Posts matching tags 'amusing'
2008/4/19
In the 1990s, Two Russian-born, US-based conceptual artists calling themselves Komar and Melamid created what they intend to be the world's most unlikeable song. The 22-minute opus is assembled from a palette of elements determined (through a poll) to be the least desirable aspects of songs, and includes things like an operatic soprano rapping about cowboys over a tuba-backed bassline and bagpipe breaks, a children's choir singing inane holiday ditties and advertising Wal-Mart, and someone shouts political slogans over elevator music. It is, in its own way, awesome:
The most unwanted music is over 25 minutes long, veers wildly between loud and quiet sections, between fast and slow tempos, and features timbres of extremely high and low pitch, with each dichotomy presented in abrupt transition. The most unwanted orchestra was determined to be large, and features the accordion and bagpipe (which tie at 13% as the most unwanted instrument), banjo, flute, tuba, harp, organ, synthesizer (the only instrument that appears in both the most wanted and most unwanted ensembles). An operatic soprano raps and sings atonal music, advertising jingles, political slogans, and "elevator" music, and a children's choir sings jingles and holiday songs. The most unwanted subjects for lyrics are cowboys and holidays, and the most unwanted listening circumstances are involuntary exposure to commercials and elevator music. Therefore, it can be shown that if there is no covariance—someone who dislikes bagpipes is as likely to hate elevator music as someone who despises the organ, for example—fewer than 200 individuals of the world's total population would enjoy this piece.Komar and Melamid also produced what their research pointed to as America's most wanted song; it's somewhat less interesting, being a schmaltzy assemblage of Kenny G-esque sax, FM electric piano, R&B female vocals and husky male vocals, not to mention the obligatory guitar solo and not one but two truck driver's gear changes. It is, quite literally, a statistical average of early-1990s commercial radio music; if you're morbidly curious, there's a MP3 here. They also did a survey of what the American public liked to see most in paintings, and produced the resulting work of art, an autumnal landscape with wild animals, a family enjoying the outdoors—and, standing in the middle of it, George Washington.
From the artists' own website:
In an age where opinion polls and market research invade almost every aspect of our "democratic/consumer" society (with the notable exception of art), Komar and Melamid's project poses relevant questions that an art-interested public, and society in general often fail to ask: What would art look like if it were to please the greatest number of people? Or conversely: What kind of culture is produced by a society that lives and governs itself by opinion polls?
(via Boing Boing) ¶ [1 comment]
2007/11/1
Seen in a Times piece on amusing signs around the world, this sign is in Pune, India:
They do seem to have an appreciation of the full breadth of the English language in Pune.
2007/10/1
McDonald's: The Videogame. A simulation of running a fast-food corporation that's like Sim City, had it been written by anti-globalisation activists. Bulldoze rainforests and villages, brainwash children and corrupt officials or go bankrupt. Play it before the lawyers kill it.
(via Boing Boing) ¶ [no comments]
2007/9/22
The BBC News site has some user-contributed photographs of odd signs:
(via BBC News) ¶ [no comments]
2006/10/25
Worth1000 has posted the results of an amusing photoshopping contest: things sliced and revealed to be made of unlikely materials:
(via Boing Boing) ¶ [no comments]
2006/8/7
The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles has revoked an elderly woman's custom license plates because they had become obscene. Pat Niple had had the number plates reading "NWTF" (standing for "Northwood Tree Farm", a business she had owned) for more than a decade, and had had no problems with them—until this year, when they fell foul of technologically-mediated language change:
"Apparently, the young people use it on the computer," she said.
Niple went to a BMV office to get some answers. A clerk had to whisper what the acronym means to some people.
"Now what the -- and the last word begins with an f," Niple said. "I said, 'You got to be kidding me.'"
(via TechDirt) ¶ [no comments]
2006/8/1
And the coolest politician's name of the day belongs to Willis D. Knuckles, Liberia's new Presidential Affairs Minister.
2006/7/19
Wal-Mart, the US retail behemoth that manages to be both socially atomising and socially conservative, is now attempting to launch its own teen networking site, sort of like MySpace, only with its own unique values. Hilarity ensues:
The opening page shows video of four teens -- a bubbly fashionista, a Texas football player, a quirky skateboarder and an aspiring R&B singer from New York -- who are clearly actors reading a script, although the videos are positioned to appear authentic. Within, there are pages such as "Beth's Backyard Club," where you find a picture of her in a strapless prom dress above the approved quote: "I'll school my way by looking hot in my Wal-Mart clothes to school to catch a cute boy's eye. ..."
No doubt leery of all the problems with MySpace.com, Wal-Mart's site disqualifies any video with "materials that are profane, disruptive, unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, vulgar, obscene, hateful, or racially or ethnically-motivated, or otherwise objectionable." That's why "pending approval" notes dominate pages already created and content is limited to a headline, a fashion quiz and a favorite song. Wal-Mart also plans to e-mail the parents of every registered teen, giving them the discretion to pull a submission.
(via /.) ¶ [no comments]
2006/7/17
Attention LiveJournal/MySpace kids: not getting enough attention? You can always try faking your death online, and watching the gushing tributes flow in:
(via 
hazyjayne) ¶ [no comments]
2006/7/2
A list of the 50 worst video game names of all time. All of these are names of actual games. This includes the likes of Princess Tomato in Salad Kingdom (NES, 1990), Tongue of the Fatman (PC, 1989), Sticky Balls (Gizmondo, 2005), Nuts & Milk (NES, 1984) and the inexplicably titled Irritating Stick (PlayStation, 1999).
(via /.) ¶ [no comments]
2006/5/26
Philosophers have solved one of the great conundra, the question of which came first: the chicken or the egg. The answer: the egg came first, even if you implicitly exclude non-chicken eggs:
Genetic material does not change during an animal's life. Therefore, the first bird that evolved into what we would call a chicken, probably in prehistoric times, must first have existed as an embryo inside an egg.
Professor John Brookfield, a specialist in evolutionary genetics at the University of Nottingham, who was put to work on the dilemma, said that the pecking order was perfectly clear: the living organism inside the eggshell would have the same DNA as the chicken that it would become.Of course, the conclusion is not entirely indisputable, especially in the non-reality-based community:
Creationists, for example, will argue that if God created Adam and Eve, he probably had a spare five minutes to knock up a chicken as well.
2006/5/25
MC Dicko could be the next Icy Hot Stuntaz. He's an 8-year-old gangsta rapper from Chester (that's in the north of England), who busts rhymes (in a very loose sense of the word) about how "bitches and ho's" have been fucking him over (which, I imagine, is wigga-speak for "girls have cooties" or something), between recounting the occasional ghetto gunfight (which may have happened in his imagination, or be a true story from the X-Box ghetto) and thugged-up versions of primary-school arguments. Sample lyric: "Shoot the fuckin' wannabe wiggas bitch".
Listen to the first two songs. Then, when you've picked yourself up from the floor and stopped laughing, listen to the third track, "Biscuits Skit", a rap about eating biscuits, and behold a world of improvement (for one, he actually bothers to rhyme rather than just rant angrily about fantasy battles, and does a very competent job). I imagine that when he drops the derivative gangstaisms and develops his own voice, he could go a long way.
(via Bowlie) ¶ [1 comment]
2006/5/10
Titles of Harry Potter fanfics we'd rather not read:
Harry Potter and the New Love Interest Who Happens to Have the Same Name as the 15-Year-Old Girl Writing this Fanfic
Harry Potter and the Uncomfortable Oversexualization of Minors
Harry Potter and the Camping Weekend With Ron That Will Never Be Spoken Of Again
Harry Potter and the Prisoner Detainees of Azerbaijan
(via Boing Boing) ¶ [no comments]
An impressively scholarly classical Latin translation of Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby, complete with literal English translations and copious notes:
Ad ultimum flecto microphonem velut vandal
(I bend the microphone to the furthest point like a Germanic tribesman)
Scaen(am) illumin(o) et inept(um) incero quasi candelam (I brighten the stage and cover an inept man in wax as if [he were] a candle)
(via substitute) ¶ [no comments]
2006/2/1
It seems that someone somewhere decided that "Revoltec" would be a good name for a brand of computer peripherals:
Granted, they probably got the name from something like "Revolutionary Technology"; perhaps they neglected to run it past a native English speaker before going with it?
And then there's a brand of fizzy drink with a rather Jarryesque name:
2006/1/6
Excerpts from stories rejected by Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, showing a broad range of deficiencies, from wildly implausible characterisations to incoherent word-salads of technobabble, bizarre adjectives and half-digested clichés:
Freddy was in the habit of staring at Beverly's legs as they peaked from her Susie Wong slit dresses. She had a dozen of them.
"Stand slow!" a voice rang out with hollow ubiquity.
The universe is a vast region of deep mystery steeped in antiquity.
Onion oil! I couldn't imagine anyting worse than a daily bath in onion oil.
"Corporeal, we've got to do our best to keep this from the public."
"I know sir, but its already too late."
What do you mean, the general inquired?
"While you were gone I let a curious private in on the secret."
"We've got to stop him."
By now he's long gone. Sorry sir."
"Oh no."
(via raven) ¶ [1 comment]
2006/1/3
Man falls out of his wheelchair; his cat dials the emergency services, possibly saving his life.
Rosheisen got the cat three years ago to help lower his blood pressure. He tried to train him to call 911, unsure if the training ever stuck.Mind you, it sounds slightly less impressive when one reads that the phone in question had a button for speed-dialling 911. And there I had an image of a cat fastidiously punching in three digits with its paws.
(via bOING bOING) ¶ [no comments]
2005/12/26
The Liberal Democrats have volunteered to be the butt of humourless-environmentalist jokes by issuing a Christmas statement saying that Santa Claus should deliver his presents by bus because reindeer are too polluting.
According to the Lib Dems, nine reindeer would emit methane with a global-warming impact equivalent to 40,667 tonnes of carbon dioxide as they covered the 122 million miles needed to deliver to every house in the world.
This makes his sleigh ride almost as environmentally unfriendly as an aircraft, which would produce 41,480 tonnes of CO2 on the Christmas Eve trip.Of course, the question arises of whether a bus covering those distances at the speed required to deliver all the presents would be any less polluting. Unless they mean that Mr. Claus uses existing bus services and other public transport to do his deliveries, in which case they would most probably take many years to complete, and leave many non-urban children completely without presents.
2005/12/18
The other day, I was in this fancy Italian/French restaurant (where I had Escargot, but that's another story) and so they had fancy English under the usual Chinese names. They're pretty accurate, until I read about desserts. Under the Chinese for cheesecake, was the English word, "Wikipedia".
2005/12/6
On tonight's BBC News, the music in the background at the Tory leadership election sounded an awful lot like the Velvet Underground's "Heroin".
2005/10/3
The Washington Post answers a number of "What If?" questions:
What if Freud had been a woman?
Sex would not be considered the primary force that drives human behavior. Instead, it would be Fear of Having a Large Behind. All men would be haunted by a condition known as "penis shame." The mind would not be divided into the Id, the Ego and the Superego but the Shoe-Desire Region, the Weeping Center, and the If-You-Don't-Know-What-You-Did-Wrong-I'm-Not-Going-to-Tell-You Lobe. Also, sometimes a dried apricot is just a dried apricot.
What if wishes were horses?
Then beggars would ride. But so would everyone else. We would each have, like, 7,000 horses. They would completely paralyze civilization, consuming all vegetable matter in a week or less. Continents would rise several feet, just from accumulated poo. And anytime anyone wished for no more horses, another horse would appear. The world would end in a terrifying, thundering apocalypse of horses, is what would happen.
What if, as originally predicted, heavier-than-air flight had actually been impossible?
Rocket-propelled blimps. Travel would take a little longer, but the 9/11 plot would have failed, comically.
(via ALDaily) ¶ [no comments]
2005/9/12
An image that has been floating around recently:
Whether it was an accidental juxtaposition or whether someone in Murdoch's UK operations dissents from the party line, I do not know.
(via Suw) ¶ [no comments]
2005/8/30
A lengthy compedium of essentialist explanations of various languages:
English is essentially bad Dutch with outrageously pronounced French and Latin vocabulary. --Eugene Holman
Australian English is essentially Cockney without the refinement. -- Öjevind Lâng
Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are actually the same language. It's just that the Norwegians can't spell it, and the Danes can't pronounce it. --Chlewey
Yiddish is essentially the Ebonics of German. --submanifold
Dutch is essentially English spoken whilst stoned, which pretty much explains all the double vowels --Keith Gaughan
French is essentially a language that elides everything that doesn't get out of the way fast enough, and nasalises everything else. --Peter Bleackley
Brazilian is essentially a conlang created by people who wanted to have sex all the time, but still be able to talk about everyday things. --alleszermalmer
Romanian is essentially a Romance language trying really hard to blend in with the Slavic languages around it. --Jesse S. Bangs
Romanian is essentially French pronounced as written. --Christian Thalmann
German and Polish are essentially the same, only there are too many "ß"s in Leftoderian writing, and too many "z"s in Rightoderian. --Andreas Johansson
Breton is essentially Welsh with all the consonants changed to "z". --Thomas Leigh
Welsh is essentially the only language that can have four consecutive L's. --Danny Weir
Star Trek is essentially a religion for secular humanists, and Klingon is its Latin. --Jeffrey Henning
(via bOING bOING) ¶ [3 comments]
2005/8/24
(The other) 10 Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pics Of All Time. Pure comedy gold; may not be worksafe, though:
And the original 10 are here.
(via rhodri) ¶ [1 comment]
2005/8/16
The Original Fiction Mary Sue Litmus Test, a checklist to tell you whether the main character in your stories is in danger of being a Mary Sue:
+ Does the character have a name you really, really like? [1 point]
+ Is it Raven? [3 points]
+ Is it a variation of Raven? [1 point]
+ Does the character have an unusual eye color, or otherwise exceptional eyes? [3 points]
+ And are these eyes a color that does not occur in nature? [1 point]
+ Does the character have eyes that somehow reflect hidden depths or experience or sorrow? [4 points]
+ Is the character ever described as "thin enough to be anorexic," where this is intended as a compliment? [1 point]
+ Does the character keep a notebook of poetry? [1 point]
+ Is the poetry "good enough to be published"? [3 points]
+ Does a love interest find this poetry book and begin to understand the character? [5 points]
+ Does the poetry contain any of the following words: crimson, soul, darkness, love, vampire, glass, moonlight, serpent, rose, dance, winter, flame, cold, goddess, blood, angel, star, forever? [1 point per word]
+ Does the character use Japanese words in conversation, although she/he does not live in Japan? [2 points]
+ Do you take any negative feedback about the character as a personal affront? [4 points]
(via lokicarbis) ¶ [no comments]
2005/8/10
A look at English subtitles on a Chinese pirate version of Revenge of the Sith. Curiously enough, the subtitles seem to have been translated from the Chinese translation by someone with All-Your-Base-level English-language proficiency, who somehow didn't think of checking them against the spoken dialogue. Which is how we end up with "Revenge of the Sith" becoming "Backstroke of the West", a fighter pilot saying "He is in my behind", characters using the word "fuck" randomly, and, best of all, "Jedi Council" translating as "Presbyterian Church".
(via dropsafe) ¶ [3 comments]
2005/7/12
Impaled Northern Moonforest is an Acoustic Black Metal act, and has songs for downloading, with titles like "Lustfully Worshipping The Inverted Moongoat While Skiing Down The Inverted Necromountain Of Necrodeathmortum" and "Entranced By The Northern Impaled Necrowizard's Blasphemous Incantation Amidst The Agonizing Abomination Of THe Lusting Necrocorpse". They sound exactly as you imagine them to.
(via uon) ¶ [5 comments]
2005/6/16
An image recently found online:
(Posted on the unpopart LiveJournal community, which appears to be a den of Satanists, Nazi-fetishists, serial-killer fans, misanthropes and aesthetic extremists connected with the likes of Adam Parfrey, Boyd Rice and Jim Goad.)
I wonder whether the resemblance between Michael Jackson and Ronald McDonald is pure coincidence or intentional. Ronald McDonald predates Michael Jackson's adult career by more than a decade. Could McDonalds have finetuned their mascot's appearance to be more Jacksonlike during the 1980s (when Jackson was hot property, and was moving lots of units for Pepsi)? (The alternative theory would be that Jackson (consciously or otherwise) modelled his public image on the World-Famous Magical Clown, perhaps to better appeal to children.) Also, could McDonalds' recently announced makeover of their mascot also be an attempt to shed similarities to Michael Jackson (which could be more of a liability than an asset these days)?
(via substitute) ¶ [4 comments]
2005/4/26
Veteran underground comic author Howard Cruse reminiscent about the old childhood pastime of raising nancies:
And there are more comics on his site, including one which asks the question of "Why Are We Losing The War On Art?".
(via jwz) ¶ [no comments]
2005/4/15
Edits of NWA's Straight Outta Compton and Fuck Tha Police with everything but the obscenities removed. Comedy gold.
(via substitute) ¶ [no comments]