Advertising. What's not to like? Sure, they invade your favourite TV programme, make you want to cremate your car radio, occupy billboards, bus shelters, building wraps, your shopping trolley...

...even 20 foot tall inflatable bananas. But aside from that, they're harmless.

Well, not according to one website who claim that "the steady normalization of advertising dulls the public's perception of their surroundings, re-enforcing a general attitude of powerlessness toward creativity" or in short, ads make you stupid.

They're using fire to fight fire with ads intended to well... end advertising. Surreal artistic billboards and bus stops with coded anti-advertising slogans designed to "de-normalize" advertising.

If "de-normalization" sounds good you can download anti-advertising posters for your locale but the decision is really up to you. Join the movement and help to break commercials - or resign yourself to ad nauseum.

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There's a new hero in town - a caped consumerist known as Blagman. A bloke who has dedicated his blog not to fighting crime but to the even more exciting pursuit of getting free stuff.

From razor blades to hobnob biscuits, you name it, Blagman's blagged and blogged about it and it's all freely supplied provided he gives a product review.

As his part of this deal Blagman has donned leisure wear, downed diet supplements, enjoyed Drambuie and endured wax strips for men.

But it seems that Blagman's blags are staggering out of control. He's even gone so far as to cadge himself a five centimetre tall toilet and a tiny bathroom and kitchen set, which either means blagman is house training his hamster or he's got a mini-me.

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As seen on ABC's Good Morning America, Fox News, Sky News, Australian news, Swedish news and by millions of people online, this is the gritty ditty which has garnered worldwide appeal - the pancake song.

The person behind all this flipping madness is a self professed "creative person" called James Provan who posted this self-made electro anthem on his You Tube website and was soon inundated with email requests.

Pancakes are indeed very tasty and it's apparent that James likes making them - but not why others like this song so much. I'm not sure he'll see the same success with his other DIY tunes, such as Sheep Are Fluffy.

Bizarre.

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Some say the Ryder Cup was 95% hype and 5% golf - but now an online game has swept the craze off the fairway and into... the final frontier.

Now, thanks to an online game, the craze has swept off the fairway and into... the final frontier.

Galactic Gravity Golf is set in outer space, where gravity holds no truck. Slice the ball and you could be pitching in from a different galaxy.

Replace earthly water features and sand pits with lunar craters, errant solar systems and crooked constellations and you've got a game that's infinitely more enjoyable paving the way for other space sports.

Mork and Mindy would make the perfect pair for extraterrestrial tennis and ET's elongated arms give him a distinct bowling advantage when it comes to interplanetary cricket.

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One website is affectionately dedicated to golfers everywhere who have no idea where the next shot is going - it's a feast for the novice.

They've devised a scoring system for underachieving golfers whose desire outruns performance. With this system, a double bogey is renamed a grouse, a quadruple bogey is a turkey - and the worse the score, the more extreme the bird so 10 over par is known as a dodo.

They've got exclusive rights to the Harry Putter and the Professional Spoon series, recounting life in the Doglegs School of Golfing and Greencraft. And there's even a golf duffers songbook featuring classics re-formatted for the fairway...

I've played a round that's full
Of crappy shots, I've had a bad day,
But hey, that's how golf is,
I play it my way.

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It's Ryder Cup time, and all eyes are on Tiger Woods - a golfer who never contemplates defeat. But there's one thing Tiger hates more than losing: "Gophers, I hate gophers, scum, slime, menace to the golfing industry".

Tiger reveals his hatred in a commercial which never aired here, but is online. It features Mr Woods reprising the role of greenskeeper Carl Spackler in a spoof of the movie Caddyshack. He must free the fairways from the bucktoothed terrorists - the world's most famous golfer meets the worlds most famous gopher - "Hallo Mr Gopher, this is Mr Tiger".

Tiger wins the day and come the Ryder Cup crunch the experience could stand to him. Consider the facial resemblance between his old enemy - the gopher - and his new one: Ian Woosnam.

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Apparently, "the biggest golf match in the world, the Ryder Cup is coming to Ireland". Inspired by this heady spectacle, you may want to improve your handicap - easier said than done...

Help is at hand though - the Golf Talking Meter - a speaker box gizmo which clips to the bottom of your club offers instant precision engineered audible feedback to let you master a winning swing, such as: "Hook", "Slice" or hopefully "Nice Shot".

Whether it's a help or hindrance depends on how annoying you find the sound of a robotic coach. Perhaps the Golf Talking Meter is best employed to distract opponents but even then, as one site points out, selling for 15 euro it's probably 14 euro overpriced.

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It's Ryder Cup week and it's likely that neither teams will have taken advantage of the golfing advice bestowed on the website of S and C.

To the naked eye, S and C have all the appearance of mafia dons on day release from Death Row, and their golf 'smarter not harder' ethos would seem to bear this out.

According to S and C, you can "Help" your opponent's technique using the "poke them in the back of their knee when they're in mid-swing" ploy. Or, try accidentally hooking their club with yours at the top of their backswing and if all else fails you could delicately pummel them with your sand wedge

With these guys golf is never "going to be epic." In fact, its rip-roaring, club throwing, sand in the eyes sadism will make the Ryder Cup look like a kids session of crazy golf.

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Someone in cyberspace has made it their mission to make the world a better place - "one elevator ride at a time". Elevator Rules is dedicated to the dubious etiquette of travelling by lift.

Concerning itself with topics like button management, touching, personal space and oversize packages, not to mention inappropriate or tasteless behaviour.

It may sound alarmingly mundane, but for the upwardly mobile these are rising concerns... although publishing a book of elevator rules does go a bit far... I mean, who would buy a book about elevator rules? Well, a quick glance on Amazon reveals that the person who did... also bought... the little book of horse poop... now I wish I hadn't asked.

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The latest Mini Bytes podcast is now online. It's an ode to the joys of the luncheon meat we all love to eat

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Not big enough to become a sumo wrestler? Here's your chance - become a warrior from the safety of your desk...

Sumo wrestling - the ancient art of having two big roundy-shaped guys with nappies push each other around like overgrown schoolgirls. Now, for those of you too weedy to push a two year old, never mind a two ton thirty year old, there's an easier way of becoming an overgrown warrior.

Keyboard sumo is an online game where two players extend middle fingers and place them on the 'F' and 'J' keys on the keyboard respectively. Then, opponents hold down the button whilst they try and push lardy contenders off the keyboard.

Enjoy the thrill of sumo without becoming obese or donning uncomfortable underwear, safe in the knowledge that your opponent can't fall on you turning you into a pamper wearing pancake.

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Imagine if you could control an overgrown sock puppet with delusions of grandeur... Well, now you can, with the help of a website that allows you to put words into the mouth of everyone's favourite cowboy, George W Bush.

Generate your own Presidential speech from a selection of choice phrases, and allow George to express what he's really feeling:

"Ladies and gentlemen fear my country and above all mad urgent duty to kill on a massive scale. We've accomplished much, squandered lives, broken treaties, destroyed innocent lives, human dignity - even my own."

Yes, now you can make George say the most improbable things: the United States is great, conflict is great, Saddam Hussein is great. Now if only there was a website that would force Bertie Ahern to use words of more than one syllable.

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This cool tool uses the ultimate non-impact no-contact weapon: Google, to compare and contrast two topics - or even the two alternative spellings of the same word.

"War - what is it good for?", Bruce Springsteen once sagely asked. The answer might have been "Good for people who make tanks and bombs, but generally not so good for the preservation of the human race".

It seems the human race is hell bent on bombing seven shades of shi'ite (sand) out of each other and there's no way around it. Unless we try the ultimate non-impact no-contact contest that is Googlefight. In the Googlefight arena, you enter two topics and the winner is decided by whichever garners the most Google search results.

Via the Internet, Googlefight has refereed fights like Kramer versus Kramer, America versus Iraq and God versus Satan, so adjudicating the Middle East crisis should be a breeze.

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When the gates of Croke Park swing open for soccer, the least the footie contingent should do is make some effort not to sully the sacred sod with common Ole-Oleing and Mexican waving. One Irish website has outlined some correct phraseology.

A criticism of a players ability might be phrased thus - "what in the name of Jaysus is Kilbane at, sure he wouldn't kick spuds to chickens". A promising debut might be noted with "young McGready is a good yoke, is this his first year out of minor". Or simultaneous fixture anxiety might result in "have ya a wireless Matty, I hear Switzerland were bating Cyprus out the gate at half time"
Needless to say, all prawns will be removed from sandwiches and replaced with the hill 16 staple - hang.

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The latest Mini Bytes podcast is now online. This week, we hear about the original inventor of the I Pod

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Remember when you were five? And the classroom walls were plastered with simple, brightly coloured pictures showing the alphabet? Well there's a guy in the warped classroom at the end of the Internet who doesn't see why A always has to be for apple, or B always has to be for ball...

So he's come up with his own ABC - An un-politically correct ABC if you will, complete with illustrations where C is for catapult, D is for dunce, E is for executioner, And F stands for being fat... not morbidly obese, as it's nowadays known.

And who is this person responsible for corrupting our children with this politically incorrect propaganda? How does this alphabet debaser fund his fiendish way? Well according to the site, he's a school headmaster - so that's alright then.

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Believe it or not, there's a website which makes it alright for you to talk to yourself. Your future self!

Future Me is a simple online alternative to a time machine, allowing you to send a message to be emailed back to yourself at some pre-defined point in the future.

Follow the lead of three hundred other users and send yourself a post-dated check-up: "Dear future me, did you grow up to be a fireman, do you still have the use all your limbs, how big is your bald patch, is Celebrity Love Island still on TV, and if so why?"

And, if you're the kind of person who takes offense when no-one remembers your birthday, fear not, you can always rely on future you.

(Image used from Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis)

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Entertain Your Inner Child: Being a baby is the easiest thing in the world. Without a care in the world, without any responsibilities your free to spend your time perfecting the arts of dribbling, belching, gurgling and falling over.

One website wishes to bestow this sense of freedom upon us once again. The site presents a range of gifts to entertain your inner child.

With a range of 40 feet, the Marshmallow Blaster gun is the ultimate big kid toy and perfect for an office alternative to paint balling.

The mini sand trap golf box is a reminder for the manager who’d rather be in the locker room than the boardroom and if you are constantly harangued by micro managers gaping over your shoulder then consider…. the desktop monitor rear view mirror – the best way to avoid office penalty points.

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Off Their Rockers: Last week we brought you the juggernaut meets mini metro musical car crash that was William Shatner almost singing Elton John's Rocket Man

But there’s even more pitiful celebrity ditties on the Rock N Roll Hall of Shame website.

George Burns lived to 100 but smothered his music at birth

Jo Pesci was an infamous hit man but this site reveals why he never had any musical hits

Telly Savalas seems to have misplaced the tune when he lost that loving feeling

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For the love of Spam: Nowadays the word spam means many things but it used to mean only one thing...

"Spam, spam, spam, spam, one of the miracle meat in a can”. Yes, to most people spamming is the act of sending malicious emails containing everything from dodgy drugs to computer bugs.

To others, it’s the act of gorging yourself on healthy nutritious, luncheon meat – the sort which has appeared in cans on shelves since the early 30s. In the internet age, the word spam has been much maligned and this site is pushing the positives of spam – the meat variety.

Find out about spam through the ages, explore the spam family range from Lite to Turkey, join the spam fan club or just learn the spam anthem - “save time, save time – to eat something grand, ask for spam”.

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The latest Mini Bytes podcast is now online. It's all about celebs who are big in Japan.

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Patently Absurd:The worlds best inventions have allowed mere mortals shape the world to their whim, cure crippling diseases and overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

But, they’re not as much fun as the world’s worst. One website has stockpiled a collection of patently absurd patents – the ones that slid off the drawing board and into obscurity.

The baby patting machine is a mechanical arm which taps your toddlers touché until they fall asleep, the inflatable automatic bed maker is every parents dream, provided it’s not inflated at the wrong time. The motorized ice cream cone is built for those who are too lazy to exert their tongue unneccesarily..

And without even trying I can think of loads of applications for “an amusement apparatus for kicking the user’s buttocks” or put another way - an arse kicking machine…

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Not Leaving on a Jet Plane:If you're travelling abroad but don't fancy having your personal belonging re-classified as terrorist weapons maybe you should consider some words of wisdom from the mysteriously titled Man in Seat 61.

Mark Smith is a self-confessed "career railway man" who has devoted his time and energies to pain-stakingly extolling the good old fashioned virtues of rail travel.

He's journeyed from deepest, darkest England to Vladisvostok, shared carriages with Russian arms dealers, drunk Darjeeling in plush Indian hotels, and become the pin up for the trainspotter set, thanks to his comprehensive train site.

If, like Mr T, you've got a fear of gravity or you don't like having someone search your cavity, maybe you should consider mixing your globetrotting with some trainspotting.

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