SatireWire published Closed Disinformation Agency Can’t Convince Staff It’s Closed, which does Joseph Heller proud with Rumsfeld playing the role of Major Major and a subordinate filling in for Milo.

““We got ya, sir, we’re ‘closed’,” said a winking Major Chad Brumley when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld found him at his desk again today. “There is no one here spreading misinformation now, and certainly there won’t be anyone here spreading misinformation daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sir.””

Which side of the road do they drive on? explains exactly that. It covers, in fascinating detail, which countries of the world drive on which side of the road. The map to the left is from the site and shows right-driving countries in yellow and left-driving countries in red. Don’t be fooled by the appearance of surface area, though:

“Having often encountered the implicit assumption that everyone but England and some of her colonies drive on the right side of the road, I compiled … a quick... [More]”

This is an actual letter sent to a Bank in the US. The Bank thought it
amusing enough to publish in the New York times.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to thank you for bouncing the cheque with which I endeavored
to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations some three nanoseconds
must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque, and the arrival in
my account of the funds needed to honor it. I refer, of course, to the
automatic monthly deposit of my entire salary, an arrangement which, I
admit,... [More]

…as our menu has changed. Try this phone number:

510-809-4466

for a fun look at Enron’s current phone menu. Somehow, it just seems funnier on the phone.

SatireWire announces that the FBI to Issue 5-Day Terror Forecasts…, which should add some level of organization to dealing with terror. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft stated:

<q>We in law enforcement are duty-bound to report inherent danger, so we will continue to alert the public to serious threats,“ said Ashcroft. “But we also understand how frustrating it is to organize a family picnic or corporate event, only to have it washed out by the late-breaking specter of impending doom. So... [More]

Mark Fiore of the SF Gate makes cartoons in Flash. He’s got one from February 6, 2002 called Lair that depicts the possible hiding location of the most sought after man in America.

This isn’t really humor, per se, but it’s a sort of game.

In this age of hastily-typed emails, chat messages and online posts, we’re exposed more and more often to the grammatical shortcomings of others as well as common spelling errors. Mindy McAdams has published an excellent spelling test for American English.

<q>I compiled a list from many sources and edited it to 50 commonly misspelled words, making my choices based on my 11 years of experience as a copy editor. … The spellings... [More]

1. You get very annoyed with out-of-towners who think the subway is unsafe.
2. You actively avoid bars that people from the outer boroughs frequent.
3. You figure that a date costs at least $200.
4. You have not seen a bank teller in several years, because your idea of going to the bank is using the ATM at your corner deli.
5. You haven’t smelled grass clippings in over a year.
6. You haven’t “called shotgun” in a long, long time.
7. You think that New Jersey seems really far away.
8. You plot the Barney’s Warehouse... [More]

There’s an email making the rounds that ponders the significance of the number 11. A guy ‘Dave’ posted a very funny response; the kind of response everyone should have to this kind of message.

Original Letter

• The date of the attack: 9/11 − 9 + 1 + 1 = 11
• September 11th is the 254th day of the year: 2 + 5 + 4 = 11
• After September 11th there are 111 days left to the end of the year.
• 119 is the area code to Iraq/Iran. 1 + 1 + 9 = 11
• Twin Towers − standing side by side, looks like the number 11... [More]

<p class=“notes” align=“center”>Received via email.</p><table><tr><td class=“label”>Feudalism</td><td>You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.</td></tr><tr><td class=“label”>Fascism</td><td>You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.</td></tr><tr><td class=“label”>Communism</td><td>You have two cows. Your neighbors help take care of them and you share the milk.</td></tr><tr><td class=“label”>Totalitarianism</td><td>You have... [More]

The Sunday, January 27, 2002 Doonesbury brings back Buttsy at a ‘Sin Lobby’ party and introduces a new character, “Mr. Jay”.

SatireWire has breaking news that Australia Gets Drunk…, which details Australia’s drunken journey from the South Pacific to the North Atlantic.

<q>After what witnesses described as an all night blinder during which it kept droning on about how it was always being bloody ignored by the whole bloody world and would bloody well stand to do something about it, Australia this morning woke up to find itself in the middle of the North Atlantic.</q>

Thinking about getting a Segway, but worried that your friends won’t think it’s cool enough? Is replacing your fat-piped, tinted-windowed, one-foot-high-spoilered, ground-effected, neon-lit, decaled Honda Civic with a vanilla electric scooter that’s good for the environment just too much to take? Worry no more, now you can have the sweetest wheels around and save the planet. Where Are My Pants? offers the Segway − Type R (Don’t worry, it’s got NOS).

Here’s a picture of some alley or back of a house somewhere. In order to get the full effect, you have to really examine the picture. In particular, look at the mattress and the rubber hose on the floor…is this a drug den? Who knows? Is that a person in the doorway, reaching for something on the floor? Who knows? But, if you wait at least 30 seconds, the creepiness will reveal itself.

Sometimes, you just can’t tell. This quiz, called Playboy.com’s Breast Test II was received via email and converted to web format (to avoid sending around an Excel document).

The claimed average number correct is about 12.5, but a small (12 people) sampling of friends averaged much higher at ~17.1. On average, women (10, 17, 19,19,19,19) scored 17.17 and men (16,16,17,17,18,18) scored 17. However, women had a median score of 19 and men still scored 17. Men win for consistency, but women seem... [More]

Some of you may remember the Flash animation of a martial arts movie in 2D (Xiao Xiao I?). The latest in the series is Xiao Xiao 7 and is in 3D with considerably higher production values. The shootout near the end is pretty amazing.

The home page for this Flash artist also has an interactive game that is another, ‘how the heck is that done in Flash?’ kind of game. It’s also in 3D and follows the TimeCop style of gameplay. The whole page is in some non-Western character set, but the game is... [More]

Are you delegating enough? Think again…

Here’s an interesting use of Flash animation to make a new style of digital clock. Check out the Industrious Clock by Yugo Nakamura.

This is “topical” humor, so it could go in Current Events, but let’s leave that as dour and depressing as possible. AlterNet has Bush’s First Year: A Quiz by Daniel Kurtzman. It’s a 23 question quiz about events in the U.S.‘s first year under the second Bush. It’s hard to get them all correct.

Since he published the quiz as text-only and gave the answer key at the end, I’ve produced an interactive version that grades the test for you afterwards. It’s the same quiz, so I highly recommend using... [More]

SatireWire announced that a Surprise Settlement Evenly Splits Microsoft… into two pieces, but not separated into ‘operating systems’ and ‘applications’, as previously proposed, but into ‘software’ and ‘patches’.

<q>Critics immediately charged that the settlement — which overrides a previous agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice — does nothing to diminish Microsoft’s standing as the world’s most powerful software company. But industry analysts argued that providing patches for... [More]

MNFTIU is back with 4 more pages of getting your war on. The link is to page 3, but pages 4-6 are available at the top of the page. On page 4, you’ll find such gems as:

<q>Man! I like a good stiff Operation Enduring Freedom as much as the next guy, but I’ve reached my limits of understanding! All of a sudden my fucking mailman is a Hero on the Front Lines in the War Against Terror? My daughter wants to sell cookies to help the people my nephew’s been sent to fucking bomb? I’m supposed to help... [More]

No, this isn’t that lame ASCII snowball you’d wish people would stop sending you in your email. You know, the same people that call you up to apologize for sending you yet another email virus. This is a cool snowball fight game in Flash.

I haven’t gotten past level 3, but my version cheats, I think.

The White House issued another alert today: Terrorists Lurking in Life-sized Manger Tableaus!. The problem lies with the large manger scenes commonly put on by churches in small towns in the U.S.

<q>As you will note, nearly every such nativity display has folks that look just like that terrorist we’re after, that evil un-Christian bin Laden fellow. And if we see somebody who looks like a terrorist, we’re taking the fucker down.</q>

The problem is real and seems to be suppressed in major... [More]

The Segway motored into America’s heart this week. It’s a people-mover that runs on electricity. Ars Technica has a good summary in IT revealed (IT was a former code name for the device).

Everything Isn’t Under Control published a pretty funny “Diary of the First Segway Owner”. It’s the post from 12:17AM on December 4, 2001 (about 2/3 of the way down the page).

The Register writes that initial reports of a bizarre Japanese video game are most likely not a hoax. The game is called Boon-Ga Boon-Ga. From the product brochure:

<q>Select from 8 characters to spank. When you spank the character that you chose, the cards will be shuffled. After detecting your power with a sensor, a card will come out. It will explain your sexual behavior.</q>

It has to be seen to be believed.

If you want to know what ‘Boon-Ga Boon-Ga’ means, you’d best ask a construction... [More]

How was ‘Black Friday’ for you? Mark Morford takes an amusing look at shopping in Red, White And Banana Republic.

<q>Tis apparently the season that right about this time a decidedly bitter and lugubrious media offers up the murky declaration that Thanksgiving weekend retail sales were not quite the all-out mind-blowing ass-spanking high-fiving wallet- draining Visa-maxing orgiastic bonanza retailers had hoped and man oh man aren’t you the guilty one, oh heartless unspending consumer.</q>
... [More]

With cloning in the news lately, SatireWire warns about an ominous future in Human Embryo Cloned: Can “Chain” Stores, “Subdivisions,” be far behind?

<q>… a world populated by clones would be totally unrecognizable to us — a macabre, doppleganger environment in which the like-minded inhabitants shop at cookie-cutter “chain” stores, apishly watch television shows patterned after the same theme, and even run their computers with the same operating system.</q>

Mark Morford envisions the same... [More]

Have you ever played with one of those soundboards? The kind that lets you hit a bunch of buttons and start to mix sounds together, all layered on top of each other? Well, here’s a special one that uses only Samuel L. Jackson movie quotes. I find it quite cathartic.

The other toy is an animation of a skeleton that lets you control the animation yourself. Not really useful, but it’s an amazing bit of work in Flash.

Here’s some new products (1 − 2) that are both excellent Christmas presents and a sound investment. Are they real? Are they fake? You figure it out.