11:11 11/11

The end of Blackadder IV

h/t Making Light

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inspired. graduate students, I'm guessing XKCD really is lovely h/t Making Light, of course
tags: global warming, humor, behavior, streaming video Do you want to save the earth while reducing your bills? Use energy-saving light bulbs! [0:49]. H/t to Mike.
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Brilliant! h/t h/t Tokyo Progressive

One of my all-time favorite series, and the Grand Finale of BA-4 literally brought tears to my eyes the first time I saw it. Oddly, many people don't find the series all that funny...

I must agree with Jennifer. It brought (nay, wrenched) tears from my eyes the first time I saw it, and again just now. I also have found many people unable to either understand or appreciate the humor of the show. Period pieces do not have to be dry drama, don'cha know?

I'm not surprised many don't get it, Blackadder is very English English comedy rather than American English comedy. Glad a few did, though.

The most moving Remembrance Sunday tribute I heard was on BBC Radio: they played Big Ben striking 11, then instead of the two minutes silence there was a reading of the poem Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfrid Owen.

Stupid scienceblogger comment links. Here you go:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.