Category Archives: Funny Stuff

Shocker – Men Like to Impress Women

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Freakonomics reports on one of those scientific studies that when you hear about it has you shaking your head and saying, "Well, duh. Silly scientists."

In a nutshell the researchers findings show that men donate more money to a cause when they know they're being observed by an attractive female, but women's donations don't vary at all even when they know they're being observed by an attractive male. Are you shocked?

The best part of the Freakonomics post was this sentence spoken by one of the researchers: "The research shows that good deeds among men increase when presented with an opportunity to copulate."

Well, duh. 

Pallid, Stiff and Repulsive Cadaver

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I love me some Mark Twain. In a letter written to an editor in 1888 he explains why he doesn't want an interview of him published, and that letter includes this glorious paragraph:

For several quite plain and simple reasons, an "interview" must, as a rule, be an absurdity, and chiefly for this reason—It is an attempt to use a boat on land or a wagon on water, to speak figuratively. Spoken speech is one thing, written speech is quite another. Print is the proper vehicle for the latter, but it isn't for the former. The moment "talk" is put into print you recognize that it is not what it was when you heard it; you perceive that an immense something has disappeared from it. That is its soul. You have nothing but a dead carcass left on your hands. Color, play of feature, the varying modulations of the voice, the laugh, the smile, the informing inflections, everything that gave that body warmth, grace, friendliness and charm and commended it to your affections—or, at least, to your tolerance—is gone and nothing is left but a pallid, stiff and repulsive cadaver.

I could write for a thousand years and never come up with something that good.

Bird Bangers – The Best Work Related Email I’ve Received in Ages

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Today I received this email from the management company responsible for our office park. It truly made my day:

Dear Customers:

It’s that time of year when the geese are choosing where they want to take up residence to start their families.  To help motivate them to choose another property we will be using pyrotechnics and bird bangers which makes shot gun noises and blasts.  These will be fired off in about 20 minutes.  We also notify the police department because of the sound similar to a gun report.

We will also be setting out dog silhouettes around the property on a post and spring and they will be moved frequently.  These have shown to be successful in deterring the geese to land.

Creative Legislating, Part II

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Last week we had the Virginia legislator who did this:

To protest a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) on Monday attached an amendment that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication.

The amendment ended up being a symbolic gesture as it was defeated and the original bill was passed.  This week we have this story from Indiana:

Rep. Jud McMillin, a Republican member of the Indiana General Assembly, took back his drug-testing bill after one of his helpful Democratic colleagues amended it ever so slightly.

The Huffington Post says Rep. McMillin, the sponsor of the bill advocating a pilot program for welfare applicants to be drug-tested, decided to withdraw it once his colleagues made a few tweaks.

"There was an amendment offered today that required drug testing for legislators as well and it passed, which led me to have to then withdraw the bill," he said.

His reasoning is that it's currently considered unconstitutional to require drug testing for political candidates, and he wanted to make sure the bill wouldn't be struck down because of that. However, the precedent involved was for candidates, not those already in office.

 

 

In Which I Make Fun of Myself

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SNL hasn't been consistently funny for a while so I stopped watching, but I'll tip my hat to this skit.  It's funny and spot on even if they do make fun of people who have eponymous websites.  For the record I didn't double major in poetry and clowning, I never got a participation badge/trophy, I have been punched and I truly do realize I suck at most things I try to do:

Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow

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I catch The Colbert Report every once in a while, but after reading this article about Colbert's (real) Super PAC and the way he's using it as a kind of grand performance art experiment/exploration of our current political environment, I think I need to add him to the old DVR list.  This is just brilliant:

In June, after petitioning the Federal Election Commission, he started his own super PAC — a real one, with real money. He has run TV ads, endorsed (sort of) the presidential candidacy of Buddy Roemer, the former governor of Louisiana, and almost succeeded in hijacking and renaming the Republican primary in South Carolina. “Basically, the F.E.C. gave me the license to create a killer robot,” Colbert said to me in October, and there are times now when the robot seems to be running the television show instead of the other way around.

“It’s bizarre,” remarked an admiring Jon Stewart, whose own program, “The Daily Show,” immediately precedes “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central and is where the Colbert character got his start. “Here is this fictional character who is now suddenly interacting in the real world. It’s so far up its own rear end,” he said, or words to that effect, “that you don’t know what to do except get high and sit in a room with a black light and a poster.”

In August, during the run-up to the Ames straw poll, some Iowans were baffled to turn on their TVs and see a commercial that featured shots of ruddy-cheeked farm families, an astronaut on the moon and an ear of hot buttered corn. It urged viewers to cast write-in votes for Rick Perry by spelling his name with an “a” — “for America.” A voice-over at the end announced that the commercial had been paid for by an organization called Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, which is the name of Colbert’s super PAC, an entity that, like any other super PAC, is entitled to raise and spend unlimited amounts of soft money in support of candidates as long as it doesn’t “coordinate” with them, whatever that means. Of such super-PAC efforts, Colbert said, “This is 100 percent legal and at least 10 percent ethical.”

 

In Praise of Women With Some Mileage

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I found this piece by Andy Rooney via a co-worker's sharing of it on Facebook.  In it he explains why women over 40 are the shizz:

As I grow in age, I value women who are over forty most of all. Here are just a few reasons why: A woman over forty will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, “What are you thinking?” She doesn’t care what you think…

A woman over forty looks good wearing bright red lipstick. This is not true of younger women. Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over forty is far sexier than her younger counterpart…

Yes, we praise women over forty for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed hot woman of forty-plus, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some twenty-two-year-old waitress.

Ladies, I apologize.

For all those men who say, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free,” here’s an update for you. Now 80 percent of women are against marriage, why? Because women realize it’s not worth buying an entire pig, just to get a little sausage.

Agreed.

Adams (or someone like him) in ’12

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Scott Adams, the dude behind Dilbert, says he's running for POTUS as an Independent in 2012.  You have to believe him because he wrote it in his blog which, as we all know, is how you know you're dealing with someone serious.  Even if he doesn't run I'd like to have a candidate who thinks like he does:

On the budget, I propose a plan to cut every Federal government expense by 10% and increase every Federal tax by 10%. I'd call that the default plan, meaning I prefer a better plan, but I wouldn't expect anyone to come up with one. The advantage of this plan is that it's bad for every American. That's a little something I call "fair."

I'd also call a public debate on the topic of supply side economics, to end once and for all the question of whether lowering taxes increases government revenues. I would host the debate myself, with a Judge Judy sort of approach, and decide the winner. If it turns out that my proposed 10% tax increase would reduce government revenue, I'd cancel that part of my plan the same day.

I'd propose capping the amount any one person can inherit per death at $50 million. Estates can choose to donate the rest to charities, distribute it to stockholders, or give it up in taxes. $50 million is more than enough to turn any offspring into a lazy, self-absorbed, drug addicted, douche bag. Any more would be a waste. That plan needs some fine tuning, but you get the idea.

As President, I would remain deeply committed to flip-flopping. If new information or better thinking changes my opinion, so be it. That's how brains are supposed to work.

I can also promise that I won't try to remember the names of other world leaders, federal agencies, or even my own staff. Only an idiot believes a president can remember all of that stuff.