Humor Archives
You have two cows - Indianism
Here is a new "You have two cows...."
INDIANISM: You have two cows, that you revere. But they end up in Bangladesh as steaks. So you outlaw cattle exports, announce a cow-licensing system and issue cows with photo IDs. Unfortunately, many conclude that India can not stop this illegal moogration because "beef is very delicious."
For more Two Cows, see YouHave2Cows.com
May 3, 2010 02:07 PM Link Comments (0)
Friday humor
Smart Engineer
Charlie Brooker's How to Report the News - Newswipe - BBC Four
February 26, 2010 08:17 PM Link Comments (0)
Where's Sock Puppet's Bailout?
More
- Pets.com
- Sockpuppet - from Wikipedia
- Sock puppet - from Wikipedia
Hat tip Hit & Run.
November 26, 2008 12:57 PM Link Comments (0)
Mrs. Hughes
Mrs. Hughes Live at the Ice House
15 year old son: "So, why'd you have me?"Mrs. Hughes: "Well actually, we didn't know it would be you."
(pause)
"We were hoping for someone with a job!"
November 3, 2008 10:47 AM Link Comments (0)
Communism and 2 cows...
COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both cows. The government sells the milk in government stores. You can't afford the milk. You wither away.
You have two cows. The government.... - from TheCapitol.Net
It is not an accident that communism, wherever it has strongly established itself, has always restricted international travel, stirred up spy-mania, and jammed foreign radio stations. Where the USSR led, the People’s Republic of China and Cuba followed. And their example was picked up by North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Ethiopia. Communist leaderships in power repeatedly clamped down on the free flow of information in their countries and used propaganda to indoctrinate whole populations. Official media claimed that poverty and oppression were the universal features of life under capitalism; that capitalism was entering a period of terminal decline; and that the future, the brightest of futures, lay with communism.
"Hoover Archives: What I Found in Mr. Hoover's Papers," by Robert Service, Hoover Digest, 2006 No. 2
The Museum of Communism is an online, "virtual" museum that provides historical, economic, and philosophical analysis of the political movement known as Communism; it may be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan. An overwhelming consensus of historians from a wide range of political viewpoints concludes that the human rights violations of Communist regimes have been enormous - often greater, in fact, than those of the infamous Nazi Germany. Yet public awareness of the major crimes of Communist regimes remains minimal. The purpose of the Museum of Communism is to disseminate this information, combining high scholarly standards with an entertaining format.
Museum of Communism - by Bryan Caplan
July 31, 2008 08:17 AM Link Comments (0)
Time for Some Campaignin'
Time for Some Campaignin' - from JibJab on YouTube
- Capitol Hill Workshop: 2008 Election, November 12-14, 2008, in Washington, DC - from Congressional Quarterly (CQ) and TheCapitol.Net
- The New Congress 2009: Understanding The 111th Congress, January 27, 2009, in Washington, DC
- The President's Budget, February 24, 2009
- The Defense Budget, February 27, 2009
July 17, 2008 10:37 AM Link Comments (0)
Homer Simpson does Noah Kalina
December 17, 2007 09:27 AM Link Comments (0)
"Boyz in the Hillz"
Love these lines:
"Stand back, cause I'm about to wreck this, you don't wanna make me take off my puka shell necklace..."
"Now I'm looking in the mirror for my daily affirmation, skins still glowing from my microdermabrasion...."
"My mom looks 24 but she's really 62."
"Life behind bars aint nothin new to me, I was born and raised in a gated community."
August 4, 2007 10:47 AM Link Comments (0)
Fred Allen
"I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me."
-- Fred Allen
June 28, 2007 09:07 AM Link Comments (0)
You have two cows - additions from Janne Tuukkanen
Here are two new "You have two cows...." from Janne Tuukkanen
DRM: You have two cows. You sell both of them, but all the milk still belongs to you.
INNOVATION: You have two cows. You patent "cow" and claim license fees from all the milk of the world. (All your milk are belong to us.)
For more, see YouHave2Cows.com
May 15, 2007 06:27 AM Link Comments (0)
For parents with teenagers ... how to handle road rage ... Teenager Driving Contract
Trunk Monkey #6 - Chaperone Version
March 11, 2007 10:17 AM Link Comments (0)
How do you order a burger, fries, and a milkshake in a library?
How do you order a burger, fries, and a milkshake in a library?
Quietly......
An excellent use of YouTube for marketing.
March 8, 2007 07:47 PM Link Comments (0)
Schubert's productivity
A company president was given a ticket for a performance of Schubert's unfinished symphony. Since she had previous plans and was unable to go, she passed the tickets along to the Company's Quality Assurance Manager. The next morning, the president asked the QA Manager how he enjoyed the symphony, and, instead of a few pleasant observations, she was handed a memorandum that read as follows:
1. For a considerable period, the oboe players had nothing to do. Their number should be reduced, and their work spread over the whole orchestra, thus avoiding peaks of inactivity.
2. All twelve violins were playing identical notes. This seems unnecessary duplication, and the staff of this section should be dramatically cut. If a large volume of sound is really required, an amplifier should be used.
3. Much effort was involved in playing the demi-semiquavers. This seems an excessive refinement, and it is recommended that all notes should be rounded up to the nearest semiquaver. If this were done, it would be possible to use trainees instead of craftsmen.
4. No useful purpose is served by repeating with the horns the passage that has already been handled by the strings. If all such redundant passages were eliminated, the concert could be reduced from two hours to twenty minutes, with attendant savings.
In light of the above, one can only conclude that had Schubert given attention to these matters, he probably would have had time to finish his symphony. And the finished symphony would have been of a much higher quality and able to be produced at a much lower cost.
Source unknown
- Symphony No. 8 (Schubert) - Wikipedia
- Franz Schubert - Wikipedia
- Franz Schubert - Fritz-Haber-Institut der MPG, from The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music, edited by Stanley Sadie
- Franz Peter Schubert - Classical Net
- "Franz Peter Schubert: Master of Song," by Charles K. Moss
- Schubert Society of the USA
March 7, 2007 06:17 AM Link Comments (0)
Panto in DC - and Malvern, PA
If you want to see a holiday panto this Christmas, we found one in DC and another in Malvern, PA. Let us know if you are aware of others in or near DC.
- "The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society's production of A Christmas Carol," through December 31, 2006, at the Church Street Theater, 1742 Church Street NW, Washington, DC, near DuPont Circle, 800-494-8497
- "Robin Hood," through December 31, 2006 on the Main Stage at People's Light Theatre Company, 39 Conestoga Road, Malvern, PA, Rt. 401 (between Rts. 30 and 202) Box Office: 610-644-3500
December 10, 2006 09:27 AM Link Comments (0)
Lawyer joke
This is from a list of lawyer jokes a friend sent.
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
November 10, 2006 09:47 AM Link Comments (0)
"I will survive"
An alien sings "I will survive"
September 11, 2006 08:27 PM Link Comments (0)
I bought it on eBay....
Are you an eBay junkie? This song, based on the music from "I Want it That Way" by the Backstreet Boys, is for you!
With words superimposed on the screen:
And if you missed it the first time around ... the 2 guys from China ...
September 3, 2006 10:27 AM Link Comments (0)
High school (and Washington?) as Dante's Circles of Hell
Joanne Jacobs describes a very funny post by Ms. Cornelius of A Shrewdness of Apes: "high school is organized into concentric circles of despair and Sisyphean drudgery which align quite nicely with the Nine Circles of Hell our friend and eternal optimist Dante Alighieri described so fully."
Joanne Jacobs "favorite is Circle 5 for the 'wrathful and sullen' seniors."
Circle 5 - The River Styx; the Wrathful and the Sullen: The seniors have slogged their way through all these levels only to discover that they are merely on the verge of true Hell. They've figured out to take AP and honors classes their first semester, and as soon as the transcripts are mailed off to their fifteen dream colleges to "drop them like it's hot" and coast through the rest of the year. The ones who SWORE that they would never want to go to college or trade school have lost a bit of that sneer as they are slowly coming to the realization that after antagonizing Mom and Dad for the last six years, what with the brushes with the law and the suspensions and the phone calls from school and the poor grades, their parents are COUNTING the days until they can tell their offspring that their bedroom has become an exercise room, and seven bucks an hour at TWO part time jobs at fast food joints minus something called FICA and social security will get them a run-down one bedroom apartment with three roommates, rides to work on a bus, peanut butter sandwiches, no vacations EVER-- much less three months in a row off, no health care, and tennis shoes from K-Mart, not Foot Locker. No bling, no phat threads, and no pimpin' any rides. Suddenly four years of sitting in a classroom listening to someone drone on and on about 18th century British literature or the principles of accounting doesn't sound nearly as stupefying as fifty years of soul-destroying repetitive labor where you come home at the end of the day with the smell of fried food permeating even your HAIR, which you now have to get cut at Great Clips four times a year.
We also like Circle 4:
Circle 4 - The Hoarders and the Improvident: Most of the juniors are engulfed in a tsunami in post-high school planning, as the first deadline to register for the ACT was on the Friday after we started school, and they are frantically collecting honors to list on their aplications and recommendations from harried staff. Those who swear that they'll NEVER want to go to college or trade school or sit in a classroom again are sneering at their classmates who are wigging out. They can't wait to get out of school so they'll never have to do what anyone tells them, EVER AGAIN.
"When teaching school is like... a divine comedy," by Ms. Cornelius, A Shrewdness of Apes, August 27, 2006
Meg Greenfiled described Washington as a "stunted, high-schoolish social structure" so Ms. Cornelius' descriptions kind of work here....
September 2, 2006 11:37 AM Link Comments (0)
Don't honk at granny ...
Careful who you honk at ...
August 27, 2006 09:47 PM Link Comments (0)
Shocked!
We are shocked, shocked, that the two parties are practicing the art of politics in regards to the thwarted terror bombings. And even more shocked, shocked, that each party is criticizing the other for, gasp, playing politics.
"The Saturday Brunch," Hotline on Call, August 11, 2006
August 14, 2006 11:47 AM Link Comments (0)
Women are from Sea World, men are from the ocean
For a book I was writing about a school for exotic animal trainers, I started commuting from Maine to California, where I spent my days watching students do the seemingly impossible: teaching hyenas to pirouette on command, cougars to offer their paws for a nail clipping, and baboons to skateboard.
I listened, rapt, as professional trainers explained how they taught dolphins to flip and elephants to paint. Eventually it hit me that the same techniques might work on that stubborn but lovable species, the American husband.
The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don't. After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.
. . .
... throw him a mackerel.
"What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage," by Amy Sutherland, The New York Times, June 25, 2006
July 6, 2006 10:27 AM Link Comments (0)
Connie Chung can't sing ...
Daniel Kurtzman declares "The competition is over. Connie Chung is officially the worst singer in the world."
Ai yi yi ... don't give up the day job ... whoops ...
More
- "Connie Chung's Serenade Gag A Web Hit," by Amy Sara Clark, CBS News, June 20, 2006
- "Grrr! Connie Chung's Dumb Stunt," by Mike Straka, Fox News, June 20, 2006
June 21, 2006 08:47 AM Link Comments (0)
Why is the World Cup better than the Olympics?
Mick Hartley asks, "Why is the World Cup so much better than its global rival, the Olympics?" and gives 12 reasons .... our favorites ...
- You can't harness football to political ends as you can with athletics.
- The Olympics is not only about racing against other competitors, it's also a race against the drug-testing rules. The whole event is fatally compromised by drugs. With football it's not even clear what drugs would be appropriate: given the history of the sport, probably booze and fags.
- Football's always got an element of chance.
- Footballers are normal guys who just happen to be very good at football. Olympic events are full of tree-trunk-thighed weirdos.
"The Footie," Mick Hartley, June 11, 2006
June 13, 2006 08:37 AM Link Comments (0)
Tired of eating fancy food?
then try Monkey Chow ... The Monkey Chow Diaries is a diary by Angry (Canadian) Man
Imagine going to the grocery store only once every 6 months. Imagine paying less than a dollar per meal. Imagine never washing dishes, chopping vegetables or setting the table ever again. It sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
But can a human subsist on a constant diet of pelletized, nutritionally complete food like puppies and monkeys do? For the good of human kind, I'm about to find out. On June 3, 2006, I began my week of eating nothing but monkey chow: "a complete and balanced diet for the nutrition of primates, including the great apes."
We love this Day 3 entry:
Monkey-like Attributes: Do monkeys have superhuman olfactory senses? Because I can smell every hamburger barbequed within 5 miles of my house.
Twenty bucks a day, he's got you beat ... at least on the money factor ... 20 pounds of ZuPreem Primate Dry Diet Animal Food is only $30 .. plus shipping ... should last a few weeks ...
June 6, 2006 08:31 AM Link Comments (0)
"Darth Vader Calls the Emperor"
"What do you mean they blew up the Death Star?! ... What the hell is an Aluminum Falcon?! ... Oh, oh, oh. I'm sorry! I thought my Dark Lord of the Sith could protect a small thermal exhaust port that's only two meters wide! That thing wasn't even fully paid off yet!! Do you have - do you have any idea what this is gonna do to my credit!?"
"Darth Vader Calls the Emporer." Video starts when you click link.
June 3, 2006 04:07 PM Link Comments (0)
DC as the Garden of Eden?
It is not the secret that the summer in the District of the Columbia, it can be unpleasant. The humidity and the heat they are oppressive, and the mosquitos they are as thick and as importuning as the candidates asking for the contributions.
It is this latter fact which always makes the Manolo give thanks to the person who invented the electronic zapper of the bugs. This clever device it kills the pests while the electric blue sparks provide us with hours of joyful entertainment.
If only the zapper it could be produced in the extra-strength congressperson size, then this city of Washington, truly it would be the Garden of Eden.
"Manolo the Columnist," Manolo's Shoe Blog, May 26, 2006
May 30, 2006 06:27 AM Link Comments (0)
World's smartest cow - what if there were 2 of them?
"We've never seen such a friendly cow," farmer friends kept telling me. True enough. When people enter the pasture, Elvis comes running up to greet them. The effect is rather like a building lifting off its foundations and charging down a hill: You just pray he can stop if he wants to. He sticks out his big tongue and slurps. He grabs at shirts and hats. If you sit down, he'll happily put his head in your lap. But since his landings are neither graceful nor accurate, it's not an entirely welcome gesture.
. . .
But Elvis has changed my ideas about cows. He's very social, fond of me and my helper Annie and my Labrador Pearl. When I take the dogs out for their morning walk, he moos repeatedly until I bring him an apple. He's figured out how to move bales of hay into place so he can snuggle next to them (when he lies down, you can sometimes feel the vibrations all the way to the farmhouse). He especially seems to love the view, staring out at the valley much of the day.
He is amiable, happy to hang out with the donkeys and sheep, given the chance. He coexists peaceably with the chickens—with everyone, in fact. Once or twice a week, he has a burst of cow madness and goes dancing playfully around the pasture in circles. Trees tremble.
Plus, he comes when called, stays when asked, and doesn't grab clothing anymore. Not all of my dogs will do (or not do) those things as reliably. I'm very happy to have him on the farm. It will cost me more than $1,000 to keep him in hay next winter. A bargain.
"The World's Smartest Cow: What my steer, Elvis, has taught me," by Jon Katz, Slate, April 28, 2006
DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. A vote is held, and the cows win.
DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. They outvote you 2-1 to ban all meat and dairy products. You go bankrupt.
See "You have two cows. The government...." from TheCapitol.Net
April 28, 2006 07:57 AM Link Comments (0)
Free the Garden Gnomes!
A long time ago when mankind was still drawing pictures on cave walls there was a great city within which there lived the highest developed species on the planet - GNOMES.
Gnome City stretched as far as the Gnome eye could see; its sapphire towers dazzled against the clear blue sky; its golden walls glittered in the sunlight. In Gnome City there were no cars, no fax machines and no computers - all was well.
"Gnome Story," from Gnome City
When I returned to the States and heard about Le Front de Liberation de Nains de Jardin (the Liberation Front for Garden Gnomes) -- a French activist group that abducts the wee garden ornaments, repaints them in unrecognizable hues, and sets them "free" in nearby forests -- I knew my former neighbor would be in a torment.
"Garden Gnomes do not prefer woods," I could hear her tsking over a steaming cup of Earl Grey. "Otherwise, they would be Woodland Gnomes, wouldn't they, dear?"
More recently, I heard about a German group that has taken the "emancipation" to a more ominous extreme, photographing abducted gnomes at international landmarks and sending the pictures to the gnomes' former owners. One such photograph was taken at Mount Rushmore with the captors wearing bandits' masks that barely hid their mirth. Copycat crimes have appeared in other regions of the gnome-loving world: Holland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Finland, Russia, Bulgaria, Hungary, and, here, in the United States.
"Gnome Sweet Gnome: Protecting against the threat of garden gnome theft is no small undertaking," by Silke Tudor, sfweekly, October 18, 2000
Plastic, gaudy and above all cheap, armies of garden gnomes huddle at Polish roadsides near the German border waiting to be snapped up by bargain-hunting tourists from the west.
The gnome armies are the apogee of central European kitsch, but they also signify something far more important. The little men are seen by many in Germany as pathfinders for other Poles who will offer an avalanche of cheap produce once the country enters the European Union on May 1.
A trade war has been raging between gnome manufacturers on both sides of the border since the early 1990s when Polish entrepreneurs, bursting for opportunities after decades of communist-era restrictions, recognised that with cheap labour, low-cost materials and lack of environmental legislation they could vastly undercut the prices of German gnomes. At least five million have been sold.
"The gnomes of Warsaw are lesson for future of new Europe," by Kate Connolly, news.telegraph, May 3, 2004
The dormant Garden Gnome Liberation Front has sprung back to life, stealing about 20 gnomes during a nighttime raid on a Paris exhibition.
"We demand ... that garden gnomes are no longer ridiculed and that they be released into their natural habitat," the Front's Paris wing said in a statement following its weekend strike.
France's first garden gnome exhibition in the exclusive Bagatelle park on the outskirts of the capital opened last month and has been a hit with the public as chic Parisians develop a taste for kitsch culture.
. . .
The Garden Gnome Liberation Front vanished from the public eye in 1997 after a northern French court handed its ringleader a suspended prison sentence and fined him for his part in the disappearance of around 150 gnomes.
The only suspected sighting of the organization since then was a mass suicide of gnomes at Briey in eastern France in September 1998, when 11 of them were found dangling by their necks under a bridge.
A letter found nearby said: "When you read these few words we will no longer be part of your selfish world, where we serve merely as pretty decoration."
"Garden Gnome Liberation Front strikes Paris show," CNN, April 13, 2000
A secret underwater attraction that lured several divers to their deaths could have returned, police say.
The "gnome garden" complete with picket fence was removed from the bottom of Wastwater in the Lake District after several divers died a few years ago.
It is thought they spent too much time at too great a depth while searching for the site of the ornaments.
Now police divers say there is a rumour that the garden has returned at a depth beyond which they are allowed.
Pc Kenny McMahon, a member of the North West Police Underwater Search Unit, said the gnomes were well known among the diving community.
"Underwater gnome threat 'returns'," BBC News, February 14, 2005
French police are trying to find homes for over 80 garden gnomes kidnapped in eastern France earlier this year.
The tiny, bearded ornaments were taken by the self-styled Gnome Liberation Front from homes in the town of Saint-Die-des-Vosges.
They resurfaced lined up on the steps of the local church one Sunday morning.
Police have never caught the culprits, but the gnomes' owners seem strangely reluctant to come forward to claim their stolen property.
"French garden gnomes need homes," by Caroline Wyatt, BBC News, December 29, 2003
hat tip normblog, "War of the gnomes"
More
- Garden Gnome Liberation Front - wikipedia
- Gnome - wikipedia
- Garden Gnomes Need Homes
- FreeTheGnomes.com - "provides Garden Gnome Liberation information and calls to action. We advocate an end to oppressive gardening and freedom for garden gnomes everywhere."
- Funny Garden Gnomes - from PrankPlace
April 1, 2006 08:17 AM Link Comments (0)
Art Buchwald
[P]eople always talk about heaven as the place where we are all going. The problem with thinking about heaven is that you then have to think about hell. The irony of our culture is people are constantly telling other people to go to hell, but no one tells them to go to heaven.
"The End. Or Maybe Not." by Art Buchwald, The Washington Post, March 14, 2006
I had two depressions, one in 1963 and the other in 1987--the first clinical depression, the second manic depression. One of my major fears during my depression was that I would lose my sense of humor and wind up in advertising.
"Political Humorist Art Buchwald Kicks Off The Open-Door Policy With A Tale Of His Own Travails," Psychology Today, November, 1999
More
- Washington Post columns
- Art Buchwald - Wikipedia
- "The Final Days of Art Buchwald: A Visit," by Suzette Martinez Standring, Editor & Publisher, March 4, 2006
- Selected Quotes
March 16, 2006 06:37 AM Link Comments (0)
Simpsons' fans
Insignificant Thoughts links to a video you will like if you like The Simpsons ... a real-life version of the opening sequence ...
March 6, 2006 10:19 PM Link Comments (0)
Whopperettes
Seth Stevenson says SuperBowl ads "have gotten progressively worse" and that the Burger King "Whopperettes" ad "was the only ad all night that was outsized and garish enough to be Super Bowl-worthy. Thus, I approve. I'm still not sold on BK's mascot, though. 'The King' is a silent, frightening weirdo, whom even the Whopperettes refer to as 'freaky.' No doubt he appeals to Burger King's core demo of 18- to 25-year-old men. But I get the sense that he repulses everybody else." ... we agree, he is a weirdo ...
Whopperettes ad is here
February 6, 2006 01:14 PM Link Comments (0)
In the Loop's Name that Scandal contest
In the Loop is having a Name the Abramoff Scandal Contest ... deadline for entires, is midnight Jan. 18, 2006 ... "Names ending in -gate, while not automatically rejected, are frowned upon." ... see story for details (print version)
January 10, 2006 11:00 AM Link Comments (0)
You Have Two Cows ...
We recently added to our "You have two cows. The government...." page, by adding a slew of international definitions, most from the Arab world by way of "How Arabs deal with cows," by Mahmood Al-Yousif, December 29, 2005
Some samples from our "Two Cows page:
BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
PLATONISM: You have a reflection of two perfect cows. Their milk tastes like water. You look for two real cows to milk.
SOCRATIC METHODISM: How many cows do I have? Why?
If you don't like ours or have others, feel free to add yours in the comments below or here (we reserve the right to edit).
Technorati tags: you have two cows, you have 2 cows, two cows, 2 cows
January 3, 2006 06:07 PM Link Comments (0)
Christmas light show
PunditGuy links to
the most amazing, creative and well executed Christmas lighting display I’ve ever seen. Prepare to be amazed.
Video here ....
Here's a link to another video on the same house set to Jingle Bells, by Barbara Streisand ...
Update: According to Snopes, this was the 2004 Christmas light display of "Carson Williams, a Mason, Ohio, electrical engineer who spent about three hours sequencing the 88 Light-O-Rama channels that controlled the 16,000 Christmas lights in his annual holiday lighting spectacular."
"Man decks house with synchronized lights," boston.com, December 6, 2005
"25,000 lights dance to music: Display timed to a broadcast soundtrack," by Jessica Brown, The Cincinnati Enquirer, December 5, 2005
Mr. Williams shut down the display on December 6, 2005, due to traffic congrestion in his neighborhood
December 8, 2005 06:04 AM Link Comments (0)
Victor Borge
Terry Teachout remembers Victor Borge:
I doubt that many people under the age of forty remember Victor Borge, the comedian-pianist who died in 2000 at the miraculous age of ninety-one. He was a star for a very long time, first on radio, then TV, and Comedy in Music, his 1953 one-man show, ran for 849 consecutive performances on Broadway, a record which so far as I know remains unbroken. From there he went on the road and stayed there, giving sixty-odd concerts in the season before his death.
. . .
He usually made a point of playing a piece from start to finish toward the end of every concert, and I remember how delighted I was each time I heard him ripple through one of Ignaz Friedman’s bittersweet Viennese-waltz arrangements, which he played with a deceptively nonchalant old-world panache that never failed to leave me longing for an encore. Alas, he never obliged, and in later years I found myself wondering whether he’d really been quite so fine as my memory told me.
. . .
Borge, it turns out, could play with the utmost stylishness and sensitivity whenever it suited him to do so. You'll never hear a more elegant piece of piano playing—not even from Ignaz Friedman himself.
"Unsullied," by Terry Teachout, About Last Night, November 29, 2005 (there are links to audio recordings in the original post)
November 28, 2005 09:05 PM Link Comments (0)
Panexa, Dihydrogen Monoxide, and Klein Bottles
Panexa, from MERD, is a new drug that does everything ... even cures dihydrogen monoxide poisoning!
"The wonder drug that does whatever you think it does" mister snitch!, November 4, 2005
Need a zero-volume bottle?
Searching for a one-sided surface?
Want the ultimate in non-orientability?
Check out the Acme Klein Bottle to store that dangerous dihydrogen monoxide ...
November 9, 2005 07:30 AM Link Comments (0)
Dilbert Blog
Dilbert, er, Scott Adams, has a blog.
Welcome to my first blog entry.
If you’re reading this on company time, congratulations on beating the system. If you’re reading it on your own time, you really need to find a job where they pay you to do this sort of thing.
"Dangerous Donuts," Dilbert Blog, October 24, 2005
More
Dilbert - home
November 3, 2005 01:07 PM Link Comments (0)
Additional Campaign Metrics We'd Like to See
We'd like to see some additional info about campaigns from The Rhodes Cook Report, Cook Political Report, Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, Ron Faucheux's Political Oddsmaker, CQ's Politics in America, and The Almanac of American Politics; they should add descriptions of campaign volunteers. For example, as reported by Alarming News (writing about New York City Council District 4 and 5 candidates):
If you're looking for hot straight guys, join the Joel Zinberg campaign. Want to meet gorgeous women and gay men? Patrick Murphy is for you. If you're all about the Abercrombie big teeth look, Dan Garodnick is your man. And if you're looking for a real mishmash of people old and extremely young, Jessica Lappin has got what you need.
"The politics of attraction," Alarming News, October 29, 2005
October 30, 2005 02:54 PM Link Comments (0)
DC is like "high school with twice the stress and all of the infighting"
"This place is a much more sophisticated junior high school," 30-year-old Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., said recently in an interview. "There are the nice guys that everybody likes, the jocks, the geeks, the bullies -- they're all here. It's a representative democracy."
"Young Lawmaker Likens Congress to Jr. High," by Elisabeth Goodridge, AP, October 22, 2005
Meg Greenfield "likens D.C. to high school with twice the stress and all of the infighting" in Washington (Cahners Press 2001).
She saw Washington as high school, complete with freshmen, terms, classes, summer vacations and ''put-downs by the big kids.'' ''Political/governmental Washington,'' she argued, ''is psychologically fenced off from the larger community within which it makes its home, free -- like irresponsible youth -- of all but the minimal obligations of citizenship to that community, and absorbed to the exclusion of all else in its own eccentric aims and competitions.''Washingtonians were usually achievers in high school, she wrote, whether through grades, manners, looks or various accomplishments, and they bring those same skills to bear in the capital, while competing as they always have. Perhaps her most telling observation concerns the way Washingtonians talk of beyond-the-Beltway America as ''out there,'' which she called ''the near equivalent of the schoolkid's term 'the real world.' It means where everybody else is, where we have to go some day when this is over . . . becoming just like all the rest. Both terms connote a less rewarding and more onerous environment in which to live, even if you are feeling oppressed by your homework and your tests or by your political pressures or gargantuan departmental workload. Like 'the real world,' 'out there' seems less sympathetic and less exciting.''
"Big Potomac High School: Posthumously, Meg Greenfield says what she thinks of Washington," a review of Meg Greenfield's "Washington," by Adam Clymer, The New York Times, April 29, 2001
October 23, 2005 12:00 PM Link Comments (0) TrackBacks (1)
Jets - Hello Kitty, Salmon Thirty Salmon, Simpsons
Here's a Hello Kitty plane, EVA Air (Taiwan)
The plane's interior features Hello Kitty-related items as well, ranging from boarding passes, baggage tags, dining utensils, and lavatory papers to flight attendant uniforms.
"Hello Kitty jet," popgadget, October 22, 2005. More images here.
And the "Salmon Thirty Salmon," Alaska Air
The “Salmon-Thirty-Salmon,” sporting the glimmering image of a wild Alaska king salmon, is among the world’s most intricately painted commercial airplanes. Complete with shiny scales, a dorsal fin and gills, the livery on the Alaska Airlines 737-400 passenger aircraft is the result of a dedicated team of 30 painters working nearly nonstop for 24 days.
The plane already needed a new paint job, and Alaska Airlines covered about $75,000 of the tab, company spokeswoman Amanda Tobin said.The federally funded Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board paid for the rest of the roughly $300,000 project, said Bill Hines, the board's executive director.
"Alaska Airlines lands 120-foot king salmon," by Elizabeth M. Gillespie, AP, The Seattle Times, October 2, 2005
The $500,000 paint job is part of a campaign to promote the Alaskan seafood industry, and was paid for by the federal government. It's a pork project that some are calling "fishy.""Only Congress can turn fish into pork," said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "Paint jobs for private airplanes are one thing, but Uncle Sam should not be paying for it."
"Some Call Flying Fish Just Plain Pork," ABC News, October 4, 2005
And the Simpsons Jet, Western Pacfic Air (no longer in business)
October 22, 2005 03:57 PM Link Comments (0)
Is there a country that does not have beer?
"You can't be a Real Country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer."
October 16, 2005 01:04 AM Link Comments (0)
