Never mind buses, how about streetcars.

And it continues on the inside, too.

Yeah, that's hot!

They will sometimes refurbish the entire inside. Complete with rug.

Now rugs, that's just pandering.

Also, hard to clean with all the footballers peeing on them.

Red carpet and handrails wrapped in velvet, and fake fireplaces on the walls.

@Mitch Yeah, you need to ask them to stop peeing before you clean them, otherwise it's just embarrassing for everyone.

@Cerberus As to witty, the reason Germans have no sense of humor, it was taken away from them as part of war reparations.

Also, the latest addition are actual, functioning mailboxes.

@RegDwighт on a streetcar? Can't they wait to get off first?

So you don't need to go to the post office anymore. Just get rid of your mail on your morning commute.

@Mitch of course they can, but not everyone is into canning.

@RegDwighт wait.. what movie is that?

@Mitch Big Trouble as the caption says.

Farina doesn't have a 'chicago' accent, he just has a movie gangster accent.

Like 5.something on IMDb.

which is how chicagoans normally speak.

!!/rimshot

instantrimshot.com

@RegDwighт Oh. Right. That didn't sound like a movie to me.

Looks like it didn't sound like a movie to the people who watched it.

It didn't sound like a sneeze either, so that's why I was confused.

Not a movie or not a sneeze, I mean you can't get more confusing than that.

@CapricaSix: SNACKTIME

Well it could also not be the wild dog Dingo, for starters.

@Mitch So budybodies they become, huh?

What, no that'd be crazy. Dingo's.. what a wild idea. Who would a thought of that.

We have that too.

@Mitch That is an inhumane punishment: not only are you punished, but you are rendered incapable of making jokes about it? Ouch.

@Cerberus Are you trying to say Germans don't have a monopoly on beauty? That's a bit rich. Also a very non-German thing to say, or think.

You should reconsider.

At least Russians have this great cynical humour.

@Mitch Okay, I have reconsidered, and decided that this is not Germany, after all.

@Cerberus I was told that joke by a German. It's funny.

For a German.

The really sad part is that the people who took away that sense of humor never did anything with it themselves.

@RegDwighт Ha ha! Ha. ha... hm.... what?

I was making a cynical Russian statement.

@RegDwighт I keep reading that as a cyclical Russian statement.

Now that is funny. Not.

Not that that is funny now.

It might be funny in 2053.

What happens in 2053?

We will see. That's what.

That's not funny.

In fact I'm scared.

Scared that I've missed snacktime.

Well you can just keep your eyes closed during 2053, then.

I definitely think they'll be closed then.

Awww. Now that is hilarious.

Oh...the whole year? that's a bit extreme.

But only a bit. Think two years. That'd be like twice as extreme.

So you know how nobody is allowed to say 'no' to the queen? I wonder if she's aware of that.

No.

!!/

@Mitch That didn't make much sense. Use the help command to learn more.

Yeah, duh it makes no sense because nothing was said.

And really if it makes so little sense to you, maybe it is your problem and you should be getting some help... AssPrica Six.

@RegDwighт Absolutely Sout' Side Chicago.

Gosh now you have sides, too.

This madness is like Sparta. Is that how you say in English?

There's the North Side and the Sout' Side.

I am running out of RAM for all that information.

@RegDwighт Spoken by a man whose whole friggin' country used to have sides.

But it's a whole frigging country, see. Not a measly village.

Berlin had sides too.

Hold on, I need to make room.

Hell, Dublin has a north side and a south side.

It's the reverse of Chicago, though. In Dublin, the south side is posh and the north side is working class.

I read that as a newspaper title. "Hell and Dublin have a north side and a south side".

@Mitch I know how you feel.

Better download a little more RAM.

I'm on it.

@Robusto The East Side of Chicago is the baddest part of town.

That would be the Southeast side. You go north of Oak Street and the east side is Lake Michigan.

There are in fact two exceptions to the rule 1) The East Side of Chicago is a small neighborhood on the border with Gary, Indiana

2) East Chicago, Indiana which is actually bordering Gary Indiana, unlike that snake-like imposter East Side which only borders Indiana. Both ore to the east of Chicago in the most stretched meaning of the word East. Stretched mostly towards the south.

All of which confirms my assertion. Thank you.

Some Eggs Benedict I made yesterday in my new kitchen.

There should've been three plates, but my wife couldn't wait long enough for the photo.

I should have garnished with parsley, but, well, fuck it. The meal was superb anyway. I mean, the Hollandaise sauce was like Heisenberg perfect. Walter White would have been proud.

It's great to be able to cook with precision again.

I got your real Chicago right here.

And here:

That's Otis Spann's South Side piano, baby.

And while we're at it, let's give Junior Wells a nod:

s/psychiatry/blues/

These songs are proof that whiskey trumps psychiatry.

I'm wanting to name a field all_time_pnl ( pnl = profit/loss), all time in the sense of from the begining, total, any better idea?

o well let's call it imply pnl, and rename another field pnl->current_pnl (for current opened orders

"All time" sounds fine?

@Mitch Does that include her husband?

@cx Please don't ever come and work with me on a programming project, if you're seriously considering naming a variable pnl. Umm, all_time_profit is fine. Clarity trumps grammar.

What can we learn from all this?

All that matters is profits, profits, profits.

It appears Cameron is not so U after all.

Wrong shoes, wrong tie.

@Cerberus what's wrong with the tie? I'd be more worried about the haircut myself.

It's black and he is not attending a funeral.

It's brown.

Even worse.

What's wrong with the haircut?

You don't mind the haircut?

What's wrong with it?

He looks kind of scruffy.

Is that a problem?

He won't be coming to MY funeral looking like that!

How will you stop him?

By outliving him, probably.

That would seem to be the only "viable" strategy.

Also, when I die, I won't tell him about it.

Indeed, I would not expect you do.

Being dead and all.

Maybe you're right. It could be a black tie, and it's just the light that makes it look brown.

It's wrong either way.

In any case, he doesn't look like the prime minister of a major country.

Why not?

PMs are rarely U any more, these days...

Hmm. I'm just thinking about my own one.

What's he/she look like?

Antipodean, presumably?

Feet on his head?

He's usually well dressed.

How well?

Cameron is reasonably well dressed.

Compared to, say, Chavez.

Most of his ties are blue.

google.co.nz/…

@DavidWallace He's all right too.

But those thick pinstripes...

What's wrong with thick pinstripes? I own a suit with thick pinstripes.

And I see some very ugly ties.

Not many.

I don't know, thick pinstripes seem a bit...out of date for someone young.

Under 70.

Hey, what do we think of a moderator who answers a question, then closes it as "unclear what you're asking"?

@Cerberus Really? I am in the height of fashion when I wear mine.

@DavidWallace Haha, ridiculous.

Which question.

@DavidWallace Present company excluded, of course.

Oh, this was a couple of days ago. I think it's probably got deleted by now.

Haha, no, the moderator in question is not a user of this particular chat room.

Are these Maori symbols or something?

No. He looks kind of bored, though, doesn't he?

Quite.

That is the debating chamber in parliament, by the way.

So I figured.

He IS looking towards the speaker of the house.

I suppose that's something.

Are ministers members of parliament in your country?

All cabinet ministers are members of parliament. Not all members of parliament are cabinet ministers. Is that what you're asking?

Haha!

The event [the birth of William and Kate's son] would be marked by a 21 gun salute at lunch time today in Wellington, which he [Prime Minister John Key] hoped wouldn't frighten city residents too much in the aftermath of recent earthquakes.

Mock the royal brat, go to prison. Welcome to the U.K.

@DavidWallace Yes. Ministers are no members of parliament here.

I suppose royal brats have always been major news items, probably since the dawn of time.

@Cerberus So are they elected?

Our forefathers died face down in the mud so we didn't have to give a fuck about the royal wedding. And the same goes for the progeny of the royal couple.

One of a prime minister elect's first duties following an election is to choose the cabinet ministers from all the elected members of parliament.

@DavidWallace No, basically appointed by parliament.

@Cerberus But not from among the members of parliament?

They can be, but then they must leave parliament.

So you then get by-elections?

No, I think they get to pick someone to fill their seat, which will be the next in line in their party. I think.

Separation of powers.

Not that it matters a great deal.

So I could vote for someone to be my electoral representative; and he/she then gets chosen to be a cabinet minister, so I end up being represented by somebody that NOBODY voted for?

Yes.

I suppose our way, you end up with someone who is too busy to represent the people who elected them, because they're off doing cabinet ministerial stuff. Not sure which is better.

(Nearly) all candidates are part of a longer list of candidates (= of a party). If you vote for one candidate, you know that your vote may in the end go to someone else on that particular list (=party).

So you don't actually get to vote for the candidate? You're really voting for the party.

You vote for the candidate; but what happens when one candidate gets 2 million votes?

Do you throw away most of those votes, because you need only 50,000 for a seat?

Essentially, yes.

So you have a district system?

But how do you only need 50k for a seat, when there are 2M on offer?

Yes, we have a district system.

Well, 2M/50K=40. That would be 40 seats.

You get two votes. You vote for the candidate that you want to have representing your district; and for the party that you want to have governing the entire country. The candidate that you vote for doesn't have to belong to the party that you vote for.

We have 150 seats and about 12 million votes, so about 80k votes per seat.

Each district is only represented by one seat here; then you have a whole lot of people who don't represent anybody.

Huh.

So what happens with a party vote?

The parties each have a list of people. The party votes are used to calculate how many seats each party is allowed to have. If they didn't win enough districts to make up this number (which is nearly always the case), then they go to the list, and pick off how many people they need to make up their quota.

So our MPs are a mixture of district representatives and off-the-list extras.

@Cerberus So you don't have districts at all?

@DavidWallace Ah, I see.