The Theatre du Grand-Guignol was a French theatre that was famous for one thing: bloody awful plays.
Culture Hole is a humor blog by Joel Friesen, web and graphic designer from Victoria BC. Please visit joelf.com to view his professional work in graphic and webdesign, as well as ways to contact Joel.
To My Shareholders,
Thirty years ago I was brought on to this earth date women. I never realized that 100% of my life’s objectives would be as difficult to perform as something that’s really difficult to do. (more…)
I want to make an iPhone app that allows you to hand off a phone call off to it.
When you pick up the phone, and it’s a sales person, I want to start the application When the apps running the sales call is now talking to it. The app will wait for pauses in the conversation and inject one of a few random phrases:
- Sorry, can you repeat that?
- This is really exciting, please tell me more!
- What an offer!
- Go on…
During this whole process it will record and time the phone call and you can keep scores as to who stays on the line the longest. If you like you can review the call later for your amusement.
There could be a mode that slips a few random non-sequiturs in there like:
- I once had a dog named Bruce
- My mother is very well, thank you
- I don’t understand French, can you speak up?
It may be in the voice of a confused old man or an old woman, maybe a rude loud talker, or an exasperated business man in a train station, etc.
A few months ago, my friend Ken suggested that taking the last panel out of the comics in the comic page made the comics funnier because they became a dadaist farce full of non-sequiturs and depressing endings. He mentioned that this might have been something Marshall McLuhan might have said.
To find out if he is right, I have taken a dozen comics at random from today’s paper and removed the final panel.
Please allow me to present: American Comic Laugh Fest!
- The clock is indicating that the present time is optimum for the ingestion of Miller brand malted beverage.
- Gillette shaving implement is far superior to any other shaving implements acquirable to males.
- Though it is not spatially defined, there is an Intel brand computer chip within the confines of this hypothetical space.
- Budweiser is monarch to all malted beverages. Not democratically elected but assigned to the title at birth.
- A diamond will out last all else.
- One complete solar cycle without the ingestion of squeezed nectar derived from oranges, is compared to that same solar cycle without the sun itself, thus causing a paradox.
- I am finding it a difficult concept to accept in my belief system: I ingested everything that was given to me. Pepto-Bismol.
- Duracell: a product that continues on a trajectory, uninterrupted.
- Compared to a person living in close proximity, who is of good character, State Farm exists.
- AT&T: stretch out your feeling or grasping appendage and make contact through touch, with a human that is not you.
- VISA is omnipotent and follows you where you may desire to go.
As some of you know, I’m on Lavalife, a huge online dating community.
Normally I wouldn’t admit that I even know what the site is, but I realize no one cares. In this day and age I think we could all use something to make dating a little easier.
Even if it means having to pretend I am a 6’2″ helicopter pilot with a scar.
Lavalife has been pretty decent. I’ve had a few dates because of it, found out that no one wants someone who claims to be a 6’2″ helicopter pilot with a scar and has a PhD in socisexyology, when in fact they are a 5’ 8″ web-geek, with only a BA in socisexyology. I always wind up paying for somebody’s dinner.
Maybe I’m looking for the wrong women. Maybe it’s time to refine the search. Narrow down the field some. Let’s take a look at some of the more unique searches on lavalife, shall we?
Vegetarians who Love to Hunt This is a very small group of women driven by their love of killing, and hatred for meat. Some are here because they checked every single box in the activities portion of the sign in. Some are just plain weird.
Investors with no Money They earn less than 20k per year, but they love to invest. There isn’t a check box for gambling, but I suspect that’s what the investments are from.
Habitual Smoking Fitness Freaks Working out between cigarettes is tough, running is best. They avoid swimming because the lighters don’t work underwater.
3 Foot Tall Basketball Players I couldn’t believe the amount of women online who claim to be 3’ tall. From the photos I can tell some are taller, unless they live in a tiny scale replica of our world. I think that it’s great these women are challenging the social norms and participating in a sport that favors the taller player. More power to them!
Those that prefer not to say what their ethnic background and body type is, but include a photo Very mysterious.
Old White Ladies who Love Rap If you refine a search down to it’s most basic elements you can find some pretty unique people. I looked for anyone over the age of 70 who lists rap music as their main source of inspiration. Oddly enough there is a bunch. But most seem to have accidentally filled in their age wrong, or they have incredible skin for a 103 year old gangsta.
Though fun, some of these searches can lead to scarred brain tissue. There are some mental images that are hard to shake. Use caution on Lavalife and be sure to fill in your form correctly. Unless you are a woman that’s attracted to a man that’s attracted to these kind of women. Then whatever floats your boat.
I am looking for a unique girl, but seeing what I have here, kind of makes me glad I can appreciate someone who is pretty normal (to some degree). If you want to find me on Lavalive I am the 3 foot tall buddhist that speaks Javanese and likes seal hunting.
I like old weird things. I especially love the look of copper plate prints, when they are used in scientific textbooks (Bonus points if they use the word “Plate”).
Today I’m going to put together some of my favorite sites on the net that show old medical illustrations. These are a great inspiration to me, and I hope you might appreciate them too.
Digatal Clendening Shows us a small selection of high quality images of skeletons, operating theatres and other assorted weirdness. One of the most comprehensive sections is this one. An assortment of categories with chronologically sorted images. For the ephemera i love I can’t seem to get away from this bit: Chinese Public Health Posters. Piles of weird images in there.
Dream Anatomy Has a giant collection of the more surreal side of the art of medical illustration. Made by the National Library of medicine, the collection is professional and unique. The images are broken down in to categories. One of my favorite is Body Part as Art showing cadavers playing instruments and dancing. You can see the entire gallery here.
There is more to see from them here as well. They have catalogued dozens of books and scanned in the images. This book is one of my favorites. It shows skeletons in a band as well as this hauntingly strange etching.
If I made a movie based solely on the 4 most frequently used words of the 10 top grossing films from the 2005 domestic box office.
- “The of and War”
If I made a movie based solely on the most frequently used words of the 10 top grossing films from the 1915 domestic box office.
- “The of Golden West Chimmie Fadden”
If I made a movie based solely on the to 10 most frequently used words of the 401 top grossing films of all time.
- “The Star Man Wars With Men II”
If I made a movie based solely on the to 6 most frequently used words of the top rated horror films of all time
- “The Dead of Dr. Man”
If I made a movie based solely on the to 6 most frequently used words of the top rated sci-fi films of all time
- “The Stars of Frankenstein Wars”