Entries Tagged 'Humour' ↓

Yes.

Found via TickleBooth, this was recorded last year but sound like last week.  Two British comedians explaining the subprime mortgage situation in the States…astute and funny.

You gotta watch this..funny and serious. This woman is brilliant, always.

Though I shouldn’t care about foreign elections I do. Just a little. Partly because though I still think Obama would be pretty right wing in Canada, the alternatives are much much worse.

Other Sarah…(see here for the infamous Matt Damon video)

A recent NewScientist reported that contemplating art could allay pain.

The subjects rated the pain as being a third less intense while they were viewing the beautiful paintings, compared with contemplating the ugly paintings or the blank panel. (Link here).

Recently I’ve been spending more and more time taking photographs and I’ve noticed that when I am looking for shots my mind seems to move into a realm where worries do not intrude. I’ve found this with very few other things. Because I shoot for composition rather than content, there is some kind of a mathematical aesthetic processing going on; the search for balance and beauty seems to push everything else aside. This only happens when I am actually looking for the shot.

After taking pictures the common concerns come back, like the one where I realize that I am developing another skill just to the level before you can actually make any money from it.

On another note, just watched True Romance again and caught the brilliant quote:

I’ve lived in America all my life; I’d like to see what TV in other countries is like. (See here).

And finally: I’ve already mentioned the loss of David Foster Wallace but among the many accolades and remembrances perhaps the most fitting was the Onion one on the cancellation of Nascar in his honour (Link here).  Its seems rude but I suspect it really was a homage by someone who read him.  It is exactly the sort of piece he would have written.

And then damn it, James Crumley too.

Once in a blue moon something comes along that challenges your limited sense of what is possible, and this, for me, Don’tClickIt certainly qualifies. Visit this site to see how simple navigation without a mouse, without clicking, is possible.

And then some new and unusual ways of telling time via GrowaBrain:

TimeBeat

Filling Grid Clock

PulseClock

WordClock

In an entirely different realm but of potentially life saving consequence is the invention of the Peepoo bag, a portable toilet (via the David Report Blog), a bag that soon after it is used, sanitizes the feces and thus prevents further contamination of the environment. Any natural disaster disturbs existing infrastructures, and even barring such events, many urban slums are ill equipped to deal with human waste; this is a major contribution toward reducing disease under those conditions.

And the craziest and most disturbing invention in some time:

From LoveHoney, the Touche Womanizer Shaver and Silicon Massager. “The magnificent Womaniser is not only smooth to the touch - it’ll leave you smooth and strokable, too! This intimate shaver is hidden inside a single speed silicone massaging vibrator - the perfect combination for a night of orgasmic personal pleasure.” I’d love to read the warning label.

1. The Applauding Bus Shelter (Source)

Kind of a fun idea but if you use negative as well as positive blandishments, you could end up with cars that nag you when you sue them, or rooms that natter at you when they’re not tidy. So if you are not doing public transit, this car is worth a look see.

2. Stackable Car (Source)

Love the common property approach of this car. If after this more human transportation there still is a little road rage out there, then the next invention might take care of that.

3. Anger Venting Machine  (Source)

I guess it could also stand in for a Greek restaurant.

4. Lifesaver Water Bottle (Source)

This man, Michael Pritchard, invented a bottle that cleans the dirtiest water instantly. And finally, because not everyone can save the world…..

5. Amy Winehouse Haircleaner (Source)

Originally seen on Growabrain:

Worth repeating this (just seen on Tom Vanderbilt’s blog) video on what would happen if stop signs did not exist and they went through a corporate design process.

In today’s New York Times there is a short article about Christian Bale’s assault arrest and comparisons being drawn with an earlier Russell Crowe incident.  The following passage with not one but two wonderful and far from subtle ambiguities:

Last year he played a widely acclaimed role in “3:10 to Yuma,” alongside Russell Crowe, another star who had a brush with the law. In 2007 Mr. Crowe pleaded guilty to assault by throwing a telephone at a New York hotel desk clerk. He was released on the condition that he avoid arrest during the following year.

In the real world, you usually charge someone in a courtroom and not a hotel, and the response is typically verbal. And as to avoiding arrest as a condition? What is that? He has to be furtive for the year? Avoid all policemen?

It is illegal in Florida to have sex with a porcupine according to nerve.com.

Could they know something the rest of us don’t? Do these rodents harbor beneath those quills unparalleled passions? Is that why the quills? To protect a honey pot so potent it threatens the very basis of civilization?

Probably not. Though the very act of making something illegal does kind of make it more attractive, don’t you think?

Perhaps just like Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther set off a rash of juvenile suicide, the Captain and Tennille whipped the youth of Florida into a torrid hormonal frenzy with Muskrat Love, and maybe just maybe in the dark its hard to tell all these comely critters apart and a few unfortunate acts of interspecies lust created just the need for such a law as this.

But seriously, though I have heard of chicken fuckers, sheep stalkers and even dog abusers, I have never heard of this one before. Sounds like something that would come with a whole lot of bad memories too.

Why illegal? There does seem to be both a pretty strong deterent already in place (strong enough that a little law won’t really tip any scales) and also whoever goes for this one, gets punished already. So I propose the coining of a new term “a porcupine law”.

Porcupine law: any law that prohibits and act that either no one would do anyway or and act that already contains its own punishment.

Quite a few of these around I suspect.

Also on that interesting list of strange sex laws was that in the state of Washington, a man could have sex with an animal as long as it weighed under 40 pounds. Shouldn’t that be the other way around? Whatever happened to protecting the defenseless? I think sex should be like hunting: you are not allowed to go after anything that you have an unfair advantage over. So, though I certainly do not approve of sex with horses, it must be a bit of a challenge if the mare is unwilling.