Cars Conversing

Gary Cooper is furious and nearly maniacal over high gas prices….watch this video of Gary at DailyPress.com and you can just hear the rage in his voice.

I hope he regains his composure soon.

Do you know about Leetspeak?

Wikipedia reports that this “internet alphabet” – which replaces alpha characters with ASCII characters – is now mainstream.  Huh?  

Knowing that, it should be obvious that 1337 clearly translates to “leet”, derived from ”elite”.  And its usage began as positive acknowledgement of the accomplishments of achievers in the hacker/gamer community. 

If you’re seeking a quick translation, try this L337 Speak Converter.  I played around with it for a while and came up with this:

/\/\’/ 3′/35 |-|UR7 PhR0/\/\ r34D1|\|9 L337

[Translation: My eyes hurt from reading leet.]

Seems that lately the term is more commonly used as an insult, delivered sarcastically.  There are many examples out there…I especially like definition #5 on the Urban Dictionary site.

So do you think he’s mocking his Hyundai? 

I was cool once. 

There was actually a time when I was so tied in to pop culture - and even some subculture – that I would have immediately known the answer to this one.

But that was a long time ago.

So after seeing this plate repeatedly at a particular industrial park, I swallowed my pride, accepted my current-day “non-coolness” and turned to the Urban Dictionary to enlighten me.

Of course, discovering the definition just depressed me further….additional evidence of my lost hipness.  “Who,” I asked myself, “Is the ‘Great Pootie Tang‘?”

And then I found the Pootie Tang trailer on YouTube.   I wonder if it’s as good as Dolomite?  

Did I mention that it’s been a while since I was cool?….

 Surely you’ve seen the 1997 British comedy about six unemployed steel workers  who form a male striptease act for somewhat noble purposes?  I’m not certain what kind of shenanigans occur at Ohio Wesleyan, but it might be worth checking out.

At least take a look at ”The Full Monty” finale posted on YouTube.  The film’s characters are quite endearing – definitely worth a rental if you haven’t seen it.  Or even if you have.