I came home from a weekend getaway today to find the house a mess...

There was garbage everywhere, including empty pizza boxes & beer bottles. The carpets were stained something terrible, one of the bookcases had fallen over and there were books all over the place. My computer chair was broken, sagging and bent at a strange angle, and the carpets were all askew or ripped in places. In the bedroom, the drawers from the chest of drawers were all pulled out, and clothes were strewn everywhere. There too, the carpet looked like some drunk had vomited on it multiple times. All the paintings hung crooked on the wall.

I was pleased that everything was as I had left it. It's good to be home again.

The bigot brush

Religions don't all get treated equally when it comes to criticism or mockery.

Make fun of a Quaker and he'll shrug and walk away.
Tell a Jewish joke to a Jew, and he'll laugh and tell you a better one.
Make fun of a Mormon and he'll look sincerely confused and not get it.
Poke fun at a Catholic and he'll turn red-faced and complain of Anti-Catholic bigotry.
Have a laugh at a Liberal Christian and he'll say he doesn't believe that either, but won't say what he does believe.
Sneer at a Fundamentalist Christian, and he'll damn you to Hell.
Mock Islam, and have a huge mob baying outside your window wanting to cut your head off.

There's a large segment of society who thinks we therefore shouldn't criticise or mock Islam.

Why do they even bother with player interviews anymore?

These guys all had media training and they haven't said anything interesting in years. When they lose, they're confident things will get better, and when they win, they're confident things will continue to go well. They're up for the challenge, and apparently they like scoring goals and prefer winning over losing.

Wow, who'd have thought?

And have you noticed interviewers feed them the answer in the questions now?

"How happy were you when you scored that winning goal today?".
"Oh, I was very happy scoring that winning goal today. It was great".

"How sad were you when you lost last week?"
"I was very sad. I don't like losing."

"How confident are the lads that the side will stay up/win the title/get promoted/whatever?"
"The lads are all very confident that the side will stay up/win the title/get promoted/whatever".

"You really are a bland, boring git, aren't you?"
"Yes, I really am a bland, boring git and... Eh?"

The dubbed interviews with foreign players are no better.

You hear a stream of excitable Spanish or Italian which sounds like they're saying a lot, and then the dubbing starts:

"I... Like... Scoring... Goals... That's... What... I... Like... Because.. It... Is... Very... Nice..."

Player interviews are only interesting if they're honest. I'd love it if a player went off-script for once, and starts calling the manager an incompetent bastard, and explains how they don't have a hope in Hell of staying up with that idiot in charge.

But those bland, media-savy professionals will make sure that won't happen of course.

Are Dove icecream bars getting smaller every year?

I just opened a box for the first time in a year, and something the size of a lollypop fell out.

I have a feeling this has been going on for years, because this not the first time I've noticed this. I do know this has been happening to other items long enough for Mad magazine to joke about it back in the '70s already, but these Dove bars seem to have lost half their size.

Or is it me?

Edited for typo in the subject line.

I was awakened by a terrific banging...

It's that time of year again here in the Pacific Northwest. That time of year when simple, honest homeowners such as yours truly are terrorised from slumber by Irony Metalpecker and his headbanging pals. How can such a small bird, the flicker, produce so much noise? I'm not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that it quite literally sounds like somebody is trying to break into the house through the roof with a jackhammer. If they were just woodpeckers, I think I could live with it, but what's attracting them to the noisy, metal parts of the roof?

Why don't they have headaches all the time?

Literature in 6 words

Fans of the TV series Lost -- a question

I haven't watched TV as such for decades, but sometimes I binge-watch a series that was popular many years earlier, 2,or 3 episodes a night, every night. I've done the X-files, Twin Peaks, Rome and several more that way. I recommend this approach to anyone who doesn't care about watercooler conversations about last night's TV show.

I'm currently on to episode 3, series 2 of 'Lost'. I enjoyed the first series, especially the "don't tell me what I can't do" episode. I don't think most of the characters are all that strongly written though, appearing to be mostly a bag of stock characters with a little pat story attached explaining how they got that way. That's OK. The story is what's kept me watching so far. But I'm ready to throw in the towel.

I'm enough of a veteran of shows like the Twilight Zone that I have strong suspicions that either the survivors of the plane crash are living in the afterlife, or they are the only survivors of humanity in a world destroyed by a nuclear holocaust or something like that. No spoilers, though, please!

I'm slowly beginning to suspect something about the writers of this show:

I think they're making it up as they're going along.

Look, I don't need everything explained to me. I like ambiguities and mystery, and I enjoy David Lynch films. That's not it.

I get the impression that the writing sessions for this show went like this:

"Hey Fred, you know what would be really cool? A numbers station in a bunker on the island with no apparent entrance or egress!"

"That's beautiful, Charlie. I'm still trying to come up with an explanation for that damn polar bear we had in the first series. Any ideas?"

"Ah, just don't worry about it. That polar bear was awesome and the viewers just think it meant something that they can't figure out if we don't bother explaining it. It'll make the show edgy."

The bunker WAS interesting. Number stations ARE interesting. But what's with this contrivance of having to hit that number sequence every 108 minutes? Nobody in all that time figured out how to write a program simulating some keypresses every hour and a half? I mean, what's the point anyway? Why make someone do that? And with all the millions spent on the place, didn't they think a few backup Apple II's might be a good idea?

I get the feeling the writers were veteran D&D game masters who stocked their dungeons randomly with vicious monsters living next to other vicious monsters in adjacent dungeon rooms, whose only purpose was to guard the treasure and be killed by the player characters, without worrying about the overall narrative.

Oh, and now there was this great big damn side door the whole time and the guy could've gotten out at any time? What's the point of the sealed tower entrance then? And why is there a window?

I turned it off in disgust.

My question is this: There are several more seasons of this and before I invest any more time in this series, I want to know if there is going to be a rewarding and interesting story here, or is it all going to be like this?

Thanks in advance! Not looking to start an argument about your favourite show, honestly!

A question about colour blindness...

The most common form of colour blindness is the inability to distinguish red and green. When I first heard about this condition in school, I asked if people with this condition see both colours as what we call 'red', what we call 'green', or something else entirely. Obviously you can't ask them -- how would they know?

At age 10, I stumped my teacher with that question. I just realised that I'm now comfortably in middle age and I still don't know the answer.

Anyone?

A typical day on DU

This was insipired by a few hours spent reading the Meta forum. I hope it comes across as the gentle satire it is intended to be. All characters are fictional and any similarity to any actual du'er, living or dead, is coincidental.

A typical day on DU:

Brand New DU'er: I really like Tom & Jerry and The Bugs Bunny / Road Runner Show. Here are some of my favourite clips:



Du'er #1: Oh, so you think hurting animals is funny, do you? You make me sick.

Brand New Du'er: Wait, what? I love animals. I cried when Bambi's mother died!

Du'er #1: Sure you did. I bet you laugh yourself silly torturing animals all day, you bastard! Alerted.

Du'er #2: I object in the strongest possible terms over the use of the word bastard. My grandparents weren't married and they were wonderful, loving people, and so was my father. Even though he's been dead for over 50 years, I still miss him every day and I'm still in therapy over it.

Du'er #3: Oh, Du'er #2, we love you.

Du'er #2: Thank you, Du'er #3.

Brand New Du'er: But these cartoons are just jokes. I never hurt animals, I swear.

Du'er #1: Your jokes are lame, and so is Tom & Jerry. Go back to your animal-hurting friends at Stormfront!

Du'er #4: As a differently-challenged American, I must really object to the use of the L-word. I thought we had all agreed to stop using that word. Just tell him his jokes stink.

Du'er #5: There it is again: The hatred against those who smell normatively different. I'm outta here!

Du'er #6: All this bickering is getting old...

Old Du'er: Hey!

Du'er #6: I'm sorry, Old Du'er! I meant that this discussion is getting really lame...

Du'er #4: STOP USING THE L-WORD!!!!!

Brand New Du'er: But I love animals. Here's a picture of me hugging my cat. I call him Hitler because he has this cute little square dark patch under his nose, see?

Du'ers #7-14 (in unison): Booo!!! Tomsbstone! Tombstone! Tombstone! Down with the animal-torturing Nazi!

Admin: * User Brand New Du'er has been PPR'ed *

Du'ers #7-14 (in unison): Yaaaay!!!! Ding Dong, the witch is Dead!

Du'er #15: As a practising Wiccan....

I detest pre-employment personality tests...

First of all, I'm supposed to react anywhere from "agree strongly" to "disagree strongly" to a series of statements which mostly make me feel completely indifferent. Personally, I wouldn't hire the kind of neurotic who fills in nothing but strong agreements or disagreements, but what I think is irrelevant.

Then there's the "have you stopped beating your wife" type of questions:

"In previous jobs I had trouble coming to work on time, but that problem is behind me now". Agree or disagree?

Next, let's screen out all the honest and reasonable people and make sure we only hire liars and good little corporate soldiers:

"John comes home and finds out that he still has 17 cents in his pocket that belong to his employer. He decides not to worry about it. John is a thief".

"Ralph has a single beer with lunch even though he has to work in the evening driving his employer's truck. Ralph is behaving irresponsibly and should be fired."

Or are they trying to screen out the sort of officious blighters who would strongly agree with those?

"Mary's till comes up 3 cents short. After spending 5 hours of her own time rechecking everything, she finds the missing 3 cents. She has wasted her time."

Get a sodding life, Mary! You need therapy for your OCD!

I was hoping the final question was going to be:

"I think this test is a load of pop-psychology nonsense which reveals nothing whatsoever about my personality": Agree Strongly!