This is my boat. They're part of my crew. No one's getting left. Best you get used to that.

Mal ,'Ariel'


Natter 58: Let's call Venezuela!  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


Gudanov - May 13, 2008 8:04:08 am PDT #6521 of 10001
Coding and Sleeping

I would say the Bush Administration has jumped the shark, but it's too late for that.

Government asks court to block wider testing for mad cow

Isn't this exactly the sort of thing conservatives would presumably oppose? Not to say all, or even most, conservatives would support this, just pointing out the hypocrisy of the Bush Administration.


Burrell - May 13, 2008 8:04:29 am PDT #6522 of 10001
Why did Darth Vader cross the road? To get to the Dark Side!

Cool Kat, see you then.


Emily - May 13, 2008 8:05:03 am PDT #6523 of 10001
"In the equation E = mc⬧, c⬧ is a pretty big honking number." - Scola

Oh, Phelps. You rascal, you. As I recall, his reasoning is that the US, by tolerating (maybe by not condemning to death?) homosexuals, is deserving of God's punishment and, apparently, Fred Phelps's presence. I believe he sent out a press release after Jerry Falwell's death claiming Falwell was going to hell for compromising with the godless.

Well, at least the man's consistent.


tommyrot - May 13, 2008 8:06:20 am PDT #6524 of 10001
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.

Blah blah blah teens suck at writing blah blah chatspeak blah....

Language that makes you say OMG

Ok. Fine. Whatever. But I think it's a stretch to blame LOLCats for this.

Linguistic butchery while texting is one thing. In school assignments, it is quite another. What's worse is how popular culture is encouraging this madness. A notorious offender called ICanHasCheezburger.com is a cute enough diversion -- it posts adorable pictures of cats, "lolcats" as they're called, with funny captions. But persevere beyond your first gag reflex and you'll notice that the captions are written in lolspeak.

Lolspeak has its own wiki-dictionary online -- sorry, a dikshunary -- where fanatics go to linguistically out-mangle one another. A recent entry on ICanHasCheezburger.com featured a cat looming over a laptop with the caption: "Just when u thot it wuz safe 2 go bak on teh interwebs." Another features a kitten: "why ur hed just asplode? wuz it my cuteness? sry."

Why did my head just "asplode," kitty dear? Because I could not transcribe that caption without Microsoft Word's AutoCorrect going into overdrive. And because ICanHasCheezburger.com receives 50 million page views every single month. Only 50% of users are between 18 and 49 -- which means a large chunk of the under-18 set is picking up lolspeak when they should be learning English.

LOLCats - bringing down Western civilization since... 1997?


lisah - May 13, 2008 8:07:57 am PDT #6525 of 10001
Punishingly Intricate

Well the beeping went away so my plan worked!


lisah - May 13, 2008 8:08:07 am PDT #6526 of 10001
Punishingly Intricate

tommyrot - May 13, 2008 8:08:44 am PDT #6527 of 10001
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.

DUMB OR MENDACIOUS? OR BOTH?....Democrats are taking unsurprising glee in rubbing GOP noses in the fact that the new campaign slogan chosen by House Republicans — "Change You Deserve" — turns out to also be the trademarked slogan of the antidepressant Effexor. That's prepackaged comedy gold for the late-night comic crowd. But I'm genuinely curious: how did this happen? Didn't Boehner & Co. even bother to Google the phrase to see if anyone else was using it? It shows up in a 10-second search, after all.

[link]


Frankenbuddha - May 13, 2008 8:08:56 am PDT #6528 of 10001
"We are the Goon Squad and we're coming to town...Beep! Beep!" - David Bowie, "Fashion"

If that isn't a "get offa my lawn" story, I don't know what is.

ETA re the LOLcats are ruining the youth of America story.


Wolfram - May 13, 2008 8:09:36 am PDT #6529 of 10001
Visilurking

I believe he sent out a press release after Jerry Falwell's death claiming Falwell was going to hell for compromising with the godless.

Did he picket the funeral?


Jesse - May 13, 2008 8:14:29 am PDT #6530 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

Blah blah blah teens suck at writing blah blah chatspeak blah....

I was just laughing at work about this, because my coworker and I were talking about this book we had both read that included a ton of letters written between lovers in the 1830s, and how a similar book written about our time would be all emails like, "LOL. see u l8er. ilu!!"