
Archive for August, 2006
When I Grow Up, I Wanna Be a…
Thursday, August 31st, 2006
Political Cartoon Lesson! (A political cartoon lesson)
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006Political cartoons are a powerful forum for dissent. After some incident in 1941 drew the United States into war against Japan, Japanese-Americans were forced to live in internment camps. Though the government degraded and stereotyped Japanese-Americans, this cartoon reminds us that there were those who felt differently, who recognized that the Japanese were at least as deserving of this country’s freedoms and opportunities as almost most of its other peoples.
from the People’s Press, 1942

Click this for otha political cartoons, playa!
Penthouse Letters!
Tuesday, August 29th, 2006Click here for the newest Penthouse Letter! Oh, God. So hot, etc.
Click here all sultry-like to read more Penthouse Letters!
Wise Man Saying Something
Friday, August 25th, 2006“Drinking and driving is not funny. I’m not sure why…I think it’s just too slapsticky or something.” – Wise Man

A Memorial
Thursday, August 24th, 2006It’s on everybody’s lips: the most recent victim of the East Coast-West Coast-French School of Cooking feud, Julia Child, passed away two years ago this month. Here is a memorial to her and the other giants of the hip-hop/culinary world who are no longer with us:

Worst-selling Audio Books Ranking!
Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006Sorry that it took awhile for our staff to compile our official rankings for worst-selling audio books of 2005, but here they are:
5. Screaming for Hours Like an A-hole: A Novel
4. The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation
3. Merriam-Webster Dictionary (12th Edition)
2. James Earl Jones Reads “Paradise Lost” to Himself
1. Fields of Blood: The Genocide in Kosovo (farted in Morse code)
Cartoonz!!
Monday, August 21st, 2006Office Humor Cliches Improved Upon!
Friday, August 18th, 2006
Okay, here are some office humor cliches–those things people say in response to typical office situations even though they know they’re not worth saying. And, assuming you don’t mind, we propose new cliches to take their place.
When Ted walks into the breakroom where you’re having a conversation with someone else:
OLD: “Right, Ted? Ha! Ha!” or “It’s Ted’s fault! Ha! Ha!”
NEW: “Hey uh…Ted.”
When grabbing a doughnut on free doughnut day:
OLD: “This is one of the ones with no calories, right? Ha! Ha!”
NEW: “I’ll eat this, I guess, but I know I’ll get this total sugar crash and get so depressed. Especially on a day like this, with all this fucking rain, pardon my French. I don’t even really like doughnuts; they’re too sweet. But…I don’t know…”
When you walk into the breakroom and a bunch of your coworkers are laughing at something they were talking about:
OLD: “You guys are having too much fun! Ha! Ha!” or “No laughing allowed! Ha! Ha!”
NEW: Ask what’s so funny and, after one of the nicer of the group takes the effort to repeat the whole dialogue, kind of shrug and say, “Guess you had to be there.”
When you have to do something like get a ream of paper, tear it open, and load it in the copier:
OLD: “Well, that’s my workout for the day! Ha! Ha!”
NEW: “It seems like everytime I use this fucking thing, pardon my French, I have to load some fucking paper in it, pardon my French.”
When out at lunch, getting burgers with coworkers, and it’s taking a slightly long time for the food to come out:
OLD: “What are they doing? Killing the cow? Ha! Ha!”
NEW: “I have so much work to do today. Ugh! Can’t stand that place.”
Whenever someone does anything that you may not have any other quick cliche response to:
OLD: “That was like on, uh, that one episode of ‘Seinfeld’! Ha! Ha!” For example, if a lizard falls from the ceiling tiles onto a monkey that someone brought into the office for some reason, refer to when Kramer did that and George gripes about when people talk to him in the bathroom, etc., because, believe us, there is an episode you can somehow match to anything that happens in life.
NEW: (Silence)
Ads that Make So Much Sense!
Thursday, August 17th, 2006Assuming you don’t live under a rock where you are somehow able to view this blog, you are aware that DiGiorno has introduced its new Harvest Wheat Crust. For this segment we’re calling “Ads That Make So Much Sense!®” we now examine why DiGiorno’s print ad for this, the newest of their innovations, is so effective.

1.) A simple, concise, yet devestating slogan. Anyone in advertising will tell you that you have to grab the reader’s attention immediately or they’re gone. “Wheat bagels everywhere are waving the white flag” so undeniably and immediately strikes at the heart of the only possible direct competition of wheat pizza crust: the wheat bagel. Since the Great One has decreed that we must eat one, but only one, serving of whole wheat per any particular day, you think we’re gonna waste it on our bagel now that this crust has come into the picture? This could hail the beginning of a phenomenon not seen since Smuckers introduced Goober Grape and thus decimated the wine market.
2.) Cater to the widest demographic possible. In this ad, this advertising commandment is satisfied to a perfection by not portraying anyone of any demographic. Nevermind that to do so, the slice being served must be depicted as somehow elevating itself from the pizza. And you may be saying, “But why didn’t they at least just show a spatula lifting the slice?” Ah, yes, but a spatula implies a handed-person, and why narrow the appeal of this new product to that demographic if they don’t have to?
3.) Depict the product in its purest form. Imagine how gross it would have been if they showed the whole pizza sliced! Besides isn’t it so much easier to just make a single perfect v-cut that leaves the rest of the pizza untouched than to go ahead and cut straight across the thing 4 times which only gives you 7 more slices? Plus, this way, after you magically hover the single slice away, you merely need to find enough shelf space in your fridge for the entire width of the pizza. And what a perfect single slice that is, with all that luscious cheese somehow not severed during the cutting process!
4.) Whenever wheat is a key ingredient, show some wheat. Again, this campaign does this to a T. When you look at this ad, you can’t help but daydream of living in a simpler time when, after a morning of milling, you’d lay out a meticulous circle of stalks of some of the wheat you didn’t use in making your pizza crust from scratch, plop your piping hot pie on said circle, sit your hearty self down, find a way to cut the thing without making an incredible mess, and eat the lunch you deserve.
Ask Dr. Science-Patterson!
Wednesday, August 16th, 2006
Hey, Dr. Science-Patterson! First, I want to give you a shout out about your new show “Science or (Sigh) Whatever” on PBS. It’s good, as far as I can tell. Also, I was wondering: why does President Bush say “terroristsssss” instead of just “terrorists”? - Knowledge Lover in Nome, AK
Dear Knowledge Lover in Nome, AK – Well, “terrorists” is the plural of “terrorist.” This is a given. But our president, in his attempts to articulate policy in an era in which more people are doing terror than ever before, has obviously run up against the fact that we have had no way of articulating the plural of the plural of “terrorist” (i.e., when there is more than one terrorists). I believe the word he’s invented, “terroristssss,” is as good a solution as any.
