New Rules
by John Walker on Nov.15, 2005, under Rules
#21 When two ‘o’s appear together in a word, no one under any circumstances is allowed to make them into eyes. For the word ‘look’ it is punishable by death.
#22 Presents may not be presented as from either babies or pets, once the presentee is over the age of 10.
#23 If you live in the UK, the amber light means GET READY. By the time it’s green, YOU GO. As it turns green, you are pulling away. And this is equally the case if you are seven cars back in the queue. You do not begin pulling away once you see the car in front move – you watch the lights. If you live in the US, or other countries without an amber before the light turns from red to green, you already manage this fine without the amber, so what the hell is going on UKites? Aren’t you humiliated? The rest of the world doesn’t even get the warning and they can manage it. You’re pathetic. Sort it out, for crying out loud. Look at yourself. It’s embarrassing.
#24 An ‘i’ may only be topped by a single dot. Adding a circle, or god forbid a heart, does not make you interesting, or kooky, or brighten anyone’s day. It makes you a moron who cannot manage the simplest of tasks without deliberately ruining everyone else’s lives.
#25 Txt spk is annoying enough in texts. You can’t say it in 140 correctly spelt and grammared characters? Phone me. But outside of texts – utterly banned. AN EMAIL HAS INFINITE ROOM. You, under no circumstances need to abbreviate anything. And here’s why: It’s harder for the person to whom you’re writing to read it. We learn to read, and we recognise word shapes immediately. Start encoding those shapes, and translation is required. It goes from seeing the word “to” without pause, to seeing that there’s the number “2”, translating it phonetically to all its other potentials, working out which one it must be in the context of the sentence, and then re-understanding it as “to”. IT’S ONE CHARACTER SHORTER. Stop it. You’re an idiot.
November 15th, 2005 on 12:43
“
November 15th, 2005 on 13:25
“
November 15th, 2005 on 13:51
Txt spk is not merely ‘annoying enough’ in mobile texting; it too should be utterly banned. For crying out loud, doesn’t every phone manufactured in the last five years have predictive text messaging as standard? So there is no longer an excuse, NO EXCUSE AT ALL for it. All who do so must be euthanised for the good of the nation. Or be forced to read this:
http://www.biblesociety.com.au/smsbible/index.html
November 15th, 2005 on 15:37
Am I missing something?
Is this some sort of hideous internet language for “ditto”?
What’s happening here?
November 15th, 2005 on 16:43
“Txt spk is annoying enough in texts. ” – i.e. *annoying, yet just acceptable at a push* is how I read that, and put forward my opinion that it is totally unacceptable in any circumstance. My wrong, it appears.
November 15th, 2005 on 16:46
Oh. You were replying to Arctor and ‘Feet’, I only now realise. My double-mega-wrong, it appears. I’ll go back to that other place now, where these lapses are more easily forgiven. By some.
November 15th, 2005 on 17:28
Don’t be mad. I’m lovely and forgiving. The Other Place is certainly not.
November 15th, 2005 on 19:39
What are your feelings on people who email lists of things? 20000 worst chat up lines for example, or 300 reasons why men and women are different.
(Kate Rusby was good, and surprisingly, really funny. There was a good story about fruit pastilles)
November 15th, 2005 on 20:20
Your rules are getting very wordy now. No room for interpretation! We can’t have that.
November 15th, 2005 on 22:07
Quiet, deputy.
November 15th, 2005 on 22:54
You rock. Simple as that.
November 16th, 2005 on 03:01
i really need to share it with somebody at this very moment. i’m hugely into tv series right now and Entourage / Carnivale / Weeds / Prison Break just has to be seen if you have ever felt a strange need to sit in dark cave and watch the shadows switch rapidly.
November 16th, 2005 on 18:41
Addendum to 25: “at” should not be written as @ because it’s the same number of keystrokes.
November 16th, 2005 on 18:51
I said that was an amazing bunch of rools.
Or “wow lolz gr8t r00ls”.
Then something else I have forgotten. Oh yeah, I set up a blog just to add one onto the net which was grammatically and orthographically correct and which did not consist of “lolz” “hugz” or any other inanities.
November 16th, 2005 on 23:25
Yeah – and the link?
November 17th, 2005 on 17:33
Ummm I left it black, now it remembers me. No reason.
/scared of John’s wrath