Farty's Fortunes

Saturday 31 January 2009

Translation Fail

Wait...How Did I Get Here?

Fail

Friday 30 January 2009

My Comments Are Broken

Hope

It's the only possible explanation.

Give Generously

I give and I give and I give and still you want more. You're like a bunch of zombie vampires or something. Sorry, I've been immersed in another blog and some of it seems to have rubbed off.

So. What have I missed?

Well, for one thing, the fuckwitted city council of Birmingham (not Alabama, the other one) have seen fit to ban apostrophes from their signage. Apparently the cost of reintroducing them would be astronomical. Maybe I can help out. Hey, Brum! Here, have some apostrophes! '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

While were on the subject, whats the correct spelling of the half-street that runs through Embra city centre?Princes_Street
Thats right - Princes Street. Named after the two sons of Mad King George III. No apostrophe needed. Your welcome.

You have no idea how hard it is for me not to go back and punctuate that paragraph.

BassoonMrs F decided we should buy a bassinet for Little Miss Farty's baby, due in August.
Me: So we're going to play it soothing music?
Mrs F: WTF?
Me: I've heard that's good for developing fœtuses.
Mrs F: What exactly do you think a bassinet is?
Me: Er, some kind of musical instrument?
Mrs F: How did you arrive at that conclusion?
Me: It's a cross between a bassoon and a clarinet, innit?Clarinet


Bassinet
I wonder which part you blow?

Did you know New England isn't actually a US state? I didn't.
USA

An atheist campaign group was cleared to run ads on London buses claiming that there's probably no God. Christians wanted the ads banned on the grounds of substantiation and truthfulness, but the ASA ruled that the ad wasn't misleading, because they used the word 'probably'. Now the backlash - Christians want to place ads saying there is a God. Won't they have to prove it first?
FSM

On the subject of invisible flying things, did you hear about the Lincolnshire wind turbine that was hit by a UFO? According to The Sun, "there was no trace of one of the turbine’s three huge 65ft blades." Until it turned up a few feet away. And in order to hit two of the blades, any object must have been about 170 feet long. Er...unless the blades were rotating. Its It's all very mysterious.

Farty's Friday Chart

Birdcage

William Norris Powell

1952 – 2009


Name that tune. RIP Billy.

Wednesday 28 January 2009

This Is Not A Real Post

I suddenly realised that all those posts building up on my reader, although funny, thought-provoking or at least interesting enough that I signed up to read them in the first place, aren't actually compulsory. It's getting too much like a job to try and keep up.

So I decided to do what I really want, which is start reading Jenny the Bloggess's archives from start to date.

Feel free to peruse my own archives while you wait. The best bits are in my sidebar marked "Best Bits". I'm so kickass. If kickass means lacking originality.

I may be some time.

Sunday 25 January 2009

Computer Terms Illustrated #20 - Burns Special

Apparently it's some sort of anniversary today. But how to commemorate this momentous occasion?

How else?

Spywear
Spywear

A Series of Pipes
Pipes

Hidden features
Hidden

Interlock
Comhlan on Flickr

Bit, Byte
Scottish_Terrier

System Flags
SaltireLion_Rampant

Hardware Clash
Pub_Brawl

Float:Right
Float_right

Cache
Sporran

Bloatware
Haggis

Wetware
Scotch

Technical Support
Scotty

Jings, crivvens and help ma boab the noo, it's a braw bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht, lang may yer lum reek wi' ither folks' coal, up yer kilt, is that a skean dhu in yer sporran or are ye jist pleased tae see me, och aye, ye ken, etc.

Friday 23 January 2009

Merkan-English Dictionary - Inauguration Special

Youse Merkans never cease to amaze me with your funny words. And the way you fit them to our frikkin' tunes.

For e.g, we have the British National Anthem, God Save the Queen:


God save our gracious Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen:
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us:
God save the Queen.

There's a verse in there about crushing the Scots, but I'll let that one pass for now.

Oh, but what have we here?

My Country, 'Tis of Thee


'Tis isn't even a proper word and in any case nobody uses it anymore. I call shenanigans.

Then there's the matter of getting the words mixed up. Vide the Wedding of Chuck and Di (skip to 6mins18):


So technically Diana married Prince Philip, the Duke of Embra. Conspiracy theory, anyone?

Here we have the copycat attempt to muck up an oath by that Hawiian bloke:


At least they made him do it over. Most Presidents have to wait four years to say the oath a second time, but Barack had two shots in the same week.

As for that catch-phrase, Can We Fix It? Stolen from Bob The Builder:


And now we're being followed, sixteen years late, by a reference on live TV to unsavoury practices involving a senior member of the government.

Dammit, I wish they hadn't pulled that YouTube clip, but the essence of it, as I recall, was that at the British Comedy Awards in 1993, camp comic Julian Clary minced onstage and declared that he'd just been fisting Norman Lamont, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As you do. Luckily, only a few million people were watching at the time and it slipped by almost unnoticed. *cough*

Updated: Guess what I just found?


Anyway, the good bit in the Merkan copycat clip is at 1m58:

(Thanks to Jenny the Blogress for bringing this to my attention.)

You'd really think Barack and Michelle could come up with something original instead of pinching it off the British, sigh.

Farty's Friday Chart

Given the events of this week, it was either going to be this or Bob the Builder.

Prognosis

Go on, name that tune.

Tuesday 20 January 2009

Give Us Your Fooking Bloooood!

Vampire_Geldof

This morning dawned bright and clear, with a fresh dusting of snow on the ground, and I thought, "I should totally go and give blood today, how hard can it be?" So I picked up my trusty camera and off I toddled to the blood bank. And this is how it works.

First of all, they check your name, address and date of birth, then give you a form to fill in. Well, I say "fill in", actually it's just tick yes or no in a lot of few boxes.

Checklist

Next, they prick your finger to get a drop of blood and drop that into a solution of copper sulphate to see how long it takes to sink. This tells them you probly don't have enough iron in your blood to donate any today.

Drop_test

Then they wheel in a trolley, whip out a syringe and take about a fingerful of blood to do a more precise measurement. But they don't take it out of your finger, obv, 'cause that would leave it empty. No, they take it from the inside of your elbow. Then they get you to hold a swab over the hole while they run that test, so you can't hold the camera, sigh.

Finally, they tell you that the minimum level of iron they need is 135, but yours is only 132, so if you'd been a woman that would be ok (so I should have gone ahead with that operation after all) but as it is you can have a free non-alcoholic beverage and a handful of biscuits and then come back in three months when you're fit enough to give blood.

Easy peasy!

Monday 19 January 2009

Computer Terms Illustrated #19

Feck's sake, will this series never end? Failing that, will it ever get interesting? Or at least funny? Probly not.

General Protection
Tank

Clipboard
Clipboard

Forking Daemon
Daemon

Full Duplex
Duplex

Flash Player
Becks

Machine Language
R2D2

Batch
Batch

Blackberry(sp?)
Black_Beret

Link
Link sausages

Dynamic
Dynamic_Duo

Massively Parallel
Indians

Sunday 18 January 2009

Objection!

Here's a question for anyone who's ever been involved in a court case, whether as a juror (me), a witness (Mrs F), a policeman (one nephew) or whatever (hi, J-Dub!).

Have you ever seen a lawyer become so incensed with his/her opposite number's line of questioning that he/she's leapt to their feet and yelled: "Objection!!!"

Or even just said it in a normal voice?

Or shouted at a witness?

Or dramatically produced a vital piece of evidence out of thin air on the last day of the trial?

Or forced the defendant to break down in tears and change their plea to guilty?

No, me neither.

That's why I don't watch those court dramas like Law and Order, Boston Legal, Special Victims Unit, LA Law, Perry Mason, I could go on.

Mrs F loves them, naturally.

I prefer something with at least a touch of realism.

But maybe that's just me?

Dr_Who

Friday 16 January 2009

Travel Fail

Travel_Fail

Farty's Friday Chart

So, I've been reminded today a couple of times about Morgan Bay and the fab times we've had there.

Sadly, the Warren-Smiths seem to have ignored my advice, namely: "Don't you ever lower yourself, forgetting all your standards." Just look at the riff-raff who've squeezed themselves into this family photo, sigh.

Morgan_Bay

Anyways, can you name that tune?

Thursday 15 January 2009

Prisoner No More

Number 6 has finally escaped from The Village.No. 6

Patrick McGoohan 1928-2009
BCNU


Update: Stoopid fonts. If you have both Internet Explorer and The Village font, this page ought to look like this:

Doesn't seem to work in Firefox.

Wednesday 14 January 2009

I Prefer To Think Of Them As "Coworkers"

Apparently anyone who drinks more than seven cups of coffee a day is three times more likely to have hallucinations, i.e. "seeing things that were not there, hearing voices, and sensing the presence of dead people". I need at least that much just to wake up. And the voices are usually saying, "Why does that guy have to pee in a bucket? Is the men's toilet blocked again?"

Graham Stringer, MP says that dyslexia doesn't exist and is merely a creul fcition invented to cover up pore teeching. He also claims that theirs no Santa, there never was any weapon's of mass destrucshun in Irack and piracy is not responsible for keeping global warming in cheque. Wotevs, Graeme!

Hands up who didn't laugh when they heard that five pirates drowned while making their getaway with a $3 million ransom? Now there's kaaaarrrrma!

And shock, horror! New research shows that three days of normal human farts cause the same amount of damage to the planet as a Google search. Unless we capture the farts, light them and use the energy to boil a kettle for a nice cup of coffee while we surf the interwebs.

Finally, take a look at this and say: "Awwwwwwwwwwww!"

Easter

Now go to your documents and post the 6th picture in your 6th file.

Toot toot!

Monday 12 January 2009

Computer Terms Illustrated #18

Every picture tells a story.

Killer Application
Killer_Application

Agent
Agent

Access Denied
Access_Denied

Flow Chart
Flowchart

Launch
Launch

Cache
Cache

Back Up
Backup

Deadly_Embrace
Deadly_Embrace

Point and Click
Point_and_Click

Footprint
Footprint

Reload
Reload

Favourite
Favourite

Interface
Interface

Comment
Golden
"Shaken, not stirred."