Dish's Delightfully Deranged and Deliciously Deliquent Random Banter # 106

[Player_Zero]

On test seatings and complications therein; Sod's law in action.

Tests here are fairly relaxed in the way that you can leave once you are finished. But now consider that there are 400 seats in every test and each one will be filled. Should you be sitting in the middle of a row and be finished before the rest then you must disturb them by ask them to stand up while you move past.

Now, consider that I have no idea how long it may take me to finish a test. If it was an easy chapter then I may very well be done within the first 20 minutes, but if I'm not feeling particularly inspired then it may take me up to 45 minutes. And every time I get it wrong. Last time I sat in the exact middle of a row and finished first. Before that I sat at the end and had to stand up multiple times to let people past. And while you may scoff and say that it is indeed my fault that I cannot predict the time I will take, I am of the belief that the test changes difficulty depending on where I sit.

[ghost_warlock]

Dark City was so much superior to the Matrix, in mine own opinion.

Dark City is one of my Top-10 favorite movies. None of my friends/family seem to like it, though. The fools have no taste!

Speaking of Riff-Raff (sort of), I was at work the other night and one of my co-workers was watching old re-runs of Roseanne. All of the sudden, who should walk into the set but Tim Curry! I had no idea he'd ever done a cameo on that show!

This, of course, sparked a conversation during which my co-worker revealed that she had no idea who he was. How is that possible!? How can anyone go through life not having seen the film-version of RHPS!?

[bosssmiley]

Am I right in thinking Christopher Columbus was a Dalmatian?

Maybe in the cartoon version of "1492: Conquest of Paradise". IRL he was Genoese, and you know he gesticulated wildly while piloting the Santa Maria across the Atlantic to distant Cathay.

[Oregano]

Huh, no idea where I heard that.

I'm soo tired after college for some reason, hardly did any work as well.

[UncleWolf]

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This one can TUNE.
I always thought the similarity to the Matrix was hilarious. Kiefer Sutherland's first call to John Murdoch always makes me think "Outside the window, there is a scaffold.

I have a horrible habit of staying up late and not doing my homework for my class at 10:00, so I have to wake up at 7:00 AM to do my homework, but then I get on the computer and don't start my homework til 8:30 or so. I get 6 hours of sleep on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

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Huh, I had always thought that it was Cue not Tune

I normally stay up to 1-2 am at a time.
Another movie that is in my top 10 is Sin City. It is just a wonderfully done movie.

[TwoBitWriter]

I am SO excited about the Sin City Sequel coming out. Having read all of the graphic novels, I can say with reasonable authority that the movie perfectly captured the feel of the series.

And Mauve, I loved Dark City partly because I love Rufus Sewell so much. He often does villain characters (His king Agamemnon was great) but I do enjoy it when he gets a more heroic, or at lest non-evil, role.

[Phase]

To Do:
Clean the house
Finish Dragon #25
Play Fallout
Eat Food

Boring day, today.

[Skippy]

Play Fallout

Boring day, today.

I tend to disagree with you...

[CurlyKitGirl]

Is it bad that I could sense the car crash coming as soon as I saw those two subjects juxtaposed?

"Who let the PE Teacher near a book?"

Probably because of Mock the Week or any other comedy show you've ever seen that talks about education however briefly.
What's it now? "Those who can, teach. Those who can't teach teach PE."

Am I right in thinking Christopher Columbus was a Dalmatian?

I'm probably wrong, like how I'm wrong about everything else.

Marco Polo was a Dalmatian; Christopher Columbus was an Italian employed by the Spanish (for the record PE/History teacher thought he was employed by the English) after the English said "No thanks."
QI is very helpful isn't it?
Alexander the Great was an "albino, left handed, bisexual, midget Albanian" - classic.

[TwoBitWriter]

Probably because of Mock the Week or any other comedy show you've ever seen that talks about education however briefly.
What's it now? "Those who can, teach. Those who can't teach teach PE."

Unfortunately, at my high school, all the history teachers were called "Coach."

Luckily, I was a rather brilliant self-taught history student who ran circles around the multiple-choice tests, occasionally writing in an additional answer when I felt the choices were insufficient.
Yeah... and I helped a bunch of other classmates cheat off me because I wanted to be more popular... I never said I was an ethical student.

You should have seen me during my brief stint as a Journalism major, I could have been hired for a cable news network...

[Oregano]

Marco Polo was a Dalmatian; Christopher Columbus was an Italian employed by the Spanish (for the record PE/History teacher thought he was employed by the English) after the English said "No thanks."
QI is very helpful isn't it?
Alexander the Great was an "albino, left handed, bisexual, midget Albanian" - classic.

Ahh right, must have got Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus mixed up, QI's great. What Russell Howard said on 8 out of 10 Cats this week was hilarious.

"Best thing about life in Britain"
...
"You're never more than 500 miles away from Stephen Fry. I met him once, it was like hanging out with Google."

[Dragonrider]

You know what I find amusing? Here in the U.S., we have a national holiday known as Columbus Day. My dad works for an American Indian tribe, and they refuse to give anyone the day off. They give people their birthday instead...but they will not celebrate Columbus Day.

There were at least two people who 'discovered' America before he did, anyway.

[CurlyKitGirl]

Ahh right, must have got Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus mixed up, QI's great. What Russell Howard said on 8 out of 10 Cats this week was hilarious.

"Best thing about life in Britain"
...
"You're never more than 500 miles away from Stephen Fry. I met him once, it was like hanging out with Google."

It's true. He lives in Norfolk, this shows that only two good things come out of that flat, maudlin little county: Stephen Fry and Jibbers.
The acts of those two alone are the sole reason why Norfolk exists. And continues to exist.

EDIT:
@^: Vikings were the first Europeans to discover it (I think) in c.1090; and didn't the ancestors of the Native Americans cross the Bering Strait on an ice bridge making them Asian or of Asian stock?
*is vaguely hazy on migration patterns of humans*

[Oregano]

And there's theories that say some cultures had already migrated to America hundreds of years before.

[TwoBitWriter]

You know what I find amusing? Here in the U.S., we have a national holiday known as Columbus Day. My dad works for an American Indian tribe, and they refuse to give anyone the day off. They give people their birthday instead...but they will not celebrate Columbus Day.

There were at least two people who 'discovered' America before he did, anyway.

Being part Native American myself (Who in Oklahoma isn't?) I don't find any real reason to celebrate Columbus at all, either.
I do enjoy any excuse to get off work though.

[Dragonrider]

Yeah...and the Welsh also have legends that Madoc sailed away and never returned, and one of the tribes Lewis and Clark met on their expedition had an unusually high number of people with blue eyes (not a common thing among tribal people!), which kind of confirms that it's possibly true.

But I think it's bogus to say anyone 'discovered' America, because at the time anyone in Europe would have done so, there were already huge civilizations in existance, both in north and south America. Even among the supposedly 'primitive' tribes - i.e., hunter-gatherer - things were a lot more complex than anyone was willing to believe.

@TBW: I am as well, but a very tiny portion...not sure how far back it was, but was one of those things that my great-grandparents "never talked about". Different era....

[bosssmiley]

You know what I find amusing? Here in the U.S., we have a national holiday known as Columbus Day. My dad works for an American Indian tribe, and they refuse to give anyone the day off. They give people their birthday instead...but they will not celebrate Columbus Day.

Ah the hypocritical idiocy of gesture politics. So this Indian tribe: do they drive cars? Eat processed food? Use western medicine? Or propane? Or electricity? Or the Internet?
Refusing to acknowledge the way the world is doesn't change it.

Alexander the Great was an "albino, left handed, bisexual, midget Albanian" - classic.

It's like the quote about Freddy Mercury: "He was a short, buck-toothed Persian bisexual who died of AIDS; and he's still cooler than you!"

edit: removed the most inflammatory bits. We play nice here, no hair-pulling. As a peace-offering I share the unalloyed win! that is MECHA-CAT:

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@v: gunpowder rocks. It was one of the many good ideas the Chinese had. Hey, their bright idea about explosive expansion means we can ultimately thank the Chinese for "Mythbusters".

[Charity]

[fingers in ears] la la la I'm not listening

^ you might as well blame the Chinese for inventing gunpowder.

[TwoBitWriter]

I deleted that post, because I don't want to get in trouble.

I will digress from the topic at hand for the same reasons.

[blackfox]

Once upon a time...

[Phase]

I wish America were founded by vikings. That would have been awesome. Pillaging Day, best national holiday ever. Vikings are awesome. They're up there with ninjas and Batman.

[TwoBitWriter]

Vikings are just Proto-Pirates, really.

[ghost_warlock]

I wish America were founded by vikings. That would have been awesome. Pillaging Day, best national holiday ever. Vikings are awesome. They're up there with ninjas and Batman.

Erik the swift was always my favorite viking.

[blackfox]

I wish America were founded by vikings. That would have been awesome. Pillaging Day, best national holiday ever. Vikings are awesome. They're up there with ninjas and Batman.

+5 awesome points. That would be pretty amazing.

Especially if I could be a VIKING PIRATE.

And we'd have a Talk Like A Viking day on Sept 19th...

[Dragonrider]

Ah the hypocritical idiocy of gesture politics. So this Indian tribe: do they drive cars? Eat processed food? Use western medicine? Or propane? Or electricity? Or the Internet?
Refusing to acknowledge the way the world is doesn't change it.

I would say it's different on a whole number of levels. Choosing not to celebrate Columbus Day is their way of saying, look, you came, you conquered, you killed off 90% of us, we don't like that. The fact is, the government still owes them over 1 billion dollars and has told them that if they sue for it, their sovereignty will be dissolved.

So, no, it's not a refusal to acknowledge that this is what happened. It's a statement about their feelings on the subject.

[bosssmiley]

I would say it's different on a whole number of levels. Choosing not to celebrate Columbus Day is their way of saying, look, you came, you conquered, you killed off 90% of us, we don't like that. The fact is, the government still owes them over 1 billion dollars and has told them that if they sue for it, their sovereignty will be dissolved.

Ah, so it's part of an ongoing property, damages and emotional hardship dispute. Yeah, those can get really acrimonious.

I wish America were founded by vikings. That would have been awesome. Pillaging Day, best national holiday ever. Vikings are awesome. They're up there with ninjas and Batman.

We should institute should-have-been-but-weren't holidays, wherein we celebrate the way things should be. It would be an excuse for costumes, music and drunken excess, and is therefore a plan without flaw.

[TwoBitWriter]

I would say it's different on a whole number of levels. Choosing not to celebrate Columbus Day is their way of saying, look, you came, you conquered, you killed off 90% of us, we don't like that. The fact is, the government still owes them over 1 billion dollars and has told them that if they sue for it, their sovereignty will be dissolved.

So, no, it's not a refusal to acknowledge that this is what happened. It's a statement about their feelings on the subject.

Thank you, DR. I couldn't quite find the best way to express it.

[InaVegt]

It's pretty interesting to read about Dutch Americans, you know.

Just for fun, I'll name a few famous ones.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (President of the USA)
Piet Mondriaan (Famous artist)
Dick Van Dyke (You should know this one)
Rebecca Romijn (X-men, Ugly Betty)

[ghost_warlock]

It's pretty interesting to read about Dutch Americans, you know.

Just for fun, I'll name a few famous ones.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (President of the USA)
Piet Mondriaan (Famous artist)
Dick Van Dyke (You should know this one)
Rebecca Romijn (X-men, Ugly Betty)

A town about an hour's drive from where I live, Orange City, Iowa, is especially proud of their "rich Dutch heritage." They host an annual fair, called the Tulip Festival. Linky to the festival website.

[InaVegt]

A town about an hour's drive from where I live, Orange City, Iowa, is especially proud of their "rich Dutch heritage." They host an annual fair, called the Tulip Festival. Linky to the festival website.

I think originalism is pretty silly.

Then again, the Dutch were the first to recognize the USA as a separate, independent country.

Which is not amazing due to two reasons:
1. We disliked Colonystealingland quite a bit back then, allies against Colonystealingland were quite welcome.
2. The USA's founding wasn't that different from the founding of the Netherlands, which only serves to create a common bond, strengthening the alliance.

The good relationships between the USA and the Netherlands might explain why the USA background note about the Netherlands is so positive.