Your Belly is Full of Junk!

This gets my vote for the strangest ad on the web I've seen in a long time.

"Your Belly is Full of Junk! Learn the trick to removing the undigested food inside of you..." The picture shows what appears to be a Big Mac and fries sitting undisturbed in a cutaway view of a woman's torso.

Pulling the Plug on Mafia Games

The New York Times has reported that the Chinese government has banned online games that feature mafia or organized crime as themes, citing "internet addiction" which it claims is linked to crime.

Meanwhile, on Facebook, the application "Mafia Wars" is steadily gaining in popularity, with more than 14 million active monthly users at last count... If what the Chinese government says is true, should we be preparing for a massive crime wave?

Desperately Seeking Susan's Ad Revenue

Following the Susan Boyle thread, the New York Times ran an interesting article on the difficulty of monetizing internet fame.  Although hundreds of millions of people have watched Susan Boyle perform "I Dreamed A Dream" via the internet - mainly YouTube - this has not translated directly into money for the producers or distributors of "Britain's Got Talent".  And surprisingly, not even YouTube (a unit of Google) has profited from Susan Boyle's fame: commercials were not placed on the videos of her singing due to a failure of Fremantle Media and YouTube to see eye to eye on a way to split the potential ad revenue.

Incidentally, here is a link to Susan's second performance, in which she sings "Memories" from the musical "Cats."

image: http://www.paydayloanaffiliate.com

'Crackberry' for kids

Good News for kids fascinated with phones. Coming soon to a store near you... a blackberry for kids. The Leapfrog Text & Learn will hit store shelves this summer. It's designed for children 3 to 6 allowing them to play like adults. Kids can text, play games and navigate with arrow keys, but it does not connect to the Internet. As you can imagine parents are divided on the subject of technology.

Here is what I'd like to know. If kids are busy playing with phones, when will they have the opportunity to eat dirt?