Recently in Humor Category

Lynne Kiesling

Did you know that the numerical distribution of chocolate chips in commercially baked cookies is Poisson?

Lynne Kiesling

I am studiously trying to ignore the presidential season, but Alex Massie's Wodehouse-ian gloss on Hillary Clinton (and, tangentially, Mike Huckabee at the end) really made me laugh, and has enough of a grain of truth in it to be insightful.

In my sourer moments I find myself persuaded that Bertie Wooster's verdict on aunts also applies to politicians: "It is no use telling me that there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof."

Never is this more the case than during a Presidential campaign. The sheer ghastliness of the front-runners is something to behold. ...

Dipping into The Inimitable Jeeves last night, it struck me that, for a certain kind of chap, Hillary is the Honoria Glossop of the presidential campaign. It's not just that Hillary's now infamous "cackle" is dangerously reminiscent of Miss Glossop's laugh "that sounded like a squadron of cavalry charging across a tin bridge."

Do, please, go read the whole thing. And if you've not read any Wodehouse, you should do that too, sooner rather than later!

See also the comments on the thread and Stephen Bainbridge's post on the matter for discussion of whether or not there's latent misogyny here; some interesting comments, some utterly humorless folks with little familiarity with Wodehouse's writing and characters.

While we're on the topic of Wodehouse, the DaVinci Code of the Woosters is pretty darn hilarious as well.

Lynne Kiesling

Here's a fun new find on my radar screen: Inkling Magazine (on the hunch that science rocks), and its associated blog Inky Circus. Great, amusing, witty, girly geek chic. In particular check out the entry on their She's Such A Geek Photo Contest.

See, it's cool to be a girly geek ...

Lynne Kiesling

A delightful little holiday diversion: T.C. Boyle's short story I Dated Jane Austen is available to read at his website, complete with woodcut comic illustrations.

Lynne Kiesling

Check out this Austrialian doctor who has rigged up a Tesla coil Christmas tree! How geekily cool.

He even has his own website, of course.

Michael Giberson

Quoting Grimmelmann:

First off, the Times pleads its inability to re-report every challenged story. Fair enough....

It’s one thing not to revisit stories as new information becomes available. (The Times isn’t Wikipedia, after all, and we shouldn’t hold it to the same higher standards of timeliness.) But it’s something else not to append corrections to articles whose reporting was no good. The Times pleads lack of resources: We’re too busy making mistakes to fix them.

The Times isn't Wikipedia? Correct. Just so.

Lynne Kiesling

I can already tell today will be a silly day ... first, serious props to Glenn Reynolds for his his subtle Monty Python joke in this post about moose lawsuits, referring to this post of Eugene Volokh's.

Then, after finding this TV column from Slate last week, I am thrilled-thrilled-thrilled to find out that all 4 seasons of A Bit of Fry and Laurie are out on DVD as a collection. If you like British humor, P.G. Wodehouse, House, Stephen Fry's books, anything with Stephen Fry and/or Hugh Laurie, this is a must see. I've been hoping to see this happen for years! I'm having a bang-up entertainment summer; first The Police tour, now this ...

Lynne Kiesling

OK, this is one the better April Fool's Day techie pranks I've seen in a while:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 1, 2007 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the launch of Google TiSP (BETA)™, a free in-home wireless broadband service that delivers online connectivity via users' plumbing systems. The Toilet Internet Service Provider (TiSP) project is a self-installed, ad-supported online service that will be offered entirely free to any consumer with a WiFi-capable PC and a toilet connected to a local municipal sewage system. ...

"I couldn't be more excited about, and am only slightly grossed out by, this remarkable new product," said Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. "I firmly believe TiSP will be a breakthrough product, particularly for those users who, like Larry himself, do much of their best thinking in the bathroom."

Hat tip to Slashdot.

Tee hee!

Michael Giberson

Via Discovery News:

The adage "like a kid at heart" may be truer than we think, since new research is showing that grown-ups are more immature than ever.

Specifically, it seems a growing number of people are retaining the behaviors and attitudes associated with youth.

As a consequence, many older people simply never achieve mental adulthood, according to a leading expert [Bruce Charlton]....

Among scientists, the phenomenon is called psychological neoteny.

Personally, I think "psychological neoteny" is a big wad of hooey, and anyone who believes in it is a stinky, polka-dotted dunderhead.

And trust me, I probably spent more years in graduate school than you did, so I should know.

Fortunately:

A “child-like flexibility of attitudes, behaviors and knowledge” is probably adaptive to the increased instability of the modern world, Charlton believes. Formal education now extends well past physical maturity, leaving students with minds that are, he said, “unfinished."

[...] "People such as academics, teachers, scientists and many other professionals are often strikingly immature outside of their strictly specialist competence in the sense of being unpredictable, unbalanced in priorities, and tending to overreact.”

Charlton added that since modern cultures now favor cognitive flexibility, “immature” people tend to thrive and succeed, and have set the tone not only for contemporary life, but also for the future....

Wait, so now he's saying more and more people are "strikingly immature", unfinished, unpredictable, unbalanced, and tending to overreact, and we're supposed to take it as a compliment?

All that I have to say to Charlton is this: "I know you are, but what am I?"

Lynne Kiesling

This novelty is tailor-made for a Fry-and-Laurie loving, Wodehouse reading, pathetic Anglophile like myself: the Voco clock, an alarm clock programmed with 50 different messages from Stephen Fry as the consummate valet (Mr. Jeeves).

Imagine waking up to the voice of Stephen Fry saying

I'm so sorry to disturb you sir, but it appears to be morning. Very inconvenient, I agree, sir. I believe it is the rotation of the earth which is to blame, sir.

or

I'm afraid the staff has absconded, sir. And it is my day off. I trust it will not be too onerous to make your own exquisitely sliced toast and perfectly cooked breakfast?

I'm not sure the KP Spouse would be able to endure it, but I must admit that I am sorely tempted ...

Lynne Kiesling

There's this really great outfit called Blue Moon Fiber Arts that makes some of the most gorgeous hand-dyed yarn for knitting that you can imagine; gorgeous yarn born out of the vision of one woman. I bought my first Blue Moon yarn, a variegated rayon in amazing shades of olive, a year and a half ago at Knit Purl in Portland, Oregon (a very nice and friendly store). Over the past year, lots of knitters around the world have fallen under the power of Socks that Rock, variegated sock yarn from Blue Moon. Indeed, I myself have a large skein of Socks that Rock, in the Cobblestone Country colorway. As soon as I'm done with the bamboo socks I'm making for the KP Spouse, I'll be making these for myself.

Blue Moon runs a Rockin' Sock Club in which you can sign up to receive a bi-monthly fix of Socks that Rock yarn for a year, among other goodies. Like so many other hobbies that appeal to fetishists, things like this sock club for this coveted yarn produced a frenzy, so much so that ... Blue Moon's bank closed its accounts and refunded all of the money to sock club members because they were convinced that Blue Moon was running a scam!

Is this the Patriot Act and the Bank Secrecy Act run amok, or just incompetent bank implementation of said regulation? It is certainly poor customer service!

For the Reader's Digest condensed version check out this Yarn Harlot post and this post at January One. Just to give you a sense of how big a frenzy this yarn/club have produced, note the almost 200 comments on the Yarn Harlot post about the "scam".

Note also Mr. Dubner's notes on this event at Freakonomics. His wife's been bitten by the bug too; will we soon be reading Freakonomics posts about how comfortable his homemade socks are? And he does comment that

Levitt’s sister runs Yarnzilla, an online and brick-and-mortar knitting emporium; and my wife has recently become a knitting zealot enthusiast. (I am always intrigued that so many people have embraced menial tasks — knitting, cooking, gardening, e.g. — as high-end hobbies, but that is a whole ‘nother story.)

I'd like to read that post, please, because it intrigues me too.

Lynne Kiesling

Let me just state for the record that Alex's telling his wife that he'll appreciate the peace and quiet of an empty house is not a function of gender (or, at least not solely). I have been know to make similarly tactless (to use Tim Worstall's word) remarks to the KP Spouse, who is an incredibly patient soul. And perhaps economists are a bit lacking in tact ...

Michael Giberson

Historian Roy Medvedev looked through the files of Stalin's political prisoners and concluded that 200,000 people were imprisoned for telling jokes, such as this:

Three prisoners in the gulag get to talking about why they are there. "I am here because I always got to work five minutes late, and they charged me with sabotage," says the first. "I am here because I kept getting to work five minutes early, and they charged me with spying," says the second. "I am here because I got to work on time every day," says the third, "and they charged me with owning a western watch."

That's from Ben Lewis, "Hammer & Tickle," in Prospect. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.)

Lynne Kiesling

I'm glad that Eugene Volokh is so intrigued by extreme ironing, and it tickles me because the KP Spouse bought the Extreme Ironing 2005 Wall Calendar before Christmas. It's a riot! Sadly for me, he took it to work.

Lynne Kiesling

Upper Class Twit of the Year. I can't believe I forgot that in my list. Dang. Shooting tied-down game, taking the bras off of debutantes, waking the neighbors by slamming the door of your XKE Jag.

Actually, UCTotY is in a class by itself.

Lynne Kiesling

Many thanks to Tyler Cowen for pointing out this Entertainment Weekly list of top-20 Monty Python skits. I agree that the Argument Clinic belongs a lot higher than #20; it's easily in my top 5. I don't think the Kilimanjaro skit deserves to be in the top 20. And as a little nit pick: at #5 it's the Killer Joke, not the Funniest Joke in the World skit.

So here's my top 25, for what it's worth (I tried to stop at 20 but couldn't):

25. Stoning (Life of Brian)
24. Bicycle Repairman
23. The Village Idiot in Society
22. Summarize Proust
21. Crunchy Frog
20. Oscar Wilde, GB Shaw, JM Whistler
19. Lancelot and Swamp Castle (Holy Grail)
18. The Bruces
17. Cheese Shop
16. The Fish-Slapping Dance
15. The Lumberjack Song
14. Spam
13. Guy Lombard�s Castle (Holy Grail)
12. Killer Joke
11. �Romans they go to the house� Latin Conjugation (Life of Brian)
10. Self Defence
9. Miss Anne Elk
8. The Piranha Brothers
7.5. Nudge Nudge
7. Proletariat Peasants (Holy Grail)
6. Dead Parrot
5. Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion Visit Jean-Paul Sartre
4.5. Penguin on the Telly
4. Ministry of Silly Walks
3. �Yes, we are all individuals.� �I�m not.� �SSSH!� (Life of Brian)
2. Argument Clinic
1. Spanish Inquisition

What are yours?

UPDATE: Doh! I forgot Nudge Nudge, which should go in at 7.5. Funny that, because Nudge Nudge is the skit from which the title of a recent post derives.

UPDATE 2: DOH! How could I forget? I was sitting in my TV room while I wrote this post, staring at the small plastic figurine top of the TV, and still I forgot about Penguin on the Telly! I have inserted it at number 4.5.

Lynne Kiesling

For another depressing thought, although in a more lighthearted vein, we did not get tickets to Spamalot, which opened Tuesday night here in Chicago and is due to run through mid-January before heading off to Broadway.

Its opening has gotten great reviews.

Spamalot, Eric Idle�s new musical �lovingly ripped off� from the cult film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, won a rapturous standing ovation from its first paying audience at the Shubert Theatre in Chicago on Tuesday night.

As an encore, the crowd of Python addicts old and young sang along with Idle�s merry anthem, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, sneakily smuggled into the show from the comedy troupe�s film The Life of Brian.

One theatregoer brought a stuffed white �Killer Rabbit� as his date. Another wore a crown and a medieval costume with �Spam� emblazoned across the chest. Yet another wore a badge warning onlookers: �I fart in your general direction.�

The Shubert�s gift shop, selling collectors� edition tins of Spam and �Fetchez la Vache� T-shirts, was swamped as though the Beatles had suddenly descended on the Midwest.

Rafael Ross, a prep school teacher who also runs a school of medieval swordsmanship, said: �I teach Arthurian literature in Miami. We flew up here for this. I show the film to my class and I had to see the show.

�I thought it was wonderful. It was amazing in their ability to stick to the film and yet have so much fun with it.�

And to think that unless they extend the run I'll have to see it in, I hate to say it, New York ... deep, deep sigh. I blame the house, which distracted me from paying attention to the sell date for the tickets.

But I'm very glad that the show is being so well received. Thanks to Arthur's Seat for sending me the link to the Times review. And yes, you should sing the post title to the tune of "I like to push the pram a lot," one of the best nonsensical lines from the Camelot song from the Holy Grail.

I cannot believe I missed this in January, but according to The Onion, Judge Orders God to Break Up Into Smaller Deities. Apparently God has a monopoly, and the Justice Department brought a lawsuit to remedy this blatantly anti-competitive market. Hah-larious. Thanks to my Northwestern colleague Mark Witte for sending it to me.

What a fantastic start to my day! The BBC reports that three previously unperformed Monty Python sketches will be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this fall by Sketch Club. Now if I can just find a good reason to go ... although I agree with the article's author, who calls the troupe's task in performing them "unenviable". I mean, how many of us will watch them and superimpose the original Pythons in our heads?

Slashdot's online poll today is hilarious: "I name my pets/children after characters from

*Star Wars
*Star Trek
*Battlestar Galactica
*Anime
*SF Books
*Other SF Movies
*What the hell is wrong with you people?
*All my children and pets are named CowboyNeal"

I had to vote, just to see ... thankfully, "What the hell is wrong with you people?" is far, far away in the lead. Although, as a person who named her cat after a dead French fashion designer, I don't have much room for stone-throwing.