culture hole

Inspired by a teacher-librarian I know, I will present you with a comprehensive list of career fair booths that are rarely ever seen.

• Enjoy an Exiting Career in Phrenology!
• There’s a Career for you in Pig Training
• Manually Masturbate Animals for Scientific Research, and Profit
• Discover an Exciting Career as a FORTRAN programmer
• SCIENCE, BITCHES!
• Video Game Expert: Canceled Due to Lack of Interest
• There’s Money to be Made in Extortion!
• BEETS AND TURNIPS! They Don’t Just Grow Themselves!
• Hey you! Sewer Urchin? YEAH!
• Ever Considered a Career in Mill Grinding?
• CARDBOARD BOXES! Make them in your own home!
• Start a Career in Career Fair Organization!
• Web Designer
• Who. Can. It’s. Man. The. Beat Poetry. Dig?
• Get Good Wit Editing.
• Want to Wear a CHEF’S HAT? Become a Chef’s Hat Manufacturer!
• Now Taking Resumes for Third Level Lug-nut and Wing-nut Bolt Inspectors.

The Theatre du Grand-Guignol was a French theatre that was famous for one thing: bloody awful plays.

(more…)

To My Shareholders,

Thirty years ago I was brought on to this earth date women.

In the time since, my mission statement has been updated and changed time and time again. The constant struggle to sell my services to the female public has been difficult at times, but never has a dull day passed or opportunity missed.

One thing hasn’t changed. I still am just who I am. The world will never view Joel as I do. Where others see cool, I see character. Where they see odd, I see creativity. Where the world sees me hanging around the house naked, drinking beers, through their high powered telescope, because I’ve left the curtains open again, I see a man, ready for a challenge. When the world is in doubt about my ability to date women, is when I am most certain of my ability to compete and to win.
(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!

(more…)

• 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?
(more…)

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.