War on Civilians in the Dem. Rep. of the Congo

The most devastating piece of news that I heard last week was a report filed from the Democratic Republic of the Congo:
Woman Tells of Congo Murders (RealAudio file)

Fifty people from this woman's village were captured by the Interahamwe, armed Hutu militia from Rwanda who were involved in the genocide in that country. The woman was the only survivor of that attack.

Excerpt from interview:

After they killed the members of my family, 19 members of the Interahamwe raped me. And then they killed two of my children in front of me. And then they took the baby off my back, and they tied a rope around its neck, and they forced me to pull the rope and kill my own baby.

Also check out the BBC news article "DR Congo's Unending War" for some background on the situation there.

Filed in: Politics

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

To answer Slayve's question, it'd be best to watch this instructional video:

Brian, in a banana suit, holding maracas (from Family Guy).

According to a Wikipedia entry,

"Peanut Butter Jelly Time" is a Flash animation that emerged in the early 2000s and became an Internet phenomenon. Based on a song of the same name recorded by the Buckwheat Boyz, the best known version of the animation (usually distributed as a Flash clip) shows a pixelated dancing banana moving back and forth to the song's repetitive chorus.

The dance that the male Tauren from World of Warcraft does is basically the peanut butter jelly time dance. But without the maracas.

Filed in: Oddities Culture

Where the Hell Is Your WoW Character?

Last year, I blogged about the musical genre known as wizard rock, which is music based on the Harry Potter universe. This year, well, today, a friend caught me up to speed on World of Warcraft (affectionately called Warcrack), the massively multiplayer online game. I'd asked him about it because of a phenomenon I'd noticed on YouTube. Specifically, people emulating the Where the Hell Is Matt? videos.

"Where the Hell WAS Matt?" The original video, made in 2003-04.

Matt Harding really started a phenomenon with his video, which depicts him doing the same silly dance in various locations around the world (Mongolia! Summit of Kilimanjaro! Siberia!) with Deep Forest's "Sweet Lullaby Dancing Remix" playing in the background.

In tribute to Matt, several people have created videos set in Azeroth, the Warcraft world, using characters from the game. By the way, you'll appreciate the following videos more if you watch "Where the Hell WAS Matt?" first.

There's "Where the Hell Is Rudinio" by Rudysin. Great transitions and his human character Rudinio's dance moves are well timed to the music, the same music as in Matt's video. What's hilarious is the fact that other players occasionally wander across the screen. At one point, another player even jumps over Rudinio while he's dancing.

Rudinio at Ironforge.

Another favorite of mine is "Where the Hell Is Grylax" by bucko415.

Grylax at Ragnarous' Lair--The Molten Core.

I wish the character was a little closer to the screen. But Grylax the orc has got some great dance moves and even convinces his friends to join in at the end.

I got a kick out of the fact that the characters in World of Warcraft can even dance. There's a whole page dedicated to dancing on the World of Warcraft Community Site. All the different races have their own gender-specific dances. And apparently some of those dances are based on "real" dances, like peanut butter jelly time.

Filed in: Culture Oddities