» Humour

Since everyone appears to think they’re somehow experts on the subject, here are my predictions for the upcoming Presidential Elections pre-game rally - the conventions.

• Hillary Clinton will try to steal the nomination for Democratic Presidential candidate at the convention.
• John McCain will announce Joe Lieberman as his running mate at some point.

There. With a side note that it’s a pity there isn’t a Paris Hilton/Stephen Colbert ticket. The political system is a joke, so the pair of them are far more qualified!!

I was looking at the comments spam my system has blocked recently, and noticed this wonderful comment posted:

This is similar to comment spam but avoids some of the safeguards designed to stop the latter practice.

Umm … Wrong on both counts.

Almost as hilarious to see are these comment spam attempts:

I have always wanted a compendium of novena prayers. Thank you for sharing all these prayers with us. It brings joy and happiness to everyone. I know, I do feel that way.

I like this website. This website helped me with prayer learning. Good job. Thank you. Please provide more French prayers. Bye-bye.a

More proof that the universe has a sense of humour:

The State of Georgia has passed a law banning the sale of “pot candy”, marijuana-flavoured sweets.

The name of the man who is the main driving force behind the bill?

Senator Doug Stoner

Tempering the hilarity factor of this are the reported death threats sent to State Representative Judy Manning, apparently tracing back to the UK.  What idiot who isn’t even affected by this thinks banning a candy is sufficient justification to send death threats over?

I’ll admit it - I don’t actually like most “comedy” shows on TV. This might be the result of being as old as I am, and being raised on “The Greats” such as Monty Python, but I cringe a lot of the time.

Having said that, the occasional skit hits me in the funny bone, and this one from MAD TV is one of them:

Or, if previous experiences with crowds are anything to go by, at the very least loses all common sense and intelligence, and becomes totally oblivious to their surroundings.

Yep, we have the Pope coming to visit.  Staying true to form, as with any time something memorable occurs, everyone’s running around like headless chickens.

Now, admittedly, the DC area tends to run around like headless chickens when more than 3 snowflakes fall, 5 raindrops fall, or some “professional” sportsdrone we’re supposed to have heard of shows up, but this time it’s the worst example of decapitated poultry behavior I’ve ever seen - even down to the “most powerful man in the world” (George W Bush, allegedly) playing chauffeur to the guy.

… But not as we know it.

British Airports Authority (BAA) spent £4.3 billion on creating their brand spanking new Terminal 5 (T5) at Heathrow Airport in London, England. After months of preparation, including “live” testing of operations, it went operational today to much fanfare.

And promptly fell into total chaos.

The most embarrassing failure? The vaunted baggage handling system, supposedly designed to process over 12,000 pieces of luggage every hour - apparently, the workers were unable to log in to the system, resulting in flights being cancelled, and several that weren’t left with passengers but without their bags.

The fourth (and final) season of Battlestar Galactica returns to the Sci-Fi Channel on March 4th, after a horribly long delay (not helped, I think, by worries over the writer’s strike). Normally, such a long time means you might be forgiven for being somewhat confused about “the story so far”, but it looks like some clever person has come up with a solution to the problem.

Associated Press reported a few days ago on the US Government’s “Cyber Storm” exercise, and noted this:

In the middle of the biggest-ever “Cyber Storm” war game to test the nation’s hacker defenses, someone quietly targeted the very computers used to conduct the exercise.

The surprising culprit? The players themselves, the same government and corporate experts responsible for detecting and fending off attacks against vital computer systems, according to hundreds of pages of heavily censored files obtained by The Associated Press. Perplexed organizers sent everyone an urgent e-mail marked “IMPORTANT!” instructing them not to probe or attack the game’s control computers.

OK, this happened almost two years ago, but I only just found it, and it’s hilarious!

I’m talking about “Improv Everywhere“’s visit to Best Buy in NYC.  Around 80 people were all alerted to participate in the mission, with simple instructions:

In order to participate you must arrive adhering to a very specific dress code:

1) Blue Polo Shirt. Short sleeved. Any brand. Preferably with no logo. As Close to Royal Blue as possible. As close to this exact shirt as possible.

2) Khaki Pants. Any shade of khaki is fine. No shorts.

I love the quality of grammar in the media:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — In first-ever tests for commercial airplanes carrying passengers, as many as three American Airlines jets will be equipped with a shoulder-fired missile defense system.

You just know some bright spark is going to have read this, and think there’s now going to be a way for an air marshal to stick their head out of the window to shoot a missile at someone/something.

The really frightening part? I bet someone could send a proposal in to the Pentagon suggesting just that and get a grant to investigate the potential!