Archive for the ‘ Humor ’ Category

“I Fist Wisconsin”

It was one of those bumper stickers where I see what they were saying, but I also see what they said:

IMG_1383

Whoops.

The background there, for out-of-staters, comes from early 2011, when a state bill that effectively killed public-sector unions led to massive protests at the Wisconsin state capitol. The shape of the state, blended with a raised fist, became one of the icons of the protests:

stand-with-wisconsin-fist-poster

I actually have that poster on my wall, next to my father’s old “Get Together/End War” one from the 1960s — the apple doesn’t fall too far in the family, I guess. But you’ll notice that the poster doesn’t use the fist graphic in a sentence…

“I Fist Wisconsin.” Use a little lube please, honey.

2013
04/17
CATEGORY
Humor
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1 comment

3 Random, Funny Signs from Around Town

If a picture is worth a thousand words, I can pat myself on the back for logging over 3k today, right?

Here is some random stuff I’ve seen around lately that I thought y’all would find amusing. You can, as always, click on these to enlarge them. First off we have the Princeton Club, which is apparently not actually a strip club?

princeton-club-xpress-billboard

Looking at their billboard, I would have thought they only specialized in one sort of, ahem, exercise, but their website claims they’re a fitness center. Then again, their website is laid out pretty much like a porn site too, and I don’t even know what’s up with that link to “massage services” down at the bottom, so who knows.

Next up, this truck I saw on I-90, headed for Wisconsin:

technical-animal-fat

If it were edible animal fat we’d know exactly what to do with it up here, but I don’t know what the heck you do with “technical animal fat.” Apparently they’ve had some problems with people getting confused, though? I particularly like the double-down of “not intended for human food” followed immediately by “inedible.” Yeah, you know someone did something disgusting with a truck full of that stuff, once.

And my favorite of the lot, this sign from a local dance studio:

please-dont-set-anything-on-this-cabinet

Dancers. Ya know? Just…dancers.

2013
04/08
CATEGORY
Humor
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4 comments

I’m Glad the “Rebel Alliance as Terrorists” Meme Caught On

Are you ready for some hipster nerdery? Or maybe nerdy hipsterdom; I’m not sure.

Either way: my friends and I were doing the whole “the Rebel Alliance are the villains” thing before it was cool.

rebel-alliance-insignia

Or at least, before we knew it was cool, because there wasn’t that much internet back then. So if other people were doing it we didn’t really have a way to know about it.

A friend of mine ran a Star Wars tabletop game (yeah, the original one; I told you this was going to be a hipster-nerd post) with us as the noble Imperial officers working to unravel terrorist Rebel plots. A while later my high school girlfriend and I put together an Imperial Armed Forces recruitment film as a video editing “sample project” for one of my tech support jobs — using, as I recall, Windows Movie Maker and a pre-digital microphone plugged into the computer through a converter, both of which were horrible.

There’s no date on the film, but I think it must be from 2004 or 2005. I had to go back to my old laptop from undergrad to dig it out for you, but here it is, in all of its scratchy glory:

Point here being, I’m glad to see that the idea has caught on. It’s practically the going interpretation these days. Luke’s Change, a spoof of the 9/11-truther video Loose Change, has been making the rounds this week (which is what reminded me of our old video), and it riffs on the “terrorist Rebels” theme:

And here’s another with the 9/11 flavor:

Can’t forget TROOPS, of course, which was probably the first Star Wars fan parody film to go viral, or at least as viral as you could go pre-Facebook, pre-YouTube, and pre-pretty much all social networking more sophisticated than a listserv:

(That one probably seems pretty dated to the millennial generation, given that the humor is all pre-prequel Star Wars and TV in-jokes from a show that aired before they were born.)

And probably the biggest Star Wars costuming/cosplay group out there these days is, of course, the 501st Legion, which works with fans who do all sorts of costuming, but which has a distinctly Imperial flavor and origin.

So yeah. The good-guys-Imperials — it’s a thing.

Of course, so is the “totalitarian Celestial empire” thing within My Little Pony fandom. Could be twenty-somethings just like dictatorships.

Ironically. Right?

2013
03/21
CATEGORY
Humor
Media & Internet
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3 comments

The Tragedy of Pi Day

Pi-PieI never did like trig much. It always seemed like the most arbitrary branch of math. We’re going to learn new ways of measuring circles? Fantastic! That will be super useful, every day except none of them.

I’m told it does have practical applications, but you don’t learn those in high school. You just, you know, do math. In circles. Or maybe to circles; I’m not entirely clear on the details.

(I do have a girlfriend who replies “pi over two” when she doesn’t feel like answering a question, though, so that’s something.)

Anyway, the one upshot of trig was the guaranteed free pie on March 14. Because 3.14, pi, pie, get it? The kind of let’s make learning fun (but not relevant) shit that public school is all about.

And that was delicious and awesome. I’m all for free pie. But Pi Day celebrations mask a global tragedy: Europeans don’t get the free pie.

Or much of anyone outside the States, really. March 14, 2013 is 14.3.13 in most countries. No pie for them! But they do still have trigonometry (presumably), and that’s just sad.

So Happy Pi Day, my fellow Americans, and enjoy your feasting while the rest of the world suffers in hunger.

Now that I think about it, this really is a very patriotic holiday. USA USA USA! And pie.

2013
03/14
CATEGORY
Humor
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2 comments

Have Fun, Then Feel Guilty, with the “Prof or Hobo?” Quiz

The University of Toronto must be glad they’re paying for personal server space, since it lets people from all over the world come and see content created by their faculty and students; content like the Prof or Hobo? quiz page.

It is a pretty great quiz! There are only ten items, alas, but each one is a real challenge. Is this guy a hobo, or a professor?

prof-or-hobo-6

What about this guy?

prof-or-hobo-5

It’s not easy!

It’s also not very nice. It’s kinda fair to make fun of college professors for looking like bums — they could certainly manage not to, with a little time and effort — but it does inherently require you to also make fun of how bums look, and they don’t necessarily get a lot of say in the matter.

(I also question the use of the term “hobo” here — “hobo” implies a migratory worker specifically, not simply a homeless person. But maybe it’s one of those words that is slightly different in Canada, like how they say “tuque” instead of “stocking cap” and “excuse me” instead of “fucking move it, asshat.”)

So please don’t pass this around Facebook (as I see so many of you doing) without at least a momentary pang of privilege-guilt. It is pretty nice to be able to make fun of people for looking like they’re homeless, secure in the knowledge that we, personally, will never look like that except by personal choice. Well, “nice” in the sense of “personally beneficial,” not in the sense of “kind to others.”

Because it’s not, particularly. And that’s mostly okay — we can enjoy things even if they aren’t 100% politically correct.

But we should take a moment to acknowledge that we’re doing it. Otherwise we’re just being entitled asshats. And if we’re asshats, some day some Canadian is going to come up to us and say…

…”excuse me.”

2013
01/31
CATEGORY
Humor
Thoughts & Musings
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1 comment

Fight Breast Cancer with BRIGHT PINK PEPPER SPRAY!

Oh my goodness.

One of the nice things about having this blog, or maybe just about being me, is that people sometimes text me with the hilarious and absurd things they encounter in their day-to-day life. So, courtesy of a ladyfriend who is way more manly than me and actually goes to hardware stores and places like that, today’s bizarre marketing demographic mashup:

breast-cancer-pepper-spray

For the conscientious survivalist! Let the world see your support for breast cancer awareness — but only briefly, before blinding the world with a pressurized spray of oleoresin capsicum.

I think my favorite part might actually be the brand name “Sabre Red” written in Susan-Komen-trademark-pink, like one of those Stroop Effect posters you’d see taped to your Intro Psych prof’s door.

…no, no, I take it back; the best part is still the juxtaposition of the words “Help Fight Breast Cancer!” next to an actual, physical weapon.

God Bless America. You noticed it was proudly made in the USA, right?

Right?

Sometimes this blog writes itself.

2013
01/16
CATEGORY
Humor
TAGS



4 comments

Nothing Says the Holidays Like Victorian Streetwalkers

“You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Apparently this is tomorrow! Shall we all Google “victorian streetwalker” for some costume ideas? I think we shall:

Oh my.

Ooh la LA.

And one can always count on Shutterstock for true historical accuracy.

Well I’m certainly feeling the holiday cheer! Are you feeling the holiday cheer? If not, get yourself on down to Saratoga Springs — I guess they really know how to party out there.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lacy red costume to try on.

2012
11/28
CATEGORY
Humor
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5 comments

Rabid Wolverines and Broken Glass: Your Helpful Guide to Bad Days

A lot of people say they’re having bad days.

In fact, if you’re on “the social media,” it’s hard to go twenty-four hours without hearing about someone’s bad day.

But let’s all stop and think about perspective for a moment. This handy scale has always served me well, and it will serve you well too:

  • “I got mauled by a wolverine.” That is not a very good day! But we must take into account, wolverines are quite real, and their propensity for mauling is well-known. If you happen to encounter one, you may be mauled. While unfortunate, it doesn’t really single you out as someone cosmically marked for doom. Take it easy on the hyperbole when you complain about your day!
  • “I got mauled by a rabid wolverine.” Wolverines, as discussed above, do sometimes happen. But for your particular wolverine to be rabid as well? Now that is bad luck. You are having a genuinely shitty day! It is reasonable to be upset by that. But try to remember that mammals in the wild do often contract rabies, and that wolverines (what with the mauling and all) are especially likely to have been exposed. This is a bad day, but not an unreasonably bad day.
  • “I got mauled by a rabid wolverine that had been rolled in broken glass.” Someone is just fucking with you! How did that wolverine get covered in broken glass? He did not do that to himself. Broken glass does not occur naturally in a wolverine’s life. Someone went out of their way for that shit, and your day sucks.

I don’t remember where I first heard this scale explained to me. I Googled “rabid wolverine broken glass” to try to make sure I wasn’t stealing someone’s work, but all I found was pro wrestling sites and something called the “Men Going Their Own Way” forum in which young men are advised that sex with Ladee Bitz is roughly equivilent to “skydiving with a rabid wolverine strapped to your leg over a field of broken glass inhabited by cannibalistic mongols,” because slutty slut-sluts are diseased.

Which let me tell you was a downer! Their hate-filled dribble has really put a damper on my day. But it is okay, because no wolverines as of yet.

Sometimes you just gotta keep things in perspective.

2012
11/27
CATEGORY
Humor
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3 comments

Penis = Diva

Maybe it’s all the opera I’ve been seeing lately, but can we all agree that the penis is kind of a diva? I mean, seriously:

  • It won’t even come out of its dressing room if it’s too cold.
  • It gets bored with the same costume over and over again.
  • You have to kind of flatter it and tell it how amazing it is, otherwise it won’t preform.
  • When it’s on top of its game it can bring down the house, but if it puts in a lackluster performance the whole show tanks.
  • It thinks it’s the star of the show even if it only gets one eight-minute appearance

But when all’s said and done, it is nice to have someone that can hit those high notes…

I’ll leave the rest to the comments page. The less I say about penises in general, the better my hopes of someday holding public office. (Ha! MA101 has thoroughly ruined those already, who am I kidding. To the country’s benefit no doubt.)

2012
10/15
CATEGORY
Humor
Thoughts & Musings
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1 comment

How to Load Pictures from Your iPhone to Your iMac In 15 Incredibly Frustrating Steps

I’m not sure what it is.

Perhaps my iPhone feels intimidated. It is, after all, the new kid on the block. Dating all the way back to 2008, my iMac must have an almost palpable aura of wisdom by now. It has outlived its warranty, which is as close as consumer electronics come to achieving enlightenment.

Or it could be sullen intransigence on my computer’s part. Maybe it just doesn’t like these new-fangled iOS machines. Maybe it fears obsolescence. Maybe it’s sabotaging the iPhone’s performance to make itself look better — or sabotaging its own in senile self-loathing. Who can fathom the depths of the electric sheep-dreaming mind?

But one way or another these things are terrible at talking to each other. Photos on your iPhone that you’d like to store on your iMac? No Problem! Just follow the simple steps:

1. Plug your iPhone into your iMac.

2. The little storage space message isn’t important. Dismiss that.

3. What? No, you don’t use iTunes for pictures. iTunes is irrelevant. Close iTunes.

4. Okay, now open iPhoto.

5. It’s the one with the palm tree icon.

6. No one knows what the fuck an “event” is. Don’t even worry about that tab.

7. Can you see your iPhone in the menu on the left-hand side?

8. Well, it should be there.

9. Unplug it and try again.

10. There you go.

11. Okay, you’re almost there. Now you just have to select the pictures you want to move onto your computer, drag them into a folder in iPhoto, and let them load.

12. No, you can’t just drag them to the desktop. Obviously.

13. You can drag them TO the desktop FROM iPhoto, once you’ve dragged them FROM your iPhone TO iPhoto.

14. Duh.

15. But only if you took them a while ago. Those pictures you took today aren’t gonna show up on the iPhoto version of your iPhone’s storage for like a week.

16. Sucker.

I may have skipped a couple of steps for people who use complex add-ons like “filters” or “camera programs,” but those people are all pretentious hipsters anyway. Fuck ‘em.

For a company whose brand is built on an image of clever, user-friendly design, these things sure do make it hard on the user. Maybe they need to be a little less friendly to us, and a little more friendly toward other OSX/iOS machines.

2012
09/25
CATEGORY
Humor
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1 comment

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