Humor

Wed - August 16, 2006

Earn double points, scare friends and neighbors

Yikes, its another advertising mistake... a scary one

I know that very few will believe this, but I can honestly say I've done no photoshopping whatsoever to this image. This is the exact image I received from the Priority Club rewards program (you get free nights at the wonderful Holiday Inn Express - though we never stay there enough) :

Earn double points... while working to recover the One True Ring for the forces of darkness! Now Sauron has added a free rewards program - can his evil ever be stopped?

Mon - August 7, 2006

I do not think it means what you think it means

Another adventure in advertising mistakes

If this keeps growing, I'll have to dedicate a whole category just to advertising mishaps that I spot. Today's mistake comes to us from Chase bank, in a big banner on the top of their main site:

Can you spot what's wrong with this picture? First, let's go over what they are attempting to say: "Use our card because we have liability protection for your check card - it's called 'Zero Liability' because you have no liability, just like a credit card." But the way it reads is - "we have no liability protection for you... zip.. nada... zero." I know they have a slight space constraint, but if you read the sentence at face value it tells you the exact opposite of what they are attempting to convey. Seems like a copy writer got a little too obsessed with the brand names and ended up ignoring the plain meaning of the sentence.

Wed - April 19, 2006

How did this pass QA?

Another advertising misstep post.... ads with unintentionally funny messages

It's time for another advertising misstep post. As hard as it is to believe, no pictures were photoshopped in the creation of this post. Here's the ad, as seen on Yahoo this morning:

Ah yes, you too can find your dream home.... lovely houses, friendly neighbors, lots of yard space, with dogs taking a dump. Perhaps this is the new wave of truth based advertising; I can see the tag line from Crazy People now - "Find your dream home with a large yard, so your dog can take a crap and you won't have to pick it up for days"

Tue - September 13, 2005

The Ongoogological Argument for the Existence of God

Google proves the existence of God

Ongoogological Argument Syllogism:
I - If Google does not know about something, it does not exist. If Google does know about something, it must exist.
II - Doing a Google search for God shows that Google knows about God

therefore

III - God must exist
Q.E.D.

Objections
One possible objection to the Ongoogological argument might be an opposition to the second half of proposition II. Just because Google does know about something doesn't mean that something actually exists. For instance, one can search for unicorns and get hits, but unicorns do not exist. Perhaps even better is the nigritude ultramarine experiment. However, in both cases, the Google results can tell you both that unicorns are legendary creatures and that nigritude ultramarine was a contest rather than a real topic.

Explanation
For those who may not get this, since you have to be both a philosophy geek and a computer geek, it is a send up of the Ontological Argument for God (more here as well). Ontology is the study of existence or being and it is a very difficult subject of philosophy. I only understand this argument partially, but I do know its an argument that has had considerable attention on both sides of the philosophical spectrum.

Ongoogology (pronounced on-goo-GAHL-oh-gee), therefore, is the study of existence based on Google's knowledge - the proposition that if Google doesn't know anything about a subject then that subject does not exist and we can therefore study the existence of a thing by searching in Google. It's my tongue-in-cheek formalization of what all of us software geeks know intimately - we'd all be lost without Google (there's nothing like finding a really cryptic error message and knowing its 3 days worth of work to figure it out, only to plug it into Google and have some forum post tell you the answer in 5 minutes).

And no, I'm not actually serious about this being an argument for God's existence (note that this was posted in the humor category). However, the Ontological Argument is one that should warrant your serious consideration.

Wed - November 3, 2004

Dubya is for W00T

A Sarcasmagorical exclusive.... a recording of the actual concession phone call that John Kerry made to George W Bush - well, not really, but its funny

**** SARCAMAGORICAL EXCLUSIVE - MUST CREDIT SARCASMAGORICAL.COM ****

We here at Sarcasmagorical have managed to obtain an actual recording of the John Kerry's concession phone call to George W. Bush. For most of us, this is the best glimpse into the world of politics we will get. Personally, I think Bush was a little harsh on Kerry, but maybe he's a little sore that he didn't get the phone call last night.

Kerry's Concession Phone Call

[OK, for the slow amongst us... no, its not an actual recording of the phone call. All celebrity voices impersonated. But I think its funny - your milage may vary

If you want real news coverage of the concession, read Wizbang (or their Backup site), Powerline, In The Bullpen, Michelle Malkin, or VodkaPundit]

Thu - June 10, 2004

Count Chocula and a joke

A bit of levity thrown into our political discussions

My favorite professor at Biola, John Mark Reynolds, is fond of comparing John Kerry to Count Chocula, the breakfast cereal character. On Frank Pastore's radio show he said, "If it looks like Count Chocula, and it votes like Count Chocula, it probably wants to suck your blood" Now I thought this was just a silly little joke, and in some ways disagree with even saying it because Kerry is scary for so many real reasons that there is no point in making fun of his appearance. But today my wife sent me a pic of the Count, and I busted up laughing because it really DOES look like him.

Submitted for your consideration:

And to continue our brief bit of levity and political humor, here's a joke I received via email:

The Pope [Ed: Bishop of Rome, for all you good Lutherans] is visiting Washington, DC, and President Bush takes him out for an afternoon on the Potomac...sailing on the presidential yacht, the Sequoia.

They're admiring the sights when all of a sudden the Pope's hat (zucchetto) blows off his head and out into the water.

The Secret Service guys start to launch a boat, but Bush waves them off, saying, "Wait, wait. I'll take care of this. Don't worry."

Bush then steps off the yacht onto the surface of the water and walks out to the Holy Father's little hat, bends over and picks it up, then walks back across the water to the yacht and climbs aboard. He hands the hat to the Pope amid stunned silence.

The next morning, the topic of conversation among Democrats on the Hill and celebrities in Hollywood, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, the headlines emblazoned on the New York Times,, and in France and Germany (heck even Michael Moore has started a new film) is:

"BUSH CAN'T SWIM!"

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