Amusing: June 2007 Archive Page

Back in the projector room, five hairy men wearing nothing but overalls, hardhats, and grime were toiling away, trying to get things under control. "It's too powerful! It can't take no more!" they yell as they hopefully pull levers and turn valves. "The movie is living up to the franchise! We're going down!"

Meanwhile, in the audience, we all gasped at the disturbing site of celluloid going to pot. But, once the shock wore off, everyone began clapping and cheering. There were no qualms about what we had just witnessed: this film, in all it's sheer awesomeness, destroyed itself. --Living Free, Dying Hard, and All That Jazz (Tranquility Lost)

Mike Rubino writes about how the movie melted during the climax of the showing he was watching.

I have a weakness for the 2nd movie in the Die Hard series, because I watched it over the summer while taking a German intensive-language class, and the bad guys spoke German.

The college-educated humans, all of whom are not allergic to bee-sting venom and possess both cerebral and muscular capacities several orders of magnitude beyond that of the insect, proceeded to retreat in abject fright from its half-millimeter stinger, which, when used, causes a twinge of discomfort followed by mild irritation and kills the bee.

According to entomologists at the University of Texas at Dallas, the Apis mellifera was most likely trying to pollinate a nearby cluster of dandelions and was not, as alleged by 50-year-old attorney Georgia Sakko, who has twice endured the pain of childbirth and successfully battled breast cancer, "out to get us." --Single Bee Sends Gathering Of Humans Into Helpless Panic (The Onion (Satire))

--Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? (FOX)

I had to guess on one of the history questions, but none of the others were very challenging.

I don't watch the show (we only get one station on our cable-free TV). I just hope the show doesn't make the smart kids look like freaks.

Negotiators: Ages Nine and Five (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

I have a nine-year-old and a five-year-old who love each other to death, but do occasionally bicker. I tend to be far more impatient with the older child, since he is much more capable of finding something else to entertain himself. I generally remind him that, if he wants something that his sister has, he has to offer to trade something else.

If he really, really wants it, he will work fairly hard to get her to agree to a trade. When the argument is more philosophical (such as, he wants to play Harry Potter or Spider Man, and she wants to play her own made-up game "Babies in the Woods") I will pull him aside and tell him to play the game HER way for 20 minutes, after which I will relieve him and he can go do whatever he wants. Sometimes when the 20 minutes has passed, they have found a middle ground that keeps them both happy.

Of course, now that my daughter has heard this conversation too many times, before I actually intervene, I will hear her say things like, "Daddy says you have to do it my way, because I have not yet reached the age of reason."

(See Bickering about LEGOS.)

"There are days when I watch 'The Daily Show,' and I kind of chuckle. There are days when I laugh out loud. There are days when I stand up and point to the TV and say, 'You're damn right!'" says Brown, chair of the communications department at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and an associate professor of broadcast journalism.

Brown, who had dismissed the faux news show as silly riffing, got hooked during the early days of the war in Iraq, when he felt most of the mainstream media were swallowing the administration's spin rather than challenging it. Not "The Daily Show," which had no qualms about second-guessing the nation's leaders. "The stock-in-trade of 'The Daily Show' is hypocrisy, exposing hypocrisy. And nobody else has the guts to do it," Brown says. "They really know how to crystallize an issue on all sides, see the silliness everywhere." --Rachel Smolkin --What the Mainstream Media Can Learn From Jon Stewart  (American Journalism Review)

Thanks for the suggestion, Mike.

--How NOT To Use Powerpoint By Comedian Don McMillan (YouTube)

Thanks for the suggestion, Josh.

I generally ask my students to post their presentation notes on their blog, and rather than read through their blog entry word-for-word just take the class through the links and talk us through their main points.

--(BRACKETS) - hidden camera prank on unsuspecting public. (YouTube)

Amusing.

--IF Comic (David Garcia's Blog)

So far there are three installments of a new interactive fiction comic. I'll be watching this site.

"Looking at this brochure, it's obvious Paul just wanted to use the 'wave' frame effect from that new PhotoFrame 2.0 software package we got last week," fellow Blue Moon graphic designer Jared Mahaffey said. "There's whacked-out, psychedelic edges all over the place--on the photos, on the floor-plan charts, even on the text boxes, for God's sake." --Graphic Designer's Judgment Clouded By Desire To Use New Photoshop Plug-In (The Onion (Satire))

CNN is widely credited with initiating the acceleration of the modern news cycle with the fall 2006 debut of its spin-off channel CNN:24, which provides a breaking news story, an update on that story, and a news recap all within 24 seconds. In addition to creating its groundbreaking format, CNN:24 broke many important stories with reports such as "Ford No Money Everyone Fired," "Iraq Bomb Kill Truck," "Country Hates Bush," "Dow High Now," and "Squirrel Water Skis."

"TV news reporting has always been about breaking the story down into only the barest, most salient facts, but the breakneck pace of contemporary reportage doesn't allow for that anymore," said Professor Robert Kubey, director of the Center for Media Studies at Rutgers University. "Today's ace reporter isn't the one with the best command of the language, but the one who can say 'Congress!' or 'Health care?' or 'Slam dunk!' with the most appropriate expression on his or her face." --Media Landscape Redefined By 24-Second News Cycle (The Onion (Satire))