most you can say to hurt me is I prefer not to comment. I will have friends randomly call you over the next couple of years to keep you honest, because I know you would be unable to do it on your own.

2. I have all the passwords to every account on the system, and I know every password you have used for the last five years. If you decide to get cute, I am going to publish your favorites list, which I conveniently saved when you made me back up your useless files. I do believe that terms like Lolita are not usually viewed favourably by the administration.

3. When you borrowed the digital camera to take pictures of your Mother’s birthday, you neglected to mention that you were going to take pictures of yourself in the mirror nude. Then you forgot to erase them like the techno-moron you really are. Suffice it to say, I have never seen such odd acts with a sauce bottle, but I assure you that those have been copied and kept in safe places pending the authoring of a glowing letter of recommendation. (Try to use a spell check please, I hate having to correct your mistakes.)

Thank you for your time, and I expect the letter of recommendation on my desk by 8:00 am tomorrow. One word of this to anybody, and all of your little twisted repugnant obsessions will be open to the public. Never fuck with your systems administrator. Why? Because they know what you do with all that free time!

Wishing you a grand and glorious day,

Cecelia