this hit salon.com a few days ago. didn't see it on here yet.
http://salon.com/tech/inbox/index.html for a limited time, but here's the article anyway:
The truth revealed: "All your base are belong to us"
In A.D. 2001
War was beginning
And the translators of an obscure chapter from the Sega version of the late '80s arcade game ZeroWing were turning in their graves. Why had this travesty of translation come back to haunt them? "Give us a break!" they cried, beseeching meme-hungry Net addicts to stop broadcasting ZeroWing's clumsy Japanglish all over town. But it was too late.
Captain: What happen?
Mechanic: Someone set up us the bomb
Operator: We get signal
Captain: What!
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's you!!
Cats: How are you gentlemen!!
Cats: All your base are belong to us
Just a little careless dialogue scripting and a thousand Web sites bloomed, broadcasting this shoddy video game translation to the masses. As pranksters rushed to plaster that curiously catchy ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US on every possible surface (a banner behind Colin Powell and Norman Schwartzkopf, T-shirts,Vanna White's Wheel of Fortune puzzle, across a dozen Shriners' red caps), the rest of us asked ourselves "but what's the point?"
Maybe the point is that there is no point. But if there is, do not expect to find it on ZeroWing. Freed from the dusty corners of video game arcana ALL YOUR BASE BELONG TO US offers only this prognosis:
Cats: You are on the way to destruction.
--Amy Standen
[2:15 p.m. PST, Feb. 21, 2001]