The Cabbage Patch

Hello World.

I know, I know, you thought I was dead didn’t you? Or at least in a minor coma?

I wasn’t.

“Then why didn’t you post anything new for two months?” I hear you ask.

Well the answer is simple - I’m lazy and couldn’t be bothered.

I hope you can forgive me, because I’m back and The Patch will be as good as ever.

To start off this resurrection post I have a huge assortment of linky goodness.

• This is a really tricky and confusing little game called Hapland.
• A very tricky Image Puzzle game.
• Hasemalphaginnojinglanaporphomism.
• The classic DOS game Hexxagon - on the Web!
• A baby that can’t decide whether it is happy or sad.
• The Fellowship of the Ring movie made with “Peeps” (which seem to be little marshmallow things). Check out Lord of the Peeps.
• Visually search Amazon with amaztype. It really is quite cool.
• Check out Google’s latest offering - Google Gulp. (Is it a coincidence this came out on April Fool’s Day?)
• An updated version of the original Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy text adventure.
• Watch out! You’re downloading the whole internet!
• I would take the lift.
• It’s Rainbow, the best kids show ever!
• A funny ad from HP which begs the question - Where do deleted pictures go?
• … and now a random fact about Vin Diesel.

Now that I’ve successfully wasted a few hours of your time, onto something a little more serious. As you may have noticed from the title, yesterday was the very first birthday of The Cabbage Patch! *YAY*

In order to celebrate this, I thought I would leave it up to you, the reader, to decide the best bits from the Cabbage Patch over the last year. And so I have created the inaugural

Hello World.

Happy Hallmark day! Yes, it’s that time of the year when desperate young boys try to win the hearts of desperate young girls with cards, flowers or chocolate. Valentines Day, or as Darrell Lea, Hallmark and Roses Only like to call it - “The Only Day of the Year We Need to Work!”.

But enough of the soppy lovey dovey stuff, and onto more important matters. Here’s some more entertainment to keep you, well… entertained:

A few more things before I sign off for today. I have had a request to do another one of my ’social commentaries’ so to speak - so tomorrow I think I shall. Stay tuned for that. You may also notice that the commenting system has been overhauled - a pop-up box will appear to add your comments instead of the page you have been previously sent to and you may now sign your name to the end of your comments. No more “By Anonymous” for you thanks very much!

To end today’s little post, I would like to leave you with an interesting fact:

Oh, and look what I made:

Yes, I am proud.

Hello World.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, but I have been extremely busy with my real life (yes, I have one). I have had a suggestion sent in to me to create a permanent games list in the side-bar to make it easier for readers to find previously posted games. I am working on this, but it is a time consuming process and proving a little more difficult than expected. If you have any further suggestions or would like to discuss developments to this site, feel free to post in the guestbook. Anyhoo, on with the linkage.

• This is a rather stupid, and long, flash animation called How to Kill a Mockingbird. It really is stupid, but kinda funny as well.
• This is an ad for Jerry Seinfeld’s movie Comedian, which came out a few years ago. Very funny, and nothing to do with the film at all.
• This is an audio clip from American comedian Pablo Francisco (I think). In it he discusses the guy who does the voices for movie trailers (I sense a theme), and Arnold Schwarzenegger selling tortillas, among other things.
• This is an animation made almost completely out of ASCII characters (I love these things), set to Rammstein’s Feuer Frei.
• This is an amazing picture called ZoomQuilt. Click and drag your mouse up or down to zoom in or out of this seemingly endless hand-drawn picture.
• A simple little game called Twins. You have to match up pairs of coloured balls by connecting them with lines. A lot more fun than it sounds.
• I quote “Possibly the hardest test in the world“. You’ve all seen those quizzes where you must guess which of two things is in the picture. Well this is kinda like that… only weirder.

Hello World.

Below is a copy of an email I received. It is a letter from Britain to the United States of America. Very funny.

In the light of your failure to elect a human as President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up “aluminium”. Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘favour’ and ‘neighbour’, skipping the letter ‘U’ is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter ‘Z’ (pronounced ‘zed’ not ‘zee’) and the suffix “ize” will be replaced by the suffix “ise”. You will learn that the suffix ‘burgh is pronounced ‘burra’ e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as ‘Pittsberg’ if you can’t cope with correct pronunciation.

Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary”. Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up “interspersed”. There will be no more ‘bleeps’ in the Jerry Springer show. If you’re not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn’t have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won’t have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as “US English”. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the elimination of “-ize”.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn’t that hard. English accents are not limited to Cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as “Taggart” will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we’re talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is “Devon”. If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become “shires” e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as “Men Behaving Badly” or “Red Dwarf” will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can’t cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, “God Save The Queen”, but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American “football”. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American “football” is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays “American” football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American “football”, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the ‘World Series’ for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls’ game called “rounders” which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don’t believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called “Indecisive Day”.

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren’t even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called “crisps”. Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as “beer”, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as “Lager”. The substances formerly known as “American Beer” will henceforth be referred to as “Near-Frozen Donkey Piss”, with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as “Weak Near-Frozen Donkey Piss”. This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen, Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From December 1st the UK will harmonise petrol (or “Gasoline” as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon - get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns or lawyers. The fact that you need so many lawyers shows that you’re not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone then you’re not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us crazy.

Tax collectors from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776). Thank you for your co-operation.

So there you have it. Personally, I believe that the US would be much better if something like that happened, but then again, the US would be much better if almost anything happened to change it.

Well, hope you enjoyed that. More tomorrow (hopefully).