Category Archives: Memes

I’ve always thought the worst thing about Apple Macs is the people that use them. Unlike Acorn Archimedes users (remember them?), who were just to be pitied, Mac-heads compound their deliberate choice of the computing equivalent of a Betamax VCR with an air of insufferable smugness. They think lame cartoons like this are actually funny.

Charlie Brooker thinks the same way. He takes as his starting point Apple’s current ad campaign.

Mitchell and Webb. They are a logical choice in one sense (everyone likes them), but a curious choice in another, since they are best known for the television series Peep Show – probably the best sitcom of the past five years – in which Mitchell plays a repressed, neurotic underdog, and Webb plays a selfish, self-regarding poseur. So when you see the ads, you think, “PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers.” In other words, it is a devastatingly accurate campaign.

I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don’t use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.

Predictably the comment thread gets deluged with indignant responses from humourless Mac-heads.

(Link from The Ministry of Information)

The Xmas meme comes via Scott

Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Cannot bear egg. Ugh! So it will have to be Hot Chocolate, although I’d prefer mulled wine or a winter beer. (Something like double chocolate stout will do nicely!)
Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Have to be wrapped. This is the reason why all presents must be rectangular, and nothing non-Euclidian in shape is allowed. That wooden rocking horse many years ago cost me an awful lot of SAN.
Coloured lights or white on tree/house? Coloured ones.
Do you hang mistletoe? Haven’t for many years.
When do you put your decorations up? Last Sunday before. That way the needles on the tree last until the traditional January 6th.
What is your Favourite Christmas dish (excluding dessert)? Christmas dinner with turkey and everything else; especially the brussel sprouts. (Well, not just the brussel sprouts).
Favourite Christmas memory as a child? Dragging a christmas stocking down the stairs with the words “Father Christmas did come! {Bump} Father Christmas did come! {Bump}”
When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I can’t actually remember that one.
Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Used to many years ago.
How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? Tinsel, lights, baubles and one really kitsch white mouse that my mother absolutely hates. There used to be a Teletubby (Po), but she disappeared one January 6th and was never seen again.
Do you know how to ice skate? No. Never actually tried, but since I’m Mr Absolutely No Coordination Whatsoever it’s probably best that I haven’t.
What’s the most important thing about the Christmass for you? Family.
What is your Favourite Christmas dessert? Christmas pudding and brandy butter.
What is your Favourite Christmas tradition?. Eating toast at one o’clock in the morning after coming home from midnight communion on Christmas Eve. I’m not quite sure how that tradition got started.
What tops your tree? A star.
Favourite Christmas Song? Got to be traditional carols like Hark the Herald Angels Sing, O Come All Ye Faithful and Silent Night. Didn’t get the last of those on Sunday’s carol service, but I am expecting to hear it performed at the Mostly Autumn Christmas show at Crewe on Wednesday. As an unrepentant prog-rock fan I can make room for Greg Lake’s I Believe in Father Christmas, but I share Scott’s dislike of tacky drivel like Grandma got run over by a reindeer.

I haven’t done any memes for ages. This one comes from The Ministry of Information.

1. Explain what ended your last relationship?
The Gap Was Too Wide (in more ways than one)

2. When was the last time you shaved?
In the 1980s. Had my beard trimmed last Friday.

3. What were you doing this morning at 8 am?
Leaving home for work.

4. What were you doing 15 minutes ago?
Reposting a month-old PBeM post that two players had failed to respond to, and emailing a new PBeM applicant to tell him that I probably do have a vacancy in the game.

5. Are you any good at math?
As NRT said, it’s a plural!

6. Your prom night? what about?
This another one of those quaint American customs we don’t have over here.

7. Do you have any famous ancestors?
Ultimately we’re all descended from Eve (something evolutionary biologists and creationists appear to agree on). Apart from that, no.

8. Have you had to take a loan out for school?
I’m old enough to have had a student grant. And we call it ‘College’ or ‘University’, not ‘School’. ‘School’ ends at 18.

9. Do you know the words to the song on your MySpace profile?
There aren’t any songs on my MySpace profile.

10. Last thing received in the mail?
A savings account statement. The Dapol Cargowaggons I ordered have yet to arrive, and will probably be in the post tomorrow.

11. How many different beverages have you had today?
Two. Coffee, and Beer. Three if you count standard and decaff coffee as two different beverages. Five if you count black and white coffee as different. (Yes, this is really the answer to 5)

12. Do you ever leave messages on people’s answering machine?
The last one was “Bidibidibidibidi!”. You probably did not want to know that.

13. Who did you lose your CONCERT virginity to?
Hawkwind

14. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach?
No.

15. What’s the most painful dental procedure you’ve had?
Can’t remember a really painful one. Have probably blotted out the memory.

16. What is out your back door?
A lawn that needs mowing.

17. Any plans for Friday night?
I’m actually going to be the same place as NRT, seeing Opeth.

18. Do you like what the ocean does to your hair?
The ocean doesn’t get to mess with my hair. Neither does the North Sea, the Irish Sea, or the English Channel.

19. Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different popcorns?
I know not of these big tins of 3 different popcorns of which you speak.

20. Have you ever been to a planetarium?
There was an open-air one in a field in Switzerland.

21. Do you re-use towels after you shower?
They do get washed eventually.

22. Some things you are excited about?
How about a class 50 tackling the one-in-sixty grade out of Par station from a standing start with 13 coaches behind (alas, no more). Or Mostly Autumn encoring with a sublime version of “Mother Nature”. Of finding a really meaty bug in Chadders’ code.

23. What is your favorite flavor of jelly?
Strawberry. This applies both for what we call ‘Jam’, and what Americans call ‘Jello’.

24. Describe your keychain(s)?
Fob with the SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) on it.

25. Where do you keep your change?
In my trouser pocket. And a jamjar. (Do Americans have Jello Jars?)

26. When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group of people?
About three years ago, when I read the lesson at a friends wedding.

27. What kind of winter coat do you own?
A long dark grey wollen one that I don’t think I wore at all last winter. Not cold enough to wear it quite yet.

28. What was the weather like on your graduation day?
Typical July weather, although it didn’t rain.

29. Do you sleep with the door to your room open or closed?
Since I currently live on my own, I usually leave it open.

Dave notes that Erich von Daniken’s “Mystery Park” in Interlaken, Switzerland, is going pear-shaped.

The park, set up by the author of bestsellers such as “Chariots of the Gods” and “The Gods were Astronauts”, has failed to attract enough visitors and needs 4 million Swiss francs (2 million pounds) in cash to stay in business.

The park’s attractions — which showcase giant drawings in the Peruvian desert that may once have been signs for visiting spacecraft, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and more — may close forever if the group does not find the money.

The place was under construction the last time I visited the Interlaken area. At the time, the Bern Lötchberg Simplon had a locomotive carrying an advertising livery promoting the place. Kato even made an N gauge model of it.

Note that having this locomotive on the roster of the Wöminseebahn does not indicate an endorsement of Von Daniken’s crackpot beliefs.

Dave adds cynically that the only problem was that it was built on the wrong continent.

I’m sure he could make it profitable again if he repurposed it to prove that angels visited the Earth in eras past, and relocated from Interlaken to, say, Kansas

The Science Creative Quarterly has come up with a game theoretic approach to the toilet seat problem. With mathematic proofs deciding once and for all whether or not men should leave the seat up or down. Perhaps what it really means is that you should never marry a mathematician. (Link from Dave)

Another meme, from Norm

Directions:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

This takes me right back to 2002, and gives the final line, “And they got them!”, from this post. So much for English teachers insisting that you should never begin a sentence with a conjunction. It will be split infinitives next!

Appropriately for a meme from a cricket fan, it’s one of the very rare sporting posts on this blog, about the finale of the England vs. Sri Lanka Test Match. Norm will be horrified to learn that I have no recollection whatsoever of that match three years later.

I’ll pass the baton to anyone reading this who wants to pick it up.

“J Nelson Kwango” of the KFA Forum is rangly.

Comrades!

I am terrored! A film has just arrived on the markets of Cameroon, this film the American Police Team or some name that is similar. My nephew, purchased this and asked me to watch because he said is had something to do with DPRK. The shock I see! The general, beloved general, Kim Jong Il is a puppet character in this film and speaking the most offending things! He swears in English, kills his interpreter, and turns into a small insect at the end. They make the Dear Leader to be evil man, and lonely man. They find risible the undying love of the Korean people? They think the leadership of DPRK and the revolution is a joke? Forgive me for saying but makers of this film are bastard people! I denounce them and curse them! Bastard people!

Can we not complain to someone about such slander? Why has not the KCNA denounced this piece of capitalist propaganda? To think that they make light of the general and debase his greatness!

Some of the followup comments are well worth reading too. Nowadays it’s getting harder and harder to tell what’s parody and what isn’t. (Link from Samizdata)

Norm is spreading a name meme

• My prOn star name (name of first pet owned plus street name of first address): Pepper Alderbury
• My West Indian cricketer’s name (surname of the US president in year of your birth plus last seaside town visited): Kennedy Sheringham
• My Star Wars name (first car owned plus the name of any medication you’re on, which reminds me of this): Volvo Loratidine

I had to cheat on the last one since, like Norm, I’ve never actually owned a car; it’s the vehicle my parents owned when I was 17.

I can imagine Kennedy Sheringham as a swashbucking middle-order Batsman.