Monday, February 24, 2014

Diagram Prize nominations oddest book title of 2013

 

The Diagram Prize shortlist for the oddest book title of 2013 has been announced.  As usual, it's an eclectic mixture of the weird and wonderful.


The six titles are, in no particular order:

How to Poo on a Date
(invaluable advice on toilet etiquette and love, and what to do when the twain meet);

Pie-ography: Where Pie Meets Biography
(women tell their life stories through the traditional narrative technique of pie-making);

How to Pray When You're Pissed at God 
(practical tips on communicating with an omniscient deity when you are feeling peeved at it);

Working Class Cats: The Bodega Cats of New York City
(a celebration of the cats working - often illegally, it has to be said - in delis and bodegas in NYC);

Are Trout South African?
(South African identity explored through an animal with a brain proportionally one-fifteenth the size of a mammal's); and

The Origin of Feces
(an examination of how important the stuff is to the survival of the human species).







Sunday, February 23, 2014

Feb 23, 1778:

Feb 23, 1778:
Friedrich von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge.



cartoon from 

Mud and Guts by Bill Mauldin

Friday, February 21, 2014

Seen on Facebook:


Arthur C. Clark who pointed out that any technology beyond our comprehension would be seen as magic.
 I fear the average American has been dumbed down to the point where everything is magic.


Wednesday, February 19, 2014

: National clown shortage may be approaching, trade organizations fear

 

As the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus returns to Brooklyn Thursday, membership at the country's largest clown organizations has plunged over the past decade amid declining interest, old age and higher standards for the jokesters.

http://www.nydailynews.com/exclusive-national-clown-shortage-approaching-article-1.1616801

=====

What's next?  A national Mime shortage?
Oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please


This day in history

 
February 19, 1878
Thomas Alva Edison patents the gramophone.


Sunday, February 16, 2014

Amazon.com: "Lord's Prayer Arabic Men's Ring"

 
Well, for starters, it's not the Lord's Prayer. It's the One Ring of Power poem.
And it's not Arabic. It's Elvish.

That being said, once again the true comedy comes from the reader's comments:

example
I bought this as a prayer ring for reciting the Lord's Prayer before bed, as you do. But when I put it on and read the words out loud, I found myself standing at the food of a large tower, staring up at a flaming eye. God doesn't look like I thought He would.


Friday, February 14, 2014

Amazon book reviews: "Microwave for One" by Sonia Allison

 
 
read the reviews...

http://www.amazon.com/Microwave-One-Sonia-Allison/dp/1852250437/ref=sr_1_1?tag=ohmy0c-20

 examples:

After the divorce my diet consisted primarily of uncooked ramen and whiskey. Occasionally I wondered aloud if I'd ever have another home cooked meal again.
Then I discovered "Microwave for One" and everything changed.
My favorite chapters were:
Chapter 1: Plugging in your Microwave and You
Chapter 4: How to Wait 3 Minutes
Chapter 11 [BONUS CHAPTER]: Eating with Cats
In closing, I give this book 2 thumbs up (and a paw!). Thanks Sonia Allison!


A great follow up read to "Drinking for One," "Sex for one," and "The 5 People You Meet in Heaven."


It used to be that I got home from work and the only thing I'd want to put in my mouth was the cold barrel of my grandfather's shotgun. Then I discovered Sonia Allison's Chicken Tetrazzini, and now there are two things.




Thursday, February 13, 2014

Sid Caesar, Brought Jewish Humor to Middle America, Dies at 91

Caesar told "The Jewish Chronicle" in 2010: "There's a lot of fun that you can bring out in being Jewish. But I didn't want to make fun of being Jewish. There's a fine line… I used to see people davening in shul and they'd snap the book shut when they'd finished. Like they'd won a race. Then look around to see if anyone else had finished. I used to find that very funny… Jews appreciate humor because in their life it's not too funny. We've been trodden down for a long time, thousands of years. So we've had to turn that around because if you take it all too seriously you're going to eat yourself. And we're very good at being self-deprecating. Either we do it or somebody's going to do it for us. We might as well do it first."





Tuesday, February 11, 2014

: Suicide Bomb Trainer in Iraq Accidentally Blows Up His Class - NYTimes.com


BAGHDAD — If there were such a thing, it would probably be rule No. 1 in the teaching manual for instructors of aspiring suicide bombers: Don't give lessons with live explosives.

In what represented a cautionary tale for terrorist teachers, and a cause of dark humor for ordinary Iraqis, a commander at a secluded terrorist training camp north of Baghdad unwittingly used a belt packed with explosives while conducting a demonstration early Monday for a group of militants, killing himself and 21 other members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, army and police officials said.
 

Monday, February 10, 2014

That's one way to put it.

 

Cartoon Humor: How 99.9% of people judge the quality of their coffee

 

Jerry Seinfeld on Olympic events

 
"The luge is the only Olympic event where you could have people competing in it against their will, and it would look exactly the same.

Take people off the street, "Hey, hey, hey, what is this?! I don't wanna be in the luge!"

Once you put that helmet on them, "You're in the luge, buddy!"

"aaaAAAaaaAAAaaaAAA...aaaAAAAA..." World record. Didn't even wanna do it.

I'd like to see that next Olympics, the Involuntary Luge."

  - Jerry Seinfeld