Rimshot

A man goes to an exotic tropical island for a vacation.

As his boat nears the island, he notices the constant sound of drumming. As he gets off the boat, he asks one of the natives how long it will go on.

The native looks about nervously and says, “Very bad when the drumming stops.”

At the end of the day, the drumming is still going, and it’s starting to get on the man’s nerves. So he asks another native when the drumming will stop.

The native looks as if he’s just been reminded of something very unpleasant. “Very bad when the drumming stops,” he says, and hurries off.

After a couple of days with little sleep, the traveler is finally fed up. He grabs the nearest native, slams him up against a tree, and shouts, “What happens when the drumming stops?!!”

The native says, “Bass solo.”

| Humor

“Some Geese”

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schopenhauer.jpg

Every child who has the use
Of his senses knows a goose.
See them underneath the tree
Gather round the goose-girl’s knee,
While she reads them by the hour
From the works of Schopenhauer.
How patiently the geese attend!
But do they really comprehend
What Schopenhauer’s driving at?
Oh, not at all; but what of that?
Neither do I; neither does she;
And, for that matter, nor does he.

— Oliver Herford

| Humor · Poems

Gelett Burgess

I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one.

That’s “Purple Cow,” written in 1895 by Berkeley drafting instructor Gelett Burgess. It grew so popular that it began to haunt him; eventually he wrote “Confession: And a Portrait Too, Upon a Background That I Rue”:

Ah yes, I wrote the Purple Cow,
I’m sorry now I wrote it.
But I can tell you anyhow,
I’ll kill you if you quote it.

| Humor · Poems

Nimrod, Minnesota

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:BoringORSign_fxwb.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Unfortunate place names:

  • Accident, Maryland
  • Big Ugly Wilderness Area, West Virginia
  • Difficult, Tennessee
  • Effort, Pennsylvania
  • Foulness, Essex, England
  • Hell For Certain, Kentucky
  • Hole in the Ground, Oregon
  • Nothing, Arizona
  • Pity Me, County Durham, England
  • Toadsuck, Texas

Niemyje-Zabki, Poland, means “He is not cleaning his teeth.”

| Humor · Trivia

Luddite by Degrees

Douglas Adams’ “rules that describe our reactions to technologies”:

  1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
  2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
  3. Anything invented after you’re 35 is against the natural order of things.
| Humor · Technology

Rimshot

After years of work, some programmers unveil a new supercomputer. They say it knows everything.

A skeptical man asks the computer, “Where is my father?”

The computer thinks, then says, “Your father is fishing in Michigan.”

The man laughs. “See? I knew this was nonsense. My father has been dead for 20 years.”

“No,” the computer says. “Your mother’s husband has been dead for 20 years. Your father just landed a three-pound trout.”

| Humor