Humor
Geeky is the new #000000
I couldn’t believe no one had thought of this t-shirt idea before. So of course I had to create it myself. You can buy it in many style at my best-kept secret, the Bettnet store.
Llama Chutes II: The Slidening
Last year I received a strange spam email inquiring about any “llama chutes” I might have for sale. I responded that I am the world’s finest purveyor of llama chutes, especially models that let them slide from up to 100-feet high, and that he could send me a certified check. We had some fun in the comments and then I promptly forgot about it.
Tonight I just received the following email:
You say that you have the finest chutes, well,I went to your site and found nothing…So guess what I went else where, to a site when you go on to there site you find chutes for sale…I typed in chutes and got nothing…What kind of site have you got????I expect that when I do a Google search on Llama chutes I will open a site and find chutes for sale….Well there was nothing on your site so I moved on…Just to let you know that if you want to sell chutes you better have then on your site when you open it up.
Here was my response:
You’re kidding, right? You can’t be serious. Are you really as obtuse as this email seemed or is your humor just more sublime than I gave you credit for.
Just in case, here’s a tip: Just because something is listed in a Google search doesn’t mean it necessarily has anything to do with what you’re looking for.
Let me be plain: I was making a joke. I don’t sell llama chutes. I hope you’re very happy with the chutes you found.
The funny thing is, if you do a Google search for “llama chutes,” my original tongue-in-cheek blog entry is the sixth entry. Too funny.
Rituals
Isabella, almost 3-years-old: “Do you have to go to work today?” (She asks this every morning.)
Me: “No, today we go to church.”
Isabella: “And then we have to have pancakes after church.”
Of course. That’s the way of things. Every week we have to have pancakes after church. It’s like the eighth sacrament.
Getting a haircut is like being shriven*
(To shrive oneself: present oneself to a priest for confession, penance, and absolution.)
Trim me, barber, because my hair has grown.
It has been 2 months since my last haircut.
Here are my bangs.
A little shorter than a regular on top, square back, 1-1/2 blade on the sides and back.
What Band are You Meme!
We all love memes, right? Well, even if you don’t (and I don’t love all of them), this one was kidn of fun. It’s the Band and Album meme.
- Band Name: Random Wikipeda Link
- Album Title: Random quote generator (take the last four words from the first quote on the page)
- Album Art: Flickr Interesting Photo (pick one)
Here’s what I came up with for Band Name, Album Title (“It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.” (H. L. Mencken). I cheated a little to make it fit), and Album Art.
And the album cover:
The meme comes from The Catholics Next Door
Astronomy for Kids of Sci-Fi Nerd Dads
When we ride in the car, Isabella loves to look out the window and find the moon, if it’s visible. She yells out, “The moon! The moon!”
My reply is always the same: “That’s no moon. It’s a space station!”
Isabella has now started saying, “Space station! Space station!”
Melanie shakes her head and mutters about me corrupting our children or somesuch.
As if barbershop quartet were not nerdy enough…
... How about a Star Trek barbershop quartet?
And yet I love it!
[via GeekDad]
Top 10 ways to know you’re on a Catholic blog
On the other hand, you have the Creative Minority Report’s Top Ten Ways You Know You’re on a Catholic Blog. Much better—and more succinct—than NCR’s article.
Interestingly, very few of the 13 items (sort of a baker’s dozen top 10) apply to my blog. What does that say?
My soul proclaims the greatness of Obama
From the “Obamessiah” files comes yet another whopper from an Obama supporter, calmly passed along by the mainstream media. In this case, it’s our old friend, Rev. Jeremiah “God damn America” Wright comparing Barack Obama to the Virgin Mary, as reported by the New York Times. This is a change from the more usual comparisons of Obama to Jesus Christ.
“Lord told him, an ordinary black boy, ‘You can be a state senator and you can bring folk to the bargaining table who not only do not talk to one another, these folk don’t like one another.’
“He did what the Lord said,” Mr. Wright continued, “an ordinary black boy like Mary was an ordinary little girl.”
Of course, what Wright didn’t tell us is what Obama said in reply. We’ll call it the “Magnificent Cat”:
-
Mass media proclaim the greatness of the Obama
Your spirit rejoices in Barry, your savior
For he has looked with earmarks upon his base.
From Election Day, all demographics will call themselves blessed
The BO Man has passed great entitlements for us
And, Hey!, Hussein is NOT his name.
He is the one we’ve been waiting for. He is the change that we seek.
He has mercy on those who fear him
In every Republican.
He has shown the strength of his polling
He has scattered the journalists in their fawning dispatches
He has cast down the middle class from their suburbs
And has given tingles to Chris Matthews.
He has filled the power-hungry liberals with promises of change
And the rich (Republicans) he has sent away with empty pockets.
He has come to the help of his servant Pelosi
For has remembered his promises of incumbency
The promise he made to the lobbyists
To Biden and his lobbyist son forever.
See the actual Magnificat of Mary of which this is a parody.
The 1930’s Marital Scale for husbands and wives
 | 133 As a 1930s husband, I am |
How would you rate on a marital test from the 1930s. It’s all in good fun and shows how much marital expectations and roles have changed and how much they have not. Versions for both husband and wife. Incidentally, I think it’s easier for a man to score higher than a woman because husbands’ roles have not changed as much as wives’.
An Inconvenient Truth, the Opera
Trousered Ape offers an hilarious and spot-on parody of Al Gore and the “climate change as fundamentalist religion” movement in his satirical opera “An Inconvenient Tragedy”. It features such characters as “Algor, an ambitious Spirit” and “Khi-oto, an Oriental sorcerer, servant to Algor” and “Oscar, a Golem”.
Helios: And now for you, false lying tricksters both, Who prey on credulous simplicity: I shall make plain to these good people here That warm and cool belong of right to me. Heat and humidity pervade the air When I put forth my power day to day, But chill winds, bitter frost, and snow abound When I do dim myself and turn away. You two are guilty of the grossest frauds, Your vaunted cantrips naught but useless gauds!
Algor: If this is true, our racket’s through. Oh, this is very inconvenient.
Dunkin or Bucks: A tale of two coffees
The essential difference between Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks can be summed up by these two recent experiences of ordering the same drink in both places.
Dunkin Donuts:
Me: I’d like a large iced coffee with milk, no sugar, light on the ice, please.
Counter worker (goes away and comes back): Here is your iced coffee, sir.
Starbucks:
Me: I’d like a large, I mean, grande iced coffee with milk, no sugar, light on the ice, please.
Order-taking barista passes order onto drink-making barista. I go stand with other customers huddled near the pub table waiting as each drink is eked out of the various gadgets. The barista places an obviously iced drink on the table.
Barista (calls out): Iced … mumble, mumble … no dolce, two percent.
Me (waiting to see if it’s someone else’s drink and then approaching hesitantly lest I be singled out as a Starbucks noob): Is this an iced coffee with milk, no sugar?
Barista (sighs): Yes.
And that is the essential difference between Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks.
N.B. My sister-in-law works at Starbucks and so this is just a gentle ribbing of Starbucks. Obvously, I do enjoy their tasty beverages on occasion. I am, after all, a coffee snob.
Photo from Flickr user thebittenword.com used with permission via Creative Commons Attribution 2.0
Comcast casts an evil shadow
As I was driving to work today, I was stopped dead in traffic, letting my mind wander as I listened to a podcast and tried not to get impatient.
I was sitting behind a Comcast truck when I noticed the shadow he was casting. Oh, that is perfect.
In case you’re not familiar with what a Comcast truck looks like, you can see photos here. The “ears” of the shadow creature are the tips of the rack on top of the truck, while the “snout” and “teeth” are the ladder.
Now some would take this opportunity to make disparaging remarks about the cable company and they might have good reason. But since we’ve lived here the past year, we’ve had nothing but good service. And while we had frequent problems at the previous locale, I would say that all of the people we dealt with were great. It’s just the company itself that needs some humanizing.
Anyway, all that to say, hey look at the funny picture I took!
Ha, ha, I’m in heaven and you’re not.
I thought this was a parody at first, but evidently it’s not. If you’re an Evangelical who believes in the Rapture—the theology behind the “Left Behind” series of End Times books—then you believe that at some point all the “real” Christians are going to disappear into heaven (be assumed?), leaving behind all those poor benighted non-believers who will have to endure the Apocalypse and have one final chance to give their lives to Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.
But say you’re a tech-savvy Christian who wants to give your non-believing friends and family one last chance — or at least a final “I told you so”— then you need to sign up for “You’ve Been Left Behind.” YBLB is an email service that will send one final message to all those people who have been “left behind”. As their press release puts it:
This website allows the customer to edit all documents and addresses at any time. This online site is run and programmed by Christians. It employs a “dead man’s switch” to automatically send the Emails after the Rapture of the Church has taken place. Multiple safeguards have been put into place to prevent premature sending of stored documents.
Customers of You’ve Been Left Behind Get an account with 250MB of storages space. And can upload any document to send to as many as 62 email addresses. 150MB are stored 256 bit encrypted. Those documents can be individually sent to up to 12 specific email addresses. 100MB of unencrypted storage can be collectively sent to another 50 email addresses. A blog is also available to customers with prewritten documents for the customer who does not have the time or prophecy knowledge to write their own general letters.
All this for only $40 per year. Every year. And all the proprietors have to do is … nothing. The perfect business plan.
Indiana Jones denied tenure
As we await the opening of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” in theatres next week, the McSweeney’s site brings us this little known historical letter from Jones’ employer, Marshall College, explaining why the famed archeology professor’s bid for tenure has been denied. Here’s one nugget:
The committee concurred that Dr. Jones does seem to possess a nearly superhuman breadth of linguistic knowledge and an uncanny familiarity with the history and material culture of the occult. However, his understanding and practice of archaeology gave the committee the greatest cause for alarm. Criticisms of Dr. Jones ranged from “possessing a perceptible methodological deficiency” to “practicing archaeology with a complete lack of, disregard for, and colossal ignorance of current methodology, theory, and ethics” to “unabashed grave-robbing.” Given such appraisals, perhaps it isn’t surprising to learn that several Central and South American countries recently assembled to enact legislation aimed at permanently prohibiting his entry.
Both fans of Indy and anyone familiar with academia will appreciate the whole thing.
