I live for stuff like this.

My day isn't complete without one good comic strip or amusing email. I collect them like some people collect Beanie Babies. I have the hope that some day I will actually be able to put them to some good use.


June 6, 2007. Ah, Rachel, Source of All Funny Things... a whole website of the most bizzarely, hilariously captioned animal pictures, like the walrus + bucket below...


May 29, 2007. http://ihasabucket.com/


May 25, 2007. God bless Rachel - once again, she hits the mark! And the second one I found on the ColbertNation forums.

Hulk's Diary That is On The Internet

If You Can't Beat Them, Indoctrinate Them


March 19, 2007. OMG, Bunnieeeeeeeeeeeez!


March 1, 2007. Got this from The Daily Bleat...


December 13, 2006. I love a good bit of computer comedy!


August 14, 2006. OK, if anyone was around for my emotional meltdown when I began to worry about Y2K, you will realize the significance of this strip:


June 6, 2006. I know I've read some of these a while back, but I think there are newer ones mixed in... it's still hilarious!

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in High School essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.


June 14, 2006. I had forgotten about the little animated toons on this site; most are gross but this one is irresistable... http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya/


May 31, 2006. Once again, The Dad comes through...

Borders (video)


May 8, 2006. A forwarded email can sometimes be the best thing to happen all day. Now THAT'S what I call a Dog!


March 3, 2006. Stephen Colbert is a Comedy Genius and I do love him so. See why:

Stephen "Who's Attacking Me Now"

The Word: USA! USA! (Olympics)


December 30, 2005. Comedy Central's usually lame Joke of the Day finally turned up a good one!

New Years Resolutions

1. Gain weight. At least 30 pounds.

2. Stop exercising. Waste of time.

3. Read less. Makes you think.

4. Watch more TV. You've been missing some good stuff.

5. Procrastinate more. Starting tomorrow.

6. Stop bringing lunch from home: Eat out more.

7. Get in a whole NEW rut!

8. Spend your summer vacation in Cyberspace.

9. Don't eat cloned meat.

10. Create loose ends.

11. Get more toys.

12. Get further in debt.

13. Don't believe politicians.

14. Break at least one traffic law.

15. Avoid airplanes that spontaneously drop 1000 feet.

16. Don't swim with piranhas or sharks.

17. Associate with even worse business clients.

18. Spread out priorities beyond ability to keep track of them.

19. Wait around for opportunity.

20. Focus on the faults of others.

21. Mope about faults.

22. Never make New Year's resolutions again.


December 27, 2005. Out of tragedy arises hope...
December 22, 2005. The Lileks has amused Us, and We are pleased...

Went shopping. I suppose this is where I should drop the pre-fab whine about parking, crowds, commercialism, and the grating nature of pre-fab holiday music. Oh for the old days, when a man could walk down the snow-choked alleys on Christmas Eve, taking care not to make eye contact with his betters, pushing aside the ragged beggars with their oozing carbuncles and the haggard gin-blasted pox-ridden doxies who chew your unholstered parts for a farthing. Oh for the honest Christmases, when you’d buy a goose and take it home and spend your week’s salary getting the stove hot enough to cook the thing. Remember the year little Tim pitched in his crutch so we could have enough heat to crisp the duck? Merry times, merry times. Now let us sing a carol and thank our stars we do not have to drive self-propelled machines - complete with auto-heat and magical devices that pluck music and voices from the very either - to great broad sheds filled with goods unimaginable. It seems like a wonderland, children, but every Eden has its snake; there are other people there, and they oft do not comport themselves as we would wish. And the songs from unseen minstrels, while short and endlessly variable, are often contrary to our aesthetic preferences. No, be happy we are here together in our perfect Victorian times. Now throw another volume of Dickens on the fire; it grows cold, and Father cannot lose but two more toes. http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/05/1205/122105.html


November 15, 2005. Thank you thank you thank you Caroline Davis & Susie Russenberger who brought this Hys-Ter-I-Cal article to my attention!

The importance of being Darcy
Matthew MacFayden has a tough job filling Colin Firths smoldering shoes

COMMENTARY
By Mary Beth Ellis
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 10:24 a.m. ET Nov. 11, 2005

I was speaking to an older colleague about the latest essay I was writing; I informed her it concerned a new movie based on "Pride and Prejudice," which she last read at approximately the same time the Earth was first cooling.

And first words out of her mouth were: Oh! Mr. Darcy!

Yes, Mr. Darcy. Thanks loads, Jane Austen, for ruining generations of perfectly good women with your ballgowns and your rolling barouches and your Mr. Darcy. Many are the ladies who wait in vain for their own personal, portable Darcy, complete with estate in Derbyshire.

The number has increased since 1995, when Colin Firth took on the role for a BBC miniseries. Colin was Action Figure Darcy. He fences! He swims! He bathes! Naked! He gives and fixes and scowls and rides his horse and just in general Firths all over the place, and we are much the better for it.

He also stares, a lot. There is a great deal of staring on the part of Darcy, mostly at Elizabeth Bennet, who occasionally stares back, which in the Regency era I suppose was the equivalent of text messaging.

A difficult act to follow
Primarily, what sets Colin apart from all other Darcys is his hair. It truly is wonderful hair. The man rides thither and yon sometimes yon twice in the same scene and not once does he suffer hathead.

You kind of get the feeling that Darcy, in college, was not a frat boy. He wasn't showing up at your doorstep with Game Cube and a 12-pack of Natural Light and calling it a romantic evening. Darcy would at least change out of the ball cap he had been wearing for the past eight consecutive days first. He's a difficult act to follow.

But now the Lord has now bestowed upon us a new incarnation of Darcy, now played by Matthew MacFayden, which, good luck, Matt. Sometimes actors simply define roles; I cannot imagine Professor Higgins without Rex Harrison, Harold Hill without Robert Preston, or, of course, Larry Gigli without Ben Affleck. So has Colin's stare enamored any number of Austen fans.

It's all in the smolder, you see. For in today's culture, there is little time to smolder; the next episode of The Apprentice is roaring down the pike, or the plane is circling the airport yet again, or our cell phone is insistently informing us, via a tinny version of La Bamba, that our best friend is currently standing 10 feet away, where are we? I don't think modern society loves Elizabeth and Darcy as much as we covet their spare time. House parties would last up to six weeks at a time in the 1880s. Who, outside of Paris Hilton, has that much alcohol on hand?

Among his other fine attributes, Colin Firth's Darcy possesses the ability to selectively bilocate. It really is quite extraordinary; one moment he's brooding on horseback, the next his face is floating to the forefront of Elizabeth's mirror or carriage window, issuing dark, repetitive, and sonorous pronouncements about how very icky he finds her family. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you but your mother is horrid and will have to stay in the basement. Dad needs to go too, and I seriously hate your sisters. And how attached are you, really, to the family dog?

Darcy also maintains quite the respectable crib, and, it's safe to imagine, the most pimped-out carriages available. The driveway alone could serve as a landing strip for the space shuttle. And the pond - all proper estates require a pond. All I have is a sad puddle of warm beer beneath the refrigerator.

And you just know that Darcy gets into all the best clubs, too. He really is the ultimate date. There would be no standing at the hostess station, light-up seating alert device limply in hand for Darcy. No, he walks into Fridays, and he sits right down!

Shall we dance?
Impressive, too, is this whole business of dancing. I welcome any new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Firthed or un-Firthed, so long as the dancing is done properly. People in Regency England didn't dance quite the way we do. There was, for example, precious little grinding. Smoke machines were rarely used. I doubt lasers made much of an appearance. On the other hand--fortunate generation!--everyone was spared the Electric Slide.

Physical contact between unmarried men and women was pretty much limited to a lot of bowing and fan fluttering. In dancing there was a great deal of twirling, which--and I say this as a square dancer from way back--is a lot harder than it sounds. I've thrown off the rotation of the planet with a poorly directed alamand left. But Colin manages this admirably, and with a remarkably small amount of dorkiness. He even skips in a manly manner.

Darcy, however, may not be well suited for the long haul. Once all the smoldering is done what is there to burn after, really? A really excellent pot roast on Michaelmas, or whatever in the world people yearned for once plights were trothed? I mean, Pemberley is quite the hizzy, but how many chandeliers does one person need?

And is he really the best judge of character? Look at his friends: He hangs out with Wickham, who is the leading candidate as a spokesman for Rohypnol, and the overly smiley Bingley, who never met a pile of dog poop he didn't like. Colin-as-Darcy, I would say, for I'm sure Colin Firth prefers to be addressed as nothing but Colin-as-Darcy, you may stay for as long as you like, but your friends are only allowed inside when I'm off at Pilates class.

However, given the bilocation and the preference for pond-swimming, I suppose I could settle in for a nice life of horses and twirling. An 80-year-old Colin Firth is still far preferable to a 27-year-old Kevin Federline.

Freelance writer Mary Beth Ellis runs www.BlondeChampagne.com, from whence she leads a merry chase, or plights her troth, or whatever.

2005 MSNBC Interactive

For funnies prior to 2005, see archive.

  Page last updated: 10/10/09