Happy 4th of July
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Today is Independence Day in the US, the 4th of July. It's a national holiday here and marks the anniversary that this country declared their independence from England in 1776. An important holiday in the US, full of patriotism, Bar-B-Qs outside, and baseball.
It's not just the US, but every country around the world was affected by the actions in 1776 as the US has grown to exert a huge influence around the world, good or bad for you to decide, but undeniably an influence.
Each country has it's own day of celebration devoted to that country. And they are a great time to be proud of your heritage and the country that you come from. As busy as we get in our lives, especially in the technology business, we need to remember to take a few minutes away from work and remember the other things in our lives that are important. For me that's my family, but it's also my country. A place I love, and I cherish the time I have here.
So it's a holiday in the US, not likely to respond to many posts today, but for those of you in the US, Happy 4th!!! And those in other countries, I wish you well and enjoy the celebration on your particular day.
Steve Jones
Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/way0utwest
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My Blog: www.voiceofthedba.com -
7/2/25 Thanks Steve, sitting here in my usual state of mental alertness I read your post and panicked as my daughter is flying in on the 2nd and I have to pick her up at the airport. Thought I had lost a couple of days being overly involved in a project. (it would not be the first time the days have a way of blending together where it is hard to tell day from night and day from day) grabed the phone and had her lol at me. The last time this happened was on her birthday when I called at 4 am thinking it was 4pm. Which she was very quick to remind me. It will take 40 years for her to get over that one.
Anyway now that I am wide awake and alert have a great 4th.
Mike
Mike
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On behalf of the Home Office (London, UK) to the People of America.
To the citizens of the United States of America, In the light of your failure to elect a suitable President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence,effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other
territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy.
Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1.a. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
1 b. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters.
1 c. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z'(pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise".
1 d. You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary
to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed".
1 e. There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad
language as often.
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2 a. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.
2 b. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize".
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3 a. You should learn to distinguish the British and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. British accents are not limited to Cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier).
3 b. You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles.
3 c. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon". If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.
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4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast British actors to play British characters. British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.
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5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
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6 a.You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game.
6 b. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005.
6 c. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders" which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.
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7 a. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 97.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky.
7 b. The Russians have never been the bad guys.
7 c. "Merde" is French for "Shit".
7 d. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle
potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
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8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in Britain. It will be called "Indecisive Day".
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9 a.All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
9 b. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts.
9 c. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the
British sense of humour.
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10 a. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps". Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat.
10 b. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer, which should be served warm and flat.
10 c. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.
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11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.
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12 a. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer", and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager".
12 b. The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine", with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine". This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Ceské Budejovicé a.k.a. Budweis, Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.
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13 a. From December 1st the UK will harmonise petrol (or "Gasoline" as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA.
13 b. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon - get used to it).
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14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by
adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.
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15.Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.
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Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776). Thank you for your cooperation.
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Thanks for your kind offer. However, being un-civilized savages who enjoy both baseball and football we must refuse.
If the English would like to join the rest of the world in consuming cold beer we would gladly send our engineers over to teach you about refrigeration. Since you have failed to repay the loans from World War II we will of course have to insist on cash preferably in the currency of a country that produces products we actually want to buy German Marks would be nice.
It was nice of you to suggest that we buy German automobiles they indeed make a fine product. I assume you are speaking from personal experience probably based on the fact that you find English automobiles to be inferior. I would like to suggest that you should be careful as to which pub you express your views in. Drinking warm beer has been known to affect not only the kidneys but the brain as well. Some of your countrymen may not be amused. As the English are not considered responsible enough to carry firearms the chance of your being shot are slim but you might wake up with an additional knot or two on your head not that you would notice.
The language barrier is a problem but if you should ever decide to cross the great pond I will be happy to suggest the translators I use when visiting New York and Boston. As one of these gentlemen comes from Texas and the other from Georgia I would suggest you take care in expressing your English arrogance as they do carry guns.
Have a great 4th.
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.BTW if you nuke Quebec yours truly will not be here anymore to save your arse when you screw up a query
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Thank you for your suggestions Boreades, but: "Neaner, neaner, neaner... we won."
(Albeit, that was a pretty good rant...)
I wasn't born stupid - I had to study.
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Boreades: I do agree with most of what you say (apologies to all my American friends) for I frequently suffer a lot of pain when I read emails from top level executives who display a complete disregard & ignorance for the difference between “their” and “there”; “where” & “were”, “right” & “write”…as for the apostrophes and their misuse…that’s a whole new story. However, in justification, here’s a “third party” perspective….
1) Where it matters, the Americans do retain –ise: (surpize, surprize ?? <:-))
Circumcise, compromise, exercise, exorcise and improvise.
2) You should not have the gall to comment on food (chips or fries or anything else) – there is no such thing as the “British cuisine” and the phrase is considered an oxymoron by the culinary minded – (read: neighbours from across the Channel) – I give you a quote from today’s newspaper:
"We can't trust people who have such bad food," Chirac was quoted as saying. He reportedly added that only Finland had worse food, and that mad cow disease was Britain's sole contribution to European agriculture.”
3) Most of the food that you enjoy all across Britain comes from India – the chutneys and the curries, the basmati and the mulligatawny!!! And did I mention all that tea that you import from us ?!
4) You incorporated many Indian words into your vocabulary but never gave us any recognition for them….all the “gurus” and “pundits” out there will tell you that “avatar” is as much an Indian word as the “loot” that may be stashed in a “jungle” or the airy “verandah” in your “bungalow”!!!
5) How do you expect anyone to learn the language when it is so ridden with inconsistencies – why is “ough” so vastly different in each of these words - rough, through, though, cough, plough, thought – what about “now” & “know”, “put” and “but”, “to” and “go” ?!?!
6) Why is Worcester pronounced like Bertie’s last name (from P.G Wodehouse you ignoramous) – as for Harwich & Greenwich – what’s up with that ?!?!
7) Go back to professor Higgins to learn a few lessons on the English language:
“Set a good example
To people whose English is painful to your ears
The Scots and the Irish leave you close to tears
There even are places where English completely disappears
In America they haven't used it for years”
8) WHY – in this crazy language – do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway ?! Where’s the logic in a nose that can run and feet that can smell?!
9) ANYONE who drinks warm beer should be slowly peeled to death – preferably with a vegetable peeler – in public - to set an example to everyone else who dares commit this blasphemy!!!
10) The Americans may have failed to elect a suitable President…but have you checked Tony Blair’s nose lately….it’s as brown as the Indians that you once ruled over!!!
For Mike – I’ve been away for 3 days and I suffered each of the withdrawal symptoms that you said Remi’s going to face the next couple of weeks.<:-(
Ps: I so needed a good laugh for these past few days have been very rough – I apologise for introducing a note of sobriety to this post but the original post forgot to include the “worst healthcare system in the whole world” in his tirade against America – My mother had a freak accident 3 days ago, cut open her head on the asphalt and the cat scans have now revealed subdural hematoma – now we spend the next 3-4 weeks not only worrying that it doesn’t lead to further nightmarish complications but also about how on earth we’re ever going to be able to afford the mammoth bills that are bound to come our way – for you may be the mother of a U.S citizen and you may also be a “resident alien” (whoopee!!!) but unless you’ve personally paid into the tax system you’re not eligible for any health insurance…this may well turn out to be a situation where our life savings are wiped out in paying the bills and we’re forced to pack our bags and head back to India…but then again, with all the outsourcing going on maybe that’s not so bad….!!! <:-)
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Two things...
1) I am grateful we "elected" this President. Kerry would have sued the terrorists and gotten them into therapy. Actually, I am even more conservative than Bush portrays himself. I like Rumsfield, Cheney, and love Condi Rice! I am sorely disappointed in the lack of back-bone of the Republicans, though...
2) What agencies have you contacted with repect to your mother? Medicaid and Medicare 'may' offer alternatives for your bills. I would highly recommend you look into one of these agencies. It would be my guess that a number of people who post here are now or have in the past, worked for agencies that do provide assistance for high medical bills. Hopefully they will come across this post and give you good advice.
I sincerely hope you are able to find an alternative! Are you living in the US and the IRS has not FORCED you to pay taxes? I am stunned... They are the greediest, worst run, and most powerful arm of the government. (I just read an article where it was finally published that they "lied" about a court ruling which went against them..., funny, never heard about that on ABC, CBS, or NBC...).
I wasn't born stupid - I had to study.
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Farrell - thanks for the suggestions...medicare is not an option because my mother has never worked in the U.S (or anywhere else for that matter) & hasn't paid any taxes...
medicaid is not an option because she is not a U.S citizen...
I have been paying taxes (to uncle Sam) for the last 8 yrs but that doesn't count...I've been looking for loopholes in the system for the past 5 years and haven't come across any!
oh well...at least there's this site for a few laughs and more...helps keep my sanity intact!!!
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
Is your mother a US resident? If so, check into Social Security. You may be surprised at what they can offer.
(I will put you on my prayer list..., I am probably better at that than being funny...
) I wasn't born stupid - I had to study.
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Farrell - as I said - have explored ALL options...yes, she is a permanent resident...have knocked on the SS door...they want to see some greenbacks...hers' not mine!
Prayer list is great! Thanks!
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
Here's the right response to the original Brit post from Boreades:
TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND:
We welcome your concern about our electoral process. It must be exciting for you to see a real Republic in action, even if from a distance. As always we're amused by your quaint belief that you're actually a world power. The sun never sets on the British Empire! Right-o chum!
However, we regretfully have to decline your offer for intervention. On the other hand, it would be amusing to see you try to enforce your new policy (for the 96.3% of you that seem to have forgotten that you have little to no real power). After much deliberation, we have decided to continue our tradition as the longest running democratic republic. It seems that switching to a monarchy is in fact considered a "backwards step" by the majority of the world.
To help you rise from your current anachronistic status, we have compiled a series of helpful suggestions that we hope you adopt:
1. Realize that language is an organic structure, and that you aren't always correct in your pronunciation or spelling. Let's use your "aluminium" example. Sir Humphrey Davy (an Englishman) invented the name "aluminum" (note spelling) for the metal. However, in common usage the name evolved into "aluminium" to match the naming convention of other elements. In 1925 the United States decided to switch back to the original spelling and pronunciation of the word, at which point we dominated the aluminum industry. We'd also like to point out that the process of actually producing aluminum was developed by an American and a Frenchman (not an Englishman). However, we'd like to thank you for the Oxford English Dictionary. It's an interesting collection, considering that over 10,000 of the words in the original edition were submitted by a crazy American civil-war veteran called Dr. William Charles Minor.
2. Learn to distinguish the American and Canadian accents, and then we'll talk about the English and Australian accent issue.
3. Review your basic arithmetic. (Hint 100 - 98.85 = 1.15 and 100 - 97.85 = 2.15)
4. If you want English actors as good guys, then make your own movies. Don't rely on us for your modern popular culture. We liked "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels", "Trainspotting", and "The Full Monty". We've also heard good things about this "Billy Elliot". But one good movie a year doesn't exactly make a cultural powerhouse. However, you're doing pretty well with music, so keep up the good work on that front.
5. It's inefficient to have a national anthem that changes its title whenever your monarch dies. Let's not forget that your national anthem has an extremely boring tune. We suggest switching to that Rule Brittania ditty, it's toetapping. Or maybe Elton John could adapt "Candle In The Wind" again for you guys.
6. Improve at your national sport. Football? Soccer? This just in: United States gets fourth place in men's soccer at the 2000 Summer Olympics. United Kingdom? Not even close. By the way, impressive showing at Euro 2000. You almost managed to get through the tournament without having your fans start an international incident.
7. Learn how to cook. England has some top notch candy. Salt 'n' Vinegar chips are quite yummy. However, there's a reason why the best food in your country is Indian or Chinese. Your contributions to the culinary arts are soggy beans, warm beer, and spotted dick. Perhaps when you finally realize the French aren't the spawn of Satan they'll teach you how to cook.
8. You're doing a terrible job at understanding cars. The obvious error is that you drive on the wrong side of the road. A second problem is pricing, it's cheaper to buy a car in Belgium and ship it to England than to buy a car in England. On the other hand, we like Jaguars and Aston Martins. That's why we bought the companies.
9. We'll tell you who killed JFK when you apologize for "Teletubbies".
Thank you for your time. You can now return to watching bad Australian soap operas.
PS: regarding WW2: You're Welcome.
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Can't think of anything to add
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I did:
AMEN!
* Noel -
And here's my .02 for the day....
HTH!!!
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!**
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