Category: Miscellaneous Musings

I got a Nigerian spam at work today (the filters at work tag most spam but don’t block it). Sometimes these things can be really amusing, like this line: This fund – US$10.5Million which is now in the ESCREW ACCOUNT of this bank came about after all efforts to trace, the NEXT OF KIN of… Continue reading Typo or new expression?

My boss sent me this story about a town in Austria with an interesting name. Maybe it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hometown.

No, I’m not talking about the failed attempt to re-create the Wright brothers’ first flight, although it might be ironic that this occurred in the week of their 100th anniversary, as a reminder of the ubiquitous effect of their invention on commerce. I ordered a Christmas gift for a nephew from Amazon.com Wednesday. Normally I… Continue reading Short Flight

The weather’s not really conducive to playing outside, and I’m not feeling particularly creative, so I’ll be lazy and resort to posting this picture a friend sent me. It’s a little coincidental, since just yesterday I’d been talking to someone else about the recent lack of humor via email. A couple of years ago, networks… Continue reading A Little Tasteless Humor

Yet another episode of a Google search yielding an ironically bizarre but appropriate result. There are messages circulating through the netsphere encouraging people to go to Google, enter the word “failure” (without quotes), and click the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button for the site that Google thinks most closely matches your search. Try it. Unfortunately, these… Continue reading Another Google Giggle

From the London Daily Telegraph: Commenting on a complaint from a Mr Arthur Purdey about a large gas bill, a spokesman for North West Gas said, “We agree it was rather high for the time of year. It’s possible Mr Purdey has been charged for the gas used up during the explosion that destroyed his… Continue reading Quote of the Month

It might be the cooler weather, or some other reason, but the campus crime reports are once again beginning to have a certain level of amusement. This week’s log has a couple of amusing entries.

There’s been a disappointing lack of both creativity or stupidity among the campus criminal crowd this semester. In the past, when things got boring, I could usually rely on the campus newspaper’s weekly crime log for at least one entry that was either bizarre or amusingly stupid. This fall, it’s been mostly routine theft, intoxication,… Continue reading What was he thinking?

Thanks to Carole for passing along this story about distillers at Mount Vernon recreating George Washington’s whisky recipe. One item in the article surprised me. I knew Washington made whisky, but I didn’t know he didn’t start until after he retired from politics. I always assumed that he had been the first US politician to… Continue reading Washington\’s Whisky

A Wired story reports on a group of New England mothers who have started a billboard campaign against genetic engineering. While I generally sympathize with their stand against too much meddling with nature, I’m not sure I see anything wrong with the example they use on their billboards. It’s almost enough to make me a… Continue reading What’s so bad about that?