8 posts tagged “humor”
###### Am I the only one who sees the resemblence?
######
I haven't had a day this bad in a long time. It's sort of weird to step back and look at all this havoc and laugh. Alright, you just sit there smugly reading this post; but writing is catharsis for me.
An attendance of approximately 0 at our YAM Bible study. Arguments with college friends over cursing. Arguments with the wife over a vacation (how stupid!). Hordes of designers angry about a postponed contest announcement. I seem to be unintentionally making people upset left and right. All of this mingled in with a strong conviction for holy living and some out-of-nowhere emotional rollercoasters. Am I pregnant?
(Raises Hand) May I be excused from me for a moment?
* jayallen has quit IRC
<arvind> oh crap, jayallen left
<PlasticMind> he got sick of you
<PlasticMind> :P
<arvind> you're mean
* arvind wipes a tear away
* PlasticMind apologizes humbly.
Arvind: dissed Hacking MT did I :P
PlasticMind: HAHAHAHA
PlasticMind: yep!
PlasticMind: stabbed you in the back i did
Arvind: that's it
Arvind: no more help for you
PlasticMind: engarde!
PlasticMind: hey
PlasticMind: what's the irc server again
Arvind: nope
Arvind: you've done enough damage for one night
PlasticMind: don't screw with me!
Arvind: you're in timeout
PlasticMind: I'll take your rounded boxes away from you!
Arvind: bring it on
PlasticMind: *shakes a paintbrush!*
I came across this today and it certainly brought a smile to my face:
The Unicorn in the Garden
by James Thurber
Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. "There's a unicorn in the garden," he said. "Eating roses." She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him. "The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; he was now browsing among the tulips. "Here, unicorn," said the man and pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. "The unicorn," he said, "ate a lily." His wife sat up in bed and looked at him, coldly. "You are a booby," she said, "and I am going to have you put in a booby-hatch." The man, who never liked the words "booby" and "booby-hatch," and who liked them even less on a shining morning when there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment. "We'll see about that," he said. He walked over to the door. "He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead," he told her. Then he went back to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone away. The man sat among the roses and went to sleep.
And as soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast as she could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and she telephoned the psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a strait-jacket. When the police and the psychiatrist looked at her with great interest. "My husband," she said, "saw a unicorn this morning." The police looked at the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police. "He told me it ate a lily," she said. The psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist. "He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead," she said. At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their chairs and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house.
"Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?" asked the police. "Of course not," said the husband. "The unicorn is a mythical beast." "That's all I wanted to know," said the psychiatrist. "Take her away. I'm sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jay bird." So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever after.
Last night my wife opens a can of stewed tomatoes for dinner. I'm enjoying my burger when suddenly she nearly throws up, gulps big and starts making sucking noises with her mouth. Turn out they were tomatoes and chile peppers.
I fished the can out of the garbage.
"Honey, don't you think the sombrero gives it away?"
"I thought they were Mexican tomatoes!"
Annoyed at all those darn people reading your blog? Sick of being poked and prodded by the John Q. Paparazzi? Tired of all that Ad Sense rolling in? Then have I got a solution for you!
In just a few easy steps, you can be rid of your audience once and for all:
1. Don't be consistent. For years people have cultivated the habit of grabbing the newspaper off the rack, catching the news and tuning into their favorite television shows the same time each day. Even the most hardened individualist has significant habits. If your hell-bent on driving people away from your blog, the number one way to do it is to update your site sporadically or infrequently. If people know you post new content every Monday morning, there more likely to come back.
Think Pavlov. Monday rolls around, they visit your site, new content, interested reader. The following Monday they come again and find another delightful post. Ding. Bad news for those of you who don't want readers. Kick back, have a lemonade. If you feel the urge to blog or start thinking of your life in terms of a blog post, watch some reruns of the Andy Griffith Show. A few days of slacking will surely drive them away.
2. Don't offer anything worthwhile. Another reason your audience sticks around is because you have great ideas (or at least mediocre ideas with great words). Not surprisingly, people flock to "thought leaders" in this great, shiny Information Age. Throw them off with posts about how your life stinks or, even better, copy and paste entire song lyrics about suicide or relationships. People are busy these days, and the last thing they're going to stick around for is how much you hate meatloaf. If you get a brilliant idea, take a walk. Go build something neat with Legos instead.
3. Don't provoke a response. This point requires some
serious work. People have a tendency to frequent articles about things
they disagree with. The most read articles in the blogosphere are
about controversial topics like abortion, gay rights and religion; and
if you look in the comment section, most of them are arguments. So to
protect yourself from the hordes (or, worse yet, the dreaded Digg
effect), be sure your posts are chock-full-o-ambivalence.
Here's a simple test to check yourself
on this point: visit your local community college cafeteria and sit
with the most diverse group of people you can find, preferably
Bohemian-types (they love to argue). Then test it out on them; blurt
it out a one-sentence summary of your post. If there's a response; no
good, rework the post. If they don't look up from their hummus, BINGO! You've got yourself a winner!
4. Take yourself too seriously.
There are over 300 million people blogs on the Internet at last count.
A great way to lose your following is by acting like yours is more
important than the other 299.999999 million. Use phrases like, "if
they only knew the power I hold over their reputation with my blog,
they'd have treated me better" and "I'm sooooo destroying your
reputation". Never use smilies and never, ever, ever admit you were
wrong. If you apologize on your site, you might as well get a
dedicated server. People respect honesty and your dreams of a
miniscule audience would be shattered.
5. Hate what your writing about. This is a last ditch effort if
all else fails. If you've tried all of the other steps and still seem
to be bringing them in, shift gears. Run a week long series on the
square root of imaginary numbers. Chronicle the number of
intersections in New Jersey. Prove the Pythagorean Theorem. Whatever
you don't like most, make that your next project. Your disdain for
your subject matter is bound to seep out to your soon-to-be-ex-readers.
(Call today and we'll throw in our dancing rodent animated .gif pack for no extra charge!)
