zembla scoops the sydney morning herald

It's not nearly as exciting as the time Zembla got ahead of The Onion, but Zembla broke the story of Aussie funnyman Dan Ilic's legal troubles over a parody ad one day before The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story about the legal threats on its front page. I would link to the post on Zembla, but if Zembla weren't abandoned and desolate right now, I wouldn't be hanging out in New Wye.

Rather hilariously, Downwind Media created four "remixes" of the ad, removing the soundalike music that so agitated Tourism Australia in the first place. The "special editions" have been a hit - collect all four! However, you may have trouble accessing Downwind Media, as they've been suffering from a DDOS attack for the last few hours. One must wonder if it's mere coincidence that the controversy and publicity over the parody ad happened on the same day Mr. Ilic's site got bombed.

Although Zembla has also gone down due to DDOS issues this week, informed sources assure me that digital pirates are responsible, schoolyard bullies in hacker form demanding protection money from a poor humble DNS provider. Tourism Australia may be a foolish, litigious, and bullying company that eats dingos and/or babies, but they have probably not tried to take down my website. Just Mr. Ilic's.

Anyway, Mr. Ilic's internet famousness continues to explode, the Sydney Morning Herald continues to set the standard for Aussie print journalism that I read online, and I continue to track the story. What will happen next? A cease-and-desist order? A frivolous lawsuit? Squirrels gnawing on motherboards? Do they have squirrels in Australia? Will Tourism Australia have to train a wallaby to sabotage computers?

Oh, internet fairness and equality, where the bloody hell are you?

You can watch the original ad right here and the parody ad here.

welcome to new wye

Hello and welcome to New Wye, the temporary home of the Zembla you know and love when Cementhorizon is unavailable. Zembla's server continues to be attacked by pirates, hackers, and possibly even a squirrel, and has been for the past few weeks. Rather than deprive the Internet of its Sean Keane goodness, such goodness will be moved here until the real Zembla is again accessible.

A note on the name: "Zembla" is the distant northern kingdom in Nabokov's Pale Fire, which may only exist in the delusional mind of the novel's unreliable narrator. "New Wye" is the university town in the same novel, the real-world setting for the novel's action, such as it is. While Zembla is a place of questionable reality, subject to the vagaries of memory and the whim of imagination, New Wye is solid, a concrete location.

Zembla currently exists only in the imaginations and memories of its many fans worldwide. Unless Blogger gets attacked by robots and its programmers stalked by crazed anti-royalist assassins, New Wye isn't going anywhere. Sit back, relax, and spend some time in New Wye, just until Zembla is fixed up and ready to go.

Or, you know, disappears forever. It could really go either way when squirrels are involved.