The curious case of James R. Todino, the stranded time traveler

Time travel hoaxes are popular surreal pranks. I've mentioned John Titor before as being one of the greatest Internet pranksters of the time-traveller genre. But what can you do about a guy who's really convinced that he's a time traveller?

Such was the conundrum facing the maintainers over at the Museum of Hoaxes, who was one of many at the beginning of the century to receive spam emails asking for someone to sell the subject a "dimensional warp generator." The email went into great detail about specs for this device, which would include 512GB of RAM and a menu-driven GUI.

It turned out that the emails were being sent out by a known professional spammer who also happened to be delusionally insane. Wired breaks the straight story. Far from being a time traveller, Todino was a perfectly ordinary 22-year-old with a father in this present day who was worried about his son's mental illnesses being exploited by scammers online.

Make no mistake about it, this is actually a common problem with spammers. If you've ever received spam and wondered "who would ever fall for this?", the answer is, "nobody, actually, but authors of spam software and systems prey on gullible people who think they can make millions sending out spam. Big fleas got little fleas on their backs to bite 'em!

Todino (like the mythical John Titor, whom, remember, has never been positively identified) gained widespread Internet fame and cultural tribute, making this list of time travel claims, and being famous enough that there's dozens of accounts claiming to be him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and so forth.

Sadly, no verifiable interviews with Todino exist on YouTube. So for second prize, here's a different kook who raves about time travel conspiracy theories:

Cats seem pretty freaked out by space travel

Sorry, Robert A. Heinlein, cats just aren't a good mix for space-faring cultures.

More:

Three random bursts of brilliant insanity from Jan Svankmajer

That's Jan Svankmajer - stop-motion animator who was one of the inspirations to Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame - in case you couldn't tell.

Tex Avery war propaganda - "Blitz Wolf"

Sure, you've seen classic WWII propaganda cartoons before. We've all probably watched the Donald-Duck-in-Nazi-land to death. But this is a rarer one, from the cheeky, loopy, surreal animation of Tex Avery. All the staples of Avery are there - fourth-wall-breaking post-modern sign gags, wolf whistles at a girly magazine, literal listening devices made out of giant ears that would tickle Salvador Dali, and improbably gag weapons.

Oh, and unfettered racism, nationalism, and jingoism. And buy some more war bonds, dammit!

If this used to be TV, what happened?

Public Access TV in the 1980s - they were desperate for content! "It's the law." - Anybody could air their videotape and everybody did. For being such a wholesome enterprise, they sure pushed the sex, sex, sex. And drugs. And sex. And ventriloquist acts. And wacky costumes. And unbelievably untalented schmoos. But mostly lots and lots of sex. Basically if 4chan got to run TV, this is what it would look like.

We don't even have this much liberty on the Internet now - what happened?

Have I posted Cyriak before? Oh well.

Can't have a blog called "Mind--Blown" without tossing in a Cyriak video every now and then. His whole Youtube channel here, and there's more of his graphically-edited nightmares at Cyriak's home page.

Australian PSA makes wonderfully dark, cute entertainment

All this just to say "Don't do stupid things around trains!" More about it here. Watch it over a few times and catch new details by each of the cast. I'm totally going to join animator Julian Frost's cult.

Trolling paranoid-schizophrenics for fun and profit

Hey kids! You, too, can protect yourself from dangerous mind-control wavey-ray-thingies with your AFDB (Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie).

And for identifying dangerous pockets of mind-control rays around town, there's the practice of psychalking. Learn and share this code, and the paranoid-schizophrenic community will be able to cooperate together to defeat mind--blowing psychotronic frequencies. Psychalking takes its methods from the similar practice of warchalking, the chalk marks around town identifying wifi hot spots.

While you're at it, you might want to download and install Mindguard - the software designed for remote mind-control detection and eradication. Available for Amiga and Linux (run Linux because THEY don't want you to!)

You'll find the Mindguard link to be especially, uh, enlightening.

Your word for the day...

Pop quiz: What is this man doing?

• Trying out for a part in David Lynch's Pinocchio.
• Using the latest model of inconspicuous weed vape.
• Playing a synthesized nose trumpet.
• Using an olfactometer.

Well, big surprise, it's the last one. From this site. It's kind of law enforcement equipment, like binoculars for your nose.

A ticket to the future for $10 - what a charmingly wacky idea!

From the main page of the Time Travel Fund:

"Time Travel, once it becomes feasible, will initially be very expensive yet it will become more and more economical as time goes by.

The concept is that one day, it may be possible for people living far in the future to retrieve you from your current frame of reference (their past - your present) and bring you into the future (their present - your future.)

That is the purpose of the fund. The simple answer is, we pay them to bring you into the future."

Hey, the link is there, it's your money. Make up your own mind! Look how studiously they compute that compound interest!

Me, I don't have much faith in a page that says "Page has been formatted for Internet Explorer V6.0 and above, 800x600 resolution." That sounds to me like they don't know didly about the future. And if the money was worth it to those future people, wouldn't they want to send somebody back to fix the website so visitors have more faith in it and they make more money?

Remembering Larry Hagman, a mind--blowing character

RIP Larry Hagman, the TV actor memorable for his iconic roles as "J.R. Ewing" in Dallas and "Tony Nelson" in I Dream of Jeannie, plus dozens of other shows. But did you know what his final wishes were?

"You wrote in your memoir, “Hello Darlin’,” that when you die, you want to be ground up in a wood chipper like Steve Buscemi’s character in the movie “Fargo.” Is this actually set down in your will?

Well, it’s hard to set down chipping. I don’t think that’s allowed. But I did want to be spread over a field and have marijuana and wheat planted and harvest it in a couple of years and then have a big marijuana cake, enough for 200 to 300 people. People would eat a little of Larry."

The above is an excerpt from this interview with the New York Times, just one of many outrageously goofy things the man said over the years. Hagman wasn't just a great actor, in person he was more fun than any of his roles. He enjoyed being a celebrity and being as mind--blowing as he wanted to be, all for a guffaw. We miss the hell out of you, Larry!

Think American reality shows are over the top? (slightly NSFW)

The Pain Game is a Dutch reality TV game show in which contestants are subjected to various mild torments and humiliations. Here's a blog post that tells you a bit more about it.

This might seem risque and shocking to American audiences, but really, is it any worse than what we do to American reality show contestants? Forcing them to eat bugs, perform dangerous stunts, dress like a transvestite for a week, and be dunked under bucket-fulls of yogurt and so on? Fear Factor is one Western show that came close, as is Solitary.

I say, quit dicking around! It's obvious that full-scale sadomasochism play is what a lot of game shows out there have in mind already, so just bust out the whips and chains and be done with it.

Intimidate Your Surroundings

Fun parody commercial, but how did they get that thing to stay up like that?

Also, check the gorgeous scenery! Saguaro cactus and beaches are the only things I miss about the West.

What do you want me to do with the rest of Charlie Brown's body?

"Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown" - from the guy who later brought you all of The Simpsons. This exists. It even exists so hard that it gets its own Wiki page. Painful, wasn't it? Watch it again.

Michael Carroll - Proof that you can win the lotto and still be a loser

In November of 2002, an English blue-collar worker by the name of Michael Carroll had what for many of us would be a dream come true: He won England's National Lottery - at the age of 19! His winnings came to £9.7 million, then (and now) worth more than $15 million in US dollars. He had worked as a dustbin man, what we'd call a garbage man or a "sanitation worker". Like any of us, he celebrated his newfound good fortune by realizing his dreams.

Unfortunately, his dreams were only to become history's most notorious lout. He declared himself "King of the Chavs" and blew through his massive fortune in record time, ending up flat broke only eight years later. To be sure, he hadn't shown much promise of being a credit to society before hitting the lucky draw.

Mr. Carroll had a troubled past, the son of blue-collar workers, whose father had ended up in prison and then dying of a heart attack when Carroll was just 10 years old, then falling under the influence of a series of abusive stepfathers. He started a career of petty crime at the age of 13. This behavior was still with him by the time of his big win. He even showed up to collect his winnings while wearing an ankle bracelet, a house arrest monitor tagged onto him by authorities for an earlier offense.

After running himself broke, he made a statement to the press explaining "I haven't got two pennies to rub together and that's the way I like it. I find it easier to live off a 42-pound dole than a million." In a living example of ironic human nature, Carroll continued to commit the same kinds of petty crimes even when he could afford to do much better. He was fined for attempting to farejump public transportation weeks after his win, was arrested for driving a £49,000 BMW without plates and insurance, and had an impressive rap sheet built up in which he seemed to show no differentiation between using his money to get into trouble or not using his money to keep himself out. By 2010, he had declared bankruptcy, citing an expensive drug habit and numerous other reckless spending.

A "Chav" appears to be a stereotype / culture predominant in the UK, which is the equivalent of "gangbanger" culture in the United States. Members sport the same "bling", tacky taste in clothing, and deliberately anti-social behavior - the equivalent of being a "hooligan". But, like many fringe cultures, what was once an insult is now "taken back" by the members as a point of pride, however self-deprecatingly.

A man can only be pushed so far...

On June 4th, 2004, a construction worker named Marvin Heemeyer was upset as a result of a zoning dispute in Granby, Colorado. So, what would you do? Would you picket city hall, complain about it in your blog, write your assemblymen? Heemeyer chose a more direct approach.

He pulled out of his garage in a bulldozer which he had spent months modifying himself with layers of concrete and steel, as well as mounted rifles and cameras so he could see where he was going. He then went on a rampage throughout the city, damaging property to the tune of $7 million and threatening the lives of anybody who got in his way. This was no ordinary snap to rage; he'd been planning it for months and likely was looking for an excuse to use his "Killdozer", as he called it.

Heemeyer's had a "shit list" of targets and he hit every one of them, demolishing the property of anyone in town with whom he had had a dispute, no matter how petty: his own former place of employment, the concrete plant, town hall, the local newspaper office, and the homes and businesses of individuals.

Being a modified super-villain vehicle, Heemeyer's monstrosity was unstoppable. Police fired guns and dropped flash-bang grenades to no avail. However, when the "Killdozer" became stuck in the rubble, Heemeyer shot himself inside the cab of the machine and the town's siege was ended.

His grandiose exit from this world earned him some grudging respect, some calling him "badass", and while he certainly deserves points for style, we must not forget that overall his actions were cowardly and - need we say it again? - petty. The rest of us put up with more slings and arrows from the jerks of this world without more than a grumble than what took Heemeyer over the edge. He was not getting revenge for gross injustice. He had a problem with the world, and he was determined not to solve it without going out in a blaze of "glory" to feed his petty ego.

Home Business 101: Pencil-Sharpening Service

While the rest of you sit around trying to figure out how to get rich, and complaining that your degree isn't worth anything in the job market, David Rees makes money sharpening pencils.

Granted, David Rees is also a satirical comedian whose clip-art comic "Get Your War On" is syndicated in newspapers nationwide, and he has other comic projects afoot, and he's also a blogger over at Huffy-Poo, but that's all just his rent money. His true passion in life is producing the ultimate sharpened pencil, and he has a video here explaining his business:

Yeah, he wrote a book on the subject, too. No, really, it's a real book!

No pun intended, but you may be asking yourself, "What's the point in all this?" Well, see, it's a satire. It's a commentary on our society at this point in time, when the very pencil itself holds quaint nostalgia for most of us in this digital age. Along with the sheer uselessness of most of us, now that all of our jobs went away. Along with our sloppy, feckless, ignorant society that doesn't give a shit about doing anything right anymore.

Watch this man. If he can put all this thought, this care, this attention to detail into putting a nice cone on a number-2, could the rest of you maybe be bothered to spell a word or two per sentence correctly? Turn on your turn signal once in a while? Hang onto your trash until you walk that ten feet to the next trash can? Yes... yes you CAN!