Category Archives: Humour

Neat Dog Trick #273

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A Puppy Bookmark: how clever is that? Now I’m thinking I should teach this trick to Coco. He lies by my side or right on top of me when I’m reading anyway, and this could really work with larger tomes to avoid wrist sprain.

FYI this is also quite literally a placeholder while I slave away at my Best Of/Worst Of list of 2011 books, which I can’t seem to whittle down enough to make for a short & sweet post. So expect a long and detailed one. In other words: a book lover’s delight.

This photo was found here. 

From Aldous Huxley to Missed Connections

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The Crows of Pearblossom by Aldous Huxley, illustrated by Sophie Blackall ★★★½

Mr. and Mrs. Crow, who have a nest in a cotton-wood tree in Pearblossom, haven’t had much luck so far when it comes to growing their family. Every time Mrs. Crow has laid an egg, it has disappeared before getting a chance to hatch. When, coming home early from her errands on day, Mrs. Crow catches the rattlesnake who lives at the bottom of the tree eating her latest egg, she tells her husband he must go and kill the snake. Mr. Crow isn’t sure this is a good idea, so he consults his friend Mr. Owl, who comes up with a brilliant plan to teach the snake a lesson he is likely never to forget. A fun and slightly wicked story by the author best known for Brave New World, this was Huxley’s only children’s story, which he wrote as a gift for his niece Olivia, who had moved to Pearblossom, California with her parents. Bright and cheerful illustrations by Sophie Blackall. (click on cover to view larger) Continue reading →

Laughed so hard, I cried.

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Image taken from The Gallery of Regrettable Foods

Ok. Admittedly, I’ve been a very bad blogger. First, not posting on any kind of regular basis. Then, writing mood pieces and talking about exciting upcoming events, and then failing to post updates: Unforgivable. Yaddy yaddy yadda. Not here to post an update right now either. That can wait a little, but I simply cannot hold back this latest gem for a moment longer; there’s a book called The Gallery of Regrettable Foods which has been slowly making the rounds among LibraryThing members who have been saying how very funny it is. For instance, my LT friend Nathalie who currently lives in Italy recently had this to say about it: “If you need a good laugh, I’d recommend [The Gallery of Regrettable Foods]. It’s basically excerpts from American cookbooks from the 1920s to 1970s with comments added by the author. I never knew that you can throw everything that’s not Jell-O into Jell-O. Hilarious!”

One of my favourite parts of looking at old magazines is seeing retro ads, which are often very funny, but the food ads in particular have always been a personal favourite in the “things you wouldn’t believe anyone ever thought was a good idea” category. So this book sounds just awesome to me, but unfortunately, it isn’t available at the library and I’m on a book-buying ban right now. Good thing my friend Nathalie thoughtfully provided the link to the Gallery of Regrettable Foods site, which I strongly urge you to visit right now. I hadn’t laughed like that in a long time. I mean, laugh out loud, real belly laughs; laugh until you’re hoarse kind of laughter. The titles alone had me in hysterics before I’d even clicked on the links—a sampling of my favourites:

“Meat! Meat! Meat! Also, Meat!”

“Bran-plus for Minus People. Urgh”

“10 PM Cookery – you nite-owl, you”

“The Unbearable Sadness of Vegetables”

“Cross-dressing Veggies”

and the truly outrageous “Meat Fisting At Home” still have me in hysterics as I type this.

1950s Trans World Airlines Advertisement

A Morning Dip at Seaside

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I’m listening to an excellent audio version of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) a classic from 1889. It’s the humorous account of three friends taking a boating trip down the Thames. The following excerpt, which I’ve taken from chapter 3, struck me as quite funny:

“I notice that people always make gigantic arrangements for bathing when they are going anywhere near the water, but that they don’t bathe much when they are there. It is the same when you go to the sea-side. I always determine—when thinking over the matter in London—that I’ll get up early every morning, and go and have a dip before breakfast, and I religiously pack up a pair of drawers and a bath towel. I always get red bathing drawers. I rather fancy myself in red drawers. They suit my complexion so. But when I get to the sea I don’t feel somehow that I want that early morning bathe nearly so much as I did when I was in town.

On the contrary, I feel more that I want to stop in bed till the last moment, and then come down and have my breakfast. Once or twice virtue has triumphed, and I have got out at six and half-dressed myself, and have taken my drawers and towel, and stumbled dismally off. But I haven’t enjoyed it. They seem to keep a specially cutting east wind, waiting for me, when I go to bathe in the early morning; and they pick out all the three-cornered stones, and put them on the top, and they sharpen up the rocks and cover the points over with a bit of sand so that I can’t see them, and they take the sea and put it two miles out, so that I have to huddle myself up in my arms and hop, shivering, through six inches of water. And when I do get to the sea, it is rough and quite insulting.

One huge wave catches me up and chucks me in a sitting posture, as hard as ever it can, down on to a rock which has been put there for me. And, before I’ve said “Oh! Ugh!” and found out what has gone, the wave comes back and carries me out to mid-ocean. I begin to strike out frantically for the shore, and wonder if I shall ever see home and friends again, and wish I’d been kinder to my little sister when a boy (when I was a boy, I mean). Just when I have given up all hope, a wave retires and leaves me sprawling like a star-fish on the sand, and I get up and look back and find that I’ve been swimming for my life in two feet of water. I hop back and dress, and crawl home, where I have to pretend I liked it.”

Text from Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) at Project Guttenberg.

Cute animal story of the day

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Every day in my inbox, I find The Animal Rescue Site’s daily reminder to help with various causes with just one click. It’s my two-minute moment of the day when I feel I’m making a (literally) small gesture to help the planet be a better place. My favourite part of that daily email is the rescue story of the day sent in by people who’ve adopted various pets, which are always featured along with a picture. I just had to share today’s edition:

From the What Were They Thinking? File

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The news is all too rarely a laughing matter, but the following news update made me smile a couple of days ago:

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Mon, June 28, 2010 — 4:56 PM ET
—–

Federal Agents Arrest 10 on Charges of Spying for Russia

Ten people have been arrested for allegedly serving as secret
agents of the Russian government in the United States, the
Justice Department said Monday. Eight of 10 were arrested
Sunday for allegedly carrying out long-term, deep cover
assignments in the United States on behalf of Russia. Two others
were arrested for allegedly participating in the same Russian
intelligence program within the United States.
Read More

I was already chuckling silently to myself thinking… how relevant can spying be now that the cold war is over?? And then right on cue today, the following blurb had me laughing out loud:

Spying Suspects Seemed Short on Secrets
The suspected Russian spy ring rolled up by the F.B.I. this week had everything it needed for world-class espionage, except actual secrets to send to Moscow.

Something tells me Joe McCarthy must be rolling over in his grave.


10 Woody Allen Quotes

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There are two types of people in this world: good and bad. The good sleep better,
but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.

More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair
and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won’t get much sleep.

I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes.
It involves Russia.

When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room.

I was depressed… I was suicidal; as a matter of fact, I would have killed myself
but I was in analysis with a strict Freudian and if you kill yourself they make you
pay for the sessions you miss.

Don’t think of death as an ending. Think of it as a really effective way of cutting down your expenses.

Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought—particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things.

Some guy hit my fender, and I told him, ‘Be fruitful and multiply,’ but not in those words.

If my films don’t show a profit, I know I’m doing something right.