2oceans Vibe

Facebook has been valued at more than $50 billion, which is more than Time Warner. Justin Timberlake probably thinks that’s really cool. The Great Folly Of Zuckerberg cracked the 50 billion mark after raising $500 million in investment from Goldman Sachs, and a Russian company called Digital Sky.

That headline is not misleading in any way. After inventing the game, and then being beaten at it by almost every one of your former colonies, the English regained a small measure of cricketing pride by spanking the Australian cricket team at the MCG. It took all of fifteen minutes to squander their new found dignity.

South Africa has received an official invitation to join the BRIC economic development block, comprised of emerging giants Brazil, Russia, India, and China. In short, we’ve just been called over to the bleachers by the cool kids, and offered a cigarette.

These photographs were shot in 1969, and were uncovered in some inocuous storage unit just last week. They’re a pretty fascinating documentary of a brief period in 1969 when the United States Army Engineer Corps dammed up the falls slightly upstream. It was the first time in thousands of years that the falls had run dry.

There’s a pun in there, but if I’d been the one to write it I’d be forced to punch myself in the face, and that’s relatively difficult. Photographer John Mason has released a series of colour photos depicting Sophiatown’s destruction in ’59; they’re worth checking out on your lunch break. Pretty colours, historical relevance…take your pick.

If someone had told you that the creator of the Simpsons, Matt Groening, and late night talk show king, David Letterman had parodied ANCYL[biters] president, Julius Malema, you would not have believed them.

Walt Disney will be clicking his heels in his grave. Japanese scientists have, by promoting the miscopying of DNA from mice to their progeny, randomly produced a mouse that sings very much like a bird. So what are we aiming for here? Mouse servants? Mouse message couriers? No, not even remotely.

Irish people are generally funny. And I’m allowed to say that, because my mother is Irish. So when someone tells you that you have funny irishmen on your hands, you know that something special is in the offing. Presenting the Rubberbandits, an irish comedic duo from Limerick. And they have a horse outside.

I have feared this for years. What happens if one day you switch off the television, but the McDonalds logo is still burnt into the back of your corneas, and it won’t go away until you buy the Biggest Mac that there ever was? Well, that day is today friends. Sort of. Once in a theatre in Germany.

Independent Newspapers has been providing us with little gems of unintentional wordplay for years now. And when they’re not reporting that X politician has been fingered by Y investigative body (how many times could you withstand that kind of interrogation before you cracked?), they’re making pictorial gaffs. Please enjoy this little piece of joy.

I know – it’s December, you’ve got this big pseudo-Christian consumerist monolith being forced down every available orifice imploring you to spend more money on This New Shiny Thing, and maybe you’re a little sick of that right now. I understand that. But believe me when I say that this is a freaking awesome advert.

826LA is an adorable store that probable has a real-world address in area-code 826, LA, but which also has some awesome, dare-I-say quirky goods on display online – ‘from another time.’ Their Dodo Chow, for instance, 1970s coffee cups, or their Viking Odorant. It’s not exactly tinned unicorn meat, but it’s pretty rad!

Well, it’s not like they had them explode from a cake and huskily sing ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. Jesus,’ but this comes pretty close. But hey, good thing they don’t allow gay folk to become Popes, right? Otherwise that creepy look on his face would be pretty hard to explain away.

Increasingly it seems like Assange is proving to be a bigger story than the cables he most recently to be released – HiLoBrow artist, Joe Alterio, tries to put that right with his series of illustrations paired with the more bizarre political activities revealed in the latest batch of Wikileak cables. Expect dirty dancing and ninja assassins.

Well done, Internet. This thing has come more or less full circle – please, enjoy singers from Liberty University in Virginia performing a Chrismas carolified version of the ‘Bed Intruder Song’ that autotuned its way into your hearts so many months ago.

You know that phrase ‘they put their pants on the same way we do?’ Well unless you dress yourself by doing a backflip, this doesn’t apply here. Please watch this stunt reel if you want to be inspired by the heights of badassery humanity can reach, or depressed by how much more badass than you this guy is.

Unicycling has arguably been around since there have been wheels and chairs. That’s just science. Charity has been around for a pretty long time too. So it’s fitting that these two ancient disciplines would come together in the Counter Balance ‘Freedom Revolution Tour,’ which is raising funds to provide disadvantaged school kids with shoes.

There are few things better than watching minor natural disasters from the comfort of your own home/office/wherever the hell you’re watching this from. Granted, the Metrodrome is about as significant to me as the International Hopscotch Court, but watching the roof cave in from the past week of snow is pretty rad.

Artist Vincenzo Cosenza has redrawn the world map based on each nation’s preferred social networking site – ranging from the reasonably well-known Facebook and Orkut to the bizarrely unfamiliar (here) Draugiem – unless you’ve got some friends in Lativa you’ve not told us about.