Karim Bakhtiar's Blog

All I Want For Christmas Is A Kalashnikov

Christmas is a time for family.

It's also a time for giving.

So  why not buy your beloved relatives (and their first born sons) a gift that captures the true spirit of King Herod's Christmas adventures in Day-Care: A Kalashnikov rifle.

Thanks to the wonders of e-commerce, you can now shop for lethal assault weapons from the comfort of home.

You're tempted, aren't you?

Now, I know what you're thinking: "Christmas is a time for family. I dare not arm my relatives."

Well, don't worry. The recipient doesn't get an actual Kalashnikov. They get a Thank You card from a charity.

The real Kalashnikov goes to where it is really needed - war-ravaged Sierra Leone!

Apparently...

The same civil war that depleted the country of tools and work is now providing ample raw material for recovery: weapons. Enterprising blacksmiths and metal workers convert them into farm implements so that a Kalashnikov becomes hoes and axe heads

Ahhh, how sweet! And once the peacenik charity workers have left, the enterprising Blacksmiths and Metal Workers can search EBay for DVDs showing how to turn Hoes and Axe Heads into fully working Kalashnikovs! And to think that some people believed the Internet was only good for Star Trek and Porn!

PS: I've ordered my Kalashnikov. Click here to order yours today!

PPS: Did I mention that they also sell rocket launchers...?

PPPS: And tanks.

Tags: Christmas Presents Charity Gun Guns EBay

Publish A Book

Wouldn't you like to be a published author? Well now anyone can be. Within a week.

Just submit your book, and a check for about £160 (about $300) to British Print-on-demand Publisher Publish And Be Damned and it will reserve you an ISBN number, get you in the electronic book catalogs, provide a generic cover design, print 10 copies and send six to the British Library and others (to whom UK publishers are legally obliged to send copies). They'll also send you four copies. Additional copies cost approximately £8, including postage.

My first thought on realizing this was

what a great service. Now anyone can be a publisher

My second...

oh bugger. Now I've got no excuse for not publishing a book.

Part of me says that 'vanity publishing' is cheating. You pay. You get published. No merit required.

But 300 pages of finished copy takes 100,000 words and 500 hours of going through the hell of continual redrafts. Anyone who would stick at it would deserve to be published.

Ah well. That's another thing for me to stick at the bottom of my lifetime 'To Do' list, below 'Die', above 'Join Gym'.

(American visitors may wish to consider Cafe Press  iUniverse and Lulu.)

T-Shirts

Ah, elections are upon is once again.

But, the perennial question for the political canvasser, who has to appear both respectable and friendly: What to wear?

I haven't made up my mind, but I've ruled out these T-shirts from TShirtHell.com!

Slogans include...

• "I Bought Christopher Reeve's Wheelchair on Ebay"
• "Yes, I have plenty of change you homeless piece of shit. Thanks for asking"
• "I support Stem Cell research but only as a byproduct of my support for killing babies"

Watch TV

No, that's not an instruction. It's a description of a watch with a TFT Screen, retailing at £129.95 from Firebox

Sick of SPAM? Here's the Remedy

If you're sick of receiving SPAM, here's what to do...

1. Register your own domain name, so that the SPAM/Virus filtering can be independent of that provided by your ISP.
2. Use industrial-strength Internet-level SPAM filtering, and virus filtering. I use Email Systems  a Postini reseller.
3. Use desktop-based filtering that allows you some flexibility. I use CloudMark SafetyBar.

70,000 SPAM messages and hundreds of virus-infected emails are sent to me each year. And I find the above set-up works very well.

UPDATE: 01 January 2007: Since my original post in April 2005, the level of spam has increased dramatically. In December 2006, I was sent over 40,000 spam messages. Bloody marketers! Who are these evil people who keep sending out thousands of commercial emails each month? (oh hang on... that would be me...)