January 17, 2011
Dead cat bounce is a Wall Street term that refers to a small, brief recovery in the price of a declining stock. The term is derived from the expression: ‘Even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height.’ The earliest record of the phrase dates from a 1985 Financial Times article describing the Singaporean and Malaysian stock markets bounce after a hard fall during the recession of that year. A similar expression has an older history in Cantonese and this may be the origin of the term.
Posted in Humor, Language, Money |
Leave a Comment »
January 17, 2011
Parkinson’s Law of Triviality (also known by the expression ‘color of the bike shed’) is British author, C. Northcote Parkinson’s 1957 argument that organizations give disproportionate weight to trivial issues. Parkinson compares a committee’s deliberations on a nuclear power plant to deliberation on a bicycle shed:
A nuclear reactor is so vastly expensive and complicated that an average person cannot understand it, so they assume that those working on it understand it; even those with strong opinions often withhold them for fear of being shown to be insufficiently informed. On the other hand, everyone understands a bicycle shed (or thinks he or she does), so building one can result in endless discussions because everyone involved wants to add his or her touch and show that they have contributed.
Posted in Humor, Language, Money |
Leave a Comment »
January 11, 2011
A tin foil hat is a piece of headgear made from one or more sheets of aluminum foil or similar material or a conventional hat lined with foil worn to shield the brain from electromagnetic fields, or against mind control and/or mind reading; or attempt to limit the transmission of voices directly into the brain. The concept of wearing a tin foil hat for protection from such threats has become a popular stereotype and term of derision; the phrase serves as a byword for paranoia and persecutory delusions, and is associated with conspiracy theorists.
Posted in Humor |
Leave a Comment »
January 11, 2011
Bill Hicks (1961 – 1994) was an American stand-up comedian whose humor challenged mainstream beliefs, aiming to ‘enlighten people to think for themselves.’ Hicks used a ribald approach to express his material, describing himself as ‘Chomsky with dick jokes,’ while conceding that his humor was ‘caring.’ His material largely consisted of general discussions about society, religion, politics, philosophy, and personal issues. He was often controversial and his routine was steeped in dark comedy.
In both his stand-up performances and during interviews he criticized consumerism, superficiality, mediocrity, and banality within the media and popular culture, describing them as oppressive tools of the ruling class, meant to ‘keep people stupid and apathetic.’ Hicks died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 32. In the years after his death, his work and legacy achieved the significant admiration and acclaim of numerous humorists.
read more »
Posted in Drugs, Humor, Politics |
Leave a Comment »
January 11, 2011
Snopes, officially the Urban Legends Reference Pages, is a web site discussing urban legends, Internet rumors, e-mail forwards, and other stories of uncertain or questionable origin.
It is the best-known resource for validating and debunking such stories in American popular culture, receiving 300,000 visits a day.
read more »
Posted in Education, Humor |
Leave a Comment »
January 10, 2011
‘Silent Garfield‘ refers to the removal of Garfield’s thought balloons from his comic strips. A webcomic called Arbuckle does the above but also redraws the originals in a different art style. Garfield changes from being a comic about a sassy, corpulent feline, and becomes a compelling picture of a lonely, pathetic, delusional man who talks to his pets.
Another variation along the same lines, called ‘Realfield’ or ‘Realistic Garfield,’ is to redraw Garfield as a real cat as well as removing his thought balloons. Still another approach to editing the strips involves removing Garfield and other main characters from the originals completely, leaving Jon talking to himself, such as in ‘Garfield Minus Garfield’ by Dan Walsh.
Posted in Art, Humor |
Leave a Comment »
January 6, 2011
Místico (b. 1982) is a Mexican Luchador enmascarado, or masked professional wrestler currently working for the lucha libre promotion Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL). Since 2006 Místico has been the main tecnico (good guy) in CMLL and the biggest box office draw in all of Mexico. Místico is Spanish for ‘Mystic,’ a religious ring character who is the storyline protege of the wrestling priest Fray Tormenta.
Posted in Games, Humor |
Leave a Comment »
January 6, 2011
The tomacco is a hybrid of tomato and tobacco plants first described in a 1959 ‘Scientific American’ article. Both plants are members of the same family, Solanaceae or nightshade. The name ‘tomacco’ was given to the plant by Homer Simpson in a 1999 episode of ‘The Simpsons.’ Homer accidentally created it when he planted and fertilized his tomato and tobacco fields with plutonium. The result is a tomato that apparently has a dried, brown tobacco center, and, although being described as tasting terrible by many characters, is also immediately and powerfully addictive.
A Simpsons fan, Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, Oregon, was inspired by the episode. Remembering the article in a textbook, Baur cultivated real tomacco in 2003. The plant produced offspring that looked like a normal tomato, but Baur suspected that it contained a lethal amount of nicotine and thus would be inedible. The tomacco plant bore tomaccoes until it died after 18 months, spending one winter indoors. Baur was featured on audio commentary in the Simpsons Season 11 DVD box set discussing the plant and resulting fame.
Posted in Art, Humor, Science |
Leave a Comment »
January 5, 2011
Andre the Giant Has a Posse is a street art campaign based on a design by Shepard Fairey created in 1989 in Providence, Rhode Island. Distributed by the skater community, the Andre stickers began showing up in many cities across the U.S. Over time the artwork has been reused in a number of ways and spread worldwide, following in the footsteps of World War II icon ‘Kilroy Was Here.’
Threat of a lawsuit from Titan Sports, Inc. in 1994 spurred Fairey to stop using the trademarked name ‘André the Giant,’ and to create a more styled image of the wrestler’s face, now most often with the equally iconic branding OBEY.
read more »
Posted in Art, Humor |
Leave a Comment »
January 5, 2011
They Live is a 1988 film directed by John Carpenter, who also wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym Frank Armitage. The film is based on Ray Nelson’s 1963 short story ‘Eight O’Clock in the Morning.’ Part science fiction horror and part dark comedy, the film echoed contemporary fears of a declining economy, within a culture of greed and conspicuous consumption common among Americans in the 1980s.
In They Live, the ruling class within the moneyed elite are in fact aliens managing human social affairs through the use of a signal on top of the TV broadcast that is concealing their appearance and subliminal messages in mass media. The story revolves around a nameless man referred to as Nada (Roddy Piper), a quiet drifter who finds an unusual pair of sunglasses that allow him to see the aliens and their subliminal messages.
Posted in Art, Humor |
Leave a Comment »
January 3, 2011
A Nice Cup of Tea is an essay by George Orwell, first published in the Evening Standard newspaper in 1946. It is a straight-faced discussion about the craft of making a cup of tea, including his eleven ‘Golden’ rules. Orwell’s rules cover such matters as the best shape for a teacup, the advisability of using water that is still boiling, and his preference for very strong tea.
Posted in Food, Humor, Language |
Leave a Comment »
January 3, 2011
The Coffee Party USA is a grassroots political movement that was formed in January, 2010, as an alternative to the Tea Party movement, and has since grown into an increasingly diverse organization. Its mission states that it is based on the underlying principle that the government is ‘not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges we face as Americans’ Its goals include getting cooperation in government and removing corporate influence from politics.
Posted in Humor, Politics |
Leave a Comment »
The Daily Omnivore 