Category: humor

resistance is futile

For some reason today, an old slogan for Lay’s potato chips popped into my head: “no one can eat just one.” And for some other reason, I thought it could so easily be paraphrased to have a somewhat different meaning:

No one is permitted to eat only one.

I imagine a totalitarian society, where potato chip-eating quotas are strictly enforced. And why just potato chips? Why not have a nation-state that dictates other product use, and daily life in general? Advertising slogans abound that need only the gentlest nudge to conjure up such a society:

  • Do you have your required dairy products?
    “Got milk?”
  • Orange Juice is now mandatory at meals other than breakfast.
    “It’s not just for breakfast anymore.”
  • It is strictly forbidden that anything should surmount these batteries
    “You can’t top the copper top”, Duracell Batteries
  • Enjoyment is compulsory
    “We’re gonna make you smile”, SeaWorld
    “Don’t get mad! Get Glad!” Glad
  • Viewing is obligatory.
    “Must See TV”, NBC
  • All youths over the age of 10 are required to enroll
    “Join the Pepsi generation”
  • Establish your approved identity by drinking an officially sanctioned beverage
    “Be a Pepper. Drink Dr Pepper”, Dr Pepper
  • Only certifiably genuine and approved products may be consumed
    “Can’t beat the real thing”, Coca-Cola
  • We will tell you what you need to have.
    “You Gotta Have It!”, Lisa Frank
  • We will tell you what you need to know.
    “You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers.” RadioShack
  • Rest assured: all your decisions are being made for you.
    “Your true choice.” AT&T
    “You’re in good hands.”, Allstate Insurance
  • Continued productivity is imperative.
    “Keep Going”, Energizer Batteries
  • There is no need to leave your community.
    “Your World. Delivered.” AT&T
  • Cooperation is rewarded.
    “Membership has its privileges”, American Express
  • Unmutual individuals will be broken.
    “You deserve a break today”, McDonald’s
  • If you are not with us, you are against us.
    “Stick together”, T-Mobile

And some of the slogans don’t really need any help to be Big Brotherly:

  • “You need us for everything you do”, The Weather Channel (We control everything.)
  • “Don’t leave home without it”, American Express (You must have your card with you at all times.)
  • “Wherever you go, our network follows”, Hutch in India (You can’t run.)
  • “VISA ; It’s everywhere you want to be”, Visa (You can’t hide.)
  • “We’ll leave the light on for you.” Motel 6 (The better to see what you are doing.)
  • “You Watch, We Listen”, British Satellite Broadcasting (Your neighbors are watching you, and we are listening.)penny_farthing.jpg
  • “The Listening Bank”, Midland Bank (I told you, we’re listening.)
  • “It’s the Internet that logs onto you” SBC, ca.Yahoo! DSL (We have access to your thoughts at all times.)
  • “The more you hear, the better we sound”, AT&T long distance (Our propaganda is very effective.)

    • Apple announces the iCup

    icup.jpg Eagerly anticipated by sixth-graders everywhere, who have been predicting (and getting each other to spell) the product for decades, Apple announced that it will soon be releasing the iCup. Like the iPhone, the iCup is a hand-held device that syncs up with your computer.

    iCup Features

  • wireless beverage access
  • intuitive tip-and-sip interface
  • equipped with touch-sensitive LID technology
  • cross-platform compatibility: will sit on desktops, tables or other flat surfaces
  • handles-free design allows iCup to be held either in left or right hand
  • choice of 2 storage capacities: 16 oz, or the luxury 24 oz model
  • holds beverages, your choice of hot or cold, or some temperature in between
  • powered by cutting-edge gravity-based storage methods
  • stylish aluminum casing coordinates with Apple’s professional line of computers

    • In related news, the 79th Carnival of Satire is now available for your reading entertainment, and features my recent iPhone review (in which I come down hard on the iPhone’s chunky, clunky design).

    finding pants in unexpected places

    From the pantheons of pants I bring to you the the ultimate excercise in pants procrastination¹. Upon my recent realization that the word procrastination contains the letters of the word pants, my mind has suffered an onslaught of other words which contain pants. You see, pants are that pervasive. So I offer to you the following bit of complete nonsense, just for the sake of using all these pants-containing words.

    I recently read an article about a distinguished pantologist, who is being recognized for her life’s work.

    She is best known for her prediction of an alignment of planets, for which she used computations based on her observations of a species of bee that pollenates resupinate plants. She also recently received international attention for her study on the mating habits of the spantangus, large percentages of which were highly unexpected by the scientific community. She has hundreds of publications in dozens of fields, on topics ranging from pantheism and theories of pantisocracy, to histories of Pakistan and Palestine, to the cultivation of eggplants. She holds patents for many inventions, including a method for stapling using only dental floss, and various contraptions, such as one for plasticizing antipasto displays for restaurant windows, or another for separating vast quantities of egg whites from the yolks. It is hard to say which of her many achievements is most representative of her work.

    She is a passionately creative spirit as well, and one of her favorite leisure pastimes is spattering colorful paints on paper, and pasting on patterns of pastina. She is also a talented pianist, and tapdances whenever she has the opportunity.

    The pantologist attributes much of her early explorations into vast areas of knowledge to the eccentricities of her parents, with whom she has a strong relationship, and whose intellectual partnership was an inspiration to her. Her father was once a pantomimist, known for a routine of silent stamping of feet (clad in his signature pantoffles) and for his impersonations of 17th century philosophers and contemporaneous politicians. He left the entertainment industry after a complaints from a reviewer suggesting that his acts catered only to the whims of his sycophants. He then became quite reclusive, and dedicated his efforts to designing closets and pantries for small apartments. Her mother once had aspirations to become a paleontologist before becoming a veterinarian, with a specialization in elephants (which are known to be disproportionately challenging patients). Upon retiring, her parents devoted their time to running the family’s plantations, which primarily grow plantains and peanuts.

    The distinguished pantologist’s record is not untarnished, however. There were some phantoms of rumors of misappropriation of funds, as well as some speculation about the ethics of some of her experimentations. There was the well-publicized scandal of 1983, during which she received some criticism for a study on the benefits of regular naptimes, in which participants were misled about the compensation they would receive. Her interpretations of data have also sometimes been called into question, and her explanations have not always been transparent. Her fan base, however, anticipates that these minor problems will soon be forgotten, and that she will be remembered for her accomplishments.

    An award ceremony, an event with all the trappings for which elaborate preparations were made, was held last week. The article contained a brief transcript of the highlights of the award presentation, during which the distinguished pantologist surprised the audience with a spontaneous anecdote about an embarrassing incident from her youth involving the mispronunciation of the word cephalopod. The article was also accompanied by a few images, some with rather cryptic captions.

    Okay, there it is. Anyone want to count how many words in this post contain the letters p-a-n-t-s? (I actually haven’t counted yet myself. I have work to do, you know.)
    —————-
    ¹ An expression for which I now have (thanks to azahar, and the anagram generator to which she referred me) a veritable abundance of anagrams:

    How about A Catnap Torsion Sprint? Or A Transact Pinion Sport? Or maybe A Tsarina Popcorn Stint?

    iPhone: good features, but falls short of design expectations

    As some of you know, we are very much a pro-Mac household. Also, John is more than a bit of a technophile. So it shouldn’t come as much surprise that John wanted to get one of the new Apple iPhones as soon as possible. John camped out for most of the afternoon today outside a nearby phone store, and we were lucky enough to get our hands on one of the coveted, ultra-cool, ultra-sleek iPhones.

    The iPhone has been awaited with great anticipation for years, long before it was officially announced by Apple. But since Apple released details and images of the iPhone, with its large high-res LCD and touch-pad with multi-touch operating, and versatile phone + camera + video player + music player + internet ready identities, it has been creating quite the buzz.

    We were, naturally, quite eager to see whether the iPhone could live up to the hype. Since some of you may not have had a chance to see the iPhone in action yet, aside from in the commercials, we thought we’d share our own experiences and impressions.

    When we got ours home, John opened up the box.

    in_box_sm1.jpg

    As advertised, all he needed to do was plug it into the computer, and go through iTunes in order to activate it.

    with_dock_sm1.jpg

    Also as advertised, the iPhone not only shows images, but it can also function as a music player:

    music1.jpg

    The iPhone is easy to navigate, with handy built-in scrolling features:

    scrolling_sm1.jpg

    While much of the functionality has been very cool, the design of the phone itself is surprisingly clunky: with big plastic buttons, and a screen that’s a bit smaller than we’d hoped. The sound quality of the music is a bit tinny, and somewhat annoying with various boingy and chirping sounds jumping in unexpectedly, and the selection of songs you can listen to is quite limited. While I do like the way the brightly colored lights flash when I push the buttons, I haven’t yet figured out how to dial the phone, as there are only buttons for 1 through 4. Most distressingly, we have already encountered at least three bugs with the iPhone, which are obvious in the image below.¹

    in_hand_noted1.jpg

    Has Apple fallen down in its standards?

    ————-

    ¹ And not just bugs: a frog, a bird and a duck, too.

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    the case of the 54 million dollar pants

    This is a tale of a man who loved and lost. He had pants. He loved them. He cared for them. Then in a brutal act of dry cleaning, he lost his beloved pants. “Vengence will be mine!” he cried to the heavens. Setting himself up against the drycleaners who had so wronged him, he decided to sue the pants off them.

    But the cruel fates and crueler legal system failed him:

    A judge in the District of Columbia has dismissed a case against a dry cleaner who was sued for $54 million in damages over a pair of missing pants.

    Roy L. Pearson, an administrative law judge, originally sought $67 million from the Chung family, owners of Custom Cleaners. He claimed they lost a favorite pair of his suit trousers and later tried to give him a pair that were not his.

    Man, he must really have loved those pants.

    When the drycleaners tried to pull up some other man’s pants, and pass those phony pants off as his own, he was not swayed. When they tried to offer him payment for replacement pants, he was not mollified.

    Over the course of the litigation, the Chungs said they made three settlement offers — $3,000, then $4,600, then $12,000 — all rejected.

    He demanded satisfaction. The satisfaction that the drycleaners so boldly guaranteed on their front sign. He refused to drop his pants suit.

    What price freedom? What price pants?

    Thanks for sharing this, jenny. You have become a remarkable source of pants. And thanks, John, for sending me this other article.

    entertaining tips from American Hovel Magazine

    American Hovel Magazine, April 2007 cover A few months ago, I shared the news that our home was featured on the cover of American Hovel Magazine‘s April edition, following our interview with that magazine earlier this year. Well, readers were so impressed by the chaotic state of our home that AHM has asked me to write some features myself as a guest author. Here is a draft of the article I’m working on, inspired by having recently had guests staying overnight.

    Preparing for Overnight Guests, an American Hovel Magazine feature by guest writer alejna

    When you know that guests will be staying over, it always helps to be prepared. If you have a guest room, or believe that you may have one lying around somewhere, it is a good start to find and prep this room. Here are some steps to follow to accomplish this goal.

  • Step 1: Find the guest room
    The first step is to locate and identify your own guest room. A guest room is a room in your house that may or may not have a door. Often, this room will be the place that you have found convenient to set aside items for “temporary” storage: boxes of clothing to be packed up or donated, piles of books and papers, small items of furniture or sundry toys that your child may have outgrown, odds and ends of obsolete technology, mysterious cables, miscellaneous repair or creative projects in various stages of completion, seasonal decor items given to you by your mother-in-law, holiday presents sent by various out-of-state relatives, holiday presents you never got around to mailing to various out-of-state relatives, and/or out-of-state relatives that you forgot were visiting. (Actual contents of guest rooms may vary.)
  • Step 2: find the sleeping surface
    Guest rooms typically feature some sort of bed or convertible sofa-type piece of furniture that allows your guests to sleep in relative comfort. (Many guests find that kitchen floors, front lawns or bathtubs are not terribly comfortable as sleeping arrangements. However, in a pinch, these will do. Make sure to offer a blanket or tarp.) You are likely to find that the bed (or other sleeping surface) can be found under the largest pile of items listed in Step 1.
  • Step 3: clear the bed or other sleeping surface
    Once you have identified the bed (or other sleeping surface, hereafter called simply, “the Bed”), it is time to undertake the most challenging task: “clearing” the Bed. This daunting task may take many hours, and will most likely be attempted when the arrival of your guests is imminent. Be prepared by having ready the proper tools for the job: rakes, shovels, forklifts and hard liquor. You may also find it helpful to have a phone nearby, so that you may call a sympathetic friend or relative to help ease the emotional burden of the task.

    One of the seemingly impossible aspects of “clearing” the Bed is to find places to put those items that have so long been inhabiting the Bed space. The ideal way to deal with this is to carefully sort through all the items, give away or discard those items that are no longer in use, and find appropriate permanent storage solutions for the rest. You will not have the time or energy for the ideal way, because your guests are almost here, and if you could so easily deal with things in the ideal way, you wouldn’t be reading this magazine, because you are neat and organized and you have in the past been likened to Martha Stewart. You will instead need to follow the more expedient method: move the items from the Bed to other spaces around the house that your guests will not see. Suggestions include: your own bedroom, office, car, back yard (depending on the season), neighbor’s yard, or if you have more than one bathroom, in a bathtub or shower.

  • Step 4: Prepare the Bed
    You will find that many guests will expect to find some sort of bed linens in place on the Bed, and that further, the expectation is that such linens will be clean. However, few guests will actually ask if the bed linens are fresh. Therefore, if time is short, and the sheets are not visibly soiled by any previous guests or nesting animals, you may find that a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy is helpful.¹

    • That is all for this installment of hints for preparing for overnight guests. There are other preparation considerations that may be helpful, however, I believe that your own guests are now pulling into your driveway anyhow, so you will just have to wing it this time.

    ————-

    ¹ For those guests who may have recently visited my own home: I put clean sheets on the bed. Seriously.

    vegetable medley

    greens_album.jpg I went to collect my first CSA vegetables this evening: an impressive selection of greens, greens, greens and more greens. Fresh, fresh off the farm.

    To celebrate, I thought I’d put together a musical tribute. We all know that green-friendly classic “give peas a chance,” but do you know some of these other vegetable hits?

    A Medley of Vegetable Songs

    1. we got the beets
    2. it ain’t easy being greens
    3. smells like teen spinach
    4. rutabagas keep falling on my head
    5. give my regards to broccoli
    6. are you lonesome tomato
    7. can’t take my eyes off arugula
    8. I never loved a man the way that I love yams
    9. saving all my leeks for you
    10. when a man loves a radish
    11. first time ever I saw your kale
    12. the dawning of the age of aspargus

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    spam spam wonderful spam

    Here’s a post about spam to follow up on all of last week’s cheese.

    WordPress has a pretty decent comment spam filter, and not too many spam comments see the light of day. (According to my stats page, over 2500 spam comments have been caught by the spam filter in the 6 months I’ve had this blog.) I do still sift through my caught spam periodically, just in case something legit has gotten trapped. Often, I’ll see boring lists of links for hotels or celebrity photos, or prescription drugs, or drug scandals about celebrities who share names with major hotels. Sometimes I see links for porn sites that I really, really didn’t want to know existed. (I’m greatly disturbed by the non-consensual ones…) Anyhow, spam, when it’s not disturbingly offensive, can be downright dull. But lately, I’ve been seeing a trend that makes the task of sifting through the spam box a bit more entertaining: some spam that makes me laugh. I thought I’d share a few with you, though without the links to whatever it was they were trying to sell, and a few of my thoughts in response. (Mind you, these are supposedly left as “comments” on posts. Generally the “comment” has nothing whatsoever to do with the post it’s left on.)

    Some spam comments that made me laugh

    hot old babes

    Hey, I’m not that old. Am I? But thanks for calling me hot.

    bangers booty fat intro article

    Yes, I’m starting some research on bangers booty fat, and I feel I need a good overview on the topic.

    Books about spy cam upskirt.

    Ah, yes, those would be in the spy cam upskirt section, which is between the section on booty fat and the books on hot old babes.

    wholesale interior door intro

    It’s definitely the way in. All the way in.

    Fresh news on bag laundry.

    Wow! I can hardly contain my excitement!

    News about skinny big boob.

    Not just big, but skinny big. I can just see the headlights headlines.

    Good information source for tushy massage movie.

    Wait, are we talking about a feature-length movie of butt-rubbing? Or just a short? I guess that’s why we need a good information source.

    Variants of sweet ass.

    I’m writing a poem for my true love, and I don’t want to overuse the expression “sweet ass.”

    Fresh information about naruto hentai wallpaper.

    All the information I can find on naruto hentai wallpaper is so damn stale, and I want to redecorate my dining room with an anime porn theme.

    big gay bear introduction

    I always suspected that there was more going on between Yogi Bear and Booboo than just stealing pic-a-nic baskets.

    Good information source for bowling party bag.

    Thank god I finally know where to go for this!

    Actual news on car rental toyota category.

    Yes, this is the news the masses crave. Hasn’t FoxNews stepped up to the challenge?

    Hhgghhg kdfgdg sdgfgt sd gdsgdgsdg gd sdgdgsdg

    I found this one to be a bit…gdtfgdgd cryptic. You know what I gsgsf?

    :) Hi everybody! Does anybody know what is propecia? What a shirt? I go crazy about this!
    I found it here:

    Can I just repeat, “What a shirt?” What the hell does that mean? I go crazy about this!

    Hi
    You are The Best!!!
    Bye

    As for this one, I was sorely tempted to let it pass through. Gosh, thanks!

    ——————-

    And here, in case that wasn’t enough spam for you, have another helping of spam, spam, spam, python and spam:

    dances with cheese

    Yes, it’s cheese week here at collecting tokens. Because I apparently just can’t get enough cheese.¹

    Anyhow, inspired in part by the pants game (wherein a word in a known quotation, expression or title is replaced by the word pants) and in part by a post² I came across on adding the word cheese to movie titles, I offer up my own list of movie titles. (I got all these movie titles, or at least a previous version of them from the AFI’s 100 years 100 movies page. So these are high quality films that I’m making a cheese mockery of.)

    Classics of Cheese Cinema

  • From Cheese to Eternity (1953)
    Passion. Betrayal. Cheese.
  • Bonnie and Cheese (1967)
    Partners in crime, partners in cheese.
  • Apocalypse Cheese (1979)
    A dark and dangerous mission of cheese.
  • A Streetcar Named Cheese (1951)
    Glimpse the cheesy underbelly of New Orleans.
  • Rebel Without a Cheese (1955)
    Trouble’s coming. And it’s bringing crackers.
  • Wuthering Cheese (1939)
    A haunting tale of star-crossed young cheese lovers.
  • Gone with the Cheese (1939)
    An epic saga of love, war and cheese.
  • The Wizard of Cheese (1939)
    If ever a wonderful wiz there was…wait, would that be the CheeseWiz?
  • It’s a Wonderful Cheese (1946)
    A sentimental film that shows a glimpse of a world without cheese.
  • 2001: A Cheese Odyssey (1968)
    The awe and mystery of a cheese unlike any other.
  • Raiders of the Lost Cheese (1981)
    When they find it, they really don’t want to smell it.
  • The Silence of the Cheese (1991)
    Is the cheese quiet now, Clarice?

    • —————
    ¹It has occurred to me that I must consider cheese to be a funny word. Much like pants, squid, banana, duck and monkey. However, I don’t see any mention of cheese on the Wikipedia inherently funny word article.

    ²Really, I promise to stop this daily linking to Words for My Enjoyment. What’s funny is that I first came across the blog via my takehome final, as mentioned previously, but then found it again totally inadvertantly and coincidentally while doing a google search for “cheese” and “movies”. (Did I mention that there’s aren’t too many cheese movies?) It was almost as if it was written in the cheese…Wait, “Written on the Cheese.” I think that’s a movie, too.