everwas

a blog by Ian Kennedy

Tag: humor

  • Romance Novel Cover Art

    Spotted on PC Magazine’s Backspace page. Mark Longmire pokes fun at romance novel cover art.

    In other news, I took the trolley today to drop in on a talk given by John Battelle at a conference at the Fairmont Hotel up on top of Nob Hill. It’s about a 30 minute walk but I was in a hurry and running late so I hopped on a cable car to take me up the hill. I was fully prepared to pay the $3 fare but my ride was so short (just a few blocks, albeit steep ones) that the driver just waved me off.

    I forgot about this aspect of living in this fine city, our quaint mode of public transportation is funded by the tourists. Those of us that actually use the cable cars to shuttle us from point A to B can use it as it was originally designed, a ski lift for those of us in a rush!

  • Contagious Media Showdown

    There’s lots of slick sites here, all looking to catch that hook that will bring the fame and fortune (ok, well mostly fame). Maybe my standards are more base as the execution is totally crude (think of a circa-1988 Geocities website) but my personal favorite features a lanky masked man as an unlikely hero dancing to cell phone ringtones. My vote for the Contagious Media Showdown is for the

    RingToneDancer!

  • Automatic Niceties

    I’m behind an older gentleman in the supermarket checkout line and the boy bagging the groceries is clearly on auto-pilot, not really paying attention, just going through the motions. I don’t blame him, it’s the end of the day and this is probably the 350th bag he’s had to stuff. Gentleman is paying for his purchase, a loaf of bread, some cold cuts, and some light bulbs.

    Bag boy drones his automatic response, "Paper? Plastic?" and "Would you like me to help you with your groceries out to the car?" This is California after all – the supermarket checkout folks are downright pleasant, not like the supermarket cashiers back East. But I suspect that this line about helping is written somewhere in the Safeway employee manual but still, it gets bag boy out into the sun every now and then, maybe even a tip or two. But older gentleman is not amused.

    "Help me with my bags!!??" I’ve got like three things in there? If I needed help with this, I should be in a wheelchair!"

    That woke us all up.

    Reminds me of another incident, this one in Japan where these kinds of scripted customer interactions are a science. A slightly pudgy office worker shuffles into a Dunkin’ Donuts, pulls out a list and proceeds to order about thirty donuts. She’s clearly working down a list which she will then call out when she’s brought her delivery back to her office mates.

    Yet, Dunkin’ Donuts cashier doesn’t soak this in and after ringing her up asks the automatic "o-mochi kaidi desu ka?" which roughly translates as "will you be taking this home?" the equivalent of the American "For here or to go?" Pudgy office worker takes offense and leans over to yell, which is highly unusual in Japan.

    "Do you actually think I’m actually going to sit down in your fine establishment and proceed to work my way through 30 doughnuts in one sitting? Don’t be such an idiot!"

    Everyone there sniggered into their coffee.

  • Ship of Fools

    In case you missed it, here’s a round up of some of the mischief making the rounds today (check back later as I’ll update this as the day goes on)

  • The Great Debate

    Had the great debate between George Bush and Saddam Hussein actually taken place in 2003 here’s how it would have gone down:

    Tuesday February 25, 2003 – The United Nations

    Tony Blair, moderator: Welcome to the first televised debate between George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, live from United Nations headquarters in New York. We will begin with a brief opening statement from each of you.

    Bush: First of all I would just like to welcome my evil friend to the UN, one of the great American institutions for the propulsion and impregnification of freedom throughout the world.

    Saddam: Thank you, Satan. I hope that in today’s debate we may find some common ground between the Iraqi people’s commitment to harmony, peace and human progress and America’s desire to destroy the Middle East.

    Bush: Do I answer that? Should I answer that? I’m just a good ‘ole boy an’ I don’t know how these things go, but from where I come from that’s just a gross misrepresentationalism and exasperation of the truth…

    Blair: Excuse me, Mr. President, but  “these things” go like this – I ask the questions.  The first question is quite simply this: do you have any links with al-Qaida?

    Bush: No I do not.

    Blair: The question is for Mr. Hussein.

    Saddam: As I told Mr. Tony Blaine clearly and simply, if I had links with al-Qaida and I enjoyed those links and I was profiting in some way from those links then I would not be ashamed to tell the world of these links, but since I am ashamed to tell the world of this, it follows that I have no such links.

    Bush:     Neither do I!

    Blair: The second question is for President Bush.
    President Bush, if America and Iraq were to go to war tomorrow, who would win?

    Bush: That’s easy. America…

    Saddam: Yes, America. Even I knew that one.

    Bush: Because America sits in the path of rightiousness and we stand for freedom. We are a diverse nation because we can sit and stand at the same time. And our ability to stand alone, and sit, comes from the hearts and souls of too blue American people, Americans like Mr. Blair here, people who are willing to love their neighbor, just like they would like to love themselves…

    Blair: Your two minutes are up.

    Bush: Well that may be but this great United American States of Americans are on the side of rightliness and Americanity, against a… a… malodorous Axis of Evil made up of Iraq, North Korea and… how many are in a axis? 

    Blair: I think you’re allowed as many as you like.

    Bush: OK, Iraq, North Korea and France!

    Saddam: France?

    Blair: France?

    Bush: Who am I thinking of then? Irania?

    Blair: Let’s move on. Saddam, are you willing to destroy your stockpile of Samoud 2 missiles in accordance with UN weapons inspectors’ orders?

    Saddam: I explain to you now that if Iraq possessed these so-called weapons, we would never destroy them, but since we do not have any such weapons and we never have, we are happy to comply, even though these non-existent weapons certainly do not exceed the prescribed range of 150 kms. I’ve even tested them myself, and we don’t have any.

    Blair: The final question is for George Bush. Mr President, is there any way that Saddam Hussein can avoid war, and what steps must he now take in order to reach a negotiated solution?

    Bush: Now listen to me. It’s very simple. First Saddam must compile 200% with the UN inspectorers, and I mean activated compilation, not passivist negridation.
    Second, he must disarm fully, in keeping with UN revelation 1441 and the next one, I believe its 1442, which will require him to disarm even more fully than what I have just stated. Then he must destroy all Samoud missiles and any other weapons of mass destruction he has found, or not found, to be in possessive of, without being asked, even though I’m telling you. Finally, there is one more task he must perform, which I am not at liberty to indulge. And even that will not be enough.

    Blair: Thank you, Mr. President. The translator would like to take your answer home with him and work on it over the weekend.

    Bush: Fine, but we require nothing less than total disarmature.

    Saddam: Yes, Disarmature!

    Blair:     I’m sorry, but I’m not sure that "disarmature" is a word.

    Bush:     Well, by “disarmature” I don’t mean he must cut off his own arms. But this here is an evil man. He has cut the arms off many of his own Iraqiian citizens. But I will tell you now that I would be proud to shake the hand of any brave Iraqiian citizen who had his arms cut off.

    Saddam: Disarmature, Yes! We will take down all our armatures! We are a peaceful people…

    Bush: You know, you remind me of a cowardly hunter who shoots the pigeon of peace, or is it the dove of peace? Well, you know, there’s a saying where I come from, ‘a bird in the stone is worth two…hunters…hunting and it’s the birds that’s supposed to suffer, not the hunter.’

    Saddam: Mr. Blair, What is he talking about? Mr. Blair?

    Blair:     Hmmm… Did you know that an anagram for ‘Saddam Hussein’ is ‘I demand Sushi’?

    Saddam: What is this ‘Sushi’?

    Forwarded by Perry Burns

  • Howard Stern on Blogs

    Robin Quivers asks "What’s a blog?" and Howard Stern rails on. In typical New Yorker fashion, he cuts straight to the point and says:

    "If you’re not making money as a writer or an artist, it’s not a career, it’s a hobby"

  • Naked Stowaway

    I’ve never needed to catch a flight this badly.

    A Canadian man, angry that he was refused a plane ticket to Australia at Los Angeles International Airport, stripped naked, sprinted across the tarmac and climbed into the wheel well of a moving jumbo jet, officials said.

    Nude intruder hitches ride on moving jet at LAX

  • Balloons

    The presidential campaign is not even over but I think they’re right to say that this is the dumbest quote from the 2004 campaign:

    “Go, balloons. I don’t see anything happening. Go, balloons. Go, balloons. Go, balloons. Stand by, confetti. Keep coming, balloons. More balloons. Bring them. Balloons, balloons, balloons! More balloons. Tons of them. Bring them down. Let them all come. No confetti. No confetti yet. No confetti. All right. Go, balloons. Go, balloons. We’re getting more balloons. All balloons. All balloons should be going. Come on, guys! Let’s move it. Jesus! We need more balloons. I want all balloons to go. Go, confetti. Go, confetti. Go, confetti. I want more balloons. What’s happening to the balloons? We need more balloons. We need all of them coming down. Go, balloons. Balloons. What’s happening balloons? There’s not enough coming down. All balloons! Why the hell is nothing falling? What the f— are you guys doing up there? We want more balloons coming down. More balloons. More balloons.”

    –Democratic Convention producer Don Mischer, overheard on CNN having an apoplectic seizure when the balloons failed to drop from the ceiling of the Fleet Center in Boston

  • Dancin’ in the Streets

    Dancin’ in the Streets

    Songwriter for The Grateful Dead and, more recently, The String Cheese Incident, cattle rancher and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is organizing spontaneous outbreaks of senseless dancing in and around the Republican National Convention. It’s become a movement

    We just had another brilliant expedition into elephant country. We encountered many of our quarry, converted a few, and made the rest so nervous you would have thought their thin smiles might shatter their faces. One of them said that he knew we were mocking George Bush. “How are we doing that?” we asked. “By dancing,” he snarled.

    And that, my pesky friends, is paydirt!

    John Barlow