Weirdest. Call. Evrr.

Mobile phone rings.

Me: Hello?
Caller: Hello. Can I speak to Mr Boy Friend please?
Me: Uh, no. You've got his girlfriend's phone, and he's not handy at the moment.
Caller: I'm trying to confirm an appointment for 2pm tomorrow?
Me: Ok. Is this his optometrist?
Caller: No. We're not optometrists.
Me: Oh. OK. Well, I don't know of an appointment of his. Where abouts are you?
Caller: 70 Spatular Street Bankstown
Me: Bankstown?
Caller: Yes
Me: In Sydney?
Caller: You're obviously not in Sydney.
Me: No. I'm in Melbourne.
Caller: Right
Me: I don't know that he's unwell.
Caller: We're a psychiatrists...

Skip the chat where we confirm that the booking was made about a month ago for a Boy Friend, but my BF hasn't been in Sydney for over a year...
And that, to the best of my knowledge, he isn't seeing a psychiatrist...

Me: Is this the only number you have?
Caller: Yeah. This is it.
Me: So someone with my boyfriend's name has made an appointment and my mobile is the contact number?
Caller: Yeah.

BF promises that he isn't seeing a psychiatrist. To the best of his knowledge.

fw 1 bk 2

Me: Guess what we looked at in the Maths/English lecture today?
BF: What?
Me: Turtle!!!
BF: Really? Well, forward 50 right 100 forward 30 left 90 forward 10 help with dinner

-----------
Turtle is the common name for the early Logo program, one of the modern versions being MicroWorld.

It's official: I'm white trash

Just ask The Age.* Born in Korumburra, primary schooled in Corinella, band practice in Wonthaggi, dating someone from the Benalla district.

It's amazing I'm still alive.

------------

*The web version of the article doesn't seem to include the alphabetical list 'Victoria's 40 most disadvantaged places' as published on the 26 Feb 07 front page.
I won't reproduce it here,but rest assured that, yes, Benalla, Corinella, Korumburra, Wonthaggi, and even pretty Toora are included.

I can't stop picking at it

Classic examples, which may or may not have been doctored by satirists, include:

Did you know that faith is a uniquely Christian concept? Add to the explanation of what it means, and how it does not exist on other religions.

hmmm. Faith vs Being Sucked In. deep.

Nothing useful has even been built based on the theory of relativity.

except GPS

Sir Isaac Newton was one of the inventors of calculus and the proposed the theory of gravity (It should be noted that gravity, like evolution, is just a theory and has never been proven to be true).

Gravity will now be called Intelligent Falling*.

The Equator is the line that goes around the middle of the Earth. You can see the Equator on a globe, or on some maps too. ...It is a line of latitude. The other kind of line on a map is longitude.

Maps are very minimalist in this community.

Turkey is a kind of bird. Benjamin Franklin thourght that the turkey should be the national bird of America, but really the national bird is the bald eagle. Turkey is a traditional thanksgiving food. It is usually stuffed. (Some vegetarians do not eat turkey at Thanksiving.)
Turkey is also a country in Europe. It was recently part of the European Union, even though they are Muslims mostly.

Mostly.

And after all that stupid, About Conservapedia says:

Conservapedia began in November 2006, as the class project for a World History class of 58 advanced homeschooled and college-bound students meeting in New Jersey. Conservapedia has since grown enormously, including contributors nationwide. Conservapedia already has over one-half the number of entries as the Oxford Dictionary of World History. Conservapedia is rapidly becoming one of the largest and most reliable online educational resources of its kind.

They should never have posted this statement without qualifying the year level of each student's contribution, or indicating in some way why we should forgive such juvenile, underinformed and paltry entries.

I'm as big a fan of a wiki as the next girl, but really... Its a whole lot of wow and provides much fuel for a lazy Sunday rant.

See also my comments on Pharyngula's post.

--------------------
* shout out to slavdude here

Oh, the Gold!

The juicy, juicy gold!

Welcome to Conservapedia
A conservative encyclopedia you can trust.

Conservapedia has over 3,400 educational, clean and concise entries on historical, scientific, legal, and economic topics, as well as more than 350 lectures and term lists. There have been over 252,000 page views and over 14,800 page edits. Already Conservapedia has become one of the largest user-controlled free encyclopedias on the internet. This site is growing rapidly.

Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian "C.E." instead of "A.D.", which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance. Read a list of many Examples of Bias in Wikipedia....

http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page

They could just call it Denialopedia, or Imnotlisteningopedia. Should you need a more explicit indication of this indignant lunacy:

The Conservapedia Commandments

... 

1. Everything you post must be true and verifiable.
   
2. Always cite and give credit to your sources, even if in the public domain.
   
3. Edits/new pages must be family-friendly, clean, concise, and without gossip or foul language.
   
4. When referencing dates based on the approximate birth of Jesus, give appropriate credit for the basis of the date (B.C. or A.D.). "BCE" and "CE" are unacceptable substitutes because they deny the historical basis. See CE.
   
5. As much as is possible, American spelling of words must be used.[1]
   

http://www.conservapedia.com/The_Conservapedia_Commandments

See Wiki's desciption on Before/Common Era.  You'd think they'd be thrilled that the Christian calendar is so generally accepted that there's no need to even refer to Christ or Christianity for people to understand that 1900CE is the same as 1900AD... not that Wikipedia insists on using either. In fact, their Style Guide for Years Decades & Centuries does not state a preference for either and uses BC in its own referencing.

See here for a review that my own posting cannot improve on.

This asshattery was brought to my attention by Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony. (She also gets credit for the term 'asshattery')

Enjoy.

Yet more confusion

Ah the joy of doing international hobbies.
Below is a table of shorthand instructions for various crochet stitches.
I'm still not sure what the AU half double / US half single is...

Shorthand terms
So Imagine a slipstitch described so: “Pass hook through ch, draw yarn through both sts on hook.”
In shorthand this is described: Insert, pull-thru-2
(as in, insert the hook into ch, and draw yarn through two loops on the hook – the stitch being used for insertion is included as a loop).

Also, where a description might say: “*yarn twice around hook, draw a loop through next ch, draw a loop through first 2 loops on hook, draw a loop through next 2 loops, then another through last 2 loops (thereby competing one long treble st), rep from *” (Patons' Learn to Crochet pamphlet)
In shortcut it would be: Loop twice, insert, pull-thru-2 three times.

Short description of stitch	Australian/European	American
loop	yoh (yarn over hook)	yo (yarn over)
Insert, pull-thru-2	sc/slst (single or slipstitch)	?
??	hdc (half double crochet)	hsc (half single crochet)
Loop, insert, pull-thru-1, pull-thru-3	htr (half treble)	hdc (half double crochet)
Loop, insert, pull-thru-1, pull thru-2 twice	tr (treble)	dc (double crochet)
Loop twice, insert, pull-thru-2 thrice!	dtr (double treble)	tr (treble)
Loop three times, insert, pull-thru-2 four times	trip tr (triple treble)	dtr (double treble)
Loop 5 times, insert, pull-thru-2 six times	quintr (quintuple treble)	silly

Australian stitch instructions taken from Patons Australia (Patons Australia, Brunswick Vic), except quintr stitch from Craft Moods’ Learn to Crochet (ed. Vicki Moodie, ISBN 1 876383 05 9)
Instructions for US stitches taken from Erika Knight’s Simple Crochet.
Table derived from Margaret Metcalfe's Crochet.com.au Tips.

If you know to fill in the blanks, please comment and do so!

yey! I did a table!!