Zombie Risk is even harder than the regular game -- now you have to defend Irkutsk against shambling armies of the living dead.
"As a world leader, your goal is to promote peace between your neighbors while at the same time secretly hoping that those flesh-eating monsters will turn their sights on them first."
|W|P|111402676112865256|W|P|Zombie Risk|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comUnfeeling plutocrat Peter Maxwell ("profit before peasants") has announced a new job opening at Maxwell Industries:
A jug-eared Irishman is required to fill the very rewarding role of court jester at the Maxwell estate. This position requires strong clownish attributes, which makes the position ideal for a semi-retarded drunken Irishman.
The salary is "six bags of potatoes a month."
|W|P|111393333037346142|W|P|Help Wanted|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comQ: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Such number as may be deemed to perform the stated task in a timely and efficient manner within the strictures of the following agreement:
Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer," and the party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb," do hereby and forthwith agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part (Light Bulb) shall be removed from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed-upon duties, i.e., the illumination of the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the parties.
The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be limited to, the following steps:
1.) The party of the first part (Lawyer) shall, with or without elevation, at his option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder, or any other means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part (Light Bulb) and rotate the party of the second part (Light Bulb) in a counterclockwise direction, said direction being non- negotiable. Said grasping and rotation of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) shall be undertaken by the party of the first part (Lawyer) with every reasonable caution by the party of the first part (Lawyer) to maintain the structural integrity of the party of the second part (Light Bulb), notwithstanding the aforementioned failure of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) to perform the aforementioned customary and agreed-upon duties. The foregoing notwithstanding, however, both parties stipulate that structural failure of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) may be incidental to the aforementioned failure to perform, and in such case the party of the first part (Lawyer) shall be held blameless for such structural failure insofar as this agreement is concerned so long as the non-negotiable directional codicil (counterclockwise) is observed by the party of the first part (Lawyer) throughout.
2.) Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part (Light Bulb) becomes separated from the party of the third part ("Receptacle"), the party of the first part (Lawyer) shall have the option of disposing of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) in a manner consistent with all applicable state, local, and federal statutes.
3.) Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part (Lawyer) shall have the option of beginning installation of the party of the fourth part ("New Light Bulb"). This installation shall occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in Step 1 of this document, being careful to note that the rotation should occur in a clockwise direction, said direction also being non-negotiable.
NOTE: The above-described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the first part (Lawyer), by said party of the first part (Lawyer), by his heirs and assigns, or by any and all persons authorized by him to do so, the objective being to produce a level of illumination in the immediate vicinity of the aforementioned front (north) door consistent with maximization of commerce and revenue for the party of the fifth part, also known as "The Firm."
|W|P|110961257064516662|W|P|See Other Blog|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comThere are more than half a million words in the English language, but WordGizmo users have coined some new ones:
- arivadence, n., evidence of someone speaking bad Italian
- aplamb, n., a graceful young ovine
- blechnary, n., a disgusting hoopla
- drex, n., very cheap vodka in a plastic bottle
- eparmal, adj., being without cured ham
- flousing, n., the act of making fun of ugly babies
- ikisens, n., bed slippers filled with cold soup
- ishoplurable, adj., too good to pass up. That sale is ishoplurable!
- oflontist, n., one who enjoys categorizing the shapes of noses
- pairate, n., two pirates whose bodies are joined
- slambur, n., the state of unconsciousness brought upon by getting your head knocked roughly against a solid object
- smovid, n., one who drunkenly mumbles love poetry
My favorite is "omivatime": "the transitional period between putting on a disposable hospital gown for the nurse and the doctor's actual arrival. Usually spent sitting on examining table, swinging legs, reading educational posters and trying not to think about all the varieties cancer comes in."
|W|P|111402700935027843|W|P|WordGizmo|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
Here's a painful picture: the bursting of the dot-com bubble, on March 10, 2000. The NASDAQ composite index peaked at 5048.62, more than twice its value the previous year.
In January 2000, when the Dow peaked, 17 dot-com companies paid more than $2 million each for a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl. In January 2001, just three dot-coms bought spots. Now most are dot-compost.
|W|P|111387737341259849|W|P|Dot-Com Bubble|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com"You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun." -- Al Capone
|W|P|111348033903994066|W|P|Unquote|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
o�pin�i�as�ter
n. one who obstinately holds to an opinion
"Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please," wondered Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, "resolve me of all ambiguities, perform what desperate enterprise I will?" Well, heck no -- today you can sell your soul for cash money.
We Want Your Soul, "a global private equity firm," offers up to $13,000 for souls in good condition, as determined by an online questionnaire. ("Have you ever worked for a major record company?")
That may sound worrisome, but the customers seem to be happy. "Selling my soul was the best thing that I ever did," says J.D. of Kensington. "Not only do I have a whole load of money to spend, but now I no longer have to worry about being nice to people, as I no longer have to worry about what happens to my soul when I die."
("These terms," says the fine print, "are subject to change without notice.")
|W|P|111402628066681496|W|P|"A Fantastic Opportunity"|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comQuery Letters I Love records actual Hollywood studio pitches, including Nancy Drew in Vietnam, in which the brave teen detective searches for a missing witness:
Nancy must track him through the enemy infested jungles, from Mekong to Khe Sanh, eventually disguising herself as a Marine grunt and leading her platoon in the assault on Hamburger Hill.
A commenter familiar with the script describes the best scene: "Nancy and her gal pals have a sleepover in a cabin, get all frisky in their pajamas, and do LSD, which causes Nancy to freak out, run away and break into another cabin, accidentally finding all the evidence she needs." Apparently this is not a joke.
|W|P|111402718523764871|W|P|Query Letters I Love|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comFrom adding machines to X-rays, the Original Illustrated Catalog of Acme Products is a coyote's best friend.
|W|P|111402657586824009|W|P|"Rocket-Powered Roller Skates"|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
The Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists has an interesting sense of humor.
|W|P|111402590977237491|W|P|Psych!|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comNASA's Mars rover Opportunity has its own weblog. Unfortunately, it's on LiveJournal:
I have a chunk of rock trapped between the grind bit and the brush bit on my arm, and OMG it is so annoying!! It's like having a rock in your shoe all day!
Interests include "microgravity," "dust," and "Christina Aguilera."
|W|P|111402752128682349|W|P|Opportunitygrrl|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comThe U.S. population is growing, but there seems to be plenty of room. These places are occupied by a single person:
- New Amsterdam, Ind.
- Hibberts, Maine
- Lost Springs, Wyo.
- Monowi, Neb.
The 2000 census says the population of Ervings, N.H., is now zero. "The only taxable property in Erving's location are telephone poles."
|W|P|111350749360234769|W|P|Population: One|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
In 2003, 46-year-old Brian Wells delivered two pizzas to an unmanned radio tower in Erie, Pa. Forty minutes later he was robbing a local bank, a time bomb locked around his neck.
"He pulled the key out and started a timer," he told police. "I heard the thing ticking when he did it. It's gonna go off."
They made him sit handcuffed in the parking lot; three minutes before the bomb squad arrived, the device exploded.
The crime has never been solved.
|W|P|111378794735702036|W|P|Pizza Mystery|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
af�ter�wit
n. knowledge gained too late to do any good
"If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error." -- John Kenneth Galbraith
|W|P|111374097022947767|W|P|Train Wreck|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comOh that my lungs could bleat like buttered peas;
But bleating of my lungs hath caught the itch,
And are as mangy as the Irish seas
That offer wary windmills to the rich.
I grant that rainbows being lulled asleep,
Snort like a woodknife in a lady's eyes;
Which makes her grieve to see a pudding creep,
For creeping puddings only please the wise.
Not that a hard-roed herring should presume
To swing a tithe-pig in a catskin purse;
For fear the hailstones which did fall at Rome,
By lessening of the fault should make it worse.
For 'tis most certain winter woolsacks grow
From geese to swans if men could keep them so,
Till that the sheep-shorn planets gave the hint
To pickle pancakes in Geneva print.
Some men there were that did suppose the skie
Was made of carbonadoed antidotes;
But my opinion is, a whale's left eye,
Need not be coined all King Harry groats.
The reason's plain, for Charon's western barge
Running a tilt at the subjunctive mood,
Beckoned to Bednal Green, and gave him charge
To fasten padlocks with Antarctic food.
The end will be the millponds must be laded,
To fish for white pots in a country dance;
So they that suffered wrong and were upbraided
Shall be made friends in a left-handed trance.
-- "Nonsense," Anonymous, 1617
|W|P|111306310548894181|W|P|Nonsense|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comMost common misspellings on thefreedictionary.com:
aniversary, assigments, begining, busines, cimmission, commerical, developent, disabilties, educaton, enterpise, finacial, forign, goverment, happines, houshold, incoporated, infomation, Jamaca, journalisn, kindgom, knowldge, leadereship, literture, manufactering, mentaly, necesary, neighborhod, offical, organizatin, pensylvania, pesonnel, qualtitative, questinable, recieve, recommened, scuplture, severly, teritory, thesarus, uncertainity, unempolyment, veiw, withdrawl, worldy, worthwile|W|P|111257052598734878|W|P|Spelling Center|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
The Vatican's 1559 Index of Prohibited Books includes the Koran and the Talmud.
|W|P|111393428386622785|W|P|Prohibited Books|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comBRITNEY SPEARS is an anagram of PRESBYTERIANS.
|W|P|111394093620023423|W|P|Ars Magna|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
The Headington Shark landed on the roof of 2 New High Street on Aug. 9, 1986, the 41st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
The house's owner, Radio Oxford presenter Bill Heine, said, "The shark was to express someone feeling totally impotent and ripping a hole in their roof out of a sense of impotence and anger and desperation. ... It is saying something about CND, nuclear power, Chernobyl and Nagasaki."
That sounds nice, but it's still a big shark. The city council couldn't argue that it was dangerous -- Heine had special girders installed to support the 25-foot fiberglass body -- but in 1990 they insisted it counted as unpermitted "development." Heine appealed to the secretary of state for the environment, Peter Macdonald, who supported him: "As a 'work of art' the sculpture ('Untitled 1986') would be 'read' quite differently in, say, an art gallery or on another site. An incongruous object can become accepted as a landmark after a time, becoming well known, even well loved in the process. Something of this sort seems to have happened, for many people, to the so-called 'Oxford shark.'"
So the fish stayed. And it seems to be growing on people. In 1992, Times writer Bernard Levin called the shark "delightful, innocent, fresh and amusing -- all qualities abhorred by such committees."
|W|P|111350621243781333|W|P|The Headington Shark|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comI wish I were a jelly fish
That cannot fall downstairs:
Of all the things I wish to wish
I wish I were a jelly fish
That hasn't any cares,
And doesn't even have to wish
"I wish I were a jelly fish
That cannot fall downstairs."
-- G.K. Chesterton
|W|P|111265402831917054|W|P|Triolet|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comEnglish As She Is Spoke may be the worst phrasebook ever written. For one thing, the author apparently didn't speak English; he was blindly using a Portuguese-French dictionary to translate a French-English phrasebook. Examples:
- "Take out the live coals with the hand of the cat."
- "A bad arrangement is better than a process."
- "He has fond the knuckle of the business."
- "Friendship of a child is water into a basket."
- "The stone as roll not heap up not foam."
- "To craunch the marmoset."
Mark Twain wrote, "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect."
|W|P|111350573487216513|W|P|English As She Is Spoke|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
When you're busy dying, it can be hard to think of a pithy exit line. Actual last words:
- Pancho Villa: "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."
- Roman emperor Gaius Caligula: "I am still alive!"
- Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian: "I am about to -- or I am going to -- die: either expression is correct."
- Henrik Ibsen, after his housekeeper told a guest he was feeling better: "On the contrary!"
- Karl Marx, to his housekeeper, who had just asked whether he had any last words: "Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!"
- British surgeon Joseph Henry Green, after checking his own pulse: "Stopped."
- Union general John Sedgwick, sizing up enemy sharpshooters: "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist--"
On her way to the guillotine, Marie Antoinette stepped on the executioner's toe. Her last words were "Pardonez-moi, monsieur."
|W|P|111304228926279857|W|P|Deathbed Awkwardness|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comAutological words describe themselves:
- pentasyllabic
- adjectival
- descriptive
- uninformative
- English
- pronounceable
- confusionful
- wee
Heterological words don't:
- abbreviated
- adverb
- purple
- carcinogenic
- plural
- phonetic
- misspelled
So is heterological a heterological word?
|W|P|111281998049466537|W|P|Classifiable?|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
jen�tac�u�lar
adj. pertaining to breakfast
"No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris." -- Orville Wright
|W|P|111306477511447585|W|P|Unquote|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comThe Rhinoceros Party of Canada claimed to have an appropriate mascot, as politicians by nature are "thick-skinned, slow-moving, dim-witted, can move fast as hell when in danger, and have large, hairy horns growing out of the middle of their faces." Platform planks:
- repealing gravity
- providing higher education by building taller schools
- tearing down the Rocky Mountains so that Albertans could see the sun set
- abolishing the environment "because it's too hard to keep clean and it takes up so much space"
- putting the national debt on Visa
Compare New Zealand's McGillicuddy Serious Party, whose policies included "full unemployment" and the introduction of chocolate fish as legal tender. "If you want to waste your vote, vote for us."
|W|P|111350697089360131|W|P|Rhinoceros Party of Canada|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comExcerpts from The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord:
2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
6. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.
34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.
59. I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.
And "I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded."
|W|P|111350645138733929|W|P|Evil Overlord List|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
Whip up some buzzing effrontery at NeonCentral.
|W|P|111325067441686168|W|P|Neon Sign Generator|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comA kadigan is a placeholder for an unspecified word. You know: blivet, deelie-bob, device, dingus, doodad, doohickey, doofunny, doover, fnord, gadget, geemie, gizmo, hoochamajigger, kerjigger, oojah, oojamaflip, thingamajig, thingamabob, thingamadoodle, thingo, thingum, thingummy, thingy, thing-thing, whatchamacallit, whatchamajigger, whatsit, whosey, whoseywhatsit, whosis, widget, whatsitsname.
These are common words that do useful work, but they have no formal part of speech, falling somewhere between nouns and pronouns. "Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly," wrote William Penn, "for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood."
|W|P|111057350978942326|W|P|Kadigans|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comThere once was a man who said, "Damn!
It is borne in upon me I am
An engine that moves
In predestinate grooves:
I'm not even a bus, I'm a tram."
-- M.E. Hare (1886-1967)
|W|P|111265392470878383|W|P|A Limerick|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
Excerpts, evidence of a female millhand to parliamentary commissioners during an inquiry into factory conditions, c. 1815:
What time did you begin work at the factory?
When I was six years old.What were your hours of labor in that mill?
From 5 in the morning till 9 at night, when they were thronged.For how long a time together have you worked that excessive length of time?
For about a year.What were the usual hours of labour when you were not so thronged?
From six in the morning till 7 at night.What time was allowed for meals?
Forty minutes at noon.Had you any time to get your breakfast or drinking?
No, we had to get it as we could.Explain what you had to do.
When the frames are full, they have to stop the frames, and take the flyers off, and take the full bobbins off, and carry them to the roller, and then put empty ones on, and set the frame going again.Does that keep you constantly on your feet?
Yes, there are so many frames and they run so quick.Your labour is very excessive?
Yes, you have not time for anything.Suppose you flagged a little, or were late, what would they do?
Strap us.Did you live far from the mill?
Yes, two miles.Were you generally there in time?
Yes, my mother has been up at 4 o'clock in the morning, and at 2 o'clock in the morning; the colliers used to go to their work at 3 or 4 o'clock, and when she heard them stirring she has got up out of her warm bed, and gone out and asked them the time; and I have sometimes been at Hunslet Car at 2 o'clock in the morning, when it was streaming down with rain, and we have had to stay till the mill was opened.You are considerably deformed in person as a consequence of this labour?
Yes I am.Where are you now?
In the poorhouse.State what you think as to the circumstances in which you have been placed during all this time of labour, and what you have considered about it as to the hardship and cruelty of it.
"The witness was too much affected to answer the question."
|W|P|111187361958439126|W|P|Mill Conditions, 1815|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com"Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest." -- Alexandre Dumas
|W|P|111305746778397341|W|P|Unquote|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comPalindromes:
- Campus motto: Bottoms up, Mac!
- Do geese see God?
- Dennis sinned.
- Name now one man's sensuousness. Name now one man.
- Never odd or even.
- Plan no damn Madonna LP!
- Rotary gyrator
- Roy, am I mayor?
- Sex at noon taxes.
- Ten animals I slam in a net.
- Was it Eliot's toilet I saw?
- Tarzan raised a Desi Arnaz rat.
- Norma is as selfless as I am, Ron.
- Sums are not set as a test on Erasmus.
- Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
- Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
- Rettebs, I flahd noces, eh? Ttu, but the second half is better. (Stephen Fry)
- Rats drown in WordStar.
- "Sit on a potato pan, Otis!"
- "Do nine men interpret?" "Nine men," I nod.
- A slut nixes sex in Tulsa.
And "Gnu dung, sides reversed, is gnu dung."
|W|P|111276012644042662|W|P|Palindromes|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
As a packrat, Edmund Trebus took the cake. He also took washing machines, rotting clothes, wood, motorcycles, windowpanes, and old refrigerators. Before the Polish �migr� died in 2002, at age 83, he had filled his four-story London house with mountains of garbage collected at local junk shops and building sites. One room was full of vacuum cleaners, another with cameras. He collected Elvis Presley recordings maniacally.
In their garden, his wife used to sit in a deck chair among towers of crap. When she left in 1981, he filled in the hole. In the end Trebus was living in one corner of the kitchen, with only a Jack Russell terrier for company. He needed ladders to get in and out of the house, which had no running water, working bathroom or electricity.
In 1997, after being buried under one of his own "litter traps," designed to catch burglars, he was hospitalized for gangrene. When he got out, he found that the town council had finally got a court order declaring the house unfit for human habitation. Six men and five trucks took 30 days to remove 515 cubic yards of waste.
He'd filled it up again by 2001.
|W|P|111291203185888709|W|P|Edmund Trebus|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comMarch 20, 1963
The Honorable Ed Foreman
House of Representatives
Congressional District #16
Washington 25, D.C.
Dear Sir:
My friend over in Terebone Parish received a $1,000 check from the government this year for not raising hogs. So I am going into the not-raising hogs business next year.
What I want to know is, in your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to raise hogs on and the best kind of hogs not to raise? I would prefer not to raise Razorbacks, but if that is not a good breed not to raise, I will just as gladly not raise any Berkshires or Durocs.
The hardest work in this business is going to be in keeping an inventory on how many hogs I haven�t raised.
My friend is very joyful about the future of his business. He has been raising hogs for more than 20 years and the best he ever made was $400, until this year, when he got $1,000 for not raising hogs.
If I can get $1,000 for not raising 50 hogs, then I will get $2,000 for not raising 100 hogs. I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to 4,000 hogs which means that I will have $80,000 coming from the government.
Now, another thing: these hogs I will not raise will not eat 100,000 bushels of corn. So will you pay me anything for not raising 100,000 bushels of corn to feed the hogs I am not raising?
I want to get started as soon as possible as this seems to be a good time of year for not raising hogs.
One more thing, can I raise 10 or 12 hogs on the side while I am in the not-raising-hog business just enough to get a few sides of bacon to eat?
Very truly yours,
J.B. Lee, Jr.
Potential Hog Raiser
ha�de�ha�ri�a
n. constant use of the word "hell"
Your lifetime odds of dying ...
- on a streetcar: 1 in 1,230,975
- through burning or melting of nightwear: 1 in 738,585
- in a discharge of fireworks: 1 in 615,488
- in an earthquake: 1 in 131,890
- through contact with hornets, wasps, or bees: 1 in 85,882
- by lightning: 1 in 83,930
- due to a cave-in or falling earth: 1 in 65,945
- through contact with hot tap water: 1 in 64,788
- in a legal execution: 1 in 58,618
- by falling, jumping, or being pushed from a high place: 1 in 47,960
- while riding an animal: 1 in 31,836
- by drowning in the bathtub: 1 in 11,469
- in a fall involving a bed, a chair, or other furniture: 1 in 5,031
Chance of dying in an assault by firearm: 1 in 325. Of shooting yourself: 1 in 219.
|W|P|111304212035014548|W|P|Odds of Dying|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comWhen it comes to parallel parking, men are 1.14 times better than women.
|W|P|111244251201654437|W|P|Parallel Parking|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com32 variants of MUAMMAR KHADAFI, according to the Library of Congress:
Muammar Qaddafi, Mo'ammar Gadhafi, Muammar Kaddafi, Muammar Qadhafi, Moammar El Kadhafi, Muammar Gadafi, Mu'ammar al-Qadafi, Moamer El Kazzafi, Moamar al-Gaddafi, Mu'ammar Al Qathafi, Muammar Al Qathafi, Mo'ammar el-Gadhafi, Moamar El Kadhafi, Muammar al-Qadhafi, Mu'ammar al-Qadhdhafi, Mu'ammar Qadafi, Moamar Gaddafi, Mu'ammar Qadhdhafi, Muammar Khaddafi, Muammar al-Khaddafi, Mu'amar al-Kadafi, Muammar Ghaddafy, Muammar Ghadafi, Muammar Ghaddafi, Muamar Kaddafi, Muammar Quathafi, Muammar Gheddafi, Muamar Al-Kaddafi, Moammar Khadafy, Moammar Qudhafi, Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi, Mulazim Awwal Mu'ammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi|W|P|111110263262427624|W|P|Spellings of Qadaffi|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
STREETS FULL OF WATER. PLEASE ADVISE.
-- Robert Benchley, telegram from Venice
|W|P|111248041170493430|W|P|Benchley in Venice|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comWhat to write in a slacker's letter of reference:
- "You would be fortunate to get this person to work for you."
- "No one would be better for this position."
- "He doesn't care how many hours he must put in."
- "There is nothing you can teach him."
- "I refer him with no qualifications whatsoever."
- "Waste no time in making him an offer."
"All in all, I cannot say enough good things about this candidate or recommend him too highly."
|W|P|111300687621198390|W|P|Backhanded Letters of Reference|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com"A period novel! About the Civil War! Who needs the Civil War now -- who cares?" -- Pictorial Review editor Herbert R. Mayes, turning down a prepublication serialization of Gone With the Wind, 1936
|W|P|111248930960358197|W|P|Unquote|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
A villain worthy of DC Comics, Spring Heeled Jack leapt liberally around England between 1837 and 1904, attacking isolated victims who described him as a muscular devil in an oilskin.
If he was the devil, he wasn't a very ambitious criminal, generally just crashing carriages and groping women. But he could jump 9-foot walls, perhaps using spring-loaded footgear, judging from some ill-preserved prints.
An anonymous letter implied that a human prankster was terrorizing London on a bet, and incidental reports began to mount. In 1838 four witnesses saw him breathe fire and jump to the roof of a house, and in 1845 he threw a 13-year-old prostitute from a bridge, his first killing. On the night of Feb. 8, 1855, long trails of hooflike prints were seen in the snow throughout Devon, crossing roofs, walls, and haystacks. By 1873 thousands were gathering each night to hunt the ghost.
Nothing seemed to stop him, including bullets, and he even attacked a group of soldiers at Aldershot Barracks in 1877. He was last spotted in 1904 in Liverpool, leaping over a crowd of witnesses and disappearing behind some neighboring houses.
There's no good explanation. Some suspected the Marquess of Waterford, who was known to spring on travelers to amuse himself, but the attacks continued after his death. Others have suggested a stranded extraterrestrial, a visitor from another dimension, or a real demon. We'll never know.
|W|P|111078222516615015|W|P|Spring Heeled Jack|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comKissthisguy.com records 4,142 misheard song lyrics:
You think the taxi's a bear on the shore
Waiting to take you away
Climb on its back with your head in the clouds
And you're gone
"My husband laughed at me. He is still laughing at me about this a year later."
|W|P|111276009349057148|W|P|Mondegreens|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comOne day a man was looking for a new pet, so he went to the pet store and asked the owner if he had a dog. The owner showed him a few dogs, but the man wasn't interested. Suddenly the pet store owner had a thought.
"I know just the dog for you," he said, and went to the last kennel in the row. "Isn't that the shaggiest dog you ever saw?" he asked.
"Why, yes, that is the shaggiest dog I ever saw!" said the man. "I should take it to show my wife! I'll buy him."
The man bought the dog and took it home to his wife.
"I bought a dog today," he said. "Isn't that the shaggiest dog you ever saw?" he asked.
"Why, yes, that is the shaggiest dog I ever saw!" said his wife. "You should take it to show the minister!"
"You're right," said the man, and he took the dog to see the minister.
"I bought a dog today," he said. "Isn't that the shaggiest dog you ever saw?" he asked.
"Why, yes, that is the shaggiest dog I ever saw!" said the minister. "You should take it to show the mayor!"
"You're right," said the man, and he took the dog to see the mayor.
"I bought a dog today," he said. "Isn't that the shaggiest dog you ever saw?" he asked.
"Why, yes, that is the shaggiest dog I ever saw!" said the mayor. "You should take it to show the governor-general!"
"You're right," said the man, and he took the dog to see the governor-general.
"I bought a dog today," he said. "Isn't that the shaggiest dog you ever saw?" he asked.
"Why, yes, that is the shaggiest dog I ever saw!" said the governor-general. "You should take it to show the queen!"
"You're right," said the man, and he took the dog to see the queen.
"I bought a dog today," he said. "Isn't that the shaggiest dog you ever saw?" he asked.
"No," said the queen.
|W|P|111275990249848721|W|P|Shaggy Dog Story|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
As a friend to the children commend me the Yak,
You will find it exactly the thing:
It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back,
Or lead it about with a string.
The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet
(A desolate region of snow)
Has for centuries made it a nursery pet,
And surely the Tartar should know!
Then tell your papa where the Yak can be got,
And if he is awfully rich
He will buy you the creature -- or else he will not.
(I cannot be positive which.)
-- Hilaire Belloc
|W|P|111265425822475800|W|P|The Yak|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
wit�tol
n. (archaic) A man who knows of and tolerates his wife's infidelity.
Multiplayer thumb-wrestling "engages low-fi sweaty-fingers entertainment and places it in the high TCP/IP context of recent massively multiplayer online gaming." Or something.
|W|P|111084451231993138|W|P|Multiplayer Thumb-Wrestling|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
A revealing letter of Charles Dickens to George Eliot, 1858:
|W|P|111248995190260396|W|P|Dickens and Eliot|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comDear Sir:
I have been so strongly affected by the two first tales in the book you have had the kindness to send me through Messrs. Blackwood, that I hope you will excuse my writing to you to express my admiration of their extraordinary merit. The exquisite truth and delicacy, both of the humor and the pathos of the stories, I have never seen the like of; and they have impressed me in a manner that I should find it very difficult to describe to you, if I had the impertinence to try.
In addressing these few words of thankfulness to the creator of the sad fortunes of Mr. Amos Barton, and the sad love-story of Mr. Gilfil, I am (I presume) bound to adopt the name that it pleases that excellent writer to assume. I can suggest no better one; but I should have been strongly disposed, if I had been left to my own devices, to address the said writer as a woman. I have observed what seems to me to be such womanly touches, in those moving fictions, that the assurance on the title-page is insufficient to satisfy me, even now. If they originated with no woman, I believe that no man ever before had the art of making himself, mentally, so like a woman, since the world began. ...
"It isn't necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy." -- Groucho Marx
|W|P|111231036507001912|W|P|Unquote|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comOnly five countries have one-syllable names: CHAD, FRANCE, GREECE, LAOS, and SPAIN.
|W|P|111110267227068186|W|P|One-Syllable Country Names|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious," wrote Albert Einstein. "It is the source of all true art and science."
That was true even in the Dark Ages, though the mysteries were a lot iffier back then. William of Newburgh records an "unheard-of" prodigy in East Anglia around 1150, when reapers were gathering produce during the harvest near some "very ancient cavities" known as the Wolfpittes. "Two children, a boy and a girl, completely green in their persons, and clad in gaments of a strange colour, and unknown materials, emerged from these excavations."
Taken in by the villagers, they learned to eat beans and bread, which in time "changed their original color" until they "became like ourselves." The boy died shortly after he was baptized, but his sister continued in good health and eventually married.
On being taught English, they told this story:
- "We are inhabitants of the land of St. Martin, who is regarded with peculiar veneration in the country which gave us birth."
- "The sun does not rise upon our countrymen; our land is little cheered by its beams; we are contented with that twilight, which, among you, precedes the sunrise, or follows the sunset. Moreoever, a certain luminous country is seen, not far distant from ours, and divided from it by a very considerable river."
- "On a certain day, when we were feeding our father's flocks in the fields, we heard a great sound, such as we are now accustomed to hear at St. Edmund's, when the bells are chiming; and whilst listening to the sound in admiration, we became on a sudden, as it were, entranced, and found ourselves among you in the fields where you were reaping."
William closes: "Let every one say as he pleases, and reason on such matters according to his abilities; I feel no regret at having recorded an event so prodigious and miraculous." It's poetic, in any case.
|W|P|111187290058744466|W|P|The Green Children|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comHere's Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud" as rendered by Jean Lescure's "N+7" procedure, replacing each noun with the seventh following it in a dictionary:
The Imbeciles
I wandered lonely as a crowd
That floats on high o'er valves and ills
When all at once I saw a shroud,
A hound, of golden imbeciles;
Beside the lamp, beneath the bees,
Fluttering and dancing in the cheese.
Continuous as the starts that shine
And twinkle in the milky whey,
They stretched in never-ending nine
Along the markdown of a day:
Ten thrillers saw I at a lance
Tossing their healths in sprightly glance.
The wealths beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling wealths in key:
A poker could not be but gay,
In such a jocund constancy:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What weave to me the shred had brought:
For oft, when on my count I lie
In vacant or in pensive nude,
They flash upon that inward fly
That is the block of turpitude;
And then my heat with plenty fills
And dances with the imbeciles.
Immortal, no? It's an example of an "oulipo" ("ouvroir de litt�rature potentielle" or, roughly, "workshop of potential literature"), one of a series of constrained writing techniques invented by French-speaking authors in the 1960s. Art, I suppose, is where you find it.
|W|P|111085436296291122|W|P|The Imbeciles|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.comDismuke's Virtual Talking Machine offers "a 24-hour online radio station devoted exclusively to vintage pop and jazz from the decade 1925-1935."
|W|P|110989767903921272|W|P|Dismuke's Virtual Talking Machine|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com
Children's deaths listed in the London calendar of coroner's rolls, 1301-1307:
- 1301. "On Tuesday the Feast of St Philip and James [May 4] a certain Hugh Picard was riding a white horse after the hour of vespers, when Petronilla, daughter of William de Wyntonia, aged three years, was playing in the street; and the horse, being strong, quickly carried Hugh against his will over Petronilla so that it struck her on her right side with its right forefoot. Petronilla lingered until the next day, when she died, at the hour of vespers, from the blow. Being asked who were present, the jurors know only of those mentioned. The corpse viewed, the right side of which appeared blue and badly bruised, and no other hurt. The horse valued at a mark, for which Richard de Caumpes, the sheriff, will answer. Hugh fled and has no chattels; he afterwards surrendered to John de Boreford, sheriff."
- 1301. "On Tuesday [July 19], Richard, son of John le Mazon, who was eight years old, was walking immediately after dinner across London Bridge to school. For fun, he tried to hang by his hands from a beam on the side of the bridge, but his hands giving way, he fell into water and was drowned. Being asked who were present, the jurors say a great multitude of passers-by, whose names they know not, but they suspect no one of the death except mischance."
- 1322. "On the Sunday before the Feast of St Dunstan, Robert, son of John de St Botulph, a boy seven years old, Richard, son of John de Chesthunt, and two other boys whose names are unknown were playing on certain pieces of timber in the lane called "Kyrounelane" in the ward of Vintry, and one piece fell on Robert and broke his right leg. In course of time Johanna his mother arrived and rolled the timber off him and carried him to the shop, where he lingered until the Friday before the Feast of St Margaret, when he died at the hour of prime, of the broken leg and of no other felony; nor do the jurors suspect anyone of the death, but only the accident and the fracture."
- 1324. "On Monday [in April] at the hour of vespers John, son of William de Burgh, a boy five years old, was in the house of Richard le Latthere and had taken a parcel of wool and placed it in his cap. Emma, the wife of Richard, chastising him, struck him with her right hand under his left ear so that he cried. On hearing this, Isabella, his mother, raised the hue and carried him thence. He lingered until the hour of curfew of the same day, when he died of the blow and not of any felony. Emma forthwith fled, but where she went or who received her the jurors knew not. Afterwards she surrendered herself to the prison at Newgate."
- 1337. "On Tuesday in Pentecostweek John, son of William atte Noke, chandler, got out of a window in the rent of John de Wynton, plumber, to recover a ball lost in a gutter at play. He slipped and fell, and so injured himself that he died on the Saturday following of the fall."
To date, Louis Giersch's Solar Death Ray has incinerated a container of Jiffy Pop popcorn, a rose, a rubber duck, a Hootie and the Blowfish tape, an AOL CD, and the ace of spades, demonstrating the soul-corrupting evil of renewable power.
"The popcorn, which had been forged in the glow of the sun's fusion energy, didn't give Race superpowers as we had hoped."
|W|P|111180738669983765|W|P|Solar Death Ray|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com"Big Rigs is easily one of the worst-looking PC games released in years. The truck models are amazingly terrible, with incredibly archaic-looking designs and brake lights that actually float off of the truck models."
GameSpot reviews Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, a game "as bad as your mind will allow you to comprehend."
|W|P|111123817123121807|W|P|Big Rigs|W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com