Category: Humor

• Jews-With-Trees

  A fun story of one couple embracing the secular side of Christmas…

  So as I browsed past velvet monogrammed stockings and quilted tree skirts and pine wreaths and silver-plated picture frames that doubled as stocking holders (genius!), I said to myself, as much as to my husband: “This is why I sometimes wish I celebrated Christmas. Everything looks so cozy and inviting.” And much to my surprise, he said, “We can celebrate Christmas if you want.” And like a 12-year-old, I said, “We can?” And he said, “Sure.”

  12/25/2006

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• Curing the pattern disease

  Do you walk down the street and notice patterns all around you? If so, you might suffer from apophenia — a serious malady that goes undiagnosed for years in most people.

  Talk to your doctor to see if Metavor is right for you.

  Satire courtesy of Chris Baum.

  5/31/2006

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• Parodies of office life

  I tried watching The Office but not only didn’t find it funny, it was a little painful. I mean, office life, particularly in big companies, is actually like that, why go home and watch more of it?

  On the other hand, I was happy to find Netflix carries The Newsroom, a parady that understands you need to go to lengths of realistic absurdity to be funny. This series, from the CBC, made an unfortunately short trip through public television a few years back, but is one of my personal favorites.

  9/18/2004

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• Mr. Tree

  HerIM: …the second thing is your IA findings focus on the intranet,

  
  

  which is a good suggestion…but what do you think about the Internet?

  
  

  MeIM: oh, that

  
  

  MeIM: that Internet thing

  
  

  MeIM: i’ll do more there

  
  

  HerIM: that would be cool. you can use 2 pages if you need to

  
  

  MeIM: but that would hurt Mr. Tree

  
  

  HerIM: what is mr tree?

  
  

  MeIM: Mrs. Tree’s husband

  
  

  MeIM: shattering their family

  
  

  HerIM: i’m going to ignore you now

  
  

  MeIM: fatherless kids

  
  

  HerIM: when can you send me your updates?

  
  

  MeIM: oh, the horror

  
  

  MeIM: in 5 minutes

  
  

  HerIM: word

  9/27/2002

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• Mark Twain on the German Language

  I’m currently experiencing this pain, a sort of sadomasachism…

  There are ten parts of speech, and they are all troublesome. An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of speech — not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary — six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam — that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each inclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses which reinclose three or four of the minor parentheses, making pens within pens: finally, all the parentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it — after which comes the VERB, and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking about…You observe how far that verb is from the reader’s base of operations; well, in a German newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page; and I have heard that sometimes after stringing along the exciting preliminaries and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurry and have to go to press without getting to the verb at all. Of course, then, the reader is left in a very exhausted and ignorant state…

  
  

  5/30/2002

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• Fear in Advertising

  

  5/30/2002

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• Get Your Voltron On

  

  4/21/2002

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