June 14, 2004

Could This Be The Most Ridiculous Thing I've Ever Posted? Just hitting this could be a colossal waste of your time. It could be completely unredeeming. Futile. Later, flames of rage could engulf you, causing you unmanagably risky behavior. The whole world would be like that movie with all those zombies at Marks & Sparks. I use the slangy form to show you I'm with it, but all it does is forever taints me as an ass who pretends to shop in london. And if I really wanted to pass myself off as an English Person, I'd have said "film", not "movie". And I would have mentioned Daleks, or started humming a Sting song, or said "Merseybeat" or "Gear" like the Beatles did. I bought a Clash record once. I've eaten curry. I could be English. So Feck Off, Chum-- I'm English.

Sunday night, everyone I know is asleep, and nobody reads Sunday posts anyway, right...?

  • (Whaddya mean diet Snapple has twice the caffeine of soda?)
  • Gee! Singapore's is second on the list! But I've never seen that one before. Kinda miss the Philips PM 5544 test screen. It had this ear-piercing whine whenever I turned on the TV before 3pm. When I was a little little girl, TV channels would start up with the national anthem only around 3 in the afternoon, and the last program would end just before midnight. Couch potatoes had no chance of surviving here.
  • I don't really understand the big rant at the top of this page. But it's 1.40 on Monday afternoon here, a time conspicuous for its lack of whimsy and/or poetry.
  • And no, worst post evar is a dead heat between cock and Daisy_May. I quite like some of these.
  • I still see these when I turn my TV to channel 53. Of course I have to use pliers, the UHF knob is broken.
  • It's only 10:15pm here in Potatoland, but I just spent all day on the back of a horse, and I'm ready to hit the hay. remember this before the test pattern? High Flight Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds
  • TVNZ used to have TV Kiwi and the Cat, an animated pair who would turn off the station lights and tuck themselves into bed at the end of the day. I was very young, so it can't have been later than 11pm. Now, of course, all channels are 24 hours and those that aren't fill the gaps with infomercials. Yuck.
  • What I hated was the static that blasted after the test patterns came one. But, I did have a fondness for the Indian chief pattern. And, BlueHorse, I did like the "High Flight" thing until I'd heard it 50 times (I used to stay up a lot later, then.) But, my favorite off-air filler was on the NASA channel in the Calif. S.F. Bay Area, about 10 years ago. No sound, no static, but slide show of satellite pictures of earth, changing every minute or so. It was kinda like a meditation.
  • And, G'night, Diz.
  • Goodnight, Guys! Sleep tight! Don't let the bedbugs bite..... snnnzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
  • But, still, Diz, where's your photo?
  • snnzz wha? oh. I successfully scanned it; it now sits as a ".tif file" on my desktop. NOW what do I do? How do i get it into a comment or post? snnzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
  • Damn, BlueHorse, that takes me back! I used to stay up to see the station sign-offs, with their collection of (admittedly cheesy) poetry, songs, and pretty pictures. Just for the record, Diz, this is a fine post. I just wish the images were higher resolution so I could steal 'em for my desktop.
  • I successfully scanned it; it now sits as a ".tif file" on my desktop. Free Picture Hosting. There are dozens of sites like this. I await your posting with abated breath!
  • Um. Gee. Goodnight, all.
  • zedediah - keep breathing. We won't worry, however, I you have bated breath - or even baited breath.
  • Email it to IgSlu, [email protected], and she'll post it on her site. She'll send you a link to it, and you just paste that link in the photo thread. Easy.
  • "I" = "if"
  • Could This Be The Most Ridiculous Thing I've Ever Posted? Not by a mile. In fact this is )++
  • okey doke. Thanks, Wolof! I'm having the most marvelous dream...ssnnnzzzzzzzzz
  • Aaahh... like reliving my wasted youth. In fact, my deviation towards the pixel wrenching occupation now I live from started with a young Flagpole recreating the test pattern of a new channel in my city, with the chunky ASCII graphics of a C64. 'Channel3' was my personal place on the spectrum. Had to learn some BASIC to create color and very-low-res graphics on a BW tv set in my room. Later I got some proper graphic creation programs and the downfall started. A couple months ago, saw during some nights in NHK a message screen warning of solar flares affecting reception. Ciclying over and over for a couple hours...
  • most of these test patterns would make righteous desktop wallpapers !
  • or screensavers or start up screens ! too bad the images aren't bigger...
  • The clown always scared me. In fact, that's one of my earliest memories: being frozen to the spot, absolutely terrified of this clown. I had this idea that if it ever won the game of noughts and crosses, it'd come out of the screen and eat me.
  • That was the most suprisingly enjoyable post in ages, Dizzy. I thought the freaky clown thing was just on Irish TV (though I've never given it that much thought...) It's sort of comforting to know it was freaking out other five-year-olds around the world at the same time.
  • Send your pic to me Diz, I'll post it on my site. As for the test patterns and the ensuing static afterwards, I was just watching Poltergeist the other day and thought, "No one born after about '85 is gonna get that." Shame, really. And I saw the CBS technical difficulty card as recently as last year, just after the blackout.
  • Dizzy was high on PCP when he posted this. He must think that the Nos cannot come up with something less irrelevant. He shall pay the price for his lack of vision. BZZZZT
  • Nos-- The Gantlet, She is Thrown. And Now We're Facing War! Soon You Will Be Prone, 'Cause I'M the BIGGER BORE! your turn.
  • Ah, shit... It's On!
  • /chestpuff It may not be today, It may not be a week, But I shall post a pointless link Because I'm king of geek. /runs
  • I just realized that the reason the U.S. of A. is going to hell in a marketbasket is that, when TV stations started broadcasting 24 hours a day, we lost the ritual playing of Our National Anthem (the last time I checked it was "The Star Spangled Banner") every night at sign-off, which most people with their TVs on took in subliminally, becasue they were already asleep! Hmmmmmm...
  • I just realized that the reason the U.S. of A. is going to hell in a marketbasket is that, when TV stations started broadcasting 24 hours a day, we lost the ritual playing of Our National Anthem (the last time I checked it was "The Star Spangled Banner") every night at sign-off, which most people with their TVs on took in subliminally, becasue they were already asleep! But that's when the poltergeists attack! Didn't you watch the movie? Only a steady overnight feed of infomercials and soft-core porn is keeping us all from being sucked into our televisions.
  • I've seen Dizzy's piiiiicture...
  • Don't forget--I'm pretending to be English! So say "rotogravure" or "Snappies" or "Brolly" or something... And get me a packet of crisps, Bob's yer uncle, will yoo matey? And knock loud, because Poopy Spice is on the telly which is where I keep iyt when I go to the loo... (i think i'm totally gettin' the hang of this English thang, dude!!!) Fancy a fry-up? Mods are GEAR! (see?)
  • And bring me a six-stone rent girl from Boots, and don't forget the Dairy Milk, bob's yer uncle! I've been studying for my OBE. I know where hospital is, and adore Mobil Corporation. HA! If I wasn't really UK, I'd have put "The" before those two last items. Let's take a transport to Wimpy's for some pub grub! Elton John's first name : Reg! He was from Surrey, which is far from The City. Charlie's first name is really "Bonnie"-- this to confuse the House of Lancaster in case they Get Ideas. snnnzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
  • Once you can perfect the glottal stop, then I'll buy you a pint of stella & a packet of hedgehog flavored crisps.
  • Crikey!
  • Wolof: And no, worst post evar is a dead heat between cock and Daisy_May. I quite like some of these Forgive the neophyte, but I'm dying to find these mythical "worst posts". I actually had no trouble digging up the Daisy_May using search, but, well let's just say you guys use the word "cock" waaaay waaay too much :) Someone care to cough up the link? /morbid curiosity Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it...
  • Cock's aftermath. I'm guessing (by the absence of posts #ed 39-45 + homunculus's post in given thread) a whole bunch of goatse links?
  • Maybe we need an in-joke category on Mofi, so that relative newbies could catch up. Or, do we want to keep them in the dark?
  • Cock as far as I know is the only user to be banned. (also, actually, a spam robot was banned early on. Although Tracy could probably supply more information about this - I remember a post which just said the username twcie, both linking to a commercial website bearing the user name. It disappered quite quickly) I don't think anywaone else had been banned until young daisy the other day (although, some Metafilter clone accounts might have been scrubbed, too).
  • Keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em on banana peels. I've got barrels-full that I've saved for just this find day. Mwhahahahahahahaha!
  • I've deleted one or two other accounts, one of which was a blatant ad for some children's safety equipment (username: product, website: product website, email: admin@product website, bio: TRY OUR STUFF ITS GREAT). And some people have deleted their own accounts whether deliberate or not *points at Mr Best*. But yeah.
  • Back on topic, almost, as a young preschool boy, I used to love that that girl playing noughts and crosses almost as much as I loved Emily.