dr worm

Lyrics to Dr. Worm by They Might be Giants.

They call me Dr. Worm.
Good morning. How are you? I'm Dr. Worm.
I'm interested in things.
I'm not a real doctor
But I am a real worm.
I am an actual worm.
I live like a worm.
I like to play the drums.
I think I'm getting good
But I can handle criticism.

Brilliant!

klpd in cardiff

Not sure who decided to stage an ODI in Wales, but the first Pak-Eng match was rained out today after a great performance by ma boys. Just as they were well on their way to a solid win, it started to come down... hmmmm....

Sadly, I also ended up at position 152 for the match in the fantasy league. Bother.

All in all, an 'anti-climatic' (ha ha ha) finish.

keeping your hair on

Excerpts from a hilarious piece in the Guardian about Darrell Hair's potential future as a reality TV star:

"Though fair and balanced members of the Australian commentariat (and is there another kind?) have rallied strongly behind the beleaguered official, some naysayers in Britain and in Pakistan have suggested that if he and his colleagues fail to produce sufficient evidence of Pakistani ball-tampering during the ICC inquiry, Darrell will be effectively be "finished".

What nonsense. Precedent - in fact the entire drive of contemporary culture - suggests that should the unthinkable happen, it will be a matter of days, if not minutes, before he begins his new career as a reality TV star. The sole purpose of the modern medium, for Guardian readers still clinging to dinosaur channels such as BBC4 and Artsworld, is to prove that there are always second acts. It's not optional: it's the rules. So if Darrell may be assured of anything in these difficult hours, it is that smirking, jaded telly executives are even now dreaming up vehicles for him, probably running along the following lines:

-- Hair Force
One. Armed with only a copy of the Geneva Convention, no-nonsense Darrell is parachuted into various global troublespots, where he must play diplomat between warring factions and attempt to broker a peaceful solution. The problem with being an international umpire, Darrell once remarked, is that "you have to travel to places where you are out of your comfort zone", so producers are banking on fish-out-of-water hilarity to ensue.

-- That's Just Hairsay! Madcap linguistic quiz show in which Darrell presides over two teams; with panellists to include Freddie orsyth, Dennis Wise and Su Pollard. Slated rounds include "Is that a euphemism you're tampering with in your pocket?", where teams must tease out the meanings behind popular newspaper expressions like "holds robust views", "is Australian" and "has made controversial calls in several matches featuring sides from the Indian subcontinent".

-- Hairlooms. Valuation show in which members of the public are invited to offer up treasured items for Darrell's consideration. He must decide swiftly whether the artefact in question dates back to the Ming dynasty, or was in fact fashioned by Janet Ellis on Blue Peter circa 1984; any dispute on the matter will result in the object being immediately and permanently forfeited. Unreasonable? It's the rules."

profit margins

Interesting fact:

If you spend $100 at a restaurant, the server gets an average of $15-20. The restaurant itself, on the other hand, makes a paltry profit of five bucks.

Even worse, turns out if you spend the same amount on groceries, the store makes even less, only two dollars, in profit.

Hmm.. Selling food is harder than I thought..

source: econ4u.org

the story of bulbar

By popular demand, here is The Story of Bulbar in it's original form.

"bulbar was a choot... he had five fingers and no friends... or was it no fingers and five friends... that i do not know.... smiley face....ever since i met bulbar he was a misguided foool... not to be harsh but hey cho\\oot thats the museum face.... not bulbar!!! he screamed above the noise of the alligators... didn';t you see, it was bulbar all along??? yeah, i guess i knew all along, said the guy.... why? not todayyy//... bulbar... ohhooooo... like a song my choot....bulbar..... not bad yaaar ... said the friend of bulbar...... i haunt you... bit like the weezer song... bulbaaaaaaaaar jinsenf...\\\\feff.... said bulbar... sorry kayge... you said bulbar... i said whispering chinese... not chinese qwhispers... why??? bulbar said so that ss why.... not bulbar again!!! so i sett;ed it with the courts.... wait for bulbar.... hes a star...on the car.... debate for bulbar when the sun is in in the stars bum bum!!!! waking up like bul;bar he said muthafucka waitup its bulbar bul;bar bulabr

pepsi pepsi pepsi mujhe lu\oge bolein...; hi peppsi hello bulbar loge bolian i aint an actor im not a star and i dont even have my own car./

...im nnooooooooooooooot bulbaaaaaaaaar tonight

im nottttttt bulbarrrrrrrrrr agaiiiiiinnn toooo naaaaiiightt...bulbarr

bulbar is in my car i told bulbar just sleeeeppp i ate a bar
i had a cigar

bulbar but now i sleeeeieieieieieieieeeeep

dhun dhun"

--- 12 Sep 05

michael schumacher is a pizza delivery guy

So I tried looking for the English translation to Applausi Per Fibra. Didn't find it, but I did come across a forum where they were discussing the linguistic origins of the song Dragostea Din Tei by O-Zone. (The one that goes numa numa yay etc). The song is actually Romanian, but there seems to be some disagreement on this forum, to say the least...

Of course, I didn't have a chance to read through all bloody 57 pages of it, but here are some choice excerpts:

"Saying to romanian people that the song is in chinese ... is like going to Michael Schumacher and telling him that he isn’t driving in F1 competition... he is a pizza delivery guy..."

"U kno how sum languages sound thet same. Like spanish and i think its french or italian sounds the same(i cant remember which 1) Maybe it just sounds like spanish but may not be spalled the same. or it could be a mix of different languages. And the song has been made over so it may have been made over in spanish english french etc. but the original song is romanian. Im not saying im right sum1 else could be right but this is what i think and i hope this helps a little. Imnot saying u have 2 believe me or anything its ur opinion and u can believe whatever u want."

"I’m a romanian.... and if you say that i am chinese, german ,spanish or french i think i would still say that i am romanian... this is what you are doing... you are telling me that i’m not a romanian .. and this is not my language... is like telling you that shakespeare was bulgarian, caravaggio was from turkey, napoleon was the ruller of russia... whouldn’t you english, italian and french people get iritated?"

"ITS FUCKIN ROMANIAN U DICKS! IM HUNGARIAN BUT LIVE IN NZ! I WENT TO HUNGARY IN THE SUMMER AND IT’S FUCKIN ROMANIAN!"

"lol omg you are all idiots, and its more funny when someone talks like they know what they are saying, and they think they are right, its fucking arabian you idiots, if you watch the news now adays, youll hear some of these words in the background. i am an indian, i would know"

Amazing...

applausi applausi

...PER FIBRA FIBRA FIBRA FIBRA...

Behold Applausi Per Fibra by Italian Hip Hop artist Fabri Fibra. Funky name, fantastic song. The video's not bad either. Now if only I could understand the lyrics...

michael holding

I always thought Holding was a hater. Turns out he's totally awesome. Here are some excerpts from what he wrote in India Today:

"I have absolute and all sympathy with Inzamam-ul Haq. If you label someone a cheat, please arrive with the evidence."

"There is a double standard at work in cricket and this episode has only highlighted it. When England used reverse-swing to beat the Australians in the 2005 Ashes, everyone said it was great skill. When Pakistan does it, the opposite happens, no one thinks it is great skill. Everyone associates it with skullduggery. "

"When bombs go off in Karachi and Colombo everyone wants to go home. When bombs go off in London, no one says anything. That is first-world hypocrisy and we have to live with it."

Respect.

twenty20

Thus far I've been vehemently opposed to the 20-20 format being adopted on an international level, but very pro domestic 20-20s, mainly because I think it lowers the level of the game to just a notch above baseball. But I just watched my first International 20-20 (Eng-Pak) and I have to admit that it was quite exciting and thoroughly enjoyable. Although I wonder if I'd still have said that if we hadn't won convincingly...

I do love how the umpires look so hip and cool with shades on in the middle of a gloomy English late afternoon.. hah! One umpire made a couple of bad lbw decisions... I guess for a 20-20 umpire he doesn't exactly have "20-20" vision! hahahahah..... um.... yeah....

good-looking cricketers

Omar is always harping about how hot certain cricketers are.. Here's my compilation of his top 5:

1. Alistair Cook (ENG)
2. Stuart Broad (ENG)
3. Shahid Afridi (PAK)
4. Simon Jones (ENG)
5. Daniel Vettori (NZ)

learning urdu

Here are some excerpts from what Wikipedia lists as the difficulties faced by English speakers in learning Urdu:

" -- The phonetic mechanism of some sounds peculiar to Urdū. The distinction between aspirated and unaspirated consonants will be difficult for English speakers. In addition, the distinction between dental and alveoloar (or retroflex) consonants will also pose problems.

-- Pronunciation of vowels: In English, unstressed vowels tend to have a "schwa" quality. The pronunciation of such vowels in English is changed to an "uh" sound; this is called reducing a vowel sound.

-- The 'a' ending of many gender-masculine words of native origin, due to romanisation, is highly confused by non-native speakers, because the short 'a' is dropped in Urdū (i.e. honā).

-- The Verbal concordance; Urdū exhibits split ergativity; see Ergative-absolutive language for an example.

-- Relative-correlative constructions. In English interrogative and relative pronouns are the same word. In "Who are you?" the word "who" is an interrogative, or question, pronoun. In "My friend who lives in Sydney can speak Urdū," the word "who" is not an interrogative, or question-pronoun. It is a relative, or linking-pronoun. In Urdū, there are different words for each. "

Ummmm.... What the fuck are they talking about?? Ergativity?? Relative Correlative constructions?? The poor blogspot spellchecker went nuts! If native english speakers could only understand this article they might have a better shot at learning Urdu...

addendum

Ok so talking about it got me angry again.

Why does the PCB continue to undermine the team in order to keep everyone else happy? I say enough is enough, and it's time to make a point. Be firm with assholes like Darrell Hair for once so they know not to mess. The only thing firm right now is the ICC's dick, as Shahriyar Khan goes about the task of licking it personally. There was no need for him to convince the team to go back out to play, because that shifted the focus to us begging for the match to continue, rather than us demanding proof. But this has been discussed to death, by everyone, so I will say no more.

Whatever. I hope our team kicks ass. Win a 5-0 series and go home with dignity well and truly intact. Inzamam Zindabad.

popping my cherry

In order to gain support for my blog idea, I convinced Omar to create his own blog. Turns out he already had two. Both had one post each. The two posts had a total of three words between them.

His latest attempt, following my encouragement yesterday, is this.

Umm.. yeah.

In other news, Darrell Hair is a choot. I was going to write a long scathing piece about him, but thankfully my rage has subsided slightly. At least it's no longer like last Sunday, when I was nearly catatonic and threw a bottle of pomegranate juice on my bed. Luckily it was nearly empty, because otherwise not only would my bed have been a mess, it would also have been worth like a million dollars more, given the exorbitant price they charge for that shit. $4.99 a bottle my ass.

For now, I have only this to say: I wish I could accuse an athlete of cheating, not provide any proof, and then in the subsequent ruckus ask my employer to give me a half million bucks to never have to work again.

And why does everyone keep talking about how he was 'technically following the rules.' Of course he's following the fucking rules, because the rules basically say "the umpire can do whatever he wants whenever he wants." Evidently, if Darrell Hair feels like taking a piss on Inzamam's shoe in the middle of the pitch, he will still be following the rules... of course, if Inzi protests, he will probably be charged with 'bringing the umpire's dick into disrepute.'

Asshole.

here it is

Yo. This is my blog.