No, really - why DID the chicken cross the road?

Courtesy of the latest Daily Dispatch newsletter from Casey Research, here are the answers they envision from various politicians and public figures to the time-honored question:  "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

Sarah Palin: "The chicken crossed the road because, gosh-darn it, he's a maverick!"

Barack Obama: "Let me be perfectly clear: if the chickens like their eggs, they can keep their eggs. No chicken will be required to cross the road to surrender her eggs. Period."

John McCain: "My friends, the chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road."

Hillary Clinton: "What difference, at this point, does it make why the chicken crossed the road?"

George W. Bush: "We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. Heh, heh! We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or against us. There is no middle ground here."

Dick Cheney: "Where's my gun?"

Colin Powell: "Now, to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road."

Bill Clinton: "I did not cross the road with that chicken."

Al Gore: "I invented the chicken."

John Kerry: "Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it."

Al Sharpton: "Why are all the chickens white?"

Dr. Phil: "The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before he goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he is acting by not taking on his current problems before adding any new problems."

Oprah: "Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross the road so badly. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a NEW CAR so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens."

Anderson Cooper: "We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road."

Nancy Grace: "That chicken crossed the road because he's guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks."

Pat Buchanan: "To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American."

Martha Stewart: "No one called me to warn me which way the chicken was going. I had a standing order at the farmer's market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information."

Dr. Seuss: "Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told."

Ernest Hemingway: "To die in the rain, alone."

Grandpa: "In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us."

Barbara Walters: "Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heartwarming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its lifelong dream of crossing the road."

Aristotle: "It is the nature of chickens to cross the road."

John Lennon: "Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace."

Bill Gates: "I have just released eChicken2013, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken2013. This new platform is much more stable and will never reboot."

Albert Einstein: "Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?"

Colonel Sanders: "Did I miss one?"

Peter

Fishy films???

I had to laugh at a collection of somewhat modified film names and posters produced by the Fishfinger Creative Agency.  Here are a few examples.

There are many more at the link.  Funny, and definitely creative!





Peter

Dogs, cats, offspring - and stairs

I had to laugh at this video of how dogs teach puppies, and cats teach kittens, how to use the stairs.  Watch to the end.

Peter

That bear again . . .

Some of you will remember this well-known Australian commercial for John West salmon.

Courtesy of an e-mail from J. B., I learned there was a follow-up.

Intrigued, I checked on YouTube, and yes - there's a third.

When they see these, I think Miss D. and Rev. Paul will be making dark (and rather rude) noises about what's likely to happen to anyone fool enough to really try to get between an Alaskan brown bear and its salmon dinner . . . but they're still cute!



Peter

Even scientists have a sense of humor

I was delighted to read a wonderful research spoof in the BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal.  It's couched in what seems like impenetrable academic and professional language, but in reality it's a tongue-in-cheek dig at the whole 'publish-or-perish' mentality.  Here's the abstract (a.k.a. 'executive summary' for those used to business reports).

Objective  To review the beneficial and harmful effects of laughter.

Design  Narrative synthesis.

Data sources and review methods  We searched Medline (1946 to June 2013) and Embase (1974 to June 2013) for reports of benefits or harms from laughter in humans, and counted the number of papers in each category.

Results  Benefits of laughter include reduced anger, anxiety, depression, and stress; reduced tension (psychological and cardiovascular); increased pain threshold; reduced risk of myocardial infarction (presumably requiring hearty laughter); improved lung function; increased energy expenditure; and reduced blood glucose concentration. However, laughter is no joke—dangers include syncope, cardiac and oesophageal rupture, and protrusion of abdominal hernias (from side splitting laughter or laughing fit to burst), asthma attacks, interlobular emphysema, cataplexy, headaches, jaw dislocation, and stress incontinence (from laughing like a drain). Infectious laughter can disseminate real infection, which is potentially preventable by laughing up your sleeve. As a side effect of our search for side effects, we also list pathological causes of laughter, among them epilepsy (gelastic seizures), cerebral tumours, Angelman’s syndrome, strokes, multiple sclerosis, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or motor neuron disease.

Conclusions  Laughter is not purely beneficial. The harms it can cause are immediate and dose related, the risks being highest for Homeric (uncontrollable) laughter. The benefit-harm balance is probably favourable. It remains to be seen whether sick jokes make you ill or jokes in bad taste cause dysgeusia, and whether our views on comedians stand up to further scrutiny.

There's more at the link.

I'll leave you to look up the medical technicalities on Wikipedia or elsewhere, if you wish.  I had a good laugh at the authors' impish sense of humor.

Peter

Romance - one sandwich at a time

I had to laugh at two articles I found in the New York Post today.  The first is from a young lady who's working towards an engagement ring.

My boyfriend, Eric, is the gourmet cook in our relationship, but he’d always want me to make him a sandwich.

Each morning, he would ask, “Honey, how long you have been awake?”

“About 15 minutes,” I’d reply.

“You’ve been up for 15 minutes and you haven’t made me a sandwich?”

To him, sandwiches are like kisses or hugs. Or sex. “Sandwiches are love,” he says. “Especially when you make them. You can’t get a sandwich with love from the deli.”

One lazy summer afternoon just over a year ago, I finally gave in. I assembled turkey and Swiss on toasted wheat bread. I spread Dijon mustard generously on both bread slices, and I made sure the lettuce was perfectly in line with the neatly stacked turkey slices.

Eric devoured the sandwich as if it were a five-star meal, diving in with large, eager bites. “Babes, this is delicious!” he exclaimed.

As he finished that last bite, he made an unexpected declaration of how much he loved me and that sandwich: “Honey, you’re 300 sandwiches away from an engagement ring!”

There's more at the link.

The second article is by her boyfriend/partner/almost-fiancé.

Now, a year and a half in, and with less than 100 sandwiches to go, not a day passes without yet another fresh reminder from friends, family, or random people in the queue at Citarella that we creep closer to the finish line, that I’d better be ready, and that now there’s a crowd watching. (“Yes, I’m aware. Thank you.”)

. . .

I already know that in the eyes of the public, the stone will never be flawless enough, the ring never shiny enough and the proposal never perfect enough to satisfy the impeccable taste and boundless prowess of Internet commenters.

And after 300 tasty, lovingly made and beautifully documented sandwiches — a herculean yet unnecessary gesture — how could I possibly measure up? How could my proposal be thoughtful, original, memorable and beautiful enough to equal or surpass the scale of effort she’s given me?

. . .

A 300 dancer Bollywood proposal spectacular?

300 John Cusacks with boomboxes overhead?

A 300-member flashmob gospel choir?

A combination of the three? I’m stumped. So I hereby request the creative genius of the all-knowing and infinitely wise Internet: Tweet me your ideas at @mr300sandwiches and help contribute to the greatest proposal extravaganza ever.

Again, more at the link.

I recommend both articles as heart-warming reading.  If the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, I'd say she's doing pretty well . . .

Peter

Surfing swans!

Courtesy of a heads-up from reader Snoggeramus in Australia, we learn of a group of surfing black swans at Kirra.

Well, I suppose it makes sense.  I've always felt that surfing was for the birds . . .





Peter

About those Amazon.com drone deliveries . . .

. . . I've thoroughly enjoyed the news reports and media fuss about them.  I don't believe for a moment that it's a real product:  instead, I think it was a great idea to get maximum publicity for Amazon.com's online shopping service the day before Cyber Monday.  Here's Amazon's publicity video for the announcement.

Now Waterstones, a major UK book retailer, has come up with its response to Amazon.com.  In the light of the Harry Potter books, is it any wonder that it's an owl delivery service?

Next thing you know, the Animal Liberation Front (which appears to have no sense of humor at all) will be targeting Waterstones . . .





Peter

A tomato in space?

I had to smile at this photograph of a freshly-delivered tomato, floating in mid-air in front of a window aboard the International Space Station orbiting the Earth.

You'll find a full-size version of the picture here.  It was taken by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata.  He's putting up lots of interesting photographs of his time aboard the ISS on his Twitter feed.

Peter

Determination in action!

You have to admire the little critter's persistence, don't you?

Peter

They're like fat bumblebees!

Here's a time-lapse video of last month's Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.  I love watching them lift off and fly away in speeded-up fashion like this . . . they remind me of nothing so much as multi-colored bumblebees! I recommend watching it in full-screen mode.

Note how the winds change at altitude.  From about 1m. 25s. you can see how balloons fly in one direction higher up, then drop down to go the other way in the countervailing winds at lower heights.

Peter

A new Simon's Cat for Halloween!

I'm a few days late with this, but I only just noticed it.  The creator of Simon's Cat has given us a new video for Halloween.

I don't mind spiders, but I understand that for some people, they're the equivalent of holy water to the Devil.

Peter

A fat cat and a pot

I had to laugh at these two video clips, particularly because I've witnessed cats' obsession with boxes, pots and other containers so often myself.

Peter

Ever heard of a 'Mondegreen'?

I hadn't, until I came across the word this week while surfing the Web. Wikipedia defines it thus:

A mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near-homophony, in a way that gives it a new meaning. It most commonly is applied to a line in a poem or a lyric in a song. American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in her essay "The Death of Lady Mondegreen," published in Harper's Magazine in November 1954.

. . .

In the essay, Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the last line of the first stanza from the 17th-century ballad "The Bonny Earl O' Moray". She wrote:

When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques, and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember:

        Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
        Oh, where hae ye been?
        They hae slain the Earl O' Moray,
        And Lady Mondegreen.

The actual fourth line is "And laid him on the green." Wright explained the need for a new term:

The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original.

There's more at the link.

I found it particularly interesting because I know the ballad in question very well. I'm accustomed to hearing it as a song rather than a poem, with my favorite rendition being by Old Blind Dogs on their 1999 album 'Live' - one of their very best, IMHO.  I'm afraid I haven't been able to find that on YouTube, so here's a version of the ballad by The Corries.

'Lady Mondegreen', indeed!





Peter

Not a bad idea!

I'm intrigued by Canadian brewer Molson's new advertising campaign - not in Canada, but in Europe.

I have to admit, that's pretty original - but how are they going to prevent underage drinkers from getting their hands on the beer?

Peter

The joys of youth . . .

Courtesy of Wirecutter, I laughed out loud at this poem and drawing.

Peter

Remember the boy and the Labrador?

Back in December last year, I put up a video clip of a Labrador retriever playing with a young child suffering from Down syndrome.  For those of you who missed it at the time, here it is again.

The boy repeatedly tries to break contact, but the Lab's having none of it.  It draws him out of his shell, whether he wants it or not.

The Daily Mail has since tracked down the boy in the video, and his mother.  You can read about the incident at the link.  To me, it adds to my enjoyment of the video to know the backstory, and I hope it does for you, too.  Warm fuzzy happy stuff, indeed!

Peter

A future Olympic competitor, perhaps?

This made me giggle, particularly because the cat's so obviously enjoying itself.

Peter

Too cute!

It never ceases to amaze (and amuse) me how the young of any and every species seem to recognize each other as infants.  We saw it a few days ago in an encounter between a 2-month-old Golden Retriever puppy and an 8-month-old baby girl.  Here's a kitten and a baby raccoon having a wonderful time together.

Peter