Hoaxes roam the Information Superhighway, camouflaged as factoids. Consider this one: “Amelia Bedelia was a maid in Cameroon.” The “Amelia Bedelia was a maid in Cameroon” factoid had been cited in a lesson plan by a Taiwanese English professor. It was cited in a book about Jews and Jesus. It was cited in innumerable blog posts and…
Wonderfully weird retro pop art. Jon recalls his first encounter with the iconic Peter and Jane books: ‘Like many people of my generation, I learned to read with Peter, Jane, Mummy, Daddy and Pat the dog. As I struggled with the unfamiliar letters, my eyes where invariably drawn to the picture on the opposite page,…
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The headline made me click the link, and the lead made me blog it. (I confess I didn’t actually read the story, because I doubt anything could live up to that kind of an introduction.) A crackpot Times Square performer who was once busted making anti-Semitic slurs while dressed as Elmo admitted Wednesday he tried…
Humanities professors from the University of Virginia describe their frustrating attempts to give away their innovative textual study tool via Apple’s App Store. The reason the App Review Team gave (again and again) was that our app was “simply” or “just a book” (their words), and that it therefore had to be formatted in Apple’s…
I’m actually rather happy at the thought that somewhere in Facebook’s database exists a picture of my personal preferences that is so wildly inaccurate as to suggest this. Similar:Explaining Twerking to Your ParentsI still haven’t seen the video, but this…AmusingSave The WordsIn honor of the cold I am fighting, I ju…AmusingThe Storyteller (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch,…
Christian Goldeman felt compelled to match beard illustrations with their typeface equivalents. Similar:Stuffed planet Venus, made for me by my dear mother, around 1974.AestheticsSinéad O'Connor's open letter to Miley CyrusI was never a fan of Sinéad O’Connor, bu…AestheticsWhat does a professor do, other than lecture for a few hours a week? Wow, this response! 😮…
If I ever over-react to a tweet, I hope the tweeter is as understanding as Hilary Sargent. Politico’s Ben White changed his Twitter profile photo yesterday to a new photo, which showed him kind of smirking (or something). A week or two ago I yelled at Business Insider for not including Ben White in some…
The idea that generations of Shakespeare scholars got it all wrong appeals to the Saturday morning “kids rule!” ethos, where the kids smirk into the camera, adult authorities are easily duped, and the bad guys foreclosing on the pizza parlor can be thwarted by dumping a bucket of water on their legal documents. Similar:The Interactive…
I don’t know what the text I wrote means, I just like it. Oh, phooey. I tried to save my image with my iPad, but it didn’t work. Well, it was fun anyway. PULP-O-MIZER: the custom pulp magazine cover generator. Similar:Carolyn had fun playing a street urchin this weekend in Stage Right’s production of Little…Another…
Really helpful definition from a “Pinkalicous” children’s theater study guide. That’ll clear everything right up for the kiddos, won’t it? Similar:I accidentally did too much DuoLingo. I don't want to advance to the harder league. Come o…EducationAll Good Things… (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 25) Picard faces a timey-wim… Rewatching ST:TNG When we all…
A six-year-old who was warned not to pretend to shoot his classmates with scissors later made a shooting gesture with his fingers, and has now been suspended. A parent reacting to the story told a reporter “I wouldn’t expect someone to do that to my child, and if they did, I would expect some type…
What we know: The package contained an incredibly detailed replica of “University of Chicago Professor” Abner Ravenwood’s journal from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. It looks only sort of like this one, but almost exactly like this one, so much so that we thought it might have been the one that was…
I’m not sure “thank you” is the right way to acknowledge this painful link from Paul Crossman. “Oh, come on,” you’re probably saying. “It’s not the music that’s addictive. It’s the dance, from the goofy video. That’s what went viral.” (There’s that word again.) Well, it turns out that this programming effect could be embedded…
The moment in Attack of the Clones when the rockets popped out of Artoo’s legs, Star Wars died for me. So I can’t manage to get very worked up about it. Still… BREAKING…. Disney has just confirmed that it has agreed to acquire George Lucas‘ Lucasfilm Ltd, and that includes rights to the Star Wars…
The elderly Spanish woman who ruined a religious fresco with her botched restoration is now demanding royalties from her work after it became an unlikely tourist attraction. An internet petition to keep the repair job garnered widespread support and seizing an opportunity to swell its coffers, the church began levying a 4 euro (£3) entrance…
As gimmicky as “steampunk Huck and Tom” sounds, the characters actually may be quite well suited for steampunk. Twain’s novel Tom Sawyer Abroad was a play on Jules Verne-style adventure stories, and featured a mad professor and his absurd, futuristic airship. And Tom Sawyer had his own mystery story with Tom Sawyer, Detective. However, Twain…
The serious-faced TV anchor introduces a live crime report about a destructive Walmart flashmob: “Channel Four’s Emily Turner spoke with our crime analyst about how dangerous these situations can really be.” Emily Turner, looking equally serious, while standing in front of a completely featureless background that doesn’t even have the Walmart logo in frame, says…
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Actually a rather dorky story, but I love the final quotes about the dog: “He’s not usually very smart. “He’s really dopey and just likes to chew socks.” —Choking dog saves its own life by dialling 999 Similar:The girl sank her brother's last ship with the homophonous cry "I-1."AmusingFrodo Baggins, A.B.D.When I had pneumonia a…