Some people are a little bit unhappy about the very slow rollout of broadband in the UK. This guy was clearly none too happy when he registered for updates on broadband status in his area, but now his wish has come true!

On a similar note, some of the fun things you can do with those spare fields for address lines in on-line registration forms...

AMD buys NVIDIA? Read this important press release for yourself...

Apparently, wearing glasses impairs your hearing. "...I finally tracked it down to the sound bouncing around between my glasses and my eyes before being reflected into my ears"

Some kind-hearted cupid ought to introduce this guy to this girl.

Why you should always check behind you at the screen, when giving a laptop-projector based presentation...

I once heard a (probably apocryphal) story about a terribly decadent pop star who, back in the 60's, when this sort of thing presumably happened all the time, purchased an original Da Vinci pencil sketch, and (this is the great bit) erased it. Philistine, nihilist, art critic - take your pick.

Anyway, I bring this up only because of the confluence of two other bits of information:

1) this article on CNN (is it just me, or has anyone else had the experience of typing in "netscape.com" and finding themselves thinking "hey, how'd I end up at CNN's site", or vice versa? Yeahmanitellyawhat that dang ole' AOLTimeWarnerNetscapeCNN ya talk about SonyVivendiUniversal one them NewsCorpReutersBSkyBMSNBC just one big ole' conglomerate ...) and

2) The perps are clearly related to one of our own, via Ellis Island.

I've recently been annoyed by emails from a guy at work, addressed to a general mailing list. He's rather strident, and somewhat critical in his tone (he's French - who'da thunkit?), and yet his English is imperfect. I wanted to reply to him in the same imperfect style of English, but every time I tried to compose something, it came out sounding rather stilted. So, thought I, perhaps I could enlist AltaVista's famed Babelfish!

Here's the original:

I think your guesses are correct about our JavaScript interpreter, but you should check with Tony for the latest

which Babelfish rendered in French as:

Je pense vos conjectures suis correct au sujet de notre interprete de Javascript, mais vous devriez verifier avec Tony le plus en retard

So far so good. Now let's turn that back to English:

I think your conjectures am correct about our interpret of Javascript, but would owe you verify with late Tony more

Hmm. Pretty good, but it's starting to unravel, which, of course, is like a red rag to a bull to me. Let's translate it into German now. Incidentally, it's a shame Tony had to die, but it's all in a good cause.

Ich denke Ihre Vermutungen, die morgens, die ueber unser korrekt sind, vom Javascript deuten, aber wuerde Sie ueberpruefe mit spaetem Tony mehr verdanken

(See where the "morgens" bit comes from? The poor Babelfish could only interpret the weirdly verbed "am" as the conventional abbreviation for "ante meridiem". So now the whole thing takes place in the morning). So, for good measure, back to English, though, at this point, it's hardly fair to really call it English any more ...

I think your assumptions, which interpret in the morning, which are correct over ours, from the Javascript, but will you examine with late Tony more to owe

Damn! This thing is clearly on a roll. With cheese, and a slice of tomato. And a garnish of psilocybe ... so what now? Clearly, given that we've tried French and German, and I don't know Italian, Korean or Japanese (which doesn't stop me from speaking those languages, you understand, especially when drunk. Amazing how alcohol gives one such a flair for language, don't you think?), but I do know a little Spanish (she cleans my office), so let's spin the wheel again:

Pienso sus asunciones, que interpretan por la man~ana, que son excedente correcto el nuestros, del Javascript, solamente voluntad que usted examina con u'ltimo Tony m'as para deber

And finally, back to the mother tongue.

I think its assumptions, that they interpret by the tomorrow, that is excessive correct ours, of the Javascript, only will that you examine with I complete Tony but for having

Perfecto!

You too can build a supercomputer from spare, irritating parts found around the house.

Man, I wish I figured this out first.

A long time ago, in an allegory far far away...

This guy loves spam. Lots and lots of it. Not really surprising as he owns an Internet marketing company. Obviously, some editorial oversight has meant that his email address got accidentally deleted from the article, so to set the record straight it's BDennis410@AOL.com. That's BDennis410@AOL.com, for all you blog trawling, address hunting webspiders out there.

Angry young SlipKnot lookalike miffed that his iMac can't play Celine Dion CD's. Film at 11.

Apparently, Eejits are unparliamentary. You've got to admire Sir James Kilfedder, former speaker for the Northern Ireland Assembly though. When asked whether or not it was in order for a Member to "act the eejit", he ruled "The Member is not acting." In case you're unsure on usage, here's an example courtesy of Father Ted's Father Dougal, and notes from the BBC.

Kids'n'Fun'n'Guns!

Now available for download: STD Defender 2002 Screensaver ...

"Test your skills at STD Defender while testing your knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases. As you zap the viruses and bacteria, information will pop up and show you what you need to know about STDs."

The Onion gets into the spirit of the Silver Jubilee of the Queen's Silver Jubilee:

It's not terribly well-written, nor does it even offer very interesting game-play, but at least it's in poor taste. Thanks, John.

Ever seen those war movies where the guy throws himself on a grenade to save his best buddies? Well, the new iMacs are just those kind of guys - to save you from a fate worse than death, they heroically expire by choking on your Celine Dion CD's. I can't wait to see the CGI Apple ad for that one!

Slipknot fans get more than they bargained for on-line - little old ladies!

Verisign

Remember those TV shows that Japan created that caused seizures? Remember Steve Ballmer prancing about the stage at a Microsoft meeting? Remember all those tabs of acid you took? All I can say is, "Developers!"

For all you iApple users, who don't believe that anything iCupertino has ever put out could be associated with iCrap, I give you the iToilet...

Further proof that verbing weirds language.

Worth a read - honest lawyers!

Ah, just what I always needed. I can turn my whole word into porn with just a few clicks of the mouse. See? Even the venerable Washington Post can be improved with a liberal use of cursewords and lewd sexual references.