The only problem with that joke is that you have to make one too many jokes in the middle of playing it out. Stack the cards up until the whole pile *whoof* fall down. Unfortunately, I think they lost it there around minute two. Cute concept though!
max
['Sadly, the Rutles already did it.']
Yeah, after the initial bit, the absurdity is what keeps it funny, not the conceit. But it's a great idea.
the absurdity is what keeps it funny
I was like, hold on there, Professor, where's the futuristic costumery—ooh, cyborg. Yes.
Also, this is the first time I've ever heard of the Rutles. Currently listening/watching.
what keeps it funny
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Eh, it was better than that Klosterman crap.
Keep in mind here, that with everyone else taking the day off, my entertainment options are very limited tonight.
Done better (perhaps because the jokes are more spaced out) in Dancers at the End of Time series, I think.
It's funny! It's just one joke, but it is a funny joke with good variations. Go dissect a frog.
The Scottie Pippen thing was funniest to me.
10: Me too. But what do I know? I liked the Klosterman crap.
It's funny more as a comment on history than as a joke about the Beatles. (Although as a joke about the Beatles, I like it better than Klosterman's.)
Though I have my wife's reaction to demonstrate that the joke loses approximately 98% of its comedic impact if you haven't the faintest idea who Scottie Pippen is.
And it's even worse if you don't know the Beatles.
15: They covered Monkees' songs, right? Or maybe just aped the Monkees' sound?
It definitely does require a certain amount of background knowledge about the Beatles and some of the other stuff.
Like how to play a YouTube video and get your computer's sound to work.
Sifu's favorite instrument is a bonoboe.
"I'm a Believer" is an old hymn, first sung by the Monkees in a performance at The Cloister. (The Monkees were named ironically, to show their disdain for creationism.)
Anyone who sends an IM on OkCupid saying "greetings and salutations" deserves to be ignored, right? (This is why I never go on dates.)
username1: greetings and salutations
username2: farewells and valedictions
23: It's kind of quirky and sort of self-deprecatingly over-formal. Maybe. I say not a dealbreaker.
Just write back even more formally and pretentiously. Something like this should do as an ending: "Dans l'attente de votre reponse, Madame, veuillez agreer l'expression de mes sentiments devoues" signed: Valmont.
Anyone who sends an IM on OkCupid saying "greetings and salutations" deserves to be ignored, right?
HELL NO
23.last: Yes. "Standards" are of course the ultimate autocockblock strategy.
Someone should compose a response to this ad on my behalf.
"Greetings and salutations. My name is neb, and I hail from another planet. Given your apparent love of the Star Wars series, I presume my provenance will prove a most indispensable source of mirth and badinage in our forthcoming courtship.
"Additionally, you spelled some shit wrong, and I like duck fat.
"Tepid regards,
neb"
"Standards" are of course the ultimate autocockblock strategy.
ISO is pretty hot, though. Unlike ANSI and NIST, which are total turn-offs.
If you're down with RFCs you're down with me.
Given your apparent love of the Star Wars series
I assumed she meant that she couldn't relate because the person had an opinion in the first place.
35: I can see that reading. She could also mean she likes each series on its merits or something. Sloppy writing, neb. Is this what you really want?
So, romance-ad-wise, I'm looking for
If you're down with RFCs you're down with me.
Lately I've been determined to use the phrase "down with OPP" in a paper in relation to this.
So what does "phenomenology" mean in physics, anyway?
• we are not currently friends, but if I were your friend I would advise you that your practice as you describe it poses some problems.
• ah, and so is this why you're resorting to posting to craig's list?
• also self-aware.
• am a little bitch (this is in case you can not already tell). But, I've been assured by several close friends, am not a little bitch in the bad way. To those friends, I said, "this is important, please be honest," and the close friends smiled and said, "be assured, you are not a little bitch in the way that makes other people feel bad or angry. You're a little bitch in the way that you'll correct grammar in blog comments and not care what people think," and I said, "oh! Well of course! Wait that's being a little bitch?"
• you never know just how you sound through other people's ears.
• profit!
• someone once told *me* that the world of Star Trek is rich and robust, but the world of Star Wars is thin and uninspired. At which point, *I* could no longer relate to that person as a human being.
So who is being stripped of humanity in the last bullet? The person whose speech about Star Trek/Wars is reported or the craigslist poster?
So what does "phenomenology" mean in physics, anyway?
There's kind of a complicated story here involving social networks and attitudes and varying degrees of condescension and/or pride in the way the term is used. But one short version is "theory that makes at least a half-hearted attempt to connect with experiment." Another version might be "not string theory." (These two definitions are not really synonymous.)
41: that's pretty much completely unambiguous, innit?
Subject line: Supernatural in a good way.
(Important to change the subject line. Shows attention to detail. I was going to suggest "Supernatural where it counts", but we don't know the lady yet.)
Hello friend,
I am well tonight, thanks. It has been a tasty couple days and I'm looking forward to a good weekend. I'm especially gladdened by your posting, which reminds me that charming people live all around me in San Francisco. I believe I meet all of your qualifications, since I generally wish people well, and beyond that, you aren't asking for much. Perhaps you thought it would be too much to hope for a fantastic cook with a keen eye for grammar, but I am here to prove that such a man exists!
I would very much like to meet a cute and smart woman who dances in hallways. Perhaps we could get brunch this weekend or a burrito some evening next week?
Yr faithful servant,
neB nosfloW
There's always room for ambiguity. Sometimes.
To follow up on my own Another version might be "not string theory.", be assured that the requisite "High Energy Physics - Noumenology" joke has been made.
I'm stuck at "generally endeared to humanity": does this mean some event endeared one to humanity? That is, humanity finds one lovable, rather than the reverse?
Hello friend, laydee,
I am well tonight, thanks. It has been a tasty couple days and I'm looking forward to a good weekend even tastier fresh blood. I'm especially gladdened by your posting, which reminds me that charming delicious people live all around me in San Francisco.
I am here to prove that such a man exists!
Lemma 1: There exists a well-ordering on the set of men in which the ordering relation is keenness of one's eye for grammar.
Proof: ....
Highly recommend going to brunch as a CL date, btw. It is very low pressure, but not as non-committal as coffee. Going out to brunch itself is yummy, so even if the company is uninspiring, you can be glad that you went out to breakfast.
We went to brunch here a few weeks back. Delicious. The perfect spot for ignoring how badly the date part of the brunch date is going.
I haven't read the thread, but I got a funny jolt when I clicked the link in ari's 57 -- I spent a good part of my mornings there for several years, when I was with my ex-boyfriend, whose favorite breakfast place that was. It's the perfect spot for ignoring how badly the date part of the brunch date relationship entire is going. Eggs and pancakes are usually things I prefer when I make them myself, but as I recall (and this was like ten years ago now) they were very good there, the gingerbread pancakes especially, and also the french toast.
My Berkeley breakfast restaurant breakfast memories consist almost exclusively of Fat Apples (usually to go) or UC Cafe. But I rarely eat breakfast, restaurant or not.
57: That's one of my favoritest places. I don't believe it's possible to have a bad brunch date there.
the world of Star Trek is rich and robust, but the world of Star Wars is thin and uninspired.
This is true if you are talking about richness in plot, character, ideas about human nature, and moral sophistication. I suppose it is not true if you are talking about the number of weird aliens or cool space ships.
Anyone who sends an IM on OkCupid saying "greetings and salutations" deserves to be ignored, right? (This is why I never go on dates.)
Could indicate they're a fan of Charlotte's Web or Heathers. Or both. Neither of which is a particularly bad thing. Or Stanley's reading in 26 seems like a strong possibility. Were you just reading it as being pretentious or something?
So this friend of mine went on a couple of dates with a moderately interesting guy. The last one was a trip to the beach with him, and her son (11 y.o.) came along so she could check out his interactions with the kid to get a better feel for the guy. Her date decided to try winning her son over by giving him a PSP he had lying around the house. Turns out it was all loaded up with Teh pr0n. Fail, dude.
Is getting a PSP loaded with porn the new finding a Playboy in the ditch beside the ball field?
66: Is finding a Playboy in the ditch by the ball field a thermonuclear autocockblock? I've never encountered this before.
Oh, I get it. It's a plausible deniability thing. It just fell off a truck, I'm holding it for a friend, these are not the droids you're looking for.
67, 68, No no. In the old days in the United States the classic way an 11 year old boy would get his first exposure to porn was to accidentally find a Playboy someplace out of the way, like a dumpster or a ditch. The cliche was literally true for me. Sometimes you find your dad's collection in the garage.
re: 66 - 69
The Scud Mountain Boys even wrote a [good] song about it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kfCQg-coGc
69: Sad how the internet has destroyed these rites of passage. No first exposure to nekkid boobies in National Geographic, either.
I found my dad's porn and his pot at the same time, although I wasn't 100% sure it was pot. In my memory it wasn't at all clumpy -- maybe entirely shake.
Eventually he just gave me the magazines to get me to stop looking in his stuff.
I knew a woman in HS whose dad was vehemently anti-drug. One day she noticed that someone had clearly tampered with her pot stash, and taken a little. She had no siblings, but her mom seemed unusually relaxed. From then on, she always bought a little extra. Mother and daughter never spoke of their secret, even in private, until years later when mom got divorced.
71: Before I got to Nat Geo, there were the New York Times and other mainstream sources for the Maidenform "Dreaming" ads.
http://www.vintageadsandstuff.com/adsmaidenform.html
Nothing wrong with "Three's Company" and a little bit of imagination.
I dunno, seems like it could to lead to a lifelong fixation on wacky misunderstandings.
I dreamed a million boys masturbated to me in my Maidenform bra.
76: I was 30 before I stopped feeling the need to make my landlord think I was gay.
Hopefully no one will ever give and bequeath anything to essear in a last will and testament.
I, being of sound mind and lifted-and-separated body, do hereby...
I dreamed I inherited millions in my Maidenform bra.
OT: I don't wish to interrupt. But when someone "pokes" you on FB, do you get some kind of message that you've been poked? I would assume so. I just can't figure out why Facebook keeps suggesting that I poke this one friend in particular, or help her find her friends, or various other things regarding her, this one particular friend, over the course of a couple of weeks now.
when someone "pokes" you on FB, do you get some kind of message that you've been poked?
Yes.
That thing where Facebook suggests you poke particular people (or send them messages, or write on their wall, or whatever) is pretty new, and they may not have the algorithm behind it fully worked out yet.
Because she hasn't been active recently, and they want you to bother her.
But I am not active recently either! Does this mean that FB is telling people to poke me? Good lord.
But actually I may have figured it out: both I and this friend have recently been tagged in high school photos by another friend. I'm FB friends with the other friend, and the friend they want me to bother isn't.
So, nice algorithm after all, guys, but I'm not going to bother my friend just because there are pictures of her, in costume, including one as a rockette of some sort in a high school play, on FB now. Am I. Am I?
Am I. Am I?
Only you know the answer to that question, parisomon.
Well, you and the all-knowing facebook algorithm.
Oh, I sent her a note after all. We used to be best friends, after all.
Sad, isn't it. Actually the friend who posted the photos wins, or at least is just damned persistent.
91: Your aiding and abetting essear amidst his trials and tribulations is touching, but you really should cease and desist.
I see and realize that I was being dense and thick-skulled.
93: For all intents and purposes, yes.
69: Just a note here that I was first exposed to Playboy as a 6-y.o. when my neighbor located his dad's stash in a closet (slick hiding place, Mr. Castro). But then we moved, and I was long deprived. I still recall spotting a Hustler in a trash can on a golf course when I was ~11, but I was with my dad and couldn't figure out a solution. This obviously plays an outsize role in my memories.
I was six when another kid in my class told the rest of us boys the basics of sex (nobody brought any photographic information). What is funny is that this guy was reduced to tears when, two years later, we told him that Santa didn't really bring presents to everybody's house. We weren't even trying to do anything but compare notes on where to look for presents our parents had hidden. It never occurred to us that anyone our age didn't know.
96: Somebody got a little cocky because he understood the subtext of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" young.
My main exposure was written porn. Genevan department store book sections had english language Victorian porn plus a whole bunch of modern cookie cutter French porn books. On a couple occasions I found myself furtively reading the stuff next to one of my (female) classmates. Neither of us acknowledged each others presence, nor did we ever speak of it. Less cute was the scuzzy guy who wanted to show me his porn collection and kept following me around after I refused.
Years ago, SNL did a commercial for something like "The Assimilated Jew's Christmas Album." My favorite was "I saw Momma Kissing Judah Maccabee."