Here’s a transcript of a recent commencement address from Stephen Colbert, including my favourite bit:
But the best reason for me to come to speak at Knox College is that I attended Knox College. This is part of my personal history that you will rarely see reported. Partly because the press doesn’t do the proper research. But mostly because…it is not true! I just made it up, so this moment would be more poignant for all of us.
I loved this comment attached to an article about the uselessness of DRM (Digital Rights Management).
I am also amused by the similar videos about piracy that I am forced to watch when I have paid to go to the cinema. They seem to imply that downloaded films are poor quality and may include people talking, getting up to go to the toilet etc.. Then the film starts, in 24 fps judder-vision, someone behind me natters to his mates… and someone in front of me gets up to go to the toilet.
Approximately one kajillion people have pointed this story out to me, so I thought I’d pass it on:
White middle-aged Americans are less healthy than their English counterparts, research suggests.
Americans aged 55 to 64 are up to twice as likely to suffer from diabetes, lung cancer and high blood pressure as English people of the same age.
The healthiest Americans had similar disease rates to the least healthy English, the Journal of the American Medical Association study found.
Have I mentioned that we leave for the UK in July?
I’ve lived here for 7 years, and while admittedly I haven’t taken much of an interest in baseball, I’ve always tried to keep up with excretory juvenility. So why, oh why, did nobody tell me about Albert Pujols? I quote: “Pronounced: POO-holes”.
POO-holes, people! Emphasis on the POO, not the holes. POO-holes. Seriously.
Now normally even I would feel bad about mocking a guy just for his name, but I quote further: “2006 Salary: $14,000,000”.
So who’s the POO-hole now?
There’s a guy who wants to base jump off the Empire State Building. He manages to sneak a parachute, helmet and video camera up to the 86th floor, but is stopped just as he’s about to jump. He really wants to go for it, so he resists his captors. I emphasize: He really wants to jump. But this is not how you describe that:
“He was fighting with us to get off. He wanted to jump off in the worst way,”
No, “the worst way” wouldn’t involve a parachute and helmet. It might include electrodes, however.
And while we’re on the subject – a helmet? Is that in case the parachute doesn’t open?