Category: Net: General

Whilst it is still 4 days until the results of the 2003 Bloggies are announced, I have still managed to win two awards for my blog (with some thanks to BlatherBlog)!

Go me! The first one I won when I went over to the awards site was for the “Best Looking Weblogger“. No word of a lie! I haven’t, yet, posted a picture of myself on my blog so obviously I got the award because I’m just so damn good looking it’s known throughout the world 😉

The second (which I had to go through a bit of clicking through screens to actually claim) was for “World’s Best Weblog“! Yippee! Well, with around 310 intelligent, clever and probably damn-good looking daily visitors, what else could my blog be? In fact, in the past 4 days I’ve received praise such as “Your blog makes for interesting reading when I’m in need of a 5 minute break. To be honest it’s the best thing I’ve found lately for random links to new parts of the web &#58-&#41”, “pretty good site” and “interesting reading…Love the (telemarketing) counterscript stuff”.

As hinted in a previous blog post, I do know a little bit of Latin – but, alas, not enough to have a conversation with. I’m self taught in most computer programming languages – and the same with Latin, but when you can only find set phrases to learn from, you soon hit difficulties.

Anyway, for those of you who want to learn a bit of Latin, here are a list of phrases I’ve found over the Internet which may come in useful (some others may be found via the Latin Dictionary And Grammar Aid site). Feel free to contribute any other sites or phrases that you know!

Advertising Slogans

Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum

A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.

Noster populus facit discrepantiam.

Our people make the difference.

Solum potestis prohibere ignes silvarum

Only you can prevent forest fires

Clamo, clamatis, omnes clamamus pro glace lactis.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.

Wal*mart. Semper.

Wal*mart. Always.

Balaenae nobis conservandae sunt

Save the whales

One of my favourite TV personalities and magician is Penn Gillette – one half of the infamous “Penn And Teller” duo (Penn is the tall, large noisy one that also appeared in ‘Hackers‘ – Teller is the short, slim quiet one) who had a TV series on Channel 4 and occasionally even appear on things like Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Via Gamer’s Nook (who found it via Boing Boing) I found out about Penn’s encounter with Las Vegas airport security where a security guard, whilst “frisking him”, grabbed Penn’s crotch (but not his genitalia). Since Penn, obviously, got a bit annoyed at this he decided to make a complaint. Airport security insisted they did nothing wrong and tried to insist that the police leave as Penn had a plane to catch (Penn, being the rich lucky magician he is, said he was perfectly willing to catch a later plane or a private jet).

He filled in all the details of the assault (as that is what it is: unless you think grabbing someone else’s crotch in public is ‘alright’) and a couple of days later (after reviewing closed-circuit television footage) he received a very apologetic phone call where the airport asked him when he was next flying so they could make his next experience “very pleasant” (whether that means he’s going to be frisked by topless showgirls or not is still unknown).

Hopefully the airport will realise there are boundaries to things and learn, but for some strange reason, I think they’ll only treat people that complain (and know their rights) as humans – the rest of the paying passengers will get treated as cargo…

Kev’s blog entry (which originated via Scoble) about this very sweet, quite long and quite large (in filesize, and hence, download time) Flash movie. Basically a bloke called DJ Haddadad (the Creative Director of Creative Priority) has found an original and lovely way of asking his girlfriend (of nine or ten years) Marissa if she will marry him.

It’s so sweet – good, suitable music (Marc Anthony‘s “I Need You“), nice photos, nice merges and fades between the photos and the thought and preparation that has gone into it really help shows how much DJ thinks of “Riss” – so much better than somebody just saying “Will you marry me?” without having so much thought of buying a ring…

Well worth watching if you’ve got the bandwidth to download it (it takes a few minutes on my ADSL connection – modem users – don’t even bother!).

In time for the New Years Celebrations, here’s the complete words of Auld Lang Syne as written by Robert Burns:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?

We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pu’d the gowans fine.
We’ve wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin’ auld lang syne.
Sin’ auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin’ auld lang syne,
We’ve wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin’ auld ang syne.