For a Limited Time Only!
Posted 17 Nov 2009
Commuting, Daily Life, News, People | 4 Comments
Divorces are on sale until November 30, 2009! Hurry and divorce your spouse! Don’t miss this great opportunity!
Read the fine print at the bottom of the advert
As seen in a newspaper ad: Special Offer, Divorces from $550, Must bring in ad to receive discount, Offer expires on November 30, 2009.
Google downtime explained
Posted 4 Sep 2009
The other day my Gmail account was having some issues and I wasn’t able to access it. Apparently this issue affected “the majority of users” and many people are probably asking, “why did this happen?” I just thought that since I had the opportunity, I’d offer a brief explanation here of what exactly happened.
When I tried to load my GMail homepage, the page I kept getting delivered to instead said Temporary Error (500).
Since they offered to show me the technical info, I went ahead and clicked on the link. I too was curious about what could be causing this little hiccup. Alas, despite their apparent willingness to share the details, it seems they still won’t be offering up much in the way of technical secrets.
Numeric Code: 5
That’s all they told me. I suppose I ought to say thank you to the technical geniuses over at Google for sparing me an overwhelming amount of technical detail. Perhaps I could not have handled the real info? Or, perhaps it was such a simple problem that this knowledge was the source of the problem and I am just too uneducated to grasp it?
Either way, I wanted to bring it to you, good readers of chickenmonkeydog. Now you know!
That’s a prickly gift
Posted 9 Apr 2009
News, People | 6 Comments
With all the hoopla of the second coming of Jesus Barack Obama to England recently to attend the G20 Conference, I thought it made sense to spend a bit of time monitoring the news websites. Boy, was I glad I did!
I was shocked to learn that the Queen of England likes to give a gift with a twist to foreign dignitaries. Her gift a choice? A framed photo of herself and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. The concerning bit is her choice of frame … see the text boxed in red in the screen shot below for further. (You can click on the image to see a larger version of the same.)
For accessibility reasons, we shall repeat the relevant text here:
“As for the Queen, she reportedly gave the Obamas a signed photograph of her and her husband, Prince Philip, in a sliver frame, her standard gift to foreign dignitaries.”
The editors of chickenmonkeydog would like to thank the editors of cnn.com for their submission to this post!
Window washer or Russian operative?
Posted 20 Mar 2009
Commuting, News, Places | 5 Comments
The mysterious murder of Alexander Litvenko has caused a rift in Anglo-Russian relations in recent years. The topic has been a source of regular news fodder for the BBC.
With that in mind …
As I strolled out of Vauxhall Tube station earlier this week, I was surprised to see someone cleaning the windows of MI-6′s headquarters.
My first thought was this man really cleaning the windows or was he actually a Russian operative seeking to infiltrate British Intelligence’s offices?
There’s been nothing in the news about this, but then again, did you really expect there to be? Espionage is such a secretive game.
A recent study reports …
Posted 27 Oct 2008
Daily Life, Language, News, The Little Things | Leave a Comment
A recent study reports that a reference to a vague and undefined “recent study” is among the best ways to lend credence to an otherwise unsubstantiated “fact” of dubious origin.
Have you ever noticed how often one encounters the phrase “a recent study” (or a near approximation) in the news and via email? It makes me laugh because quite frequently the specific report is not referenced anywhere in the story. When creating this post I did come across arecentstudy.com, which seems to actually reference new reports when they are published — unfortunately the site hasn’t been updated since May 29, 2008.
Keep your eyes open! I have a feeling you may see “a recent study” show up soon, decrying the “disparaging remarks made on certain quirky little blogs on the topic of ‘recent studies’.”
