Gleeful Gecko » Pettiness

Jeremy Clarkson: Let Them Eat Cake

Brett — Mon, 16 May 2011 14:35:30 +0000

I have rarely read more ignorant words than these:

“If you do lose your job and you end up living in a barn, with just a fire to keep you warm and nothing to eat but what you can find in a hedge, be happy. Because you’ll be having a much better life than me.”

He knows this isn’t true, you know this isn’t true and the guy in the barn sure as hell knows this isn’t true. This came from an article in the Telegraph about the superpower the rich in the UK are using to keep people from talking about them when they do stupid things. Clarkson is, of course, fully behind this superpower.

Stay Home And Let Me Tell You About It

Brett — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 14:29:21 +0000

The Guardian has a classic article in a genre I call Stay At Home And Let Me Tell You About It. This type of article comes around because the world has gotten flatter and people who in the past could never go anywhere very far are now traveling the world. It used to be if you were poor or middle class and interested in the world, you read books about it, now you have a real opportunity to go yourself.

The increased travel comes with a price, many glorious places in the world are fragile and the increased traffic to them brings danger of damage that must be watched for but when I read articles like this one, I get a stronger feeling of class than of environmentalism.

When you get to a certain point on this extinct volcano, it must come to resemble Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night. Indeed, it can only be a matter of time before Kilimanjaro, the highest peak on the continent, is subjected to the ultimate indignity: a Scottish stag weekend or hen party.

This quote is the telling one to me. I can’t see the same thing being said about someone holding a high tea up on the mountain. I think the world’s great wild places need to be carefully protected, but I think that can be done without regard to the social standing of the visitors. Cans of spent caviar are every bit as damaging to the environment as spent cans of lager.

Ignorant Rednecks Spew Hate Speech at Mexico

Brett — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:47:57 +0000

Ignorant rednecks spew hate speech at Mexico, only stupid bigoted Americans can do that sort of thing, right Mr. Clarkson? Ahem, I said isn’t that right Mr. Clarkson? Thank goodness we have the BBC in America now to protect us from this sort of bile.

Jeremy Clarkson’s New Crusade

Brett — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 23:14:07 +0000

Jeremy Clarkson’s (who?) newest crusade isn’t against ugly women in shop’s or American’s, it is against board games like Monopoly, Risk or Scrabble. Apparently having met the bottom of the barrel for topics he has decided to keep digging. You have to admire his determination.

The Truth

Brett — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:05:42 +0000

From Buffalobeast.com found via Boing Boing

The Big Three, We Don't Have to Compete.

Household Spirits

Brett — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:04:47 +0000

Like most homes we have several minor spirits we venerate. The most famous of them is Sockulus, the sock god. He shows his anger when you do not venerate him enough by taking away one sock in a pair. I have a small temple of solo socks near where I do the laundry and sometimes he is pleased by this and returns a wandering sock.

My wife just asked me for a philips head screwdriver. This made me laugh as our house is under a dire curse from Slotulus, the philips head spirit and we can keep no philips heads in our house. I used to have a full tool kit, with a good selection of philips heads. They are all gone now. Over the years I have twice bought sets of just philips head screwdrivers. They are all gone now as well. I am not sure how to appease Slotulus, but this is a tough curse to live under. Tonight when the moon is high I am going to cut the heart from a regular head screw driver in the yard and see if I can placate Slotulus, but until I do I will just laugh when my wife asks if we have any philips heads.

I Am A Bad, Bad Man

Brett — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:42:12 +0000

I know now that I am a bad bad man. Curses to Radley Balko for pointing out this video, Can Yakety Sax make anything funny? I laughed.

I am horrible, I watched it again and still laughed. What has Benny Hill done to my soul!

Those Wacky English, Americans and Canadians.

Brett — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:31:45 +0000

This still tastes like liquid yak barf. Just a reminder.

Those wacky English just keep getting better and better, thank god we American’s never stoop to this sort of nonsense. Those English though, always good for a chuckle, while we American’s keep it real. Well, I guess there are always those nice Canadians.

The Undecided Voter Is Getting Tired Of The Snark

Brett — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 22:55:09 +0000

Art by LuMaxArt on Flickr

I am an honest undecided voter in this presidential election. This baffles my friends on both sides of the divide who can’t believe I don’t see what they are seeing so clearly, but honestly I can still see myself voting for either of the major candidates. That said, I am getting tired. I am getting tired of snark from both sides. Snark isn’t going to get me to vote for a candidate, how I think they will do as the president will. I automatically discount anything a partisan of a candidate says that is negative about the other candidate, but I am willing to listen when someone says something positive that I should know about what their candidate is saying (or better yet, something positive they are actually doing).

Since the conventions I have not heard a single thing from either side that is positive about their message, I have only heard snark about their opponents and I am getting tired of it. The cynic in me wonders if it isn’t deliberate, in order to suppress moderate voters from turning out to vote at all. I hope this isn’t true. Anyhow, for those of you who are partisans of one of the candidates, here is my tip, tell me some reason to vote for your candidate that isn’t based on snark or fear of the other guy. I am sorry you are angry that I don’t see it as you do, try talking to me calmly and rationally about what is positive about your candidate, not what I should be afraid of from the other guy. I can learn and there is still time.

Targetted Spam

Brett — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:37:10 +0000

Like most people who get email I get spam. Google handles the mail on my main account they do a great job of filtering but every now and then they get too aggressive and I have to bail some piece of mail out of their spam jail so I check the spam jail once a day or so. Today I had a piece of spam with the title “Grumpy Gopher Disrupts Museum Touurs” which I didn’t click, but did think was pretty well targeted to get me to click. I doubt it was intentional, but hey enough chimps at typewriters and you get Showgirls and all that.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Brett — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:27:02 +0000

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. Not in my back yard!

Return of Today In Historys

Brett — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:41:28 +0000

Roots of Ankor by Shapeshift at Flickr, Click Through for Original

As many of you know, I post up whatever interests me or whatever I think might be of interest to my friends. This is how I blog and always has been. However, I have drastically reduced my reading of news feeds as I noticed they were distracting me from my job hunting and this has led to a major drop in stories of bear attacks or insane UK news stories. I have decided to try to keep up an active post rate by putting up some history, which is always my first love. I know the tone of the blog has changed over the years, but I hope this won’t drive anyone off. I promise to post up Bear attacks or Cheese Rolling news stories when I do come across them and I will continue to bore with my music notes and the like, but I don’t want the site to dry up and there are still tons of interesting historical bits I can talk about. Anyway, back to the want ads.

If it is Wednesday it must be Emo Music video day.

Brett — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:28:36 +0000

Yes, I am aware that neither of these is actually ‘emo‘ Mr. Internetknowitall. These are two great depressing songs that I am in love with today. Both are beautiful and haunting and great to listen to when you think life has you in its bulls eye to dump on. Gah. What a week.

The first is Anna Ternheim‘s To Be Gone, probably my favorite song of the moment even when I am not feeling down. Great sound and haunting lyrics, who hasn’t been there?

The second is Findlay Brown‘s brilliant Losing the Will to Survive (Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve Reanimation). Again, nice voice and great lyrics.

With Great Pain

Brett — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 12:23:55 +0000

With great pain I acknowledge the Yankees are no longer in the basement of the American League East, the Baltimore Orioles have taken their place. It was nice while it lasted.

News You Can Use

Brett — Thu, 15 May 2008 11:31:28 +0000

I have been sometimes lectured that we in the United States don’t pay attention to the hard news and that is why we are so uninformed on the world sometimes. In interest of equal time with our UK brethren I present the most popular news story on the BBC this morning.

We American’s can’t compete on the serious news side with the BBC.