Secrets of the City

The term “Pawn America” strikes a little to close to reality. Case in point: Treasure Secretary Paulson bows and scrapes before our Chinese lenders.

I wish the article would go into more detail about the Picasso. So many unanswered questions.

I know, I was wondering about the Picasso too. I have a hard time believing that someone who owns a real Picasso would need a loan from a pawn shop. I hope they verified it and made sure it wasn’t from the poster bin at Michaels.

If that Picasso is still around and available at a bargain price… I’d like to know about it!

Yeah, I bet a bargain price for a genuine Picasso would probably still challenge most budgets though. I know I’d probably have to pawn my original Gutenberg Bible to afford it.

I’d be willing to get rid of my Dali… I’m so over it.

Those dorm room purchases do date quickly. Nevertheless, I have found my original of Marcel Duchamp’s The Fountain to be a very practical and useful purchase, once I got it plumbed it in.

Still, I’m mildly amused by the idea of buyers from various art collections, public and private, lurking guiltily around a pawn shop waiting for the exact moment the ticket expires.

I’ve determined that my Damian Hirst diamond skull is way too tacky for my simple way of life. Wonder what I can get for that?

Nobody’s been buying Picasso’s anymore; not since Billy Zane sneered at his work in Titanic.

Ironically, his character went on to pawn everything he owned.

Hence the expression “pawn-owned”, which has been contracted in colloquial portmaneau to “pwned”.

thanks for the etomology lesson. I always assumed it was just a typo.

damnit oliver, that’s not it at all

it was a typo in warcraft.

“lol self-pwnage”, as they used to say in the Great Depression.

I heard bud jr’s great great grandpappy was a slave pwner.

Sorry Wayno, you are making a popular – if understandable – mistake regarding your etymology. Alas, the story regarding “pwn” as a popular typo due to the close proximity of the “O” and “P” key on the keyboard is just a charming fiction, akin to that of the history of the QWERTY keyboard.

Leet philologists such as myself know better. Incidentally, I was lying earlier about the term “lol” dating back to the Great Depression. It actually dates back to 1980s Goth Rockers, the Cure and drummer/keyboardist Lol Tolhurst, who publicly vowed to never,ever smile or laugh.

you sure it doesn’t come from chess, when someone is checkmated with pawns and hence are “P(a)WNED?”

er, is.

subject, meet the verb.

Lol was a tosser.

I believe it pre-dates WoW, as it was used liberally in Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot. Or so I heard.

And let us not forget Can’s infamous drummer Rotfl Trommler.

uh there were warcraft games BEFORE wow.

Like:
Warcraft
Warcraft II
Warcraft III

this comes from the first of those way back from 3d graphics existed.

way back before 3d

what the hell I can’t type

back to slaving, I’m behind at work anyway

All your pwnd are belong to us!

Grote: “And let us not forget Can’s infamous drummer Rotfl Trommler.”

Indeed. It’s surprising the number of drummers who have made major contributions to the lexicon and folklore of the Internet. After all, it was Rick Allen who popularized the concept of “one-handed typing”.

Ebay Johanssen of Hanoi Rocks, Url McDowell of Big Country, Html Wannebo of Hawkwind, and (obviously) Mnspeak Ktratze Torgeson, original drummer for our very own Suicide Commandos.

I think that Pawn America ad with the kid pretending to be a dummy is kind of creepy. The one were he is in the video game is kinda funny.

It’s not that I don’t think that someone with a picasso might not need the loan, it’s the fact that I think that someone with a picasso would get his quicky loans from a source other than a pawn shop. It just seems like it’d be done hush-hush with a private party/investment type.

Also, what types of verification systems does pawn america really have?

I’m thinking that picasso was a fake.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go and take the poster of Starry Night that hung in my dorm room to the nearest Pawn America.

Was Ebay Johanssen the one that Vince Neil killed in that car wreck? Talk about your negative feedback!

I bought a sweet print of Picasso’s “The Lovers” from Crackhead Larry on Cass Ave. in Detroit about 10 years ago. Best $5 I ever spent. It’s in my master bathroom.