Geek Humor

What's my New Year's Resolution?

1024 x 768

(last year, my resolution was 800 x 600)

- Bob Bendesky
Time Magazine's "Person of the Year", 2006

Just in time for 2007

"Champagne Cork Injury to the Eye,"
S.H. Sloan,
Transactions of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology,
vol. 79, no. 6, December 1975,
pp. OP889-92.

Target stores pull Che Guevara CD case

NEW YORK, Dec 22 (Reuters Life!) - Target Corp said on Friday it had pulled a CD carrying case bearing Ernesto "Che" Guevara's image after an outcry by critics who label the Marxist revolutionary a murderer and totalitarian symbol.

Target had touted a music disc carrying case for Che admirers emblazoned with the Argentine-born guerrilla's iconic 1960 portrait by Alberto Diaz, or "Korda." A set of small earphones was superimposed on the image, suggesting he was tuned in to an iPod or other music player.

"the trendy discount chain was giving in to a misguided fashion craze while ignoring Guevara's role in bringing Fidel Castro's Communist rule to Cuba."

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I think it's quite ironic that the iconic image of a communist-inspired Che is now used as a marketing tool of a Capitalist business. It's a great way to completely destroy what he stood for.

A great one's gone

"Godfather of Soul" James Brown dies

I bet there was quite a scene in the funeral home as they prepared him for burial. Every time they'd dress him in funeral attire and lay him down in the coffin, he'd suddenly jump up, tear off the suit, and return to the stage.

R.I.P. G.F.O.S.

0.48

I once saw a website where you put in your birthday and the page calculated how old you were in years, and in months, in days, in minutes and in seconds.

My age in seconds was not a small number.

It was at that moment that I decided that I'd start giving my age in Centuries.

How old am I? I'm 0.48

That's a number I can live with.

Intriguing Clock/Calendar

1st Line is Seconds

2nd line is Minutes

3rd line is Hours

4th line is Days

5th line is Months

6th line is Years

http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf

---

http://users.rcn.com/bendesky/

ENGLEUTSCH?

from World Wide Words

ENGLEUTSCH?

Though the influx of English words into German has been great enough to result in a mixed language sometimes called Denglish, the flow the other way has not been so sizeable, though we do have Schadenfreude, Kindergarten and Zeitgeist, plus a good number of technical terms.

The Goethe Institute in London has been running a competition to find the German word whose acceptance into English would most improve our language. Some good suggestions were put forward, including "Backpfeifengesicht", a face that makes you want to hit it, "Torschlusspanik", a door-closing panic, a fear of being left on the shelf, and "Kummerspeck", "grief bacon", for an excessive gain in weight caused by overeating emotional problems.

The most frequent suggestion was "Ohrwurm", literally an ear worm, a tune so catchy that you can't get it out of your head.

However, the winner, announced on 8 December, was "Fachidiot". Literally "subject idiot", it refers to a person who has become such an academic specialist, so deeply immersed in his subject, that he has lost all interest in or understanding of what is going on in the world around him.

We do have "nerd", of course, though that hardly plumbs the same depths of unworldliness.

My kind of toy collection

Each year around Christmas, the media reports on some toy that's been recalled for safety reasons.

Here's a collection of those dangerous toys we played with during our childhood.

Remember Lawn Darts?

http://www.radaronline.com/features/2006/12/toys.php

sometime life imitates art

First, the Art:

Comedian Carlos Mencia has a routine that goes, "So the US Government wants to build a wall to keep out the illegal Mexicans. So, WHO'S gonna to build this wall?"

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Here now the News:

Calif. fence firm faces criminal charges

SAN DIEGO - A Southern California fence-building company and two of its executives will be charged amid a long-running criminal investigation into whether the company knowingly hired illegal immigrants, officials said Wednesday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said last year that 100 employees at the company's Riverside office were unauthorized to work, including three who the company had been ordered not to employ after the 1999 audit.

Golden State, which currently employs 750 people, saw sales soar from $60 million in 1998 to $150 million in 2004. Among its projects: construction of part of a 14-mile border fence in San Diego in the late 1990s.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/16235091.htm

Tofu Turd-Burglars

From the wacked-out world of WorldNetDaily: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53327

Soy is making kids 'gay'

There's a slow poison out there that's severely damaging our children and threatening to tear apart our culture. The ironic part is, it's a "health food," one of our most popular.

Now, I'm a health-food guy, a fanatic who seldom allows anything into his kitchen unless it's organic. I state my bias here just so you'll know I'm not anti-health food.

The dangerous food I'm speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they're all over the place.

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Gee, it's a good thing that a billion Chinese eat tofu. If they all weren't gay, there'd be so many more of them.

Frequon Invaders 2.0 Released

From a friend's brother:

I've updated my Fourier-domain space-invaders game for Windows: http://userweb.springnet1.com/arobison/frequon.html

- Arch

Frequon Invaders - Arcade Fun with Complex Exponentials!

Your mission is to destroy each invading Frequons by moving the cursor on top of it. What could be easier? Except for one itty bitty detail: the Frequons are not displayed in the usual spatial domain, but in the Fourier Domain. Frequons look like colored waves. Your "self" is a wave too, with opposite polarity. Instead of manipulating some local point on the screen, you manipulate a global wave pattern. You destroy Frequons by achieving destructive interference with them.

There's a training mode for learning how to play by experimenting. So don't worry if you don't know what the Fourier Domain is. By playing it, you'll develop a feel for a game that has been described as psychadelic, compelling, and strangely addictive.

6-word short stories

This month's Wired magazine features 6-word short stories written by various authors. (Most of them are science fiction authors, but not all.) Here are six of my favorites:

We went solar; sun went nova.
- Ken MacLeod

The baby's blood type? Human, mostly.
- Orson Scott Card

It's behind you! Hurry before it
- Rockne S. O'Bannon

Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
- Margaret Atwood

Gown removed carelessly. Head less so.
- Joss Whedon

Machine. Unexpectedly, I'd invented a Time
- Alan Moore

true to form

Mel Gibson's Apocalypto:

Newsweek's David Ansen observes that Gibson here "returns to his favorite theme: nearly naked men being tortured. Repeatedly. Imaginatively. At great length."

Slate's Dana Stevens writes, "You don't leave Apocalypto thinking of the decline of civilizations or the power of myth or anything much except, wow, that is one sick son of a bitch."

Stan Freeberg Redux

As More Are Stricken by E. Coli, Taco Bell Points to Green Onions

After Taco Bell traced a growing E. coli outbreak to green onions at its restaurants yesterday morning, government investigators began an intensive search to identify the source of the contamination.

The total number of cases in three Northeastern states swelled to 99, implicating several additional restaurants and second food distributor, who said he onions came from a California farm.

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"Most people call 'em green onions, but they're really disease vectors."

E mor� con un felafel in mano

Very strange film.

Be sure to read the "Quotes" dialogue.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172543/

Put-down du jour

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6161691.stm

Growling Vocals

Grindcore is characterized by heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, blastbeats, hardcore punk and crossover thrash influenced riffing, short songs, and a vocal style consisting of growls and higher-pitched vocals, often similar to those found in black metal.

If growling vocals are what you love, consider this grindcore band: Caninus.

Their lead vocalists are pit bull terriers.

http://www.myspace.com/caninus

http://www.pitbullgrindcore.com/download/caninus-locking_jaws.mp3

http://users.rcn.com/bendesky/

Termite Head-Banging

http://www.acoustics.org/press/152nd/fink.html

Who knew there were termite Heavy Metal bands?

Senator Seance

During the Gates confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, an evidently distracted Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) spoke of communing with fallen troops. "I talk to those who've lost their lives, and they have that sense of duty and mission," he reported.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/05/AR2006120501239_pf.html

Worst. Burglar. Ever.

http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/comments/worst_burgler/

Book you will probably like...

I read a book "Syrup" by Maxx Barry. Satire about the cola industry in particular, and advertising in general. Deals with style over substance.

In the book, there's a young hot-shot working in the marketing department. He wants to show up at a restaurant to meet the client, and really impress him. He wants to drive up in a Mercedes, but he doesnt own one. He doesn't even own a car.

So he walks into a Ford dealership and asks to take a car for a test drive. He heads for a Honda dealership, leaves the Ford, and takes the Honda for a test drive. At a Saab dealership, he leaves the Honda and takes the Saab. Then at the Mercedes dealership, he leaves the Saab, and drives to the restaurant in a top-of-the-line Mercedes.

Read the 1st chapter at: http://www.maxxbarry.com/syrup/chapter1.html

Really, read it. I think you'll enjoy it.

Zippy the Pinhead

Get yer dose of Zippy quotes here: http://www.shootybangbang.com/pinhead.cgi?q=random

" Has everybody got HALVAH spread all over their ANKLES? ... Now, it's time to "HAVE A NAGEELA"!! "

Zippy the Pinhead is the main character in the comic strip of the same name, created by Bill Griffith.
If you don't understand Zippy, learn "How To in 6 Easy Steps" at http://www.zippythepinhead.com/pages/aaaunderstanding.html

more Zippy info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zippy_the_pinhead

Mondegreens

A mondegreen is the mishearing (usually accidental) of a phrase in such a way that it acquires a new meaning.

 

The American writer Sylvia Wright coined it in an essay "The Death of Lady Mondegreen", which was published in Harper's Magazine in Nov. 1954.

She wrote:

 

    When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques.  One of my favorite poems began, as I remember:

 

        Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
        Oh, where hae ye been?
        They hae slain the Earl Amurray, [sic]
        And Lady Mondegreen.

 

The last line is actually "Laid him on the green."

 

The Archive of Misheard Lyrics has many misheard popular song lyrics at: http://kissthisguy.com/

 

 

Sledding penguin

When you open the website,

put in your name where it says,

and wait to see what the penguin does with it.

http://www.star28.net/snow.html