Off of Slashdot.org, best comment I have read in a while.
This is the UK, as your constitution isn’t worth toilet paper now, we’re revoking your independence:
To the Citizens of the United States of America:
In light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories (excepting Kansas, which she does not fancy). Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up “aluminium,” and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters, and the suffix will be replaced by the suffix “ise.” You will learn that the suffix ‘burgh’ is pronounced ‘burra’; you may elect to respell Pittsburgh as ‘Pittsberg’ if you find you simply can’t cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels (look up “vocabulary”). Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.
2. There is no such thing as “US English.” We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the elimination of “-ize.”
3. You will relearn your original national anthem, “God Save The Queen”, but only after fully carrying out Task #1 (see above).
4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday. November 2nd will be a called “Come-Uppance Day.”
5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you’re not grown up enough to handle a gun. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
6. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
7. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling “gasoline”)-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.
8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called “crisps.” Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with mayonnaise but with vinegar.
9. Waiters and waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.
10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as “beer,” and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as “Lager.” American brands will be referred to as “Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine,” so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.
11. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in “Four Weddings and a Funeral” was an experience akin to having one’s ears removed with a cheese grater.
12. You will cease playing American “football.” There is only one kind of proper football; you call it “soccer.” Those of you brave enough will, in time, will be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American “football”, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the “World Series” for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.
13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.
14. An internal revenue agent (i. e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776). Thank you for your co-operation and have a great day.
15. Start pronouncing “Queen Camilla.” She will be your next queen!
This is pretty darn cool. This is what a shuttle launch looks like when viewed from the International Space Station, about 220 miles up from our planet we call Earth.
My next question… where are the damn high res pics so I can set this as my background. I’ve had a high res pic (variation) of a shuttle launch as one of my backgrounds… this would be a fantastic replacement.
I’m a big Scifi buff and I’ve seen my share of “battles” done with space ships, like Star Trek’s Enterprise D where they yell shields up . they fire phasers (or if your lucky, photon torpedoes) and you see the camera shake a little. Not to mention that they are always face to face (as if space is 2d), even in later Star Trek shows such as Voyager or movies such as Nemesis (Deep Space Nine was an exception but the 2D rule still seemed to apply). So the excuse that technology (or budget) was a factor can’t be used.
Star Wars did a pretty decent job, I might say but this Friday I was truly impressed with what I saw on Battlestar Galactica. I hope that future producers are paying attention (hint hint J.J. Abrams). Instead of just talking about it, I’ve added some of the clips that truly impressed me (there are more but lets just keep it at these two). You be the judge. (Quicktime 7 required).
[QUICKTIME http://www.disgruntled-dutch.com/media/2006/10/bsg-exodus-mov1.mov 480 365 false true]
File is 5.9mb large, hi-speed of any form is highly recommended.
[QUICKTIME http://www.disgruntled-dutch.com/media/2006/10/bsg-exodus-mov2.mov 480 365 false true]
File is 5.6mb large, hi-speed of any form is highly recommended.
Cam and I decided to go the “The Farm” today in Snohomish, WA for a pumpkin patch event. Well we came home with more then just pumpkins, yup a kitten. Named her Ginger (Wasabi and Ginger are common items you get with Sushi).
We recently discovered that a small number - less than 1% - of the Video iPods available for purchase after September 12 left our contract manufacturer carrying the Windows RavMonE.exe virus. This known virus affects only Windows computers, and up to date anti-virus software which is included with most Windows computers should detect and remove it
My favorite line in Apple’s article:
“As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it.”
Now was this a marketing trick or really an accident?
A man convicted of trying to rape an 83-year-old woman was sentenced to eight lashes with a cat-o’-nine-tails, a punishment used by the British Navy in the 18th century and reinstated in the Bahamas 15 years ago.
They should do this to anyone, in any country that forcibly has sexual intercourse with someone. No excuses. Whats funny/ironic is that the cat-o’-nine-tails is now often used in the kinky kind of intimacy, BDSM. Well at least thats what it says on Wikipedia, which works exactly like Stephen Colbert suggested on his show in August: “Anyone can alter the wikipedia. If one person alters a story in Wikipedia its vandalism, however if one other person agrees with the alteration, its truth”.
Ok I am no parent. However with organizations such as the Parents Television Council of America, it really shows how overprotective a parent in this country is.
Lets take a look at Parentstv.org, PTC’s official website. On their website you can look up a TV show and see what they, the council, review it as. You have a green, yellow and red light. Compiled from sub categories such as Sex, Language and Violence. All terribly bad things apparently.
For example the show House, about a doctor who uses questionable tactics to cure his patients with a team of doctors. The scenes can be graphic, I’ll admit (anything involving an eye… YUCK!). The PTC rates this their worst rating, RED! It gets a red for sex and language. A yellow for violence (even though in almost every episode the patient is restrained and shock, Dr. House was shot in Season 2’s finale episode, even showing the blood stains in Season 3’s 1st & 2nd episode).
Now lets take a look at 7th Heaven, voted Green all across the board. Meaning it gets the PTC’s blessing. How in the world could this show get a green. A show about a protestant reverend, his wife and their many children. I say many. They have seven children. That is abnormally high. The parents can be considered rabbits with the way they procreate. Then on top of that, all of their childeren seem to get married 2 years out of high school, on average. Oh and the oldest daughter, Mary, has seemingly cheated on her husband AND then cheated on her lover who she chose to stay with. Is this the thing you want to teach your children?
In conclusion, I’d rather have my kids watch House or War at Home and teach them that TV is FICTION then to show them 7th Heaven, which according to the PTC, “The Rev. Eric Camden and his wife, Annie, have created an atmosphere conducive to honesty and open communication.”. If I want my TV to teach my children I’ll turn on Discovery, but most importantly I know I will have failed as a parent if I need to show my kids 7th Heaven in order for them to learn a lesson or two.
Ok so today is my 2 year anniversary and tomorrow I’ll be going to Salish Lodge to continue to celebrate that anniversary but I can’t possibly forget about something else… Battlestar Galactica premieres tomorrow night at 9pm. My DVR is set to record and I might.
The blame is on me and me alone. I drive through a construction zone every single day. Near exit 20 on the 405 (Kirkland area) they are adding a dedicated carpool lane exit (joy another dreadful exit/merge point for traffic to choke on but thats a different rant post) along this stretch of intrastate freeway. Today coming back going south bound I got sprayed with dust / small pieces of glass (it would seem like). I could just hear it spray across the windshield. Only for a moment but you could hear it loud and clear.
The end result… two small chips and I mean small (the size of say 2-3 grains of sand) chips punctured into my windshield and something similiar to that effect on my hood. The windshield I can deal with, if I ever sell the car I’ll just have it repaired (and they are so small that it could be seen as specs of dust, its only annoying because its right on the driver’s side where one would look.) but the hood… ugh! Again small and hardly noticeable but its definitely got me looking into the paint protection services for one’s hood, especially seeing how sensitive Scion paint is to the environment.
