frogsmoke.com

Celebrity Apes brings you a new ape every day. So far, two French celebrities have been aped:

Nine in ten French now search the web with Google.
For the first time, Google has scored a 90.01 share of the search market in France in April 2008, 1 point up from April 2007. Second best is Yahoo! (3.04%), followed by Microsoft Live Search (2.53%), AOL (1.59%), and Orange (1.39%). All remaining search engines share […]

This Belgian site lets you pick a politician and punch him in the face. Nick Sarkozy is one of the willing victims. Enjoy! (Warning: slow Flash) Via Growabrain

PixelPorn is a site that shows celebrity body parts in such a way that they become safe for work. Unfortunately, due to their American bias, no French celebrities get the pixelporn treatment. So I made them myself:

Shown above is Carla Sarkozy’s left buttock.
And to prove that this is an equal-opportunities blog: here’s Gerard Depardieu’s right […]

Minor tragedies, rejections in love, trouble at work: The Web site Vie de Merde is allowing the French to express their daily frustrations — and make each other laugh. These messages describe the big and small crises of everyday life, the beastliness of what can happen at work, the abysses of romantic relationships.

“I got […]

The Beard Community serves as a refuge and support site for long- and short-term cultivators of any form of beardedness. The site also claims to host the world’s largest online collection of bearded images. Maybe. But I could only find one living French beard:

Antoine Duhamel, born July 30, 1925, is a French composer, orchestra conductor […]

Families flock to look for the ancestors who lost their heads
It is the internet site that contains dark family secrets, unspeakable truths and appalling injustice. The French log on to it in trepidation and in private.
Les Guillotinés offers the most complete online list yet established of the French Revolution’s victims and invites users to discover […]

http://frogsmoke.isyournewbicycle.com/

The latest monthly update of Microsoft’s Virtual Earth maps is complete.
New this time is the addition of bird’s eye views of the following French cities: Reims, Besancon, Chalon, Strasbourg, Belfort, Colmar, Metz, Mulhouse, Nancy, and Troyes. Shown above is a bird’s eye view of Strasbourg.
Virtual Earth is still no match for Google Earth, but […]

If you have a blog and you’re looking for an easy way to generate a title graphic: spell with flickr

In the run-up to the French presidential elections no blogger covered the events better than Joshua Boswell, aka Boz. Now he’s back with a new blog: Sarkozy the American. In his own words:
As it’s become impossible to resist commenting on the recent political happenings in France and the US, I’ve decided to start this new […]

Just a pity they’re fake…
Choose your airline (Air France is an option), type a name, a departure airport, a destination et voilà! You can download and print your ticket or email it to someone.
Airline ticket generator | Via the Generator Blog

On April 1, American rock band R.E.M. will release their fourteenth album “Accelerate“.
For the countdown to the album launch, the band have set up a dedicated site (NinetyNights.com), which introduces a new video each night, during ninety days. All videos are in black and white, and are experimental mosaics of lights, shadows, and sounds. […]

Today, Frogsmoke registered its 500,000th visitor, after just over a year of being online. That may not seem a lot (some blogs get that number of visits every day), but I’m quite pleased with that figure.
Currently, you’re among 2,500 people who come here daily. Thanks for your curiosity and loyalty!
If you want to […]

Puy de Côme, chain of volcanoes, Auvergne, France © Yann Arthus-Bertrand/Earth from Above
Yann Arthus-Bertrand, born 1946 in France, has become globally famous as a nature photographer.
During his career he discovered the beauty of the world as seen from above when he became a hot air balloon pilot and began experimenting with aerial photography. […]