Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

So…would this be an irony FAIL or irony WIN?

16 arrested in fight at nonviolence concert: Montgomery County police say 16 people were arrested after a fight broke out during a concert held to promote nonviolence and to remember a Silver Spring teen killed last year. […] Police say fighting broke out near the stage toward the end of the concert and at least one person resisted arrest. Police say 16 adults and juveniles were arrested for offenses such as assault and disorderly conduct.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

This has been everywhere across the ‘net for the past day, so you’ve probably seen it…however, if you haven’t, now’s your chance.

The Star Wars trilogy, as told by someone who hasn’t actually seen the movies.

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn’t seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Oh, the joys of clumsy headline writing. Here’s two versions of the same story. The first seemed really odd when I saw it come up in Google Reader. “Seattle Police Reportedly Kill Man With Knife” — as written, grammatically, that tells me that the police stabbed a man to death. But that can’t be right, can it? The article summary clears it up (mostly: one could make an argument that the summary states that the police killed a man by shooting a knife at him, but while that fits the grammar, it’s a bit of a stretch to think that someone would derive that meaning), as does the second article with a more well-written headline and summary, but it gave me a bit of a laugh.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

According to Typealyzer, which analyzes the content of a weblog and places it within the Myers-Briggs personality matrix, this weblog classifies as ESTP (Extroverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving), “The Doers.”

The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

For the record, the last time I took an online version of the MBTI, I tested as ISFP (Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving). The Star Trek version of the MBTI also pegged me as ISFP, which apparently correlates with DS9’s Bareil or VOY’s Doctor.

(via Metafilter)

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

It’s a bit late for SNOWPOCALYPSE 2008, but for future reference, a handy guide of what to do…

…in the case of Snow:

• Obtain De-icer and chains for your car.
• Know your tire size, in case you need to replace a broken chain.
• Make sure your tires are at recommended air capacity.
• Urge the administration to close your schools, even if it only might snow.
• Carry a small amount of sand in your car so you can get traction if you get stuck.
• Remember: Snow kills people on contact, so avoid it at all cost.

…in the case of Rain:

• Make sure to pack up your umbrella!
• Wear rubber boots, or “Slicker Kicks” as I like to call them.
• Don’t listen to depressing music while it’s raining.
• Increase your following distance to at least 3 seconds.
• Call your mother. It’s been a while.
• Thank god it’s not snowing too.

…in the case of Snow/Rain:

• Scream at God, asking: “Why? Why, God, why?”
• Rain water is still made of water, which is able to freeze.
• Light your car on fire to thaw any ice on the road below your car.
• Before driving somewhere, call ahead and let them know you will be 27 to 50 hours late.

…in the case of nuclear war:

• Evacuate the area directly beneath atomic bomb impact.
• Remember the triangle! Time, Distance and Shielding.
• Ventilate and cool any lead shelters you habitate with ice and machine guns.
• Food is important. If you run out of food, eat the weak.
• Wear Fire Protection.
• Charge the batteries on your VATS.

…in the case of ice weasel attack:

• Do not make sudden moves around or near ice weasels.
• Try to lift the snowmobile off of your broken carcass.

…in the case a monkey flies out of my ass and claws for your eyes:

• Shield your eyes with metal objects, such as a frying pan, or bent forks.
• Should you trap the monkey in the closet, do not open your closet door.

…in the case of the dead rising from their graves:

• Do not shine your light on the Witch. She is tougher than she looks.
• Shove a boomer before you shoot him, so he does not splash on you.
• If you are on point, crouch so your teammate can shoot over your head.
• Avoid shooting a car with an alarm. The alarm will attract the horde.

(found here)

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

A couple weeks ago, author, actor, and humorist John Hodgman was the guest on NPR’s “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” As I listened to John and host Peter Sagal, John’s simple, polite, and deadpan delivery of often ludicrous responses to Peter’s questions reminded me very strongly of an old comedy album of my dad’s that I listened to time and time again growing up, where ABC television announcer Ernie Anderson plays straight man to comedian Tim Conway in a series of interviews.

Here, then, is that album, recorded to .mp3 from the very album that I grew up listening to. You can listen to or download the tracks individually or grab the full album as a 47Mb .zip file. Enjoy! The whole album is quite funny and worth downloading, but if you want to sample, my particular favorites are “Do You Fly Much?”, “Boy”, and “The Baseball Coordinator”.

1. Do You Fly Much? (3.8Mb .mp3)
2. Boy (5.1Mb .mp3)
3. Dr. Herford (6.3Mb .mp3)
4. Matchmaker (5.8Mb .mp3)
5. Race Car Driver (6.8Mb .mp3)
6. King Anderson of Parma (4.7Mb .mp3)
7. The Warden (5.1Mb .mp3)
8. The Baseball Coordinator (4.7Mb .mp3)
9. The Swiss Astronaut (4.8Mb .mp3)

As a bonus: this is one of the funniest Tim Conway bits I’ve ever seen. An outtake from the Carol Burnett Show, Tim won’t let the sketch go on until he’s done telling his elephant stories…

Liner notes for the ‘Are We On?’ album after the jump:

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

(via John Moltz via FakeJohnMcCain)

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Six Seconds of Cute, originally uploaded by djwudi.

This was one of the best things we saw at the Puyallup fair. Put a kid no older than six (the youngest we saw was three) and no heavier than sixty pounds on a sheep and let them try to hang on for six seconds. Really cute, and really funny!

I took a ton of pictures of this, and now I’m having a terrible time trying to cull them down to just a few that are post-worthy. They’re just all so cute…and kind of hilariously disturbing, since it’s essentially a series of young children falling on their heads. The kind of thing you know you really shouldn’t laugh at, but….

Anyway, I put together this collage as a sample of what each round looked like.

Best Viewed Larger and On Black

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

42 years ago today, “The Man Trap” introduced Star Trek to the world.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

After finding this post, and being prompted by this post, I decided to update my geek code. Decode the following gibberish here:

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GAT d-(--) s:-- a35 C++(+++) U*++++ P+ L- E---
W+++ N+++ o K w--- O- M+++ V PS++ PE Y+ PGP t+(+++)
5 X+ R- tv b+(+++) DI++ D+ G e+ h--- r++ y++**
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Really. Thanks to TrekMovie.com for posting this excerpt from a radio interview with Kevin…

Host: So thumbs up on The Watchmen, what else you got?

Smith: I saw a movie last night that I cannot talk about.

Host: Was it good?

Smith: It was phenomenal.

Host: Any stars, any break out stars, and do they trek?

Smith: The stars absolutely trek in this film. It is fantastic. Anybody who was worried doesn’t need to be worried–about this film I cannot talk about…It was in very capable hands. The director did a phenomenal job–the director and his crew. Top notch cast and the guy that plays the lead is an instant star. That dude is going to be so famous. He is so wonderful. He picked up a role that I would say is pretty challenging for someone to step into the shoes of, because it is a role that has been played before many times by the same guy.

Host: How do you out Shatner, Shatner?

Smith: I don’t know what you are talking about.

Host: I was just saying that as an expression.

Smith: Yes, absolutely, in a world of expressions, I would agree with that…I am so not good with this game, you are going to bury me man.

Host: We had you on before The Dark Knight and I remember asking you if you could direct a movie like Dark Knight and you said ‘hell no’ it was so far out of your sphere…but I bring that up to preface this. Let’s say a franchise like Star Trek, not that you have seen the movie or we are talking about the movie, but we are talking about it for example. That is something that is so dangerous to attempt. Is that the kind of project you would like to do? Would you like to be the guy who gets to do a movie like that?

Smith: I would not like to be the guy. In the case of something like Star Trek, it would take a really insanely talented filmmaker–storyteller. Like in the case of Star Trek, JJ Abrams. So leave it to the people who are best equipped for it. I am just the guy who should be watching those movies.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Given recent adventures, this made me laugh…

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Jason Kottke’s done a wonderful job of rounding up some of history’s best Olympic moments on YouTube. However, I think he missed a select few that truly deserve to be seen and appreciated.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

I’ll freely admit that, while geeky, I’m not one who will stand in line for hours for an item I can get faster and easier if I wait a few days. I’m less concerned with “firsties” than with my own convenience.

That said — I love the fact that the customer in this video actually calls the reporter on his idiotic “reporting.” I wish more people would do this — perhaps we’d actually get a bit more news in the news, instead of mindless fluff.

Probably not. But perhaps.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Another addition to the list of reasons why I’m going to hell, or, things I really shouldn’t find funny, but do. It’s not the following story that’s funny — to the contrary, it’s rather horrendous — but NetNewsWire’s ‘show corrections’ feature inadvertently had me snickering as my brain ignored the strikeouts and mashed together bits of the two versions of the story summary.

The bit that really kept getting me was that the man “has been sentenced to two life terms in bed, dead from apparent gunshot wounds.”

There’s something seriously wrong with me.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

After class this morning, I wandered across the street to the bus stop. I was a little annoyed at myself for leaving my bus pass at home, but since I had a few ones, it didn’t matter too much. I got on the 75 and picked up a transfer, rode to the Northgate Transit Center, waited there for about ten minutes, and then took the 41 to our apartment. As I waited for the bus to roll to a stop, I peeked out the windows and scanned our parking lot for the car to see if Prairie was back from her morning jaunt with Hope. The car wasn’t in the lot…

…oh, wait. Crap.

I drove to school this morning.

Prairie hasn’t been able to stop giggling for the past half hour.

On the bright side, I didn’t have to catch the bus back to school, as Prairie was able to call Hope and have her drive us up to the school to rescue the car. Which I’d forgotten. Left behind.

I am such a dork.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Point one: A news story about a Darwin Award contender. Point two: great headline. Point three: horrid choice of ad banner (probably automatically generated).

Hey, it made me laugh.