A Different Drummer

Amsterdam - Budapest - Cairo : An axis of awesome, three great world cities inhabited by three guys who spend lots of time looking at cool stuff on the internet.

There's me, Tom (TG), in Cairo. There's Arthur (AJ) in Amsterdam, who has been my bro' since old times, back in the days when the years started with a 1. And there's Peter (PB) in Budapest, possibly the coolest guy alive, source of my good taste in music, and a true master of his domain.

Each week we are sharing our best, weirdest and coolest links together, via the great collaborative tool that is Google Docs. And every Monday we will dump the whole pile 'o links on our blogs for the horror and joy of the general public.

With no further ado, here is this weeks ABC Linkdump:

TG - This awesomely funky Egyptian creative design lab makes some sweet stuff, and I especially love this great desktop wallpaper design.....

TG - Super stylin' graphic tribute to Naguib Mahfouz , via the always interesting cartoonist Cairo Freeze

TG - I'm loving this super addictive "Lunar Lander" flash based online mini-game

AJ- " "The Real Jesus forgives your Jesus for being a greedy Republican warmonger", badges, stickers etc.

AJ- Reading about Fundamentalist Christians in the US (dispensationalist for you theology nerds), who are against the UN ("the Antichrist will appear to the world as a peacemaker", duh), reject the idea that a lasting peace can be attained by human effort in the Middle East, believe instead that "wars and rumors of wars" (cf. Matt 24:6) will increase as the end times approach, and refute attempts to create church organizations that cross denominational boundaries such as the World Council of Churches as it gives a satanically inspired illusion of "false unity". Bill Hicks rails on fundamentalists in the Whitehouse back with Bush Senior.

TG - If you thing being revealed as a big meth snorting, gay hooker shagging hypocrite isnt embarassing enough, watch this clip of Pastor Ted Haggard getting schooled large-style by Richard Dawkins. Zing!

PB- On a lighter note, check on, how to make a Playstation ad :-)

PB- A new way of making music is 3D enviroment . Well if minimal-techno is your music, funky anyway

PB- Random pages for the days of boredom

TG- My Youtube favourites as requested by Peter - Invisible Boards , Amazing reversed Pharcyde clip , OK Go "Here it goes again" clip (treadmills)

AJ - The Much Hyped HBO Documentary "Hacking Democracy" is now here on google video. "In the 2000 presidential election, an electronic voting machine recorded minus 16,022 votes for Al Gore in Volusia County, Fla". They should upgrade technology and security from Gameboy to Playstation.

AJ- Free psychedelic lectures from Leary, RAW, Watts, etc. A collection of free video and audio lectures by psychedelic pioneers Alan Watts, Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary.Link (via Reality Carnival and Boing Boing)

AJ- By chance, Brodie and I both picked up the same book on the weekend. Flow by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi - Psych Head at Uni of Chicago. In Flow he argues from a psychological perspective that humans that experience most happiness in a state of flow--a Zen-like state of total oneness with the activity at hand and the situation. This is Dharma for the 21st century.

TG- Check out this kid going fucking batshit crazy after he finds a rare collectable Pokemon card..

TG- Borat gets interviewed by Alan Colmes on Fox News . Weird alterna-reality, seeing Borat interviewed in a news style setting with no audience and no laughing....I think Borat being interviewed by Stephen Colbert would be a meta-reality tipping point

PB - Check out how hip-hop has changed , viewed as a mid-aged black american female: "They came for the skeezers but I didn't speak up because I'm no skeezer, they came for the freaks, but I said nothing because I'm not a freak. They came for the bitches and the hos and the tricks. And by the time we realized they were talking about bitches from 8 to 80, our daughters and our mommas and their own damn mommas, rap music had earned the imprimatur of MTV and Martha Stewart and even the Pillsbury Doughboy"

AJ- The Dark Tower of Mordor Pyongyang, video of the The Ryugyong Hotel - a towering (330m) windowless, empty concrete shell that was once intended for use to hold aloft a flaming eye as a hotel, in the Potong-gang District of Pyongyang, North Korea. It cost 2% of the North Korean GDP to build in a time of prevailing famine.

AJ- Celebrate People! The Republican Elephant Beast is Dead! The Daily Show celebrates the Republican demise in congress on election night - with just a touch of Schadenfreude. Or as a Torrent File . If you dont know how to use torrents this link will help you get more stuff through the tubes.

TG- For the bored worker bees or anyone feeling like some reading, check out the Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights, some great stuff in there and will keep you reading for weeks....