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Thag not like cut his toenails!

By on July 10, 2009 in But is it art?, Hinky History, Skwibby fiction, Thag

aurochOnga was always asking him to cut his toenails, and it made Thag crazy.

If he cut them too close, then he had nothing to protect the end of his toes. Good nails were especially important when you jumped on the back of an auroch during a hunt. If you didn’t have long enough nails, you might not be able to hold on.

Then again, he had to admit it was not auroch hunting season.

She could get really insistent, making veiled references to how well-groomed Weasel-Scratch-Face-Brother’s toenails were. (The shaman was always trying to one-up Thag in any way he could.)

In fact, it was the shaman’s adroitness with cave art that got Thag started on it.

He couldn’t help it that all he could draw well were aurochs — which were an important religious symbol, of course, and the representation of which got under Weasel’s skin — and toenails.

Actually, it had taken him a while to perfect the representation of toenails, but eventually he got it down, and filled an entire cave with them (and aurochs).

“What?” he asked Onga. “I cut them off; I can’t paint them either?”

Modern long-nailed auroch-lovers exist too.

More about the discovery of Lascaux cave paintings. Originally published in 2005.

Ask General Kang: Apparently, only one in four people read a book last year — how can we improve that figure?

By on May 14, 2009 in Ask General Kang, Parody & Satire

Ask General KangI’d start by disabling the publishing industry in some way — perhaps an elite cadre of pulp-loving squirrels armed with plasma-shredders and capable of firing book worms out of their mouths? Or perhaps you could change the tax laws so that drinks, food and visits to literary conferences can no longer be deducted.

Then I’d start a massive PR campaign that showed (with whatever scientific research we can drum up — we’ll need to set up a think tank to provide some too) how reading books was actually harmful to your health. We should also start some kind of fake grassroots organization that can politicize the issue for us, appealing to our need to “save the children.”

Then, I’d —

No, no, I want more people to read books

Why would you want that? It makes the population much easier to control if they’re illiterate, you know.

I don’t want the population to be easier to control!

What are you, some kind of anarchist?

Okay. So a campaign to get more people to read. Hmmm. What if you tied lotteries to book reading? Instead of picking numbers at random, you would only pick winning numbers from a pool of those who purchased tickets and correctly answered the skill-testing question, based on the book they have claimed to have read?

Either that or have some kind of compulsory reading comprehension test every year: they get three chances to answer the questions right, and if they don’t, you implant some kind of mind-control device (the X-trablian Zombie Beetle is an excellent choice) that prevents them from using the TV, Internet and radio.

Or you could force them to spend their days, reading through the slush piles of romance publishers.

Next time: I seem to be molting, and I’m not a bird — so what’s the best way of recycling skin?

Neither Alltop nor humor-blogs.com can read while watching TV.

Carnival of Satire (#113)

By on April 30, 2009 in Carnival of Satire

Carnival of Satire (#113)Isn’t it wonderful living in interesting times? This month’s edition of the Carnival of Satire demonstrates how even dire news has its satiric side:

Lobo kicks things off with this useful advice on how to prepare for the biohazard finale.

Rickey has equally helpful hints in his (un)Official Guide to Swine Flu.

Up until this swine flu thing, the media seemed pretty excited about Twitter. Little did they know that Kneon has been making webcomics with his Tweets. You can jump straight to the comic here.

You may also want to check out the Twitterpocalypse, which we related last week.

Sticking with the web, Juliet Chase has A new approach to SEO .

And yes, the economy is still a worry. Generation Bubble puts it in perspective with Yakk in the USSR, or How I Learned to Love the Bubble .

Clearly, Diesel’s strategy for coping with the recession is to try and ride it out in prison. Or perhaps this is just a cry for help. He is trying to sell a novel, after all: I Got Yer Inconsistent Use Right Here. Decide for yourself, then go sign his book thingy so he’ll stop harassing nice people on Facebook. It’s literally the least you can do.

Mike Sowden has his own creative project on the go, and it looks like Fox might be interested — Stellar Quest 1: The Beginning .

Madeleine Begun Kane is still waxing poetic, but this time her limerick has gone to the dogs.

And we’re all not obsessed by current events. Ellis imagines what Elvis would be like if he were an elderly Jewish man.

You know, I had some of the same thoughts when I saw that picture of the five presidents together. Tim Slowikowski has a warning about Jimmy Carter, a bad muthaf*cka.

steven germain presents Rough Fractals: Blog Bail-Out.

Satire Patch presents NRA Releases Message On Recent Shootings .

In in our one non-satire slot: Vanessa Wolf has an intriguing tale about British PM, Gordon Brown: Confucius say: When glass eye fall in soup, remove with spoon .

And that’s it for the 113th edition. Thanks to these fine folks for helping us with webby-stuff: the Blog Carnival for their form; and the listings at the Ubercarnival, Ferdy’s permanent floating ping festival, and for the listings at the Blog Carnival too. Also, you may find some satire here if you poke around a bit. Here too. Thanks to Hobbit90 from Freaking News.com for the pic.

Elegant Robot Week

By on December 29, 2008 in But is it art?, Odd Science, Parody & Satire

cyborg looking scaryAs we approach the end of 2008 and start to get excited about all the new and exciting things that are going to happen in 2009 — will there be a depression? Can Obama possibly live up to expectations? Will Canada have YET ANOTHER federal election or will Canadians just say “fuck it” and hire a phalanx of baby-seal clubbers to execute our political class? (If we do, I’m going to suggest we replace their clubs with tack-studded waffle bats and high-voltage stainless steel probes that are designed to be “inserted”.)

Few people realize that 2009 is also the year in which the robotics industry really gets going, in its lead up to the technological singularity (and own redundancy). So, I say we celebrate robots this week. (Not necessarily elegant robots, but I like the idea that an elegant robot is possible, even though it’s not.)

For example, the Texter 8000 is anything but:

The Texter 8000

Are you like me, wondering what AFDN means?

More excellent (and humorous) robots can be found at ExtraLife’s 42 Robots Project. And don’t tell anyone, but I suspect Alltop and humor-blogs.com are some kind of technologically supported uber-funny human societies.

The Lost PowerPoint Slides: A Short Man Invents a Complex (and Conquers Europe)

By on June 26, 2008 in The Lost PowerPoints

The Lost PowerPoint SlidesThe Battle of Waterloo

Napoleon Bonaparte is an iconic character, not only because he was short, wore a silly hat, and had enough pirate brothers to conquer most of Europe, but because he is the only person in history to meet his Waterloo actually at Waterloo. (The rest of us tend to meet it in boardrooms, law courts, amateur beard-growing competitions, and if you’re English, in Surrey.) Had Napoleon won the Battle of Waterloo, civilization would be quite different. For starters, there wouldn’t be 2,050,000 results on Google for the term “French surrender” (there would only be 2,049,999.) Also, we would all eat a lot more snails.

But Napoleon did not win the battle. Later his opponent, the Duke of Wellington (also famed for rendering beef completely inedible and known as “Sally” to his friends), described the fighting as: “The nearest run thing you ever saw in your life,” which was Sally’s way of saying Napoleon almost won. To add insult to injury, Napoleon’s famed Imperial Guard — the closest thing the French Army had to crack assault pirates — ran away:

Bugger

My pirate brothers and sisters include Captain Stanky and Rank Ol’ Pete.