Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘funny’

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted in Food and..., Funny, Holidays, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 26, 2015| Leave a Comment »

For all those in or of the United States, Happy Thanksgiving:)

For the first time I can remember I’m not back at my familial homestead partaking in traditional Thanksgiving Day festivities. The decision not to travel makes sense but it’s still a little weird, not least because I’m in a country where they celebrated the holiday last month (now that’s weird;).

So I’m a little sad with the missing of the family (not too sad, though, as I’ll see them in a few weeks) but feeling thankful for all the wonderful people in my life. I hope you are too.

Let me leave you with a link to John Scalzi’s science fictional Thanksgiving Day grace, which he wrote as a handy guide for those who may be called on to lead their tables in thanks. This timeless classic includes such gems as:

We also thank you for once again not allowing our technology to gain sentience, to launch our own missiles at us, to send a robot back in time to kill the mother of the human resistance, to enslave us all, and finally to use our bodies as batteries. That doesn’t even make sense from an energy-management point of view, Lord, and you’d think the robots would know that. But in your wisdom, you haven’t made it an issue yet, so thank you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Read Full Post »

Description of a Work of Art, Possibly Imaginary

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 5, 2015| Leave a Comment »

There’s a very funny piece by Brian Staveley today over at the Tor/Forge blog titled “Three Ekphrastic Dialogues; or NO DUAL WIELDING UNTIL BOOK THREE.” Or at least it would be funny, if it weren’t so true;)

SCENE ONE
Setting: Book One of the Epic Trilogy

In the first scene the WRITER is bright-eyed, fresh-faced, and recently showered, perhaps even wearing a jaunty blazer. The CHARACTER looks confused, wary, even a little frightened.
…
Character: If I have a life of my own, why can’t I shave my…hey! HEY! What the hell just happened?
Writer: Your house burned down. That guy in the black cloak did it.
C: You made him do it.
W: Sorry. Needed an inciting incident.

Apologies to every character I’ve put through the wringer:) See the full post for the hilarious, somewhat potty-mouthed conclusion…

Read Full Post »

We All Start Somewhere

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 2, 2014| Leave a Comment »

In the wake of NaNoWriMo, I thought it instructive to point out Jim C. Hines’s new book, Rise of the Spider Goddess. This is an annotated version of a novel he wrote in his formative years. In other words, it is a bad book. And he’s sharing it, on purpose, for entertainment, for edification, and to help other writers recognize that we all start somewhere.

So, fair NaNo’ers (and others), as you review your 50,000+ word opus, do not despair if you realize that the draft over which you slaved is actually really very awfully bad;) And as Jim says in his introduction to the book on John Scalzi’s Whatever:

Writing a bad book is nothing to be ashamed of, because dammit, I still wrote a book. Then I wrote more of them. And with each one, I got better.

Read Full Post »

Zombie Warfighting

Posted in Entertainment, Funny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 21, 2014| 1 Comment »

Today I’m reading up on ways to prepare for the zombie apocalypse, as one does. How, you ask (as one would)? Why, by studying the Pentagon’s own zombie preparedness manual, CONPLAN 8888, of course!

Yes, it’s tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely. The planners behind this gem of a training tool realized that zombies would be a great way to engage trainees in threat assessments and creative problem solving in the field, all without running afoul of an actual constituency. After all, pick a real country as the subject of your war plan and it’s a quick leak away from a serious misunderstanding (and no one wants to piss off Canada again, amIright? Canadian Bacon, people!). And what’s more fun than fighting zombies?

See for yourself, and watch out for those space zombies!

Read Full Post »

Who Are We to Close Doors?

Posted in Other, tagged , , , , , , on May 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Pope Francis Says He Would Definitely Baptize Aliens If They Asked Him To

If – for example – tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here… Martians, right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them… And one says, ‘But I want to be baptized!’ … Who are we to close doors?

So in addition to focusing on the issues of poverty, inequality and other related topics, the Pope is open-minded enough to include aliens in his view of the future. Nice.

Read Full Post »

Scheming Sciuridae

Posted in Funny, tagged , , , , , , on April 25, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Some years ago my father (an avid birder) bought me a bird feeder from Droll Yankees. It’s fantastic, sturdy and big enough to hold a lot of seed. The Dipper is also designed to be squirrel proof, with perches that collapse under too much weight. Each metal bar will hold chickadees and goldfinches with no trouble, or even a very juvenile cardinal, but not a squirrel. With a metal cap capable of withstanding squirrel teeth (ask me how I know) it has been the perfect foil for the fluffy yet gluttonous neighborhood Sciuridae. It’s not that they haven’t tried, coming at the thing from all sides, but their best effort was to throw themselves at the feeder to make it swing enough to drop a few extra seeds.

Until now.

A black squirrel was the first to figure out a way to secure a hold using multiple perches. It grabs on using its back paws and chows down with the front. I had hoped it would keep the secret to itself but no, the new knowledge is spreading. (Information just wants to be free, I suppose:) A red squirrel, smug and fat, hung upside-down from the feeder this morning.

Chalk one up for the Animal Kingdom (and I don’t mean me).

World's First PhD Squirrel

I’d better go get some more bird seed.

Read Full Post »

Not Today

Posted in Funny, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on February 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The Onion does it again, succinctly summing up what so many of us have felt at one time or another in hilarious fashion.
Report: Today The Day They Find Out You’re A Fraud

While experts agree you’ve been remarkably successful so far at keeping up the ruse that you’re a capable, worthwhile individual, a new report out this week indicates that today is the day they finally figure out you’re a complete and utter fraud.

…

“They’re all on to you,” the report continues. “You do understand that, don’t you?”

Whatever, impostor syndrome, I’ve got work to do.

Read Full Post »

Joe Hill Writes Like… How About You?

Posted in Funny, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 22, 2013| 2 Comments »

Joe Hill's Thrills.

I was feeling a little blue and I was looking for something on the internet to cheer me up and Warren Ellis has a post on his tumblr pointing to a website, I Write Like, so I thought, oh, hey, why not? Warren got David Foster Wallace; I was thinking, huh, maybe it’ll tell me I write like John Steinbeck! Hell, maybe David Mitchell!!!

Thanks to the above post by Joe Hill I’ve discovered an entertaining website called “I Write Like.” Unlike him, however, my stylistic tendencies seem to be more varied. Depending on the story, I apparently write like Cory Doctorow, J.K. Rowling, Ray Bradbury, and David Foster Wallace. I think the minds behind the site put this fun tool together to raise writers’ confidence levels; who wouldn’t want to be told they write like any one of the people on that list?

I don’t write like Stephen King, though. Joe Hill’s got that all wrapped up.

Read Full Post »

To Anyone Who Has Ever Wondered About the Vagaries of the Slush Pile…

Posted in Funny, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »

The New Yorker Rejects Itself: A Quasi-Scientific Analysis of Slush Piles

… I grabbed a New Yorker story off the web (no, it wasn’t by Alice Munro or William Trevor), copied it into a Word document, changed only the title, created a fictitious author identity, and submitted it to a slew of literary journals, all of whom regularly grace the TOC of Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize, O’Henry, etcetera and etcetera. My cover letter simply stated that I am an unpublished writer deeply appreciative of their consideration.

That was it. I sowed the seed, and waited.

As for the result, please sit down and place your Starbucks Venti on a secure surface.

Dear reader, every single one of these journals rejected my poor New Yorker story with the same boilerplate “good luck placing your work elsewhere” auto-text that has put the lid on my own sorry submissions.

Oh my.

Obviously I’m not the only one who has ever wondered how overworked slush readers can stay consistent in the face of all of that precipitation. Author David Cameron’s quasi-scientific study (sample size: two) concludes, quite sensibly I think, that “slush sucks.” Now, I can either be depressed that even previously published stories can’t get published in some markets, or, well, not.

Rejections are inevitable, but I have to say that this makes me feel a bit better about my own.

Chin up, folks, and soldier on. The good news is, it’s not just you.

Read Full Post »

Space Milkshake

Posted in Likes, Reviews, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 2, 2013| 1 Comment »

Space Milkshake: A Movie Review, or, An Appreciation of Sci-Fi Comedy

Current trends in genre movies lean toward zombies, war, and the Apocalypse, but I’d like to take a moment to appreciate the benefits of humor in science fiction. Sure, our future planet may be filled with trash, our scientists mad, and our educational standards in decline, but at least we should be able to laugh about it. What is humor, if not a way to cope with (and thereby begin to address) our problems? I spend Saturday nights watching B movies of the science fiction and fantasy persuasion for just that reason. With that in mind, I settled in to watch Space Milkshake.

Starring Robin Dunne (Sanctuary), Billy Boyd (The Lord of the Rings), Kristin Kreuk (Smallville, Beauty and the Beast), Amanda Tapping (Stargate, Sanctuary), and George Takei (Star Trek) as the voice of Gary the duck, the film allows each of these actors to emphasize their comedic strengths.

The story is a classic crucible, sci-fi style. The setting is a future Earth where space debris is a serious problem, addressed by permanently-crewed orbital stations tasked with space lane maintenance. Geosynchronous trash trucks, if you will. While living on one such station, our cast of hapless sanitation workers find their lives disrupted by a rubber duck from space. Needless to say, there’s more to the little yellow duck than meets the eye.

George Takei does a wonderful turn as Gary; he is now my gold standard for voicing mutant rubber duckies. The rest of the acting team delivers as well. Kreuk’s job is one of the hardest, given that she doesn’t speak for a significant portion of the film. And while it’s a stretch to imagine bathtubs would be feasible on such a future space station, it does allow for a tension-filled scene with Amanda Tapping in a bubble bath with the aforementioned duck. What could be better?

This was my best B-movie Saturday night in a long time. Space Milkshake is a low-budget film with sets and special effects to match, but the movie is well put-together and the actors all appear to be having a terrific time. This is quality B-movie material, and I mean that in the best of ways. Think My Name is Bruce. The movie is also sprinkled with shout-outs to classic science fiction and fantasy like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, and is prime material for homegrown drinking games, should your proclivities lean in that direction.

Space Milkshake is pure comic entertainment. And no, I don’t understand the title,* but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment. If you have a soft spot for science fiction that embraces goofy fun, and enjoy well-scripted, conscientiously-acted movies, you should see this film.

Bottom line: if you like science fiction, have a goofy sense of humor, and are ready to be entertained, break out the popcorn and enjoy a deliciously funny Space Milkshake.

Director: Armen Evrensel
Writer: Armen Evrensel
Stars: Kristin Kreuk, Amanda Tapping, Billy Boyd, George Takei, Robin Dunne
Sci-Fi / Comedy
2012

* Note from the future: Funny how colloquial phrases may not immediately resonate. If the title had been “Space Mashup” it would have made sense to me from the outset.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »