(via Slashdot)
(via Sarcasmo's Corner)
(brains link via The Presurfer)
He must have been talking about this.
But wait, Marc!! There's more!!
I can get you great deals on the following:
The Moon! (1 acre)
Venus! (1 acre)
Mars! (1 acre)
Scotland! (1 square inch)
Maine! (1 square inch)
Texas! (1 square foot)
The Ocean Floor! (1 square inch)
Australia! (1 square inch)
An English haunted house! (1 square foot)
Still trying to get you a bridge in Brooklyn, but I'll keep looking...
(via Itchy Robot)
Speaking of which (and they don't call me The King of Segues for nothin'), did you know that Scotty Schwartz, who played Flick in "A Christmas Story" had such a difficult time finding work in mainstream film is now working in, uhh... "the adult film industry"? Recent efforts include New Wave Hookers 5, Dirty Bob's Xcellent Adventures 35 and the clearly superior Dirty Bob's Xcellent Adventures 36. Post your own joke about getting his tongue stuck to a pole here...
"The Shaggs. Better than the Beatles--even today." - Frank Zappa
"They bring my mind to a complete halt." - Carla Bley
"Maybe the best worst rock album ever made." - New York Times
A musical about the Shaggs and their one-of-a-kind music-like sounds. Their 1969 album Philosophy of the World included such gems as "Who Are Parents?", "My Companion" and the ode to their cat "My Pal Foot Foot"(listen and be amazed!). Check out www.shaggs.com for all manner of things Shaggs.
(via Scrubbles)
PS. It's the Freeport (IL) Pretzels, Waterloo (IA) Microbes, Bonham (TX) Boogers, Watersmeet (MI) Nimrods, Scottsdale (AZ) Artichokes, and the Iola (MO) Gasbags
(via Memepool)
The other morning I was lurking around some of the more backwater pages of J-Walk (I, of course mean that in the nicest possible way) and found that John is also a very big fan of one of my favorite authors, Nicholson Baker. Baker's The Mezzanine is a small treasure, with the entire storyline set in a single lunch hour of our protagonist. The plot is pretty slim (he heads out for lunch, breaks a shoelace while tying, buys a box of popcorn, a hot dog, milk and cookie and stops at a local drugstore to buy a pair of replacement shoelaces). How can someone write a whole book about that?! Yet The Mezzanine manages to shoehorn in enough humor, amusing observation and footnotes3 to make it a great read.
1Okay, I probably could count them, but that seems a little too anal-retentive even for me
2I currently have a SYcamore1 phone exchange, which has an appropriately '1950's ring* to it. I recall that at a house my buddy and I rented for a while, we usually gave out the phone number as GAG-DOG1, which while fairly memorable, created at least one slightly embarrasing situation. It seems that one of our friends was trying to call our number, but was having trouble getting through. She called the operator for assistance and when asked for the number she was trying to reach, said friend realized she never bothered to learn the number itself. Sheepishly she admitted she was trying to call GAG-DOG1, much to the amusement of the operator.
3Did I mention the footnotes? This may be the record-holder for the most footnotes in a single work of fiction. And not just those cryptic little ibids and the like, but gloriously detailed footnotic ramblings often sprawling on to the following page, ranging from his musings on the decline of the drinking straw once they changed from paper to plastic to the argument against hot-air blowers in bathrooms vs. the traditional paper towel.
*Pun probably intended
(via Bifurcated Rivets)
The exclamations in the title might look weird, but they're really just the equivalent linguistic counterpart for "Ouch!" or "Ow!" in English (North American English, anyway). By the way, the three listed above are Polish, Japanese and Basque, respectively.
A collection of over 1,700 U.S. and Canadian panoramic maps from 1847-1929.
(via Pop Culture Madness)
And on the other side of the coin, there's Catapult. (Shockwave plug-in required for both games)
But that's just an appetizer. For the full nine-course banquet in bad album cover art, feast your eyes at BizarreRecords.com.
To cosmically balance things out, and to cleanse your palate after the horror mentioned above, here are Rolling Stone magazine's 50 Best Album Covers.
Even so, you may be scurrying around from shop to shop Christmas Eve, desperately searching for that last "perfect gift". Trust me, no matter how tempted you may be, I really, really, REALLY don't want this. Really.
Equally cool eggshell carvings
(via Boing Boing)
And if your peepers are still up for it after their workout, confuse 'em with these.
P.S. Whaddaya mean, "What's tetrahydrozoline?"
"Microsoft programs are generally bug-free. If you visit the Microsoft hotline,
you'll literally have to wait weeks if not months until someone calls in with
a bug in one of our programs. 99.99% of calls turn out to be user mistakes.
I know not a single less irrelevant reason for an update than bugfixes.
The reasons for updates are to present more new features."
-- Bill Gates, on code stability, from Focus Magazine
"If you can't make it good, at least make it look good."
-- Bill Gates on the solid code base of Win9X
It's here! The latest and grea... well, the latest anyways... from Microsoft. It's Windows RG (Really Good Edition)!
(via The Straight Dope)
At what point did the carving of pumpkins turn into a "cute" event? When did boys stop carving pumpkins and moms start? Where did we lose touch with one of the years coolest events?
Today we will seize back this ritual. Today is the day we throw away those safe, cute carving tools. Today. We will buy a big, ugly, pumpkin so large one man cannot lift or move it. Today. We will carve that sumbitch into something ugly and plop it on the front porch. October 31st we will light it brightly enough to give visiting children suntans.
The sad news is that Fred "Rerun" Berry died Tuesday. For those of us old enough to remember the 70's sitcom "What's Happening!!", it was cool to see him again in trademark red beret and suspenders last April in an episode of NBC's Scrubs.
Now for the part I like: Fred was one of the celebrities doing on-demand phone calls for the new service HollywoodIsCalling.com. For $30, any one of a number of Hollywood celebrities will call you or a friend and deliver a brief customized message. Okay, so most of them aren't exactly A-List (Ron "Horshack" Palillo, anyone?), but whaddaya want for thirty clams?
You wanna attract butterflies? Then you're gonna want to pick up ButterflyPee.
What's that? You don't care about creating a friendly environment for those Hickory Hairstreaks, Black Checkerspots and their Lepidoptera brethren? All you want to do is keep the neighbor's dog or cat out of your tomatoes? Sounds like you need maybe a little WolfPee or BobcatPee.
While you're out in your garden in a urine-soaked frenzy, put a little GrowPee on them 'maters, why dontcha? Better than Miracle-Gro, I hear... If you love the smell of pee in the morning (it smells like.... victory!), tear that pine tree air freshener off your rear-view mirror and put in one of these.
(via Bifurcated Rivets)
For those who don't know what a numbers station is, Salon ran a fairly informative article on them several years ago. Here's a bit from the article:
Twisting the dial of your shortwave radio, you come across the most "experimental" sounding station you've ever heard. A glockenspiel tune is followed by the voice of a little girl speaking numbers and letters in what sounds like a random order. A techno DJ's pirate radio remix? Performance art? No, you've stumbled across a "numbers station," and the message inside the madness just wasn't meant for you. Somewhere in the world, a government spook, maybe CIA, MI6 or Mossad, is furiously scrawling down the numbers on a pad, a decoding key open at his side.
More details, links and audio clips (which I find unnervingly creepy for some reason) can be found here and here, for starters.
If you are more of a film buff, try the Invisibles Quizzes at FilmWise. After taking of couple of the Invisibles Quizzes, personally, I'll stick to the album covers, thanks...
(via Sarcasmo's Corner)
And of course, once you arrive, it also helps to know the lingo. Enjoy your stay!
And what's the deal with the miniature dogs and monkeys? Were these the real deal or were they just dolls or what? What did you really see when you look ed through those X-Ray Glasses? So many questions, so little time...
The one thing I do remember ordering was the Very Special People book. In fact, I still have it. Great stuff on John "The Elephant Man" Merrick, Robert Wadlow: "The World's Tallest Man" and Grace McDaniels a/k/a "The Mule-Faced Woman", and others.
(via Scrubbles)
(via Margi Lowry)
(via defective yeti)
(via Google News)
(via Boing Boing)
When playwright George Bernard Shaw died in 1950, he bequeathed most of his fortunes to developing an alternative to the alphabet of the English language, an alphabet composed of at least forty letters to account for each of the possible sounds produced in English without all the crazy spelling variances. The resulting competition brought forth hundreds of new alphabet proposals. The Shaw Alphabet submitted by Kingsley Read was announced the winner. Another proposed alphabet, Unifon, was a close runner-up.
More interesting stuff on alphabets and their origins at Omniglot
(via Metafilter)
(via Metafilter)
Terrified of running out of toilet paper? Sure, you could get a double dispenser, but if you're a self-respecting geek, you'll still need a TP usage algorithm. Hmmm, this is getting a little complicated. How about just getting a little bit bigger roll?
(all links after first one via The Presurfer)
The shot, taken in a 1969 Cash concert at San Quentin after a photographer asked Cash for a shot "for the warden".
The pic resurfaced in 1998 when Cash took out a full-page ad in Billboard. Disappointed at the industry's reluctance to play his newer music, the photo appeared with the following cation placed squarely above Cash's middle finger: "American Recordings and Johnny Cash would like to acknowledge the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support."
Johnny Cash may be in the Country section at Best Buy, but deep down he was all rock-n-roll, baby...
(via Techdirt)
(Translation: You should check out the amusing Mad Ape Den. Each post is composed of 3-letter or shorter words. Why? Whaddaya mean why? Like climbing Everest (on a motorcycle) or going for the free 72 oz. steak... because it's there, man, because it's there!)
Sounds like these Indian cell phone owners should have volunteered for beta testing...
(via Ars Technica)
See yourself as a sophisticated, discerning, erudite man-or-woman-about-town? Here's every Esquire cover dating back to its 1933 founding. (via Scrubbles)
For the rest of us, I guess we can just enjoy every Mad Magazine cover since its inception in 1952. I always did like Don Martin best, anyway. Great sound effects.
There is a link on the page to an audio slide show, with stills from the video and commentary.
(via Metafilter)
For those of us that still occasionally like to take the newpaper and pencil in bad facial hair on the photos, check out the official categories for the event.
(via Ishbadiddle)
(via Memepool)
(via Incoming Signals)
Arriving with a large group from Rio de Janero to visit Liverpool's Mathew Street Festival, which celebrates the lives of The Fab Four, these six were turned away because they couldn't provide correct answers to the immigration officials' Beatles quiz questions. From the article:
A spokesman for the Cavern Club Brazil, which organized the trip, said the group’s treatment had been “ridiculous and very upsetting.”
“They played songs and asked us to name them. They actually made people sing Beatles songs,” Fabiana Carvalho said. “Some of the young people don’t know that much about The Beatles — they are here to see the Brazilian bands, and to travel.”
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm flying to Topeka tomorrow and I really need to study the lyrics to "Dust In The Wind".
(submitted by Lou "She's Got a Tick In Her Eye" Campbell and Dave "The girl with colitis goes by" Postma)
PS. If the title of this post makes no sense, then you obviously haven't been watching the right movies.
(via Coudal Partners)
(via Iron Monkey)
An actual store selling actual pirate supplies like eyepatches, hooks, treasure chests, lard (LARD?! Yes, lard... read the FAQ) and planks by the foot. Check out the fascinating world of Karl! Attend some of the events!
WARNING! Don't waste your time visiting their competitor, Captain Rick's Booty Cove, or you will be in for a world of heartache. And yes, probably even scurvy.
To transmit, as by cable, programs confined to the interests of a specific group of viewers, subscribers, or listeners, such as physicians, businesspeople, or teenagers.
With that in mind, I'm going to do a little narrowcasting. The only person who may enjoy this would be my good friend (Mary)Lou, who might actually remember a few of these. Here ya go, babe.
Pseudo-spoiler warning!
If you are someone who believes that those women in Maxim look like that in real life, you may not want to see the unvarnished version of the truth.
(via Information Junk)
PS. Numbers 3 and 4 on the list still almost always trip me up. How 'bout you?
(via Information Junk)
Scientists have nicknamed them "earworms". The "ear" part is obvious, the "worm" part having to do with the parasitic way they take up residence in your brain, resisting even the best efforts to dislodge it. The researchers found that 98% of us at one time or another have gotten a tune stuck on the brain, some of the more common offenders being "Who Let The Dogs Out" by Baha Men, Queen's "We Will Rock You" and the jingle for Kit-Kat candy bars ("Gimme a break").
A slightly older, but more detailed article on the phenomenon can be found here.
By the way, I've found that infecting someone else with your musical pox will often clear it out of your own head. So what earworms have bugged you?(via Bifurcated Rivets)
From The Truck Driver's Gear Change Hall of Shame FAQ:
Many writers and arrangers feel that when their song is in risk of getting a bit tired, it can be given a fresh lease of life by shifting the whole song up a key, usually in between choruses, towards the beginning of a "repeat-till-fade" section. You may have heard this technique informally referred to as "modulation", but the correct ethnomusicological term for the phenomenon is the truck driver's gear change. This reflects the utterly predictable and laboured nature of the transition, evoking a tired and over-worked trucker ramming the gearstick into the new position with his – or, to be fair, her – fist.
Contrary to what many people seem to think, the truck driver's gear change is in no way inventive, interesting or acceptable: it is in fact an utterly appalling and unimaginative admission that you've run out of inspiration and the song should have ended one minute ago; but you're under pressure to make something which can be stretched out to the length of a single. The concept of the truck driver's gear change seems to transcend all musical styles, from Perry Como to The Misfits, although my investigations reveal that it's most prevalent in mainstream pop, and, let's face it, it's unlikely to feature in hip-hop. But who's to say.
About the only good modulation I can vouch for is in the amusing boy-band power-ballad deconstruction "Title Of The Song" by a capella funnymen Da Vinci's Notebook.
(via Crooked Timber)
Contribute to the ever-expanding list!
(via J-Walk)
1. See all the locations in Tulsa where the "Weird Al" classic UHF was filmed
2. Locate and laugh at this bonehead
3. One word: Tulsarama!
4. Drive (cautiously, very cautiously) over to Dewey, OK to pay tribute to The Tom Mix Suitcase of Death
5. Throw in a request or two for some winning Lotto numbers at the Oral Roberts Prayer Tower (hey, it doesn't hurt to ask)
I'll leave it a mystery as to which trait I have, though some might find that very sinister. From the article:
Humans have evolved incredibly since the dawn of time -- and we have color-blind, bald, left-handed and homosexual men to thank.
San Francisco surgeon Dr. Leonard Shlain figures that 8 percent of all men are either color blind, bald, left-handed or gay. Therefore, those traits must benefit the entire race -- or they would have died out by now.
For instance, color blind men have an advantage while hunting because they're less fooled by camouflage and left-handed male soldiers have an advantage over right-handers when fighting mano-a-mano.
Dr. Shlain thinks homosexuality probably evolved in hunting tribes to ensure that there would be more men to hunt for the food but wouldn't produce hungry offspring.
However, the doc admits he has yet to figure out the need for baldness since hair protects the brain against overheating.
(via Electric Venom)
(via House Arrest)
(via House Arrest)
First List
A=Fat; B=Muddy ; C=Crippled; D=Old; E=Texas; F=Hollerin'; G=Ugly; H=Brown;
I=Happy; J=Boney; K=Curly; L=Pretty; M=Jailhouse; N=Peg Leg; O=Red;
P=Sleepy; Q=Bald; R=Skinny; S=Blind; T=Big; U=Yella; V=Toothless;
W=Screamin'; X=Fat Boy; Y=Washboard; Z=Steel-Eye
Second List
A=Bones; B=Money; C=Harp; D=Legs; E=Eyes; F=Lemon; G=Killer; H=Hips;
I=Lips; J=Fingers; K=Boy; L=Liver; M=Gumbo; N=Foot; O=Mama; P=Back;
Q=Duke; R=Dog; S=Bad Boy; T=Baby; U=Chicken; V=Pickles; W=Sugar;
X=Cracker; Y=Tooth; Z=Smoke
Third List
A=Jackson; B=McGee; C=Hopkins; D=Dupree; E=Green; F=Brown; G=Jones;
H=Rivers; I=Malone; J=Washington; K=Smith; L=Parker; M=Lee; N=Thompkins;
O=King; P=Bradley; Q=Hawkins; R=Jefferson; S=Davis; T=Franklin; U=White;
V=Jenkins; W=Bailey; X=Johnson; Y=Blue; Z=Allison
(thanks for the link, Linus!)
If spellin' ain't your strong suit, or if you would rather that The Fickle Finger of Fate dish out your moniker, you can visit the Blues Name Generator and have it auto-magically name you.
Blues not your bag? There's always
Rock Band Name Generator
Boy Band/Girl Band Name Generator
and about a bajillion other name generators.
Don't tell anyone, but I plan on slipping Elsie some Ex-Lax and betting the whole board.
(via Fark)
Don't miss the Quicktime video link to see the mirror "in action".
(via #!/usr/bin/girl -v3)
(via Nuggets)
(via Fiendish Is The Word)
Making the cat one must have been much easier, since everything would just translate to "Screw you. I'm a cat."
(submitted by Dave "Hello Kitty" Postma)
(via Boing Boing)
Dishonorable Mention: Vile Pun Category
Sarah felt bored and unsatisfied, even though her job as a nurse's aide included helping patients and keeping track of the billiards equipment in the recreation room at the Venereal Disease Treatment Center, and she wondered what her mother had been thinking all those years when she repeatedly told her that a young lady should mind herpes and cues.
Dishonorable Mention: Detective Category
He knew that, at most, he had five seconds left to live, one one-thousand, two one-thousand, the gun barrel pointing at his face like a scolding finger, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, the hired assassin Ricardo¹s grip tightening on the trigger, five white elephantsS SIX white elephants, and then a bright blast of light as he wondered which was really the most accurate way to count five seconds.
Winner: Detective Category
Detective Inspector Mike Norman slipped six fingers into his overcoat pocket, five of them clad in a latex glove and attached to his palm, while the sixth was wrapped in a plastic evidence bag and apparently belonged to the kidnapped pianist Ricardo Moore, or, as it now seemed likely, the kidnapped ex-pianist Ricardo Moore.
(via GirlHacker)
(via #!/usr/bin/girl -v3)
(via Dru Blood)
More lunchbox fun at Archie McPhee, where you can lunch with cockroaches, Fabulous Fifties Food, and the Jolly Roger.
You know your little girl is growing up when she trades her Care Bears box in for The Sex Pistols...
(lunchboxes.com link via Pop Culture Junk Mail)
If you don't have the time to listen to the entire show (your loss), at least check out Act One. Host Ira Glass began laughing so hard he actually had to turn off his microphone during portions of the interview because of the snorting sounds he was making. (RealPlayer required)
Act One: Opening Night. Writer and TAL Contributing Editor Jack Hitt tells the story of a small town production of Peter Pan in which the flying apparatus smacks the actors into the furniture, in which Captain Hook's hook flies off his arm and hits an old woman in the stomach. By the end of the evening, firemen have arrived and all the normal boundaries between audience and actors have completely dissolved.
Now customers of South Korea's SK Telecom can download a service to their cell phones which generates soundwaves that are undetectable to us two-leggers, but really annoy (as in repel) the skeeters. Cost: 3000 won ($1.36) per download.
(via Boing Boing)
There is a chain of tattoo shops in the Pacific Northwest that specializes in tattooing your child. They will tattoo children as young as 6 months when provided with a parent or guardian's consent form. How hard do you think it's gonna be trying to explain to your date why you have a Tinky-Winky tat on your butt at age 30?
(via Weird Links)
UPDATE: Whoops! Looks like the crack(-smoking) investigative journalism team at Information Nation was duped. Snopes has the straight dope here.
(via What The Heck)
Colin Fahey may not be the first 33-year old Ivy League educated Masters degree-holder to retake his SATs, but his goal may be unique: To answer every question incorrectly! Could his future get any brighter??
(via cardhouse)
Virtual rides a little too "virtual" for you? You'll be happy to know that someone has created the same Eschers in actual 3-D space... with Legos.
Lego "Waterfall", "Belvedere" and "Ascending and Descending", plus a clever Lego rendition of "Relativity" as well.
(via kottke.org)
Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and run off into the hills, or wherever..
Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: 'Did little demons get inside and type it?' I don't know! My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts. But there is one thing I do know - when a man like my client slips and falls on a sidewalk in front of a public library, then he is entitled to no less than two million in compensatory damages, and two million in punitive damages. Thank you."
Excerpts from Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer's Day Planner:
1. Remember to download cool new game
2. Pick up a movie or two from Blockbuster
3! IMPORTANT! Find wife, then enter contest.
(thanks to Lou "Cave Goddess" Campbell)
www.flotsam.org features a gallery of VR images of marine litter. You are encouraged to help identify flotsam sources, get involved in local beach clean-ups and campaign for responsible disposal of waste by marine industries.
(via Boing Boing)
We'd have more luck playing pick-up sticks with our butt-cheeks than we will getting a flight out of here before daybreak.
— Del Griffith (John Candy), in the 1987 movie 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles.'
"Every time I fly and am forced to remove my shoes, I'm grateful Richard Reid is not known as the Underwear Bomber."
— Douglas Manuel, aerospace executive regards airport security. Reported in USA Today, 13 March 2003.
(via Sublimate)
(via Boing Boing)
(via MsCapriKell)
From the Pinstruck website:
W A R N I N G :
Receiving a voodoo curse from PinStruck.com may be upsetting or offensive to some people. Curses are not suitable for recipients under the age of 18.
Think carefully before sending your curse. Some people cannot take a joke. Make sure you respect this.
Voodoo curses sent from PinStruck.com are for ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. Steem, LLC and PinStruck.com do not believe there is any truth to voodoo magic.
(via Sarcasmo's Corner)
Don't have time? Here's the short version as explained by Cecil Adams from one of his Straight Dope columns, as well as a small(!) portion of the writings found on the 18-In-One Peppermint Soap quart-size label.
For those of you with the time and/or the bandwidth, here are some of the labels (Peppermint, Almond, Eucalyptus) in all their glory for your own Enrichment-Enlightenment-Enjoyment! Dilute! Dilute! OK!
On a tangent, I seem to recall some screensaver(?) with a similar theme. I think it was a collection of photos of a cityscape (NYC skyline?), all taken from the same spot throughout a 24-hour day. As the day went on, you'd see the corresponding changes in the screensaver. Anybody remember something like this or know where I could find it?
(via Bifurcated Rivets)
(via J-Walk)
From the official website of "Live Freaky, Die Freaky", the upcoming film by independent filmmaker/California punk scene veteran John Roecker:
"It is the year 3069 and the earth has been raped of all its natural resources, destroyed by war and ozone depletion, and is now only a barren desert. The humans who inhabit this empty vessel search not only for food but for a god to save them. Their search will soon be over when Charles Manson returns to save them."
(submitted by "Depraved Dave" Postma)
Bees need to roam free or they'll turn to a life of crime.
(via Fiendish Is The Word)
(BUZ.wurd bing.go) n. A word game played during corporate meetings. Players are issued bingo-like cards with lists of buzzwords such as paradigm and proactive. Players check off these words as they come up in the meeting, and the first to fill in a "line" of words is the winner.
Print your own using bingo card generators for business, eBusiness and Wired Business. Another card generator is at BetterWorkplaceNow .
Have fun! It's a win-win! Hey! Bingo!!
Also worthy of a visit is The Word Spy, where you can catch up on the latest emerging jargon such as Generation XL , heroinware or cat typing.
(via Circadian Shift)
(Via J-Walk)
Moral dilemmas, etc at You Must Choose.
PS. I went for the circular saw. Cleaner cut, ya know...
(Via B3ta)
www.powergenitalia.com
www.gotahoe.com
www.whorepresents.net
www.analtech.com
www.accuratescrew.com
www.crotch-partnership.co.uk
www.knobsandknockers.co.uk
And finally, some guys that must have finally wised up, since they are no longer active:
The Lumberman's Exchange, which for a while was at http://www.lumbermansexchange.com and Experts Exchange, who decided that http://www.expertsexchange.com maybe wasn't such a hot URL after all...
(via Metafilter and dutchbint.org)
For the entire year of 2003 (January 1st to December 31st) this site will feature one mp3 file (every day) to download. Listeners of the incredibly strange and outsider realm take note, for this is the majority of material that will be made available. Obscure (and for the most part out-of-print) recordings will be the primary focus.
Give a listen. What's your favorite day? What's on your birthday?
More details as they become available, but if you would like, feel free to make a generous donation to Team Trunk Monkeys!
[NOTE: Of course, I'm not really looking for money. Link goes to a non-profit "click to donate for free" website. Help 'em out, why dontcha?]
There are about a gajillion IQ tests out there on the web, and the other night I decided to try a few of them to see what kind of range of scores I'd get. Out of the three I took, the results ranged pretty dramatically. Of course, almost every site offering an IQ test has a disclaimer that IQ tests in general are only one way to measure what may be considered "intelligence", and that the test will only give you a ballpark estimate of your IQ. Some people considered very intelligent do very poorly in standardized tests, etc, etc etc...
Results in a minute, but first let me get into some specifics for the three tests I ended up taking.
Tests were found by plugging the terms IQ TEST into Google. The three I chose were pretty much at random. Two of the tests were timed, one was not. One specifically said not to use pencil and paper, the other two didn't mention either way, so I felt it was acceptable to use a pencil and paper for those two.
So, here's my results, in the order the tests were taken:
Test #1: Timed (15 minutes/ 30 questions). Paper/pencil not specifically forbidden. Used for two questions Score: 131
Test #2: I took IQ Test #1 Not timed. Took me the longest, though it had by far the fewest questions (20). Seemed much harder than the others. Used pencil/paper extensively)Score: 112
Test #3 : Timed (13 minutes/ 38 questions) Paper/pencil not allowed. Score: 160 Woohoo! All of a sudden I'm Einstein!
Needless to say, web IQ tests can vary wildly in their results. Take with a grain of salt large enough to raise your blood pressure 20 points...Many, many other IQ tests available here.
Your SneakyCheapness quotient, however, is an inarguable constant. No paper, no pencil, no trains leaving stations at 60 mph in opposite directions. Nothing required but honest answers. My SneakyCheap score: 168 (It was stealing milk crates that killed me)
Let's go to Luckenbach, Texas with Waylon and Willie and the boys
This successful life we're livin' got us feudin' like the Hatfields and McCoys
Between Hank Williams' pain songs and Newbury's train songs
And blue eyes cryin' in the rain
Out in Luckenbach, Texas ain't nobody feelin' no pain
(via Ishbadiddle)
Slight understatement there.
Lots of amazing photography and tons of Photoshop phunnies at Worth 1000, like Celebrity Day Jobs and Urban Legends.
I came across this great poem today called "The Chaos", which apparently has been floating around the web for some time now. The poem is not attributed, but I saw it at Rachel Lucas's blog.
I have since found it in numerous other places, sometimes with this appended:
English is tough stuff.
While most of you non-native speakers of English speak English quite well, there is always room for improvement (of course, the same could be said for every person for any subject, but that is another matter). To that end, I'd like to offer you a poem. Once you've learned to correctly pronounce every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.
If you find it tough going, do not despair, you are not alone: Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.