A Memo to United Airlines

George Gershwin is rolling in his grave every time you play your sh***y bastardised adult contemporary version of 'Rhapsody in Blue'. There's a good reason that the original song didn't just have one small section of the melody looped repeatedly with an easy-listening drumbeat in the background.

Betteridge's Law of Headlines

Via Hacker News comes this great observation:

Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'.

The logic being that this tends to be attached to controversial claims, and if the author had enough facts to determine conclusively that the the claim were true, they would assert the matter directly.

I don't think that was what you intended

When magazines I never subscribed to send me letters telling me that my subscription is running out, with the words 'LAST LETTER' on the front in big red letters, I find myself thinking "Is that a threat, or a promise?"

It's ten times better if you know the song...

XKCD on why every major sucks. My favourite line:

'By dubbing Econ 'dismal science' adherents exaggerate
The "dismal"'s fine, it's "science" where they patently prevaricate"

Ha!

Radical

Radical.

Thought of the Day

"Just when you think you've got it all worked out,
That's probably when they'll put you in the ground."

From the excellent song 'The Future', by The Limousines.

(via JWZ Mixtape 111)

Miscellaneous Joy

-Headline of the Day, from Maetenloch at Ace of Spades:

"Island Scandis So Inbred They Need a Website to Avoid Incest"

Ha!

-Statements that it's hard to disagree with:

"To put it politely, Nigeria is a failed nation. To put it bluntly, Nigeria is f***ed."

-Economist Valentines Day Jokes (via the CM)


-In America, the furthest you can get from a McDonalds is 145 miles by car. Thank God for that - USA! USA! USA!

Ice Hockey

Comedy gold!

You Keep Using That Word. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

The probability of a letter from a company containing important information is significantly less when the front is marked 'Important Information Enclosed'.

I recently got one from US Bank that, as far as I can tell, was a letter to remind me that I had a credit card with the,. Thanks for the heads up!

Comedy Gold

Ace of Spades knocks it out of the park discussing the hilarious angsty email doing the rounds, from a guy who got rejected after one date to his romantic interest.

Funniest thing I've read in ages. Go, read.

Odd Graffiti in the Bathroom at the Hipster Dive Bar

'Ulysses is Odysseus'

In order:

1. Yes.

2. Wot?

Thought of the Day

"To die well, we must know first what we have lived for."

-Theodore Dalrymple

So True!

Phrases that I challenge ANYONE to explain the logic behind

(After the plane has landed):

"You may now use your cell phones but all other electronic devices must remain off."

Gotcha. Now we've reached the seventh circle of anti-scientific hell - my iPod might cause the plane to crash into the hangar, but when they installed a cell phone receiver to make it an iPhone, this somehow fixed the problem.

Ugh.

A late-night email exchange

The Greek: 

[Subject: 'The Glory of Australia'] It's stunning to me that you consider yourselves an independent country. At least our prime minister doesn't have to curtsy to a FOREIGNER.

Shylock:  

If you read even the headline, you'd see that the whole point was that the Prime Minister didn't curtsy to anyone.

But you miss the larger point. Queen Elizabeth the Second is not just the Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but also the Queen of Australia. This is an official title.

Besides, better to curtsy to the Brits than bend over for the Germans.

Quote of the Day

In reference to the 'Occupy Brisbane' protests, smurray38 had this zinger:

I think even Lenin would be hard pressed to find anything ‘useful’ about these idiots.

Ha ha! Comedy gold!

Via Tim Blair, who has a full length smackdown on how lame the Occupy Sydney protests are.

Mixed Strategies

John Nash would be proud.

Today is clearly a double-dose of Yank Sports + Economics.

In other news, penalties for 'excessive celebration' are seriously pissweak. When even curmudgeons like me who don't care at all about American football think the rule is just needlessly squashing the joy in sports, that's a pretty lame achievement.

Almost Right

From the WSJ

"The Wealthiest 5% Grabbed Created Most of the [sic] America’s Gains"

There, fixed it for you.

Crude Yet Interesting Metaphor of the Day

"Life's not a bitch. Life is a beautiful woman. You only call her a bitch 'cause she won't let you get that pussy."

-Aesop Rock, "Daylight".

Questions I Occasionally Wonder About

Out of the people who arrive at this site by searching for 'Shylock Holmes', how many of them are looking for me, and how many just don't know how to spell 'Sherlock'?

Whatever the ratio, I'm sure it would produce a humourously bi-modal distribution of IQs. I leave it to the reader to decide which hump lies to the left of which.