WIGGUM DAILY

 

Now we’re not saying that WD is going to win a Web 2.0 design award, but our layout is clean and simple, content is orderly and easy to find. WD scales well across different monitor widths, and plays nicely with modern browsers.  All in all, we like to think that WD is a "nice" site to visit.  Then you come across sites out there like these:

 

 

 

This is actually one time that I recommend you view the sites using the INTERNET EXPLORER browser in order to get the full effect of the awfulness. I tried it with Firefox, and then again with Internet Explorer. It’s even MORE of an experience.  Try it for yourself.

 

Horse Rentals Virginia

 

 

 

Japanese Seizure Robots

 

 

 

Even free ugly… is still ugly.

 

This guy should ask for a refund from his X dealer. Clearly a bad batch.

 

 

Do you have examples of TRULY awful website designs. Let us know. Send a link to wdcontent@timdotnet.net or leave a comment.

 

 

This is by far the longest video we’ve brought you on WD timing in at 26 minutes. But it’s compelling viewing and worth the time to sit there and watch it. This home video of the Sept 11th 2001 attacks on the New York City was taken by "Bob and Bri" from the window of their 36th Floor Manhattan apartment, located less than 500m from the two towers of the former World Trade Centre.

 

The video starts out a few minutes after the first plane hit the north tower. Resist the urge to skip forward through the video. It’s really interesting to watch it from start to finish. Made more so because We in 2007 know how it ends, yet these people are not sure what to make of it all in this video.   Observe how their state of mind goes from "Just another crazy day in New York… I hope I can still make my hair appointment in time…"  to… "That fire is going to take ALL day to put out…"  to  "Oh my God..  Oh my God… Oh My God… what the heck is happening…are these windows sealed…"

 

I think the essence of the unprecedented and unbelievable nature of those events, to those who watched them at the time, can be summed up best by Bri who is on the phone talking to someone in the first 5-6 mins of the video and she naively says at one point "No no.. it’s OK, they’re only attacking the World Trade Centre… not us…". 

 

 

The first few minutes are in "silence" with just the voice of Bri talking on the phone and to another person in the room. It’s surreal when she opens the window of the apartment and the NOISE that floods in from the streets below.  And when she zooms in on one of the first fire trucks arriving at the base of the tower. You think… those guys in that truck would all be dead now. Being first on the scene, they would have gone straight up the tower to the scene of the fire… never to return.

 

In a footnote to this video, I would like to add that the USA’s response to this attack by fundamentalist Islamic extremisits, was to round up a posse and invade the Arabic country of Iraq. Shock and Awe said the poster. In and Out.. Home By Christmas was the sentiment.  That was in March 2003.  Flash forward to June 2007 and they are still there. They have NO idea how to get out. Or even when. Meanwhile the death toll on the USA side has long since raced past the 2993 official death toll for the Sept 11th 2001 attacks. 

 

When I wrote THIS article in March 2007 the Iraq/Afgan USA military death toll was 3597 killed. It’s been 85 days since that was written, and the official USA death toll for soldiers killed is now 3927.  That’s 403 more killed in the 85 days since March 31st 2007, or FOUR soldiers killed per day, everyday of the week. Or to put in another way, 2.49 USA soldiers have died on each and every of the 1575 days since George Bush’s 2003 botched and mismanaged invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

No WONDER they had to come up with a recent "plan" to send more troops over…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The latest yawn-fest PC v Mac commercials would indicate that Apple has run out of things to say about it’s own PC hardware products ( yes - Macs are PC’s too). Instead they are continuing down the "PC’s are Evil" road.  I’m sure this approach goes down well with the zealot fan base who laugh mockingly down their noses at the poor old non-Mac computer users.  But you have to ask yourself as a PC user (which over 90% reading this will be), do you enjoy being made fun of ? Being ridiculed and made to feel stupid and small for your choice of computer hardware ?  Do these ads make you want to leave your PC out on the kerb on rubbish day and trot off to the local Apple store with a suitcase full of cash. No, they make you want to punch the crap out of the smarmy little brat playing the Mac PC.

 

Sure the early ads were clever, humorous and poked fun at the many foibles of Windows and the PC’s it runs on.  We all got a chuckle watching those.  But a monkey could have written those ads, it was like shooting fish in a barrel, even Apple would admit that.  As the campaign has progressed it’s spiralled down from the heights of witty and clever to become a little embarrassing frankly.

 

I‘m not going into a whole debate and article about the actual facts of Windows PC’s versus Mac OS.X PC’s.  We all know the score there. I’ll cover that in a future article. For now we’ll let the Apple Reality Distortion Field carry on unabated.

 

As if we needed more proof that the message has become lost along the way from initial campaign conception to the current implementation of today… What is supposed to be the "take-away" from this ?  That things never change ?  Really… that’s all you’ve got left in the ideas tank. Maybe things would have changed if Bill Gates hadn’t taken out his wallet and chipped in a lazy US$150M, back in 1997 to save Apple from sliding off into oblivion.

 

 

Time to get a new PR firm Apple.  One with a new message. One that promotes YOUR products, not simply taking pot shots at easy targets, ie: the +90% of the worlds computer users that don’t use your hardware.  I’m sure you’re paying them a tidy sum to pump out this tired boring warmed over idea. You deserve to get value for your money…

 

 

 

You won’t see these clips on your sanitised nightly TV News bulletins. This is the reality of the so-called WAR on TERROR in Iraq. Real people being killed with real bullets and real bombs everyday.

 

It’s hard to know how to describe the FACES OF THE FALLEN website, produced and maintained by the WASHINGTON POST newspaper. In one regard, it’s a brilliant, well designed tribute to the men and women, many of them just 18yo and 19yo, who have been KILLED while on military duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.  On the other hand, that such a site has a need to exist makes it sad and depressing.