Shaggy Dog Story
A man is looking for a new pet, so he goes to the pet store and asks the owner if he has a dog. The owner shows him a few dogs, but the man isn’t interested. Suddenly the pet store owner has a thought.
“I know just the dog for you,” he says, and he goes to the last kennel in the row. “Isn’t that the shaggiest dog you ever saw?”
“Why, yes, that is the shaggiest dog I ever saw!” says the man. “I should take him to show my wife! I’ll buy him.”
The man buys the dog and takes him home to his wife.
“I bought a dog today,” he says. “Isn’t that the shaggiest dog you ever saw?”
“Why, yes, that is the shaggiest dog I ever saw!” says his wife. “You should take it to show the minister!”
“You’re right,” says the man, and he takes the dog to see the minister.
“I bought a dog today,” he says. “Isn’t that the shaggiest dog you ever saw?”
“Why, yes, that is the shaggiest dog I ever saw!” says the minister. “You should take it to show the mayor!”
“You’re right,” says the man, and he takes the dog to see the mayor.
“I bought a dog today,” he says. “Isn’t that the shaggiest dog you ever saw?”
“Why, yes, that is the shaggiest dog I ever saw!” says the mayor. “You should take it to show the governor-general!”
“You’re right,” says the man, and he takes the dog to see the governor-general.
“I bought a dog today,” he says. “Isn’t that the shaggiest dog you ever saw?”
“Why, yes, that is the shaggiest dog I ever saw!” says the governor-general. “You should take it to show the queen!”
“You’re right,” says the man, and he takes the dog to see the queen.
“I bought a dog today,” he says. “Isn’t that the shaggiest dog you ever saw?”
The queen says, “No.”
The Yak
As a friend to the children commend me the Yak,
You will find it exactly the thing:
It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back,
Or lead it about with a string.
The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet
(A desolate region of snow)
Has for centuries made it a nursery pet,
And surely the Tartar should know!
Then tell your papa where the Yak can be got,
And if he is awfully rich
He will buy you the creature — or else he will not.
(I cannot be positive which.)
– Hilaire Belloc
Extreme Ironing
“Extreme Ironing is an outdoor activity that combines the danger and excitement of an ‘extreme’ sport with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt.”
The sport reportedly started in Phil Shaw’s backyard in Leicester, England, but his promotional tour quickly attracted followers in Australia, Austria, and Germany, and the 2002 world championship drew 80 teams from 10 countries. Following the 2004 Summer Olympics, British rowing champion Sir Steve Redgrave backed high-stakes ironing to become an Olympic sport.
“Ironists” have performed atop Mount Kilimanjaro, 100 meters underwater off the Egyptian coast, during the London marathon, and in a David-Blaine-style box 20 meters above Christmas shoppers in Leicester. And like any noble calling, this one has inspired others, including downhill vacuuming, inner-city clothes drying, and “apocalypse dishwashing.” Helen Keller wrote, “Life is either a great adventure or nothing.”
Let There Be Light
Obscure light-bulb jokes:
Q: How many existentialists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two: One to screw it in and one to observe how the light bulb itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a maudlin cosmos of nothingness.
Q: How many Welsh mothers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: “Don’t worry dearie, I’ll just sit here in the dark, alone.”
Q: How many Marxists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None: The light bulb contains the seeds of its own revolution.
Q: How many Greek Orthodox priests does it take to change a light bulb?
A: What do you mean, “change”!?
Q: How many Spaniards does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Juan.
Q: How many Zen masters does it take to change a light bulb?
A: A tree in a golden forest.
Q: How many postmodernists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: In a Derridaist reading, wherein light is a social construct, there is a dialectic between Darkness as a reality and reality as a mode.
Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Fish.
R.I.P.
Epitaphs:
Joseph Palmer
Persecuted for
Wearing a Beard.
– Leominster, Mass., 1873
HE CALLED
BILL SMITH
A LIAR.
– Cripple Creek, Colo., c. 1875
DOROTHY CECIL
Unmarried as yet
– Wimbledon, England, c. 1900
Anna Wallace
The children of Israel wanted bread,
And the Lord he sent them manna,
Old Clerk Wallace wanted a wife,
And the Devil he sent him Anna.
– Ribbesford, England, c. 1770
Here lies my wife,
Here lies she,
Hallelujah!
Hallelujee!
– Ulverston, England, c. 1750
Jared Bates
Sacred to the Memory of Mr.
Jared Bates who Died Aug. the 6th
1800. His Widow aged 24 who mourns
as one who can be comforted lives
at 7 Elm Street this village
and possesses every qualification
for a good wife.
– Lincoln, Maine, 1800
“A Chicken Is a Noble Beast”
William Topaz McGonagall is renowned as the worst poet in the English language. Sample:
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
He didn’t even get the facts right here — 75 died.
In the opening to his Poetic Gems, McGonagall wrote, “The most startling incident in my life was the time I discovered myself to be a poet.” Millions agreed. Stephen Pile, in The Book of Heroic Failures, calls him “so giftedly bad he backed unwittingly into genius”; his temperance speeches were wildly popular with “poet-baiters” in Dundee, who pelted him with eggs and vegetables, and he was allowed to play Macbeth only if he paid in advance.
When Tennyson died, McGonagall visited Balmoral to ask if he might become poet laureate. He was told the queen was not at home.
Churchill Anecdote #1
When Winston Churchill won a seat in Parliament at age 26, he grew a mustache to make himself look older.
“Winston,” said a female opponent, “I approve of neither your politics nor your mustache.”
“Madam,” he replied, “you are not likely to come in contact with either.”
Thank You Very Much
A Buddhist walks up to a hot dog vendor and says, “Make me one with everything.”
Leggo My Soul-Corroding Ennui
If you work in a spirit-crushing cubicle farm and can’t remember the innocent joys of childhood, here’s a compromise: Get a cube farm playset, including office furniture, a meaningless job title generator (“Domestic Engineering Associate”), and downloadable decorations.
If that’s not highbrow enough for you, theory.org has Lego versions of social theorists Judith Butler, Anthony Giddens, Angela McRobbie, and Michel Foucault. Post-structuralism sold separately.
Pushbutton Counseling
The Dr. Phil Random Quote Generator has a simple-minded Texas platitude for every occasion:
- “You don’t need stain-resistant pants to join the circus.”
- “You don’t need a rope to learn about proper dental hygiene.”
- “You don’t need help to throw up in Tijuana.”
Truest observation: “You don’t need tap dancing lessons to hate my guts.”
Fractious
The Your Mom! Joke Directory now has a section for math geeks:
Your mom is so stupid she tried to use substitution to find the definite integral of f(x)=x2 over the interval 0
You might want to bring a baseball bat, just in case.
Digibless
At DigiBless “your file, website, or message is blessed using our consecrated server and algorithm, to protect them from evil and touch them with the power and glory of Jesus Christ.”
Rimshot
A guy walks into a store and says, “Excuse me, I’d like to buy a guitar pick and some strings.”
The clerk looks at him uncomprehendingly. “Pardon?”
“I’d like a guitar pick, please, and some strings.”
The clerk thinks for a moment and says, “You’re a drummer, aren’t you?”
“Yeah! How did you know?”
“This is a travel agency.”
Churchill Anecdote #7
In 1931, George Bernard Shaw wired Winston Churchill: “Am reserving two tickets for you on opening night of my new play. Come bring a friend — if you have one.”
Churchill wired back: “Impossible for me to attend first performance. Would like to attend second night — if there is one.”
Fanciful Units of Measure
Little-used measurements:
- 1.2096 seconds ≅ 1 microfortnight
- π seconds ≅ 1 nanocentury
- 3.085 centimeters ≅ 1 attoparsec
- 2 mm square ≅ 1 nanoacre
- 2.263348517438173216473 millimeters ≅ 1 potrzebie (the thickness of MAD magazine issue 23)
- 20 terabytes ≅ 1 Library of Congress
After Jurassic Park came out, some paleontologists started measuring Tyrannosaurus rex food consumption in lawyers. If the average attorney weighs 150 pounds, they figure, a warm-blooded T. rex would eat 292 lawyers a year. A cold-blooded one would eat 73. I guess that means they were cold-blooded; there’s certainly no shortage of lawyers today.
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Who says atheists don’t have a sense of humor? The Invisible Pink Unicorn (“blessed be her holy hooves”) was “revealed to” the Usenet newsgroup alt.atheism in 1990.
Since then, she’s acquired all the trappings of a real deity: gospels (“according to St. Sascha”), revelations (to “St. Bryce the Long-Winded”), relics (the Holy Sock of Bob), scripture, and historic artworks.
Because she’s invisible, it’s impossible to prove she does not exist. “The Invisible Pink Unicorn is a being of great spiritual power,” say the faithful. “We know this because she is capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that she is pink; we logically know that she is invisible because we can’t see her.”
Followers debate her attributes, but it’s generally agreed that she prefers pineapple and ham pizza to pepperoni and mushroom, which is said to be eaten only by followers of the Purple Oyster of Doom. The IPU also “raptures” socks from laundry as a sign of favor.
Is this harmless fun or awful blasphemy? It’s getting hard to care. As the French writer Edmond de Goncourt wrote, “If there is a God, atheism must seem to him as less of an insult than religion.”
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The This Page Intentionally Left Blank Project “offers Internet wanderers a place of quietness and simplicity on the overcrowded World Wide Web.”
Enlightenment
How many Unitarian Universalists does it take to change a light bulb?
“We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey you have found that a light bulb works for you, that is fine. You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your personal relationship with your light bulb (or light source, or non-dark resource) and present it next month at our annual light bulb Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, three-way, long-life, and tinted — all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.”
This Just In
Determined Luddites can now send telegrams by e-mail.
I suppose this would be a good way to send a ransom note these days — suitably creepy, and no fingerprints.
