humor
hrynyshyn | November 1, 2007I had a little fun yesterday -- at my own expense -- by writing what a few commenters correctly identified as an attempt to generate traffic on this blog. The subject was the use of the term "woman president," which I actually do think is poor English, but my motivation wasn't convincing anyone stop using it.
It all began over the weekend, when I heard the term on a BBC news broadcast and a day later on NPR. As a former copy editor who had come across the use of "woman" as an adjective before, it continues to grate on my nerves, and I'm not the only one. Not because it's wrong, but just…
sb admin | October 31, 2007Another in the hilarious vintage BBC Look Around You series, this is 4 - Ghosts. Bwa-ha-ha.
evolvingthoughts | October 29, 2007I actually don't dislike the guy, but this is one of the funniest political ads I've ever seen.
For forners (not from Orstraya), it helps to know that Rudd leads the erstwhile socialist party, speaks Mandarin, and is likely to win the next federal election.
grrlscientist | October 29, 2007tags: football training camp, ballet, streaming video
This amusing like video was filmed and edited by a Kansas City Chiefs football fan who clearly has too much time on his hands. It has clips of training sessions set to ballet music .. interestingly, it gives us a glimpse into the amount of fitness work that training camp demands as the players prepare to beat the ever-loving crap out of each other in Monday night football games [1:39]
sb admin | October 29, 2007
You lol'ed at science education spoof Look Around You: Brain, and now for Halloween here's Look Around You: Ghosts. In this nine minute pseudoscience mockumentary you'll learn things like, "Ectoplasm is perfectly safe to eat, and tastes like pig's milk." Spooky!
grrlscientist | October 27, 2007tags: hacky sac, futbol, soccer, streaming video
Do you ever wonder why your phone call goes unanswered when you call a business during business hours? Well, this video shows you why. [0:48]
This guy has amazing skills, especially since he's using a balled up piece of paper, but he clearly has too much time on his hands. Er, cheeks. Or something.
pharyngula | October 26, 2007Stop me if you've heard this one before! Here is the setup:
Police say the 58-year-old Tester was wearing a denim miniskirt and offered to have sex with arresting officers.
Investigators say they found a half-empty bottle of vodka and an empty vial that had held prescription painkillers in Tester's car.
And here's the punchline.
Tester served as pastor of a Bristol area church and had worked for a local Christian radio station.
Yeah, I know, it's getting so predictable it's not even funny anymore.
oracknows | October 26, 2007As usual, Cectic nails it (click on comic for the full-size version):
Although I find it odd that the "mark" in the above comic would be calling for his checkbook rather than his credit card, it never ceases to amaze me how skeptical some people can be when dealing with financial matters while at the same time being so prone to magical thinking when it comes to "alternative" medicine.
sb admin | October 26, 2007
Dave Kellet jokes about a visual illusion the visual pop-out phenomenon, in his webcomic Sheldon. Click the cropped image to see the full comic strip. Thanks Dave!
[Thanks, T.N. for the correction. Two blog posts about it here and here.]
j7uy5 | October 24, 2007From
href="http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/24/baloondog-anatomy.html">BoingBoing,
an illustration of the neuroanatomy of balloon dogs:
Original source:
href="http://freeny.deviantart.com/art/Pneumatic-Anatomica-53318794">Pneumatic
Anatomica.
mikethemadbiologist | October 24, 2007
"Fear the drumstick!" (Globe Staff Photo/Mark Wilson)
Forget Al-Queda, protect us from marauding turkeys:
On a recent afternoon, Kettly Jean-Felix parked her car on Beacon Street in Brookline, fed the parking meter, wheeled around to go to the optician and came face to face with a wild turkey.
The turkey eyed Jean-Felix. Jean-Felix eyed the turkey. It gobbled. She gasped. Then the turkey proceeded to follow the Dorchester woman over the Green Line train tracks, across the street, through traffic, and all the way down the block, pecking at her backside as she went.
"This is so scary," Jean-…
grrlscientist | October 24, 2007tags: cartoon, humor, cats, streaming video
Below the fold is an amusing streaming video. In this video, the mirror in the bathroom was replaced with a window pane, then a pair of identical twins stood in identical rooms opposite each other and proceed to prank everyone who walks in. Everyone, except the twins, have become vampires. The woman with glasses in the tan coat is especially hilarious [6:13].
j7uy5 | October 24, 2007Most people expect a wait when they call tech support.
Knowledgeable users arrange to have something to do to kill
some time: a book, magazine, something like that.
This is the story of Timothy Scott Short, who is going to have to wait
a very long time.
Short stole a specialized printer, used to make driver's licenses.
When he got it home, he realized he'd need the printer
drivers. So he called tech support.
Two days after the theft, Digimarc's tech
help line got a call from someone named "Scott" who wanted to buy
software for the same model of printer that was stolen from the…
evolvingthoughts | October 23, 2007
According to a book mentioned by Greg Dahlman at blog.bioethics.net. He notes that this makes Stephen Colbert Plato. I think it makes Hilary Clinton Aristotle, and Richard Dawkins Epicurus, although the sequence is a bit messed up.
oracknows | October 23, 2007For those not in academic biomedical research, "PI" stands for "principal investigator"; i.e., the person who wrote the grant that funds the laboratory effort and (usually) the leader of the laboratory. Unlike Revere, I've only been a PI for around 8 years and an NIH-funded PI for only around two and a half years, I still remember what it was like to be a graduate student and then a postdoc laboring away under my PI, all for the greater glory of his name (and, hopefully, mine), as well as to produce preliminary data to bolster the next grant application.
Via Revere, I find this rather amusing…
oracknows | October 23, 2007Ever wonder what would happen if mendacious fake "psychic" Sylvia Browne ever met The Amazing Randi?
Now you know.
Sylvia just has to watch out for science.
grrlscientist | October 22, 2007tags: humor, cartoon, blogging
Image: Isabella Bannerman [slightly larger view].