Tetherd Cow Ahead

So now, I’ve lost all my sidebars and some other utility from my xml template for The Cow. Even though Blogger says the filer is fixed. On checking the Status Page, I got the above, very reassuring page load.

[pulls hair out]

Then I tried to upload this post and got:

Yeah, this looks fixed to me.

So anyway, yesterday I was in this bike shop near where I live and I heard this conversation:

Bike Shop Assistant (to woman browsing racks and racks of bikes): Can I help you?

Woman: I want to buy a bike.

BSA: So, you want to buy a bike?

Woman: Yeah, I want to buy a bike.

BSA: OK. OK…. A bike?

Woman: Yeah, I was thinking, like, maybe I should get a bike.

BSA: Right. So. A bike.

Woman: Yeah, a bike.

These people vote.

A friend of mine told me the other day that secondhand copies of The Da Vinci Code are now so numerous that charities are refusing to take them any more. This led me to wonder to what kinds of uses we might put the ever-increasing tonnage of this dreary piece of literary ephemera as it reaches the end of its far-too-extended lifespan.

Here are some possibilities that occurred to me. Further suggestions welcome:

⊕ Send them back to Dan Brown so that he might comprehend the true magnitude of the hell he has wrought upon the rest of us.

⊕ Build a new World Trade Center out of them, because, should it be bombed by terrorists again, who would care?

⊕ Save them to build levees against rising sea levels (caused by global warming, caused by lack of trees, caused by manufacture of copies of The Da Vinci Code…)

⊕ Send them to prisons and make inmates read them if solitary confinement doesn’t work.

⊕ Build churches out of them.*

⊕ Use them to lure termites away from endangered wooden buildings.

⊕ Build a huge Wickerman-style structure out of them, imprison Dan Brown inside and burn it.

OK, over to you guys.

*’Cause that would piss a lot of people off.

Have you noticed that there is appearing in the news media, a kind of nutty and meaningless phraseology that is peculiar to the popular press? Things like ‘… this senseless act of vandalism was committed in the early hours of the morning…’. Senseless act of vandalism? Like there are acts of vandalism that are sensible…?

Maybe:

Sensible vandals today sprayed graffiti over train carriages but made sure not to endanger themselves or the general public by wearing safety harnesses and protective clothing.

Here in Sydney, we have apparently just experienced ‘the ugly side of racism’. This should not be confused with the redeeming side of racism which is, well, er…

Maybe:

The lighter side of racism was demonstrated in Sydney today, when white children beat and shot aboriginal children in an hilarious spoof of the early colonial encounters with the native inhabitants.

And recently the death of a famous media personality, known mostly for his astute business acumen in the field of tax ‘minimisation’, evoked the headline ‘The Many Sides of an Enigma’.

An enigma is not like a box or other geometric figure. It doesn’t have sides. Not even an inside and an outside. What is wrong with ‘The Many Aspects of an Enigma’, or even just simply, ‘An Enigmatic Man’. Next it will be ‘The Many Colours of Opportunity’ or ‘The Many Edges of Freedom’…

Where do these people learn this mangled form of expression? Do they ever actually think before they write? How long will it be before all language becomes entirely meaningless?

Is your computer behaving erratically? Do you suffer from Hangs, Crashes or Freezes? Did you ‘accidentally’ open that ‘hotnakedwives’ jpeg or click on the ‘Nude Kim Possible!’ link that was ‘mysteriously’ sent to your email address last week? Have you comprehensively failed to practice safe text?

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There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. What’s the Catch?

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Why Are You Using So Many Capital Letters and Exclamation Marks?

I DON’T KNOW! I just started writing this post and I COULDN’T HELP MYSELF!!!

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†And while you’re at it, how about some product endorsements in the Comments?

In the comments on The Cow’s last post jedimacfan was moved to ask:

“I suppose the next thing you’re going to tell me is that Outback Steakhouse isn’t really Australian food?”

This reminded me of the one and only time I have ever been to an Outback Steakhouse, near Wilmington NC, and what a jolly old time three of us Australians had therein. And yes, jedimacfan, I’m going to tell you that this isn’t really Australian food. Not even close.

One of the things I remember is that our waiter, dressed in ludicrous faux ‘drover’s attire’ (or something), on hearing one of my friends’ very mild swearing, asked “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” We knew right away that these people had very little experience of Australia.

And then we saw the menu. Oh how we laughed! Let us examine it:

♦Bloomin’ Onion – An Outback Ab-original from Russell’s Marina Bay

The ‘Bloomin’ Onion’ is not an Australian invention. It is certainly not an ‘Ab-original’ invention and I sincerely hope that there is nothing more than a bad pun involved in this description. This is about as close to the wind as you could sail with a gag like this without being racist and/or condescending. As far as ‘Russell’s Marina Bay’ is concerned, well, there is no such place. They just made it up! Look it up on Google – all the hits you get are… yep, the Outback Steakhouse. Also, these are frikkin’ big onions. Where do you even get an onion that size outside the perimeter of a nuclear power plant?

♦Aussie Cheese Fries – Aussie chips topped with Monterey Jack and Colby cheeses and bacon served with spicy ranch dressing

It’s hard to imagine a foodstuff you are less likely to find in Australia. Sushi, yes, Goat curry, sure. kimchi, falafel, Chinese-style pig’s trotters, Thai octopus salad, gado-gado, sucuklu, burek – any of these I could go pick up for dinner right now. Foraging further afield I could get barbecued crocodile, kangaroo steaks, scrambled emu eggs and even roast camel. But sorry folks, no-one serves cheese on top of chips here. It is, I think I am right in saying, pretty much an American idea that you should take perfectly edible food and then completely drown it in melted cheese.

♦”Gold Coast” Coconut Shrimp – Six colossal shrimp dipped in beer batter, rolled in coconut, deep fried to a golden brown and served with marmalade sauce .

As bizarre as this sounds, I have to admit that, yeah, in Queensland that’s entirely possible. The Gold Coast is the Australian twin city to South Carolina’s Myrtle Beach. I’m sure jedimacfan will understand the comparison.

♦Walkabout Soup – A unique presentation of an Australian favourite. Reckon!

What? What do they mean by this? Aborigines don’t carry soup on walkabout. It would be utterly idiotic. Indigenous Australians would have NO idea what this was. Furthermore, you could stop anyone on the street here, anyone, and ask them what ‘Walkabout Soup’ was and I will guarantee that not one person other than someone who has been to an Outback Steakhouse would be able to tell you. Reckon.

♦Drover’s Platter – Generous portion of ribs and chicken breast on the Barbie with Aussie chips and cinnamon apples.

Ah, the old traditional Australian cinnamon apples. Yes, they feature a lot in the OS menu. But guess what! WE DON’T EAT CINNAMON APPLES HERE. (Except maybe, like, once every ten years at Christmas time. Maybe). Cinnamon is the dessert equivalent of melted cheese; take any perfectly edible dessert and add cinnamon to it. Genius. I’m surprised no-one in America has yet invented the perfect all-in-one meal: cinnamon coated melted cheese! (In fact I am totally afraid that someone has and I just haven’t heard of it yet).

Botany Bay Fish O’ The Day – Fresh catch, lightly seasoned and grilled, with fresh veggies

You don’t eat anything that comes out of Botany Bay. Or Sydney Harbour for that matter. Seriously. Recently there was a government-issued warning about doing so.

I could go on. Suffice to say that the entire menu is risible in one way or another. There is no ‘Rock Hampton’ although there is a Rockhampton; we have never called mushrooms ‘shrooms’; no-one says ‘Hooley Dooley’ anymore (the last user of this phrase died twenty years back, and he was a hundred and fifty eight); ‘bonzer’ is generally spelled ‘bonza’; and there is not, among the choices of burgers on the OS menu, anything remotely resembling a traditional Australian-style hamburger (and yes, we do have beetroot on hamburgers).

About the only thing that is acceptably Australian on the Outback Steakhouse menu is the wine list. So, if you should find yourself in one of these places, my advice to you is therefore to get completely plastered as quickly as you can on one of our great Australian wines. Hopefully you will wake up the next morning with no hangover and no memory at all of where you’ve been. Then you can come visit us down here sometime and find out what our food is really like.

My shout.