Actual email footer observed in the wild.
Inspired by Max Temkin’s Philosophy Posters series.
Open Letter to the Wait Staff at the Summertime Cafe in Door County, WI.
To whom it may concern,
A little over one hour ago, during our company lunch at your establishment, a giant wasp landed on our table. Thinking quickly, we trapped the arthropod under an upside down appetizer plate.
It occurs to us now that we may have neglected to mention this to anyone prior to leaving the restaurant. Please be advised that the wasp is most likely both alive and furious.
Sincerely,
- Cards Against Humanity, LLC
Advice.
Look both ways before crossing the street, because nobody knows how to drive a car. Floss at least once every day; buy the nice kind that doesn’t chop your fingers up. If you’re wearing a jacket, you probably need both a pocket square and a tie. You don’t need more than one computer anymore. Build a fire pit in your backyard at all costs. Sync everything. Try to strike up friendly conversations with every driver who calls you a cunt. Splurge on a cell phone with a data plan; if you already have one, splurge on a solid state drive; if you have both, you don’t need anything else. In the long run, shaving with a fancy double-edged razor costs less. Buy flowers for strangers who watch your bike for you. Use Instapaper, for the love of god. Write down the phone numbers and email addresses of close friends and relatives. Stop giving a shit about who is better than you; they’re just good in different ways. You probably don’t need more than six really nice shirts. Try the $8 9% Orval instead of two $4 4.5% lagers; you’ll get just as drunk, and the ingredients are way better. Text your friends about where the road is chopped up, so they can find a detour. Buy two belts and two pairs of shoes that match each other. Make funnier party invites than anyone. Welcome strangers and eject haters. Use a soft-bristled toothbrush and take ten seconds longer than you think you need. Invent ridiculous constraints. Move where your friends are; they’ll help you the most. Learn to code. You only need to figure out one way to tie your tie and fold your pocket square. Thank everyone. Write letters. Learn the difference between its, it’s, their, they’re, there, where, we’re, and wear. Go on strike from any dumb bullshit that doesn’t fit what you want to be doing, because it’s always better to starve happy. Delete all of your RSS feeds. Always request patio seating. Don’t eat shitty, processed quasifood. Take all of your work less seriously. Offer to help. Love your kneecaps: ride a single-speed bike with a freewheel and two brakes. Learn the tradeoffs you’re making for the things you’ve chosen to pay attention to. Learn to say no graciously. Make small gestures. Don’t be a dick to people. You probably don’t need to drink pop. Find workable alternatives to anything you shoot down. Always praise the positive aspects before you critique the negative aspects. Find a tailor who listens more than talks. You probably don’t need to buy more than ten typeface families in your lifetime. Liquor before beer, you’re in the clear. It’s okay to stop reading a book that you’re not enjoying. Run everything through spell check. Buy from decent people who believe in their craft. Quit complaining; we’re all suffering the same bullshit in our own special ways. If you’ve committed to something, then you need to find a way to honor it – including a way to gracefully back out. Saw off the binding of that terrible book your aunt gave you over the holidays; use it as a sketchpad. Never refuse an invitation to talk about life around a bonfire. Cuervo Gold is 49% bum rum and no self-respecting human being should ever consume it. If the apocalypse comes tomorrow, the best-dressed one in the room is going to stand in front of the maybe-not-functioning TV cameras.
“Bringing a lawsuit against The Oatmeal is ill advised. Not only are FunnyJunk’s claims meritless, FunnyJunk will surely lose in the court of public opinion and cause itself reputational harm. We are also deeply skeptical that a nameless, faceless, business that hosts third party content will be able to demonstrate much if anything by way of damages as a result of The Oatmeal’s allegedly defamatory statements. At the end of the day, a lawsuit against The Oatmeal in this situation is just a really bad idea.”
The commonly referred to booth babe (also known as a “woman”) is hired solely to wear skimpy clothing with a game or company’s logo and take photographs with attendees (who does that, by the way?). Typically, they are not well versed in the product they are hired to represent.
It seemed like a good time to check in with the Entertainment Software Association, who manages E3.
Despite some of the recent heated conversation, there are no plans to shift E3 policies.
“Exhibitors determine for themselves what is the best representation for their companies. Models are welcome if companies would like to have them, but that’s an individual exhibitor decision,” said ESA VP of media relations and event management Dan Hewitt in an emailed statement to me yesterday.
Ghost Recon Commander designer Brenda Brathwaite sparked a vocal debate on Twitter over booth babes before she headed to the E3 show floor last Thursday.
“I dread heading off to work at E3 today,” she said. “The show is a constant assault on the female self esteem no matter which direction I look. I am in good shape, yet it is impossible not to compare. I feel uncomfortable. It is as if I walked into a strip club w/o intending to. These are the policies of @e3expo and @RichatESA. I feel uncomfortable in an industry I helped found.”
This is a very, very good article that describes a lot of the despair I experience at E3 every year. As Patrick just told me, “just don’t read the comments.”
Man At Very Top Of Food Chain Chooses Bugles
SOUTH BEND, IN - Despite having no natural enemies and belonging to a species that completely dominates its ecosystem, local IT manager Reggie Atkinson opted to consume the processed corn snack Bugles Monday. “I was in the mood for something salty and crunchy, and it’s a little early for dinner,” said the ultimate predator, whose ancestors’ bipedal locomotion, toolmaking abilities, and advanced spatial recognition developments allowed them to hunt animals 10 times their size. “These are original, but the other flavors are pretty good, too.” Acting on an impulse from an incredibly complex forebrain that has evolved over millions of years, Atkinson then took note of the Bugles’ amusing conical shape and placed one on each of his opposable thumbs like little wizard hats.
It’s the last day to pick up the new Humble Indie Bundle, available under a pay-what-you-want model. This is the best Humble Indie Bundle that has ever been released, and I give it my strongest possible recommendation.
Each game runs on Mac, PC, and Linux. Among the eight included:
- Superbrothers: Sword and Sorcery EP, a beautiful puzzle game with an award-winning soundtrack (included)
- Limbo, one of the most visually stunning games ever made, also good puzzles
- Psychonauts, a game I haven’t played, but all of my friends love, and Notch tried to fund a sequel to
- Braid, arguably the best game ever made, subject of this excellent Atlantic profile, and exhibit number one in the case of “Games as Art”
- Super Meat Boy, the hardest game I have ever personally played for more than ten hours
“You ever see what happened, you know what happened to the Greeks? Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that. So was Socrates.”
Aphantochilus rogersi (Thomisidae) is a crab spider that mimics in color, shape, size, and texture the turtle ants it preys upon.
P.S. Thanks to nickd for writing in to request more high-resolution spider photography.
Chair 23D by Gustav Düesing.
Male spiders castrate themselves so their manhood doesn’t weigh them down when they’re fighting off competitors, say researchers.
Associate Professor Daiqin Li from the National University of Singapore, and colleagues, report their findings today in Biology Letters.
“The eunuch males are better fighters because they are lighter and they have an increased endurance,” says Li, an expert in animal behavior.
“They try to prevent the other males from mating with the female.”
This important bug news is part of ongoing animal dong coverage from Salon (dinosaur dong story), Scientific American (turtle dong story), and Discover (Kangaroos have three vaginas story). Good work, everybody.
“I’m completely unfamiliar really with this style of responding to a legal threat - I’ve never really seen it before. I don’t like seeing anyone referring to my mother as a sexual deviant.”
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FunnyJunk’s lawyer, Charles Carreon, on The Oatmeal’s fundraising campaign
When dinosaurs roamed the ur-continent of Pangaea about 200 million years later, their penises roamed with them. Paleontologists have speculated about dinosaurs’ mating apparatuses and behaviors, using what they know of crocodilians and birds, today’s relatives of those prehistoric creatures. The erect penis of a male titanosaur, for example, may have been 12 feet in length. Experts speculate that the male sauropod, with a body the length of a school bus, approached the massive, receptive female from behind. Like his crocodilian and avian descendants, he likely inserted his penis from this dorsal position and, at climax, ejaculated sperm through a vessel running along the outside of his organ.
[…]
Fleas and some worms also have hugely proportioned penises. And some animals have more than one. Several species of marine flatworms have dozens of penises. Some snakes and lizards are doubly endowed; switching between their two hemipenes during multiple copulations increases their sperm count by a factor of five.
Please enjoy this tasteful dong article from Salon.
