Happy Easter.
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
faff : doing exactly that ; divided by a common language ; blogging in general
Etymology
Dialect, 'blow in gusts'.
Verb
to faff (third-person singular simple present faffs, present participle faffing, simple past and past participle faffed)
(UK, slang) To waste time on an unproductive activity.
I decided to stop faffing about and get some work done.
Usage notes
Particularly used as faff about.
Synonyms
dick around (American)
--Wiktionary
Dialect, 'blow in gusts'.
Verb
to faff (third-person singular simple present faffs, present participle faffing, simple past and past participle faffed)
(UK, slang) To waste time on an unproductive activity.
I decided to stop faffing about and get some work done.
Usage notes
Particularly used as faff about.
Synonyms
dick around (American)
--Wiktionary
The Book of Ratings on Superman's Powers
"Super Breath
"Yes, Superman has super breath. He can inhale and exhale large amounts of air without swelling up like Daffy Duck connected to a bicycle pump. We're dealing here with a man who can travel between the stars, who can change the course of mighty rivers, who can, in certain incarnations, reverse the flow of time itself. When does this guy encounter a problem that leaves him with no recourse but to breathe on it? At any rate, any potential uses are automatically offset by the fact that it's called 'super breath.' D"
--The Book of Ratings
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Everything's Better With Platypi
"He's a semi-aquatic, egg-laying mammal of ACTION!"
--Perry the Platypus theme song
"Some believe that the platypus proves that evolution is 100% real, because not even God could make that shit up. This is an animal that, upon being sent to a British natural history museum to catalog, was believed to be a taxidermist's prank. It looks like a beaver crossed with a mole with a duck's bill added for laughs. They belong to a group of mammals known as Monotremes, a group consisting of it and the echidna, which means they lay eggs. Additionally, they're an offshoot of mammals that evolved before teats/nipples evolved, so while they produce milk, they simply... sweat it out for their young to lap up. They also have ten sex chromosomes, where in most mammals there're simply two (X and Y). And their duck-bill? It's actually quite soft, and it acts as an electrical receptor. See, platypus eyes aren't too useful, especially underwater, so they use an electrolocation system in their bills to hunt shrimp and other aquatic invertebrates. (Sharks have a similar sense, in case they weren't scary enough.)
"And to top it off, they're poisonous. Yup, male platypi have poisonous spurs on their feet, and while the poison isn't lethal to humans, the cocktail of venom will usually incapacitate people, and can cause you to be in excruciating, incapacitating pain for months. And to top it off, morphine has no effect on said pain. So it won't kill you, it'll just make you wish it did.
"So, in short, it's easy to see how humans can become so interested in this goofy-looking creature. Odd appearance, cool features, and the ability to cripple you if you get stupid. What better metaphor for Australia? And it's an Inherently Funny Word. Also, baby playtpi are called 'puggles,' which is quite possibly the cutest word ever invented, and have been called so since before pugs were crossed with beagles to make the dog breed of the same name.
"Plus, if you want to talk about them in the plural, expect to confound linguists until the end of time. (Platypodes, platypi, and platypuses are all acceptable spellings.)"
--TVTropes.org
Friday, December 10, 2010
The Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu
"In any martial arts fight, there is only a finite amount of ninjutsu available to each side in a given encounter. As a result, one ninja is a deadly threat, but an army of them are cannon fodder.
--TVTropes.org
"You can have three guesses who's going to win. The first two don't count."
--TVTropes.org
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Satire
"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Satirical literature can commonly be categorized as either Horatian or Juvenalian.
"Horatian
Named for the Roman satirist, Horace, this playfully criticizes some social vice through gentle, mild, and light-hearted humour. It directs wit, exaggeration, and self-deprecating humour toward what it identifies as folly, rather than evil. Horatian satire's sympathetic tone is common in modern society. Examples of Horatian satire: Jonathan Swift's Gulliver’s Travels, Daniel Defoe's 'The True-Born Englishman', Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock, C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, The Onion, Matt Groening's The Simpsons and the Ig Nobel Prizes.
"Juvenalian
Named after the Roman satirist Juvenal, this type of satire is more contemptuous and abrasive than the Horatian. Juvenalian satire addresses social evil through scorn, outrage, and savage ridicule. This form is often pessimistic, characterized by irony, sarcasm, moral indignation and personal invective, with less emphasis on humour. Examples of Juvenalian satire: Joseph Hall's Virgidemiarum, Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, Samuel Johnson's London, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, Joseph Heller's Catch-22, William Burroughs' Naked Lunch, Stephen Colbert's performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, anarcho-punk band Crass, and the cartoon South Park."
"Satirical literature can commonly be categorized as either Horatian or Juvenalian.
"Horatian
Named for the Roman satirist, Horace, this playfully criticizes some social vice through gentle, mild, and light-hearted humour. It directs wit, exaggeration, and self-deprecating humour toward what it identifies as folly, rather than evil. Horatian satire's sympathetic tone is common in modern society. Examples of Horatian satire: Jonathan Swift's Gulliver’s Travels, Daniel Defoe's 'The True-Born Englishman', Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock, C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, The Onion, Matt Groening's The Simpsons and the Ig Nobel Prizes.
"Juvenalian
Named after the Roman satirist Juvenal, this type of satire is more contemptuous and abrasive than the Horatian. Juvenalian satire addresses social evil through scorn, outrage, and savage ridicule. This form is often pessimistic, characterized by irony, sarcasm, moral indignation and personal invective, with less emphasis on humour. Examples of Juvenalian satire: Joseph Hall's Virgidemiarum, Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, Samuel Johnson's London, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, Joseph Heller's Catch-22, William Burroughs' Naked Lunch, Stephen Colbert's performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, anarcho-punk band Crass, and the cartoon South Park."
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Lovedrive
album cover
1979 German
"We just did not know it would be a problem in America, it was just sex and rock n roll. It is odd that in America that some of these covers were a problem because in the 80’s when we would tour here we always had boobs flashed to us at the front of the stage. Nowhere else in the world, just here."
--Klaus Meine, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Ilf and Petrov in America
"When we had been in New York for a week and, as it seemed to us, we began to understand America, we were quite unexpectedly told that New York is not at all America. They told us that New York is a bridge between Europe and America, and that we were still situated on the bridge. Then we went to Washington, being steadfastly convinced that the capital of the United States is indisputably America. We spent a day there, and by evening we managed to fall in love with this purely American city. However, on that very same evening we were told that Washington was under no circumstances America. They told us that this was a town of governmental bureaucrats and that America was something quite different. Perplexed, we traveled to Hartford, a city in the state of Connecticut, where the great American writer Mark Twain spent his mature years. Much to our horror, the local residents told us in unison that Hartford was also not genuine America. They said that the genuine America was the southern states, while others affirmed that it was the western ones. Several didn't say anything but vaguely pointed a finger into space. We then decided to work according to a plan: to drive around the entire country in an automobile, to traverse it from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific and to return along a different route, along the Gulf of Mexico, calculating that indeed somewhere we would be sure to find America....
"This picture should be captioned as follows: 'Here, this is America!'
"And, indeed, when you close your eyes and try to rekindle memories of this country where you spent four months, you don't imagine yourself in Washington with its gardens, columns, and full collection of monuments, nor in New York with its skyscrapers and its poor and rich, nor in San Francisco with its steep streets and suspension bridges, nor in the mountains, factories, or canyons, but at such an intersection of two roads and a gasoline station against a ground of wires and advertising signs."
--Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov, Odnoetazhnaya Amerika, 1937, translated by Erica Wolf
"This picture should be captioned as follows: 'Here, this is America!'
"And, indeed, when you close your eyes and try to rekindle memories of this country where you spent four months, you don't imagine yourself in Washington with its gardens, columns, and full collection of monuments, nor in New York with its skyscrapers and its poor and rich, nor in San Francisco with its steep streets and suspension bridges, nor in the mountains, factories, or canyons, but at such an intersection of two roads and a gasoline station against a ground of wires and advertising signs."
--Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov, Odnoetazhnaya Amerika, 1937, translated by Erica Wolf
Friday, September 17, 2010
"We have no chance": England vs. United States, 1950 World Cup
"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"On 29 June 1950, at the 1950 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, the United States defeated England 1–0 in a group match.
"At the time, the English considered themselves the 'Kings of Football', with a post-war record of 23 wins, 4 losses, and 3 draws. Conversely, the Americans had lost their last seven international matches by the combined score of 45–2. The odds were 3–1 the English would win the Cup, and 500–1 for the U.S.
"The American team consisted of semi-professional players, most of whom had other jobs to support their families. The team had also been hastily assembled, and had only been able to train together once, and that was the day before they left for Brazil. 'We have no chance,' recently-appointed coach Bill Jeffrey told the press.
"Newspaper headlines in most World Cup nations trumpeted the shocking upset, except in the United States and England.
"There was only one American journalist even at the World Cup: Dent McSkimming of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who could not get the newspaper to pay for the trip, and had taken time off work to cover the event. His report of the match was the only one to appear in any major American newspaper.
"In England, so unexpected was the result that it was presumed that the 1–0 scoreline was a typing error and so it was reported that England had won on a scoreline of 10–0 or 10–1.
"England's blue kit, which had made its debut in this match, was never worn again.
"The United States and England did not play another World Cup match against each other until the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which ended in a 1–1 draw."
"On 29 June 1950, at the 1950 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, the United States defeated England 1–0 in a group match.
"At the time, the English considered themselves the 'Kings of Football', with a post-war record of 23 wins, 4 losses, and 3 draws. Conversely, the Americans had lost their last seven international matches by the combined score of 45–2. The odds were 3–1 the English would win the Cup, and 500–1 for the U.S.
"The American team consisted of semi-professional players, most of whom had other jobs to support their families. The team had also been hastily assembled, and had only been able to train together once, and that was the day before they left for Brazil. 'We have no chance,' recently-appointed coach Bill Jeffrey told the press.
"Newspaper headlines in most World Cup nations trumpeted the shocking upset, except in the United States and England.
"There was only one American journalist even at the World Cup: Dent McSkimming of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who could not get the newspaper to pay for the trip, and had taken time off work to cover the event. His report of the match was the only one to appear in any major American newspaper.
"In England, so unexpected was the result that it was presumed that the 1–0 scoreline was a typing error and so it was reported that England had won on a scoreline of 10–0 or 10–1.
"England's blue kit, which had made its debut in this match, was never worn again.
"The United States and England did not play another World Cup match against each other until the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which ended in a 1–1 draw."
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
a grandeur, and unnecessary duplicates
“Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But from the same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary.”
--Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
--Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
Monday, July 19, 2010
Definition of “Oof da”
Oof da is:
-trying to pour two buckets of manure into one bucket
-trick-or-treating in a blizzard
-eating hot soup with a runny nose
-discovering that your blind date is your teacher
-having more miles on your snowblower than on your car
-sneezing so hard that your false teeth end up in the bread plate
-knowing that somewhere in Minnesota is a flagpole with a frozen piece of your tongue still attached to it
-seeing non-Norwegians at a lutefisk dinner using lefse as a napkin
-waking yourself up in church with your own snoring
-trying to pour two buckets of manure into one bucket
-trick-or-treating in a blizzard
-eating hot soup with a runny nose
-discovering that your blind date is your teacher
-having more miles on your snowblower than on your car
-sneezing so hard that your false teeth end up in the bread plate
-knowing that somewhere in Minnesota is a flagpole with a frozen piece of your tongue still attached to it
-seeing non-Norwegians at a lutefisk dinner using lefse as a napkin
-waking yourself up in church with your own snoring
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
all my life the cost of living has been rising
"An hour of light will cost you about a quarter of a second of labour -- a little more if you include the cost of the bulb.
"According to economist William Nordhaus, to get the same amount of light with a conventional filament lamp in 1950 and the then average wage, you’d have needed to work for eight seconds. Using a kerosene lamp in the 1880s, you’d have needed to work for 15 minutes; a tallow candle in the 1800s, more than six hours. From a quarter of a day to a quarter of a second is an 86,400-fold improvement. That’s how much better off you are than your ancestor two centuries ago -- in lighting, at least....
"Yet all my life the cost of living has been rising. Why? It’s partly because prices are quoted in money, rather than in hours worked, and partly that the basket of goods used to measure inflation is slow to include new inventions, which are the items that are the fastest to fall in price....
"The computing power of one of today’s pocket calculators would have cost you a lifetime’s wages in 1970, yet I don’t recall ever calculating that it would be sensible to wait until 2009 before buying one....
"Moreover, in satisfying your needs more cheaply, you have more money to spend, so you chase up the cost of your wants. So the money that you’ve saved on candles now gets spent on homoeopathic pet medicines."
--Matt Ridley, Wired UK, 2009 April 21
"According to economist William Nordhaus, to get the same amount of light with a conventional filament lamp in 1950 and the then average wage, you’d have needed to work for eight seconds. Using a kerosene lamp in the 1880s, you’d have needed to work for 15 minutes; a tallow candle in the 1800s, more than six hours. From a quarter of a day to a quarter of a second is an 86,400-fold improvement. That’s how much better off you are than your ancestor two centuries ago -- in lighting, at least....
"Yet all my life the cost of living has been rising. Why? It’s partly because prices are quoted in money, rather than in hours worked, and partly that the basket of goods used to measure inflation is slow to include new inventions, which are the items that are the fastest to fall in price....
"The computing power of one of today’s pocket calculators would have cost you a lifetime’s wages in 1970, yet I don’t recall ever calculating that it would be sensible to wait until 2009 before buying one....
"Moreover, in satisfying your needs more cheaply, you have more money to spend, so you chase up the cost of your wants. So the money that you’ve saved on candles now gets spent on homoeopathic pet medicines."
--Matt Ridley, Wired UK, 2009 April 21
Friday, May 14, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
Alfred Korzybski Koan
"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"One day, Korzybski was giving a lecture to a group of students, and he suddenly interrupted the lesson in order to retrieve a packet of biscuits, wrapped in white paper, from his briefcase. He muttered that he just had to eat something, and he asked the students in the front row if they would also like a biscuit. A few students took a biscuit. 'Nice biscuit, don't you think,' said Korzybski, while he took a second one. The students were chewing vigorously. Then he tore the white paper from the biscuits, in order to reveal the original packaging. On it was a big picture of a dog's head and the words 'Dog Cookies.' The students looked at the package, and were shocked. Two of them wanted to throw up, put their hands in front of their mouths, and ran out of the lecture hall to the toilet. 'You see, ladies and gentlemen,' Korzybski remarked, 'I have just demonstrated that people don't just eat food, but also words, and that the taste of the former is often outdone by the taste of the latter.' Apparently his prank aimed to illustrate how some human suffering originates from the confusion or conflation of linguistic representations of reality and reality itself."
"One day, Korzybski was giving a lecture to a group of students, and he suddenly interrupted the lesson in order to retrieve a packet of biscuits, wrapped in white paper, from his briefcase. He muttered that he just had to eat something, and he asked the students in the front row if they would also like a biscuit. A few students took a biscuit. 'Nice biscuit, don't you think,' said Korzybski, while he took a second one. The students were chewing vigorously. Then he tore the white paper from the biscuits, in order to reveal the original packaging. On it was a big picture of a dog's head and the words 'Dog Cookies.' The students looked at the package, and were shocked. Two of them wanted to throw up, put their hands in front of their mouths, and ran out of the lecture hall to the toilet. 'You see, ladies and gentlemen,' Korzybski remarked, 'I have just demonstrated that people don't just eat food, but also words, and that the taste of the former is often outdone by the taste of the latter.' Apparently his prank aimed to illustrate how some human suffering originates from the confusion or conflation of linguistic representations of reality and reality itself."
Monday, April 19, 2010
Ways to be Nasty
Use all the hot water.
Free your spider collection.
Pour honey in the mailbox.
Slobber on the couch.
Rake the leaves into your neighbor's yard.
Stick your hand in the clam dip.
Throw a tantrum when you lose.
Hard-boil all the eggs.
Scream in the dentist's office.
Cut the strings off all the tea bags.
Giggle during the eulogy.
Burn the toast.
Cut the clothesline.
Salt the Band-Aids.
Plant ragweed.
Deliver lectures on abstinence and temperance.
Stray into other people's snapshots.
Clog the sink.
Ignore everybody.
Don't train your Doberman.
Paint your house chartreuse with pink trim.
Grab someone's nose and don't let go.
Breed rats.
Take the last cookie.
--Jim Erskine and George Moran, Throw a Tomato and 151 other ways to be mean and nasty, 1979
Free your spider collection.
Pour honey in the mailbox.
Slobber on the couch.
Rake the leaves into your neighbor's yard.
Stick your hand in the clam dip.
Throw a tantrum when you lose.
Hard-boil all the eggs.
Scream in the dentist's office.
Cut the strings off all the tea bags.
Giggle during the eulogy.
Burn the toast.
Cut the clothesline.
Salt the Band-Aids.
Plant ragweed.
Deliver lectures on abstinence and temperance.
Stray into other people's snapshots.
Clog the sink.
Ignore everybody.
Don't train your Doberman.
Paint your house chartreuse with pink trim.
Grab someone's nose and don't let go.
Breed rats.
Take the last cookie.
--Jim Erskine and George Moran, Throw a Tomato and 151 other ways to be mean and nasty, 1979
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
“Chapter XVI: Practical Hints for Treasure Seekers”
“If one is unable to finance an expedition aboard a swift, black-hulled schooner, it is always possible to dig for the treasure of poor Captain Kidd and it is really a matter of small importance that he left no treasure in his wake. The zest of the game is in seeking. A pick and a shovel are to be obtained in the wood-shed or can be purchased at the nearest hardware store for a modest outlay. A pirate's chart is to be highly esteemed, but if the genuine article cannot be found, there are elderly seafaring men in every port who will furnish one just as good and perjure themselves as to the information thereof with all the cheerfulness in the world.”
--Ralph D. Paine, The Book of Buried Treasure, 1911
--Ralph D. Paine, The Book of Buried Treasure, 1911
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Critics
"When most people talk about 'critics' they're talking about professional critics, whose job is to write movie reviews that you disagree with. The function of professional critics is to make us feel good about ourselves for being smarter at evaluating movies than an official critic....
"You can't argue with the numbers. If you were to take a list of movies and rate them either good or bad, you would find at the end that you were 100% correct."
--"Criticism," Cracked.com
"You can't argue with the numbers. If you were to take a list of movies and rate them either good or bad, you would find at the end that you were 100% correct."
--"Criticism," Cracked.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
