Tetherd Cow Ahead

Sat 12 Apr 2008

White Feathers

Posted by anaglyph under Spam Observations
[4] Comments

Spam Observations #46

I notice that it’s been quite some while since I’ve posted up one of my Spam Observations. This is not for a want of actual spam, you understand – I get bucketloads of that every day. No, it’s mostly because the quality of the spam I’ve been getting has plateaued out into a banal greyish phlegm with nothing at all to distinguish it from the efforts of a million monkeys at typewriters. Gone is the time when spammers actually tried to sell their useless gimcrackery. Their efforts now seem to have degenerated into a kind of indifferent spew aimed at… well, who can say what it is they hope to achieve? I certainly can’t see how a one line email apathetically suggesting the purchase of watch-that-looks-like-a-Rolex-but-isn’t can be even remotely persuasive as a sales pitch. But hey, it must work in some way or another or I guess they’d stop doing it.

So while my new best buddy Evan Eva* doesn’t reach the poetic or literate heights that we’ve seen in the past from Landon Flanagan, Rhonda K or Raymondo, he at least got a laugh out of me with his email this morning:

From: siredd@fr-kristiansen.no
Subject: Interesting mp3 Demi Moore
Date: 11 April 2008 7:33:09 PM

Jennifer Lopez Full video without cowards. The dvd is Interesting! Only 1 day trial – get this Shocking photo now!

w00t! I’ve only got the JLo video that comes with the cowards, so I can’t wait to see the one that’s coward-free! And most Demi Moore recordings I’ve heard are less than interesting. Oh how I love the internets!!

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*There’s that hint of Spammer Gender Confusion again…

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Fri 11 Apr 2008

Chaser

Posted by anaglyph under Cats
[6] Comments

Sorry, I had to bump the Bride of Wildenstein further down the page so I wouldn’t have to look at her every time I glanced at my laptop screen. So here instead is a picture of a real cat.

Rusty the cat

This is the very cute Rusty, Glitch’s nemesis and the most talkative cat I’ve ever encountered.

Fri 11 Apr 2008

Crows Feet or Bird Brain?

Posted by anaglyph under In The News, Scary, Science
[10] Comments

This from the most recent issue of New Scientist:

Matteo Caleo of Italy’s Institute of Neuroscience in Pisa has found that botulinum toxin – which is used as a cosmetic anti-wrinkle treatment – can travel down nerve fibres and into the brain within days.

To which I can only say that explains a lot.

A Scary Person

Tue 8 Apr 2008

snd reinfrcmnts: cmpny going 2 advnce

Posted by anaglyph under Annunciation, Blogs I Like:, Geek, Punctuation, Words
[66] Comments

I’ve been lurking over at Reasons You Will Hate Me for a bit these last couple of weeks. Ms Fits, who is the proprietor, is funny I think, and can spell and use punctuation, which does make for a more readable experience than many.

Unlike myself, Ms Fits is famous in the blogging world. My observations of RYWHM suggest that this has advantages and disadvantages:

Advantage: Lots of people read and comment.
Disadvantage: Lots of stupid people read and comment.

But I digress from the point of this post. Her recent post on bad texting in the face of calamity is amusing. It refers to this story about a ‘school machete rampage*’ in which five youths went on a spree through a Sydney highschool wielding baseball bats, swords, machetes and other sporting equipment.

Ms Fits tells us that she feels that a text message sent to the outside world even under such duress should be spelled correctly (in contrast to the one that the newspaper intercepted), and it will come as no surprise to you, dear Acowlytes, to hear that I agree with her on this matter. She then proposes that the predictive texting on phones should be updated to include abbreviated messages that can be sent quickly in times of peril. She gives an example, viz:

SND HLP GNMN/OMG BMB/TWN TWRS :(

This got me to thinking. In the great moments of our past, what would the shapers of human history have texted, if the technology had been available? I have offered you one such example here on The Cow.

Keep your suggestions short. You get charged more after 160 characters.

(Extra points if you show off yr mad Photoshopping skilz).

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*There’s another one o’ them thar Zombie Words.

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Mon 7 Apr 2008

Extra!

Posted by anaglyph under In The News, Words
[14] Comments

You may recall that some little while ago I talked about Stupid News Speak – the way in which the news media mangles the English language for their own unfathomable ends.

Well, this recent discussion about wild weather reminded me of another curious phenomenon in the world of news linguistics – the circumstance of The Anachronistic Word.

This is when a word that would otherwise have been relegated to the Old People’s Home of language is artificially kept alive like some kind of etymological zombie to do the bidding of semi-literate journalists. For example, consider the word chiefly. Who uses chiefly except news weathermen?

The West will see some rain, chiefly on the ranges…

And, when does anything wreak havoc except in the news description of a tornado or mob of unhappy student protesters?

In the world of news, a person does not fall to their death. No way JosÃ©! They plummet. Hands up who’s used the word plummet in conversation in the last decade?

But my favourite must surely be the way that about the only thing that is ever hampered in the modern world is rescue efforts.

There are many more of these. Your favourites?

Fri 28 Mar 2008

Mariah?

Posted by anaglyph under Competition!, Hmmm...
[34] Comments

Named Cyclone?

I just renewed the insurance on my house in Sydney and I noticed this interesting phrasing in the questions I’m required to address for the insurer. Named cyclone? I guess I’m OK if I get hit by an unnamed one then… And what about the poor earthquakes & hailstorms. Surely they should get names?

Everyone singing…