Tetherd Cow Ahead

The vine unpruned, and the neglected peach,
Droop’d from the wall with which they used to grapple;
And on the canker’d tree, in easy reach,
Rotted the golden apple.

…and here’s wishes for an unsettling and bump-filled night to all my readers.

Oh for Pete’s sake. Another nutcase has found ‘an image of the Virgin’ on a tortilla sandwich cinnamon bun fencepost pizza pan underpass pebble.

The Holy Pebble was found on a beach in New Zealand by a woman who had ‘an awesome run of luck’ after picking it up. Evidently the awesome run of luck wasn’t permanent since she’s put the Sacred Item up for online auction. Twice. The first time, the winning bid was a hoax. Dang. A hoax! Some people will do anything!

Unbelievably, for Round Two, there are as of this writing, already bids of many thousands of dollars.

A New Zealand Catholic Church spokesperson said the church was ‘cautious’ about responding to claims of holy images of the Virgin Mary, because many turned out to be fakes.

Smack me with a plank from the True Cross! Fakes? No way!

Thing is, you have to be pretty careful when it comes to seeing likenesses in patterns on pebbles. Look at it one way and some might see The Virgin but flip the picture upside down you’ll get an idea of exactly what kind of forces this woman is really messing with.

Spam Observations #44

My newest best buddy, Burgi Nitzmann, wrote to me this morning. I reproduce his letter here in full, because, well, it’s just so damn… entertaining.

Hi, how’s your work doing? The answer is quite clear. You’re sleepy, man, I can tell! But take a deep breath, lot’s of people have the similar problems. Do you know that it’s an epidemy already, the third of male mankind is in trouble. Ask yourself why? What would you expect with a life tempo like that? YOU ARE TO EARN THE MONEY. It’s all your headache. I’d be tired too.

Add here, ecology, groceries. What’s the total? No sexual capacity. You’re now experiencing your sexual engine failure. No wonder your better half is gone, your girlfriend is on her way to pack up her stuff and hop off.

But guess what? I’m ready to give you a helpful hand. Be your self medicator, feel different, feel you CRAVE and YOU ARE ABLE . And WE’LL BOLSTER. And I’ll bet it works.

I’m sure you know full well about VI@grA. You think that it’s costly. Then I’ve got SOME good news for you! Check out the prices, the prices are agreeably nice!

$1.53!!

Conveniently chip ha?! It’s real, there’s just no need to overpay for the license which drugs stores simply do have to pay for the right to sell it out.

Be strait up, buy strait ahead. And have a nice one!

If Burgi ever decides to forego his contribution to the epidemy of chip internet scamming, he’s definitely got a career in standup at least. Add here, ecology, groceries, his offer of a helpful hand and his penchant FOR illogical capitalization and bad spelling, and he could quite probably get a job in government with very little extra effort. He’d be right at home with a bunch of illiterate wankers.

Carpe diem Acowlytes! Let’s Bolster!

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PS – I bring to your attention that the counter on the right that is marking out my Internet Fortune will shortly go past 100 billion dollars. w00t!

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You know the kind of thing. You get a phone call from your telco saying that they’ve been ‘reviewing’ your plan and they want to help you save money by putting you on a ‘more efficient’ one. Usually this involves re-bundling your mobile phone and your landline services and your internet and your espresso machine in some unfathomable manner. I’ve had two of these calls this week alone and it drives me nuts.

First of all, if it’s true, and you really are spending more money with them than you should be, what the hell kind of logic is there in them telling you that? Could it be that they’re thinking… ‘oooh, we’re making billions of dollars profit but, gosh, we’re so big-hearted that we simply couldn’t sleep at night if we were to rip a few extra cents off our poor customers…’

Yeah, right. Paradoxically, my most recent bill had a whole lot of mysterious SMS ‘status request’ charges that they were quite unwilling to help me ‘be more efficient’ with, even though I didn’t incur them and they couldn’t tell me why they were there.

Following the reasoning that they ‘want to help you save money’ to its logical outcome, let’s say a lot of customers are operating inefficiently, and the company magics those poor suckers’ plans to help them all to spend less. What’s going to happen when it works and the customers put fewer dollars in the telco’s coffers and the company shareholders see a sudden plunge in profits? Right! They’ll put the charges up!!

So it’s plainly illogical that their motive is altruistic. What the hell, then, are they doing.

I stumbled across an article in Choice Magazine recently that may just hold a clue. Here’s the kernel of what it had to say:

The problem is that comparing these bundled packages is next to impossible, even for the pros. Comparison website PhoneChoice says telcos’ pricing structures for bundles are too complex even for quantitative analysis and modelling — there have been several failed attempts to develop systems to compare the offers… Recently, it took a Federal Court judge to adjudicate over which of two mobile phone plans was cheaper.

‘… too complex even for quantitative analysis and modelling…’ Did you get that? We can now make a good fist of modelling the weather on computers, but we can’t simulate competing phone plans.

So here’s my theory: these plans are so complex that not even the people who come up with them can tell what they’re doing! This poses a problem – how, then, do they know which plan is making them more money? Right! They don’t! As a result they have now come to the realization that they must keep swapping their customers from plan to plan in order to have any chance of avoiding diminishing earnings.

They have clevered themselves into confusion.

Let this be a warning to all those with the hubris to challenge complex mathematics.

This image just to hand courtesy of Violet Towne:

In Australia, these outfits are called trakky daks. Aside from imparting that bit of cultural ephemera, try as I may I just can’t find any words to do this picture the justice it deserves.

WooWoo Beliefs – A TCA Educational Series: Episode #2

This is David Icke. He is a conspiracy theorist par excellence. David believes that some thousands of years ago, an alien civilization of humanoid reptiles came to our planet and colonized it, interbreeding with humans, yet craftily preserving a special lizardy bloodline that continues to this day. These ‘Reptilians’ have worked their way into positions of power and so rule our world, luckily being able to ‘shape-shift’ to human form at will in order to keep the hideous truth from the rest of us unsuspecting monkey-folk.

When they’re in private they supposedly revert to their scaly forms (undoubtedly with an exclamation of ‘Thank Mangar-kunjer-kunja! I couldn’t have stood another minute in that sweaty hairy jumpsuit!’) in which they presumably relax on a warm rock with a nice chilled glass of raw egg and a big bowl of crunchy flies.

I want you to pause and reflect for a moment. What I’ve just outlined is not some scenario for a B-Grade science fiction film* – this is a matter of actual fact as far as David Icke is concerned. And he has a labyrinthine website that is testament to his efforts to prove it. Be sure to put aside a couple of hours if you intend to visit it though, because it demonstrates about as much structural logic and coherence as David’s belief system.

One of the things you can find, if you have the tenacity, is a list of people who are really lizards. This includes: George Bush (plausible, I guess), Dick Cheney (obviously), Al Gore (look at the profile), Gordon Gecko (haha, just kiddin’) and the Queen of England and all her sons (that explains the blue blood). There is also a generous sprinkling of US politicians (of all political inclinations, lest you think Mr Icke is being partisan).

When people have suggested in David’s earshot that he might be, well, crazy, he is on record as saying ‘People would have said the same thing of Jesus’. Which of course instantly confirms his status as a loony since, as we know, comparing oneself to Jesus or Napoleon is Indicator #1 on the Bedlam Admittance Guide.

So, how, according to David Icke, are we to have any hope of ever determining who are the Lizard Overlords among us? ‘Just pray for God to reveal it to you,’ he says.

I rest my case.

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*Well, actually, it is, come to think of it.

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The World’s Smallest Parking Lot!

(Click on image for a closer inspection)

Addendum: OK, imagine this scenario: Someone arrives at, oh, say 6.30pm to grab a bite at Passage to India. And there’s a car parked in the spot – an unexpectedly tricky makeover session running long at Escape Beauty.

Yes! When, exactly, does Evening start?

All I can see here is an ugly aloo/aloe situation.

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Discovered by Pil on her Fantastic Adventure!

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The Continuing Misfortunes of Simple Graphics Man ~

#25: The Phantasmagorical Phenomenon.

In which Simple Graphics Man encounters the twin perils of ball lightning and possible rail disaster.

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Thanks once again to jedimacfan for this latest SGM sighting.

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Queasy

Hydrogen

Laminate

Spokesman

Flume

Atramentous

Quincunx

Traipse

Mauve

Hagioscope

With the exception of the astute few, the general Cownoscenti somehow comprehensively failed to notice that on this International Talk Like a Pirate Day past, the whole of Tetherd Cow Ahead was in piratese.

This is a massive shame because there was some gut-quakingly funny stuff to be had, especially via some of my more serious posts.

Before the magic of ITLAPD wore off, though, I was able to snap a little snippet out of my Cracked, Plastered or Just Incompetent post for posterity.

If you remember, it was an account of the trials and tribulations of my attempts to find a plasterer to do some work on my house. Go read the post to familiarize yourself with my conversation with the little rotund man with one tooth.

Got that?

This is the way the conversation would have happened had we been pirates:

So. I need ye t’ give me a quote in writin’.

Aye! (shakes his head as if t’ say ‘nay’).

Can ye do that this week?

Aye.

Can ye send it t’ me by th’ end o’ th’ week?

(The ornery cuss brandishes his business card) Have ye got lines?

Lines?

Lines! Shiver me timbers! Lines!

(The ornery cuss waves his card again, I’ll warrant ye. I look confused. The ornery cuss points at me computer. Fetch me spyglass, and a bottle of rum! A lightbulb pops on o’er me head).

Oh! You mean email!

Nay! Nay!

(The ornery cuss shakes his head violently and waves his card again, I’ll warrant ye. I have NO notion what he means).

So yez all missed out on the laughs. That’ll teach yer to pay attention. Now you’ll have to wait a whole year to see whether or not the Curse of the Black Cow is cast once again over my writings.