The Strange World of Divorce

While it might be fairly common for couples to get a divorce in the United States these days, it's certainly not easy. There are questions of support, custody issues if there are children involved, and bitter arguments over who gets to keep what; all of which can drag a divorce into months of stress. But what is it like in other cultures and in other times? In centuries past, in China, a divorce could be granted for any number of reasons, so long as the bride's family agreed to take her back. Aborigine women in Australia can convince their husbands to grant a divorce but if that's not working, then all they need to do is elope with someone else. The ancient Athenians and modern-day Eskimos share an extremely simple divorce process - live separately as though they were never married. In the UK, a man tired of his wife could slip a halter around her neck, lead her into town to the cattle market, and sell her to the highest bidder. Japan had a much more advanced view, however. Marriage was not sacred and divorce was not immoral - it was merely a mismatch between families. Women's dowrys were returned in the hopes of encouraging re-marriage. You can read more on Purple Slinky, and on Hope's Blog, and in this review.

Devil’s Dance of Prizzi

The devil's dance of Prizzi from todavideo on Vimeo.

More information here.

Children of Japan

Wow.
Worst. Timing. Ever.
Release a friendly documentary about Japanese kids in the same year as Pearl Harbor.
Wow.

Watch Out for the Remote!!

I like this arranged marriage commercial. It's really a commercial for cable, I think, but the wife wants one of these remotes, too!!



I think I like the Hindi Elvis best. Any other votes?

Merry Christmas India style

Two strange things about this clip -- it is a very interesting take on Santa in India, and Nickleodeon is the producer.



A very different way to celebrate the season!!

Live Like a Tsar

The same armored car company that built cars for Tsar Nicholas, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky are now offering the Dartz Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition armored car with whale penis leather seats. This SUV also comes with gold plated bulletproof windows, a tungsten exhaust, diamond and ruby encrusted gauges, a external Kevlar coating and three bottles of the most expensive vodka made (RussoBaltique). The asking price for this dorky SUV comes in at a whopping 1.6 million dollars. It's set to be showcased at next years Top Marques show in Monaco.
Sydney Morning Herald/Dartz

Wheelie Bin Stickers

I'm very confused. A dead baby is found in a recycling center. That's happened before. But then the authorities issue "wheelie bin stickers" as a response. Did they look like this?

The Redneck Games

Despite the French captioning and source, this video is all in English, for your Redneck Enjoyment.

Weird Canadian Commercials

In an effort to prove to Nethie that not all Canadian commercials are horrifically realistic scenes of brutal workplace accidents, I am pleased to present some of the weirdest commercials to grace our northern TV screens.

These are all part of the same campaign of ads for Mac's Milk's Frosters drinks. Basically, it's convenience store advertising some new flavours (not flavors) of slush drinks that they had just come out with. At least, I think that's what they were advertising. The whole WTF line of ad more or less just gave us insight into how deanged ad-men really are.



Yeah, I think Hate Crime is a good place to start. It really says nothing about the product in question, but speaks volumes about the sanity (or lack thereof) of those invoved in creating the commercial. More >>

Number 96

Who knew that the first gay character on mainstream TV was featured way back in 1972 in the Australian soap opera NUMBER 96...? Not I, till recently.

Apparently the show was pretty hot stuff!

All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.