An often entry over at Engrish sites like EngrishFunny.com is something like this, whose first character is regularly mistranslated. It turns out there's a great explanation of this machine-translation-gone-wrong over at the language log....
The government has been putting it in our water (and oxygen)! Courtesy failblog.org....
Not all Engrish is from eastern Asia. Courtesy English Russia....
This is what happens when rednecks Camaro aficionados get fed up with Craigslist. Pity this didn't make best-of....
This is what happens when you throw $184,000 of upgrades onto a ... Toyota Prius? I can't imagine any other car which is so hip by being so low-bling....
The folks over at Moletech sell a typically nonsensical mileage enhancing product called MTech which uses the magic of molecules and ions (and science!) to magically increase the fuel efficiency of your vehicumobile. I could write for hours about the product, but I'll skip it because even if it did...
Ignoring the choppy English in the header (would "Has a hacker stolen your identity?" have been too difficult?) I'm nevertheless baffled by the choice of stock photography. Who is this guy, employed by a Red Lobster and holding a guitar? Is he supposed to be some sort of surfer-guy-looking hacker...
One of the best parts of this story about two ruthless Washington-based outlaws hell-bent on pillaging and nap time is that the officers who caught the lads snoozing after their latest caper managed to snap a photograph before throwing on the cuffs....
...on second thought, I'll spare you my sing-along. But check out Dr. Horrible's, until it gets pulled off the web Sunday night. Great stuff....
I have to admit that the Simpsons already did this one. But, nevertheless props to The Superest....
I listened to an interview with Richard Preston last night on KUOW. Preston wrote The Hot Zone over a decade ago, and he's just published a new book, Panic in Level 4, which is based on a bunch of essays he wrote for the New Yorker. I admit that I...
Everybody remember the Rockwell Automation Retro Encabulator? Behold the turbo encabulator....
Spotted at an English Russia article on a Lithuanian1 custom car made out of a Mercedes-Benz CL and something called, "PU-foam." 1 The article says "Lithuanian." The photos are named "Latvian." Either way, that coat spells "totally sweet."...
Got a hankering for crazy photos of oddly proportioned and amateur-assembled kit cars? Well I'm giving you the link anyway. Price of His Toys is a car blog all about nutty kit cars—the vast majority of which are based on either VW bug or Fiero chassis. Anyway, there are tons...
Welcome back to 2003 (links to embedded video). Courtesy Kyle....
The world seems to be woven a little cozier when stuff like this turns up. Courtesy Danny....
I spotted this 1935 Monaco Trossi over at Jalopnik a while back. Mounting a huge-ass radial engine to the front of a sports car is quite possibly the coolest idea to come out of the 1930s....
The best part about perpetual-motion inventor types is that they're often really wordy people. Today's subject is taking April, May, and part of June to build a "Perpetual Motion Generator." He's got loads of ranty (and markedly racist) sideshow stuff all over the rest of his website, but the real...
Pardon the awful background track. Turn those speakers down. My shampoo bottles did something similar when I moved down to sea level. Good thing I don't need an entire tanker car full of the stuff....
Spotted over at Kotaku....
I find this article on productivity and the night owls to be pretty true—it's 10pm and I'm at work tying up some loose ends, and the last three hours I've been here were more productive than the entire rest of the day. P.S. Clearly I haven't updated my blog's clock...
For those of you who don't recall how much ahead of his time Bill Hicks was, here's a little clip of him pinning Rick Astley for exactly the banality that makes the Rickroll all that it is. Caution: Bill Hicks is a huge potty mouth. NSFW. Way ahead of his...
I spotted this at CL earlier1. No wonder the hot chick isn't included. You've cut off her damned head. 1 The posting has already been pulled, so all you get is a cached copy....
Last weekend some guy posted his 1990 Honda Prelude (cached) for sale, replete with some spendy rims, totally sweet wing, and absolutely bitchin' chrome sexy lady badges on the trunklid. Interestingly, it seems this guy didn't sell his ride, has stripped off all the goodies, and has reposted the hoopty...
I'm all about pranks and nonsense1 and hearing something unexpected come out of someone's mouth. Being Rickrolled by your boss2 is a good example—but really only if your boss isn't the Rickroll type in the first place. But all those newsy websites3 out there who fill their pages with crap...
If Black People Love Us! was made in 2008, it would be Stuff White People Like....
Seriously. It's called a spell checker. Of course, even that won't save you from every possible embarrassment....
Drumroll please... United States of America v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins (PDF). Thanks, DotD. There are more details about this case (and its name) at this second link....
I spotted this article today (again at the Freakonomics blog) that describes something I've thought about traffic jams for a long time: jams that aren't caused by fixed events (like an accident) travel backwards in waves. The article is a little thin, but the video is neat. The only problem...
Last week's This American Life featured an odd appendage of the New York public school system: the rubber room. In response to the increasing size of the public school system and the increased frequency of complaints from students and parents of teacher misconduct, New York's Department of Education instituted a...
The timing for this is, personally, a little remarkable: merely days after Layla and I finish watching F**k (which is in part a story about our rights to be as vulgar as we'd like), this story comes flying across the wires. The idea is that some kid got the South...
"Our Worst Critics Prefer to Stay" is the top-rated motto from the Freakonomics blog's poll to find a new six-word motto for the U.S. I agree a lot with this. Interestingly, Layla and I had a long discussion last night about how many great alternatives there are out there to...
Skip to the last page of this opinion (specifically, this page is the dissenting opinion by Judge Randall Rader) and you'll notice this paragraph: ... The record also shows that Ms. Baird had notice that she could be subject to random drug tests. Removal thus seems a highly appropriate remedy....
I feel sorry for the box art designers who work for motherboard and video card vendors. They've got tons of variations on each product, can't really reuse graphics (the RT-XG3500 has to be distinguishable from the RT-XS3500), can't really picture the object in question (it's boring), and typically have no...
"Computer Randomly Plays Classical Music" at Microsoft support....
I'm sure that, at some point, most kids' mothers tell them both of the following:Always save for a rainy day, and don't do drugs. So I suppose I can't fault this young lady for following the first bit of advice, even if she didn't really follow the second. P.S. Maybe...
Those of you who watched the Super Bowl last week may remember two ads by salesgenie.com1. The first features Ramesh, an Indian salesman with 7 kids; the second features a family of pandas with Chinese accents. Both have ludicrous plotlines2. Both of these ads clearly have racial (although not necessarily...
Don't ever get into an ass-kicking contest with the Isle of Man....
There's a level of finesse, creativity, and cleverness to these Japanese Rube Goldberg devices that I've simply never seen in their western counterparts. The attention to detail makes this one a real treat. It's just so ... delicate and witty....
Here's a prediction on which kids will be caught racing their hovercars next to the Intergalactic Police station. P.S. Does this remind anyone else of a particular Family Guy clip?...
Here's a hint to all of you aspiring young ignoramuses out there: if you're planning on drifting a car you've just "borrowed" from the dealership where you work, it may not be best to do so at the parking lot marked 1 in the map at right. Why is that?...
Since my wordy post about Wikipedia and archival of ongoing events went over so well, here's the peanut butter jelly time song....
I saw this picture in a post over at English Russia (agh, the ads!) and although the post was titled Bad Parking 5, I have to admit that "bad parking" wasn't the first thing through my mind. It was closer to, "I think I know what kind of truck I...
I [heart] QVC antics. Excellenté....
I was listening to All Things Considered on my way home from snowboarding earlier when I heard something that nearly made me pee my pants. Reading this story on Bush's visit to the United Arab Emirates, the commentator noted that: On arrival, Bush was given a large necklace encrusted with...
I read Raymond Chen's blog from time to time, somewhat because he's a really conversational writer, and somewhat because he's got lots of interesting things to say about the history of Windows. I was amused by this post about MS-DOS and Windows 95, in particular by the shenanigans Microsoft engineers...
It's been a while since I've posted any tragic, tragic television appearances. I thought it couldn't get any worse, and then Jeff Foxworthy sticks his foot in his mouth around 1:05. Really though, the blonde is the star in this clip. P.S. I don't think France is a country, either....
Car parts coming unstuck—always good times. P.S. The video is loud. Turn your speakers down....
Following in the path of Powergen Italia (think about it) is the Chinese communication software vendor Incesoft, who could keep their name even if they changed their mission to delivering the finest software promoting cousin love. Their tagline says that INCE stands for, "Infinity Nature Communication Experience," which does absolutely...
Craigslist find of the day (cached). Too bad the delivery is so hammed up. This would be comic gold if only delivered from the straight man....
I find that most legalese is difficult to read. In the best cases, it's impenetrable up-front, and in the worst, it's meandering and strings you along you thinking you can barely read it until you get to the end and realize you have no clue what you just read. And...
The first local craigslist post of note is this gem (cached) from someone fed up with his new truck payments. Yet more evidence why people just can't have nice things. The seller is clearly an intelligent fellow, since he blew some (probably big) bucks on stupid-huge chrome wheels and matching...
I ran across this (marginally dated) article about a toy tie-in for the film Fantastic Four. I'm not particularly surprised I didn't catch this the first time around, since I assume that Fantastic Four is a really dumb movie. But the article goes a step further and illustrates just how...
BWOOON!! Courtesy of this page, which I found when looking up the new version of the USB humping dogs. Update: Um, it appears this is either "BWOOOn!!" or "BWooon!!" or something in between. It's difficult to tell....
This is making its way into my next presentation. Somehow....
Sometimes it's just time for a picture post....
The Superest is awesome stuff. Two professional cartoonists square off in a battle of My Team, Your Team inspired by fellow webgoers. The stakes are high, and the aftermath is hilarious. Start at the bottom. Each successive superhero is designed solely to vanquish the prior...and to amuse!...
This sort of thing used to happen all of the time, but I haven't seen it in quite a while. It appears that someone on a quasi-major website has borked their web-app configuration badly enough that Apache is spitting out directory listings. In specific, the site is Gizmodo, the Gawker...
Ever since, oh, a month after I originally found it, I've been lamenting the state of The Onion. It's a clever format, but it's definitely run its course for renewable entertainment, instead relegating itself to links I get emailed from family members who have just stumbled across the site. It's...
I don't understand cup or dice stacking ... but damn is it cool....
Without getting into a huge discussion about it, I've found that traditionally, the loudest members of the clergy typically have more rhetoric and condemnation to spew than actual wisdom. I don't disagree that most of our leaders (religious and not) act this way, but I've always expected more from the...
When I first saw the headline Inmates go on sausage 'temper tantrum', I should have guessed it took place in New Mexico. P.S. Fighting over sausages? You guys aren't helping your case much....
Once again, recycled bits. I ran across the Keepon once again in gadget news recently, and it's much too cute not to post....
Mouser's post about license plates reminded me about a wordy but nevertheless intensely interesting article about how the half-century-old Federal Highway Administration fonts (also known as Highway Gothic) and how they're finally being phased out in favor of something actually designed for highway signs. The only downside here is that...
...so enjoy some regurgitated YouTube video of a Japanese robotic cat. I hear this is what Web 2.0 is all about. This post, not the cat....
Today's video inspiration comes courtesy of Rob Williams. It's an oldie, but a goodie....
I feel sorry for this girl. ...but not sorry enough....
Luke Skywalker: This R2 unit has a bad motivator. Look! Link (no cache—there's not much there)...
Has anyone not yet seen this? The picture at right is not fake....
Maybe he had just passed his nemesis!...
And by explain, I don't mean pointing out that I'm too busy to post something substantial....
This just in: U.S. justice system delivers de-pantsing to member of justice system. I'm pleased....
This came across English Russia recently: a recruiting advertisement for the Russian border guard service features a picture of Mt. Rainier in the background. Yes, the same Mt. Rainier parked just south of Seattle....
Layla threw together mytwocats.org the other day, ostensibly to play around with Office Live. Hrm. I think she put together this page purely to annoy me....
The best part is right at the beginning....
I ran across the Freakonomics blog earlier today. Lots of amusing stuff there. And holy crap, this guys posts more often than I do. Awesome!...
This may be a little out there for some of you, but anyone who's ever driven on a racetrack (heck, even in traffic?) can probably appreciate what's going through this guy's head. What comes out of his mouth, on the other hand, is something else entirely. Don't despair if it...
This came over the wire today. Click the image if you can't see the badging. Nerds!...
I noticed an article earlier that noted that in 2006, revenues from online sales of apparel and footwear surpassed revenues from online sales of computer and electronic equipment. This is certainly understandable (clothes are awfully popular, even if they are inconvenient to purchase online) but nevertheless, many of my friends...
I see your crock pot and lamp, and raise you a J. J. Yeley checkbook cover. Not crazy enough to make the list of nutty NASCAR stuff, you say? Well then you must not have noticed the $23.99 pricetag on this little item. Booya....
Everybody remember the Kursk, which sank in 2000 after it was damaged by an experimental torpedo? Well, English Russia has a salvage-boat load of pictures of the Kursk out of the water, and the damage is amazing (cached). It's really rare to see the interior of a sub like this,...
What's cooler than a chainsaw, you ask? How about a freakin' chainsaw on a 12' pole. Hot damn....
I mean seriously, RuTube? Do remember to turn down your volume first. There's nothing better than poorly sampled day-old thrash rock....
Legal opinion isn't always dry stuff—the opening two paragraphs from this Seventh Circuit opinion describes two flatulent toys, and how one's intellectual property was infringed with the other. If you continue to read the copy, you'll find that Tekky Toys was awarded nearly a million dollars in compensatory damages, punitive...
I've got some newfound boredom now that I'm in the "waiting" phase of the imminent home purchase, and so tonight I wandered through a bunch of ancient posts and ran across this paleolithic example from nearly two years ago. So, Spiderman ... how long is going to be until you're...
Justin posted this description of his office earlier and it's so damned funny I just had to share. I'm reminded most of the scene in Office Space where Peter rips down the big banner hanging in the middle of the cube farm....
Those of you who haven't seen the redneck rollercoaster should watch that video before you start the one below. Redneck-licious!...
I just can't get enough of these things. Bahahahahahaha!...
I've seen these photographs about a half-dozen times over the last few years, but they're absolutely fascinating and worthy of yet another mention. They're color photographs taken all over the Russian empire in the first few years of the nineteen hundreds—the photographer reportedly took three black and white frames with...