Run for you Lives! Never mind whats happening throughout the Arab world, WE HAVE BEEN HACKED!

The Happy Slap has been hacked, possibly by Anonymous due to our ongoing support of Colonel Gaddafi but who knows.

Just be careful of any weird links posted here. And if you want someone to blame, blame Dr. Cock and Balls.

...good odds on Tragedy (with a capital 't') UPDATE

its seems 12-5 on 'cocaine overdose' was extraordinarily generous...

Operation Payback Strikes Against The Happy Slap

Lonely nerd collective 'Anonymous' have struck out against The Happy Slap with a DDoS attack, as part of their irritating little campaign against 'the man'. Presumably The Happy Slap was targeted because of its important place at the forefront of the new media establishment. Some of the symptoms of the attack are failure to reach the site, lack of new posts appearing, and poor quality/unfunny material appearing consistently, and well behind the Zeitgeist. So, if you find yourself on the Happy Slap, confronted with something you don't find funny, or interesting, or remotely current (or even 'there'), its all Operation Payback's fault. You can get revenge by punching/kicking any nerdy children you see. Indiscriminate bullying is the way forward.

Wednesday Wednesday! Spare a Thought for Those Without a DS

Yes dear readers of the Happy Slap, in your multitudes you wailed and whined at the loss of your weekly wednesday shot of wisdom and whimsy. But fear not, because normal service has been resumed.

I could be humble, and claim that my absence was born of laziness, procrastination or a complete lack of ideas, but no. I owe the loyal readers of this blog the truth, even if it means I must embarassingly reveal my altruism and charitable nature.

You see, for the past several weeks, I have been travelling the globe, witnessing the impact on the lives of ordinary people of a terrible plight. Like Lenny Henry in the deserts of Africa watching impoverished people starve and having a bit of a cry, I have been visiting the homes around the world of those unlucky souls who do not own a Nintendo DS, in any of it's myriad forms.

But how can this be!? I hear you cry. I do not understand yet the causes, but I have seen the effects. Did you know that there are roughly 140 million DS' in the world? With an ever expanding population of 6.7 BILLION people this means there is only 1 Nintendo DS for every 48 people!

Even with Nintendo's emphasis on casual gaming, I think we can all agree that this imbalance needs to be addressed.

I know, I know - there's a time and a place for this sort of thing, and this isn't it, but...

Alison Brie: Delightful

...Community may have jumped the shark. I hate to say it. The NBC show, starring Chevy Chase, Joel McHale and the delightful Alison Brie (see picture. Nice, right?) had been my personal favourite. Only yesterday I was making my case for it to be the best show on TV. But that's all changed today...maybe. I just watched last week's episode, and it was a godawful preachy mess. While there were still a few choice jokes, and the performances were perfect as always, the horrendous 'anti-alcohol' message reeked of a particularly bad episode of 'Blossom'.
I'm hoping its temporary.. though 10 episodes in to a 24 episode run, it doesn't bode well. Maybe someone on the show died of alcohol poisoning, and they did it for his family. Or it could be part of the writer's community service. Yeah, thats my bet..

Smug Twats Enjoy Ice, Finally Have Use for Lidl Hiking Gear

Smug twats all over Dublin have finally had an excuse to break out their Lidl hiking gear in the last week, in an unbelievably irritating response to the recent cold weather. No doubt purchased at moderate expense sometime in the last 6 months, the gear is not quite up to hiking standard, but is perfectly suited as an adornment or decoration for their users, keen for all to know of their wholesome mores, and prudent planning. Unconfirmed reports have suggested that all people using hiking gear in the middle of the city centre have listed 'outdoors pursuits' as an interest on their respective CVs.

James Blunt saved the world!

I know I couldn't believe it either, however in an interview due to be aired on BBC radio 5 this evening James Blunt will explain how by defying a US General's orders and risking court martial he stopped World War 3 from happening. It just goes to show that no matter how cool a story you have it is still possible that everyone thinks your a twat.

-As a side note I would like to point out how difficult it is to get a funny picture of James Blunt. Thankfully, after much searching, I found one. Now while this picture is quite is crude it is the best of a bad bunch.

PWC Girls are diappointing, should sue, probably wont

Zeitgeist Ahoy! Only three days after the story broke, and only about 6 weeks after the email was in every inbox in the country (except mine. What do I have, leprecy?), you're favourite psuedo-news source has some witty and urbane comment to make on... the PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPER SEX SCANDAL.
That's probably overselling it - its not really a sex scandal. Its a sexism scandal, which is much less fun. But the real beauty about this story is that every right thinking person gets to be outraged at frat-boy esque shenanigans from PWC's neanderthal employees, but also, with the printing of the images, we can secretly rate the girls ourselves. For my part i'm a fan of (snip - Ed).
What really horrifed me though, was Tom Dunne's thoughts on it. "They'll be delighted", says Tom, "chuffed". Yes, of course, these young women who have worked through college to become professionals and get good jobs will be "delighted" that the men they have to work with every day refer to them as "new clunge", worthy of an FYI email to such luminaries as their mate , the estate agent from CBRE. This terrible sexist attitude led me to feel I need to balance it out, so I'm posting a link to Karen Owen's infamous (and probably NSFW unless you have a quite liberal boss, or a boss who has difficulty reading whats on your computer screen) Duke 'fuck list'.
The lovely Karen chose to round off her time at Duke University by detailing and ranking every athlete she had sex with in her time there, writing it up in a thesis format, using semi-academic language, and putting it in a power point to show her friends. Who, inevitably sent it all around the world. I like this girl's style - she's enough of a tramp to get around a lot, and do some crazy shit (library blowjob high five - READ THE THESIS), but also enough of a dork to do a powerpoint presentation about it. Shes supertramp. Not the band.

Wednesday Wednesday! The Great X-Factor Homage Mystery

It's that time of year again. Time for Simon Cowell to smugly smirk his way to the bank and Louis Walsh to piss and bitch and threaten to quit, and he really means it this time.

But despite my best attempts to avoid this wretched festival of auto-tune and humiliation, certain tidbits seem to seep through into my daily intake every fucking year. And what's really piqued my interest this time around is the naming of one of the girl groups.

This group of dowdy young things, pictured above, go by the name of Belle Amie.

Belle Amie, Bell Amee, Bellamy.

Yes these girls have obviously been so affected by someone by the name of Bellamy, they thought to name their desperate stab at fleeting fame after them. But who is this influential figure, this totem of virtue and inspiration that has so impressed themselves upon these impressionable young ladies? Well, I have a few theories.

1) Craig Bellamy
This no-necked Welsh footballer with his simian brow seems like an odd choice for some sweet young poplets to name themselves after. Famed for his bad boy attitude and assaulting a team-mate with a golf club, this is maybe an outside shot.

2)Matt Bellamy
One of the nice guys of rock and roll, the front-man of Muse seems like another odd choice. With his falsetto voice and indulgent guitar riffs he is, at least, one step closer to the girls' choice of career, but they don't seem as concerned with such weighty themes as the apocalypse and desperation in the face of seeming unimportance as he is.

3)David Bellamy

Noted environmental activist and television personality David Bellamy was one of the first people to raise concerns over man's impact on nature. With his television appearances and books such as 1989's 'The Greenhouse Effect' he voiced his concerns to the British public. He also voiced an advert for Ribena. Maybe the girls are big blackcurrant fans?


So there we have it. After an extensive bout of research, I am no closer to finding out the truth in this elusive mystery. Are these four girls, chasing the dreams of fame and fortune like so many before them, Welsh football fans? Or do they secretly hold dreams of becoming the next stadium rock sensation? Or do they simply really love juice?

Wednesday Wednesday! Someone Seems to Have Missed the Point

But It's certainly not these ladies.

No, It's actually a group of Cheerleaders from a Connecticut high school, who have recently complained to their local school board because their cheerleading uniforms are too revealing.

One of them confronted the board with this question;

“I am embarrassed to stand up here dressed like this. Is this really how you want Bridgeport to be represented?”

So let's take a moment to mull this over, because she's hit them with a real puzzler. Do you want your town represented by a bunch of attractive, athletic and enthusiastic girls wearing slutty outfits?

Coming from a town that proudly displays the slogan 'A Nice Place to Shop' (which wasn't even true when it was originally proposed), I can say that the answer to that question is a definite fucking yes.

(As an aside, Naas is actually the name of the Celtic Goddess of Dreams, and the town is named after her because it is, according to legend, the site of her grave. So perhaps a more appropriate slogan for the town is 'Welcome to Naas; Where Dreams Go To Die')

Riding a segway to Heaven

In case you didn't know the millionaire owner of the company that makes Segways, Jimi Heselden, died on Sunday by driving off a cliff in England. Now this got me thinking about about Gob from Arrested Development (above), which in turn lead me to look for an update on the Arrested Development movie, which according to IMDB has 12,000 in-production titles. Now tell me that wasn't a good segue [pron. seg-way] get it?

Lieb' vaterland magst ruhig sein! (Dear Fatherland be at peace)

According to the Telegraph World War 1 ends this Sunday when Germany will pay its final repatriation payment of £59.5 million this Sunday. This must be a huge relief for the 4 veterans of the War who are still alive (the total number of participating personnel of the war was 65,038,810). Finally all this mucky business can be put behind us and the Treaty of Versailles will be resolved amicably, well except for that small hiccup with the Nazis and all.

In case you didn't notice this was just a thinly veiled excuse to use the above picture and my personal favourite, the below picture. Hoorah for xenophobic early nineteenth century cartoons.

Wednesday Wednesday! American Conservatives Clutching At Straws

The 99 is a comic book written by Naif al-Mutawa, designed to present Muslim children with the kind of archetypal heroes that have inspired American and European children for decades, teaching them concepts of justice, morality and social responsibility. It features a mostly Islamic cast of superheroes fighting for peace in the Middle East.

It's also going to be one of the front running shows on The Hub, a new digital kids TV network launching later this year. Which, of course, has sparked controversy with many Americans, including Adrian Morgan of the organisation Family Security Matters, a right wing group who tend to get worked up every time the words 'Muslim' and 'America' are mentioned within 500 words of each other.

These patriotic souls with nothing-but-the-sanctity-of-the-American-Way at heart fear that, instead of promoting tolerance and awareness of the wider world, this show will serve to indoctrinate American youths into... well, shit, I dunno.

The headline of the article is

Meet the Muslim Superheroes who are Ready to Indoctrinate American Kids

but then the author doesn't really seem to be able to pin-point what the fuck they're being indoctrinated into. He goes on to quote al-Mutawa's story about wanting to create a show that promoted closer relations between Islamic and Western people after overhearing anti-western sentiments at a mosque.

He also says that in comic book form this whole thing wasn't so bad, because people choose to read comics, or not.

But on TV, goddamn it, that's just not the case. The TV is the omnipresent dictatorial presence in the corner of the room, and once you enter that room, well, you're gonna sit down, shut up, and do whatever it says.

Wednesday Wednesday! The Japanese are Awesome.

Dr. Hideto Tomabechi is a Japanese scientist who has harnessed the power of sound in an effort to beat one of the great challenges of the 21st century; How many ways can we find to make boobs bigger?

Because surgery, hormone treatments, excercises and specific diets just weren't enough for this man, he set about developing a subliminal ringtone that will stimulate certain biological imperatives in a woman, causing her boobs to swell. It's even been featured on the Discovery Channel, and we all know that their science is always sound.

But this man is not just a pioneer in the art of making boobs bigger, no, he's also responsible for the research that was used to de-program brain-washed members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, who were responsible for the 1995 Tokyo Subway sarin gas attacks.

Japan is responsible for many of the best things in the world, Godzilla, robots, Mario, Hot Japanese Girls, and now, pioneering, multitasking super scientists.

bad rpg!!

Wednesday Wednesday! Man Has Hangover, Country Shits Itself

On Monday night Brian Cowen attended the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party Conference, giving a speech and then partaking in the kind of socialising that anybody who has ever been to conference, no matter what their field of profession may be, partakes in; he got pissed and had a sing-song.

Yesterday morning, Brian Cowen (pictured above in one of his more graceful moments) did a radio interview. During the interview he sounded gruff, annoyed and evasive, he answered questions poorly and gave misleading or mistaken answers. Fine Gael TD Simon Coveney then tweeted that Cowen sounded "Half way between hungover and drunk". This lead to a media shit-storm with everyone, especially George Hook, climbing atop their high horses and riding them till they exploded in a shower of moral outrage, and ill-considered political suggestion.

Now, I'm no fan of Brian Cowen's. He's uncharismatic, largely incompetent and arrogant. Add to this the fact that WE NEVER VOTED FOR THE FUCKER and you can see why I have a problem with him being Taoiseach at this topsy-turvy time of global recession.

But for fuck's sake, this is ridiculous. He turned up for work hungover. Well, shit, we've all done that. Now, I know he's not working in Tesco, that he has an important job and it was unprofessional for him to do it. I get that, but the man is entitled to a session every now and then, I will never begrudge a person that. The real mistake he made was scheduling an important radio interview for an early morning show the day after the biggest piss-up of his annual professional calendar.

Really, having listened to the interview, I can say in my opinion that he doesn't sound any more disinterested or incompetent than any other interview of his that I've listened to.

But hey, If this leads to Cowen losing his job (It probably won't), then I guess I can't really complain.

Wednesday Wednesday! Canadians Try to Make their Roads Safer. With Ghosts!

The British Columbia Automobile Association (BCAA) Traffic Safety Foundation, and other Canadian road safety organisations are starting a new road safety inititiave, using optical illusions to scare motorists into slowing down in built up areas.

An image of a young girl will be painted onto the tarmac outside a school, elongated and indecipherable to the eye until you reach a point on the road 30 meters away as you approach. At this point the image will be lined up perfectly for the human eye, and - HOLY SHIT THAT LITTLE GIRL JUST APPEARED FROM OUT OF NOWHERE!!!

Yeah, this seems like a good idea.

Wednesday Wednesday! Nerds and Musical Theatre; A Potent, Pungent, Mix.

News recently broke that the long-talked about Spider-Man musical was finally getting made. Featuring music and lyrics by U2's Bono and the Edge, it promises to be a big stinking pile of overly spectacularised shite. Presumably the pairs legendary lyrical subtlety will produce such classics as 'I can shoot webs now!' and 'my costume has two colours; red and blue'.

But it's not the only thing that will be drawing the great unwashed into the wonderful world of musical theatre in the near future. A production company is soon to premiere an opera of the story of the very first Klingon emperor, Kahless. The epic tale of Kahless and the woman he loves, Lady Lukara will be told entirely in Klingon.

Yeah, that's right, Klingon. Because what we needed was for the opera to be even harder to understand.

What gets me most about this though is the fact that opera singing is a very specific talent, and requires years of intense training and discipline. Which means that when this thing hits the stage, there's gonna be a bunch of highly trained, dedicated people posturing on stage with shitty melty-chocolate face and rejected 70s disco outfits wondering "is this truly what I've trained for? What the fuck am I doing here?', while a bunch of fat, sweaty nerds take the whole thing entirely too seriously.

Like this, but fatter.

Internet Comment of the Week

So, I guess pretty much everyone has seen the video of the woman putting the cat into the bin (here). But my favourite aspect of this whole story is the comment left by a mister '

nichtsausserwahrheit' (which translates ironically enough as 'Nothing but Truth'), who simply said 'In China they eat the cat'.

The Happy Slap Congratulates It's New International Correspondant

File Photo

THAT'S RIGHT!! Happy Slap Corp. is expanding apace - in addition to two (2!!!) new correspondants, we are proud to announce the launch of our first international office, to be headed up by long time contributor, Clarko-polo. In Scotland. So for the same old Happy Slap Shit, with a Scottish twist, check out Clarko-polo's new weekly column 'Portrait of the Artless as a Young Ham'
Also, starting next week, John Q's new bi-weekly Wednesday column, 'WEDNESDAY, WEDNESDAY'. It's gonna be a laugh riot.