Tetherd Cow Ahead

I’ve been lurking over at Reasons You Will Hate Me for a bit these last couple of weeks. Ms Fits, who is the proprietor, is funny I think, and can spell and use punctuation, which does make for a more readable experience than many.

Unlike myself, Ms Fits is famous in the blogging world. My observations of RYWHM suggest that this has advantages and disadvantages:

Advantage: Lots of people read and comment.
Disadvantage: Lots of stupid people read and comment.

But I digress from the point of this post. Her recent post on bad texting in the face of calamity is amusing. It refers to this story about a ‘school machete rampage*’ in which five youths went on a spree through a Sydney highschool wielding baseball bats, swords, machetes and other sporting equipment.

Ms Fits tells us that she feels that a text message sent to the outside world even under such duress should be spelled correctly (in contrast to the one that the newspaper intercepted), and it will come as no surprise to you, dear Acowlytes, to hear that I agree with her on this matter. She then proposes that the predictive texting on phones should be updated to include abbreviated messages that can be sent quickly in times of peril. She gives an example, viz:

SND HLP GNMN/OMG BMB/TWN TWRS :(

This got me to thinking. In the great moments of our past, what would the shapers of human history have texted, if the technology had been available? I have offered you one such example here on The Cow.

Keep your suggestions short. You get charged more after 160 characters.

(Extra points if you show off yr mad Photoshopping skilz).

___________________________________________________________________________

*There’s another one o’ them thar Zombie Words.

___________________________________________________________________________

The people at RadioShack have been running a rather clever advertising concept illuminating their ‘Do Stuffâ„¢’‡ slogan. Briefly, it involves demonstrating how to accomplish some task, such as shooting candid nature shots of wild animals, by buying off-the-shelf RadioShack items and repurposing them.

Being a bit of a techno-geek, I respond very well to this kind of idea, so I’ve been checking in with the RadioShack site now and then to see what else they’re coming up with. Amusingly, the current (December) offering sees the RadioShack Geek Department comprehensively out-clevering itself in an enthusiastic bid to ratchet up the Christmas shopping turnover.

The concept is outlined in easy-to-follow steps under the uber-tekky, up-to-the-minute-geeky* title Caroling 2.0 and this pitch:

When the weather outside is frightful, and the fire is so delightful, it can be pretty hard to get excited about caroling. Luckily, all it takes is technology and a little know-how to sing to the neighbourhood, without dashing through the snow.

To synopsize the idea: you video yourself singing Christmas carols, edit the results and transfer them to your iPod. You attach your pod and a little speaker to a radio-controlled toy truck and then, from the cosy comfort of your living room, drive it off to your neighbours’ houses to infuse them with jolly musical holiday cheer (and all of the aforementioned tech-toys are purchased from RadioShack, of course). Easy peasy, eh?

Or, as the RadioShack Geek Department rates it:

Difficulty: Easy
Time: About an hour
Result: A new holiday tradition

Here at the Tetherd Cow Geek Department, we think it would go slightly differently:

Difficulty: Somewhat easier than assembling an IKEA bookshelf. But not much.
Time: How good is your singing and how competent are your editing skills?
Result: One stolen iPod & RC toy

Aside from anything, isn’t the whole point of Christmas caroling that you get together with a bunch of friends and trudge through the snow in order to spread the neighbourly Christmas spirit? And so you can trudge back again and enjoy brandy and eggnog and chestnuts roasting on an open fire?†

Sigh. Obviously I have, once gain, been left behind by the latest trends.

These days, it would appear, with a RadioShack purchased Wireless AV Sender, a RadioShack purchased camcorder and some RadioShack purchased AV cables, not only will your kids get see mommy kissing Santa Claus, they’ll be able to project the whole sordid affair as it happens, for all the world to see, using a RadioShack purchased video projector pointed at a convenient neighbourhood snow drift.

So with that thought in mind, a Special Tetherd Cow Christmas Competition!

Your task: re-imagine a Christmas tradition using a combination of products from the RadioShack catalogue. Keep it realistic (ie, feasible), make it purposeless (points will be deducted for anything deemed useful), make it inspired, and make it funny. If possible, refer to the lyrics of your favourite Christmas song.

There will be a prize for the cleverest invention. And it will be a special one.

___________________________________________________________________________

‡Is it just me, or is all this trademarking starting to get A Bit Out Of Handâ„¢?

*Sarcasm (in case you think I was being serious).

†Well, I dunno. We don’t have anything like snow or icicles or Frosty the Snowman here of course, but from watching all the American films, I certainly got the impression that that’s what it was all about.

___________________________________________________________________________

a·nal·o·gy [uh-nal-uh-jee] –noun (plural analo-gies)

1. A similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based.

___________________________________________________________________________

Definition courtesy Dictionary.com

___________________________________________________________________________

‡ (And Find Out Something You Didn’t Already Know In The Process)

We’ve played this game before, but it continues to amuse me. What do the following images have in common?

A picture of the great astronomical clock of Besançon.

A picture of Hampstead Heath.

A map showing the location of Weldon Spring Heights, Missouri.

A Picture of David Essex.

An odd sepia picture of a thin Santa.

That’s right – they are all pictures from the first page retrieved by Google Images on a search of the digits that make up my birthday. Try it – it’s fun! Go to Google Images and enter your birth date as six figures*: ddmmyy (or mmddyy if you are an illogical American). Pick any five pictures from the first page of results only. Then post them somewhere we can see! Hey. That sounds like a meme! Maybe I can start one. OK, I tag:

•Sara Sue
•jedimacfan
•Cissy Strutt
•Phoebe Fay
•Tequila Mockingbird

Post links back here in the Comments. Tag someone else and let’s see if we can start an internet phenomenon. Be sure to tell them that The Cow sent you!

Play if you want. It will affect the universe in no way if you don’t.†

___________________________________________________________________________

*Six figures seems, intriguingly, to be the optimum number to return the most unrelated bunches of images, but still get a reasonable number of hits. Fewer numbers result in too many images that are related in some way, and more numbers return a reduced field of possibilities. I’d love to know the maths behind this…

†Actually, it may affect the universe in profound ways. There is really no way of telling.

___________________________________________________________________________

Portrait of the Artist as a Casualty of a Quantum Anomaly.

•2 oz rye whisky
•1 oz sweet red Vermouth
•A good dash of Angostura bitters

Stir or shake quickly ((Stirring is preferred)) over ice, pour off and garnish with a Maraschino cherry.

Some people prefer a twist of lemon instead of a cherry. Some people prefer bourbon instead of rye. Some people omit the bitters. All these things make for a lesser Manhattan.

Save the cherry until last and eat it, or give it to the sweetest girl in the room.