Revoked American Independance
Monday, August 22, 2005
Revoked American Independance
Declaration of Revocation
To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories.
Except Utah, which she does not fancy.
Your new Prime Minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.
A questionnaire will 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." Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour'; skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters.
You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise."
You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to re-spell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.
Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary." Using the same thirty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "uhh", "like", and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.
Look up "interspersed."
There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary, then you won't have to use bad language as often.
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 should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier).
You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents --- Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles.
While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon." If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.
4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters.
British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.
5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
6. You should stop playing American "football." There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game.
The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.
Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies).
We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005.
You should 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 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders," which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.
7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day."
9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap, and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. 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. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call 'French fries' are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat.
Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.
11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.
12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling "beer" is not actually beer at all, it is lager . From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine." This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in the Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.
13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or "gasoline," as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon -- get used to it).
14. 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.
15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.
16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).
Thank you for your co-operation.
Declaration of Revocation
To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories.
Except Utah, which she does not fancy.
Your new Prime Minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.
A questionnaire will 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." Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour'; skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters.
You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise."
You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to re-spell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.
Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary." Using the same thirty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "uhh", "like", and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.
Look up "interspersed."
There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary, then you won't have to use bad language as often.
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 should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier).
You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents --- Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles.
While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon." If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.
4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters.
British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.
5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
6. You should stop playing American "football." There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game.
The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.
Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies).
We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005.
You should 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 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders," which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.
7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day."
9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap, and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. 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. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call 'French fries' are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat.
Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.
11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.
12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling "beer" is not actually beer at all, it is lager . From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine." This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in the Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.
13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or "gasoline," as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon -- get used to it).
14. 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.
15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.
16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).
Thank you for your co-operation.
Labels: External
Posted by FofR
| Permalink
| Comments (2)
| 
Stencil my way out of boredom
Sunday, August 21, 2005
My boredom during these holidays has led me to new hobbies that grant me opportunities to be creative. My latest craze is stenciling! On Thursday I went out and bought a can of spray paint, some 100gsm printable card and some other random helpful oddities. I then used my sister's "scribe" as shown below to begin my work. I'm a complete newbie when it comes to this and I plan to do a lot of experimentation in the next few days involving multi colour designs, painting with a roller, using chalk to touch up after painting and different techniques. Below is my second ever stencil of Donnie Darko (the first was merely a proof of concept to check that I wasn't wasting my time on something that would look shit). I spent about an hour or so sorting out the stencil for this one and then I applied a heavy spray painted layer while it was 'tacked down,' that was a mistake, look at the white splodges and how the paint splurged everywhere!
Quick first spray
So next time I went with just a light spray with the finer parts held down from above using small rocks and weighted objects. Didn't turn out too bad and with the edges trimmed would look quite good mounted. I may make some modifications and add a blue hoodie layer to this.
Latest spray
This is my latest effort (below). It took roughly two hours to make the stencil simply because the hair took so long and at times the bridging was hard to conceal. I was being adventurous with this one and purposely chose an image with difficult areas to cut away. This isn't the greatest of stencils to spray due to all the tiny little bits but I tried it anyway. I plan to go out and buy some paint, rollers and coloured card to make this look nice tomorrow.
The reverse side of the stencil
A simple quick spray in the dark in the garage, splurged a bit to give her a nice beard!
The stencil front side up after spraying.
The reverse side of the stencil
A simple quick spray in the dark in the garage, splurged a bit to give her a nice beard!
The stencil front side up after spraying.
For those wanting to start stenciling, I found this link helpful: Stencil Revolution
Labels: Life
A Rosy Outlook
Monday, August 08, 2005
The summer has been largely uneventful. When people ask what I did I will have to reply with resounding silence. Then I shall listen to all the fabulous and amazing achievements, developments and experiences they have enjoyed.
Recently I was sitting back and trying to rack my brains around a new site I could develop, so I could do something with my free time. I hadn't made a site about anything I was passionate about for a long time. Then it struck me, what am I passionate about? There's nothing I am particularly obsessed with, nothing overtly interests me and I see nothing that fascinates me enough to go out of my way and pursue it. Sure I have interests but there's not one thing that I can say "yeah my life is dedicated to doing that".
I get sudden spouts where I feel I must be creative, write about something, design something, or do something clever. But there's just no something. I'll sit at a canvas and then leave it. I greatly enjoy music and it fascinates me to no end, I do obsessively listen to a lot of odd and enlightening stuff. So why not pursue that? Well I have absolutely no musical talent which rules out all creative aspects.
Maybe I just lack conviction, maybe I will find something or maybe I will forever remain a subjectless critic with an empty gallery of my great shortcomings. Perhaps society has just deluded me into a downward spiral of convoluting boredom, or you could say I was passing the buck. I'll get over it.
Labels: Life
The Revolution will not be Terrorised
Sunday, August 07, 2005
War is good for the economy, like cannibalism is nutritious
Bristol born Banksy has been in the news as of late, his art on the Palestine West Bank Barrier has caused quite a stir. He's popping up all over the media.
DanSTC says (and I agree): This in my opinion, is exactly what the *best* kind of art can and should be about. Challenging people's perceptions, and providing a means of commenting on the ludicrousness of real life. The man, Banksy, is a true art-warrior. Absolute genius.
Yahoo Launches Audio Search (impressive)
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Saw this on InsideGoogle,
http://audio.search.yahoo.com/
This is an extremely nifty release. Take these example searches and results:
(Purposely testing with lesser known artists)
Venetian Snares: Search
Clicking the artist brings up a discography and list of albums.
Clicking the song gives a list of legal locations for download, cost, quality, format, ability to burn to cd,
Quick links include Y! music link to artist, biographys and reviews.
There is also a matching artists page on the right hand side to give quick access to discographies of searched terms.
From the discography page:
Format: Album Cover, Title (Record Label, Year of Release)
Sort releases by popularity, date and title.
On the right Yahoo automatically searches images, the web and video and displays the first results from each in a single column.
Find CD link under each album links to Yahoo shopping and gives a list of online outlets to purchase the cd.
For more well known artists there are "Similar artist" links also.
Clicking an album cover takes you to the " album browser":
This lets you quickly browse an artists albums. On clicking from the browser you are presented with a tracklisting and all the available legal online download locations for that song.
You can also select your preferred audio service from one of these:
Moving on to Podcasts:
Search for engadget: Engadget Podcast
Notice the last published date and direct link to the RSS feeds.
Here's another podcast search: BBC
There's also an "other audio" option which I have yet to try.
quote:
Yahoo has apparently decided that, now that they have an ad network targeted at bloggers, it is time for them to release all of their blog-related services in development. As a result, here is Yahoo Audio Search, which can find you podcasts. According to The New York Times, Yahoo claims to have indexed 50 million music, voice and other audio files.
The service will also display links to the online sites where users can pay to download a song. Most major music sites have agreed to send Yahoo lists of their songs and pay a commission on every song sold. The current version of the service has no advertising, but Mr. Horowitz said ads might be added later.
You can refine your searches by music, podcasts or other audio, by song, artist or album, by format (RAM, MP3, MIDI, WMA or AAC) by duration (more or less than a minute), by web & audio services or audio services only, and by major releases or to include alternates, imports, EPs, etc.. Smartly, the podcast results have links to the RSS feeds.
http://audio.search.yahoo.com/
This is an extremely nifty release. Take these example searches and results:
(Purposely testing with lesser known artists)
Venetian Snares: Search
Clicking the artist brings up a discography and list of albums.
Clicking the song gives a list of legal locations for download, cost, quality, format, ability to burn to cd,
Quick links include Y! music link to artist, biographys and reviews.
There is also a matching artists page on the right hand side to give quick access to discographies of searched terms.
From the discography page:
Format: Album Cover, Title (Record Label, Year of Release)
Sort releases by popularity, date and title.
On the right Yahoo automatically searches images, the web and video and displays the first results from each in a single column.
Find CD link under each album links to Yahoo shopping and gives a list of online outlets to purchase the cd.
For more well known artists there are "Similar artist" links also.
Clicking an album cover takes you to the " album browser":
This lets you quickly browse an artists albums. On clicking from the browser you are presented with a tracklisting and all the available legal online download locations for that song.
You can also select your preferred audio service from one of these:
quote:
None
ArtistDirect
AudioLunchbox
BuyMusic.com
dMusic
eMusic
Epitonic
GarageBand
iTunes
Livedownloads
MP34U
MSN Music
Musicmatch
Napster
PassAlong
RealPlayer Music Store
Rhapsody
SoundClick
Yahoo! Music Unlimited
Moving on to Podcasts:
Search for engadget: Engadget Podcast
Notice the last published date and direct link to the RSS feeds.
Here's another podcast search: BBC
There's also an "other audio" option which I have yet to try.
Labels: Technical
Inside BBC
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Say hello to the latest member of the trivial being network.
Inside BBC: http://bbc.trivialbeing.net
The aim of this site is to document and inform you of the latest innovations, changes, articles and improvements made at the british broadcasting company's (BBC) website and elsewhere. Such as their interactive media player and open source plans.
Inside BBC: http://bbc.trivialbeing.net
The aim of this site is to document and inform you of the latest innovations, changes, articles and improvements made at the british broadcasting company's (BBC) website and elsewhere. Such as their interactive media player and open source plans.
Labels: Website