We haven’t condemned anything for a while. I condemn that whole tacky meme about betting on whether Heather Mills-McCartney‘s prosthetic leg would fly off during her Dancing with the Stars appearance.
So, time again to condemn. So here’s a ninth open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat this week? Which evil political, cultural, social and religious phenomena need condemnation?
You can condemn anything except dancing. But you can condemn shrieky videobloggers who speculated on Heather’s dancing leg! And perhaps you can also condemn her dress and do. [see over the fold...].
I condemn Kel ’4 years behind the times with my pretentious, derivative, unrigorous and very very dull Wordwatch‘ Richards.
In turn, I condemn David Jackmanson for even contemplating having a cheap shot at Kel Richards. OK, us NewsRadio Junkies are somewhat suspect and rather easily amused (Exhibit A: Phil Cafcaloudes), but we love our WordWatch segment with a passion.
Oh, and I also condemn 702 ABC Sydney for cutting off their election coverage stream on the internet before either leader addressed their respective gatherings, instead cutting to the rather dull ‘Weekender’ program with Warren ‘look at me, I’m in the Terror and on Auntie at once’ Brown.
AotB, as a confirmed NewsRadio junkie (It is the only radio station I listen to, and I go to sleep and wake up to it), I stand as a living example that opinion on WordWatch is divided.
I further condemn the wonderful Dr Norman Swan – but only for the reason that his far, far better “Health Minutes” are much rarer than ****@!&% WordWatch.
comment spaminated (I hope)
I condemn the blogosphere to shadowy pages of history!
I condemn the fact that the summer is over.
Include ABC2 for the same crime even though the telecast was delayed into the West – we Sandgropers wanted to see a blow by blow coverage, yet at 9.30 they cut to At The Movies..
I condemn the fact that summer didn’t end sooner! (Bloody hot in Vegas the last few weeks til yesterday, Dr Cat)
Speaking of tv, I condemn the fact that West Wing is almost finished!
I condemn the day that I watched the last episode of the West Wing. DAMN YOU UNIVERSE FOR MAKING TIME PASS!
I condemn apricots for never tasting as good as they ought to. And I condemn the Traveler’s World Atlas for not having more detailed views of southern Africa. And I condemn Pavlov’s Cat for not responding to my annoying remarks about Auden, Plath, and Robert Lowell. And I condemn Robert Lowell in a separate brief.
I condemn the timer on my vcr for malfunctioning, which meant I wasn’t able to watch last week’s episodes.
I also condemn Senator Vinick for condemning gay marriage. He was doing so well up until then. Now there’s a republican I could learn to like! (despite his ultra-dry credentials)
I stand condemned. Sorry, working to deadline.
But I hereby take time out to re-condemn Hem.
I condemn the insidious use of commas as a thousand place marker (1,000), instead of the humble space (1 000). I condemn even more stridently the use of a point as a thousand place marker (1.000) – damn those Germans! I doubly condemn most stridently Microsoft for defaulting their software to comma separated thousands, so that most of the English speaking world starts to think that 1,000,000 is “normal” and correct. Most of all I condemn SAP for forcing me to use a comma “decimal point” so that I can get a space for a thousand place maker (1 000,00).
I condemn obscure condemnations, and occasional insomnia. If we’re going to get picky, I’m also prepared to condemn the use of hyphens in place of ‘en’ dashes. Finally, heresy of heresies, I condemn West Wing – do I stand condemned?
You do. I condemn double-barrelled surnames.
And single-word pseudonyms for that matter.
D L-H:
The bigger the dash the better, I prefer the em myself. But if you don’t know the html (or is there a keyboard shortcut?) then you’re a bit stuffed on a blog.
I condemn the fact that, as best I can tell, there is no real Republican in the 2008 Presidential race whose politics even vaguely resembles Vinick’s.
FDB,
Try ALT 0150 or ALT 0151 (numbers on the 101 keypad, or via NumLk on a laptop) to bring up the longer dashes. (For those up the back, hold down ALT and enter the digits in sequence.)
In which case, I add two further condemns:
* Manufacturers of widescreen laptops for not taking the opportunity to squeeze a full 101 keyboard – sure, the speakers are nice, but I type quite a few special characters in my studies (damn linguistics!) and NumLk-ing a small keyboard is a pain, and
* Those same manufacturers for not bringing in a program that allows easy input of special characters – my old Acer had something like this, but it couldn’t be turned off, meaning double-spaces after quote marks to avoid unintentional accents and umlauten.
I condemn myself for failing to have anything worth condemning.
I condemn insinuation in the form of red-eye left in photo of Inzamam-ul-Haq in the sports section of the Sunday Age 25 march.
Guiliani is not a million miles away, although I’m sure he’ll be forced into the same sort of compromise on issues like gay marriage as Vinick has been.
But it’s a fair point to make: Vinick is the sort of Republican that only Democrat-leaning TV writers could dream up. But the same could be said of Jed Bartlet as President: a Nobel Prize winning, Catholic, liberal northeastern Democrat, who lied to the country about having multiple sclerosis, parades his vast intellectual prowess at every opportunity, and was nonetheless overwhelmingly re-elected by a country that at the same time gave the Republicans control of Congress. The West Wing is a fun show but it’s more far-fetched than the X Files.
Excuse me while I condemn the motorway interchange at Ipswich, Qld.
The gridlock associated with it turned a 90-minute trip between Toowoomba and Brisbane Airport into a 2 hours and 45 minute stress-fest.
I don’t enjoy running to airport terminals with heavy suitcases.
Ipswich motorway exchange-thingy = condemned forever.
I condemn Alex on the Bus for not checking out the possibility of getting an international keyboard from the manufacturer as most of them will have all sorts of weird variations on the normal US-english type that is available in Oz.
I also condemn my keyboard that is German which my operating system interprets as being US-english.
This causes other parties to condemn me when they try to use my laptop.
I condemn such people for their deficiencies in touch typing.
I’ll give you a lot of the rest of it as far-fetched, but wasn’t Clinton re-elected by a country that at the same time gave the Republicans control of Congress? That bit doesn’t strike me as farfetched at all.
Along the line of Mick’s complaint, I condemn Norwegian and French keyboards as very confusing to those of us used to touch-typing.
I condemn King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for taking so damn long to condemn US occupation in Iraq and intervention in Middle Eastern politics.
About bloody time.
Speaking of “about bloody time”, I condemn myself for taking so long to find something to condemn. Late to the party, yet again!
I condemn Yahoogroups for “improving their system”, which results in the groups I’m subscribed to getting multiple copies of messages posted, oh and add the fact that sometimes posts take over an hour to be delivered.