Posts in the Humor Category

It seems that Twitter just can’t handle the display of primal screams.

See, I had need to let loose a really good primal scream today.  Uncharacteristically, I decided to share it with the online world.  It seemed like the perfect method was to Twitter it.  And for me, the correct form of a primal scream is “AAAAAAAAA…”, so that’s what I Twittered.  Only, I filled the limit: I held down shift-A in Twitterrific until I’d generated 140 upper-case “A”s, no breaks, no punctuation.  Just, you know, primal screaming.

What didn’t occur to me was the fact that browsers are really bad at word-wrapping big long chunks of unbroken characters.  So my primal tweet seriously disrupted the layout of Twitter for me, and for all 768 people following me (at the time), as a layout table got super-expanded and the scream overflowed various and sundry other element boxes.

Oops.  Sorry ’bout that, folks.  Though I have to admit there is the part of me that’s secretly pleased: a primal scream should be disruptive.  And in some cases, the effect is unintentionally funny and appropriate: like the individual display of that tweet, where the scream runs right out of the “text balloon” and just keeps going and going and going.  The failure states become extra levels of commentary on what’s been said.  Screamed.  They accidentally reinforce the intended message instead of subverting it.

Honestly, that’s kind of cool.  I find it all the more delightful because I didn’t intend any of that to happen.  I was just blowing off 140 characters worth of steam.

As for why I felt the need to scream so primally, odds are very high you’ll hear all about it tomorrow.

• Primal Tweet was published on Monday, October 15th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the Humor and Web categories.
• There have been fourteen replies.

I think it’s pretty much obvious to anyone with half a brain that information wants to be free—both free as in beer as well as free as in speech.  If it weren’t for huge soulless megacorporations imprisoning content behind unreasonably high paywalls and fascist licensing terms, we’d already be collectively a lot richer than we are today.  Anyway, it’s not like people would pay for most of their crap anyway, and since they never would have gotten that money, then it’s not like they’ve lost anything.  Hell, chances are that by being able to preview merchandise in full, sales are actually improved.

What?  Wasn’t this Talk Like A Pirate Day?

• A Vast Wasteland was published on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the Humor category.
• There have been ten replies.

The big day is finally here.  It’s a day for which so many of us have impatiently waited for so long, almost writhing in anguish as we were denied all but the smallest glimpses of the object of our desires.  It is a day that will demonstrate as never before the possibilities inherent when the relentless march of technological progress is matched with a singular vision and a dedicated team of world-class technoartists.  It is the day that is, in many ways, the culmination of all the magic and wonder that Steve Jobs has brought to the world over the past two decades.

That’s right: Ratatouille opens today.

Oh yeah, and there’s some new cell phone coming out.

• Thanks Be To Jobs was published on Friday, June 29th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the Culture and Humor categories.
• There have been fifteen replies.

So Microsoft announced a touch-surface interactive computing device called “Microsoft Surface“—gee, now there’s a creative name!—and practically everyone in the known universe has gone crazy over it.  Eh, I don’t know.  I might be interested, but only if they can get the proper environment running on it, as pictured here.

Oh, c’mon.  You know it’s the first thing you thought of too.

• Surface Tunnels was published on Tuesday, June 5th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the Humor and Tech categories.
• There have been twenty-two replies.

From my comment queue, possibly the first time I feel a spammer is really speaking to me as a person:

Did u ever heard about CSS…? it will help your site.

Do tell, oh random anonymous stranger whose site URL crudely references the genitalia of older females!  I wish to learn.

• Stylish Spam was published on Friday, March 30th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the CSS and Humor categories.
• There have been seventeen replies.

Five minutes after I should have left for the airport to catch my flight to Boston and An Event Apart, I finally got the DSL service back, four and a half days after it went dark.  After a few minutes of frantic testing and configuration to make sure it would work for Kat in my absence, I blew out the door.

Guess what’s broken in my hotel room.

• Net Loss was published on Sunday, March 25th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the Humor category.
• There have been ten replies.

I know that you don’t need to be told this, but I’m just going to put this on record for anyone who might be Googling for the information in the future, not to mention the four separate people who got this wrong within the last 24 hours.  It’s like this:

My last name is spelled M-E-Y-E-R.  No trailing “s”; an “e” to each side of the “y”; no “a” anywhere within its bounds.  Got it?  Good!

Also, it’s “Eric” with a “c”, not a “k” or even a “ck”.  ‘kay?

So how does your name get misspelled, and how much does it bother you?

• What’s In a Name was published on Wednesday, March 7th, 2007.
• It was assigned to the Humor and Rants categories.
• There have been one hundred thirty-five replies.

“Daddy, what old is Bear?”

“Do you mean how old is Bear?”

“How old is Bear, yes.”

“I don’t know, sweetie.  How old do you think he is?”

“Sixty two.”

“Sixty two?”

“One.”

“Oh, he’s sixty one, not sixty two?”

“No.  Bear is sixty two one.”

“Sixty two one.”

“Right.”

Honestly, the most impressive thing is that she knows any numbers above fiveteen.

• That’s Pretty Old was published on Sunday, November 19th, 2006.
• It was assigned to the Carolyn and Humor categories.
• There have been fourteen replies.