Rhyming American Bouncers

New York humourness:

Fat bouncer #1: Where the fuck is there a bagel store around here?
Fat bouncer #2: Umm... Bagels are delicious. Hey, maybe they have knishes. That rhymed!
Fat bouncer #1: You make no fucking sense.

Space. Made in the USA

As reported by the Register, the U.S. has passed a new law, signed last night by Pres. Bush, that basically claims their right to use space for whatever means they see fit. Pretty scary considering the kinds of weapons the U.S. wants to put in the sky. Here's a summary from the article:

"Everyone has to use space peacefully, except us. We can do what we like, cos we were here first. And anyway, if you try to stop us, it won't stay peaceful for long, which would spoil the first part of our principle."

The States have long insisted on space-based weapons, but the fall of the USSR made them question the value of such weapons. New technology, and I'm guessing the success of GoogleEarth has meant that they're in a new race to dominate as soon as possible.

Fun and Fonts

As usual, Overheard in New York has provided some gems:

Tourist: The Chinese are notorious for blurring the line between pet and soup.

And on a completely unrelated note, some cool ideas courtesy of lifehacker: Here is a cool idea where a guy (presumably with important data on his thumbdrive) created a pop-up message and an autorun for his USB key such that if it gets lost, anyone who opens it is inspired to return it.

A few good finds

OK, so with all my bad luck, all the good findings from last week are unavailable, but here are some other cool links:

First of all, you probably all heard about this; Six Flags in the U.S. has been giving various prizes to people who eat a "living Madagascar hissing cockroach" (apparently they grow to about 8cm long). Yeah, OK, kinda weird, but the best bit is that animal rights groups have gotten all in a huff about it. (Stupid hippies!)

Secondly, while brainlessly surfing, I found a blog (here) by Pauley Perrette, the girl who plays Abbey on NCIS. Geeky goodness.

Apparently in WWII, the Royal Navy experimented with getting a massive flamethrower mounted on each ship to discourage Luftwaffe dive-bombers in the Battle of Britain. (Wikipedia) They got the flamethrowers working horizontally (leading to the development of the Allied flame-tank). When they got it working vertically, the test pilot didn't deviate from his course, and would have still hit the target. He admitted that he probably knew a lot about the system because he'd been so involved with its development, so the Navy recruited another pilot to try. Further bad luck; he wasn't too scared either, but he revealed afterwards that he had once worked in a circus and was used to coming close to fire. So finally, and here's the quote from Wikipedia:

"In the belief that the Luftwaffe would have very few men with circus experience, limited production of the Lagonda naval flamethrower began,"

And finally, Robin William's been given a new job, he's starring in a film called Man of the Year (Official Site with Trailer) about a comedian famous for reporting on a satirical news show who then decides to run for President (and accidentally gets in). It actually looks pretty good, but there's the added layer which is revealed by this site.

So, until next time, have fun!

Post from the disillusioned memarchy

2. What is your favorite genre of film and what is your favorite movie from that genre? I'm guessing Tim Burton's stuff qualifies as fantasyesque & therefore, with Lord of the Rings, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory & Starship Troopers being probably the three most-watched DVDs in my collection, Fantasy/Sci-fi would be my favourite genre...and Starship Troopers is the most enduring favoutite.

3. Which country would you like to visit and why? Cuba...to see all the 1950s and communist goodness before Castro dies (gotta hurry).

4. What are you driving these days? What's it's (their) good and bad points? Would you buy another one, and why or why not? Well, my sister's '86 Civic has good points in that it's reliable (haven't had a morning when it hasn't started in the first two tries)...oh and the auto up and down driver's window is good, but then it is ridiculously old and feels like it might fall apart if you go 'round a corner too fast...and it can't accelerate...and it's automatic. There's no way I'm buying a car though with fuel the way it is.

5. "Lost," "24," or both? Jericho...easily the best show i've seen in a long time...it's Lost with radiation.

6. You've been very good this year. What should Santa bring you for Christmas? (the sky is the limit) Well...I've always wanted the Genie of the Lamp, but, failing that, money for travelling would be good...try to use up all this wanderlust.

1. Name three people you would pick (and why) if you could choose who to be stranded on a deserted island with. I've put this question off until last and still don't have a good answer - Denise Richards (duh!), some ugly guy from the SAS etc (with mad MacGyver-like skills) and Kim Jong Il (the rest of us don't speak Chinese or Korean and it looks like there's quite a bit of meat there).


As for last week's meme...it was crap!
'What do like most about yourself?',
'What song can you relate to your personal life? Share a line or two of that song.'
What kind of questions are these? Shitty questions, that's what kind!

Some more cool links

As usual, the most continuously interesting pages I find come from Mads.

Ferule and Fescue is a cool blog by a anonymous lecturer in Shakespeare, Literature et cetra at some American University. It's quite an insight into how crazy some people can be at university.

I just realised that I still haven't linked to Overheard in New York yet, so here it is. A collection of submissions by New Yorkers who overhear what is generally just plain weird. (Together with the weird people commenting on ondayinthelife this has caused the little respect I had for America vacate completely)

Mac iPhones that aren't

So, I came across this site by Apple devotees who like to show their designs for what might be the next biggest thing to define the world...if you're happy with Mac stuff. My problem with it lies in the fact that a good third of the designs don't look anything like an iPod or even have the right character.

Oh...that's right there's also the infuriating design of the blog. The guy submitted the link to the Blogger help page, only to get told his layout sucks arse, but he keeps it? A perfect way to start my new theme: Web pages I hate.

You know you're a geek when...

...you find the list of St. James Parish Sewing Club Members Whose First Names Sound Like Programming Languages from McSweeney funny. I've tried to cut down on reposting links that Chris, Maddy or Matt post, but I've been chuckling about it since thursday...and there's a story...

Okidoki, so here's a catch up on what's been happening. I broke a mirror a couple of days ago and I've come to hold it responsible for the other problems I've had lately. I dislocated my knee...again and my main computer has carked it. On that computer I had a wealth of stories just waiting to be blogged, and they will be as soon as it's up and running again, but until then, I predict a significantly lower post count.

I have to say though, I'm finding the crazy people who comment on Mad's blog just a wee bit hilarious. Have a quick look at their blogs: Soulful SensitiveStreak, NutmegNine and the second quote here. Hmm...Maddy as a weirdness magnet...

And Burgies who read this, some photos of your tardiseses wouldn't go astray on Facebook.