Category: humor

Posted on

Interesting tidbits from Wikileaks

The Wikileaks controversy has been pretty horrifying to watch play out, at least with regard to various organizations and companies such as PayPal, Amazon, Mastercard, and EveryDNS denying or revoking their access to services.

In case you were wondering, Wikileaks is actually a good thing. Here is a site that lists various reasons why. Of course, by even mentioning Wikileaks, one might jeopardize their chances of ever working for the U.S. State Department.

Interested in some of the more juicy or amusing tidbits from Wikileaks? Check out Cablegate Roulette!

FROM: PARIS, FRANCE
TO: STATE DEPARTMENT
DATE: SEPTEMBER 06, 2006
CLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIAL
SEE FULL CABLE

An Unforgettable Scene

¶6. (C) As the Ambassador was about to leave, Sarkozy went to the line of floor-to-ceiling windows that open from the interior minister’s office to the gardens of the interior ministry, and called over his nine-year old son, Louis, who was playing on the lawn (Sarkozy lives with his family in apartments above his office). Sarkozy was clearly happy — and proud — to be in the company of his young son and seemed tickled to be able to introduce him to “the Ambassador of the United States.” Louis appeared at the threshold with a small dog at his feet and a large rabbit in his arms. To shake hands with the Ambassador, Louis put down the rabbit — and the dog started chasing the rabbit through Sarkozy’s office, which led to the unforgettable sight of Sarkozy, bent over, chasing the dog through the ante-room to his office as the dog chased the rabbit, and Louis filled the room with gleeful laughter.

(Emphasis mine)

Posted on

Word of the Day game

My sister and I have been playing a little game that involves texting each other a sentence based on Dictionary.com’s word of the day.

It’s especially fun when we start trash talking each other using past words of the day.

Posted on

How to quit…

How to quit Civilization, that is. Probably my favorite game of all time, and the fifth iteration is coming this September.

Here is a helpful guide on how one can quit their addition to Civ.

civ_addiction.jpg

[Via Ryan]

Posted on

If only my tardiness were equally productive

(Yes, at this point I’m just plundering my Google Reader shared items feed… but I’ve been sick!)

If only my habitual tardiness could produce something equally as great.

One day in 1939, Berkeley doctoral candidate George Dantzig arrived late for a statistics class taught by Jerzy Neyman. He copied down the two problems on the blackboard and turned them in a few days later, apologizing for the delay — he’d found them unusually difficult. Distracted, Neyman told him to leave his homework on the desk.

On a Sunday morning six weeks later, Neyman banged on Dantzig’s door. The problems that Dantzig had assumed were homework were actually unproved statistical theorems that Neyman had been discussing with the class — and Dantzig had proved both of them. Both were eventually published, with Dantzig as coauthor.

“When I began to worry about a thesis topic,” he recalled later, “Neyman just shrugged and told me to wrap the two problems in a binder and he would accept them as my thesis.”

[Via]

Posted on

Dislike for Corona saves geologist from death.

I’m sure Corona’s marketing department is thrilled about this.

[H]e returned to his residence in Kabul to find it had been burgled. The intruder took money from a drawer and left behind a bottle of Corona beer. The Corona bottle sat on his counter for the next two weeks Yeager says, because Corona is one of his least favorite beers. He finally opened it during a going away party as the other drinks began to run low.

“I pulled it out and when I popped it there was no fizz and the cap was loose,” says Yeager. “Because this one didn’t have fizz you wonder if it went rancid or not, and I just kind of sniffed it and I went ‘Oh, that doesn’t smell like beer.’ “

Yeager, a geochemist familiar with acids, realized it smelled like sulfuric acid – otherwise known as battery acid. He called a friend over who had the same reaction to the smell. Yeager poured the “beer” into the toilet and it foamed and fizzed, leaving “no question” in his mind it was sulfuric acid.

Posted on

Spotting a Republican

Hah (emphasis mine).

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

“She rolled her eyes and said, “You must be an Obama Democrat.”

“I am,” replied the man. “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help to me.”

The man smiled and responded, “You must be a Republican.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist. “How did you know?”

“Well,” said the man, “you don’t know where you are or where you are going. You’ve risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You’re in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it’s my fault.”

[Via Crooks and Liars via Truthdig]

 

Posted on

An amusing MMS exchange

My parents have really enjoyed their iPhones since they picked them up last year. In fact, they’ve even taken to sending both SMS and MMS messages to both my sister and I. It often results in some amusing exchanges.

Recently, my sister made a blueberry pie and sent an image of the results to both our Mom and myself.

After receiving this picture, my Mom quickly sent back the following as a reply.

Posted on

Nike’s 2010 World Cup commercial

The World Cup is almost upon us and Nike released a brilliant soccer commercial that debuted during yesterday’s UEFA Champions League Final. It’s called “Write the Future”, and features various players from around the world, writing their own destiny depending on what happens in the World Cup. It’s an epic and often hilarious commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLG6jh23yE

My personal favorite Nike soccer commercial is from Euro 2008, called “Take it to the Next Level”, which shows a soccer player’s career evolve in first person view. (See previously)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwlpTgbQTE

Lastly, this soccer commercial from Euro 2004, pokes fun at the Italian national team’s propensity for “diving“. Via Wikipedia:

Diving in the context of association football is an attempt by a player to gain an unfair advantage by diving to the ground and possibly feigning an injury, to appear as if a foul has been committed. Dives are often used to exaggerate the amount of contact present in a challenge.

Posted on

Cycling trends

Hah! Andrew Martin jokes about today’s “silly bikes.”

However, the latest trend is for the minimalist courier bike, which supplements the disadvantages of the road bike (no mudguards, bags, lights) with the bonus disadvantage of having only one brake and no gears at all. It’s more difficult to ride one of these up a moderate incline than it is a mountain bike, yet that’s the point: they show the rider is super-fit, which is why they particularly appeal to men worried about turning 30, who are not super-fit but want female passers-by to think they are.

Posted on

I get the strangest email.

There is a group of people who have me mixed up for someone else and keep sending me email. I’ve replied and emailed them on numerous occasions that I am the incorrect person, yet I still receive weird and even awkward emails.

shower_email.png

—

Err… what? Here’s another gem. Names blocked out.

email_1.jpg

—

Yikes! I feel bad for the poor little dude, whoever he is. That said: Reply to all -> “Hi, I think you have the wrong person.”

A few weeks later, another email.

crazy_emails.jpg

—

Ahhh!