I didn't quite catch that...

A few gifts, from soc.culture.irish.

A man is driving down a deserted stretch of highway when he
notices a sign out of the corner of his eye….
It reads:

SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS
HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION
10 MILES

He thinks this is a figment of his imagination and drives on without
second thought….Soon he sees another sign which reads:

SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS
HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION
5 MILES

Suddenly he begins to realize that these signs are for real and
drives past a third sign saying:

SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS
HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION
NEXT RIGHT
His curiosity gets the best of him and he pulls into the drive.
On the far side of the parking lot is a stone building with a small
sign next to the door reading:

SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS

He climbs the steps and rings the bell. The door is answered by a
nun in a long black habit who asks, “What may we do for you my son?”

He answers, “I saw your signs along the highway and was
interested in possibly doing business….”

“Very well, my son. Please follow me.” He is led through many
winding passages and is soon quite disoriented. The nun stops at
a closed door and tells the man, “Please knock on this door.”
He does so and another nun in a long habit, holding a tin cup
answers the door… This nun instructs, “Please place $100 in the
cup then go through the large wooden door at the end of the hallway.”
He puts $100 in the cup, eagerly trots down the hall and slips
through the door pulling it shut behind him. The door locks, and
he finds himself back in the parking lot facing another sign:

GO IN PEACE.
YOU HAVE JUST BEEN SCREWED BY
THE SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS

SERVES YOU RIGHT, YOU SINNER.

Five Surgeons
———————-
Five surgeons are discussing who makes the best patients to operate on.
The first surgeon says, “I like to see accountants on my operating table
because when you open them up, everything inside is numbered.”
The second responds, “Yeah, but you should try electricians! Everything
inside them is colour coded.”
The third surgeon says, “No, I really think librarians are the best;
everything inside them is in alphabetical order.”
The fourth surgeon chimes in: “You know, I like construction workers, those
guys always understand when you have a few parts left over at the end, and
when the job takes longer than you said it would.”
But the fifth surgeon shut them all up when he observed “You’re all wrong,
politicians are the easiest to operate on.”
“There’s no guts, no heart, no balls, no brains and no spine, and the head
and arse are interchangeable.”

And something I’ve gotta try…

The Police Stop

A police officer pulls a guy over for speeding
and has the following exchange:

Officer: May I see your driver’s license?

Driver: I don’t have one. I had it suspended
when I got my 5th DUI.

Officer: May I see the owner’s card for this
vehicle?

Driver: It’s not my car. I stole it.

Officer: The car is stolen?

Driver: That’s right. But come to think of
it, I think I saw the owner’s card in the glove
box when I was putting my gun in there.

Officer: There’s a gun in the glove box?

Driver: Yes sir. That’s where I put it after
I shot and killed the woman who owns this car
and stuffed her in the trunk.

Officer: There’s a BODY in the TRUNK?!?!?

Driver: Yes, sir.

Hearing this, the officer immediately called
his captain. The car was quickly surrounded by
police, and the captain approached the driver
to handle the tense situation:

Captain: Sir, can I see your license?

Driver: Sure. Here it is.

It was valid.

Captain: Who’s car is this?

Driver: It’s mine, officer. Here’s the registration.

Captain: Could you slowly open your glove
box so I can see if there’s a gun in it?

Driver: Yes, sir, but there’s no gun in it.

Sure enough, there was nothing in the glove
box.

Captain: Would you mind opening your trunk?
I was told you said there’s a body in it.

Driver: No problem.

Trunk is opened; no body.

Captain: I don’t understand it. The officer
who stopped you said you told him you didn’t
have a license, stole the car, had a gun in the
glovebox, and that there was a dead body in the
trunk.

Driver: Yeah, I’ll bet he told you I was speeding,
too.

For the first time in ages, the host nation has gotten into the final of the European Championship. Which is nice, especially since I have money riding on them. ?10 of the office’s money is mine now; all we need is for them to win, and then I have more.

Which I like.

Oh, and they beat England (you might not have noticed, it was a quiet affair), so they’re my new heroes….

Following “suggestions” from a few people, I got round to starting the Wheel of Time series. Only finished the first book, so it’ll take some time before I finish the lot. What with there being 10 of the books, with the eleventh comming out in 2005 and a prequel out recently. And each of the being 800-odd pages.

But anyway. ‘Tis good. In many ways, it seems better than the LotR. Ways like these, in fact:

• There isn’t singing.
• There’s mystery.
• There isn’t singing.
• There’s suspense.
• I don’t think I’ve mentioned that there isn’t, in fact, Tolikienesque singing.
• bits of it read like a detective novel, with the reader picking up clues as they go.
• I should stop going on about the lack of song right about here, shouldn’t I?
• I haven’t, as yet, wanted to slaughter any of the characters. Unlike a certain Baggins character.
• The background to the world is filled in gradually, in passing, rather than in great big chunks buried in the middle of a seven page song that is unsingable.
• There are women.

Actually, that last one is a minor quibble I have. The presence of female characters that actually do something is good, as there is a different dynamic to all of the characters when they are interacting with women (as opposed to the whole throw me down and shag me rotten behaviour in other epics). You also get the impression that Jordan has, like, y’know, talked to women, as opposed to just guessing at how they think. Clue for prospective writers: make your female protaganists cunning, manipulative, and sneaky. Then make sure that you make them more so as you go along.
The problem I have with it is the “Women’s Circle”, and all that surrounds the idea. Fuck that for a game of soldiers. Screw running the place, get back in the kitchen and make me some pie…

There were two ways to try and correct Europe after the First World War. One was tried, and failed quite badly. The other plan was kept secret, until now. Thanks to the archives of the Onion, we can reveal:

President Wilson’s Fourteen Points

• That was between nations be made illegal and its practice punishable by a fine;
• That the lands of Turkey and the former Ottoman Empire be given to the Great State of Texas;
• That international policy be free, open, and no longer a secret procedure, and that it involve America and Britain only, to the exclusion of all other nations;
• That the economy of Italy be channeled into the development of sporting automobiles, stylish women’s footwear, and men’s suits;
• That Russia be evacuated and its population housed in a spacious country to be designated later;
• That Serbo-Croatia and all lands surrounding the city of Sarajevo shall be the future vessel of all conflict, strife, horror and insanity in Europe;
• That the European nations admit in writing that, but for America, they would now be speaking German;
• That all nations be unified in their love of and commitment to peace, and to the hatred of the French;
• To that end, that France be severely punished for its role as host of this horrific conflict, and made to pay reparations to Germany;
• That Austria be open, in the summer months, to tourists;
• That combat against Switzerland continue until the last Swiss liew dead;
• That Luxembourg be maintained as a nation, against common logic, to serve as an interesting political curio;
• That the King of Belgium be set as watchman over Germany, to ensure that no suspicious or warlike activities transpire in that nation;
• That all civilized nations unite in the noble purpose of exploiting the browner peoples of the Earth.

How different would the world be if they had put this in place, instead of the mess they made of it? Answers best kept to yourselves, really…

Is history made in the press conferences, or on the streets?

Is it in the thundering welcome that a thing becomes real, or in the quiet acceptance?

The above series of photos was discovered viaKdT.

Q. What do you get if you mix Frank J and Return of the Jedi?

A. In My World:Attack of the Moore-ons

“Now let’s all keep our cool. Something else to mention: the psychobabble liberal speak has evolved into its own language known as Liberalese which many here speak. Luckily, I’m multi-language-al.”

A man with white skin and what looked like two tentacles on his head walked towards the four of them. “Die Wanna Wanga!” he demanded.

“We’ve come to see Michael Moore,” Bush answered, “We’ve brought gifts of fatty foods.”

“Nee Moore no badda. Me chaade su goodie.” The servant reached for the foods.

“Hey, grabby, we’re only giving them to Moore in person!” Bush yelled.

The man looked angry, but then motioned for them to follow. “Nudd Chaa.”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Ichi uttered.

“I just have to say that Moore fans sure our weird looking,” Bush whispered back.

They soon came to the main room where a number of celebrities were partying and saying how much they hated Bush. At the end of the room was a large platform on which the corpulent Michael Moore rested his bulk. Seated on the platform near his feet was a deranged looking Al Franken laughing hysterically. Moore reached into a bowl near him and pulled out a creature that looked like a frog and swallowed it whole, slime trailing down his mouth.

Also available today: Acidman’s instructions for medicating cats:

1) Pick cat up and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat’s mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As cat opens mouth,
pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.

2) Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.

3) Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.

4) Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm holding rear paws tightly with left hand. Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right
forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of ten.

5) Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call spouse from garden.

Acidman, in a typical show of kindness, goes on for 15 points, then gives similiar instructions for dogs.

There you go now, get back to work.

We finally have a release date for the new Prodigy album. Mark 23 August 2004 into your calenders, people.

Hell, it’s only been seven fricking years since the last one…

One year ago today was my last day as a student. So let’s take stock of whats happened in that year:

• Got a proper job, eventually. Did spend five months without any proper employment though.
• Got a car, which is a big thing for me. Yes, I realise that I may be odd because of it.
• Lived at home. Not so good, but on the plus side that should be changing in a week or so.
• Went to the US, and a decent festival.
• Ended up working on doors again. The most useful thing I picked up at uni seems to be my Door Supervisor badge. I kid you not.
• Been to a couple of weddings. And a funeral or two, but…
• Haven’t been to a funeral of an immediate family member, or someone I knew really well, for the first 12-month period in about a decade.

And thats about it. Pretty dull year, really. Hey ho.

Is it just me, or is David Blunkett a complete control freak? “You must all do as I say, or there will be legal action” seems to be the blunkett-to-english translation of everything he says. And a lot of what he says is twaddle.

Anyway, my concerns with this incarnation of “Blunkett’s twattishness”:

1. Part of the reason that Humberside didn’t pass on data was because they misintrepreted the Data Protection Act, which is a stunningly stupid piece of leglislation. Toothless isn’t the word, vague doesn’t begin to cover it and totally slanted against the individual would be an understatement. I don’t like it, is the subtle point of this item.
2. Huntley wasn’t convicted of anything before Soham. Nothing. So Blunkett is unhappy because the details of accusations against him weren’t passed on. Four words: innocent until proven guilty. In this case it wasn’t correct, but as a standard, it should be untouched. If you’re going to stop people working because of unproven accusations in general then we’re all fucked.
3. The powers that Blunkett is trying to use are only recent, and untested, and smack of over centralism. Which I’m not a huge fan of. I get nervous of people who make up their own rules in response to every possible situation…
4. Blair and Blunkett are always going on about accountability, and local accountability at that. So now they’re saying that local accountability isn’t good, and that they should be in charge instead. Just because the locals disagreed with them. Tossers.
5. I get more nervous when such people have made mistakes in the past and are totally unrepentant to the point of appearing like zealots. Blair, for example, is bad in this respect (I’m not saying in Iraq, BTW, more in connection with domestic policy), but Blunkett is so much worse.

Will my concerns be listened to? No. Do I expect them to be? No. Do I think that this will all go horribly wrong and that Blunkett will claim that it’s nothing to do with him? Absolutley.

This post is dedicated to all those who send me sick pictures in the post. I’ll post one of the cleanest ones I’ve received recently.

There’s not cat… like a dead cat. Mwhahaha.

A huge security operation is taking place round Shannon airport, the hotel where the US-EU summit is taking place, and everywhere in between. 4,000 gardai, 2,000 troops. That is 1 in 1,000 of the people on this island, working as security for one man. Plus 660 odd US personnel. Armoured cars, tracked vehicles, aircraft, water cannon, the lot.

Whos up for a rumble then?

It would appear that someone has hacked the Warwick Bore‘s shite. The main site is OK, but if you go to warwickboar.co.uk/, then you get a hidden message. I wonder how long it’ll be till they fix it.

Hat tip to Hugh Anchor.

When you’re trying to set up users on Outlook Web Access, what would be a prerequisite for that task?

Yes, you would need you head checked if you were doing it voluntarily, but it’s a task that’s been assigned to me, and my head is fine, thankyouverymuch.

Apart from that, what would you need?

Come on, you can do this…
Outlook Web Access
Outlook Web Access
Outlook Web Access

Got it yet?

Yes, the work connection to the interwebnetdevice has gone the way of the England football team; that is to say, it is gone, it has ceased to be, it is an ex-interwebnetdevice connection. It has shuffled off its mortal coil…

Stop that, it’s silly.

Anyway, so here’s me, with a lot to do and a technical limitation on my ability to do it.

Which is nice.

Trying to get the blog-by-email function going now. Ho hum.

UPDATE: The blog by email is fiddly. So I just cut’n'pasted when the connection started working again.

My opinion on the whole thing was mentioned elsewhere, but anyway. Yon navy guys have been returned.

‘Course, as the whole returning thing was organised by the Foreign Office, I’m curious as to what the Iranians got in return. If the MoD had been leading negotiations, I’m sure all Iran would have received would be a load of depleted uranium, but thats not important right now.

As we all know, the stars control every aspect of our life. This is why many of us check their horoscope daily.

I don’t check too often, prefering to be suprised by what the celestial bodies have in store for me. And exception to this is the Onion horoscope , of course, which provides me with a cast-in-concrete guide to my life as it unfolds. Like this week’s:

Taurus: (April. 20—May 20)
You will have mixed feelings about your career this week when you’re unexpectedly promoted from assistant third-shift server to Admiral of the Fifth Fleet.

Well, this should be an interesting seven days. I mean, the USN’s Fifth Fleet is quite small, really…

The usual force of 20-plus ships, with about 1,000 people ashore and 15,000 afloat, consists of a Carrier Battle Group, Amphibious Ready Group, combat aircraft, and other support units and ships.

Time for an evil laugh? OK then: Mwhahahahaha

Oh well. The duck race was cancelled. Apparently 20 hours of straight rain was bad for the river, and they thought people wouldn’t turn up if the weather was too bad. Fair enough, I can live with that.

1. Work – check

2. Get in a canoe and pick up plastic ducks for a silly community festival plastic duck race? – to be done later.

Never volunteer, children. A lesson we should all learn.

Regarding the whole EU thing, I have but one question: why?

Why do we need a ‘better’ union? What benefits does it give? The EU was sold to the new countries as an economic union, but it ceased to be that in 1990 and became a politicial union first and foremost. Why?

Why was it not just left in it’s pre 1990 state? Why did it need a single currency? Why a single (and extremely limiting) bank? Why are 50% of the laws in this country sent from a union which we joined for purely economic reasons?

And, with regards to the preamble, just why?

…Drawing inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, from which have developed the universal values of the inviolable and inalienable rights of the human person, democracy, equality, freedom and the rule of law.

Believing that Europe, reunited after bitter experiences, intends to continue along this path of civilisation, progress and prosperity, for the good of all its inhabitants, including the weakest and most deprived…

Convinced that, while remaining proud of their own national identities and history, the peoples of Europe are determined to transcend their ancient divisions, and, united in an ever closer fashion, to forge a common destiny,

[members of the European Convention... have agreed as follows:]

Why with the united in an ever closer fashion? Do the peoples of europe want ever closer union? Do we fuck. This isn’t the US, with the ‘more perfect union’ stuff. We are citizens of soverign, independant nations, not of states. And we want to stay that way, from what I’ve seen.

So why bother with a constitution ensuring that we all move together when most of us are happier moving in the other direction?

Luckily for me, I am a citizen of two EU countries. one of which is bound by it’s own constitution to have a referrendum to ratifty the new EU one. The other will probably hold one as well. So I’ll get to vote twice. Can you guess what box I’ll be ticking?

A new study has decided that the UK media is far too biased in favour of Israel. Yawn, etc, another day, another steaming pile of bull wasting time and money and only there to give a university department some publicity before it gets stuck in a drawer…

Sorry. Wrong rant.

Anyway: what annoyed me was in the comments:

I am 14-years-old, and my school recognised this problem. So, what they did was revolutionize the history class and make it current events. We were given opportunities to debate and it was imperative that we followed the news. At the end of the year, almost all students (certainly those who were interested) knew and could understand current affairs. Now, we can all have discussions with adults about the news, so this problem is not a universal one. This may be the solution, to start learning it in school.
TheVerySamePupil, London, UK

OK, what the fuck. It’s history class. Do history. You want to teach a class how to understand current events, do it on your own time. If you’re in a public-funded school, then you’re spending MY money on indoctrinating pupils by teaching them current events (from your point of view, no doubt), when you’re supposed to be teaching them history.

So stop it. Now.

UPDATE: I’ve been informed by the person who made the above comment that they were actually in a social studies/history class, and at a private school to boot. So all that stuff about taking my money and messing up the curriculum with it? Ignore it. My bad.

There are sick people in the world. For example, people who visit looking for horse pussy. There’s none here, freaks. So go away.

Incidentially, what would your politicial leaders think? Huh? I mean, if you’re visiting from Kuwait, surely you shouldn’t be looking for sick, depraived animal porn. I’m pretty sure that it’s not allowed in the Koran, anyway.

I love IP logging. It amuses me.