In my case it appeared three times at the end of each day (since 27th November). I think the person behind this ad drops especially on the TOP 300 blogs to get as many clicks as possible for its purposes.There have been some amazing, life-affirming occurrences over the last ten years. But you don’t want to hear about those, do you?
Thought not. Here’s the most crushing letdowns of the decade…
10. The Y2K Bug: Crappest techno-crisis ever (1st January 2000) The disappointments started early this decade. For years there had been rumblings about an impending IT meltdown due to the widespread (and rather short-sighted) abbreviation of years into two digits.
As media scaremongers counted down to the apocalyptic ’00 switchover, the Millenium Bug hype ramped up considerably and, as I remember it, people began stockpiling tins of analogue food and steam-powered hair straighteners in a desperate bid to stave off the annihilation of civilisation.
Now, I’m no apocalypse-yearning Luddite, but I was looking forward to a little post-millennial excitement – maybe some light looting, or the eradication of global credit card data. Plus I had a massive stack of unread books to catch up on.
Alas, the year 2000 arrived and what did we get? Problems issuing bus tickets in Australia. Rubbish.
9. Firefly gets cancelled: What a gorram disappointment (December 2002) Joss Whedon’s quietly awesome sci-fi series was doomed from the start when Fox TV’s executive idiots decided to air the initial episodes in the wrong order before unceremoniously cancelling it.
It wasn’t necessarily up there with the best shows of the decade, but many lesser products have inexplicably clogged up our TVs season after season, year after year (*cough* Lost, *cough* Prison Break).
But not poor old Firefly, which ran for less than one of its intended seven years. That’s nearly three quarters of a decade of Cap’n Reynolds and crew’s wisecracks, bar brawls and bank robberies we missed out on. Instead we got the useless Dollhouse.
8. Indiana Jones 4: Further proof that George Lucas hates humanity (22nd May 2008) George Lucas, the bearded Dark Lord of Disappointment, spent his early career lovingly crafting wonderful escapist fantasies that defined our childhood years and captured the budding imagination of an entire generation.
During the 1990s, however, he completed his journey to the Dark Side by single-handedly engineering 20th century cinema’s most gut-wrenching disappointment: The Phantom Menace.
This decade, after further defecating over our childhood dreams with two more intergalactic kicks to the scrotum, he turned his Mephistophelian hand to overseeing the destruction of his other much-loved creation: Indiana Jones.
Nuclear blast-proof fridges, long-lost son clichés and alien conspiracies: this was not the joyous, whip-cracking Indy of old, but a cynical, hackneyed, CGI-spattered sham. Why do you hate us so much George?
7. Windows Vista: Bill Gates validates Mac owners’ smug faces (30th January 2007) The monolithic Microsoft Corporation has taken a lot of criticism over the years. All of which seemed fully justified after the release of their latest operating system which managed to be even crapper than the previous one. Security flaws, hardware compatibility problems, draconian digital rights management – the list goes on and on (and it does, at length, on the Wikipedia page entitled “Criticisms of Windows Vista”.)
However, the most disappointing thing about Windows Vista was that it justified the annoying self-satisfaction of Apple Mac owners, making them infinitely more irritating and punchable.
6. Duke Nukem Forever: Duke Nukem Never (2000 onwards) 13 years. That’s how long we’ve been waiting for the triumphant return of the wise-cracking, decidedly non-PC video game action hero. After announcing the game way back in 1997, the developer, 3DRealms, subjected long-suffering fans to a hilariously protracted trickle of screenshots, rumours and bold proclamations of revolutionary content, with the odd teaser trailer thrown in to keep their increasingly tenuous hopes alive.
You may wonder what on earth they were using to develop this game. The Antikythera mechanism? Windows Vista? However, such ponderings – amusing though they are – were rendered irrelevant in May of this year when 3DRealms announced they were shutting down and that development on the eight-time winner of Wired.com’s annual vapourware awards had finally ceased.
Or maybe not? Rumour has it that DNF is still on the cards. Time to let it go people…
5. Large Hadron Collider gets switched on: Nothing happens (10th September 2008) You can’t blame them for the hype, I suppose, for the LHC is nothing if not utterly esoteric. Therefore, in order to justify the staggering costs, and to let us simple folk in on the whole thing, they cranked up the media buzz generator.
The popular press excitably proclaimed that humanity was on the cusp of discovering the unifying theory of everything ever in the history of everything (ever), while doomsaying nutjobs predicted that we were about to be sucked into a black hole of our own making.
And dammit, it worked. It was an exciting time: absolutely baffling, yet pregnant with the wondrous possibilities of human endeavour. The LHC looked like a Bond villain’s lair for Christ’s sake. They had made particle physics sexy.
But then they switched it on. And there was no black hole, and no instantaneous scientific epiphanies, and our MTV-addled, instant-gratification-seeking brains just switched off.
And then it blew a fuse.
4. The Matrix sequels: The Wachoswkis disappear up their own rabbit holes (May/November 2003) Thanks to the deluge of dire movie sequels, cinema historians will look back on the Noughties as “The Decade That Imagination Forgot”. But while most were pointless, cynical continuations of past-their-prime or previously-concluded franchises (see number 8), the Matrix sequels were of a much more disappointing nature.
The original movie ended the 90s in a hugely satisfying synthesis of existential angst, visual flare, innovative action and intellectual depth that seemed to herald the exciting cinematic future of the approaching millennium.
But instead of delivering on this promise, the Wachowski’s blew it. Twice. The first movie’s inventive action was replaced with tired and overblown CGI exercises; the playful deconstruction of notions of reality gave way to annoyingly oblique cod-philosophy and heavy-handed religious mysticism; and what did we get in place of the original’s effortless cool? That ridiculous rave scene.
3. Bush’s re-election: Rest of the world slaps forehead (November 2004) OK, vote-tampering aside, in some ways it almost made sense. I mean the Democratic candidate… umm… hold on… John Kerry (I just Wikipedia’d it), was hardly a memorable candidate. But from every other logical (and illogical) standpoint it was utterly confounding. Bush? Again? WTF America?
There’s a saying where I come from: vote for a fool once, shame on… shame on you. Vote for a fool twice, umm… everyone… everyone will be really, really disappointed.
2. The financial crisis aftermath: Time for a change? Erm… no (2007 onwards) When the financial crisis struck in the latter part of the decade, bombarded by grandstanding political bluster about economic reform, I found myself gripped by a fleeting moment of delusional optimism, during which I almost believed that our perfidious, vote-pandering leaders were actually capable of instigating tangible, positive change.
“Finally,” I thought, “the world has accepted that our global economy is a ridiculous sham, our benevolent leaders will surely rip it down and in its place we shall build a progressive, sustainable and just system ushering in an era of peace and harmony that will last for aeons”. Embarrassment and disappointment soon followed.
To use Homer Simpson’s neologism, the economic crash was a quintessential “crisitunity”. It provided a real opportunity for genuine change. We could have slapped the smug look from the bankers’ jowls and told them stick their damned derivatives and reckless greed.
But with our hands greased by impotent political rhetoric, public apathy and the hegemonic influence of the banking sector, the chance slipped through our fingers. Instead, we allowed the bankers to go about their greedy business, risking global economic security in the ceaseless pursuit of growth and profits. This time, however, with us footing the bill.
As Homer would say: D’oh!
1. No contact with alien life forms: Seriously, this is getting boring (2000 onwards) We know you’re out there you little green bastards. A simple “hello” would have sufficed. We’d spent the previous decade with Mulder and Scully pretty much proving your existence, stamping the notion of your imminent arrival onto our collective consciousness on a weekly basis. And you don’t even have the decency to turn up.
Here’s an idea for you: give up the covert cavity probing, grow some balls – or the extra-terrestrial anatomical equivalents – and stop disappointing everyone.
You better show up next year with a good excuse and some sweet gadgets or you’ll make Arthur C. Clarke look like a right dick. And that’s not cool.
Article from: http://blog.knowyourmoney.co.uk/
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Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - The 10 Biggest Disappointments of the Decade
The following funny ways to save money are meant to be just that: funny. They are collected from blogs, websites and the minds of twisted scrooges. My disclaimer: Meant for entertainment purposes only - Please don't try these at home.
Visit neighbors while they are working in their gardens and continue to compliment them on the great job they've done until they finally offer you some free vegetables. You can probably do this with several neighbors in order to spread out these foraging trips and limit them to one or two per month for each. Estimated annual savings versus buying the vegetables: $110.
Ask for extra religious tracts from the next religious zealots to knock on your door and then replace half of each restaurant tip with one. Annual savings based on eating out once weekly with an average tip of four dollars (before 50% replacement with that nice little booklet): $104
Accept the gift that all fast food restaurants offer you: packets of ketchup, mustard and other condiments. Have each of your kids take seven or eight extra before you leave and stop buying condiments for the house altogether. Have them take extra napkins while they are at it. Potential savings each year: $130
Pee in the shower once daily. Hey, you're there anyhow, and it goes down the drain. Based on a three gallon flush for the toilet use being replaced, you'll save 1,000 gallons of water annually. Multiply that by the per-gallon charge from your local water company or municipality to determine your annual savings.
Search lost-and-found departments at businesses, governmental buildings and other places and say, "There it is!" whenever you come upon an item that you need and like. To get the most savings with this strategy you have to focus on taking things that you would have otherwise bought, and not things like fancy umbrellas you never would have paid for. Also, be careful about day planners, books and other things that might have the name of the owner on or in them. How much money can you save in this way? That depends on your motivation level and acting ability.
Remove the downspout from your gutter so you can shower under the resulting stream of falling water when it rains. Based on a once monthly outdoor shower that saves you ten gallons of hot water this can save you at least thirty cents annually.
Cut open lotion and shampoo containers to get the last 20% that Consumer's Reports says is normally thrown away. Potential savings for your time? At least $1.17 per hour of effort.
More funny ways to save money? Teach the dog to beg neighbors for food. Visit friends right at dinner time to get free meals. Call long distance during lunch and leave a message so the other person has to return the call and pay for it. Wash your car by soaping it up just before a thunderstorm and letting the rain rinse it.
About the Author:Copyright Steve Gillman. For real Ways To Save Money, and to get the free Unusual Ways (To Make And Save Money) Newsletter, visit: http://www.UnusualWaysToMakeMoney.com
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - More Funny Ways To Save Money
