So, it’s June and time again to condemn. Here’s a twentieth open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat this month so far? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)
You can condemn anything you like except Steampunk videos.
I condemn Hilary Clinton for not taking the hint.
I condemn the dynamics of girls in playgrounds. I condemn it hasn’t changed in 30 years that girls insist on playing on stupid sympathy/exclusion/tears/emotional bullying/social climbing/note passing/sorry card making. I condemn their mothers for passing on those stupid modes of behaviour.
I condemn stupid motorist groups like NRMA for railing against petrol prices instead of giving their members useful advice about driving to conserve fuel and highlighting fuel efficient cars instead of going “phwoooaaarrrr” over ever more powerful engines. So there!
I condemn a patriarchal culture (and its particular forms of homosociality) that means that girls must seek playground power in the ways that David Rubie condemns.
I condemn everyone that can’t imagine that there is a difference between nudity and pornography.
I condemn Sun Kil Moon for releasing such a wonderful record in ‘April’ that I have barely listened to anything else for the past 8 weeks.
I condemn drivers who are too stupid to realise the connection between their driving behaviour and fuel consumption, and are most likely the ones whinging about rising fuel prices.
I condemn the combination of degenerated thumb joint and heat-seeking cat that made me spill a full cup of coffee first thing this morning all over the rug that cost more than anything else in the house.
Dr Cat, that is the stuff of nightmares for me. I’m clutching my coffee mug tight to my chest now.
I condemn the fact that liquids spill onto rugs, carpets and furniture with so little assistance.
Is it a health scare? Is it a heart attack? No, it’s …
Today’s NewsLtd Tabloid Looking-Glass Award Contender!
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23808323-952,00.html
SHOCK! HORROR!!
Well, not quite …
Further down - well past the on-line front page cut off - it seems no one Mr Farr asked could confirmed the story:
admitting, in the last paragraph:
When is a story NOT a story?
When the columnist wants to undermine confidence in a person (in this case, Rudd’s health), creates a heart attack, can’t get one shred of evidence to back his claims; but prints the lot anyway!
Even by NewsLtd tabloid standards, this one’s a doozy!!
PS: I’ve saved this page in case it disappears (or reappears even more severely doctored)- as tends to be the case with NewsLtd journos’ most blatant fantasising.
I condemn the failure of the international community to do anything to rid the world of the bastard regime in Burma.
I condemn those that oppress us so much that we cannot condemn Steampunk videos.
[Consults wikipedia to find out what a steampunk video is]
I condemn the current naming practices of web 2.0 apps and services that do nothing to describe what they are. The latest? Plurk.
Must be right at the cutting edge.
Not even a wikipedia page on it. I condemn wikipedia for not being up to date.
Ooooh, just thought of some more lighthearted condemnations.
I condemn the practice of babies cutting teeth. They make slobbering cats making dough look like amateurs and the pain must be frightful. Babies should be born with their teeth already there, not sure who to condemn about that though I note that guinea pigs arrive fully formed, hairy and walking.
I condemn the pointy stick I ran over in the dark the other night that flipped up, got caught in my chain and bent my rear derailleur. I condemn bike shops for wanting $300 for decent lights that would have helped avoid the pointy stick.
I condemn (yet again) local drivers for not understanding how round-a-bouts are supposed to work.
I condemn the guy who designed the heater/air conditioner arrangement on the Jeep Cherokee in the picture, whose hidden sheet metal nuts buried on the firewall caused me much angst and a couple of skinned knuckles. Somewhere, there’s an old guy in Toledo laughing his arse off.
I condemn the very idea of plurk: “Plurk is a social journal that let’s you publish, share your thoughts, emo-ness, “!%#%”#” and loves” http://www.plurk.com
I’m sorry, Mark, but I must condemn the dialogue in Hayao Miyazaki’s adaptation of Diana Wynne-Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle. It’s a beautiful example of steampunk but unfortunately, the gee-whiz, wow, who’d a thunk it American language employed (we are supposed to be in 1851 Victorian england, as shown by the fact they go to the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851)is completely distracting and not in a good way.
My daughter reckons the inclusion of a vast robotic moving castle in 1850s England makes any notion of anachronism moot. Somehow, I can’t agree with that, logical though it is.
I condemn just about every interaction of pets with rugs, full stop.
“emo-ness”?!?!?!?
An app geared specifically at arseflange-enabling?
Consider yourself condemned.
“let’s”?
I condemn egregiously superfluous apostrophes.
I condemn so called communication professionals who don’t understand the difference between ‘less’ and ‘fewer’.
I also condemn Wil Anderson for being Wil Anderson, and those who should know better (Andrew Denton) who encourage the illusion that the man has even a modicum of talent.
I condemn Facebook applications that have you sending out nonsensical messages that you then have to contact friends about explaining it was a mistake. Lucky it wasn’t a raunchy postcard. Might have had to do some really intricate explaining then.
I too condemn people who can’t tell the difference between the tradition of the nude in art and pornography.
I condemn K. Rudd for failing to realise that arists are nearly always the first people targetted in an attack on freedom of expression.
I condemn chocolate blocks rhat stick to silver foil.
I condemn media beat ups about anything.
I condemn myself for forgetting to buy onions to put in my winter soup and for having a pot that’s too small to fit in all the vegetables after I’ve put in the chicken.
I condemn the Liberal party for all the usual reasons.
I condemn myself for sometimes being too serious in this comment.
I condemn Hilary for her incapacity to concede, despite the obvious.
And my incapacity to spell her name.
I condemn the use of “egregiously superfluous”. No reason needed. BY the by why is an apostrphe so described in let’s? It lets us know that let us has been contracted and is not lets.
“Lets” is not a contraction, it’s a form of the verb “to let”. So it’s both egregious and superfluous.
Fierce condemnation is visited upon Sarah Jessica Parker not only for wearing a second hand frock to a premiere, but not knowing that. Also Naomi Campbell for claiming that YSL “made her”. Naomi, we are not interested in your sex life.
Seriously, I condemn the French governemt for allowing some pig to divorce a girl because she wasn’t a virgin.
Furthermore, cannot resist temptation to explicate on about how that could work in Australia, but discretion is the better part of valour.
I condemn: the BBC World Service for announcing the winner of Eurovision 2008 in the first 30 seconds of their news broadcast; ABC NewsRadio for broadcasting this in Australia before SBS had shown the final; and myself for turning the radio on in the first place.
But PF, I condemn your pointless pedantry because in the example that PC was, let’s assume referring to, there is no contraction so that lets her off the hook so to speak.
It’s just as annoying and worthy of condemnation when these superfluous apostrophes get thrown in a perfectly good word like its when they’re not required.
Maybe we should condemn apostrophes for being apostrophes, but unlike Wil Anderson they do perform a useful function IF ONLY PEOPLE KNEW HOW TO USE THEM!
Sigh…must get back to work.
I condemn American coffee, which has almost made a tea drinker out of me.
Thank you, Liam. Pappinbarra Fox may not have been aware that the reference was to comment #14, so I (like Adrian) was giving him the benefit of the doubt. ‘Egregiously superfluous’ was just my little joke.
Mercurius, is it as bad as Scottish coffee?
Couldn’t say, PC & I’m not inclined to find out. Think burnt milk over hot asphalt and you have some idea…
I condemn the person I won’t name who has been complaining about my 5yo to the Principal rather than having a chat with me, over trifling incidents. I also condemn her for getting other people’s children involved in something that has nothing to do with them and because she should know better. I condemn her for not growing up and getting a life and for ignoring her own child’s actions towards mine.
Damn! I wanted to condemn the hlaf-witted push to tinker with petrol prices but others have beaten me to it.
No matter. I condemn the appalling lack of integrity at Today Tonight as exposed in the Mercedes Corby case, which exposed payment of huge amounts to anybody prepared to tell agood story, TT’s actually helping to devise the defaming stories, stupid lie detector stunts and deliberate manipulation of viewers. Ugly stuff. I also condemn the lack of effective sanctions against this sort of shady practice with even a huge defamation settlement being peanuts compared to the whopping ratings boost TT got from the story.
I condemn myself for implementing an ad hoc version system of my model that is simply letters of the alphabet, leaving nowhere to go after version 26.
In that case it’s the same as Scottish coffee.
Oh, PC now I see and you are quite right therefore I condemn those who would condemn pedanticists.
Note to Mindy - is that a personal condemnation or a generic one?
“I condemn myself for implementing an ad hoc version system of my model that is simply letters of the alphabet, leaving nowhere to go after version 26.”
Did Y2K teach you nothing?!??!?
I condemn the use of the word “party” as a verb, particularly when preceded by “let’s”
I condemn the lack of progress in food science technology - why are sesame bars as sticky as they were twenty years ago? And why don’t Milo Bars taste like they used to? And why are Aeros soggy rather than crunchy?
I condemn being on campus where chocolate-y snacks are of inferior quality.
I condemn the absence of quality chocolate shops throughout far too much of Australia.
I also condemn phd finishing commitments for interfering with end of semester drinks plans. And drinks plans generally. I condemn research degrees for not enabling students to have a life.
“And why don’t Milo Bars taste like they used to?”
Don’t get me started on this travesty. WTF were they thinking putting freaking caramel in there? Just make a bar of Milo and dip it in chocolate FFS, and stop overthinking.
Yep. And I condemn Milo for not tasting good with soy milk!
“I also condemn phd finishing commitments for interfering with end of semester drinks plans.”
I’m with you on this one Mark, although I’m only letting the thesis interfere with my emotional state as I participate in end of semester drinking, not with the drinking itself.
If I had a single drink at the moment, Klaus, I think I’d fall asleep instantly.
On a different note, I condemn my old Rayban Wayfarers for hiding somewhere and I condemn self-discipline for not permitting me to conduct a comprehensive search of the entire department.
I swear that Milo itself doesn’t taste the same, though I can’t prove they’ve changed anything about it.
If they have changed it, then I condemn Nestle for changing Milo. If they haven’t then I condemn my own ‘maturing’ sense of taste.
Klaus - you could be suffering adult-onset obscurophilia, which is otherwise a happy thing but does diminish Milo’s appeal a tad.
I condemn those who confuse Plurking with Emo-ness.
Plurking is like Twittering but without the lifestreaming of Jaiku and the filesharing capabilities of Pownce. I also condemn you if you understood that sentence and nodded in the affirmative, you should seek help.
I don’t condemn steampunk videos as such, but I do condemn the practice of sticking a bit of brass and polished oak onto something and calling it steampunk (see, e.g. about every fifth post on Boing Boing). The goggles, they do nothing either.
I condemn the wives/girlfriends/mothers/hangers-on of convicted criminals for being given air time on any so-called current affairs show or should I just condemn the producers of such moronic programmes?
Quite possibly, FDB. It seems that nothing sweet is satisfying anymore: it’s always too sweet.
Part of it may also be what seems to be the substitution of sugar for fat in many mass-produced products, so they can advertise their lack of fat. Ice cream would be an obvious case: high fat ice cream seems to be a thing of the past, except for niche products. I had a ‘choc top’ the other day at the movies, and aside from setting me back the price of a full meal at the pub down the road, it was unsatisfying largely because the ice cream was intolerably sweet.
Though not in South Australia.
Don’t click on ‘Our Chocolates’, Mark, it will only make you sad.
There’s a Haigh’s on George Street in Sydney now. It saves my grandfather from having to wait for a trip back to SA for a hit of the good stuff. It won’t be long until there is one in Brisbane, I’m sure.
Right on - bring back the fat!
“unsatisfying largely because the ice cream was intolerably sweet.”
And the ice-”cream” was all icy no doubt. Unless they’d cobbled together texture with vegetable gums and the like. I will happily pay double for proper (min 15% milk fat) ice cream. But since the minimum to label it as ‘ice-cream’ is 10%, that’s usually all you can get.
I condemn the horrible tasting dirt cheap Black and Gold margarine and the horrible tasting really cheap margarine in Bilo. Humans are not constructed to eat rubber by-products.
I condemn the lack of free good quality chocolate.
“And the ice-”cream” was all icy no doubt. Unless they’d cobbled together texture with vegetable gums and the like.”
It was a tad icy, though I suspect they’d made some effort to cobble texture also. I condemn cobbling together texture.
Personal Pappinbarra Fox.
Ordinarily, with all the talk of ice cream being too sweet, I would condemn the aging process for changing your food preferences. But I won’t. While you have to give up ice-cream, margerine and redskins, and need dark/bitter chocolate for a proper hit, you also get to savour olives, stinky blue cheese, neat whisky and none-blacker coffee. And black jelly beans. And artichokes. And Tooheys Old or Coopers stout.
However I agree with Paul Burns - chocolate should be free, but not that cheap awful stuff they use every year to make easter eggs, good chocolate. Rich, dark, perhaps a little bitter, with an aroma that gives you chills and a buttery mouth-feel. Like sex somewhere you might be caught doing it.
Do you have kids David?
Yes Mindy, so every time it’s like that I suppose, but I was more thinking of some of the more, er, unusual locations we used to utilise before we had kids. A quiet quickie under the doona doesn’t count (but is always welcome).
I condemn the chocolate on offer in the vending machine at work, because it’s not Colefax, which is easily the best chocolate I’ve ever had.
I condemn this thread for wasting my time reading pointless (but vaguely amusing) condemnations.
Oh… and the dog that left a present on my nature stip last night which I inevitably stepped in…. and his owner.
I condemn the girl I gave my steam punk anthology to 12yrs ago as a birthday present - which she loved but still wouldn’t go out with me.
I also condemn myself for kicking over the half-drunk beer I left on the floor two nights ago - and while cleaning it up, kicking over the full mug of coffee I’d just poured myself!
I condemn those who wish to share their lodgings with a feline but cannot accept that this will result in the destruction of everything they possess which is not made of cast-iron (five cats, no furniture and fluff in everything I eat).
I condemn anyone with the slightest interest in watching dim bogans f#$k each other over for payment.
I condemn the Australian motor industry for the Ford XR6 (how can something that weighs the same as the Queen Mary feel so cheap and tinny? Or so powerful and thirsty be so yawn inducing to drive?).
I condemn Australian business for wasting thousands of dollars and God knows how many kgs of carbon by flying employees across the country and renting them rubbish like the above, to perform a function that could easily be done by phone and email.
I condemn a certain budget airline for being unable to check-in a bag to travel all the way to the passenger’s destination, resulting in said passenger being required to break the 100 meters record through a busy airport terminal in order to retrieve said bag and then present it for check-in on the next flight.
I condemn steel capped work boots for being so difficult to run in when sprinting through airport terminals.
That’s enough condemnation from me.
“Like sex somewhere you might be caught doing it.”
Really? That has a buttery mouth feel? Not from my end of the equation!
“While you have to give up ice-cream, margerine and redskins, and need dark/bitter chocolate for a proper hit, you also get to savour olives, stinky blue cheese, neat whisky and none-blacker coffee. And black jelly beans. And artichokes. And Tooheys Old or Coopers stout.”
Y’see, the problem for me is that I’ve loved all of these (bar black jelly beans, truly Satan’s own pus) since I conquered kalamata olives at age 11 or so. My first half-of-a-half-pint of Guiness, slyly procured by the old man at a canal-side pub in Wales when I was ten, went down like a Master’s Choc Milk.
I’m a man of modest build and healthy appetites, why should I give up ice-cream just cos they got shit at making it?
While I’m telling stories of idyllic and life-changing culinaria, the pinnacle of my ice-cream career was a very simple strawberry job, with a modest daubing of Rote Grütze, in a back-alley cafe in Lüneburg in 1988. Late in the evening of a very hot day, spent bicyclng out to a picnic by a trouty lake and tennising on clay for the first time. I can still distinctly feel my 14 y.o. self swishing the melting cream and berries around in my mouth and thinking for the first time “I am going to remember this. This is basically perfect. This is what you live for”.
I condemn David Rubie for using “buttery mouth-feel” and “sex” in the same paragraph.
My head is now full of disturbing thoughts that sit uneasily on top of a large lunch.
FDB wrote:
U R DOIN IT RONG!
Heh. I had that lol-caption coming YOUR way! Then deleted it for fear of a black-banning from the PC hivemind on grounds of homophobia.
Well, I’m not gonnna lie and say I’ve NEVER had a buttery mouth-feel while furtively dealing in pleasure, but in the main it’s been more of the oysters natural kind.
Oh you guys … a condemn is a condemn is a condemn
But realy Mindy - that is a real surprise
I also condemn the fact that there might be places (I haven’t found one yet) where sex actually is not risky
Think above the belt FDB - the sweaty nape of a neck, or that delicious little cavity at the bottom just above the collarbone, or…
I condemn myself, just off to the bathroom…
“I condemn the lack of progress in food science technology…”
I also condemn luddites like Mark who fail to grasp the immense contribution that small angle x-ray scattering has made to chocolate production.
“Think above the belt FDB”
Sex is for sex organs, pervert.
” the sweaty nape of a neck, or that delicious little cavity at the bottom just above the collarbone, or…”
…or that little bit of super-soft downy skin between earlobe and hairline? Okay, you silvertongued devil. You’ve got me.
Pappinbarra Fox I’m not condemning her to death, I’m just wishing she would grow up.
Bottom of the neck, I hope you mean. Otherwise, it’s an interesting image of flexibility.
Spaminated.
Twice.
Is it cos I didn’t condemn anything? And does the spaminator count? I condemn it forthwith.
Yes Liam, bottom of the neck - collarbone intersection. Collarbones are sexy, anyone who doesn’t think so I condemn most heartily.
I condemn one of my blog posts from a few weeks back just disappearing, pouf!, when I changed it to comments not allowed (a housekeeping task which, if neglected, will lead to hundreds of robotic “blogs” infesting the older posts with comment spam, which I also condemn.) I have no idea why, but it was the post with the “condemnit” image from DecentPedia. Ironic, ain’t it.
Where Ceiling Cat will be watching you.
I condemn everyone but Helen for not bringing decentpedia to my attention earlier.
I condemn Kylie for turning 40 therby subjecting us to “Kylie Turns 40″ look at her career pap so soon after we were subjected to the same pap for her x years in the industry!
I condemn the fire which led to the closing of the best chocolate shop in Sydney (if not Australia) and I condemn the price of chocolate at Max Brenners.
I did pop into Haigh’s when I was in Adelaide, Dr Cat, and there are a few (though not enough) good chocolate stores in the Brisbane CBD. What I’m condemning specifically is the lack of suburban chocolate stores - and campus based chocolate stores - I’m sure they’d make a killing around exam time!
“Yep. And I condemn Milo for not tasting good with soy milk!”
I was going to condemn Mark for thinking that ANYTHING could taste good with soy milk but then he redeemed himself by having cool sunglasses (even if termporarily misplaced).
I condemn that stupid lolly shop at UQ. Is it some sort of conspiracy from the dentists faculty?! And the chocolate is of a distinctive inferior quality anyway.
I also condemn all and any phd completion advice guides and manuals for not mentioning the dangers of stress-induced skin conditions occuring in the last fortnight before the first complete draft is due!
I condemn Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston for still, not getting it, with regard to Tania Zaetta. If she did or if she didn’t is not his bloody business. It is the creepy voyeurism of his organisation that is in question.
“There was no substance to the allegations, and I will conclude the matter with a letter to the person in question,” he said.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h7odw9Iyvn1kV9ZuHYrQM_XJsMFA
I’ll join that condemn.
I condemn PC’s workload or an absence of freedom otherwise so to thwart what is obviously an emerging writer of engaging quality and humour - and a writer clearly brewing with the real thing to say.
Qualifications:
* ‘emerging’ as in a new emergence.. beyond what has been written.. new grounds, fresh wonderment, embracing .. but sadly only the teasing whisps have entered the day;
* ‘whisps’ as signal of content talks in quiet tenders of something way more than just the blogging gender thing;
* said whisps are consistent and telling;
* and not to deny others, this is the ‘real thing’ readers sense, and seek.
That broken, I condemn the niggling pain under-shadowing so many books, articles and stories brewing about, now, in this new national age of possible freer expression, not yet or never-to-be done, but present nonetheless, in sometimes but the briefest of comment.
I condemn life on Earth itself, that there is not enough time or occasion to give us all of this, today, dammit, so there is a tomorrow too, nor even that which I want to do.
I condemn it even more, that the abundance of mystery so unfairly outweighs a lifetime that would even lightly touch upon the surface after years of applied effort in attempting to get into it. And I condemn it again when it grows yet more mysterious not only on the attempt to get into it, or out of it, but even to ignore the bastard.
*Ahh..* (no longer seeking refuge in others’ work - but wishing still)
Thanks for that.
Lot of condemning going on today!
I condemn this rain which is bringing out the craziness in far to many drivers. I condemn said drivers who go faster in the rain and refuse to put their lights, with particular condemnation for the guy who nearly ran me off the road.
I also condemn truck drivers who try to overtake other trucks and just block two lanes of traffic.
I condemn David Rubie for even thinking that babies should be born with teeth!
I condemn Rayedish for condemning rain when we haven’t even had a spot in SA.
I condemn the Liberals because they exist.
And I add my condemn to Aidan’s condemn @3.
I condemn teeth for not being replaced at say around age 37, as well as in childhood.
As well as getting a set of choppers which would set you up for the rest of your life at an age where you know how to floss, wouldn’t all those city suits look cute as buttons with gap teeth?
I condemn ceiling cat.
Basement Cat finds work for idle, blasphemous bathroom dwellers (and their hands) to do.
I commend Dr Cat & Mark for their appreciation of Adelaide chocolate maker Haigh’s.
But I am compelled to condemn them for neglecting Adelaide’s other great chocolate maker, Swiss Glory.
Shame!
I condemn the criminals who brought us the Iraq War. Those who condemn PollyTO for her “spot on” comment at 80. Those who force feed animals, cause them dreadful pain & then profit on top. Spin-meisters who get the opportunity to dominate the media. The influential who spend their lives crushing the little guy & gal because they have a gaping maw that never stops feeding. Insomnia. Too many interesting shows put on at once. The use of TV shows like Jericho…movies like THE HAPPENING…& other uses of material to feed the FEAR in people by Corporate manipulators. And those who spout off about “Mushroom Clouds” for same reasons. And governments that fail to bring WAR CRIMINALS to the courts.
I condemn the Maribyrnong city council for erecting a “dogs on leash only” sign yesterday in our park which has been a famous off-leash park for a couple of decades; people have actually moved to the area because of it. They did this without any consultation and I cannot find any announcement in the local paper or on their website. Gutless bastards.
The dogs, of course, condemn them as well.
Now, even the highlight of my day is ruined. Damn cats.
Helen, try civil disobedience. Just ignore it and a get a group together to start lobbying councillors. The pooch owning lobby can be very powerful.
I condemn the pooch owning lobby for being very powerful.
Sing it, adrian. I further condemn the people who lead their dogs onto football pitches to shit. If I see you I will chase you down and make you pick it up with your bare hands if necessary.
I condemn myself for inadvertently leaving some cellophane on the stove top, then not noticing it so it burnt while I was cooking spaghetti and running round the house looking for the source of the burning smell.
I also cdondemn myself for leaving a lighter on the stove near a hot hotplate yesterday Thereby risking having an explosion in my flat. Fortunately I noticed it in time.
I codemn me having cataracts not bad enough to treat but bad enough for me to make spelling mistakes on the keyboard and do stupid dangerous things.
I condemn Monica Bellucci for appearing in incredibly boring films. It’s amazing just how much stupidity I’ll sit through just to watch her, and the producers of these crudfests know it.
I condemn those who don’t pick up the dog poop from their dogs - it’s just not that hard to walk your dog with some plastic bags in your pocket, although I’d further condemn those committed to violence to force the issue Liam - it’s just poop!
…and I condemn myself for the lame American Beauty joke.
DR - I’m with Hoges. As far as I’m concerned, a human whose dog shits in a public place bears the same moral responsibility as a human who personally shits in a public place. If someone comes on the field when I’m having a kick and lays some cable, damn