Learning Jamaican Slang

Wondering what the "Yardie" gangmembers are saying in The Getaway? You can learn Jamaican slang on the web with the Dictionary of Jamaican Patois, or at Speak Jamaican.

Speaking of slang, I've been wondering where the practice of saying "ah-ite" for "alright" came from. My brother says this but I don't know where he picked it up. If you know where this comes from, or have a theory, email me.

"When life hands you lemons, ask for a bottle of tequila." -- from The Palace Princess

WUSA Soccer: San Diego 2, New York 0

San Diego's back line started off the game looking very vulnerable. In the initial 20 minutes, San Diego relied time and time again on heroic one-on-one defense, a strategy that seemed almost certain not to work for the full 90 minutes. Luckily for them, "looking weak and sketchy" and "giving up goals" are two different things. The game soon turned to the other end of the field, where newcomer and number 1 draft pick Aly Wagner served up a perfect through ball to Shannon MacMillan, who found the goal to give San Diego the lead. MacMillan starred at both ends of the field for San Diego, later heading the ball off her own goal line to thwart what otherwise would have been a certain goal for New York. I'm looking forward to seeing her play for the U.S. Women's Team in the World Cup.

The award for most amazing new soccer technique goes to San Diego's Kim Pickup, who can do a front handspring while holding the ball and use the follow-through to launch a wickedly long throw-in. This technique is legal, in that her feet are firmly planted on the ground at the moment the ball is released. Using this throw-in, she twice threw the ball from near the midfield line into New York's penalty area. Near the end of the game she threw the longest throw-in I have ever seen in men's or women's soccer. Putting the ball into play from near the San Diego corner flag, she threw it past the midfield line into New York's half of the field! If I were a coach, I would have my players start practicing this technique.

There is a photo here of Pickup doing the "Pick-Flip" throw-in. The flip throw has resulted in a goal at least once.

Another map for The Getaway

The May 2003 issue of Official U.S. Playstation Magazine (issue 68) has a very good map for The Getaway on page 106. It shows only the streets in the game, but includes street names. This makes it a good companion to a real map of London (like the excellent Eyewitness London book). The only drawback to a real map of London is that the game does not include all the real streets. Remember, in Free Roaming mode, you start out on Great Marlborough Street heading East.

Repo Men go Digital

The life of a repo man is always intense. But today's repo men have gone high tech as they follow the receding tide of the economy. According to the New York Times, "the number of loans that require repossession has jumped 30 percent in the last three years, to almost 200,000 cars last year." Repo men now use voice-activated GPS systems to locate their prey, and computerized key-cutters and truck-mounted video cameras once they find them.

Bud: Credit is a sacred trust, it's what our free society is founded on. Do you think they give a damn about their bills in Russia? I said, do you think they give a damn about their bills in Russia?

Otto: They don't have bills in Russia, it's all free.

Bud: All free? My ass! What are you, some kind of commie?

-- Repo Man

Baghdad Art Heist

It now appears that some of the looting of Iraq's National Museum was not the spontaneous action of a rioting crowd, but rather a carefully planned art theft, timed to take advantage of the chaos in Baghdad.

"It looks as if part of the theft was a very, very deliberate, planned action," said McGuire Gibson, president of the American Association for Research in Baghdad, at a meeting in Paris Thursday.
"They were able to obtain keys from somewhere for the vaults and were able to take out the very important, the very best material," Gibson said. "I have a suspicion it was organized outside the country. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was." (link)

Is this the biggest art heist in history? For an art thief, this would be the opportunity of a lifetime: what could create a better diversion for a huge robbery than the chaos of war? Perhaps we'll eventually see some of the "destroyed" artifacts resurface through the black market.

How could this work? Suppose you are a museum employee. Maybe you are corrupt and rotten to the core, or maybe you are just underpaid and bored. One day war begins. Bombs start falling. You start to feel like things have gone crazy. As the streets of Baghdad descend into chaos, suddenly you have an opportunity to make a huge amount of money for very little effort. Sure, it is technically a crime, but you are unlikely to get caught when the authorities -- those that haven't already gone into hiding -- have much bigger things to worry about than a museum.

If you start acting erratically, it must just be the stress of the war, right? If you start moving artifacts around that you are not supposed to be moving, it must just be to "protect them" and move them to "safer storage." If someone asks too many questions and you shoot them, how will anyone ever sort that out from all the other shootings, intentional and otherwise, that have happened this week? You have a perfect cover for doing just about anything.

After you and your associates have made off with the artifacts, any investigation will be unable to get started right away because of the war. Once it does begin, the crime scene will be a mess. Mobs of people will have walked through and carried off the things you did not have time to steal, further confusing the issue. You will probably get away with it.

The al-Sahaf Doll

There is now a talking doll of Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed al-Sahaf. Story here. It recites digitized quotes such as "There are no Americans infidels in Baghdad, never. . . "

Iraqi Information Minister Quote Generator

Available here.

Benched

The new benches on the sidewalk near NW 12th & Couch (Portland, OR), though comfortable and attractive, sit on the part of the sidewalk nearest the street, but face away from the street. This creates an odd, almost claustrophobic sensation. You feel as if at any moment someone could reach out the window of a passing car and smack you on the back of the head, just for fun. Instead of providing a view of the unfolding scene on the street, the benches invite you to contemplate storefronts and -- in at least one case -- a brick wall. Consider:

Bodhidharma traveled to the recently constructed Shaolin temple in the south of China, where the monks refused him admission. Bodhidharma sat meditating facing a wall for the next 9 years, supposedly burning holes into the wall by staring at it. Only then did the monks of the Shaolin Temple respect Bodhidharma and allow him inside. There, he found the monks so out of shape from a life of study spent copying scrolls that he introduced a regimen of martial excercises, the foundation of all later schools of kung fu. (link)

Could these benches create a new type of kung fu master?

"S" is for GNU: a Google Alphabet

For some reason, if you Google search on just the letter "s", the top result is the GNU homepage. Hmmmm. I'm sure there's some really interesting insight about Google lurking here, awaiting discovery. My guess is that it has to do with the "s" in the phrase "GNU's Not Unix!" If so, that means apostrophe-s counts as "S" to Google.

"Let your anger be as a monkey in a pinata, hiding with the candy, hoping the kids don't break through with the stick!" -- Kung Pow: Enter the Fist

Iron Monkey, the Movie

If you came here through a search for the movie Iron Monkey, you may be thinking, "what's all this about Iraq and soccer and military history and videogames and all this other weird stuff?" You want this.

And if you like that sort of movie, you really should also see Wing Chun, which stars the amazing Michelle Yeoh. It contains my absolute favorite scene in a kung-fu movie, where Wing Chun defends a helpless block of tofu against the relentless attacks of an evil bandit. It is both hilarious and a masterpiece of choreography. Wing Chun and Iron Monkey were choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping, who also was involved with The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Regular People

Trish-Y ponders the world of regular people:

"Those are regular people, Patricia." he said. "That's how most people are. Most people in this world are regular."

I didn't understand this. I didn't know any regular people. Everyone I knew was interesting, or at the very least, irritating.

I know the feeling. I get most of my information about "regular people" from articles and scientific studies, because I rarely encounter them.

Midnight Club II

I just got Midnight Club II for PS2. Initial impression: the graphics and music are great, and it's a very quick game to get into and start playing. The driving physics are completely ridiculous arcade-like rather than a true simulation, so if you're looking for the next Grand Turismo 3, this is not it. However, the "fun factor" will soon suspend your disbelief.

"I wonder if crop circles are just ads for Target." -- Dennis Miller

WUSA Soccer: Boston vs. Atlanta

The first 30 minutes of this match did not predict a high-scoring game, as most of the action took place at midfield, and both teams seemed content to kick the ball out of bounds at any sign of trouble. But the quick, aggressive play of Homare Sawa hinted that she would be a key player for Atlanta. Kristine Lilly controlled the left side of the field for Boston, but had few good attacking opportunities.

In the 36th minute, Atlanta's Maribel Dominguez took a free kick from the top of the Boston penalty arc. Dominguez blasted the ball perfectly over the wall of defenders and it bounced off the crossbar and into the goal, leaving Boston keeper LeBlanc no chance to make the save. Less than 5 minutes later, Sawa took advantage of some defensive confusion at the top of the penalty area, and scored her first goal of the season on a low shot that hit the right goalpost and caromed in.

In the last few seconds of first-half stoppage time, Lilly got in close against Scurry and shot from a bad angle, but Scurry easily made the save and the first half ended with Atlanta up 2-0. Surprisingly, Cindy Parlow was not much of a factor.

In the second half, Dominguez once again took a free kick from a nearly identical spot at the top of the penalty area. This time she opted to shoot around the wall instead of over it, and blasted the ball into the left side of the goal to give Atlanta a 3-0 lead.

After getting a yellow card for a seemingly minor foul, Sawa scored again on a one-timer in the 63rd minute. Shortly thereafter, Dominguez put together the play of the game when she stole the ball from a Boston defender, dribbled past two others, and completed her hat trick with a goal from near the penalty spot. Cripton added a 6th Atlanta goal in stoppage time. The dominance of Sawa and Dominguez, though exciting to watch, does not necessarily bode well for the U.S. in the upcoming World Cup, since these two players play for Japan and Mexico respectively. Final Score: Atlanta 6, Boston 0.

The Unquenchable Taste of Looting

''Freedom's taste is unquenchable,'' Fleischer said after he was asked about the president's reaction to television coverage of Iraqis dancing, looting and cheering U.S. convoys.
(link)

The "looting" part seems much more unquenchable than the "cheering" part. While looters robbed banks and plundered "embassies, hospitals and some private businesses", other Iraqis formed vigilante groups to oppose these actions:

Others took the law into their own hands and, armed with rifles, beat up looters to try to quell the looting running rampant in the Iraqi capital. Some residents set up neighbourhood roadblocks and checked vehicles for stolen goods. (link)

It is starting to sound like The Road Warrior over there, and that leads to my modest proposal. As part of reconstruction efforts, one of the first Coalition projects should build Baghdad its own Thunderdome, where Saddam's doubles can battle each other. "Two Saddams enter, one Saddam leaves! Two Saddams enter, one Saddam leaves!"

Iraq's Aces and Eights: the secret revealed

The U.S. command created a deck of playing cards depicting Saddam Hussein and 51 other "wanted" members of his regime. The deck features Saddam on the Ace of Spades, and Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz appears on the Eight of Spades. Many sources reported this but missed the very clever hidden meaning concealed here.

Beyond Saddam and his sons, only a few of the faces or names would likely be familiar to a soldier.
One, perhaps, is Tariq Aziz, the longtime foreign minister, who for some reason is the lowly eight of spades.(link)

This probably alludes to an incident from America's Wild West. The poker hand that "Wild Bill" Hickok was holding when he was killed, known afterwards as the "Dead Man's Hand," was a pair of aces and a pair of eights.

Hickok was losing by the time Jack McCall, a barfly and odd-job man who loafed in the No. 10, slipped into the saloon, walked to within three feet of Hickok and shot him in the back of the head with a .45 he pulled from his coat pocket. The bullet passed through Wild Bill's skull and exited his right cheek before lodging in the wrist of another poker player. As Hickok fell away from the table, he spilled his hand -- pairs of black aces and eights -- known forever after as the "deadman's hand." (link)

So this arrangement of the deck subtly implies that Iraq's top leaders are "dead men" who have played their last hand. (The deck's creators missed their chance for a master stroke, though, by not putting Mohammed al-Sahaf in as the Joker.) Now here is where it gets interesting. Hickok was killed on August 2, 1876. August 2 is the same day (in 1990) when Saddam Hussein annexed Kuwait, which started the first Gulf War!

Official Magic

My friend sent me to check out the Yellow Bamboo Association. They say:

Yellow Bamboo is an official magic, healing and self defense association founded in Bali with over 30,000 members worldwide.

Good, I wouldn't want to waste my time with unofficial magic associations. Only the best for me.

How would you like to control the entire universe, both what goes within you and what happens with others?

It would certainly help with setting the clock on my VCR.

As you can imagine when you can knock down attackers from 10 feet away or heal someone dying from something just using your own energy- that is true personal power!

Look, I don't think knocking down attackers from 10 feet away is all that great. For one thing, what if the attackers had an 11-foot stick and started hitting me with it? Then what? I'd take one heck of a beating before I finally remembered I could control the entire universe. I guess that's where the "healing people" part comes in.

Whether you desire love, money, fortune, fame, godliness, holiness etc whatever you want Yellow Bamboo provides.

Will it provide the ability to "buy a yacht with a flag sayin' chillin' the most / Then rock that bitch up and down the coast / Give a toast to the sun, drink with the stars / Get thrown in the mix and tossed out of bars?" Now we're talking . . .

One of the many powerful objectives of Yellow Bamboo is to offer proof that for those who believe in good they will always be protected either directly or indirectly as long as they do something good. It may be good in speech or behavior or intention.

But it doesn't have to be all three? So I could combine, say, good speech with bad behavior? Or bad behavior and bad speech with good intention? Cool, I like having that flexibility.

The main criteria is the Yellow Bamboo practitioner must be **serious**

Right, because you wouldn't want some goofball controlling the entire universe, or some practical joker knocking people down from 10 feet away just for laughs. I guess I'm not cut out for this.

I am the Eye in the Sky

Global Security has some great satellite photos and zoom-in sequences of Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and other hotspots. Look at a few of these sequences and you'll feel like you are James Bond being briefed for his next mission. I feel cheated that I didn't have easy access to satellite imagery when I was a kid.