Boy, was the bazaar busy today! I could barely walk around, it was that packed. I guess the spring weather and the great deals bring everyone out of their houses at the same time. And speaking of great deals, here’s some fantastic stuff I came across today.

[click on each image to see a larger version]

No wonder they made it an official connection… it’s not always easy for men to find the G-star.

Wow, I’m so glad the future came back to tell me all that.

You guys remember the original Benign Girl phone, right? Well, this one has all new items which cannot be missed. It’s a beaut!

These are sports socks… OR-AL sports socks.

“Attractive imitative anti-riot equipment…” and here I thought it was a toy gun.

I wish you these things from the pit of my heart.

Can anyone work out what that word below “AUTHANTIC” is? No, I mean the one behind “joublethree.” I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation.

This might be the best vanity shirt I’ve ever seen.

If you’re new here and you’re jonesing for more, have a dig through the bazaar archives. See you guys tomorrow.

Magnetic Blue sent me this hilarious story from a Turkish translation blog… it’s all about how, in the hands of an unskilled translator, “rotisserie chicken” in Turkish becomes “chicken translate” in English (or, in this case, “cihichen translate”). Link

Hi guys, sorry I’ve been absent the past few days. Don’t worry, I’m not blogfading— we went to Ankara, and then things got a bit hectic around here on a personal front. I’m sure you know how it is. In any case, I’m back now, and it’s time to get caught up on stuff.

First off, there’s a small addition to the site. If you look at the social bookmarking links at the bottom of each post, you’ll notice there’s a new button there on the far left side that says “TwitThis.” I know some of you are savvy and are already thinking about the possibilities and don’t need any further explanation. But for those of you who either don’t twit yet, or have a twitter account but haven’t really explored its potential, here’s the Reader’s Digest version:

Twitter is a combination web site/public instant messaging forum whereby users (who register for free) answer the simple question, “what are you doing right now?” I joined back in January when twitter was still in the nest, but ever since SXSW, twitter seems to have taken full flight, and I for one am excited about what that means for bloggers like me and for cool people who want to get connected with other cool people in a simple way. If you don’t have a twitter account yet, you can get one here, and if you already have an account you can add me as a twitter friend (just click on the “add” link on the right sidebar).

TwitThis is a service whereby twitter users can take blog posts they find interesting and share them with the twittersphere. If you read something on this blog (or any other TwitThis-enabled blog) that you think needs to be shared with the world, just click on the “TwitThis” button at the bottom of the relevant post, and follow the pop-up instructions. It’s as simple as that. You can try it out on this post if you want to see how it works.

Twitter is not for everyone, and for those of you dead set against it, no worries— the TwitThis button is only there if you want it, and if you choose to ignore it, that’s cool too. But if you want in on the action, here are a few links to get you started:

Learn more or get a twitter account
Follow my twitter
Twitterrific (awesome Mac twitter client)
Twitteroo (client for the Windows people)
TwitThis (for the bloggers who want to plug in)

Twitter is specifically designed to be friendly to third-party applications and scripts, so if you’re the curious type, I’m sure you’ll quickly find hundreds of other twitter goodies on Google (my current favourite is twittervision).

As for this blog, I’ll get some new content up later today, I promise. In the mean time, I’ll see you on twitter, or if you’d rather start your day with a laugh, check out the bazaar library (new episode tomorrow!).

Update: I’ve noticed that if you want to twit a specific post, the TwitThis button only works correctly if you’re on the post’s permalink page; otherwise it just twits the main site url (which isn’t the end of the world, but still should be able to work either way). I’ve e-mailed the developer and hopefully things will be fixed soon. I love beta testing. Meanwhile sit tight and use permalinks if you want to twit a specific post.

You got lucky today— I managed to get down to the bazaar and back again before the rain started. Had I been half an hour later I would have missed my window of opportunity. Luckily mother nature seemed to be on my side today and held off until I brought back the latest in bazaar treasures.

[click on each image to see a larger version]

You know, love’s a pretty strong word for someone your age… but I admire your passion.

I guess we have to tune in next week to find out where.

I just don’t understand why little Timmy has a complex about his weight…

Clearly a place to drink beer was high on God’s priority list.

It’s the Bikini Bottom version of Tavern on The Green.

Thanks for the warning, but perhaps it should have been on the back of the shirt.

Sounds like a lot of trouble to go through for a measly seven points.

But can it break the strength of the wind?

Wherever you go, there you are.

As for me, I’m off to Ankara tomorrow, so you might not hear from me for a day or two. If that’s the case, have a great weekend.

I just discovered today that FanTent has a fantastic collection of YouTube clips featuring Turkish remakes of famous Hollywood films. These are as hilarious as they are surreal, and I encourage all of you to give them a look. Link

If you’ve just arrived and you’re looking for more Turkish hilarity, check here and here.

I’ll admit it, today has been insanely busy and I’m just too tired and overwhelmed to write a proper marathon report (poor me, I didn’t even run today, what excuse do I have?), but I wanted to share a few snapshots with you this evening, and later in the week I’ll get a real live bells-and-whistles presentation up here.

So without further ado, the flickr set of my cameraphone photos is here, because those were the fastest and easiest to transfer over (yay for Bluetooth!). I’ve put the photos in the correct order and done my best to provide detailed and interesting descriptions, so hopefully these will hold you over until I sift through the enormous amount of non-cameraphone media gathered from our privileged spot on the press bus, and put it all together into something nice for you to dig through.

We had a blast today; I hope that comes through even in these photos.

Today I made my way down to the glass pyramid, a convention center kind of place near the beach in Konyaaltı, to pick up my press passes for the marathon tomorrow. The weather was gorgeous today— I love Antalya before the heat of the summer sets in.

I’d never actually been inside or even near the pyramid before, and I was a little bit surprised at just how un-glass-like it appears in real life.

In fact, it didn’t particularly resemble glass at all until I got inside and the sun shone through.

When I arrived, I was told that the guy who was giving out the press passes hadn’t arrived yet, so I decided to have a wander around the extensive grounds surrounding the pyramid. They have everything from restaurants to children’s playgrounds to this lovely park I found, complete with pond, which in turn was complete with ducks and fish.

And of course, once you reach the end of the grounds you find yourself at a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean, with a clear view of the rest of the Antalya coastline.

After about half an hour of sightseeing I went back inside the pyramid to find that things had taken a decidedly surreal and feverish turn. I saw runners from many different countries picking up their numbers, and this fellow greeted me almost immediately. I can’t imagine what he’s supposed to be. He vaguely reminds me of some food mascot from the United States, but I can’t place which one. The Planter’s peanut? No, that’s not it. In any case, the press pass guy had finally arrived, so I got my passes and went home. Now I just need to have a good night’s sleep tonight, because I want to get out there early tomorrow morning and see what this marathon has to offer.

I didn’t actually know anything about etrafta.com until my own blog was featured there earlier this month, but now that I’m digging around I’m finding a lot of cool things there. The site is in Turkish, but I think you’ll find that you can get some value out of it even if you don’t read the language. It’s kind of like the Neatorama of the Turkish-speaking world. Link

Bang! Here we are with an armed-to-the-teeth bazaar special! A feeling of security is important, folks— so this spring, why not arm all your kids with the finest automatic weapons available?

Oh, there’s nothing like emptying a cartridge at the sun.

And don’t forget the little ones. Their safety is important, too.

Please, no e-mails asking if those are real guns. Figure it out. You’re smart.

Now, on with the regularly scheduled program.

[click on each image to see a larger version]

These seem a bit niche-y… for Sam2 Only.

Oh dear, just when I thought we’d exhausted every possibility with the suggestive children’s shirts…

…we’ve not even come close to the bottom of the barrel.

Yes, Brigham Young University is in Provo, Utah, but neither of those places are in Idaho.

The reason I took this photo was not about the shirt itself, but the intriguing URL… http://www.lomekids.com/. I visited the English section of the site this afternoon, and in general it’s pretty boring Turklish, just a couple of misplaced apostrophes and spelling errors (I tried joining the Fun Clup with no success). But if you look at the photos section, some of the kids’ poses… hmmm. And a couple of those girls are wearing a lot of makeup for their age. But what I found most creepy was the breathing boy on the menu page— watch his head and his left leg for a while. Too bad we can’t really see what his shirt says.

The makers of Tigger and Bear proudly present… Dog Family!

And Baby Cats.

Oh, come on. I can hardly believe this one. And of course, it’s a night shirt for little girls. I mean, you don’t even have to understand English to get it! “Mommy, why is the girl donkey looking at the boy donkey like that?”

It’s always a good idea to temper conceit with a bit of honesty.

Now go have a good evening before I shoot someone.

Osman from lingulangu.org found me on a Turkish language-learning web site, and asked if I would take his survey to help him with his research regarding computer-assisted Turkish learning. The survey took me less than five minutes to complete, and was completely anonymous. I know that many of my readers are also students of the Turkish language, so if you’re learning Turkish and have an extra few minutes, pop on over and help Osman out. Link