MetaFilter posts tagged with funny

Vegetable musical instruments

scarello — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:53:52 -0800

Ever wanted to play a white radish like a flute? Or maybe a carrot clarinet? Or perhaps a cucumber trumpet?

The Matrix Runs on Windows

SheMulp AKA Plus 1 — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:35:51 -0800

okay this is where the monster first showed up

shiu mai baby — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:24:12 -0800

Further proof (as if you needed it) that some people have too much time on their hands: someone has taken full advantage of the many tools available on Google Maps to create a map of the events in Cloverfield. The narrative at each point is stonerific.

Time to die...

Happy Dave — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 06:31:00 -0800

Time to play The Game. A Flash Monday tour of the absurd.

Indie video

sotonohito — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:41:03 -0800

In addition to hosting the stuff we all know and love (loathe?), the anime music videos, the World of Warcraft ego films, the leave Brittney alone guy, youtube is also a medium for distributing indie video. Often combining moderately good production values, bizarre humor and genuinely funny writing, Kim Evey is one such producer/writer/actor, in between doing various TV roles. She's the mind (and one of the girls) behind Two Hot Girls in the Shower (SFW-ish), the "star" of the Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show, one of the forces behind The Guild (previously), and Meteor Men. See this interview with her and Felicia Day (of Dr. Horrible and The Guild) for answers to a few not so burning questions about the whole thing.

Don't the Norwegian players know that "Rock is for Rookies?

KokuRyu — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:57:05 -0800

The Yahoo! 2008 World Rock Paper Scissors (RPS) Championships will be held in Toronto, Ontario on October 25. First prize: $10,000. Norway has publicly stated that they aim for a Norwegian world champion by 2010. RPS trading cards can be found here. Graham Walker, co-founder of the World Rock Paper Scissors Society, discusses the sport on CBC here. Amusing posters and other kitsch. The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide states: Don’t even think about competing before consulting The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide On the history of the game: The first known proto-RPS game was played widely by early Homo-sapiens around 5000 B.C. They used it to resolve food and mating disputes Why you should compete: Rock Paper Scissors (RPS)—the ultimate decision-making tool—is the game you played as a child to determine who went fi rst in dodge ball or who got the last piece of candy. Today the ancient game is becoming a social phenomenon and this time it’s for adults.... What is a gambit? A series of three successive moves made with strategic intention, and include "THE CRESCENDO", "DENOUEMENT", "FISTFUL O' DOLLARS" (This move took the 1967 RPS World Championships by surprise and is arguably still one of the great surprise offensive moves), and more. Advanced play - why study RPS? "To the beginner the choices are few, to the expert the choices are many." - Wojek Smallsoa, as quoted in The Trio of Hands, 1962 Some claim mathematics is more of a determinant of who wins.

teh free markets, ur doin it wrong

Asparagirl — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:46:37 -0800

LOLFed. Doan cry, emo banker! If you hate the latest financial crisis news, but love image macros, then this is the site for you. It's like I Can Has Cheezburger meets the Wall Street Journal.

Sophie Can Walk

Del Far — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:05:32 -0800

Sophie Can Walk , a documentary that chronicles "the prejudice faced by baby-Americans born without the ability to walk" (Via BoingBoing)

The Catorialist

Cochise — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:51:03 -0800

The Catorialist. For fans of The Sartorialist and/or cats.

Grifters, Oil Men, Tabloids, The Scrappy Ingenue, The Titans and the Hardass: An American Story

felix — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:09:06 -0800

Corrupt U.S. Government officials leased the Teapot Dome oil field to one Harry F. Sinclair in 1922 in a sleazy no-bid contract.

Turn back the clock. 27 years earlier, suspected grifter Gilmer Bonfils had seized control of the Denver Post; he and his family turned it from a sleepy, staid paper into a wild, brazen broadsheet. So brazen they were shot by a furious lawyer. For an editorial page, Tammen and Bonfils substituted invective, raked up so much scandal—a good deal of it true — that they kept a loaded shotgun in their office to discourage reader complaints. As the Post grew in power and prosperity, its proprietors branched into other fields; the Post became the first and last U.S. daily ever to own a circus (Sells-Floto), run a burlesque house and sell coal." It was this paper that, through the machinations of Sinclair's enemies, began excoriating the Teapot Dome deal under the editorial byline "So That The People May Know". Eventually, Frederick G. Bonfils rumoredly took a million dollar payoff from Sinclair as hush money. Fast forward. The Post hired professionals and lost its edge. But then, in 1960, into Denver's mile-high sunshine stepped the fastest-growing newspaper publisher in the U.S. In one hand he carried a battered 13-year-old briefcase bulging with the blueprints of a big deal. But Si Newhouse Sr., who was rich enough to buy Conde Nast as a surprise anniversary present for his wife the year previously, for all his business acumen and deal-making wiles, didn't expect to run into Helen Bonfils... Helen, one of the daughters entrusted with the Post, reacted to Newhouse's hostile purchases by declaring "No further sales are contemplated. Not under any circumstances." And for many rollicking years, the fight continued. Eventually, outmaneuvered legally, Newhouse gave up. But the story doesn't end there. A tall, slender, blonde with bright blue eyes and a husky voice, Helen was theatrical, energetic and a millionaire. Bejeweled and befurred, she toured the town in her Pierce Arrow with Colorado license plate No. 1. She would be accompanied by her chauffeur (more on this in a moment...), favorite poodle, and spiritual adviser, the Rev. John Anderson, who shared her interest in philanthropy. And when the Rocky Mountain News says 'theatrical', they mean it; she in her youth starred in extravagant musicals with casts of hundreds, always as the principal angel. Her hunger for the spotlight grew over the years as she acted in and produced a score of productions, and created the Helen Bonfils Theater Complex at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. She also found the time to create the Belle Bonfils Memorial Blood Bank, named after her mother -- now a fixture of the Denver healthcare system; and, having seen people faint in its stuffy basement for lack of air conditioning, to fund the completion of the Holy Ghost church -- as well as 'innumerable' other charities, including the Dumb Friends League and the Denver Zoo. But does the story end there? No it does not. Helen, at age 69, fell in love with her chauffeur -- "Tiger" Mike Davis, a strapping young college dropout of 28. Their romance died, and a nasty divorce ensued, in which he received a large settlement. Rolling that money into oil field investments, "Tiger" Davis got rich. In May 2008, none other than the Denver Post reported that he had gotten paid off for helping to move control of oil interests -- unlike Teapot Dome, this time legally -- by introducing an old friend, an ex-amateur boxer named "Rifle Right" Kirk Kerkorian to Delta Petroleum. Turns out having friends earned him a cool 263,158 shares, which if he still holds it is as of this writing. But that's not the story either, dear reader -- the story is that "Tiger" Mike Davis, in between marrying the scrappiest, most extravagant and most powerful women in Denver and helping to broker a gigantic oil investment deal for one of the titans of industry, ran his own business. And he ran it real tight. And the memos of that business -- which spawned this post -- are some of the funniest interoffice memos on the planet.