The World... Explained #1
At the end of darkness, comes light. At the end of despair, comes hope. At the end of my girlfriend's macaroni cheese, comes a long lavatorial confinement. Our world, as it orbits the star at the centre of our solar system that we call Raymond the Fire Prince, presents us with many questions: What? Why? How? And my own personal favourite, Where? As people, we are left to endlessly pursue our hunger and indeed thirst for knowledge. So here, Project Brainstorm presents, if not answers, then certainly a selection of snacks and soft drinks.
Emoticons...Explained
Emoticons, or smileys as they are often referred to, are those little collection of symbols at the end of a sentence used in chatrooms, weblogs and message boards. These little pictures are intended to express in a few characters an entire wealth of information about what you mean. To read them, you have to turn the entire room by 90 degrees around your cat. Then, squinting slightly, your have to position your eyes on the screen and move back slowly, until you reach Scunthorpe. Now you know what they look like, let us learn what they mean.
":-)"
On the outside you are smiling. You make the world believe you live on the rays and warmth of the Sun, dancing merrily past life's little obstacles with your magical bunny friends, off on another exciting day along the giggling, gurgling river of tranquillity. The façade is as shallow as the river's edge where at night you dream of drowning the bunnies, your foot crushing their faces into the muddy bed. It is becoming harder to battle the crack addiction with Interpol getting closer and closer, and the only thing that keeps you from plunging over the waterfall of insanity is repeating your mantra "Every day, in every way, her corpse is becoming more unrecognisable to modern forensic methods".
":-P"
It is important to you that everyone understands your meaning. Your every sentence is completed with some indication of your wry, quirky, tongue in cheek nature. Like the Norse god Loki, you are, at heart, mischievous and impish. Not that you have a sharp rapier wit that allows you to run clever circles around your friends, but more so that you are three feet tall, live under a rock, and are chased nightly by bands of locals with fiery torches and pitchforks, eager to please the Elders.
":-S"
I'm sorry, but I've never seen anyone pull a real face like that. It's not physically possible. I don't think you should use any words you can't spell, and I don't think you should use any smileys you can't actually pull off in a semi-professional sporting arena. While you might think you are implying your are confused this actually has a much deeper meaning. You are Phlarg, the alien menace from the moons of Neptune, currently residing in the Earth town, London, wearing a human man disguise. You have created detailed and infallible plans to take over first our Solar System, enslaving the human race to man your army, then the rest of the known Universe. Tragically, your mouth was badly designed, and you are incapable of telling anyone else your scheme in a recognisable language. This did not prevent you from being elected MP for a small Tory constituency in Devon, where the locals accept the strange noises you make as highly intellectual.
";-)"
Ahhh, the wink, the all knowing gesture letting everyone know they are included. You want to share everything, and bring the entire world together as one, never allowing a single person to be left out. Your belief that we can all get along if we stop taking ourselves so seriously is a testament to your courage because there are many who do not want to listen to you. To them, the world should be split with you on one side, and those who aren't dirty ageing hippies on the other.
" "
You prefer the silence of ambiguity, letting those around you work out for themselves exactly how offended they should be. You believe your words our powerful enough to avoid signposting to your readers, who you assume are of a similar intelligence. This does have its downsides, as you are currently wanted by the Klan, the IRA, the PLO, the ATF, the lawyers acting on the behalf of Sir Mark Thatcher, and the entire Kop End of Anfield from last Saturday's game. Currently, your survival rests on each group's destroying the others in their attempts to claim your head as a trophy. Currently the Liverpool fans look like strong contenders, but then they'd do anything for a trophy at the moment.
There are, of course, many other smileys that we have not yet discovered. Every year, the tireless efforts of emoticologists in remote parts of South America uncovers new and exciting smileys used in primitive societies. For instance last year the symbol
-->8-{ ("Excuse me sir, would you mind if I stuck an arrow painfully into your head") was found written on the wall of a Inca temple where people went to have an arrow stuck painfully into their heads. It has been adapted by Internet users and it is now common to see the sentence, "This download is taking for ever
-->8-{", to imply, "This download is taking for ever it is so bad I feel like sticking an arrow painfully into my head".
That is all from this edition of the World...Explained. To learn more, try to read more.
Emoticons...Explained
Emoticons, or smileys as they are often referred to, are those little collection of symbols at the end of a sentence used in chatrooms, weblogs and message boards. These little pictures are intended to express in a few characters an entire wealth of information about what you mean. To read them, you have to turn the entire room by 90 degrees around your cat. Then, squinting slightly, your have to position your eyes on the screen and move back slowly, until you reach Scunthorpe. Now you know what they look like, let us learn what they mean.
":-)"
On the outside you are smiling. You make the world believe you live on the rays and warmth of the Sun, dancing merrily past life's little obstacles with your magical bunny friends, off on another exciting day along the giggling, gurgling river of tranquillity. The façade is as shallow as the river's edge where at night you dream of drowning the bunnies, your foot crushing their faces into the muddy bed. It is becoming harder to battle the crack addiction with Interpol getting closer and closer, and the only thing that keeps you from plunging over the waterfall of insanity is repeating your mantra "Every day, in every way, her corpse is becoming more unrecognisable to modern forensic methods".
":-P"
It is important to you that everyone understands your meaning. Your every sentence is completed with some indication of your wry, quirky, tongue in cheek nature. Like the Norse god Loki, you are, at heart, mischievous and impish. Not that you have a sharp rapier wit that allows you to run clever circles around your friends, but more so that you are three feet tall, live under a rock, and are chased nightly by bands of locals with fiery torches and pitchforks, eager to please the Elders.
":-S"
I'm sorry, but I've never seen anyone pull a real face like that. It's not physically possible. I don't think you should use any words you can't spell, and I don't think you should use any smileys you can't actually pull off in a semi-professional sporting arena. While you might think you are implying your are confused this actually has a much deeper meaning. You are Phlarg, the alien menace from the moons of Neptune, currently residing in the Earth town, London, wearing a human man disguise. You have created detailed and infallible plans to take over first our Solar System, enslaving the human race to man your army, then the rest of the known Universe. Tragically, your mouth was badly designed, and you are incapable of telling anyone else your scheme in a recognisable language. This did not prevent you from being elected MP for a small Tory constituency in Devon, where the locals accept the strange noises you make as highly intellectual.
";-)"
Ahhh, the wink, the all knowing gesture letting everyone know they are included. You want to share everything, and bring the entire world together as one, never allowing a single person to be left out. Your belief that we can all get along if we stop taking ourselves so seriously is a testament to your courage because there are many who do not want to listen to you. To them, the world should be split with you on one side, and those who aren't dirty ageing hippies on the other.
" "
You prefer the silence of ambiguity, letting those around you work out for themselves exactly how offended they should be. You believe your words our powerful enough to avoid signposting to your readers, who you assume are of a similar intelligence. This does have its downsides, as you are currently wanted by the Klan, the IRA, the PLO, the ATF, the lawyers acting on the behalf of Sir Mark Thatcher, and the entire Kop End of Anfield from last Saturday's game. Currently, your survival rests on each group's destroying the others in their attempts to claim your head as a trophy. Currently the Liverpool fans look like strong contenders, but then they'd do anything for a trophy at the moment.
There are, of course, many other smileys that we have not yet discovered. Every year, the tireless efforts of emoticologists in remote parts of South America uncovers new and exciting smileys used in primitive societies. For instance last year the symbol
-->8-{ ("Excuse me sir, would you mind if I stuck an arrow painfully into your head") was found written on the wall of a Inca temple where people went to have an arrow stuck painfully into their heads. It has been adapted by Internet users and it is now common to see the sentence, "This download is taking for ever
-->8-{", to imply, "This download is taking for ever it is so bad I feel like sticking an arrow painfully into my head".
That is all from this edition of the World...Explained. To learn more, try to read more.
