Ok, how pomo is this? [That's pomo as in POst MOdern, by the way. If you think it said anything else, then you have a filthy mind.
http://www.universal-music.co.jp/juemilia/special/sp02.html: a japanese band covering taTu singing alternately in the Japanese and English translation of the Russian original.
Expect no further updates for a while, since I'm off on my travels for a bit. I probably will have internet access while I'm away (another sign of modern times), but frankly I'll have better things to do than to update this trash.
20030606
Robert Eger Hates the Movies - Bulletproof Monk
Great, just what we need: another lame Hollywood adaptation of a great TV show, which junks most of the ideas and characters of the original and makes it yet another cloned action movie. Naturally, Tony Shaloub's nuanced performance as the tortured obsessive-compulsive-detective has been junked, and instead we have the heavy handed portrayal of Monk by Chow Yun Fat. Fortunately, not everything is lost: as Monk cuts a catastrophic swathe through the big city, his devoted assistant Sharona is there to clear up after him, and Chief Stottlemeyer is constantly on his ass, or up his ass, or wherever it is that Chiefs are relative to the ass of their subordinates these days. There's no real mystery here either, instead Monk has swapped his uncanny ability to spot tiny details that are wrong for an ability to dodge bullets and defy gravity. I'm not entirely sure which is preferable.
Meanwhile, there's some backstory about an ancient scroll. Let's just check off the standard elements: ancient Tibetan monastary? Check! Nazi stormtroopers? Check! Obsessive and impossibly old Nazi who won't die until he gets hold of this artifact which will give him eternal life? Check! Guy with a fedora hat, leather jacket and a bullwhip? Almost, but not quite. This time it's a foxy chick with the leather jacket. Near enough. There's also a torture device that seems to involve water rushing down pipes, which seems to have been lifted directly from the Princess Bride. And there's a minor twist at the end that couldn't be more obviously signposted if, er, someone came along and put up a big signpost in front of it. Two thumbs, way down.
Also playing:
Bulletproof Monkey: Johnnie Vegas must save an ancient digital TV network from falling into the hands of the evil, obsessed decripit old Rupert Murdoch which will give him eternal life. Oops, too late.
Bulletproof Drunk: When Jackie Chan gets drunk, he magically acquires the ability to dodge bullets and fight in the style of the flying hampster.
Bulletproof Funk: George Clinton has come from another planet to save us all with the power of Funk. Check it out now...
Mulletproof Bonk: Dr Spooner is the only person who can repopulate the Earth after a freak asteroid event wipes out all barbers, since every time anyone else tries to have sex with their partner, they are unable to maintain tumidity when presented with the awful barnets the hairdresser shortage has brought about.
Bulletproof Punk: Sid Vicious cannot be shot. Razors, on the other hand...
Bulleproof Skunk: Pepe le peu... look, you get the idea by now, right?
Great, just what we need: another lame Hollywood adaptation of a great TV show, which junks most of the ideas and characters of the original and makes it yet another cloned action movie. Naturally, Tony Shaloub's nuanced performance as the tortured obsessive-compulsive-detective has been junked, and instead we have the heavy handed portrayal of Monk by Chow Yun Fat. Fortunately, not everything is lost: as Monk cuts a catastrophic swathe through the big city, his devoted assistant Sharona is there to clear up after him, and Chief Stottlemeyer is constantly on his ass, or up his ass, or wherever it is that Chiefs are relative to the ass of their subordinates these days. There's no real mystery here either, instead Monk has swapped his uncanny ability to spot tiny details that are wrong for an ability to dodge bullets and defy gravity. I'm not entirely sure which is preferable.
Meanwhile, there's some backstory about an ancient scroll. Let's just check off the standard elements: ancient Tibetan monastary? Check! Nazi stormtroopers? Check! Obsessive and impossibly old Nazi who won't die until he gets hold of this artifact which will give him eternal life? Check! Guy with a fedora hat, leather jacket and a bullwhip? Almost, but not quite. This time it's a foxy chick with the leather jacket. Near enough. There's also a torture device that seems to involve water rushing down pipes, which seems to have been lifted directly from the Princess Bride. And there's a minor twist at the end that couldn't be more obviously signposted if, er, someone came along and put up a big signpost in front of it. Two thumbs, way down.
Also playing:
Bulletproof Monkey: Johnnie Vegas must save an ancient digital TV network from falling into the hands of the evil, obsessed decripit old Rupert Murdoch which will give him eternal life. Oops, too late.
Bulletproof Drunk: When Jackie Chan gets drunk, he magically acquires the ability to dodge bullets and fight in the style of the flying hampster.
Bulletproof Funk: George Clinton has come from another planet to save us all with the power of Funk. Check it out now...
Mulletproof Bonk: Dr Spooner is the only person who can repopulate the Earth after a freak asteroid event wipes out all barbers, since every time anyone else tries to have sex with their partner, they are unable to maintain tumidity when presented with the awful barnets the hairdresser shortage has brought about.
Bulletproof Punk: Sid Vicious cannot be shot. Razors, on the other hand...
Bulleproof Skunk: Pepe le peu... look, you get the idea by now, right?
20030605
20030602
Classics of literature to the tune of popular songs
It has been pointed out that the opening line of Milton's Paradise Lost goes remarkably well to the tune of the Flintstones: "Man's First / Disobediance / And the fruit of that forbidden tree". Pondering this, I noticed that the first line of Macbeth goes remarkably well to the tune "Happy Days are here again":
"Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again"
"When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?"
The next few lines sort of fit, although it works better if you change them a bit. Do you know any other great works of literature that can be sung to a jaunty melody? Keep it to yourself then.
It has been pointed out that the opening line of Milton's Paradise Lost goes remarkably well to the tune of the Flintstones: "Man's First / Disobediance / And the fruit of that forbidden tree". Pondering this, I noticed that the first line of Macbeth goes remarkably well to the tune "Happy Days are here again":
"Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again"
"When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?"
The next few lines sort of fit, although it works better if you change them a bit. Do you know any other great works of literature that can be sung to a jaunty melody? Keep it to yourself then.
20030601
You know, even after all these years, sometimes I still wonder exactly what marital disharmony was caused by Cotton Eye Joe to the narrator of the eponymous song.
Anyway, in a hopefully never to be repeated break with tradition, I thought I might write down what I've been doing lately. According to the latest research, approximately 103% of all blogs are written by angsty whining teenage girls wittering on about their current obsessions with hair, boys, spots, dating and, I don't know, elastic bands or something. I'll try to avoid ending up doing that.
On Friday I finally managed to see the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. I've been meaning to see them for a while, but I keep failing to get into New York any time they are playing. Fotunately, I will in the city to do some work that day, which meant that after dinner I was able to nip over to Sin-e to see the band. I was especially motivated to do this after I realized the night before that the venue, Sin-e, must be the place where the EP "Live at sin-e" by Jeff Buckley was recorded. Which, to me, is interesting.
It was a pretty good show. I got the bands first album a few weeks ago, and listened to it a lot (well, it saves putting a new CD in the CD player), although they only played one song off it. In fact, they only played half a dozen or so songs in total, but that's because it was a fairly late show, and I think it was past the drummer's bed time. I wonder why it is that my favourite bands all seem to be ones who have some gimmick about their performance, even though I like listening to their music without the performance. This is certainly true of my current favourites: Alf Poier, taTu, David Devant and His Spirit Wife, Danielson Famile and TFSP. My preference for bands labelled "novelty": Daphne and Celeste, Shampoo, the Smurfs (whose semi-cover version 'Smurfhillbilly Joe' set off the train of thought at the beginning of this entry), Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, Moog Cookbook, and so on. Even my other favourite artists usually have something distinctive about them: the voices of Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake and Don Van Vliet, the music of Aphex Twin, Fatboy Slim and David Holmes. Perhaps I'm just imagining it.
Afterwards, I figured that I had ten minutes to get three miles to catch the next train, or an hour and ten minutes to get the last train. I didn't feel like hanging around Penn Station at 1am for longer than I had to, so instead I decided I'd walk back. It was pretty warm still, and so I sauntered up Broadway in the midnight air, wondering how many other places I would be happy to be out and about on my own in the early hours. After propping myself awake so I didn't fall asleep and miss my stop (because who wants to wake up in Trenton), I finally got home about 3. I thought about logging on and writing this up there and then, but then I remembered that I'm not a neurotic teenage girl obsessed with documenting every last detail of her trivial, tedious life.
Anyway, in a hopefully never to be repeated break with tradition, I thought I might write down what I've been doing lately. According to the latest research, approximately 103% of all blogs are written by angsty whining teenage girls wittering on about their current obsessions with hair, boys, spots, dating and, I don't know, elastic bands or something. I'll try to avoid ending up doing that.
On Friday I finally managed to see the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. I've been meaning to see them for a while, but I keep failing to get into New York any time they are playing. Fotunately, I will in the city to do some work that day, which meant that after dinner I was able to nip over to Sin-e to see the band. I was especially motivated to do this after I realized the night before that the venue, Sin-e, must be the place where the EP "Live at sin-e" by Jeff Buckley was recorded. Which, to me, is interesting.
It was a pretty good show. I got the bands first album a few weeks ago, and listened to it a lot (well, it saves putting a new CD in the CD player), although they only played one song off it. In fact, they only played half a dozen or so songs in total, but that's because it was a fairly late show, and I think it was past the drummer's bed time. I wonder why it is that my favourite bands all seem to be ones who have some gimmick about their performance, even though I like listening to their music without the performance. This is certainly true of my current favourites: Alf Poier, taTu, David Devant and His Spirit Wife, Danielson Famile and TFSP. My preference for bands labelled "novelty": Daphne and Celeste, Shampoo, the Smurfs (whose semi-cover version 'Smurfhillbilly Joe' set off the train of thought at the beginning of this entry), Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, Moog Cookbook, and so on. Even my other favourite artists usually have something distinctive about them: the voices of Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake and Don Van Vliet, the music of Aphex Twin, Fatboy Slim and David Holmes. Perhaps I'm just imagining it.
Afterwards, I figured that I had ten minutes to get three miles to catch the next train, or an hour and ten minutes to get the last train. I didn't feel like hanging around Penn Station at 1am for longer than I had to, so instead I decided I'd walk back. It was pretty warm still, and so I sauntered up Broadway in the midnight air, wondering how many other places I would be happy to be out and about on my own in the early hours. After propping myself awake so I didn't fall asleep and miss my stop (because who wants to wake up in Trenton), I finally got home about 3. I thought about logging on and writing this up there and then, but then I remembered that I'm not a neurotic teenage girl obsessed with documenting every last detail of her trivial, tedious life.
20030530
20030529
It's fifty years since Everest was first climbed. And to celebrate, there is a conference to discuss the problem of rubbish on everest. Of course, this is the Everest summit.
A long time ago (almost two years -- where has the time gone?) I was thinking about starting a webzine. Things being as they are, I couldn't be arsed. But, I did find an article for the first edition floating around my hard drive recently. It's an idea borrowed from one friend, and contributed to by several other friends: band names formed by taking the name of two (or more) bands and sticking them together. Perhaps the inspiration for this was from Quoasis, a short lived band that did cover versions of Oasis songs in the style of Status Quo (see also Dredd Zeppelin, a band which did reggae cover versions of Led Zep songs. Sung by an Elvis impersonator). So, here is our list of bands formed from other bands (fuxake, I feel like Clive Anderson introducing a game on Whose Line...).
Three Colours Simply Red
Al Green Day
The Vervana
Helen Love City Groove
U2Unlimited
Jackson Five Star
Shed S-Club Heaven Seventeen
Fatboy Domino
Curiousity killed the Catatonia
Everything but the girl thing
Rage against the Machinehead
Blondie, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch
Pink Floyd
Future sound of london beat
Tom Tom Lehrer
Madonna Summer
Radio Portishead
Burning Britney Spears
The Will Smiths
Captain Beef Heart
My Drugstorey
The Alarm Clock
The Other 2Unlimited
The Julianna Hatfield Three Johns
The Bobby Fuller Four Tops
The Dave Clark 5ive
Eurosmith
Hawkwind and Fire
Spear of Destiny's Child
The Joe Dolci Music Theatre of Hate
Peter, Paul and the Test Tube Babies
Hatfield and the Northside
Blodwyn Pigbag
Hot Chocolate Watch Band
The Pete Best Band of Susans
Blink 182 Lockdown
Little Richard Clayderman
Jerry Lee Lewis and the News
Miranda Soundgarden
The Grateful Dead Kennedys
Lonnie Donovan
Another Level 42
Brother Beyond and the Holding Company
Climie Fish
Kinks of Convenience
They Might Be Giant Sand
Five Guys Named Gerald (more of a Broadway show, that one)
Traffic Jam
Camper Van Morrison
Run TLC
10CC Peniston
Erasurehead
Gorky's Zygotic Monkees
The Talking Cure (...Talking Heads and the Cure, obviously)
Einstuerzende Neu! (and for that matter...)
Garbage Can
Stereophonic Youth
Frankie Goes To Portishead
A Tribe Called Westlife
I also have a plan for a tribute band to Strawberry Switchblade and the
Magnetic Fields, called (naturally): Magnetic Switchblade.
And my personal favourite, Half Man Half Limp Bizkit
Coming soon (if I remember) the Warwick University Slogan Competition.
Three Colours Simply Red
Al Green Day
The Vervana
Helen Love City Groove
U2Unlimited
Jackson Five Star
Shed S-Club Heaven Seventeen
Fatboy Domino
Curiousity killed the Catatonia
Everything but the girl thing
Rage against the Machinehead
Blondie, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch
Pink Floyd
Future sound of london beat
Tom Tom Lehrer
Madonna Summer
Radio Portishead
Burning Britney Spears
The Will Smiths
Captain Beef Heart
My Drugstorey
The Alarm Clock
The Other 2Unlimited
The Julianna Hatfield Three Johns
The Bobby Fuller Four Tops
The Dave Clark 5ive
Eurosmith
Hawkwind and Fire
Spear of Destiny's Child
The Joe Dolci Music Theatre of Hate
Peter, Paul and the Test Tube Babies
Hatfield and the Northside
Blodwyn Pigbag
Hot Chocolate Watch Band
The Pete Best Band of Susans
Blink 182 Lockdown
Little Richard Clayderman
Jerry Lee Lewis and the News
Miranda Soundgarden
The Grateful Dead Kennedys
Lonnie Donovan
Another Level 42
Brother Beyond and the Holding Company
Climie Fish
Kinks of Convenience
They Might Be Giant Sand
Five Guys Named Gerald (more of a Broadway show, that one)
Traffic Jam
Camper Van Morrison
Run TLC
10CC Peniston
Erasurehead
Gorky's Zygotic Monkees
The Talking Cure (...Talking Heads and the Cure, obviously)
Einstuerzende Neu! (and for that matter...)
Garbage Can
Stereophonic Youth
Frankie Goes To Portishead
A Tribe Called Westlife
I also have a plan for a tribute band to Strawberry Switchblade and the
Magnetic Fields, called (naturally): Magnetic Switchblade.
And my personal favourite, Half Man Half Limp Bizkit
Coming soon (if I remember) the Warwick University Slogan Competition.
20030528
Good news everyone: a new episode of Harvey Birdman finally aired at the weekend. Not as good as the classics, "Shaggy Busted" or "The Dabba Don", but good news after about a year since the last one. How can you not love a show whose theme tune includes the lines "Power of the Attorney! Habeus Corpus! Power of the Attorney!"? Meanwhile, I have Alf Poier's Eurovision entry on full volume and repeat play. Isn't the internet wonderful?
Feedback from my reader. Apparently the thingy attached to the teabags so as to remove said teabag from unsaid teacup is known in the trade as a tag. In fact, if I looked at the packet then I could probably have found this out for myself. They have instructions on their packs of tea. This is America. But, I'm going to try to avoid sounding like Douglas Adams and wittering on about tea all the time. I have a new crap lolly stick joke. This one just isn't trying.
Why did the annoying exterminator lose his job? He bugged his boss.
You can see that the author is going for a pun there, and the idea almost works. Except that exterminators don't bug people. Specifically, they debug houses. Hence the joke completely fails. The thing is though, this one is so close. If only the author had tried just that little bit harder. I can't believe that he messed up such an easy gag. Consider the following:
Why did the annoying secret service agent lose his job? He bugged a high-ranking opposition politician but a rival found out and leaked the story to the press prompting a witch hunt and a summary dismissal in disgrace.
Dammit! This joke writing is not as easy as it looks.
Feedback from my reader. Apparently the thingy attached to the teabags so as to remove said teabag from unsaid teacup is known in the trade as a tag. In fact, if I looked at the packet then I could probably have found this out for myself. They have instructions on their packs of tea. This is America. But, I'm going to try to avoid sounding like Douglas Adams and wittering on about tea all the time. I have a new crap lolly stick joke. This one just isn't trying.
Why did the annoying exterminator lose his job? He bugged his boss.
You can see that the author is going for a pun there, and the idea almost works. Except that exterminators don't bug people. Specifically, they debug houses. Hence the joke completely fails. The thing is though, this one is so close. If only the author had tried just that little bit harder. I can't believe that he messed up such an easy gag. Consider the following:
Why did the annoying secret service agent lose his job? He bugged a high-ranking opposition politician but a rival found out and leaked the story to the press prompting a witch hunt and a summary dismissal in disgrace.
Dammit! This joke writing is not as easy as it looks.
20030527
Concepts for which I have no words: the act of holding down the little paper thing on the end of the string attached to a teabag (another concept for which I have no word...) whilst pouring in the boiling water in order to prevent the piece of paper flying into thecup and thus failing in its designed purpose of giving a dry and non scarifying method with which to remove the teabag from the cup. Or am I the only person who gets this?
Saw an advert for continental airlines this weekend, which advertised "More direct flights. Less agita." For a while I thought that this was some copyediting mistake, or some misnomer for aggro, but it turns out that agita is some italianate word meaning, roughly, hearburn or indigestion. Huh.
Apparently the UKs spectacular failure in the Eurovision contest was down to politics, not the song being crap. Well, whatever; I just wish people would stop bandying around this phrase "nul [or nil] points": it's an entirely made up phrase that has nothing to do with Eurovision -- no one ever says the phrase at any point in the proceedings. Surprisingly, the phrase has fairly low currency on that arbiter of all things, google (a friend showed me some google goodies he'd picked up from their Noo Yoik depot: the highlight being Google Gum, a chewing gum described on the side as "Googalicious"). What no one seems to have mentioned is the utter superlative fantasticness of the Austrian entry. You can get the full scope, including the kickass video, from the Eurovision site, but hurry, it might not be around forever. How can anyone not love a song which (in translation) includes the lines:
The difference between animals such as apes and primates
Is no bigger than between noodles and pasta
But whoever wants to know more about animals should study Biology or inform himself on my homepage
No truer words have been spoken at any point in the history of mankind. Ever.
Saw an advert for continental airlines this weekend, which advertised "More direct flights. Less agita." For a while I thought that this was some copyediting mistake, or some misnomer for aggro, but it turns out that agita is some italianate word meaning, roughly, hearburn or indigestion. Huh.
Apparently the UKs spectacular failure in the Eurovision contest was down to politics, not the song being crap. Well, whatever; I just wish people would stop bandying around this phrase "nul [or nil] points": it's an entirely made up phrase that has nothing to do with Eurovision -- no one ever says the phrase at any point in the proceedings. Surprisingly, the phrase has fairly low currency on that arbiter of all things, google (a friend showed me some google goodies he'd picked up from their Noo Yoik depot: the highlight being Google Gum, a chewing gum described on the side as "Googalicious"). What no one seems to have mentioned is the utter superlative fantasticness of the Austrian entry. You can get the full scope, including the kickass video, from the Eurovision site, but hurry, it might not be around forever. How can anyone not love a song which (in translation) includes the lines:
The difference between animals such as apes and primates
Is no bigger than between noodles and pasta
But whoever wants to know more about animals should study Biology or inform himself on my homepage
No truer words have been spoken at any point in the history of mankind. Ever.
20030525
Strangely inconsequential lolly stick joke of the week
Look, don't get your hopes up or anything. These lolly stick jokes are slowly getting less wantonly nonsensical, without any improvement in the actual humour content. You'll remember that the last one starred a book who wanted to join the police force. Well, I've just sucked off another (there's room for endless innuendo here, so let's just assume that I've done all the obvious "sucking off" gags, and get on with our lives), and it's another book related joke. You get the impression that the poor person writing these gags is some frustrated novelist who ended up in a garett writing lolly stick punchlines to make a living. Well, that's the pathos, now for the bathos (which, for all fans of Dumas, sounds like two of the three musketeers to me... which reminds me of a comic strip in Look In magazine circa 1985 [remember that? No, thought not] -- it was a comic strip based on the lives of 5-Star -- you remember 5-Star, the teen pop sensation for about five minutes in the mid-eighties: they all looked like Jenny Powell, but with bigger hair. What do you mean, "who's Jenny Powell"? Didn't you watch "I [heart] the 80s"? Whatever happened to novelty pop acts getting their own comic strip? I can just imagine "Britney - the Graphic Novel": a dark reworking of the cheesy Britney myths, where the pop princess is recast as a dark knight, stalking the mean streets of Gotham, protecting the wealthy and tending to the needs of the moderately well-off. But I digress... this 5-star cartoon featured Leroy (I've no idea if it was Leroy, or even if there was a member of 5-star called Leroy... the laws of probability say that there's bound to be) telling the other members, "My boss keeps calling me his musketeer" [implied other members of 5-star: "Why's that then?"] Leroy: "Because he keeps telling me that I must get 'ere earlier".
This rises several deep and confusing questions. As a member of a moderately successful teen pop sensation, why does Leroy have a job? Aren't the lucrative earnings of a moderately sucessful UK chart band sufficient? So why does he need to take a part time job? And, given the gruelling schedule that eventually led to the disintegration of the band (probably), how did he have the time? OK, I can't actually remember any of their hits, and I do remember some of the recent press coverage of the demise of various members of Musical Youth, but I'm talking about a band at the top of their career (they'd have to be, to have a comic in Look In -- you don't get that for just anything, you know).
Where was I?
Ah yes, the lolly stick. Here it is:
Why was the book in the hospital? Because it hurt its spine.
Do you see how that works? It's because a book has a spine. Which is called a spine because it plays a similar role to the spine in vertebrates, viz, it forms a solid support to maintain the position and structure of the body. And of course a book can hurt its spine. Er, probably. And if a book did hurt its spine, it would go to hospital. Obviously. Um...
Look, don't get your hopes up or anything. These lolly stick jokes are slowly getting less wantonly nonsensical, without any improvement in the actual humour content. You'll remember that the last one starred a book who wanted to join the police force. Well, I've just sucked off another (there's room for endless innuendo here, so let's just assume that I've done all the obvious "sucking off" gags, and get on with our lives), and it's another book related joke. You get the impression that the poor person writing these gags is some frustrated novelist who ended up in a garett writing lolly stick punchlines to make a living. Well, that's the pathos, now for the bathos (which, for all fans of Dumas, sounds like two of the three musketeers to me... which reminds me of a comic strip in Look In magazine circa 1985 [remember that? No, thought not] -- it was a comic strip based on the lives of 5-Star -- you remember 5-Star, the teen pop sensation for about five minutes in the mid-eighties: they all looked like Jenny Powell, but with bigger hair. What do you mean, "who's Jenny Powell"? Didn't you watch "I [heart] the 80s"? Whatever happened to novelty pop acts getting their own comic strip? I can just imagine "Britney - the Graphic Novel": a dark reworking of the cheesy Britney myths, where the pop princess is recast as a dark knight, stalking the mean streets of Gotham, protecting the wealthy and tending to the needs of the moderately well-off. But I digress... this 5-star cartoon featured Leroy (I've no idea if it was Leroy, or even if there was a member of 5-star called Leroy... the laws of probability say that there's bound to be) telling the other members, "My boss keeps calling me his musketeer" [implied other members of 5-star: "Why's that then?"] Leroy: "Because he keeps telling me that I must get 'ere earlier".
This rises several deep and confusing questions. As a member of a moderately successful teen pop sensation, why does Leroy have a job? Aren't the lucrative earnings of a moderately sucessful UK chart band sufficient? So why does he need to take a part time job? And, given the gruelling schedule that eventually led to the disintegration of the band (probably), how did he have the time? OK, I can't actually remember any of their hits, and I do remember some of the recent press coverage of the demise of various members of Musical Youth, but I'm talking about a band at the top of their career (they'd have to be, to have a comic in Look In -- you don't get that for just anything, you know).
Where was I?
Ah yes, the lolly stick. Here it is:
Why was the book in the hospital? Because it hurt its spine.
Do you see how that works? It's because a book has a spine. Which is called a spine because it plays a similar role to the spine in vertebrates, viz, it forms a solid support to maintain the position and structure of the body. And of course a book can hurt its spine. Er, probably. And if a book did hurt its spine, it would go to hospital. Obviously. Um...
20030523
Please bear with me: I'm in the middle of acquainting myself with a new machine and a new operating system. The consequence of this will be to drag this scratch pad into a realm dangerously close to that of a real 'blog (as I may have said before, referring to Weblogs as 'blogs is about as archaic as referring to telephones as 'phones, especially if one talks about mobile 'phones. Hence I shall persist in apostrophising the word in order to irritate anyone that would find this habit irritating), with a discussion of the novelty of having a computer that actually does more or less what it is supposed to do without spending a week paging out to disk. At least this record has yet to degenerate into the mode of "today I got up and ate some toast" weblogs or worse yet, the weblogs which record every intimate detail of someone's dating and sex life, thus putting off any right thinking person from ever dating the blogger in question.
Anyway, mmm, computers. There should be a word to describe the process of hunting through menus in order to find the option that is causing the irritating behaviour that wasn't present in the previous version of the piece of software and turning it off. OK, that's a fairly complicated concept, but it's one I encounter every time I use a new machine. You know, the dull process of disabling those pain in the arse microsoft assistants that pop up in most office applications, switching off the feature that hides the menu options that you haven't used and so on. Can anyone see the flaw in the "thinking" behind that last example? I'm hunting around for some feature that I remember is somewhere in the program, but I can't find it because I haven't used it before? It's almost a catch-22 sitatuation. And am I the only person who finds that whole idea incredibly disorienting at the best of times? When I'm looking for an option and some of them are hidden, I can't begin to scan the menu until I've hovered long enough to see whether it's one of the hidden ones. It doesn't help that one never knows whether the option is classified under File, Edit, Options, Tool or Window.
I felt strangely empowered the other day when I managed to switch off that option that changes what it is you've highlighted. You know, you carefully click midway through a complex mathematical expression that you've typed into powerpoint for the presentation that you are preparing for a talk at the Institute for Damned Clever Stuff in Princeton, in order to make it sub-sup-super-sub-script, or something, and as you drag to the start of the section you want to change, suddenly the selection jumps over the whole thing. So you try again, in the vain hope that if you repeat it enough times then Windows will realise that you do know what you are doing, in the same way that if you type it enough times, the damn thing will realise that you do mean to write the word "teh" (which means, of course, the aspirant sound made by an exasperated computer user), but it's no use, and eventually you have to switch from mouse to keyboard in order to highlight the section using the undocumented keyboard shortcut (OK, it may actually be documented, but honestly, who reads Microsoft documentation anyway?), and eventually managed to get the right bit highlighted, and then switch back to mouse to carry on with the next bit. Anyway, I finally managed to find a check box somewhere deep within the powerpoint dialogues to switch this 'feature' off, and I then spent a pleasant half an hour or so delightedly sorting out my presentation the way I really wanted it to look and feeling like this was a real break through until I realised that this was the way the damn thing ought to work by default. Grrr. teh.
Anyway, mmm, computers. There should be a word to describe the process of hunting through menus in order to find the option that is causing the irritating behaviour that wasn't present in the previous version of the piece of software and turning it off. OK, that's a fairly complicated concept, but it's one I encounter every time I use a new machine. You know, the dull process of disabling those pain in the arse microsoft assistants that pop up in most office applications, switching off the feature that hides the menu options that you haven't used and so on. Can anyone see the flaw in the "thinking" behind that last example? I'm hunting around for some feature that I remember is somewhere in the program, but I can't find it because I haven't used it before? It's almost a catch-22 sitatuation. And am I the only person who finds that whole idea incredibly disorienting at the best of times? When I'm looking for an option and some of them are hidden, I can't begin to scan the menu until I've hovered long enough to see whether it's one of the hidden ones. It doesn't help that one never knows whether the option is classified under File, Edit, Options, Tool or Window.
I felt strangely empowered the other day when I managed to switch off that option that changes what it is you've highlighted. You know, you carefully click midway through a complex mathematical expression that you've typed into powerpoint for the presentation that you are preparing for a talk at the Institute for Damned Clever Stuff in Princeton, in order to make it sub-sup-super-sub-script, or something, and as you drag to the start of the section you want to change, suddenly the selection jumps over the whole thing. So you try again, in the vain hope that if you repeat it enough times then Windows will realise that you do know what you are doing, in the same way that if you type it enough times, the damn thing will realise that you do mean to write the word "teh" (which means, of course, the aspirant sound made by an exasperated computer user), but it's no use, and eventually you have to switch from mouse to keyboard in order to highlight the section using the undocumented keyboard shortcut (OK, it may actually be documented, but honestly, who reads Microsoft documentation anyway?), and eventually managed to get the right bit highlighted, and then switch back to mouse to carry on with the next bit. Anyway, I finally managed to find a check box somewhere deep within the powerpoint dialogues to switch this 'feature' off, and I then spent a pleasant half an hour or so delightedly sorting out my presentation the way I really wanted it to look and feeling like this was a real break through until I realised that this was the way the damn thing ought to work by default. Grrr. teh.
20030521
Is there any film coming out this summer that isn't a sequel? If it's not "X-2" (erm, literally), then it's "Terminator 3". Is no one brave enough to have any new ideas? Or have all ideas been used up completely? Also, what will we do without buffy?
I'm in the process of getting a new computer, with which blogging will be, like, 100 times faster, or something. The new machine's gonna be great: it's gonna have a maths co-processor, cache, EGA, a hard disk, two floppy drives (so I can copy disks without swapping them in and out of the same drive! Ace!), and an 8 bit sound card. Ha! It'll certainly put all your crappy little 8088's to shame!
I'm in the process of getting a new computer, with which blogging will be, like, 100 times faster, or something. The new machine's gonna be great: it's gonna have a maths co-processor, cache, EGA, a hard disk, two floppy drives (so I can copy disks without swapping them in and out of the same drive! Ace!), and an 8 bit sound card. Ha! It'll certainly put all your crappy little 8088's to shame!
20030519
Midwest vs Mideast
What follows is a brief comparison of the principle points of the Midwest, versus those of the Mideast.
For any unAmerican readers, a brief note of explanation. The Mideast is American for the Middle East: presumably that extra syllable is just too much effort to pronounce. The Midwest is American for America, or at least what you would take to be be America if you looked at it on the map. It consists of, roughly speaking, all the states of the USA which do not have a coastline, and therefore consumes roughly 90% of the landmass of the land, if you don't count anomalies such as Alaska (and most people don't). However, since most Americans live either close to the east coast or the to the west coast (much like awkward youths pushing themselves against opposite sides of the school hall at an ill-advised school disco, with a gaping gulf in between them populated only by the unpopular fat kid with the bad glasses: and that's how most Americans view the inhabitants of the midwest), then the midwest requires a special name to describe it.
A further note for unAmerican readers: calling someone unAmerican is about as big an insult as it is possible to make. Suggesting that someone does not posess the defining qualities of an American citizen is considered even worse than the second biggest insult, which is to call someone a socialist (that is, to suggest that they may have concern or interest in the safety and well-being of people other than themselves or their immediate family). Therefore, use this term with care.
Onto the comparison. The following consists of how most Americans understand the Mideast, and how most Americans understand the midwest.
There you go. I hope you found this informative. In my next post, I hope to solve the Middle East question. (The Middle East Question is, for anyone who's not been paying attention, why is there a Nat West Bank, but no Nat Gaza Strip?).
What follows is a brief comparison of the principle points of the Midwest, versus those of the Mideast.
For any unAmerican readers, a brief note of explanation. The Mideast is American for the Middle East: presumably that extra syllable is just too much effort to pronounce. The Midwest is American for America, or at least what you would take to be be America if you looked at it on the map. It consists of, roughly speaking, all the states of the USA which do not have a coastline, and therefore consumes roughly 90% of the landmass of the land, if you don't count anomalies such as Alaska (and most people don't). However, since most Americans live either close to the east coast or the to the west coast (much like awkward youths pushing themselves against opposite sides of the school hall at an ill-advised school disco, with a gaping gulf in between them populated only by the unpopular fat kid with the bad glasses: and that's how most Americans view the inhabitants of the midwest), then the midwest requires a special name to describe it.
A further note for unAmerican readers: calling someone unAmerican is about as big an insult as it is possible to make. Suggesting that someone does not posess the defining qualities of an American citizen is considered even worse than the second biggest insult, which is to call someone a socialist (that is, to suggest that they may have concern or interest in the safety and well-being of people other than themselves or their immediate family). Therefore, use this term with care.
Onto the comparison. The following consists of how most Americans understand the Mideast, and how most Americans understand the midwest.
| Feature | MidEast | MidWest |
|---|---|---|
| Contents | Large empty plains | Large empty deserts |
| People | Portrayed as ill-educated sand monkeys by the media | Portrayed as ill-educated country bumpkins by the media |
| Religious matters | Portrayed as ululating religious nutcases by the media | Portayed as bible-bashing religious nutcases by the media |
| Rebellion | Considered to be a breeding ground for terrorists and rebels | Considered to be a breeding ground for arms-wielding right wing militias |
| Politics | Political issues caricatured as clashes between old guard and modernising forces | Political issues caricatured as clashes between a past of slavery and reformist forces |
| Rulers | Ruled by puppet governments controlled by conservative and religious forces | Ruled by George Bush and the Republicans |
There you go. I hope you found this informative. In my next post, I hope to solve the Middle East question. (The Middle East Question is, for anyone who's not been paying attention, why is there a Nat West Bank, but no Nat Gaza Strip?).
20030518
I am being victimized by AOL-Time-Warner-Brothers-Multimedia-Conglomerate-Inc. They are sending me AOL sign up CDs with passwords that are designed to annoy me. Let me list a random selection of the last few dozen to land in my mailbox:
USED-PLATER
PENNY-VALLEY
PLEBS-CHALET
BUGGY-SPLASH
SINE-GRUELS
CUBIST-SOBER
No, I have no idea what any of them mean either (except for PLEBS-CHALET, which is presumably a mean-spirited attack on certain holiday resorts), but I still feel that there is some insidious insult hiding in these supposedly nonsense phrases. I think I shall go for a walk while I try to ignore them.
USED-PLATER
PENNY-VALLEY
PLEBS-CHALET
BUGGY-SPLASH
SINE-GRUELS
CUBIST-SOBER
No, I have no idea what any of them mean either (except for PLEBS-CHALET, which is presumably a mean-spirited attack on certain holiday resorts), but I still feel that there is some insidious insult hiding in these supposedly nonsense phrases. I think I shall go for a walk while I try to ignore them.
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