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3 months Ago

Some good, American comedians

Published by marco on

There are a ton of comedians that everyone talks about, like George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and so on. I was talking to some friends in Switzerland who are very much into stand-up comedy and they asked for some suggestions.

We talked about a few comedians—Bill Hicks, Bill Burr, and Doug Stanhope—that they might want to try. They all have good insight into the human condition and don’t shy away from describing humanity as it actually is, rather than how we wish it were.

I started off more... [More]

Cruciverbalism and cruciverbalism-adjacent

Published by marco on

Just a couple of quick notes. It’s the depths of winter and I’ve had some time off, so I’m playing with puzzles. I kind of like Wordle. I don’t play to win as quickly as possible. I like to throw unusual words at it, on the off chance that it will result in a lucky punch.

 Bacon Wordle

I sent the picture above to a friend who also likes Wordle with the note:

“There are probably not a lot of people who unironically and eminently hopefully guess “capon” before they’re forced to remember that “bacon” would... [More]”

Passenger Tortoise

Published by marco on

When a friend recently responded to messages of mine from nine days ago, I wrote back,

“Don’t sweat it. I just like to imagine that my messages arrive at Apple headquarters, whereupon they’re laboriously transcribed and illuminated by monks before being delivered to you by tortoise. The return trip takes equally long.”

4 months Ago

SBB was having a bad day

Published by marco on

Today was not a great day for the SBB.

I took three trains to get where I was going and each of them was 3-4 minutes late. The Swiss pack their schedules pretty tightly, so 4 minutes late at the end meant that the SBB had eaten up the two-minute buffer between the train’s arrival in Dietikon and the departure of the 301 bus I was meant to catch.

It was only a 1km walk, so no big deal, but it might have sucked more had it been raining even harder than it was—or had it been as windy as it has... [More]

Cool celebrity photos

Published by marco on

The post What’s a picture of a celebrity that lives rent free in your mind? I’ll start…. by N_Ywasneverthesame (Reddit) gives us this image of Mads Mikkelsen.

 A young Mads Mikkelsson

The foreground objects make this a bit of an odd photo, but he looks cool.

 Bernadette Peters

I think this is from The Jerk. I was a big fan growing up. She’s hilarious.

 Daniel Radcliffe with like 26 dogs

Big DILLIGAF energy.

 Captain America Truckstop Hooker

This was an actual photo shoot that Chris Evans did. No-one should let him forget it.

 Jude Law and Ewan McGregor

These two fools also did a photo shoot.

 Keanu Reeves has always been dedicated to the craft

So did John Wick, way back in his Private Idaho days.... [More]

5 months Ago

Mad Props for Yngwie Malmsteen

Published by marco on

The YouTube recommendation algorithm is slowly starting to get better for me. For example, it showed me this video:

Yngwie Malmsteen − Live with Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra (YouTube)

Japan: where speed-metal virtuosity goes to dielive forever. I love watching an earnest and serious Japanese orchestra playing along with the music I grew up with.

It’s 2017, Yngwie’s gotten chubby, he looks maybe a bit ridiculous in all of his stretched leather, gold rings, and gold watch—but he sounds amazing. You can really hear how appropriate most of his compositions... [More]

Family emojis cannot be unseen

Published by marco on

What’s New in Unicode 15.1 & Emoji 15.1 by Keith Broni (Emojipedia)

 'Family' Emojis

Am I the only one that thinks bad thoughts when he sees, for example, the third emoji in this list? I know that they think it’s a parent with a child, but does that not look like a gender-neutral blowjob to you? You won’t be able to unsee it, either. In fact, I can’t look at any of the four pictures and see “family”. Look at the second one! That’s two people “sharing”! How does the emoji committee not see this? Or maybe they do! Maybe they’re making... [More]

1 year Ago

Generational Disconnect

Published by marco on

I was watching a video today—Everything Is Going to Be Fine: Preparing for the end of the world by Aeon Video (YouTube)—which featured the narrator and his wife in their apartment, shown below.

 Twee Folk in Brooklyn?

This is actually what they look like—like caricatures made up by conservative “comedians” making fun of hipsters. I know we shouldn’t make fun of people’s appearance—lord knows I have no idea what I’m doing—but this was just too good to pass up.

He has a pen in his pocket. What is that?

It was only later that I... [More]

Humor is sooo context-dependent

Published by marco on

I was chatting with a friend about mistranslations and “false friends” (words that sound like a word in another language, but have a completely different meaning).

He sent me a link to Slowly down the feathers floated… (Imgur), an image without context. Still, in the image, you could see that a menu item on a Chinese menu had been translated to “Fuck the duck until exploded”, which is humorous, but only on a pretty superficial level, if we’re being honest. Using the word “fuck” without seeming to... [More]

Wordiply

Published by marco on

So there’s a new game called Wordiply that I took for a test drive.

The rules are that you start with a sequence of letters. Your job is to think of the five longest words that you can, that include those letters, in that order. That’s it.

I did the warmup and then took a crack at today’s puzzle. Booyah:

🅦🅞🅡🅓🄸🄿🄻🅈 #33
🌟 Length Score: 100%
💫 Rare long word found!
🚀 Letter Score: 76
🔗 Play Wordiply: https://www.wordiply.com
🎬 Today’s starter:... [More]

Jigsaw puzzles

Published by marco on

I just finished my first jigsaw puzzle in more than 2½ years.

A von Ballmoos Christmas tradition is to put together a jigsaw puzzle. The putting-together of it borders on obsession and we stay up ridiculously late, straining our eyes in the dim winter light and ignoring the telephone.

I got started a bit late this year, but still managed to strain my eyes and go to sleep very, very late.

2023: NY Public Library

This one started off relatively straightforward, but the final ¼ or so was... [More]

Telling time in different languages

Published by marco on

I was telling a friend about the article How To Be on Time in Estonia by Alex Bellos (Atlas Obscura) and its accompanying solution (PDF).

“[…] in Estonian, a “quarter past the hour” is instead described as “a quarter of an hour on the way to the next hour,” “half past the hour” is described as “half an hour on the way to the next hour,” and “three quarters past the hour” is described as “three quarters of an hour on the way to the next hour.””

Our conversation was as follows:

Me: Estonians say “one... [More]

Purely alliterative sentences

Published by marco on

The following are examples of alliterative sentences from What are sentences called where all the words start with the same letter?

  • She Sells Sea Shells by the Sea Shore
  • Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers
  • The Baker Betty Botter Bought some Butter, But she said “this Butter is Bitter, Bitter Butter is Bad for Batter.”

I looked with nearly exactly the query in the link title after I’d written the following doodle in my notes:

“Which witch will win well when witches wend ways... [More]”

Je veux les bon-bons

Published by marco on

The video One of the most effective ads to air in TV history (Twitter) is of a child misbehaving in a grocery store, with the father looking on in horror as the child escalates a desire to get what it wants into a full-blown tantrum involving destruction of property. The boy yells “je veux les bon-bons”[1] a couple of times, then goes apeshit.

Je veux les bonbons (YouTube)

The fun police showed up almost immediately and settled in to the top of the comment thread.

 Kathryn Sucks

 Corey Sucks, too

JFC, shut the f#%k up, Kathryn and Corey. It’s a joke. Relax.

It’s... [More]

A recommendation algorithm gone awry

Published by marco on

A friend of mine recommended a book he’d read called The Plot. I didn’t really know what it was about, but his recommendation was enough for me to add it to my list and check it out when it became available.

Pretty soon after I saw the following collection of books at the bottom of my page at the public library.

 Recommendations after 'The Plot'

Reckless Hearts, Five Dares, and Love in Play looked quite a bit more overtly racy than I’d expected. I was starting to wonder what he’d recommended. Maybe he was just messing with... [More]

2 years Ago

Why I still like Reddit sometimes

Published by marco on

So, Dave Levitan tweeted,

“Someone please tell me if I’m wrong, but I have the impression that the best climate models and projections didn’t really have “all the rivers are gonna dry up, like now-ish” in there”

The Rhine, the Yangtze, the Po by aprettyp (Reddit) is a screenshot of the tweet. The top response by whoareyoutoquestion is wholly informative,

“Except they did and do. “Unprecedented droughts” and “Increased cyclic extremes of weather” are two common things in climate change caused by global warming.... [More]”

Worldle

Published by marco on

Another game that rides on the coattails of Wordle a bit is a game called Worldle. Just like Wordle, you get six guesses. Unlike Wordle, it shows you a country or a territory somewhere on the planet and then tells you how far off you are as well as the direction in which you should go to find the real territory or country. Sometimes, it throws a real curveball, like Christmas Island or French Southern Territories.

Almost all of the “hole-in-ones” are due to my partner, who’s just amazing at... [More]

Thank you for helping us defeat the Russian menace

Published by marco on

The article Restaurants Now Requiring Proof Of Ukraine Support (Babylon Bee) shows a sign outside a restaurant that reads,

“Notice: Proof of Ukraine Support Required

“Patrons must show proof of Ukraine support to enter this restaurant. Please have your social media profiles open and a photo ID ready. Thank you for helping us defeat the Russian menace.”


Just be clear—because the world has largely lost its sense of humor and sense of irony—The Babylon Bee is a satirical newspaper.

DuoLingo

Published by marco on

I got this pretty awkwardly phrased inspirational notification from DuoLingo the other day.

 DuoLingo is getting quite forward

DON’T STOP NOW IT’S SO GOOD!

Um, ok.

Translations for “joist” in German

Published by marco on

I use LEO quite a bit, both to learn new words and to check word genders in German. Over the years, I’ve become quite used to German having only a single word where English has several.

For example, “die Schande” in German translates to “obloquy”, “opprobrium”, “infamy”, “scandal”, “dishonor”, “disgrace”, and the most common one, “shame”.

 Translations for schande in English

The other day, though, I found a good example in the other direction. The word “joist” in English translates to “Balken”, “Träger”, “Dachträger”,... [More]

Wordle

Published by marco on

I suppose it should come as no surprise that I’ve been playing this with Kath. As long-time Crossword (even occasionally cryptic crosswords) and Spelling Bee fans, Wordle fits right in. And it takes only a couple of minutes per day.

In Wordle, you have to guess a 5-letter word. All guesses must be real words. The puzzle indicates letters that are in the right position with a green background and letters that are in the solution, but in the wrong position with a yellow background. It’s kind of... [More]

Schlitz Malt Liquor with Wilson Pickett

Published by marco on

With enough time having passed since it aired, I would have believed you had you said that this real commercial was an SNL spoof from the 70s.

Shlitz Malt Liquor with Wilson Pickett (YouTube)

It was great enough before before the bull showed up and Pickett elevated his egg-shaped lounger up out of reach.

Dilbert is getting darker

Published by marco on

I dunno, Dilbert has always been dark, but I thought these three recent cartoons were even more cynical than usual.

 Dilbert: Burrow Into A Team (14.12.2021)

 Dilbert: Guy With No Talents (15.12.2021)

 Dilbert: Lower The Quality (17.12.2021)

I feel like they come at it from opposite angles, but Dilbert and Existential Comics have a lot of overlap in critiquing the existing system.

A recent one about anarchism was great.

 Existential Comics: Anarchy on the Street

What Should Have Happened at the Cryptocurrency Hearings

Published by marco on

I think Austin Bragg and Andrew Heaton (of Reason Magazine) make pretty funny videos.[1] Their latest is about the recent the congressional cryptocurrency hearings. These are a good idea—you can’t just hand your economy over to a world of unregulated scamming without asking a few questions[2]—but some of the people seemed…unprepared, to be charitable.

What Should Have Happened at the Cryptocurrency Hearings by ReasonTV (YouTube)


[1] I will use a footnote as a parenthetical for the nigh-obligatory, “even though I don’t necessarily agree with all of their policy and... [More]

3 years Ago

Libertarian James Bond

Published by marco on

I think this was actually quite well done and is quite funny. “I was literally a different person then.”

Libertarian James Bond
by Reason (YouTube)

 

A spammer’s cry for help from hell

Published by marco on

At Encodo, we recently turned off comments on our web site because we hadn’t gotten anything useful in years. Instead, we’d gotten a ton of spam comments that had gotten past the captcha included with Umbraco.

Several years ago, we switched from earthli WebCore, which has a home-grown captcha with math that seems to stymie the robots and spammers much more effectively. Now we’re kind of stuck with Umbraco and its patchwork CMS.

At any rate, there are comments to delete now, because some are... [More]

Jonathan Pie on Acting Gay

Published by marco on

Jonathan Pie nails it, with nary a superfluous word.

Acting Gay! by Jonathan Pie (YouTube)

Partial transcription of the 4.5-minute video.

“If this is about authenticity and not about wokeness—which I don’t believe for a second, by the way—if it is about authenticity…would Russell T. Davis cast a gay person in a straight role?

“I’m not being contrarian. I’m not. An actor’s job is to imagine being in the shoes of someone who has a different lived experience to their own. Suggesting that an actor can’t authentically pretend... [More]

The backstory about Colonel Sanders no-one wanted to hear

Published by marco on

This is a real thing. That is the Mario Lopez of “Saved by the Bell” fame. This is not even tongue-in-cheek. This seems entirely irony-free.

A Recipe for Seduction | Premieres December 13th | Presented by Kentucky Fried Chicken | Lifetime (YouTube)

Achievements in Word Games

Published by marco on

Queen Bee

Since COVID-19 has put me into 100% home office for a while[1], I’ve been doing the Spelling Bee at lunch with Kath instead of shooting the shit with work colleagues at Encodo.

As the link outlines, the Spelling Bee has an achievement called Queen Bee—where you have to guess every single one of the words that the author thinks are words (and bite back curses at his utterly mysterious omissions)—which we’ve only achieved twice.

 Queen Bee 2020-11-21

 Queen Bee Answers 2020-11-21

We’ve gotten within a word or two several times,... [More]

4 years Ago

NY Times Spelling Bee

Published by marco on

I recently wrote that Kath and I have a one-year streak going in the NYT Crossword Puzzle. While that is still ongoing, we’ve also recently discovered a little gem called Spelling Bee (New York Times). The concept is elegant and simple:

  • You get seven letters arranged in a honeycomb.
  • You have to combine these letters to come up with as many words with four letters or more as you can.
  • The middle letter is required.
  • You can repeat letters as much as you like.
  • Answers can overlap one another. (E.g. “glad” and... [More]