I just don’t want to go into detail about this one too much.

Some of us have more to lose than others.

From I Am Bored, via Miss Cellania.

Mad Photo World. Go to his site for a larger image…really amazing. And that’s with a Nikon D200, you say? Hmmmm…Father’s Day is comin’ up…

Fellow Webloggin contributor Bookworm Room.

Cracked, via John Hawkins’ Conservative Grapevine (5/4/09 0745), via Musket Balls.

All very true.

Hat tip goes to John Hawkins.

Hat tip to blogger friend Buck.

The goriest safety training video ever, according to Miss Cellania.

I think it might be a toss-up between that ‘un, and this ‘un…

Them canucks don’t mess around with safety videos. They show exactly what just might happen to you.

Via Bits and Pieces.

Those ingenious, resourceful inventors of drawing-and-quartering.

Somewhere in the third quarter of ’05 I missed out on this Internet meme. In computer terms, three and a half years means…it’s damn near mummified now. I know. Cut me some slack. I had to post it because I like the way it starts out mellow and just gradually…gets…nastier…and nastier…

Besides, he’s bitching at a telephone-and-innerwebs company. C’mon, which among us have not been there?

Language not quite safe for a work environment.

Dear Cretins,

I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your 3-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, and telephone. During thisthree-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions. Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional perogative, and seek to rectify these difficulties – or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office:

My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website….HOW?

I alleviated the boredom by playing with my testicles for a few minutes – an activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept. The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools – such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum. Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks my modem arrived… six weeks after I had requested it, and begun to pay for it. I estimate your internet server’s downtime is roughly 35%… hours between about 6pm -midnight, Mon-Fri, and most of the weekend. I am still waiting for my telephone connection. I have made 9 calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals, who are it seems also highly skilled bollock jugglers.

I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that no telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answer machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman…and several other variations on this theme. Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important testicle-moments to attend to. Frankly I don’t care, it’s far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustration’s in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.

I thought BT were shit, that they had attained the holy piss-pot of godawful customer relations, that no-one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That’s why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn’t anyone else is there? How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum incompetents of the highest order. British Telecom – wankers though they are – shine like brilliant beacons of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy. Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver – any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps bemused rage. I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cats litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit – they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless employees.

Have a nice day – may it be the last in you miserable short life, you irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of twats.

John

Hunted it down here, after being tipped off about it at a wonderful joke page here…which unfortunately ran into a 404 error after teasing the first paragraph. The joke page itself is worth bookmarking.

Deep down inside, we’re all still on the playground and when a fight breaks out, we wanna watch.

Okay maybe I’m just speaking for myself there. But let’s link it anyway.

And…you know there’s a FARK thread on this…you can find it here. Wait for it to get green-lit (doubtful), or purchase a TOTALFARK membership here, to read it.

Update: Original thread here. Pullum linked to his own previous work, but not the FARK thread discussing it, which is supposed to be the object of his disdain.

Update: On the original subject…well, before I get to that, I’m just rolling my eyes about Pullum’s (or his editor’s) decision to post this with a closed comments section. I think that borders on a mental disease. Lord knows, however, I can sympathize with the fatigue with the juvenile antics on FARK. But it is one thing to say “I have a subclass in mind with regard to the comments that will be entered in response to this work of mine, and I have no desire to hear from or read through that type of comment” — versus — “This is my opinion, and I have no desire to hear from or read through any type of comment whatsoever in response to it, from anyone, of any sort.” The former is sanity. The latter is the purest sort of narcissism. Pullum appears to me to have traversed an unexpectedly short road between those two points.

Here’s wishing him godspeed on the trip back.

But I agree with him, mostly, on Strunk and White. I’ve been referred to this work over and over again, and I’ll admit there is some justice in that. More than once, I’ve had to seriously question whether the person referring me, ever read through the reference material themselves. And, outside of that, I’ve had to conclude quite a few times that following the reference the way I was being implored to, would have resulted in an inferior product.

In summary — Strunk and White is overblown. People should read it if they expect to write things that will be read by others, yes. They should put thought into these things. But what Messrs. S&W have put together functions far better as a guideline than as a standard.

Here. And I’ll spoil the highlights…because I really hate these one-entry-per-page weblists, almost as much as I hate the “butcher a classic, hit every single note you can” performances of the National Anthem.

1. Roseanne Barr
2. R. Kelly
3. Carl Lewis
4. Michael Bolton
5. Hockey Girl
6. Chattanooga Police Officer
7. Hillary Clinton
8. Kat DeLuna
9. Anonymous, Enthusiastic Man
10. High School Homecoming

Read all about it here.

Hat tip to Ace of Spades, via Rachel.