http://www.dbooth.net/internerd/latin.cfm
I found a great tag-line for the week:
which translates to: I’m not interested in your dopey religious cult.
The part of my reptilian brain that still appreciates high school humour enjoyed Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre?
So, soooo bad!
Courtesy of Cracked.Com
‘Vlad the Impaler’ sent me a comment reminding me of Prachett’s unique and fantastic take on Pascal’s Wager from his book Hogfather. I distinctly remember finding this brilliant at the time but Prachett, like Seinfeld to a degree, is so full of amazing observations on human thought and behaviour that my brain can only hold so much and it slipped into the obscurity of short term memory.
This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, ‘Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it’s all true you’ll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn’t then you’ve lost nothing, right?’ When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, ‘We’re going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts . . .’
I was perusing the skeptic’s annotated bible as I do from time to time when I came across this gem; God’s cure for leprosy from Leviticus.
You can read it in its original form but I prefer the pithy translation as it contains all the good stuff without all the thou’s and thus’s.
God’s law for lepers: Get two birds. Kill one. Dip the live bird in the blood of the dead one. Sprinkle the blood on the leper seven times, and then let the blood-soaked bird fly away. Next find a lamb and kill it. Wipe some of its blood on the patient’s right ear, thumb, and big toe. Sprinkle seven times with oil and wipe some of the oil on his right ear, thumb and big toe. Repeat. Finally find another pair of birds. Kill one and dip the live bird in the dead bird’s blood. Wipe some blood on the patient’s right ear, thumb, and big toe. Sprinkle the house with blood 7 times. That’s all there is to it.
I’m truly at a loss to explain why God just didn’t rid the world of the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae but doubtless the millions of afflicted souls throughout history were deserving sinners and a progressive degenerative neurological disease with deformity was fitting punishment; I mean this is the same God who sends bears to maul rude children. If only this had been more widely published although I can only imagine the SPCA would be up in arms about all the little birds and gambolling lambs but at least it’s clear cut irrefutable word-of-god.
update 19.12.07
2 Kings 15:5
God struck down King Azariah with Leprosy lucky guy!
15:5 And the LORD smote the king, so that he was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a several house. And Jotham the king’s son was over the house, judging the people of the land.
After an anti-spitting campaign and a toilet modernisation drive, the
Olympic clean-up of Beijing is spreading to the city’s badly translated
English signs and menus, which is likely to mean fewer perplexed
visitors but less fun for expatriates. A crackdown on poor English could
mark the end for “pubic toilets”, “racist parks” and entreaties for
people to “show mercy to the slender grass”. Orders to “Beware Safety”
and “No Shit” face a similar fate, as does a notorious caution about wet
floors: “The slippery are very crafty.”
At last someone else who can’t stand the lol, omg, roflol, blrb brlb brlb brigade … Thank you Tim Buckley!
So what’s up with the random text used to fool the spam filters?
The text has enough “non spam” stuff to render it absolutely invisible to the filters and on it sails straight into my inbox. I am not the only one amused by reading this text, there was someone recently who turned the spam garbage into a comic, me I prefer words so here we go.
The quote below was part of the text used to bring to me the happiness of cheap Viagra that is abcMeds.org
or a genius, and i’m sure i should be glad to know which,” said aunt pity, from the heights of his vast and varied experience.and as she approached, the massive doors of rock opened of their own but some are not. i needn’t talk about it, only you must show your below made her laugh, and call out: of failure; but she kept up her spirits by working harder than ever.
I will attempt to fill in some of the blanks:
“[either you're mad] or a genius, and i’m sure i should be glad to know which,” said aunt pity, [sarcastically.] [Mr pity was scornful of Matilda's aunt's scathing attacks and] from the heights of his vast and varied experience [decided to opt out of the conversation lest his wife apply the proverbial genital cuff]. [He did however make the mistake of muttering under his breath] and as she approached [to deliver her fateful blow], the massive doors of rock opened of their own [accord and the room filled with a terrible greenish ooze.]
[Some, through years of bitter experience show a sturdiness of stamina, being both bold and strong, ] but some are not. [The green goop did not bode well for the fateful Pity's] i needn’t talk about it, [I am sure you can only well imagine.] only [a miracle could save them now, "] you must show [ us a way through ] your [ roof!" cried poor Matilda from] below [, but her helpless bleatings only amused her sadistic aunt and] made her laugh, and call out: ["you piteous creature born] of failure [""]; [The anger welled in Matilda's young and innocent bosom ] but she kept up her spirits by working harder than ever [to pull the cantankerous bitch from the beam above].
Though not the works of Salman Rushdie the above should serve to illustrate how much fun can be had at the expense of the spammer’s fantastic, though bitty, story waiting to be born.
I think I am going to start perusing the rich pickings of my spam bin more regularly.
From an early point in your infancy, you people have been done a great injustice. Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, Father Christmas—the names may differ from country to country, but the idea always remains a constant. No doubt you’ve drawn pictures of him, watched films depicting him, sung songs about him. A benevolent jolly fellow whose sole purpose is to monitor your behavior year-round by inexplicable means only to separate children into two drastically oversimplified groups: naughty or nice. With the aid of elfin employees and flying reindeer, this Good Samaritan delivers gifts to all the nice children of the world in a single evening. You’ll know him by his long white beard and belly that jiggles like a bowl full of jelly, they say. On the contrary, you’ll know him as nonsense, because that’s precisely what he is.
an imagined conversation by Richard Dawkins to school children
written by Mike Jones
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/monologues/18richarddawkins.html
Toys today suck, they are usually cheap plastic Chinese disposables that break, if you are really lucky, the day after Christmas. In the good-old-days, toys were gritty, manly, able to maim and disfigure – they were real toys!
Radar online has a top 10 list of the worst toys ever, for the life of me I can’t see why.
This reminds me of my 5 year old, he made sure he included the lego part numbers from the catalogue in his letter to Santa just to be sure there would be no confusion.
Wonderful readings from the Bible that I doubt have made it into any Sermon … ever.
If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.
How about
Yet she increased her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth when she engaged in prostitution in the land of Egypt. She lusted after their genitals – as large as those of donkeys, and their seminal emission was as strong as that of stallions.
or this is great
Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some youths came from the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the LORD. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.
I feel a bit like Ebenezer Scrooge at the moment, when the topic of Christmas comes up I feel like retorting with a resounding “Bah Humbug!” It’s not that I inherently dislike Christmas; I just dislike all the artificiality and busyness that comes with it. I had the distinct misfortune of having to trawl around one of our local shopping malls this last weekend, a task I dislike at the best of times. Not born with an extra X chromosome I am at an evolutionary disadvantage when it comes to the subtler points of retail therapy. The artificial lighting, the garish colours and the bling artificial decorations (up since late September) leave it akin in enjoyment to having a frontal lobotomy with an ice-cream scoop. I made the mistake of mentioning to my wife at the time that should I die and have to account for my sins then surely hell would be like this – she did not seem amused or able fully comprehend my point of view. The hoards of Christmas shoppers amble along the narrow corridors with slaughter house resignation and blank vacant stares -they know they have to find suitable offerings for Christmas but just aren’t sure where to start or whether the personal loan they took at the beginning November will cover their ability to express their love.
I had some fun in the expensive camera and electronic shop toying with the bored sales clerks – stand anywhere but near the expensive commission based gadgets and you could die of old age before being offered any help but amble up to the R15,000.00 camera and look interested and suddenly you are accosted from all directions, it feels a bit like a Bombay train station.
Christmas used to be a magical time as a child, before it became a big commercial farce, advertisements daring you to “prove your love” through expensive gifts or TV ad break selling Christmas discounted tampons to badly animated Santa’s and cheesy Christmas jingles. We are slowly killing Christmas for our children, by the time Christmas comes round they have had three months of said sales advertising and every shopping mall has their garish plastic caves replete with crusty pedo-Santa in Freddy Kruger like rubber masks. You very rarely hear Christmas carols anymore – there is more than enough gangsta-hip hop on every sale TV with sweaty groin clasping boyz and teams of scantily clad pelvic thrusting harlots.
My advise, avoid the malls, turn off the TV and try and recapture some of the magic of what makes Christmas special. Read some stories about the birth of Jesus, remember him? My little boy recently wrote a beautiful letter to Santa – we have a tradition in our family that Santa sends his elves to collect all the letters and we had to leave a little snack out for the elf who must be doing some mighty thirsty work. Then five days before Christmas a little Christmas fairy comes and sits on his bedroom door, a sure sign that Santa is coming. To see the joy and excitement of real Christmas anticipation and happiness is enough to renew the faith, even in a cynic like me.
It’s the little things we can do to recapture the magic and joy of a time that the commercial Grinch would so readily strip from us.
You do not want your job interview to go like this.
This poor guy ended up on scare tactics … very very funny!
I’ve really enjoyed playing with Google Earth. I’ve found the last 3 houses I’ve lived in, where I used to play tennis as a child, where I currently work and go to martial arts and where all my friends live. This has been a seemingly expansive area until I realised a very sad fact, most of my life can be mapped on a rectangle no more than 18km x 15km.
Let’s put that into perspective:
18km x 15km = 270 square km
According to wikipedia, the land surface area of the earth equates to: 148,939,100 square km (which is in turn only 29.2% the total surface area - the rest being water)
This means, I have mapped out with relative confidence a mere 0.0001812% of the planet I call my home, see I told you it was sad…
Sure I’ve done some travelling, been to the coast and overseas but for the most part, this little picture is it. We’re no better than ants really … welcome to my colony.
You too can now try your hand at being the speech writer for George Bush. See how many times you can use ‘terrorist’ and ‘weapons of mass destruction’.
I remember being endlessly fascinated by the back covers of my comic books when I was younger, there were these miraculous creatures called Sea Monkeys. They apparently miraculously appeared when you added some funny nutrient mixture to water. The image showed little amphibian-primates in a Disney style family unit replete with mandatory castle and happily oogling humans.
Sadly the truth was very far from the marketing as is often the case in life. A sea monkey is actually a brine shrimp (Artemia salina for the biologists among you).
This is what a brine shrimp looks like – nothing like the add is it?
StuartForsyth.com
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