February 2010
28 posts
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how to get in shape
people are always coming up to my booth at applebees wanting to know where i got my armani snow jogging shoes (armani, duh) and whether or not they can touch my muscles (not a chance!) and what some of my workout tips are (trade secret). usually, i just slip on my blublockers and pretend like i can’t see these people, but yesterday—because of extenuatin’ circumstances—i spilled the...
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the chairman's bowels have moved!
each time that i go to the gym, my personal trainer (non-abs) begs me to do some freelance bodyguard work for some of his other a-list clients and i’m like, “look alexei, the only body that i am interested in guarding belongs to whitney houston and after that maybe, maybe rene russo. now hand me a ten kilo medicine ball, i’m about to get my bakhtin on.”
secretly, i had...
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the 14 different types of animals
while we are on the subject of odd systems of classification, we should visit jorge luis borges’ bizarre taxonomic scheme in “the analytical language of john wilkins.” here, borges cites a fictional chinese encyclopedia which divides all animals into the following categories*:
(a) those that belong to the emperor (b) embalmed ones (c) those that are trained (d) suckling pigs (e)...
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women, fire & dangerous things
dyirbal is an australian aboriginal language currently spoken by about five people. it is famous among linguists chiefly for the peculiar way in which it categorises its nouns. get a hot load of this peculiar scheme:
i - animate objects and men ii - women, dangerous things and exceptional animals iii - everything edible that is not meat iv - things not classified in other categories
class i...
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words wholly related
eureka! & heuristics
both words come from the greek verb εὑρίσκ (to find). the former was exclaimed by archimedes when he discovered some boring principle that nobody cared about (literally, “i have found it.”) the latter is a method of problem solving and is used widely by computer programmers and identity thieves.
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atin-lay eff-words-ay
where my classicists at? i took five levels of latin in undergrad so that when i got into law school i would already know the difference between in posse and in esse or what the heck a doli incapax is. well friends, it turns out that latin is useful for more than just boning up on the legal system—it is also good for secretly making fun of people and selecting bitching mottoes for your...
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a vulgar simile for a niche readership
“…a nose hair embedded in snot like acanthoscelides obtectus entombed in paleozoic amber…”
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words wholly related
caribbean & cannibal
both words derive from carib, the name of an amerindian tribe from the west indies. caribbean means “relating to the carib” and now refers to the sea and islands that the tribe inhabited. cannibal comes from the way columbus misheard their name (ie. canib) and became associated with anthropophagi after he witnessed (what he thought was) several tribe members...
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how to keep your chompers sparkly
of all the varieties of hygiene, dental hygiene is the one that has to do with the teeth the most. but what are we to do during a snowpocalypse when our toothpaste runs out? are we sposed to just sit around and wait for our decaying teeth to drop from our mouths like loose chiclets? i think not! here is a questionable recipe* from 1830 for when you find yourself in this and similar situations:
...
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best stage direction of all time
“here satan letteth a fart”
found in english morality plays of the 16th century. (source)
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the ugliest english words
perhaps you are wondering what the yin to the yang of beautiful german words is. it’s ugly english words, duh. way back in 1946—when joe davis was slamming his way to his 15th consecutive world snooker championship—the national association of teachers of speech (nats) organised a contest to determine the ten ugliest words in english. they are:
crunch
flatulent
gripe
jazz
phlegmatic
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the most beautiful german words
in october 2004—when the boston red sox were homerunning themselves to becoming the champions of world baseball—the goethe institute and the council for the german language were conducting their own little competition. their goal was to determine the most beautiful german word based on over 20,000 entries. here are the leading contenders.
lebenslust - zest for life
erdbeermund - voluptuous...
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getting mad fuzl'd
for reasons that i shan’t go into here, me and my handsome male friends and curvy female friends/former lovers watched the entirety of the superbowl on a tivo’d time delay of about twenty minutes. the setup was going fine until the fourth quarter when almost immediately after tracy porter’s game-changing interception, the tivo inexplicably deactivated and a visual of sean peyton...
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the first sex scene in scottish literature
the following steamy scene was written by ragbag role model, thomas urquhart way back in sixteen fitty two. like all things urquhart, it combines latin and greek neologisms, absurd euphemisms, wildly elaborate sentences, obscure allusions, and circumlocutious syntax. it also happens to be decidedly unerotic.
Thus for a while their eloquence was mute, and all they spoke was but with the eye and...
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audiobooks out of context #7
this is the seventh...
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words wholly unrelated
crapper & crap
the former is coarse slang for the fixture into which one defecates. it got its name from thomas crapper, a plumber that installed and popularised—though did not invent—flushing toilets in the 1880s. crapper is an occupational surname derived from cropper which has been around since the 1200s.
the latter comes from the old french word crappe which means siftings or residue....
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the 20 most common dreams among college students...
what is your favourite flavour of family feud? the al from home improvement one? the j. peterman one? for my money, it is and always has been the louie anderson version.
let’s roleplay. let us suppose that you are a fairly attractive girl-nextdoor type from a fairly typical american family and i am louie anderson, a comedic giant. i saddle up to you like a disoriented bear just reëmerging...
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how to plagiarize with style
just append the following disclaimer to your next term paper and everything will smell like roses:
It may happen therefore, and it is hoped it will be so, that I may sometimes appear to have plagiarized from other [sources] and to have adopted their views; but this correspondence must, nevertheless be accepted as a further proof of the accuracy of my honest independent labours.
from nasology:...
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fluttering the dovecots
hot chicks and other people: i was telling my friend orson how last weekend i made the embarrassing gaffe of pairing a 2007 dutton ranch shop block pinot blanc with my meal of roasted chicken and root vegetables and the sommelier came up to me and very discreetly asked if perhaps i might want to try a heavier wine that was more suitable for the robust winter flavors of my dish. and then orson was...
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