Canned Platypus

Cindy: If books disappear, what are people going to do when they need a heavy flat object to press leaves or something?

me: Use last year’s computer.

Apparently there’s a big debate about UTIs in Snow Leopard. No, not that kind of UTI, and not that kind of snow leopard. It just goes to show what an alternate universe we geeks live in sometimes. That’s why trying to Google for information about malus domestica, or transparent wall openings, will often lead you to something else entirely.

From what is actually a very interesting paper:

To simplify our presentation, we assume that read and
write operations always refer to entire chunks. We also
assume that the size of a file grows monotonously

Hey, somebody might find that new data interesting!

Thanks to Isis for bringing these very talented folks to my attention. (Warning: lots of not-so-family-friendly language.) I didn’t particularly care for the song she linked to, but – as somebody who has enjoyed Uncle Bonsai and similar acts for years – it was enough to check out a few others. Sex With Ducks is a brilliant satire of anti-gay-marriage slippery-slope arguments, dedicated to Pat Robertson. So far, though, my favorite is Self Esteem.

My self-esteem’s not low enough to date you.
It’s close, but not quite there.

Ouch.

Recently I found two egregious examples of homophones appearing in serious documents. The one in a spec used “undo” where “undue” was meant; I don’t remember the other one. As I was looking for something to explain the difference between homonyms, homophones, and so on, I found a funny story based on examples.

It felt like I had a pistil pointed at my aye browse. No, it felt like he was pointing a canon at me. Even if I ducked quickly, I doubted the missal would have mist.
…
The whether was good, good enough for a pyknic, so I putt on my shoo and went outside for some air. A large mousse walked by, causing a minor toxin and forcing a frightened creek from my friend.

Of course, no post about this kind of thing would be complete without a link to Ladle Rat Rotten Hut…

WANTS PAWN TERM DARE WORSTED LADLE GULL HOE LIFT wetter murder inner ladle cordage honor itch offer lodge, dock, florist. Disk ladle gull orphan worry Putty ladle rat cluck wetter ladle rat hut, an fur disk raisin pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.

…or to Staying Positive.

I awoke rested and comfortable this morning, having suffered from somnia these past few weeks. Dreams of requited love still in my head, wishing they didn’t stretch to finity. I spent an ordinate amount of time in bed before getting on with the day. Looking in the mirror I noticed I was sheveled and ready to get started.

This is an idea I had a while ago, after reading some fluff piece about how Twitter is destroying our brains yadda yadda yadda. Here are some samples of Lord of the Rings, in 140 characters at a time, with some extra pop-culture attitude thrown in.

Bad Hotels (yes, I checked the chronology):

Frodo: Prancing Pony in Bree gets zero stars from me.
Gandalf: @Frodo You should see the place I got stuck at a couple of weeks ago.

Breakup of the Fellowship.

Frodo: Later doodz.
Aragorn: @Frodo Wait!
Samwise is now following Frodo.
Gollum is now following Frodo.
Boromir: Ow.
Pippin: Mmmf.
Orcs: LOL.

Feel free to add your own. I’m sure somebody else can do better, and other books are fair game too.

Part One: at Santino’s, a quite good Italian restaurant in Winchendon, Cindy commented on how blue Amy’s eyes look. That being the only physical feature she seems to share with me, the comment led to a comparison of Amy’s eye color with mine. Then we asked Amy what color Cindy’s eyes are. It’s kind of a trick question, since Cindy’s eyes are a hard-to-describe kind of blue/green/brown, but Amy was up to the task. She immediately replied that Cindy’s eyes are “basil” which you have to sound out to realize is a cross between blue and hazel. Perfect.

Part Two:

Amy (quoting from her pajama shirt): I’m Mommy’s Little Dreamer.
me (what I actually said): You’re Daddy’s little dreamer too.
me (what I think Amy heard): Daddy’s a little dreamer too.
Amy: No, Daddy’s a big dreamer.

Amy was sad to discover that some of her favorite YouTube videos won’t play on my iPod Touch. Don’t ask how she knows about YouTube or iPods in the first place. Anyway, she came up with a solution:

Daddy, can you bring up the letter thing [the search box] and type “fix” for me?

Yes, I tried it.

My favorite humor feed lately has been NewsBiscuit, which has been a better Onion than Onion itself. A couple of recent gems:

• Publisher launches ‘Competitive Parent’ magazineThe magazine is the baby of proud editor, Emma Darling. ‘It’s such a clever magazine,’ she trilled. ‘It’s only one edition old and already it’s astounded me with its insights. The other titles are nice in their own way, but they’re really not a patch on mine.’
• Pestilence denies Four Horsemen of the Apocalyse reunion
  War, Famine, Death and Pestilence have not toured together since their acrimonious split in 2007.The breakup was attributed to ‘artistic differences’, triggered by the attempted introduction into the group of so-called ‘Fifth Horseman’, Derek Rowbottom.

… and enacted by cartoon bunnies with funny voices. Hilarious.