Humor

Things that make me laugh, or that I think will make others laugh.

My Famous Awkward Family

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(Apologies to Facebook friends who are seeing this multiple times. I think this should be the last time this pops up in my feed.)

Last year, I stumbled across a new humor site called Awkward Family Photos, which was posting funny old family photos. It gave me a laugh, and I started going through what they’d posted…only to suddenly find one of my own family’s old photos on the site!

Amused by this, I commented, telling them that if they really wanted an awkward photo, they should see this other one we had, which has always been one of my favorites. Not long after that, that photo was posted as well, and we became the first family to voluntary submit a photo to their site.

As the site gained popularity, they decided to release a book, got our permission to use our photos…and today, at long last, I got my copy of the AFP book, which uses both photos we submitted! One is on the back cover, and one is given the place of honor as the first featured photo in the book, opening Chapter One. We’re also given thanks in the Acknowledgements section as the first family to send in a shot.

Awkward Family Photos Cover

Awkward Family Photos Back Cover

Awkward Family Photos Chapter One

This is great! Many thanks to Mike and Doug at AFP, and to my family for sharing my amusement at all of this!

To: Pat Robertson. Your Pal, Satan.

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Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher.

The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll.

You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best,

Satan

Written by Lily Coyle of Minneapolis, first printed as a Letter to the Editor in the Star Tribune.

Geek Appreciation

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Things I love about the geek community: within the first half hour of Saturday’s Norwescon planning meeting, I was complimented on my shoes (black converse with a white “hawaiian monkey skull” design that looks vaguely Grateful Dead-ish), my belt (the Utilikilts airplane belt), and my shirt (Frakkin’ Toasters). The utilikilt, however, was too everyday and normal for this crowd to be worthy of mention. This greatly amused me.

(I actually did get a compliment on the Utilikilt as well, toward the end of the meeting. This left only my socks and undershirt as uncomplimented wardrobe items by the time I left. I may not be a conventional dresser, but apparently I’m a pretty snappy dresser…at least by geek standards!)

Also: regular slips when mentioning URLs and e-mail addresses due to the recent change from a .net to a .org address, with accompanying cries of “ORG…(asm)…!” from the peanut gallery. The only meeting I’ve ever been to with that many public (dot)org(asmic) cries. Hilarious.

Also nice: a meeting that not only progresses on schedule, but ends a full hour earlier than planned. Impressive organization, and a nice job of keeping the meeting on track even with fairly regular outbreaks of geeky silliness and rabble rousing.

This is my first year getting involved with Norwescon beyond showing up and snapping pictures, and I think it’s going to be a fun experience.

Is there an editor in the house?

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Something seems wrong about this paragraph, taken from the ‘textbook’ (actually a CD of Microsoft Word-generated HTML pages and some PowerPoint presentations) for my Domestic Violence class. Can you spot the goof?

However, two years after the release of the original Minneapolis police experiment, it was replicated in six other cities. The results from these new studies were much more supportive of the deterrent effect of arrest on domestic violence. Researchers in Milwaukee concluded that while arrest deters repeat domestic violence in the short run, arrests with brief custody increase the frequency of domestic violence in the long run. On and again kick Tracey in the head. After, three more officers arrived, they still allowed Charles to wander about the gathered crowd and the other hand, these replicative experiments have also been criticized for several reasons, including the failure to properly replicate the Minneapolis experiment. Thus, although not conclusive, there is some support to suggest that arrest has an effect in delaying, if not deterring, further incidences of domestic violence.

Amusingly, apparently someone did notice this, as there’s a hyperlinked footnote that says, “Who Kicked Tracey in the head? This paragraph does not flwo together….Charles wandered the croud, which replicative statements?” Guess that got missed before finalizing the files for the CD duplication.

Back To the ’80s!

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Chances are you’re either going to love me or hate me for posting this. Personally, I think this is great — my tolerance for cheezy pop is really high — but there will be no hard feelings if you blame me for wanting to brillo pad your brain clean after watching this. :)

Still Awkward After All These Years

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I’ve made a couple mentions of finding an old Hanscom family photo on the new Awkward Family Photos weblog, then watching in amusement as the AFP site and our photo gained popularity and popped up in more places around the web.

Well, here’s one more for the list! Yesterday I was interviewed by a reporter for ABC News who was working on an article about AFP and the reactions from people who’ve stumbled across their photos on the site, and the article went live this morning! It features both of the shots of our family that are on AFP, and my part of the article comprises a fair chunk of the last third or so.

The Alaska Hanscoms are famous!

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I Did Some Wonder Loaf

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I’m about halfway through cleaning up the audio import of the original Woodstock 3-LP soundtrack album, and was just reminded of one of the funniest little videos I’ve run across in a long time.

I love Joe Cocker‘s version of The Beatles‘ “With A Little Help From My Friends” (and his version of “Come Together” from Across the Universe — actually, as good as the originals are, I prefer Joe’s versions), but in all honesty, I’ve never been entirely sure just what he’s singing. I know what the lyrics are, or at least what they should be…I just don’t think Joe did.

Here’s one person’s take on interpreting Joe’s mumblings, apparently done as a birthday present for a friend. I love this…absolutely hilarious.