The Inferno

Here’s a handy guide for telling the major denizens of the Anglosphere apart. No mention or apology is made for excluding New Zealanders, Indians or South Africans.

Aussies: Dislike being mistaken for Pommies (Brits) when abroad.
Canadians: Are rather indignant about being mistaken for Americans when abroad.
Americans: Encourage being mistaken for Canadians when abroad.
Brits: Can’t possibly be mistaken for anyone else when abroad.

Aussies: Believe you should look out for your mates.
Brits: Believe that you should look out for those people who belong to your club.
Americans: Believe that people should look out for & take care of themselves.
Canadians: Believe that that’s the government’s job.

Aussies: Are extremely patriotic to their beer.
Americans: Are flag-waving, anthem-singing, and obsessively patriotic to the point of blindness.
Canadians: Can’t agree on the words to their anthem, when they can be bothered to sing them.
Brits: Do not sing at all but prefer a large brass band to perform the anthem.

Americans: Spend most of their lives glued to the idiot box.
Canadians: Don’t, but only because they can’t get more American channels.
Brits: Pay a tax just so they can watch four channels.
Aussies: Export all their crappy programs, which no-one there watches, to Britain, where everybody loves them.

Americans: Will jabber on incessantly about football, baseball, and basketball.
Brits: Will jabber on incessantly about cricket, soccer, and rugby.
Canadians: Will jabber on incessantly about hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, and how they beat the Americans twice, playing baseball.
Aussies: Will jabber on incessantly about how they beat the Poms in every sport they play them in.

Americans: Spell words differently, but still call it “English”.
Brits: Pronounce their words differently, but still call it “English”.
Canadians: Spell like the Brits, pronounce like Americans.
Aussies: Add “G’day”, “mate” and a heavy accent to everything they say in an attempt to get laid.

Brits: Shop at home and have goods imported because they live on an island.
Aussies: Shop at home and have goods imported because they live on an island.
Americans: Cross the southern border for cheap shopping, gas, & liquor in a backwards country.
Canadians: Cross the southern border for cheap shopping, gas, & liquor in a backwards country.

Americans: Drink weak, pissy-tasting beer.
Canadians: Drink strong, pissy-tasting beer.
Brits: Drink warm, beery-tasting piss.
Aussies: Drink anything with alcohol in it.

Americans: Seem to think that poverty & failure are morally suspect.
Canadians: Seem to believe that wealth and success are morally suspect.
Brits: Seem to believe that wealth, poverty, success and failure are inherited things.
Aussies: Seem to think that none of this matters after several beers.

Taken from here.

Slayer is on the front page of Wikipedia. I suppose this is hardly news, but still, it’s an event when a thrash band from the heyday of thrash makes it to the front page of anything. That being said, if Wikipedia’s frontpage topics are chosen at random, then the significance is reduced to nil.

I know it’s cliched to spurn a band’s new material and cherish only the older releases, but this has sadly never been truer for the Big Four of thrash, of which Slayer is easily the best.

I’ve been really busy of late, which explains the lack of recent posts. I never thought Linguistics would be this interesting, but it’s certainly keeping me busy.

Here’s what I coded a few days ago using the Facebook and Google Maps APIs. It’s buggy, only displaying the first 25 friends, with the tooltip display awry in all browsers except Opera as well. Well, I’m a neophyte at this sort of stuff, so I’m quite pleased with it. You need a Facebook account and some friends to be able to see this working.

http://www.viren.ca/fbapp