the shrewdness of apes

i always knew you hated uganda.

In the lobby of Two World Trade Center, hanging from a glass balcony above and across from the elevators I used to take to work every morning, there hung an assortment of flags from around the world. My favorite one--and I don't think it was that Uganda one, but maybe, mAYbe it was--had a big chicken right in the middle, with some colors around it. I'm not sure what that Uganda bird is, but it doesn't look like a chicken. I swear this flag had a fucking chicken on it. Or a seriously chicken-resemblin' bird. But maybe it was hanging just high up enough that I couldn't see it all that clearly and I just imagined that it was a chicken. I guess I'll never know now. Unless someone is resourceful and motivated enough to scour the flag almanac to find any other bird-featuring flags. I don't think I am. All right, gotta go finish eating the chicken I just cooked for dinner.

WHY DO YOU KEEP REFERRING TO YOURSELF IN THE PLURAL?

could it have been this flag?
http://flagspot.net/flags/si-053.html

No Jeremy, it was not that one, but that's a pretty damn cool bird flag too. While watching The Apprentice I just had a brainflash that the chicken flag had a checkered pattern on it, like Maryland's flag. Maybe I am stoner-imagining all this though, even though I've only smoked pot once in about the past three years.

I assumed that when Jamie wrote "we" he meant himself and Kaci or himself and someone else. The idea that he's using the royal "we" is too painful to ponder. Please, don't be so. I've held off on criticizing the whole third-person t.s.o.a. thing because I am such a big fan of Jamie the person, and I'm a decently enthusiastic fan of the blog as well, but it unnervingly reminds me of this e-mail column this guy wrote back in '95 at the company where I worked. He called it Watching the Detectives, a hipster play on the fact that it was about the SEC and other regulatory agencies. This guy was the most arrogant prick you could ever meet, and he was always referring to himself/the column as WTD. God damn that got on my nerves. Maybe it wouldn't have quite so much if I didn't hate him as a person. Anyway, I better stop now; I'm getting dangerously close to openly criticizing Jamie's bloggerific stylings.

Actually, Sujan (and all other Apeheads), in the case of this entry about flags, I kind of took the "us" as referring to Jamie and all his readers.

It's not the royal "us" is it, Jamie? Please say no.

you're just now complaining about that Sujan? i've been doing that from the beginning. i suppose it is sort of the royal "we" (sorry Jim), borrowed from the way people talk about sports teams and corporations. i could make some bullshit argument about how i'm using it as a way of poking fun at that mentality but the truth is i like the way it sounds sometimes (i also like the delusion that i'm speaking for more people than just myself). it's an affectation, but i didn't realize it was getting under people's skin.

ideally, we'd refer to ourselves in the third person, but we don't like calling ourselves by our own first name or by "apes". perhaps it's time to just stick to the first person singular.

i'm just now complaining because at first it was cute and cuddly and i'm all for cute and cuddly.

i see sujan. but you have to realize that that sweet little puppy you wanted so much is going to grow up to be a barking, drooling adult some day. it's part of the bargain.

and actually, i suppose i've stopped using the t.s.o.a. designation very much. maybe that's the best solution.

Back when I was a pale, nerdish lad, I used to read encyclopedias, and the entries that I pored over were the ones on birds and flags. And while I'm dating myself--mind you, this was back before the independence of East Timor or the unification of Yemen--I still feel qualified to comment extensively, in the Larry King style, on this topic:
How about Nepal's flag? It's not even a rectangle!...The Muslim crescent and star symbol looks mighty nice on flags, particularly Tunisia's and Turkey's....Since we're talking about the Ugandan flag, perhaps some country should adopt for its flag the old Baltimore Orioles logo. This is along the same lines as my contention that Trinidad & Tobago should adopt AC/DC's "TNT" as its national anthem....If you're handing out monochromatic flags, make mine Libya's....Suns are a prominent theme, and Nauru and Malawi have my favorite uses of them....That Isle of Man has the best flag of a country that's not a country in the whole database. Other good fake country flags: Hong Kong, Macao and Antarctica. I'll tell you, folks, I like that fact that Antarctica was given a flag, even if there wasn't much thought put into it. It should say across the bottom, "You Are Here," as if it that's Antarctica's motto....Bhutan is No. 1 country on my list of countries I'd like to see but never, ever will. You've gotta love a country that claims both the world's only capital without a stoplight and the only national park established soley to protect that habitat of the yeti. Maybe they should put the yeti on the flag....I took acid once back in my free love days and I swear I had a vision of Kiribati's flag....

they just grow up so fast these days, don't they?

Jesus Christ Dave.

Dave: nice musings on flags. I'm all for glimpses into people's childhood obsessions.

Jamie: if you're not careful with the third person, you might one day find yourself wiggling your stumpy arm and saying "Bob Dole fought in a war...Bob Dole wants your vote for president...somebody give Bob Dole another Viagra, Bob Dole's good arm can't reach over to that bedside table..."

people who study flags and flag emblems are called vexillologists.

http://www.flaginstitute.org/fivexillology.htm