rhys

Apparently the plural of 'chief accused' is 'chiefs accused' such that if a document says 'statements made by the four chiefs accused to the FBI and to the Kuwait State Prosecutor's Office' you ain't supposed to chuckle.



Tell it to the Sioux.

Launchpad McQuack: Oddly placed biceps or ladies' shoulderpads?

2177. Mrs K. Hodson-Thomas to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services

I refer to a regular meeting of cars and drivers on a Thursday night on Leach Highway, known as ‘The Gathering of The Eagles’, where up to 100 highly powered cars gather for street races and drags, and that the police force is apparently aware of these activities, but only choose to observe and ask will the Minister advise -

(a) is the police force aware of such a gathering;
(b) if so, have they attended this gathering;
(c) if so, what offences have been observed, and how many motorists have been charged as a consequence; and
(d) if police are not aware of such a gathering, will the Minister instruct them to investigate this matter, and ensure that Parliament is informed of the result of that investigation?



The Gathering of the Eagles? Shitttt.

Part Three: Meet Bob



Mr. William (Bob) Tankersley

Bob is a second-hand cinema equipment salesman outta Denver, Colorado.

But perhaps I am understating the case somewhat... Bob is not just a used cinema equipment salesman, but Chief Executive Officer of "Tankersley Enterprises", a successful outfit trading in wholesale & direct-to-consumer sales of used cinematic equipment and seating under the name "All American Seating" - check them out at www.allamericanseating.com !

Awesome.

Bob fought in the war.

But perhaps I am understating the case somewhat... Bob is a veteran of the US Marine Corp, having seen active duty in Dubble-Yer-Dubble-Yer-Too & Korea, better known to his war buddies as Major-General Will Tankersley - USMA '50 Korea PL and Co Cdr 19th Inf Cdr, 926th EC Group.

Bob brought his son up right.

Bob's son, "Steve" is President of Tankersley Enterprises. Apparently, "he was brought into the business honest. By his Father, and he started working in the shipping and receiving department where his duties included sweeping up at night and changing light bulbs when need be, he also learned from the ground up everything that is included in a Theatre, from seats to popcorn."

Does "by his father" count as starting a sentence with a preposition?

But back to Bob.

Motherfucker was on the NATO Board of Directors.

Well, so says his website. Now I'm sure Bob's no liar, but it's fair to say this kinda claim is a little hard to verify. NATO likes the odd board of this-n-that here and there, also the odd council, committee, pow-wow, chamber, high chamber, corroboree... so any attempt to isolate the exact organ young Bob claims to have been a part of is a little tricky.

As an aside, something else NATO has a motherload of is ACRONYMS. Check:

The Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR)
Allied Command Europe (ACE)
Allied Forces North Europe (AFNORTH)
Allied Forces South Europe (AFSOUTH)
Other Staffs and Commands Responsible to SACEUR
The Reaction Forces (Air) Staff (RF(A)S)
NATO Airborne Early Warning Force (NAEWF)
The ACE Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC)
Immediate Reaction Forces (Maritime)
The ACE Mobile Force (AMF)
The Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT)
Allied Command Atlantic (ACLANT)
Regional Headquarters, Eastern Atlantic (RHQ EASTLANT)
Regional Headquarters, Western Atlantic (RHQ WESTLANT)
Regional Headquarters, Southern Atlantic (RHQ SOUTHLANT)
Striking Fleet Atlantic (STRIKFLTLANT)
Submarine Allied Command Atlantic (SUBACLANT)
Standing Naval Force Atlantic (STANAVFORLANT)
SACLANT Undersea Research Centre (SACLANTCEN)
Canada - United States Regional Planning Group (CUSRPG)

Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Doesn't STRIKFLTLANT just roll off the tongue? And what the hell is (RF(A)S)? Whoever heard of brackets in an acronym anyway?

But I digress. At least I would, if I had a point. Bob just kinda fascinates me in the way only a retired Marine Corp Major General NATO Board of Directors-type guy can fascinate a man with too much bandwidth and not nearly enough shame.



THAT IS SOME NATO ENDORSED SHIT RIGHT THERE. GET INTO IT.

Part Two: Lost in Translations

Well we're all adults here and by now, wizened with age n' all that, I'm sure we're all well aware of the fun that can be had translating to and fro between various languages with the aid of the old internerd classic, the "free translator". That ain't none news to no-one.

Enter the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen (a German Tertiary Institution of some description), Mr. Dirk Tust (who I'm sure is a top-notch student at the aforesaid institution) and his Hey Dad! homepage.

Now, it is not for me to question the curricula of this seat of learning, although one can only wonder at the nature of the godforsaken unit that requires any consideration of Hey Dad! whatsoever... But I can't say I wasn't somewhat intrigued by Mr. Tust's fascination with the show, so decided to enlist the help of my trusty sidekick - www.freetranslations.com - to see what our Deutsche friend found so fascinating, let alone educational, about this situational comic masterpiece.

This is what I got:

Introduction

"An Australian tv-Sitcom is "Hey Dad!", in which the widowed architect Martin Kelly against the forward mouth works of its three children Simon, Debbie and Jenny that fights Freßgier of Simons best friend Nudge and the rural world visibility of its secretary Betty."

By all accounts, not a bad start. Seems to indicate the question may have had something to do with investigating a foreign sitcom, its characters, plot devices and so-on. This passage even provides a relatively insightful, if not somewhat mangled, comment on Betty's "rural world visibility". Sadly, the same cannot be said for the "forward mouth works".

The Preface to the Seventh (!) Edition of the German Hey Dad! Episode List

"Hello and sincerely welcome to the seventh edition of that "Hey Dad!"-Folgenliste, the first with all 291 titles (if not with all summaries)! It is was descends went to be sure grey custody to must with appearance, like the series through the almost complete exchange of the actors the stream/- (above all the exchange of Jenny wärend of its very short boarding school stay [würg!]), but this quality loss is well unavoidable in a so long running time how also the example "a terribly nice family" shows. We are happy rather about the fact that it created Gary Reilly and John Flanagan middle of the '80er's to lift an outstanding Sitcom out of the baptism."

Riiiiiiight. It then proceeds to list plot-lines and titles for all 291 episodes. Wurg!

Despite his clear affinity for the show, Dirk is careful to present a balanced argument, in a section entitled:

Negative remarks over "Hey Dad!" in Australia

"Although the series, that is named in the Australian original also "Hey Dad,!" and ran there in the Seven network brought it on 291 sequences, it is not chosen there under Netsurfern just especially. The reasons would be allowed to exist therein, remained would approach that in the sequences of the last squadrons, that were shown by 1997-03-13 to 1997-09-30 on cable 1 in More german first radiation, through the way gear of characters, that settled a large part of the success of the series, the access of characters that falsified the successful Plot, as well as the slowly outgoing ideas of the authors hardly something else of the original character of the series (executions see "Hey Dad!"-FolgenlisteIntroduction in "Hey Dad!") Here a couple of example that show how deeply the series is pleased there in the appearance.

IMPORTANT! Anzetteln was please no intercontinental flemish. It would be anyway pure time waste."

Whew. If you read and processed that last section in its entirety, I take my hat off to you... hope you didn't any intercontinental flemish along the way.

Part One: Sift through people's eBay feedback

The current high bid in the trader-of-ill-repute stakes comes from the esteemed Mr. Oskay Gurcay, otherwise trading as www_priceless-communications_com. A heavyweight trader with some 10,000+ feedback comments to his name over the past 12 months, this gentleman has received an impressive 230 negative comments over the same time period.

Ok, so he's selling sub-standard mobile phone accessories to people who think they're getting a genuine item at a bargain price - conflict is inevitable. I can accept that. I can also accept that some mix-ups are bound to happen when a midly disorganised sole trader shifts the sort of volumes that Mr. Gurcay does. I also appreciate that English may or may not be his first language. However, his fondness for SHOUTING at people who leave negative feedback and his general penchant (& undeniable talent) for outright abuse makes for some good reading.

You see, OG is obviously a well principled businessman, with a finely-tuned pass-the-buck-ometer and the caps lock skills to back that shit up.

Principle #1: Make the Fuckers Pay
Mr. Hook says "THANKS THIS ITEM ONLY COST 47P TO POST I PAID £2.50 POSTAGE"

Oskay "WHAT ABOUT POSTAGE SUPPLIES? MY TIME? MY PETROL TO POST OFFICE? ETC...??????????"

Fair enough. He is evidently a busy man.

Principle #2: Blame the Technology
Gary G from the UK says "Recieved Not working have left emails and have not replyed to requests for help"

Oskay's reply? "WE NEVER RECEIVED ANY EMAIL FROM YOU AND WE ARE NOT SURE WHERE U R SENDING THEM?"

The ol' "must've dropped off the information superhighway" - gets 'em every time.

Principle #2: Blame the Customer (The Seller's Responsibility Stops at Till, Right?)

See the case of 'fluffylem', an eBay young-un who purchased some kind of cheap & nasty generic housing from OG. Having paid & received for his/her item 'fluffy' was apparently having some problems fitting the housing - his/her comment? "Not as described, rear of cover has no battery connection.Poor quality,avoid". No surprises there.

Oskay's comment? "WHAT A BRAINLESS YOU NEED TO REMOVE BATTERY CONNECTOR FRM YOUR PHONE THEN USE IT"

Well said. Why give people instructions when you can call them a brainless and be done with it?

Principle #3: Blame the System

Oskay on:
Banks - "IF YOU PAY BY CHEQUE DELIVERY TAKES MORE DAYS EVERYONE GETS FAST THEIR GOODS!"

The Postal Service - "YOUR ITEMS SENT ON 21/06 SHOULD BE THERE BY NOW OR LOST IN THE POST!" (and two days later) "ITEM MIGHT LOST IN THE POST??? WHY DONT YOU CONTACT US BEFORE LEAVING FEEDBACK??" (and three days later - from buyer) "Very difficult to contact, 1st one lost in post, replacement arrived quickly" (note the distinct lack of caps-lock skills, a sure-fire sign of an amateur feedbacker). That's three items 'lost in the post' in five days - Postman Pat and his black and white cat clearly ain't pulling their weight these days.

Travel - "WE WERE ON HOLIDAY THATS WHY U DIDNT GET ANY REPLY BUT WE WILL SORT IT OUT ASAP!"

You get the idea. OG doesn't mess around.

I feel fortunate just to be a brainless in the shadow of his MOVING AND SHAKING.

Amongst other things, today's unsolicited e-mails have offered me three MBAs, two lots of "super climax cream" and the opportunity to become a fully ordained minister in 48 hours - not to mention a good few kilometres worth of penis enlargements. Thankfully it seems that no small African republics are currently in dire need of assistance to safely transfer vast sums of unclaimed money out of the hands of evil do no-gooders, but there's always tomorrow for that.

I win.

I was always a little against the whole lj thing, if only because I figured it would result in me wasting even more of my time on the net than I do already. Now I figure maybe I should just come clean and, if I'm reading someone's journal, let them know and give them a decent right of reply. Also, I have discovered that this whole thing is wayyy harder than it looks. Customising of colours etc. etc. is far too much like hard work so maybe (just maybe) I have a new-found respect for those who do take the time to put together a half-decent lj. Well done and such to you.

Justification and suck-job done, I now turn to my real purpose: betcha I can tally up more entries than robert before tomorrow morning!

Ps. My brother has just informed me there is a Something for Kate song called 'like bankrobbers'. How depressing. I would like to unequivocally state right now that I was not aware of this prior to starting a journal with this name. Not that the name means anything in particular but had I known this at the time I might have been more tempted to go with option b) billingsmethod. Wonder if that's taken?