Category: Strange World

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Dear [insert advice columnist here],

I moved out of my parents’ home four years ago and have been speaking to them and my sister less and less over time. They rarely have time to visit us, and it is impractical for us to visit them at their home, due to the amount of junk accumulated in their house and my husband’s allergies to their cats. When we do see each other, I find myself uncomfortable with them, both politically and socially, as our interests have diverged. Last Christmas, rather than give generic gifts that would go unused and further clutter their home, my husband and I chose to make donations to charities in their names, and picked foundations and causes important to them. At the time, they seemed to approve of our choice. However, three days ago, my mother called to ask if we would be doing this again so that she could tell everyone to donate for us instead of giving gifts. They are apparently displeased with our nontraditional method of holiday giving and do not want to give us tangible gifts if they will not receive them in return. I don’t mind this for myself, as I dislike the commercial mess Christmas has become, but I’m curious to know if others have received similar reactions, and what you make of the situation. I’m getting the impression that for some, the thought isn’t what counts.

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Looking up past a bronze statue of a woman, seen from behind, toward an ornately carved balcony set in the wall of a stone building with three levels or peaked windows and doors. Vines trail from a wooden walkway the next level up from the balcony. It seems that the city of Verona wants people to text-message “Juliet” (of Romeo and…) [note: originally linked to Reuters] instead of writing notes and sticking them to the walls with gum. (Too bad it wasn’t in Singapore.) Apparently the notes are damaging the walls of the 13th-century building, and they want to set up a screen and have people send text messages to it using the phone.

There’s a small courtyard with a balcony, a gift shop, and a statue of the Shakespearian heroine. According to the article it was originally an inn, but has long been associated with the Capulets. “Acquired by the council a century ago, it was officially designated ‘the house of Juliet’ in 1935.” I don’t recall seeing any notes on the walls when I was there in 1999. Either I’ve just forgotten, or it really has gotten worse in the last five years.

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I more-or-less randomly wondered about the origin of the phrase, “My hed iz pastede on yay!” and did a quick google search (the phrase + “origin”). This led me to the Google Meme Observatory, which I am hereby posting so that I can come back and look at it when I have time to, y’know, look at it.

As for the phrase, someone had tracked it down to a particular ex-LJ community, and found the original April 16 post in which someone coined the term regarding an apparently bad image manip featuring the faces of Merry and Pippin. One of the replies: “you do realize you’ve started a goddamn PLAGUE with that expression over at livejournal?” Prophetic words, indeed.

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Some odd searches through which people have found this site over the last two weeks:

  • “vice presidential debate drinking game” somehow hit Fallacious Arguments, despite the fact that the post never mentions a drinking game.
  • “breakdown girl” hit Donna Troy via Yahoo images search. Somehow it seems appropriate.
  • “folsom street fair 2004 pictures” and similar phrases directed several people to Living in Middle Earth, though I can’t imagine why.
  • “sugar packet” — I think someone was looking for real sugar (image search again).
  • “rhyming poems by katherine foreman” hit (big surprise) Katie’s Rhyming Poems. (What’s it like to be famous?)
  • “space pirate amazon ninja catgirl” sounds ridiculous, wich is exactly why I posted about the game
  • “jesse quick in love” actually hit the speed force and Jesse’s mother, but not Jesse Quick herself.
  • “how to steal flash” brings up the Flash Museum. I have to wonder what they were actually looking for, though.
  • “xxx hermione” and similar (some of them rather explicit) — WTF? These hit Harry Potter Titles I’d Like To See.

Unfortunately there are too many phrases for the stats program I use to show anything that hit less than twice — and that’s where the really odd ones to show up! I’ve skimmed the logs a bit, and some of the choice items include: Continue reading →

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Found in a spamtrap today:

“Remove your bills the Christian way”

WTF?

What follows is a long, disjointed collection of unrelated sentences that I suspect is actually Bayes poison (some spammers have figured out that using natural-sounding language is more effective at making Bayesian filters, well, less effective). There is, however, apparently an image above that, which I suspect contains the real payload.

Now if it were trying to get rid of creditors the Christian way, it might make more sense…

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I took an odd tech support call at work the other day. Someone called in asking about how quickly she could get a new IP address, because she didn’t want anyone to know where she lived. I tried to explain it was all about the network connection, not the physical location, and no, it wasn’t associated with her email address either, and how are you connected?

It transpired that she wasn’t even one of our customers, and that she wanted us to “block” her IP by putting X’s through everything “like you have on your website.”

Huh?

Well, Continue reading →

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