Amusing: January 2004 Archive Page

A Selection from the Posthumously Published Ernest Hemingway Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, A Very Short Death, c.1959

It was late summer and you were alone in the café. You were sipping vermouth and reading about the war. You liked the way the vermouth tasted good when you drank it with your mouth. The war was going badly.

You tapped your tired fingers on the arm of the wooden chair where you were sitting in the café when it was dark and late. You liked how the chair was made of wood.

"Oh darling, you mustn't talk such rot," she had said. "I'll kill him."

You felt broken and drunk in the cool night and remembered the white boat on the river.

DID YOU?

a. Grit teeth and think about the war.
b. Order a brandy that overflowed and ran down the stem of the glass and think about the war.
c. Notice the electric light hanging over the empty terrace and think about the war.

--The American Canon of the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure (McSeeeney's)

What's extremely funny about this format is that it's not too different from the reading quizzes I give. Since it's so easy nowadays for students to download plot summaries from the Internet, in order to motivate students to keep up on their literary readings, I will make a multiple-choice test, with questions that list four things that did happen in the reading, and one other event that will sound plausible to someone who has only a basic understanding of the plot, but that didn't really happen.

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|  |    |  |/  /    |   ____|       /   \     
|  |    |  '  /     |  |__         /  ^  \    
|  |    |    <      |   __|       /  /_\  \   
|  |    |  .  \     |  |____     /  _____  \  
|__|    |__|\__\    |_______|   /__/     \__\ 
                                              
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IKEA WALKTHROUGH v2.3.1
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IKEA is a fully immersive, 3D environmental adventure that allows you to role-play the character of someone who gives a shit about home furnishings. In traversing IKEA, you will experience a meticulously detailed alternate reality filled with garish colors, clear-lacquered birch veneer, and a host of NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS (NPCs) with the glazed looks of the recently anesthetized. --IKEA Walkthrough v2.3.1 (The Morning News)

"Not only are we going to New Hampshire ..., we're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we're going to California and Texas and New York! And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then we're going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House, Yeeeeeaaaaaah!" --Dean Goes Nuts: Howard Dean's 2004 Iowa Caucus Concession Speech Remixes

Howard Dean's supporters mobilized on the Internet, and so have those who find pleasure in mocking the exuberant cry he uttered while rallying his troops during his Iowa concession speech.

Because I don't watch TV news, and I only listen to the radio during my 15-minute commute, I didn't hear the speech. While I had come across opinions that Dean's concession speech was a bit wild, I didn't take them seriously. My opinion has changed.

This website includes dozens of audio remixes. Fortunately there's not much activity on my floor on Fridays, but I closed the door anyway. I'm listening to "Dean's Going to Kokomo" right now, and I can hardy type from laughing so hard. Next up on my playlist is "Magical Dean Space Out."

I'm busy working on the new t-shirt order page and getting the forums back up and running, but I don't think you care. All you want are more emotions. You all are animals! Animals I tell you! --Emo Eric --Eric Conveys an EmotionEmotionEric.com)

From "Happiness" to "Getting a great idea... while falling to your doom," Eric posts pictures of himself expressing emotions requested from his fans. He's no Marcel Marceau, but he's amusing. Via Work in Progress.

Scientists at MIT's Advanced Machine Cognizance Project announced Tuesday that, after seeing the final installment of the Matrix trilogy, they will cease all further work in the field of artificial intelligence.... "I saw Revolutions with my 12-year-old son Eric," Markovitch said. "He saw the look of worry on my face and said, 'Dad, don't be scared. It's only make-believe.' I had to tell him, 'No, son, it's what your father does for a living.'" --Scientists Abandon AI Project After Seeing The Matrix (The Onion)

It's very amusing reading the scientists quoted in the story referring to pop culture such as The Matrix, the Terminator series and Rage Against the Machine. It reminds me of the class discussion that ensues when nobody has done the assigned readings, but plenty of people have recently seen a movie that has some vague connection to the theme the class is supposed to be exploring. (I haven't had one of those classes recently, but when it does happen, the memory sticks around...)

"The Clark Bar Association"? That name is sure to draw snickers when crunch time arrives. Clark will face mounds of mockery, which may prove to be the kiss of death for his candidacy and, if he's the nominee, ensure the re-election of the jolly rancher now in the White House. If Clark is smart, he'll make sure that whatever staffer thought of this doesn't see another payday. Such a decision could be a lifesaver for the campaign. --James Taranto --Best of the Web Today (Opinion Journal)

For this nutty little essay mocking Wesley Clark's adoption of the Clark candy bar as a campaign tool, Opinion Journal earns a sweet spot on my tootsie blog roll. (Note to self regarding possible career as comedy writer: keep day job.)

Avalanche is a great word. Its onomatopoeia is horrific. The very syllables bring to mind a Frenchman tumbling down a mountainside, until he meets his demise in a crunching vortex of snow and rock and ice: "Ahhhh...vahhh...laaaaaaaa...uNNCHHH!" -- Mike Arnzen --Oddly Chilling Thoughts (The Goreletter)

After some good-natured ribbing about his taste in clothing, General Wesley Clark, the Democratic Presidential candidate, has decided to donate his much-famed argyle sweater to charity. --General Wesley Clark's Argyle Sweater (EBay)

I found myself doing a little superior dance, because I just happen to have a read a blog entry about the history of sweaters on the linguistically fascinating flaschenpost, and I am therefore critically equipped to understand the cultural significance of Wesley Clark's Sweater and its presence on E-bay.

I didn't realize that what the English call a "jumper" is the same thing I call a "sweater". To me, a jumper is a long sleeveless dress worn over a shirt; the jumper is typically of a rugged material like denim, and is thus suitable as a play outfit for little girls.

You find yourself in yon dungeon. Back yonder there is a FLASK. Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.

What wouldst thou deau?
>_ --Strong Bad: Video Games (Homestarrunner.com)

Bobby actually e-mailed me this suggestion a few days ago, and I saw it in a comment on MGK, and on the rec.arts.int-fiction newsgroup, but this was the first week of classes, and I only had the chance to view it just now. At the end, you can actually play the different spoof games.

If you aren't familiar with the Strong Bad character, here's another of my favorites: "A Well Thought-Out English Paper"

I used to date a girl who regularly won trophies for running marathons and playing in tennis tournaments. I told her the only trophy I had ever won was 4th place in a shuffleboard tournament. At the age of nine. So she said, "so of all the nine year olds who turned out that day to play shuffleboard, you were the fourth best." I said, "Yes." She said, "is that the same trophy I saw on your mantle today?" I said, "Yes". She said, "Twenty seven years later and you still display the trophy?" I said, "Yes." -Jon --Letters from Pathetic Geeks (Pathetic Geek Stories)

A great letter from the new home of Maria Schneider's Pathetic Geek Stories, a comic strip formerly featured on The Onion (behind several layers of annoying advertisements, in a popup window that hides the URL so you can't bookmark it directly).

I learned from this interview with Maria Schneider that she was the author of the T. Herman Zwiebel editorials for as long as I had been following them. They were strangely compelling, though the series stopped several years ago.

My first scholarly monograph, The Age of Elizabeth in the Age of Johnson, has rocketed to the 1.6 millionth bestseller (up from 1.8 millionth a few weeks ago) on Amazon.com. (Stop presses! -- now it's zoomed up to the 1.49 millionth! Take that, Distributional Ecology and Abundance of Dung and Carrion-Feeding Beetles (Scarabaeidae) in Tropical Rain Forests in Sarawak, Borneo, still mired at a pitiful number 1.596 million.) A big movie deal now seems inevitable. Buy it now and you can say you knew me before I was rich and famous. --Jack Lynch --Jack Lynch's Home Page (Rutgers)

Lynch is the author of one of the great free online writing resources, the "Guide to Grammar and Style and the "Glossary of Literary and Rhetorical Terms."

Huge slabs uncovered in Marion Garry's garden in Buckhaven, Fife, had experts convinced they had found evidence of an early Viking village....Mr Speirs admitted that his team mistakenly ignored the finds of a World War II child's gas mask and old television remote in their hunt for Viking evidence. --'Historic find' is old garden patio (BBC)

They're the ones who keep the puerile shows on TV, who appear as regular recipients of the Darwin Awards, who raise our insurance rates by doing dumb things, who generally make life much more miserable for all of us than it ought to be. Sad to say, they comprise a substantial minority -- perhaps even a majority -- of the populace. --Neal Starkman --The S factor explains Bush's popularity (Seattle PI)

Note to self: If ever writing an opinion column calling much or most of the world "stupid," avoid destroying own credibility by misusing the word "comprise." The whole comprises the parts; the parts compose the whole.

There are far better ways to organize an attack on Bush's policies, the legitimacy of his presidency, and even his personal fitness for the job. But Starkman's essay is instead a painfully obvious example of the ad hominem fallacy. Calling people stupid because they do not share your worldview does not demonstrate the ability to think critically.

Starkman has, of course, succeeded in stirring up the "Bush is stupid" meme; that will probably help Dean's campaign.

From Orwell's 1984

'There is a word in Newspeak,' said Syme, 'I don't know whether you know it: duckspeak, to quack like a duck. It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse, applied to someone you agree with, it is praise.'

Update, 08 Jan: In "Just Another Leftist Loon," James E. McWilliams writes about the ad hominem attacks generated by his "moderately anti-Bush" op-ed. He recognizes that he sounds like a cloistered scholar surprised and stung by his first encounter with the great unwashed audience he hopes to educate with his brilliance; but since his reflection is published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, that stance is understandable -- now he's hoping to educate his fellow academics that you need a thick skin if you want to bring your discourse into the public arena.

I wonder if McWilliams is familiar with the skin-thickening online rhetorical practices such as fisking, flaming, trolling, etc. -- if he were, I doubt he'd have been so surprised by what showed up in his e-mail.

Well, That was Unexpected.Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

I showed my five-year-old son the two recent blog entries in which he features (Johnstown Flood and The Meatball), and to my surprise he spent the next 40 minutes dictating responses to all the comments left by readers. It was interesting watching his composition process... the sentences are choppy not because he speaks in choppy sentences, but because he has to pause in order for me to type what he says.

Anyway, now that I know how detailed and occasionally off-topic his responses are, I'll try to encourage him to dictate private e-mails instead -- those of you who aren't parents can probably only take so much of this unbridled cuteness. Well, according to Peter, it's time to play Legos now, so bye.