An English Test For Migrents

English exams for migrants

Immigrants hoping to become citizens will have to pass a test on basic English skills and the Australian way of life, Prime Minister John Howard announced today.
Would-be citizens would need to show they had a basic understanding of Australia's "shared values", under plans outlined by Mr Howard and his undersecretary for immigration Andrew Robb.
The tests would apply to all new migrants who apply to become Australian citizens after being in Australia for four years.

That's hot.

Seriously, that's hot. Requiring people who have been in Australia for four years to pass a basic test, in English makes way too much sense. The way I see, unless you can order, in English, a footlong chicken fillet with bacon and no jalapenos at Subway, you can't function in society. In fact, that should be the test. I don't care if you know about parliamentary democracy, order me a sandwich, bitch.

This is what happens when you forget my fucking mustard, Aziz

What those opposed to the idea of citizens of an English-speaking country learning English don't understand is that this is mainly for their own good. In the land of Work Choices, you're not going to climb the ladder of opportunity (r.i.p) if you don't know how to say 'toilet'.

That's just an example. Not being able to say 'Yes Mr. Howard, I won't tell Janette what we did in the boiler room' would also hold you back.

And I pity the immigrant from Lebanon who can't say 'Oh shit, my baklava set my house on fire' when they call 000. And how would Bulldogs fans chant that Roosters fans like to put penii in our mouths if we can't understand them?!

As for the exam itself, well that's not as hot, especially if it's anything like Beazley's idea of a 'values' test. Call me crazy, but you can't be told what values are. You learn them yourself, from your parents, your environment, your pimp. Saying arbitrary buzzwords like 'mateship' and 'a fair go' sure do make the simple folk happy, but they mean nothing. The Anzacs weren't heroes because of their mateship, they were heroes because of the specific, practical example they set. As soon as you start trying to identify and label values, you remove all their meaning.

Come on men! We have to fight to preserve mateship so Mel Gibson can play me in a movie! FOR COMPULSORY VOTING! CHAAARRGGEEE!!

And now you're probably saying... but Tommy, this is John Howard's idea! You're meant to bag it out, and photoshop things! All you've done is make a joke about him banging the housekeeper in the boiler room! And The Lodge probably doesn't even have a boiler room! And what the fuck is a boiler room?

Well... Feast your eyes on this. This, my friends, is the definition of irony. Well, Alanis Morissette irony anyway.

Here are some examples of the values citizens would have to pledge to uphold.

• Respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual;
• Equality of men and women;
• Freedom of religion;
• Commitment to the rule of law;
• Parliamentary Democracy;
• A spirit of egalitarianism that embraces mutual respect fair play and compassion for those in need.

Oh dear. It photoshops itself.

Video Link Post #9402 - The Death Of A Salesman

I wasn't planning on doing another one of these today, even though we're just about due for one, but then I saw this video.

It is 7 minutes of David Caruso/Horatio's one-liners in CSI:Miami. And yes, every single one of them is gold. From 'Frank, turns out the wave isn't the only thing about to hit Miami..' to 'So the victim started the weekend big man on campus, and ended it.... Dead On Arrival..' to 'We're going to Brazil', this is perhaps the finest single video ever. Watch his sunglass use, and how the inflection in his voice goes up for the first half of the line..... and then down for the second.

Looks like someone tried to put TommyIsCoolDotCom..... on ICE.

I like Smosh. They're like, funny emos. Here is their Dramatic Voice Experiment (9 mins) and the much shorter Stranded (2 mins).

Kid gets knocked out by a paintball. (30 secs) The people from Australia's Funniest Home Videos wish he got hit in the balls.

A kid picks a fight, then gets a one-punch broken nose. (30 secs) That's not the best thing. The best thing is the guy filming it sounds like an extra from Cool Runnings 2: The Next Generation, if it was about stupid kids in a playground and John Candy wasn't dead.

Requisite Conan O'Brien clip. (7 mins) Conan earns a few million a year. But until a few years ago, he still drove a Ford Taurus. One of the single funniest things on Conan ever, especially when he opens the bonnet. Watch before it gets deleted.

Sean Connery likes to slap a bitch. (1 min) But only if she deserves it. It all depends on the circumstances. And if she isn't telling him where Jaws has stashed the diamonds. Sean Connery likes to slap a bitch. I just like saying it. Sean Connery likes to slap a bitch.

Seinfeld - Kramer: The Lost Episode. (3 mins) Nope, the joke ain't dead yet. It's a mash-up of the KKKramer clip with footage from Seinfeld. Awesome stuff.

Keeping topical - Santa loses it (3 mins).

Not a video, but Christmasy nonetheless. A guy with a lot of time, a lot of money and absolutely no webpage design skills has controllable Christmas lights.

How The Grinch Stole Basic Colour Co-Ordination

The thing where you can set the message on the screen wasn't working when I wrote this, but rest assured - I told the world that John Howard can't get it up.

Oh yeah, I went there

The Best TV Shows You're Not Watching

When you combine Foxtel Digital and the internet, you end up having a lot of choice for your television viewing habits. You could watch Law and Order on TV1, or illegal, extremely hardcore pornography filmed in a former Soviet republic. That's two choices right there!

But I know some of you aren't as.... televisionally endowed as me. Some of you might not even have Pay TV. Some of you mightn't even plan your days around when Lost is out for download. It's sad, really. Just sad.

So, here's my guide to the Best TV Shows That You Ar- ah fuck it just read the blog title.

I chose 7, because it's the number everyone chooses when people say 'pick a number between 1 and 10'. They are ranked in order of quality and/or not-watching-ness.


#7 - The Unit

I mentioned this in my last blog about TV, but it's still a kickass show. It's kind of like House in that it's pretty formulaic, but always with a twist. And nothing ever happens that matters the next episode. It not only stars President Palmer from 24, but the T-1000 and the guy from Felicity. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that in the last blog. How about you just read that, and we'll skip to #6?



#6 - The Unit

Fuck.









#6 - Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip

Again, another relic from the last TV blog. Studio 60 is set behind-the-scenes at a television sketch comedy show. If you like The West Wing, you will love this. If you don't love The West Wing, go back to school. Seriously. You obviously missed a day or something. I'd rate this show higher because of the quality of the writing and the perfomances, but it does treat a 90-minute comedy show as the most important thing ever. It's also a little preachy.

If I wanted preachy, over-intelligent people lecturing me about culture, I'd watch the ABC. Bam. Take that, Spicks and Specks.


#5 - TNA iMPACT!

So like, Sting won the NWA World Title right. But he fought Abyss in a match and he put Abyss off the stage through a table covered in thumbtacks, but before he did, he pushed the ref so he lost the title by disqualification. Wrestling rocks. If you liked The West Wing, you'll like this. Not because it's well-written, witty or even has any semblance of a coherant plot. It's just 'West Wing' rhymes with 'Wrestling'.



#4 - Extras

Ricky Gervais' follow-up to The Office follows him as a struggling actor trying to make it big. Worth watching just for the celebrity cameos, like Robert DeNiro, Ian McKellen and Harry Potter. Until you have seen Patrick Stewart pitch his film to Ricky, which just involves ladies ripping their clothes off in front of him, you have not lived.




#3 - The Office (US)

Speaking of The Office, here's.... The.. Office. The US remake rocks. The first season was average, but the last two have been sensational. One of those shows where so much good stuff happens that you could find 10 people, make them watch an episode, and they'd each have a different favourite moment.

Also, the Jim and Pam love angle shits over Ross and Rachel in every way. Mainly because Jim isn't a neurotic, annoying Jew.



#2 - Dexter
Dexter was almost #1, but it lacks a likeable Japanese guy who can teleport. Instead, we get Dexter Morgan, a forensic blood analyst for the Miami police by day, and a serial killer by night. But he only kills bad guys. Like, really bad guys. And he only does it because as a child he witnessed unimaginable slaughter, developed a lust for blood and was trained by his dead-cop adopted father to limit his murderous desires to those who actually deserved it.


It's a comedy.

And yes, he has a Laboratory.


#1 - Heroes

Oh, Heroes. Where do I start. Indestructible cheerleader. Future-seeing painter slash heroin junkie whose addiction feeds his powers. Slutty, split-personality webcam stripper who slaughters people who get in her way, then doesn't remember it. Teleporting Japanese office worker who is the funnest character on TV ever. Bad guy who slices peoples heads off and eats their brains. If I was a TV, let's just say my aerial would be pointing to the sky right now.

By that, I mean I'd have an erection.

Now you're not going to watch Heroes, are you?




Damn.

NASA announces... something...

I don’t know who really reads NASA press briefings anymore, mainly because I was never made fully aware of who was reading NASA press briefings in the first place. However, if you would now like to become one of the lucky few who do read them, besides Applied Mathematics Graduates and hobbit-loving virgins, click right here.

If you like NASA, you are now jerking off to this image.

If you’re afraid that, in this world of government monitoring and Russian spy agencies, that people will find out you clicked on a link pointing to NASA, just read the excerpt below so that you can then follow along with the paragraphs after the excerpt so that you can laugh along with the other readers of Tommy’s blog, primarily Applied Mathematics Graduates and hobbit-loving virgins.

NASA Schedules Briefing to Announce Significant Find on Mars

NASA [will soon be hosting a press conference] to present new science results from the Mars Global Surveyor. The briefing will take place in the NASA Headquarters auditorium. The agency last week announced the spacecraft's mission may be at its end. Mars Global Surveyor has served the longest and been the most productive of any spacecraft ever sent to the red planet. Data gathered from the mission will continue to be analysed by scientists.

Now, putting aside for a moment the fact that NASA have an auditorium like a freaking high school where they quite possibly put on little plays and stuff, most of the talk going around at the moment seems to indicate that NASA are going to announce they have discovered a source of free-flowing water on Mars. And, because it is a well-known fact that life loves the clear, crisp, refreshing taste of Perrier, it would indicate that life is possibly hanging out on Mars right now, partying on down before the life over on Jupiter gets pissed off and calls the cops to shut the place down.

However, knowing NASA and knowing that humanity has zero fucking luck as far as finding interesting shit in space goes, chances are NASA’s going to be holding one huge clusterfuck of a press conference featuring pictures of some rock they found on Mars that’s way rockier than the thousand other fucking rocks they found this month.

However, because I like to think of myself as the optimistic spark in amongst the bleakness and hopelessness that is Tommy’s blog, I figured I’d rattle off a few things that NASA might announce even through we really know they won’t.

• NASA announces that they have found anaerobic microbes in Martian rocks. Six months later, President Bush announces he will bring democracy to the microbes.
• NASA announces they have discovered Xenu’s secret Martian laboratory. Six months later, Tom Cruise announces he will be leading an Impossible Mission Force to Mars to remove Xenu’s installation.
• NASA announce that they have lost communication with the rover, and its last transmission was classified secret. It was the last warning we would receive.
• NASA announces they have discovered flowing water on Mars and will be installing me, Matt Sampson, as Warlord and Supreme Commander of Mars. My first act of business will be to strap some huge fucking engines onto the back of Mars, take it to a Maccas drive-thru and totally freak those bastards out.
• NASA announces the rover has discovered life on Mars as well as a formula to calculate the size of the universe, proof that God exists and a copy of Police Academy 9: Assignment to Albania. Probability implodes and all atheists and Steve Guttenberg haters kill themselves.
• NASA announces the rover has found itself in a massive chocolate bar factory. Opinions are currently divided on what to call the bars from the planet of Mars.
• NASA announces the rover has been taken hostage by Vin Diesel, the chick with three tits from Total Recall and Gary Sinise’s career after he made that ‘Mission to Mars’ movie.
• NASA announces the rover has discovered the following image:

So, even though we all know that NASA’s idea of announcement usually leaves science geeks jerking each other off in excitement and leaves the rest of us scratching our heads wondering why the shit no one has pulled their fingers out and found Martians or built flying cars, given us food in pill form or figured out a way to clone Mandy Moore, at that gives us a few things that we can look forward to.



SO HELP ME GOD, I WILL MAKE IT HAPPEN

The Rudd Blog

Now that Beazley fat jokes are officially past their use-by date, it's time to look to the future. Generational change and all that jazz. With K-Rudd in the Opposition Leader's chair, shit comedians like Wil Anderson and myself can no longer rely on Beazley fat jokes when they've got nothing else. Sure, you can make a joke about Janette Howard giving Kim Beazley a handjob, but that's not really suitable for all crowds.

We don't need to debate K-Rudd's chances at the next election, or talk about his policy announcements, or how he'll perform in parliament, we need to figure out a quick, easy joke that will grow completely unfunny in a few months.

I've analysed every possibility, and come up with a shortlist. I'll talk it over with Wil, Rove and Kochie, then we'll make a final decision. Here are the final three.





Vote now

Guess what...

I'M FULL TIME NOW, BABY!

Peace At Last

Delegates from TommyIsCoolDotCom and MattIsCoolDotCom finally agree on a secret handshake

Hi, I'm back. It was fun. I can't believe I missed Beazley's ousting by the Vampire. That was gold. Short sentence.

I hope you all enjoyed Matt's substitute blogs. I liked them so much (except the first one, which is a matter for the courts), that Matt is going to stay on as a part-time..... contributor. That sounds lame. We'll figure out a better title for him. Like 'Staff Writer', or 'Contributor'.

Tomorrow, a blog about Rudd.