101 CRAZY BUT TRUE FACTS ABOUT THE UNITED KINGDOM (KINGDOUM)

Well this is it. One day you were asleep in Massachusetts, dreaming of me riding a washing machine. The next day, you're awake in Manchester, wondering how it all came to this. But don't feel alone. You are in a world of magic and mystery. You are in the United Kingdom!

Many people have tried--and failed--to grasp the UK's intricacies. The reason why is because they don't have this guide: 101 Really Really Super True I Swear They're True Facts About (Aboot) England. If you study these facts carefully, you'll be able to impress your teachers, win new and exciting minority friends, and most importantly of all, survive in time for me to give you my other surprise gift (don't worry, it doesn't involve my pants... yet). But enough bullshit. Let's get to the facts!!

1. The "u" was added to "-or" words during the American Revolution to distinguish Loyalists from rebels; the idea was to essentially say, "U are loyal to the crown."

2. The British drive on the left so as to allow the Queen to ride her stagecoach on the right; this is why Americans drive on the right, and it is your duty to drive on the right/insist the driver drive on the right, lest you pass up your chance to slay America's mortal enemy.

3. Similarly, blunts are passed to the right, and in America vice versa (so in England, it's pass the blunt to the Queenie on the right).

4. Cricket is so named because it was originally conceived as a way of exterminating crickets in "an enjoyable mannere". The cricket bat was originally used to smash crickets. Early versions of the game would award points for "smashing the cricket" with the ball. Even more points would be awarded for "smashing the orphan."

5. The Welsh are called "taffy" because the last king of Wales, Owyn Taffyr, failed to show up at a critical battle for his kingdom's independence because he was "strikyn wyth a wycked tasty stryng of a most delyghtful taffee". As a result, Willy Wonka has a standing death order on his head in Cardiff.

6. The British maintain many Frenchisms, a vestige of their days as Normans. This was done so as to better facilitate the inevitable surrender to the French, which is currently scheduled to happen in 2116.

7. Fox hunting didn't start out as fox hunting. In medieval times, English kings would hunt page boys dressed in red for sport, a tradition started by Henry VI after he returned from an actual foxhunt in Brabant. (England did not have any native foxes at the time.) This tradition continued until 1813, when a population of actual foxes was finally introduced to the island. However, to this day, before the hunt begins, a hunter is picked to be the "designated fox" in case no foxes are found in the hunt.

8. Roundabouts were invented during the Revolutionary War to catch American spies, for Americans would never be able to navigate them and would thus be stuck eternally going 'round them. To this day, they still boast a 100% tourist trap record. P.S. If you're ever in Swindon, please tell my uncle Bobby that we miss him very much.

9. The original Tewksbury is in Canterbury Province. It is home of Tewkesbury Abbey. It is actually a misspelling of "Tweeksbury," but the name was changed to hide the fact that, like its Massachusetts cousin, the parish is full of tweekers.

10. Another Tewkesbury fact: the final battle in the War of the Roses took place in Tewkesbury. The House of York defeated the House of Lancashire 2-1 in extra time.

11. Prince Charles is next in line for the throne. It has already been decided that the moment he ascends to the throne, the national anthem of Britain will be the theme to "Charles in Charge."

12. Charles is currently Prince of Wales. That alone is reason enough for him (or anyone else) to want to be king already.

13. The Union Jack is comprised of all the flags of the countries of England. The blue background and white cross (St. Andrew's cross) are for Scotland. The red cross is St. George's Cross, for England. The other red cross is the cross of North Ireland (St. Patrick's cross). Contrary to popular belief, Wales IS represented on the flag. If you look very closely at the bottom right corner, the Welsh dragon (nicknamed Wylly) has his head peeking out from the background and is waving a bit. Cornwall is represented by an even smaller black hand extending the middle finger, located somewhere near the top of the flag. You get a free cup of tea for "finding the finger."

14. Tea time was invented by the British East India Company as a means of boosting tea sales. It was a smashing success. Less successful was its attempt at launching Asparagus Hour, though it is still observed in some parts of Kent.

15. Taunton, Mass. has the British flag on its flag. What the fuck, Taunton.

16. Spotted Dick is exactly what you think it is.

17. It should come as no surprise that there is no letter "R" in the English language, which has led to some consternation throughout the ages. One of the reasons for the War of 1812 was that the British refused to recognize the United States of Ameica because there was no such country. A proposed compromise (ultimately rejected) was to rename the USA to the United States of Vespuccia.

18. There is no word in English for "Gesundheit!" The British instead will just stare ardently for several seconds at anyone sneezing.

19. Similarly, there is no word in English for "puddle."

20. William III (of William and Mary fame) was killed when his horse tripped over a molehill. This is why it is considered rude to throw moles at the Queen.

21. The British hate the French (and vice versa) mainly because the British keep stealing French words. This battle came to a head in 1810, when Napoleon declared war on George IV in the infamous Stop Taking Our Shit War of 1810.

22. The British hold the record for winning the shortest war in history: 40 minutes to beat down the island of Zanzibar. The Zanzibarians insisted that the British cheated by "using faggot lasers and shit."

23. The British also hold the record for losing the longest war in history: 1,952 years against gingivitis (ongoing).

24. In World War II, the infamous "Buzz Bombs" were so named because the Germans would launch them to coincide with happy hour in London, thus "bombing the buzz" that came with the post-work drinking.

25. Trafalgar Square originally was in Cape Trafalgar. The British towed it back with them as a war prize in winning the Battle of Trafalgar. A similar attempt at towing all of Gibraltar back to England failed, however.

26. Jamaica was so named so as to pave the way for future puns, namely, "Did Jamaica shit in the sink?" However, plans to make Jamaica a joke word fell through when the American Heywood Jablome rose to international fame and stole Jamaica's thunder. It's still a sore spot in England today.

27. Contrary to popular belief, "God Save the King/Queen" is really just "God save the Kiiiiing, God save the Kiiiiing, God save that King," followed by mumbling and going "da da da daaaa da da" until trailing into "My Country Tis of Thee."

28. The Pilgrims were kicked out of England not because of religious persecution, but because their impeccable teeth were considered an affront to King James I.

29. The first King of England was named Offa. Needless to say, there has never been another King named Offa, because how the hell do you follow that?

30. The first ruling house of England was the House of Mercia. It only had one King, though (Offa), because they were beaten by the House of Wessex, who were not above using steroids.

31. King Edward IV is considered the Grover Cleveland of English kings.

32. The Coat of Arms of England depicts a family of three lions simultaneously gagging at the sight of lima beans for dinner (again!?!).

33. According to the Times of London, historians agree that Queen Anne was the hottest Queen of England. All things considered, that's rather depressing.

34. Great Britain used to be in personal union with the Kingdom of Hanover. However, when Victoria was proclaimed Queen of Britain, William's brother Ernest Augustus took over in Hanover. Contrary to popular belief, this was not because Hanover has a salic law regarding succession, but that it very strictly adheres to the "no fat chicks" adage.

35. George III really was insane. Among other things he did: his piss was blue, he had hallucinations, at times he believed he was a duck, and he sincerely thought "Joey" was a great show.

36. Prince Albert (of "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?" fame) was really locked in a large cylindrical room by Victoria for farting in the bed, which gave birth to that joke.

37. Queen Victoria was named the "Empress of India" in an attempt to lure her out of England because her constant BO was too much for Londoners to handle. It didn't work because being Empress of colonial India is like being governor of New Jersey.

38. The British are angrier over the War of 1812 than over the Revolutionary War, though they will hardly admit it. The proof: Following their defeat at the Battle of New Orleans, the British attempted to rename New Orleans to We Didn't Want This Faggy Fuckin' Swamp Shit Anyway. But, as the war was over, the name change was not considered official. Maps in England, to this day, reflect that name change, though.

39. The British had a penchant for naming their overseas colonies "New _____" in an attempt to get the inhabitants of the original land to leave. This had mixed results.

40. New Caledonia: Failed to get the Scottish to move, prompting it to be sold to France. Reason: The Scotch had no idea what "Caledonia" means.

41. New York: Failed to get the Duke of York to leave. Reason: He was too in love with his yam garden in Yorkshire to leave (everyone wanted him out because he would pelt commoners with yams, which was considered tasteless at the time (it was considered to be in better form to pelt them with radishes)).

42. New Jersey: Succeeded in getting everyone in the Bailiwick of Jersey to move, believing that the New Jersey would have 100% less burning tire factories and 33% less landfills. Unfortunately for them, it had 100% more of both.

43. New Hebrides: Failed to get the Scottish to move. Reason: The Scotch were perplexed as to what a "he-bride" was and feared the land would be filled with gays.

44. New England: Failed to get all the English to move. Reason: The Cornish had hoped that the English would leave, paving the way for Cornish supremacy. All they succeeded in doing was getting the most obnoxious of English to leave, thus strengthening England itself while dooming the future United States to generations of insufferable Patriots fans.

45. New Britain and New Ireland: Failed to get the British and Irish to move; was eventually sold to the Germans, who renamed them to New Pommern (that was a success). Reason: Suspicions were raised when the Danish loudly announced that they had discovered these new lands while greedily rubbing their palms whenever the British asked about them.

46. New Zealand: Succeeded in getting Zealanders to move. However, they promptly moved back when they found that there was no free hash or Eurovision contests to be found anywhere.

47. New Brunswick: Failed to get the Duke of Brunswick to move there. Reason: He correctly deduced that it was a ploy for hunters to get his wonderful pelt.

48. Nova Scotia: Failed to get the Scots to move (again), despite a more direct trick. Reason: C'mon, if they didn't know what Caledonia was, they sure as fuck weren't gonna know what a "No-vah Sco-sha" is.

49. New Dehli: Cancelled dude to confusion over which street to place the New Dehli on, and if it should carry Bubbletape or Bazooka.

50. New Hampshire: Succeeded in getting everyone from county Hampshire to move. Reason: Take one look at the modern New Hampshirite; their ancestors were no different. You'd do the same thing.

51. The British invented the slur of "guinea," so named because Italians would work for a guinea, which was a low sum of money. The first use of guinea as a slur came during the Great Guinea Attack of 1791 when Antonio Ricciardello, a wall-painter, had so many guineas thrown at him that he became trapped in a pile of guineas, which fused with his skin and turned him into a monstrous pile of guineas that ravaged parts of London and ate all of its pizza. It was finally defeated by Antonio's mother's nagging and subsequent denying spaghetti for dinner, young man!! Thus "guinea" came to take a negative connotation.

52. The British tonne is derived from British currency. One tonne is 2,000 pounds. Did that just blow your mind?

53. The plural of "penny" is "pence." It used to be "penni," but the British got tired of people asking them "How many pennis can you fit in your mouth?"

54. If you glue two ha-pence together, you get a full penny!

55. The chav is fast becoming the most common Britfolk to come across, so it's important to be ahead of the curve when it comes to interacting with other Brits. To fit in with the chavs, be sure to a) wear a ton of Burberry, b) collect as many mobiles as you can, and c) greet everyone by slapping them in the face and yelling "SHUT UP MAN" at them in a thick cockney accent.

56. Contrary to popular (American) belief, the Beatles name is spelled correctly regarding the insect (in England). The same is true for the Monkees and the Rolling Stones.

57. Birminghamers are called "Brummies," named after the "brum" noise they made when coughing up soot after a hard day's work in the soot factory during the Industrial Revolution. To this day, "Brummie Day" is celebrated, when everyone puts ashes in their mouth and "brums" them all over each other. Coincidentally, this is still a daily occurence in Newcastle, though for unrelated reasons.

58. The word "faggot" is derived from the British meaning, which is a bundle of sticks. Faggots (and fags) were so named because during the olden times, when rowdy Londoners would go looking for gay people to bash, their victims would "lie still on the ground as if they were a faggot, thus confusing the angry Londoner into thinking they were indeed dead, or at least swooned, and thus not fit for a beating."

59. The word "lift" is derived from the old British elevators, which could only go up (hence the name). When a lift reached the top of a building, it would be retired in an elaborate ceremony involving burning the lift and tossing its ashes onto the streets below. This is what led to the Great Fire of London of 1666, though the practise would not end until 1971.

60. Buses in London are painted red so that, in case of a bull stampede, they could be used to distract the bulls from Londoners. Alternatively, in the case of a bull stampede, they could be used to run over Londoners if the Queen was on board one of them. The last time a bus had to be so used was in 1999.

61. Big Ben was originally conceived as a "sequel" to the Tower of London, in that it would be a prison used to torture prisoners. The clock was intended to be a means of torture, for every hour the bells would chime the chorus to "Come on Eileen." This was stopped almost immediately after the builders realized that all of London would hear that, and so ended Big Ben's original purpose.

62. November 5 (or 5 November, if you wanna be that way) is Guy Fawkes' Day. It is named after the British patriot who knew to "Remember, remember the 5th of November." However, Parliament had apparently forgotten that the day was November 5. So, he set up an elaborate reminder for them. His efforts were so appreciated and famous that they renamed the day after him in his honor, and also issued rather fabulous masks to commemorate his patriotism.

63. According to the BNP, Christmas is a British thing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O839fj8NVY0

64. The Sex Pistols declared Anarchy in the U.K. on 11 November 1976. Anarchy lasted for about three turns until England re-emerged with Free Trade so at last they could snag some sweet foreign trade routes.

65. Oasis got their name due to their Manchester roots, because their splendid teeth were described as "an oasis amongst a desert of yellow.

66. The knighting ceremony dates back to Aethelred the Unready. Aethelred faced a rival in the court, Mingus, and determined to lure him into a trap. On Christmas Day, he invited Mingus to the court for a "special gift." He made Mingus approach the throne and "lowereth his head, that he may receiveth it, yea." When Mingus obeyed, Aethelred produced a large sword, but since he was a shithead, he only had enough strength to flail lamely at Mingus' shoulders. When Mingus looked up and asked Aethelred what he was doing, Aethelred, out of embarrassment, said he was "knighting" Mingus. And so Mingus was the first ever knight.

67. Great Britain formally changed its name to "The United Kingdom" in 1947. This was because the British were tired of being called "BriTONs."

68. During the reign of Henry VIII, the national anthem (and king's walkup music) changed to "I'm Henery VIII, I Am." It did not change again until 1915.

69. The British invented shepherd's pie, so-called because shepherd's use to carve out the bottom of the table and stick their heads into them pie to surprise hungry people. This was a dangerous prank, however, and it is how George II died.

70. English monarch Sweyn Forkbeard was so named because he lost a fork in his beard and no one had the guts to tell him it was kinda just hanging out there.

71. Buckingham Palace is so named because, in commemoration of the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror decided to build his new palace there. But, according to the Venerable Bede, "There liveth a most aggresive and unamiable pigge, named Harold, who would eateth the man and child who strayeth too close to his snout, yea." William managed to jump on Harold's back, and "he did so surviveth the bucking ham, and its hooves tasted good. Its eyes, not so good." Since then, it is tradition for newly crowned monarchs to "ride the ham" to prove their worthiness. Elizabeth II stayed on for 10.5 seconds.

72. Contrary to popular belief, Charles I was executed because he lost a bet. He was unable to hold his breath longer than Oliver Cromwell.

73. Lord Byron, the famous poet and part-time stamp collector, died in Greece from sepsis. This is the inspiration for his final and most famous poem: "My Toes Are Red and Puffy and Shit. Is That Bad?"

74. Stonehenge is neither a calendar nor a burial ground. It is actually a postmodern sculpture depicting a schoolyard fight.

75. The British originally named the Hawaiian Islands "The Sandwich Islands." This was so named because Captain Cook was temporarily stranded on one of them (Manuae) without any food. He recalled that the explorers who found the Bikini Atoll named it because they found bikini-clad women on it. So Cook named his island the Sandwich Island in hopes of finding sandwiches on it. He eventually managed to create some sandwiches, but his "sand sandwich" failed to catch on with anyone else.

76. The Pilgrims are famous for being too anal for the Dutch, but that they were kicked out of England was also a display as to how obnoxious they were. Here is a brief list of people who were not annoying enough to be kicked out of England: scousers, wimps, bints, people named "Brent," tits, fags, bros, hippies, beatniks, people who ask you where your accent's from when they clearly know where it's from and just want you to say "beater," and George Michael.

77. Boston's Charles River is named in commemoration of Charles II and his legendary brown urine.

78. William Shakespeare was really Francis Bacon. Francis Bacon was really Jerry Bruckheimer.

79. A quadriplegic, Philippe Croizon, successfully swam the English Channel. When Hitler heard about this, boy, was he mad!

79. Underneath the English Channel is a mysterious tunnel known as "the Chunnel." According to legend, it stretches from Kent to Calais. On the Kent side, confused Frenchmen and Germans magically appear from it, while on the Calais side, drunken fratboys and hooligans appear.

80. Oxford University (home of the Seminoles) is the archrival of Cambridge University. This rivalry is known as the "World's Biggest zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

81. The lyrics to "London Bridge Is Falling Down" are transcribed word-for-word from a speech given in Parliament by Sir Spencer Compton, who witnessed the actual bridge falling down from the window. It was a good thing, too, because the speech was really boring otherwise.

82. There is a game associated with "London Bridge Is Falling Down," where two girls form an arch with their arms and everyone else walks underneath. When the song concludes, the girls lower their arms, trapping whomever is walking through at the time. They then engage in a knife fight to commemorate the looting of the ruins of London Bridge.

83. Another schoolyard game: "Oy!" Oy! is very simple: All you do is walk up to someone unawares and yell out "Oy!" Then you stuff them into a niche of some sort: a locker, a crawlspace, a closet, an oven... use your imagination! The best part is that it is the real national pastime of the British, and everyone is in on the game. Rumor has it that if you "Oy!" the Queen, you get to be king/queen for a day.

84. The British have their own Oscars, called the "BAFTAs". The trophy is a golden mask modeled after the face of Julia Roberts.

85. Contrary to popular belief, Henry VIII did not break from the Catholic church over divorce. He broke away because he disagreed with the Church's position on the Eucharist tasting like "card-board shite."

86. The reason why the Queen's Guard don't ever move or change expression or any of that has nothing to do with maintaining vigilance. It has everything to do with a centuries' long staring contest with the guards at the Mall. If you think the Queen's Guards are tough, just try the Mall Guards.

87. The British Parliament is currently divided into two houses (The House of Lords and the House of Commons). In the 90s, it briefly had a third house, the House of Pain, but it was dissolved in 1996.

88. Preparations for D-Day (as part of the Invasion of Normandy) were made at Devon, whose natural ugly beaches and surly German people were considered the perfect place to simulate the invasion.

89. During the Revolutionary War, John Paul Jones successfully raided Whitehaven, in Cumbria. The damage wasn't much, just some spiked cannons and a shitty fire on a coal boat. The British didn't realize that they were attacked by Americans until they found graffiti left by Jones himself, reading, "NICE HARBOR FAGS LOL".

90. The British slang for a woman, "bird," came from the 1700s, when British men would frequently mistake them for swallows. This also explains why many nightclubs are situated in trees, "to be near the birds."

91. The British have a habit of stealing ancient artifacts and sending them back to museums in England. This is what happened to many Egyptian artificats, artifacts from the Parthenon, artifacts from Calcutta, and artifacts from the world's first Denny's.

92. The Isle of Wight used to be called the "Isle of White," so named because it would combine with the "Isle of Man" to be the "White-Man Islands". The British begrudgingly changed the name to avoid offending people, but they were almost tempted to also rename the Isle of Man to the "Isle of No Blacks Allowed".

93. "Mary Poppins" went through some changes on its way from England to America. The biggest change: That's not a spoonful of sugar she's giving to the kids to make the medicine go down, if you know what I mean. (It's 100% Colombian pure.)

94. The Changing of the Guard is a famous event in places where the Queen's Guards are. It occurs every day at 11:00 am (EST, of course). This is done so that the previous set of guards can make it back to the barracks in time for The Price Is Right.

95. Also, the Changing of the Guard goes through an extended phase if the guard is an infant or toddler.

96. I am now learning that the BAFTA mask is actually the "face of an overwrought dramatist whose success baffles everyone." I'm not sure why they bothered to correct me on that.

97. Britain's most famous serial killer (other than "The Chef" Gordon Ramsay) is Jack the Ripper, so named because he got his start terrorizing mattress shops.

98. The British do not recognize Aluminum as an element, instead replacing it with Aluminium. It has the same atomic weight, but aluminium causes the tongue to spasm into paralysis when pronounced.

99. Contrary to popular belief, the Crown Jewels are not located in the Tower of London. As always, they are located in my pants.

100. Every six years, the British celebrate their empire by having the Commonwealth Games, so named because Britain felt that the wealth of its former colonies "commonly" belonged to it. For these games they have such events as the Run for Your Life, Slave Marathon, the Zulu Massacre Slalom, and the 500m Foreigner with Amusing British Accent Relay.

101. The current royal family is the Windsor family, but originally it was called the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family, because they're Germans. The name was changed in 1917 because at the time the Germans were being super dicks to England. But as a compromise, the family agreed to have at least one family member maintain certain German traditions. The current "German Prince" (as they're called) is Prince Arry.

SPECIAL BONUS FACT

Because winners always do one more and because I always go the extra mile for you, here's a special bonus fact. This one is even less well-known than all the others so consider yourself lucky!

102. All British gents named Harold love it when you go up to them and shout "YOUR A WIZARD ARRY!"

An Okayish Book

Benjamin "Benny Boo" Barber is a fairly renown political theorist. His job is to examine political systems and, according to his angle, how they influence each other, directly and indirectly. With that in mind, he penned his magnum opus, "Jihad vs. McWorld," an exmaination as to how the two extremes of societies (modern, capitalistic, commercial McWorld vs. traditional, xenophobic, localized Jihad) are vying for the souls of all humanity. It's like Spawn, except without the action figures and Todd McFarlane rambling at the camera before the start of each episode.

The ideas in the book are worth exploring, because as it turns out, neither Jihad (which is a generalized concept rather than the specific cause of jihad by Muslim extremists) nor McWorld are rather nice. They're both competing against democracy, which means citizens from around the world are in a daily struggle to maintain their independence against the leering McWorld and the crazy Jihad.

It's a very strong thesis, but unfortunately Barber doesn't really do a whole lot with it. Of course, one of the book's biggest failings is that the crux of it was written in the 1990s, where Vajpayee is in control of India, Rafshanjani is in control in Iran, and Yeltsin has only just got a decent hold on Russia's government. So, in short, the book is woefully, woefully outdated.

It has very little to say about 9/11. Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think it even freakin' HAD 9/11 in it. That's kind of a big deal there!!

Obviously I can't fault Barber for writing an outdated book. To his credit, his ideas are still valid today, but the landscape has changed. For instance, his focus on Germany and Russia are positively quaint in light of today's hotspots and areas of interest. I'm sure a lot of what he has to say is applicable to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and Africa, but that analysis is lacking here.

One thing he didn't cover that he could have touched upon, even in the 90s, was Israel/Palestine. I don't think he mentioned that little area much at all. It was a big deal back then and I was rather surprised he glossed over it. Perhaps his political theory didn't really fit it?

The other major flaw of the book is attributable to his writing style. Mainly, he writes a lot. And a lot. And a lot. About the same things. And the same things. And the same, same things. Entire paragraphs will go by, all basically reiterating the same point, maybe with slightly different examples thrown in. The book probably could be cut by 33% and still retain all its points, and probably be much more concise, too.

Also, the book has a very, very odd way of handling commas, and I rather suspect that it was edited by an Englishman. That would be tres weird because Barber's an American, but he writes like a Brit? No, no, something doesn't add up here. SOMETHING DOESN'T ADD UP HERE. :chomps on cigar:

Otherwise, Barber's political ideas are neat, if kind of obvious (I mean, yeah, choosing between crazy luddites and overbearing soulless pitchmen is a rotten choice). But he does have a flair for passing along stories, anecdotes and details about certain events (the fall of the Berlin Wall, the de-communiz(s)ation of Russia), which in and of themselves are worth reading about. If I reviewed this book 15 years ago, I'd be far more impressed with it.

Though, looking back, it's not a very good tome regarding in a predictive sense, since he misses the growth in international terrorism and such. But as a historical analysis, it's solid enough to be worth a gander. Just be prepared to skip over blocs of text.





Errata: The next post will be 101 Facts You Need to Know Before Going to England, and If You Don't Know Them, You Might Be Killed

Scenes from an Italian Stereotype

Today is (or was, if you want to get TECHNICAL about it) Columbus Day. That's Christoffa Corombo. He's the father of our country discoverer of our country, of course. You know the poem.

You also know that Columbus Day is, aside from a celebration of all things Ohioan, a celebration of all things Italian(-American). Columbus is "our" "mascot," if ethnicities can have mascots. (Fun fact: Greece's mascot is the Philly Phanatic. Normally, the dude who discovered America (and was smart enough to tell everyone else about it; good one Erik, you retard!!) is a pretty big deal, so Italians can be a little proud of him and shit.

But there are several rubs with Columbus. No. 1: He's not really a benign fellow. At all. Unlike St. Patrick, Columbus did not drive the snakes out of Italy, and he could only stay drunk 22 hours of the day. But worse than that, Columbus was a slaver and a really, really, really malevolent dick to anyone with a complexion darker than "ruddy." He presciently noted, upon finding the natives: "I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased." He would not let that opportunity pass.

Italian-Americans generally don't like being reminded of that, and I can understand why. The problem is that, as far as I can tell, nobody elected Columbus as the mascot of Italian-Americans. Well, I didn't vote for him. I voted for Joe Piscopo. We'll get 'em next time, Joe!!

But Columbus is just no good. Germans wouldn't like it if we made Hitler the mascot for German-Americans, not the least of which because Hitler wasn't American (at least not until after he was snuck into Michigan after WWII). Then again, Columbus isn't really American either. He didn't even buy a villa here. What a cheapskate!

Also, Columbus is only ethnically Italian. His voyage was for Castille, though, so that pretty much explains why things turned out the way they did after his voyages were through.

If you ask me, there shouldn't be a mascot for Italians. There shouldn't be mascots for other ethnicities at all. Mascots are stupid and should only either a) dance on the dugout or b) perform extremely dangerous slam dunks. Columbus can't ball and I'm pretty sure he can't dance, so he's no good.

The real problem with mascots is that they are stereotypes. Now, while I love a good stereotype, the problem is that people aren't really offended by them. Many Italians I know of pretty much fit the Italian-American stereotype to a T: overemotional, macho, family-oriented, pastrami eaters (yuck), religious, boorish, greasy, loud and excitable. If you call them on it, they'll deny it. But they fit the bill in most respects.

That's not meant to be an indictment of Italian-Americans. I think it's just a case of society conditioning people to behave a certain way. It's tough to break out of those molds, especially when you're around people who just want to embrace the stereotype because they love it so much.

But what makes being an Italian better than anything else? In truth: nothing.

Now, you may be screaming "TRADITORE!!" at me, waking up all your flatmates and embarrassing yourself AGAIN, but it's the truth. I don't like or dislike Italians anymore than I do any other culture or ethnicity (except Austrians. Fuck you, Austria). So I bristle at any pressure to be proud of my ethnicity, for a number of reasons.



The big reason is because it, frankly, is hypocritical. Until like 1850, the idea of a united Italy was pretty much laughable. Italy is a big-ass place with diverse regions, dialtects and mini-cultures. In some respects, it's not too unlike America in terms of diversity. And further, different groups of Italians didn't really take to other groups. There was no sense that everyone was an "Italian." People were Genoese, Lombards, Venetians, Sicilians, Piedmontese, Milanese, Luccans (laffo), Toscanans, Ligurians, Neapolitans, Sardinians, etc. etc. etc. etc. get on with it.

Even when Italy unified, it wasn't really smooth sailing, though it did kinda reorganize the inter-regional rivalries into two: north and south. And as far as I can understand, the division between north and south Italy roughly mirrors the division between north and south America (United States of). That's a pretty big difference, frankly.

Now you could say, "But we're talking about Italian-AMERICANS here!" Well, not necessarily for me. If you go by my mother's reckoning, then I'm 50% Italian and 50% Sicilian. But I repeat myself? Not really. Sicily is perhaps the most unique of all Italian subgroups, and I find Sicily itself to be even more intriguing than Italy proper. After all, Sicily was invaded even more times by outside groups, particularly the Muslims. There are still mosques on Sicily today. So Sicily strikes me as a more "happening" place, and it's not really accurate to say it has fully integrated with Italy. I'm sure most mainlanders would agree, which is their loss, because diversity is :cool:.

And then when you REALLY think about it, I'm not strictly 50% Sicilian, since Sicilian ancestry is buried under layers and layers of invading peoples, invadin' and rapin' and shit. Ugly business but that's what happened. So in all honesty, I find the idea that my "ancestry" has a specific meaning on my life to be ridiculous. How much Italian is my blood? How much is German? How much is Spanish, French, Moorish? Maybe a Chinaman's blood is in there too. Who the fuck knows?

And who cares? Does my heritage being 1.4% Turkish mean anything? No. Also my blood is not Italian. It's made of iron and hemoglobin and some other shit, not RAGU.

That said, let's quickly go over what it REALLY means to be an Italian-American, according to societal pressures:

EMOTIONS. Italians must be emotional. We must be passionate. We must take everything personally. I think this is pretty accurate, but then again, all Mediterranean people are considered emotional so it's a wash I guess. It's also pretty stupid. Stop being emotional and then maybe people will respect you a bit!

CATHOLICISM. All Italians are Catholics, except those friggin' traitors from il nord. We love our Pap though. This isn't a good or bad thing, but it gets ridiculous when everyone's all up in people's grill about being a Catholic when THEY NEVER GO TO CHURCH EVER.

The Mob. Personally, I regard this as being the most embarrassing aspect of Italian-Americanism. The mob are jerks. Shut up about all this "honor" crap. They steal and kill and terrorize people for a living, and they are all lousy shots and they have no imagination and are so far up their own asses, it takes Robert De Niro working overtime to make them look appealing. Italians bristle at being called mobsters but when the mob rears its head, they don't do shit to get rid of them. Jerks.

Food! Italian food is pretty goddamn good. Even the not-so-good stuff is good. So give yourself a round of applause, Italy.

Women! Italian women are great, except when they're ITALIAN women. I don't like hos that buy into the whole ethic because that usually means Lee press-ons, gum snapping, hairspray, tanning and an ego that can stretch down the Via Appia and back. Fuck that noise. I do like Italian noses and eyebrows. I don't like the overbite, though.

Guineas. Guineas are, perhaps, the worst. Worse than the mob? Well, not TECHNICALLY, but if I were forced to spend a car ride with a mafia don or a guinea, I would happily jump in the lap of the don. Guineas, guidos, greasers, dagos, whatever you call them, they are annoying as shit. The situation (HEH) has gotten worse since "Jersey Show" debuted, and of course every fucking guinea now thinks that's acceptable behavior so they're coming out of the woodwork even more than usual. I can't really express my deep hatred for this stereotype so I will spare you before this dark hatred overcomes my soul and oh shit too late I just killed a puppy.

The lingua. I can take it or leave it. I'm not really a fan of the stereotypical accent, especially when Mario says it.

Well, that was my little semi-offensive disseration on Italian-Americans. To make a long story short, Italy is nice but it holds no special place in me heart. And I think that's for the best.

Mommy wow! I'm a big kid now!

I'm gonna keep teasing you for a bit while longer. I'm almost done with the Brit thing but first thing's first!

I never understood why anyone wanted to be a fireman growing up. Was it the truck? The firetruck's unwieldy as fuck; only an 18-wheeler is even shakier to drive, but it makes a better explosion when it crashes into something. Was it the fire hose? That shit gets old pretty quick. Is it running into fires with an axe, beating the fire to death with it? Okay, that's pretty gnarly but there seems like there are better things one could be doing.

That said, I never wanted to be a fireman. When I was a wee tike (tyke? dyke?), I didn't even think about career shit. I was only vaguely aware of what my dad did (my mom didn't do anything at the time, career-wise). I had no idea what anyone else did. I probably thought the sisters were just there to teach me and crap. Whoa, does that mean I was unaware of their humanity? Food for thought!

The concept of "a job" probably never sunk in for me until 3rd grade. Don't be alarmed: I was a fairly stupid kid. Maybe one day I will regale you with the full width and breadth of my unbrightness (hint: It involves multiplication...). But at that point, as far as I was concerned, growing up meant doing whatever the hell you wanted to do. And for a long-ass time, I wanted to play BASEBALL!

Yes, America's pastime. It's the first sport I became aware of. Here's a bonus Adamtrivia fact for you: Despite my dad trying to make me a Mets fan, I became a Yankees fan because... I liked their color scheme more. Yes, not even the Mets appropriating Snoopy made me like them. It was all about mistaking navy blue for black. I guess I wasn't THAT stupid after all.

One of the earliest memories I have is wasting time in Montessori school pretending I was playing baseball. I got in trouble a bit over that but I didn't care. I didn't even understand the sport. All I knew was someone would hit a ball around and people would cheer and the guy would run around. As time went on, and I naturally understood the sport a bit better, I still maintained the idea I would play baseball. I was spurned on by a somewhat successful little-league career and a few choice moments as a middle school baseballer. But by 9th grade, my interest in actually chasing baseball stardom waned (as did my actual chances of even sniffing a high school baseball team, much less the Marlins. But I repeat myself).

Sports stardom is still a pretty damn cool thing, and being a sports star is my fourth-highest ideal career choice. But until and unless they made MW2 an actual sport, that's not gonna happen. Alas, we always have the real thing.

Next up: sports broadcaster. I suppose it was a natural progression from the field to the booth. But why the booth?

Well, think about it, genius. What's the only thing better than being paid to play sports? Uhhhh, maybe being paid to watch them? Yea!!! All the guys in the booth seemed to be having fun and learning shit all the time. You get to follow the team, maybe interview some players and stuff, maybe bang the mascot, the sky was the limit!

I was actually spurned on by this by doing some real-life play-by-play. BUT, this is a super mega secret. You are not ready to hear this secret. Don't ask. In time you may know, but not now.

Well it's technically not a secret, per se, but the fact is you don't know it so it's a secret to you and you don't know the proper channels to go through to learn it on your own. Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha :coughs:

Midway through high school, I figured out something even cooler than being a broadcast dude: Being a cop! Yes, I was a sucker for the whole "upholding the law," "enforcing justice" shit. I also liked solving crimes because I figured it'd be like a puzzle, except with consequences YOU TAKE TO THE GRAVE.

It helped that learning that Nassau County cops make like a quarter kajillion bucks a year, and they don't really do anything but sit by speed traps and play a game of Pull Over the Only Black Driver on Long Island. But as time wore on, being a Nassau cop didn't really appeal to me. I wanted to be a big city detective, like Richard Belzer, except real! Also I never watched L&O so none of those guys was an actual influence on me.

I still have a pretty strong sense of justice and I think that if I were given carte blanche to pop into bad guys' homes, yelling "BUST 'EM!!!", I could be a really great cop. But since that wasn't gonna happen, the desire to do this petered out shortly before senior year ended.

For 12 minutes, officially, I wanted to be Bob Ross' assistant. It seemed like such an easy job. Mix the paints, comb the hair, make sure he took his daily regimen of cocaine. But there was one critical flaw in my plan: He got died. Since his got dyingness, he was very much retired, and there's only one Bob Ross. And he's dead. There's probably like another Bob Ross, maybe some guy living in Altoona, but he doesn't paint. Well, he doesn't paint landscapes. Maybe he paints fences or something.

By the way, I entertained this thought while fighting off a particularly nasty stomach virus. I ended up winning, don't worry.

The last stop on the job hunt path thing was being the plucky journalist. Deciding to be a journalist was probably one of the most grounded decisions I've ever made (the other: Spray-painting the word "FUCK" on one of the columns in the White House. It's still there as of 2008. Go take a look!). I was good at writing and very curious about the world around me and shit. So I decided to combine the two things that I knew for sure I had in me. Voila! Journalist.

So I attended Hofstra (on a full scholarship... ladies...) due to its super-strong communications school. It worked out for me for a number of reasons, mainly by leading me down my career path, by opening me to some very interesting ideas about how the media works (even beyond journalism), and by getting me in close proximity to the sexiest goddamn reporter wannabe in the universe.

BUT. A problem arose. The actual work of journalism posed a problem. As I said in my book review of "Flat-Earth News," modern journalism is pretty much crap, at least commercial journalism. It's churn. I mean yeah, you can learn a lot of cool things while being a journalist, and your writing skills are really enhanced by being one. But you're also pressured constantly for deadlines. All day, every day, get the story in by the deadline!! I hate that shit, especially when you have to whip up some crappy little story and nobody is cooperating with your newsgathering and ugh.

That is not to say that I think I'm too goddamn good to be a mere beat reporter. But modern journalism is a constant grind to find shit that you're often resorting to, well, finding shit to work with. As an editor for a software newspaper, sometimes I read walls of text about software and all I can do is realize that a) at least 90% of it is actually PR shit, and b) it seems extremely trivial in the Big Picture.

I didn't quit on journalism. I just adjusted my perspective, and now I'm an editor. So now I can take the crappy stories (crappy subject matter, not necessarily the writer's skill, though... well, yeah) and make them at least readable. That's where my pride comes from. Yeah, I have very little of it but I'm proud of my small pride! I'M A PROUD MAN

I'm 72.9% sure that I'm set on my career. My main career, that is. One day I will pursue a side-career as a writer. I'll probably sell a grand total of 12 books. But I don't write for the money.

I write...













FOR THE WOMEN.

NEW SHOWS WATCH, or, If you're tired of waiting for that thing I promised you, it'd come faster if you replied to my FB message

It's true, give it a shot!

NEWAYZ



Fall TV. The best that could happen is that you find a show that you really like, and who knows? Maybe it'll be an all-time great. Then you get to say, "I was in on the ground floor of that bitch!" Or, maybe it'll be a really bad show, but bad in a notable way. Then you get to say, "I was in on the ground floor of that bitch!"

So I make it a point to always give shows a tryout. Not all of them, since time constraints (MLB wrapping up, NHL getting... up, etc.).

The first one up to the plate this season is "Hawaii Five-0". Don't be alarmed if that sounds familiar. Yes, it is a remake. If you don't like remakes, I don't blame you. But I figured I'd give this one a shot since it has both Scott Caan (bastard son of James Caan and a mystery woman... my bet is it's Mercedes Ruehl) and Alex O'Laughlin (last seen on "Moonlight". Don't ask). It also has Grace Park. DO THE MATH ON THAT ONE.

We're three episodes in, and unlike "Lost," which cockteased for like 20 episodes, Hawaii Five-0 (let's just call it H5O from now on, as in water) has pretty much fallen into a groove. That's not necessarily a good or bad thing. It makes my job easier, though.

H5O is your standard cop drama, WITH A TWIST. Unlike other cop dramas that usually happen in places like Los Angeles or New York or Bismarck, this one happens in Hawaii, and boy don't you forget it! No, you won't be allowed to forget it. And this is ultimately what makes H5O forgettable.

Let's turn the clock back three years to the 60s and 70s, and onward into the 90s. It was not uncommon back then for TV shows to, when they didn't have anything better to do, to have a "______ GOES HAWAIIAN!!" episode. I think it started with Gidget. Thanks a lot, Sandy.

Everybody seemingly got in on it, actually. Tiny Toons. Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers. Fucking Green Acres. Family Matters. Saved by the Bell had a MOVIE set in Hawaii. What the hell, Twin Peaks had a Hawaiian episode?

The whole point of these episodes was, well, to be filler. Easy filler. The gags write themselves! Write in some luaus, some tiki gods, volcanoes, hulu skirts, fire dancers, Japanese surprise attacks, etc., and you have an episode! Sometimes shows got away with it and actually had fun with it, but mostly a Hawaiian episode is just repetitive garbage.

That's basically what's going on with H5O. It's a cop show that's permanently stuck in a Hawaiian episode. Sure, it's not as flat-out obvious as Urkel Goes Hawaiian, but it's the only real interesting thing that's going on with H5O.

Cop dramas are basically falling into a rut. If they don't have a unique angle (CSI, NCIS) or strong characters/dialogue (The Mentalist, L&O: Goldblum!!), then they're pretty much expendable.

H5O doesn't have strong characters. I want to like O'Laughlin's and Caan's characters, but all they do is trade bitchy dialogue. They don't seem to have much chemistry. They're always sniping at each other, then making half-hearted attempts to mend the damage. Rinse. Repeat. Apply deodorant. Take a shower. Rinse and repeat again. Apply more deodorant. Realize that it's actually 5 in the morning. Go back to sleep. Wake up at 7:30. Go take a shower. Wash, rinse, repeat. Apply deodorant. Go eat breakfast. Find out there are no Lucky Charms. Throw a temper tantrum. Arrive late at work. Punch out your boss when he asks you why you were late. Leave work. Urinate on your most-hated coworker's car. Peel out in an angry hurry.

The supporting cast range from eh to ugh. Daniel DAE KIM, last seen wasting his life on Lost, shows up and actually plays a Korean character! He also seems to have perfected his English. He also doesn't do much of anything on the show. Grace Park is hot as shit but doesn't do anything, either. There are also like some other cop characters but they're never doing anything. Perhaps Hawaii is such a chill place that nobody commits crimes.

The only person who actually seems to have a personality is Caan's character, Dano. His name isn't actually Dano. It's probably Dan, but fuck if I remember any of the characters' names. No prizes for guessing if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

So yeah, Dano has moved to Hawaii from New Jersey (though he doesn't really have a New Jersey accent... should've made him come from California) with his daughter. I dunno why the mother let her daughter live in Hawaii but there you go. Dano is appropriately bombastic and he still has the sleezy charm he had when he was on Entourage.

The problem is his buddy, Alex O'Laughlin (not his character's actual name, but wouldn't it be funny if it was?), is, like, he's a human plank of wood. His character's background is that he was in the special forces, or something (the explanatory flashback has him riding in with poorly equipped Navy SEALs, but he's not in any kind of uniform, so uhhhh), and then he does something stupid that causes his dad to get shot by a white terrorist. And he's all mad about that. Then he comes to Hawaii to be a cop.

Conveniently, in the first episode, he tracks down the guy who killed his dad and arrests him. Yeah.

It's not that O'Laughlin is like this brooding mope. He's just lacking personality. He picks fights with Dano because he doesn't like his antics, but he's not particularly angry at Dano or anything. It's hard to explain. The point is he's not a really mysterious guy, he's just so poorly written than not even the writers are sure who the fuck he's supposed to be.

I won't even get into the stories in the episodes I've seen so far. They're pretty standard fare. Nothing particularly clever happens in any of them. The action scenes aren't anything special, either.

So what the hell was CBS banking on to carry this show? Its setting. Yet, ironically, the setting really has nothing to do with the show. It could just as easily take place in Brooklyn or Campeche or Novosibirsk, just change up the background characters, maybe change the weather a little, and force Daniel Dae Kim to learn Russian. It won't matter. The only tangible thing the setting does is it a) gives the characters an excuse to fight the Triads/Yakuza and b) give the characters excuse to go surfing. And really, b) isn't even remotely exclusive to Hawaii, it's just that that's the only thing you can do up there (other than kayak in lava or something).

It's not that Hawaii can't be an interesting place. Really, Dae Kim's and Park's characters probably could carry the show by themselves if it bothered to focus in on their backgrounds more instead of the dunderheaded leads. But the show is so completely lacking in imagination that I really wonder why anyone bothered.

Incidentally, I have no idea if the original show is anything like this. Bizarrely, the title cards have that same goofy intro theme, but the show is not really light-hearted. Certainly not on the level of NCIS: LA.

If they wanted to remake the series, maybe it would've been better to set it in the 70s again? No, no of course not, the setting's not the problem. This show could take place in a land that's literally made out of chocolate, and it could have an all-star cast and shit, and it would still be a dud. It's the writers. Nothing more needs to be said.

So when you return to the United States, now sporting a horrifying blend of cockney/Birming'm in your accent, you'll know to give this shit a wide berth.

Hawaii Five-0? More like, Hawaii not a Five, but a 0!!! YES FINALLY I GET TO USE THAT JOKE.

In Pursuit of the Typing Angel

The record I hold is 96 wpm. That's words per minute for the uninitiated. Now that is a score. If you're writing something up and you're on a roll, you can churn out 15 pages in 30 minutes with that bad boy. I should know. I did it once. :breathes on knuckles: :rubs knuckles on shirt:

In elementary school, they attempted to teach us typing skills. Well, they attempted to teach ME typing skills, but by the time I hit the third grade, their recommendations actually retarded my skills. Yes, I remember being forced, FORCED, to glue all five of my fingers to the start positions. After I came in near-last in my first bout of typing racer, I said FUCK THIS, got sent to the principal, came back from the principal, then dominated everyone by going rogue.

How did I do it? Simple. I had a shitload of high-quality practice. I played Sierra adventure games.


Back in the late 80s and early 90s, Sierra churned these bad boys out on a fairly regular basis. Sierra adventure games usually had the player control a dude (occasionally a dudette) in a psuedo-3D environment. You would walk around areas using the arrow keys (num lock off if you were pro), and to interact with the environment, you'd have to type out commands.

There basic ones, like LOOK, or TAKE [object], or FUCK. FUCK usually didn't do anything but the Sierra guys were creative enough to admonish you for your nasty language.

The three main franchises were Police Quest (pictured above), King's Quest and Space Quest. Pretty fairly obvious what motifs were going on in those games. Sierra games were challenging in two ways:

1) They could be esoteric as hell. Here's an example of a puzzle from Police Quest. It's a fairly simple one, but if you screw it up, you lose:

When you first get your police cruiser, you have to literally walk around it in a circle to perform your car check. Then you can get in it and safely drive away. Failure to walk around it will lead to the car getting a flat tire as soon as it pulls out of the police station, and your game is over. Yup. Mercifully, this puzzle comes near the very beginning.

(Of course, Police Quest was written to reflect real-life police procedures, so if you were a cop, you wouldn't be caught off-guard by some of the shit you'd have to do in the game to progress.)

And that's only a simple example. Try to get through a game like King's Quest without a manual, and you are up shit creek my friend. And we were expected to get through those games WITHOUT shit like GameFAQs (though for a small fee you could call Sierra's tipline).

The other challenge w-- oh, forgot I'm doing the number thing

2) Typing speed!!


Once in a while you'd run into a situation in the game where you needed to think fast. Sometimes it'd be as simple as a monster appearing on screen, and you'd have to just run off the screen to get away from it. Other times, though, you'd have to do something, which meant you'd have to type something, and fast!

I remember the early days of trying that shit out. Uh oh, the Labion Terror Beast has appeared, and there's no escape! I better THROW CUBIX RUBE! Uh oh, hurry up, he's coming!

Hunting and pecking was not gonna cut it. Yes, in more than a few areas, Sierra brought the pain, and if you couldn't at least type at 30 wpm, you were deader than dead.

And that is how I really honed my typing skills, through sheer survival. None of this "type the words in to make your car go faster, but avoid mistakes!" When I was 6 years old, I was in the trenches, learning not just typing itself, but words and rudimentary sentences. I'm pretty sure Sierra did more to improve my syntax, spelling and vocabulary than my kindergarten teachers did. Sorry Sr. Margaret Mary!


The ultimate test is depicted above. In this scenario, Roger Wilco (you) is stuck in a trap. The floor panel is slowly sliding away, revealing a vat of acid for you to fall in. The only chance you have is to use your plunger on the near wall (but not too early, or else Roger's grip weakens and he falls in) and hang on for dear life until the trap deactivates.

The first time I encountered this trap I-- well, I freakin' died because I didn't know what to do. But the SECOND time I encountered it, I figured using the plunger would work. Except the game wouldn't take PUT PLUNGER ON WALL, STICK PLUNGER TO WALL, PLUNGER WALL, USE PLUNGER, JUST FUCKING PUT THE PLUNGER ON THE WALLL FUCK YOU as acceptable answers. But I think it was that particular moment that my fingers finally, through sheer panic-induced survival instincts, memorized the location of the keys and became automatic. After that scene, my typing became less a conscious act and more an extension of my thoughts, no different than speaking or giving the finger.

This method of training, though, is pretty much completely gone from the video game landscape, which I guess is not a surprise. Sierra adventure games persisted throughout the 90s, but they became a bit less challenging in certain key respects (Space Quest 3 would pause the game and summon a command prompt whenever you started tpying, removing those tense life-or-death speed-typing situations). Then they became outright point-and-click adventures, which introduced their own challenges.

Modern games still force players to use hand-eye coordination and logical thinking, but the death of the command-line adventure game has dismantled an overlooked way of teaching kids typing skills. Now that texting is here to stay, kids don't need to spell properly and shit. You wouldn't get anywhere in King's Quest if you kept trying to TK TO WTCH. Then again, kids don't need proper syntax anyway, so screw them.

So that's at least ONE thing my generation has over the next. I look forward to running into those bastard whippersnappers on the battlefield someday. Then we'll see who's laughing when it comes time to USE PLUNGER ON WALL.