Amusing: September 2003 Archive Page

"Detective Brown's death is a great loss," said Idaville Police Commissioner Rupert "Bugs" Meany, a longtime critic of Brown's unorthodox investigative technique who nevertheless appeared to be shaken by the murder. "Thanks to him, Idaville has the highest arrest-to-conviction-due-to-obscure-trivia rate in the nation. I believe I speak for everyone in Idaville when I say that Encyclopedia Brown was truly the greatest sleuth in sneakers." --Idaville Detective 'Encyclopedia' Brown Found Dead in Library Dumpster (The Onion)

It looks like I don't have to worry anymore about The Onion's poor naming conventions -- they've fixed that problem. Still, I don't know how long this link will stay up... so I'll mention here that the story is written in the style of the sleuth stories they are spoofing. I got a rush of nostalgia when I saw, at the bottom, "For the answer to this story, turn to page 76. "

As a kid, I read these 'Encyclopedia Brown' books voraciously. My brother and sister both took back-to-back half-hour piano lessons. My mother would drop them off at the teacher's house, and then we would go to the library, where I would load up on books.

If I was to get a fake diploma, I'd pick a forger who could SPELL! But then, I have most of the real diplomas I need. Perhaps what this tells us is: if you are clever enough to figure out that a fake diploma needs to be free from typoes and look real, that means you don't need it, and the spammers are adhering to some weird darwinistic logic. -- Torill Mortensen --They Have to be Kidding (thinking with my fingers)

My guess is that this spammer, who promises a "full dmlpoia form non accieertdd uneveriitiss," is trying to get through spam-blocking programs that search for the properly-spelled keywords.

The nonprofit library cooperative that owns the Dewey Decimal system has filed suit against a library-themed luxury hotel in Manhattan for trademark infringement. --Dewey Decimal Owner Sues 'Library' Hotel (AP/Wired)

--Who Buys Rainbow Hector Weblog Shares? (Blogshares)

Who is deb_c and why, why did she purchase 2,500 blogshares of my Rainbow Hector Weblog just a few hours ago? According to Blogshares (fantasy blog stock market), deb_c's homepage is www.sugarfused.com.

O proud left foot, that ventures quick within
Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.
Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:
Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.
Shakespeare's 'Hokey Pokey' (Google It)

Via Karissa Kilgore. Originally from a Washington Post contest. I'm sure the link has vanished by now.

"A Sept. 21 item in the Metro in Brief column about a woman fatally shot in Prince George's County and a child who was wounded incorrectly reported the woman's age, the child's sex, the child's location at the time of the shooting, and the street on which the shooting occurred. A correct account of the incident appears in today's Metro in Brief column." --WashPost Crime Reporter Should Consider a Job Change (WashPost)

I've made mistakes, too -- but this is pretty bad. One expects more from the Washington Post.

1. You think everyone cares about your opinions: They don't. They care about mine.

8. You will stop having normal conversations with family and friends: Real life conversations will go like this. "Oh, hey, I saw So-And-So in concert and the weirdest thing happened..." Friend, "Yeah, I know, I read about it on your blog." Silence. Friend, "Did I tell you that I'm..." You, "Blog." Friend, "Yeah."

10. You demand that your witty and clever friends be blogging. Constantly: Why aren't you all busy shirking your jobs and entertaining me? I need INTELLECTUAL STIMULATION.
--Top 10 Dangers of Living in the Blog Space  (Sarcasmo's Corner)

A good find from Julie Young's Work in Progress.

--Best of 'Stealth Disco' (Stealth Disco)

"Stealth Disco" is the practice of creeping up behind an unsuspecting co-worker and dancing silently, to imaginary music. It is apparently a rite of passage that takes the form of semi-affectionate mocking -- a way of saying "Look at how square that poor working slob is... I'm having fun instead."

Strange, but harmless. The world needs more things that are both strange and harmless.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe. ceehiro.

It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are?

Via Slashdot and dozens of other sources.

I hadn't blogged this because I never found a credible citation (some versions of this meme specify Cambridge, but I've seen nothing authoritative or convincing). Meanwhile, Kieran of Crookedtimber doesn't buy the explanation above.

If the first and last letters must always be in the right place, then any word three letters long or less will always be spelled properly. Having those words around adds a lot of context to a sentence, helping the reader to process the other words. To really test the idea, we need samples of text where that kind of context is missing.

And the new sample quote is indeed much harder to read:

Recrsheears souhld csrncotut secntnees unisg olny wodrs edxcieneg terhe lttrees. Tihs wlil psoe seevral polrbems beaucse wwreell-ittn Esglinh sluohd nlurtaaly cointan mnay sorht wrdos iunidnlcg pvrn-eborses, gtienvie csaes, cncoeinvets and (howpos) penrpsoitois, aongmst many ohtres. Lnoegr wrods soluhd povre useufl when tteinsg tihs ieda.

A fun test and a good example of critical blogging.

Whether used as a marvelous eating utensil, a cult worship figure, or even decoration, the Spork has brought joy to countless lives. This page has been created in an effort to pay them the justice they deserve in Cyberspace. --Justin W. Merry --Sporks are Godlike

The subpage, "Anatomy of a Spork" is amusing, but would be a better mechanism description if it began with a brief overview of the function, appearance, and operation of a fork. Instead, this page just throws details at the reader. In fact, the blurb I quoted above resembles the "don't let this happen to you" example I use on the mechanism description page. But it's still amusing.

Suggested some time ago by Rosemary Frezza.

"Bloom County," which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987, appeared in nearly 1,300 newspapers via WPWG before ending in 1989. Its successor strip, the Sunday-only "Outland," ran in about 225 papers before ending in 1995....Shearer said Breathed has made great artistic use of the half page. "It's absolutely breathtaking," he said. Newspaper editors are being shown "Opus," but are not alllowed to keep copies of it. "We're trying to keep it off the Internet," explained Shearer. "The one place and the only place to see 'Opus' will be in newspapers. This is a tremendous opportunity to increase circulation." --Breathed Returning to Newspapers (Editor and Publisher)

Doonesbury is still pushing the boundaries of Sunday-morning taste... but I don't think that strip has the cross-generational appeal that the Far Side, Bloom County, and Calvin and Hobbes had. Is there a comic strip today that has that kind of cultural staying power? Or is the renaissance of animation on TV (Simpsons, South Park, etc.) taking over the role that newspaper comics used to fulfill?

By the way... the story was broken by The Washington Post, but I ain't a linkin' there no more if I can find alternatives (since most WashPost URLs expire).

Headless Heroes, Car-crash Residue and Styrofoam Peanuts

As part of Seton Hill University's "Labor of Love" (a day of community action and volunteerism), about 150 people showed up on campus for breakfast, a pep rally and the send-off. Some went to a food back, a mom's shelter, and various other sites (some of them on campus, which seems to defeat the purpose of the event, but I digress).

I ended up with a big trash bag on the highway outside St. Emma Monastery. What did I pick up?

• Mangled action figures. Torsos. Limbs. Little plastic backpacks. I can hear a little boy crying, and I can hear his exasperated father saying, "If you'd listened to me when I told you not to hold your toys out the window, you wouldn't be crying now."
• Auto-accident debris. The cap from a flare. Bits of red and yellow reflectors. Bits of chrome and rubber. Whoever got into the accident was probably upset, possibly injured, and certainly distracted. Once I was bringing a bag of recyclables across the street when an inattentive driver smashed into my bag and then sent me up over the hood and into the next lane. I wasn't hurt, but the mall rent-a-cop made me pick up all the glass. I see a teenager racing home to beat curfew and a trucker on a two-week cross-country haul; I see a fender-bender, or worse; and I see the stunned look of someone with more important things to think about than picking up trash.
• Scores of styrofoam peanuts. I picture someone enjoying a new mail-order MP3 player, or a silver picture frame from Aunt Begonia. I picture that someone rolling down the window, holding the box lid closed so the peanuts won't blow back into the car, and then letting go. With each peanut I pick up, I say a prayer for the stupid little sh*t.

There are the always-in-fashion temptresses -- DeepThroat, Hooker, FunLove, Love Letter, NakedWife, Paradise -- and the ones that seem to refer to the person who created the worm: Annoying, Brat, Coma, Faker, Glitch, SadHound, Slacker, Small, TheThing and Yo Momma.

And there are also names that seem to make no sense at all: Gokar, Klez, Nimda, Welyah, Yaha.

A name is expected to have some relation to the capabilities or concept behind the virus, but antivirus researchers admit that more than a few viruses have been named in a rather whimsical fashion. -- Michelle Delio --Viruses, Worms: What's in a Name?  (Wired)

Via blacklily8 on KairosNews.

MOther of God i need freaking cliff notes for peace like a river please someone help

i love felicia -- fava --Desperate for Study Guides (see comments) (12 Frogs)

From another comment: "J., do you get the sense that some teacher assigned Peace... as summer reading and a whole bunch of people blew it off?"

Sigh. The desperation and rage of these students who can't find online study guides is very sad to witness. I say bravo for whoever picked that book -- if there aren't ready-made study guides online, it might get more people to think about what they are reading. In the real world, you will face problems whose solutions aren't written in the back of the book, or carefully outlined in study guides. One of those real-world problems is how to get students excited about their education. Back In the Day, people only went to college because they wanted to... now that so many more people have opportunities to go on to higher education, it seems that some are just coasting.

I count myself very fortunate here at Seton Hill, since my journalism courses are full of people who like writing (that wasn't the case with the technical writing courses I used to teach at UWEC).

I was the type who called my professors over the summer and asked what books I should read to get a head start on the class. I read Milton's Paradise Lost one summer, and loved it.

"I have no idea how to make the plastic milk jug look gay," Bellisle said. "I don't want to make him a bottle of water, for obvious reasons. Maybe I'll use a soy-milk container when I draw the gay jug. Or maybe they'll let me switch him with the Chicano, this tin can here. I wasn't too pleased with the Chicano tin can to begin with, especially because my first instinct was to put tomatoes or beans on the can. Not because he's Chicano, but because he's a can."Graphic Artist Carefully Assigns Ethnicities To Anthropomorphic Recyclables (The Onion)

The Onion brilliantly satirizes political correctness... but beyond that, it also makes a painfully funny joke that goes beyond ridiculing racial hypersensitivity, and instead emphasizes the need for the very self-awareness lampooned in this short piece (I'm referring to the final quote about the thumbs-up soda can). [Update: Jim sends me a link to "How to do Deconstruction," which is of course what The Onion is doing.]

But I'm annoyed...

Has The Onion gone through a recent re-design by someone who doesn't understand web links? The URL for this story is http://www.theonion.com/current_news2.html, which means the content of this link is obviously going to change with the next issue. I've gotten used to the fact that The Onion gradually moves stories out of its archives in order to create a market for its books... and I've gotten used to the fact that Pathetic Geek Stories is nearly unfindable and unlinkable -- they want to force you to go through the far less interesting and far more conventional content in the AV Club. And now I've spent five minutes on the site looking for a link to this stupid ethnic anthropomorphism story, which is amusing, but really not worth that much effort.

I continue to think The Onion is hilarious and and important source of social commentary. The same issue of The Onion has a pretty humorous article on a mad scientist whose plans are thwarted by budget cuts. I've blogged a few of these over the years, but since the old links to The Onion all die, and this link will be dead in a week, I don't see much point in blogging it.

Oh, boo hoo, The Onion will be so crushed that Jerz isn't blogging it anymore. Okay. But I've seen plenty of websites that hide their permalinks out of ignorance (posting new contentent in a "current issue" directory that keeps changing, and only archiving that content when a new issue is created, thereby breaking any links that people have created). The Onion used to do its links right, and left its content online long enough that I felt it was worth blogging. Oh, well...

Update, 06 Sep: This is hard to belive. The file that used to be called "current_news2.html" has been renamed "previous_news2.html", and there is still no sign of this article in the permanent archives. I can only conclude that The Onion doesn't want any more permanent links to its articles.