Talk Like a Pirate Day 2006

Next to Halloween, this might be my favorite holiday of the year: Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Here’s the explanation from the A Word A Day mailing list this weekend:

Every September 19 people around the world celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day. It’s been marked on all continents — even Antarctica. Why? Because it’s fun, it’s anarchic. Its very whimsy — trying to get everyone on the planet to talk like a stereotypical Caribbean buccaneer on the same day each year — sets it apart from other holidays.

The holiday had its genesis during a racquetball game between John Baur and Mark Summers, two friends in Albany, Oregon. It was a private joke that went around the world. The rest is, if not history, at least a good story, which you can read at their Web site http://www.talklikeapirate.com.

A note — I’ve often heard people talk about pirates’ “cockney accents.” Wrong! The stereotypical pirate has a Cornish accent, based on the performance of Long John Silver by actor Robert Newton in the 1950 Disney version of “Treasure Island”. He was from Cornwall, and his over-the-top performance and native accent are the reason people think that’s what a pirate sounded like. Of course, pirates came from all nationalities. But the pop culture image is firmly embedded, and Robert Newton is the reason why.

Here in Hesperia, Sultana High School is celebrating Spirit Week this week, in the lead-up to their homecoming football game, and each day, the kids dress up in a different theme. Today’s theme? Pirates, by thunder! There be hope for this generation yet, I reckon.

Arrrr …

• Find out your pirate name at the Long John Silver’s site. Just call me “Scabby Obadiah,” arrrrrr.

Storm Large on iTunes

Storm Large has released her original song “Ladylike” on iTunes in both the clean “what the what is ladylike” and explicit “what the fuck is ladylike” versions.

Note that this is not the forthcoming version with Dave Navarro on guitars, which should be up soonish.

iTunes offering free ABC shows

For people who like to download TV shows from iTunes (Peter), for a limited time, the site is offering the season finales (and new season teasers) of Lost, Desperate Housewives and Gray’s Anatomy. Get them while they’re free; normally they’d go for $6 total.

Wait, these are all double-length episodes, so it’s a $12 value. Not bad at all.

Change in the weather

I love that Hesperia has finally cooled off — having temperatures over 90 degrees in September was just a bit too much for me — but with the cool weather (which the cats adore) has come a wave of colds and flus. I’ve got some strange sinus thing between my right ear and down the right side of my jaw, which hurts, but at least it’s not a sniffly sneezy thing.

I know this weather won’t last very long at all, and I’m determined to enjoy it while I can.

Soft drink sizes

So, I ordered small sodas at two different fast food restaurants today (give me a break; it’s deadline day) and both times, they came back tiny. At Burger King, in fact, they gave me a child’s size drink.

I can no longer figure out drink sizes at fast food places. Large has somehow turned into Super Big Gulp bladder-buster size, and medium is now what once was large. I guess that’s so that people feel like they’re getting more for their buck, when soda syrup is incredibly cheap for a restaurant.

What I don’t get, though, is why they’re scaling back to an insane degree with small drinks, which I’d hoped would be what the old medium size was. Is this some sort of weird passive-aggressive fast food restaurant chain behavior or something?