Several years ago my family and I went to an improve murder mystery dinner theater, and my family being the goofballs they are decided to cheer for the bumbling idiot character anytime he accomplished anything, regardless of how menial. So as the night went on the bumbling idiot character would start to cheer for himself followed by all of us, and eventually the whole crowd anytime he did anything.
So now if anyone in my family does something super menial but it was still a big task because circumstances, like mowing the lawn after a long hard day at work, we cheer “Yay, Eric!!!” After the name of the bumbling idiot, from an improve murder mystery dinner theater performance, from 12 years ago.
I live near a restaurant that has a sign on the side of the building that shows a zoomed in pair of eyes. Below the eyes it says "Fine, dine here!" as if the sign is just being passive aggressive and your patronage to the restaurant is really a nuisance. It's so dumb, but every time I see it I can't help but giggle!
I used to live near a road that was called "Old Fort Rd". It was near the highway and one time, this person added a line to the exit sign with white tape so it said "Old Fart Rd." My wife and I always got a good laugh out of that.
I once saw a road sign that was supposed to say Putt Corners but someone painted it to say Butt Corners. Which is amazing because butts don't have corners.
Fruity lager.
My friends and I used to be Four Loko fans back when it had energy drink mixed in. When that got taken off the market we replicated the feeling by drinking a 5 hour energy and a forty.
Well one day my friend decides to pour his 5 hour energy into his forty despite our protests. He takes a big gulp and smacks his lips and says it tastes like a fruity lager.
One by one we all pour our 5 hour energies into our forties and smack our lips and say it tastes like a fruity lager. Finally the last guy does it and takes a sip and immediately spits it out saying it tastes like ass.
We all crack up because we all got tricked and couldn't let the other guys not drink this nasty swill so everyone played it cool until we were all in it together.
We still text each other Fruity Lager and crack up over a decade later.
Back in uni, my colleagues and I had something we called "default mode" -- the idea that all technology had an inherent desire to kill all humans or otherwise be as destructive to life and property as possible. "Default mode" had to be actively prevented by careful engineering -- e.g. all devices are assumed to be maximally harmful until you engineer them to be otherwise with a high degree of confidence.
We also had something we called "destructive optimization". This was essentially the elimination of an object that was so poorly fitted to it's purpose that it made it actively harder to do the intended thing. So, like smashing a tool that is so bad, that the task is easier to accomplish without it. Often, these tools would be inherited from graduating grad students on the instruction of a well-meaning supervisor. For example an overly complex and poorly documented robotic arm that has weird bugs inherent to the design, iterated on a dozen times -- less work to redo than fix!
The terms are best used in tandem, e.g. "it entered default mode, and had to be destructively optimized".
Nearly two decades later, I still think in these terms and laugh about it (while also taking them seriously). I now own an engineering company. My focus is still firmly on preventing "default mode". I also make OK money "destructively optimizing" software tools sometimes.
Yeah human beings are pretty good at default mode :(
Often, I think our machines contain the best of us. Maybe that's the real reason people seem afraid of AI.
Every time I’m reminded of the Duke of Wellington with a cone on his head I chuckle to myself. It’s so dumb. But so brilliant. If only he knew what his legacy would be.
Burning DVDs at work a long time ago. The software showed a little progress tracker that showed a word like "pending" followed by a percentage. Near the end of the disc, it got stuck at "Pending 100%" before crashing and failing to finish the disc.
100% pending became my go-to for no progress.
Whenever my friends or I point to the sky after sitting in a chair in a McDonald’s on the second Saturday of the month while wearing a purple shirt. We just start cracking up until the manager comes out and tells us to leave.
When I was a kid, my family would sometimes go to one of those Ryan's Steakhouse restaurants. Their slogan was, "Where the folks are friendly." This slogan was on the front door with those decal letters.
At the one we went to, though, someone pulled off an "R" from that slogan, so it read, "Where the folks are fiendly", and that always gave me a smile as a kid.
There was a very weird comedy series back in the day in the UK, called 'Jam'. Many of the sketches were surreal, sometimes quite dark, often with haunting ambient music like Brian Eno.
There's one particular sketch that never fails to do me in, for decades this sketch has amused me. I present for your viewing pleasure: Mr. Lizard it's utterly stupid and I love it
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Holy shit that's right up my alley, I love weird shit like that!
Is that Jim from Friday Night Dinner?
That's him! Mark Heap. If you liked this video (a bit of a crime that I could only find it in such low qual, his facial expressions are amazing), consider checking out a show called Green Wing. He's sort-of a main character and very, very ridiculous in it. It's a 'hospital show' but don't let that put you off, it's just the setting, the scenes are all pretty bizarre.
"Wipe them off.... with windscreen wipers?"
"Well you see, it's not strictly anything to do with me, sir."
Those lines just kill me everytime. Mark Heap is one of my favourite comedic actors, he just seems to nail the whole 'strange man' vibe (check him out in Green Wing, one of his most ridiculous characters). No idea how they kept a straight face during this and it looks like the woman nearly breaks at one point!
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Mine would have to be Chanel 9 Neus from The Fast Show...90s UK sketch show with Paul Whitehouse. The whole segment cracks me up every time.. they had one each episode. It's done so well, and all without breaking character.heth-eth-eth-eth, meth-eth-eth, peth-eth-eth... Pi pis na.. boutros boutros gali
Links to my favourites: https://youtu.be/ctaszjeaDK0?si=L459P0C_nCGiUnDy