Potpourri
December 30, 2016 10:19 PM   Subscribe

 
the first one of the first link sounds like it was made up by a six year old...but this one was great in a Jack Handey sort of way:
"Ask a stranger to watch your bag in an airport, but don't leave. Stare at your bag. Just sit there and watch your bag with your new friend".
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 10:24 PM on December 30, 2016 [18 favorites]


'GIF' has a hard 'G'. There are no reasons other than not knowing what the 'G' stands for or being stubborn why you would pronounce it like a 'J'.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 10:59 PM on December 30, 2016 [16 favorites]


🍿
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:01 PM on December 30, 2016 [16 favorites]




DO 15.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:08 PM on December 30, 2016 [9 favorites]


I will not comment on my own attractiveness, but 11 does actually work spectacularly in my own experience. People love being smiled at and told that I love what they did with their hair and also where did they get those shoes?

(caveat: this might work differently for men.)
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 11:09 PM on December 30, 2016 [4 favorites]


Mod note: One deleted. Okay, we've had the obligatory gif is pronounced with a hard "G" because "graphical," and the obligatory "but the inventor says 'soft G,'" and at this point we can let that exhausted argument rest until the courts and peanut butter lawyers sort it out.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:12 PM on December 30, 2016 [76 favorites]


Metafilter - let that exhausted argument rest until the courts and peanut butter lawyers sort it out?
posted by Greasy Eyed Gristle Man at 11:15 PM on December 30, 2016 [19 favorites]


but taaaz i had a dumb joke about Alfred Nobel and inventors failing to control their legacies all lined up it would surely have settled this gif business
posted by jason_steakums at 11:16 PM on December 30, 2016 [3 favorites]


I would watch the hell out of the TV show.
posted by Ghidorah at 11:26 PM on December 30, 2016 [3 favorites]


Number 8 is amazing, because it describes pretty much all interest-returning investments, when viewed on a large scale.
posted by breath at 12:12 AM on December 31, 2016 [8 favorites]


OK I clicked through to the Reddit thread and that's what all the top comments say, plus also "my dude".
posted by breath at 12:14 AM on December 31, 2016


I feel like #15 would be more disgustingly offensive than actually funny.
posted by kafziel at 12:15 AM on December 31, 2016 [5 favorites]


I feel like #15 would be more disgustingly offensive than actually funny.

This is a real risk, I admit. So perhaps, after the election has shown me just how horrible we can be (and let us remember that this is the country that just devoured Two and a Half Men for years and years) we shouldn’t actually do 15. But I like to imagine.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:29 AM on December 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


"After Ussain Bolt retires, just pump him full of drugs and see how fast we can get a human to go" made me chuckle.
posted by simonw at 12:32 AM on December 31, 2016 [8 favorites]


"Chuck! I got it! Take LIVE tuna fish, and FEED 'em mayonnaise!" - bill
posted by j_curiouser at 12:44 AM on December 31, 2016 [4 favorites]


I'm pretty sure I've played #13.
posted by egypturnash at 12:48 AM on December 31, 2016


Not even getting into the [g/j]if wars themselves, just popping by to say #5 is brilliant.

Also I would play the fuck out of #13.
posted by XtinaS at 1:40 AM on December 31, 2016


I like how our list of problematic insta-flamewar arguments has been adaptively narrowed down over the years to contain:

* Age-old geopolitical issues that haven't really been working out since the Roman empire was around.
* Complicated open political/social questions
* Nerd pedantry
posted by Dr Dracator at 2:32 AM on December 31, 2016 [18 favorites]


Hasn't the TV show sort of already been done - Channel 4's amazing Playing It Straight? (It was on Fox in America first but the two UK seasons were proper great entertainment that also did a hell of a job of dismantling ideas of masculinity...)
posted by garlicsmack at 2:53 AM on December 31, 2016


Somebody needs to make a peanut butter called Goober Incarnation Format and market it as GIF with a hard G.
posted by atchafalaya at 3:47 AM on December 31, 2016 [6 favorites]


The US should invade the US, setup a framework for Democracy, and rebuild infrastructure.

Only if the model followed is post WWII US, and not post 9/11 US.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:01 AM on December 31, 2016 [4 favorites]


Re: number 11, I think a bunch of attractive people would indeed complement me nicely, what with the contrast and all. I'd prefer to also get some compliments though.
posted by Dysk at 4:08 AM on December 31, 2016 [17 favorites]


Of course the lion knows how to open the car door. COME ON!
posted by double bubble at 4:17 AM on December 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


I like how our list of problematic insta-flamewar arguments has been adaptively narrowed down over the years to contain:

* Age-old geopolitical issues that haven't really been working out since the Roman empire was around.
* Complicated open political/social questions
* Nerd pedantry


Crazy idea: Metafilter meetup in Nicaea.
posted by condour75 at 4:30 AM on December 31, 2016 [24 favorites]


After all, what was the Arian controversy? Nerd pedantry, with complicated and unresolved geopolitical and social ramifications, over whether Christ began with a G or a J.
posted by condour75 at 4:47 AM on December 31, 2016 [25 favorites]


Sounds a lot like Halfbakery, which is amazingly still active.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:10 AM on December 31, 2016 [3 favorites]


Praise Gesus.
posted by glonous keming at 6:46 AM on December 31, 2016 [8 favorites]


It is too early in the day for that silly putty one.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 7:23 AM on December 31, 2016


I would totally do the varied coloured T-Shirt thing if I had the money. That would be seriously cool.
posted by Mitheral at 8:01 AM on December 31, 2016 [6 favorites]


First of all, I have that xkcd word replacement browser script running so I wasn't too excited about watching a lion open a cat door. They're cats, right? The door's for them, yeh? Anyway it's keeping me on my toes.

11 does actually work spectacularly in my own experience. People love being smiled at and told that I love what they did with their hair and also where did they get those shoes?

As part of my job I sit at a public-facing desk where people ask me about 30 times per day if they need their parking ticket validated. They don't, ever, but it kills me to just say "no validation" or "we don't validate" like my coworkers do so instead I say "you get two hours free automatically and you're having a good hair day!" or "those shoes and that bag!" or "you really wear that shirt!" and yeah it works a charm. I say we are perfectly capable of providing validation, even if folks don't need their ticket stamped.
posted by carsonb at 8:05 AM on December 31, 2016 [49 favorites]


  • #3: inevitable, the way things are going.
  • #9: so crazy it just might work
  • #13: genius. This is part of the idea with Westworld (the TV show), apparently.
posted by adamrice at 8:18 AM on December 31, 2016 [2 favorites]


I imagine we'll see number 14 in four years, assuming there's anything left after Dictator Trump has sold everything to the highest bidders.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:45 AM on December 31, 2016


Frog Fractions is also kind of #13.
posted by tofu_crouton at 8:54 AM on December 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


I have an idea! Someone needs to do #11 as a business where one buys the service for others as a gift.
posted by Obscure Reference at 9:13 AM on December 31, 2016


Somebody needs to make a peanut butter called Goober Incarnation Format and market it as GIF with a hard G.

jenius!
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:48 AM on December 31, 2016 [3 favorites]


Someone needs to do #11 as a business where one buys the service for others as a gift.

Someone needs to make a dystopian science fiction film about this, chronicling the inevitable collapse of human civilization as everybody alternately overestimates their attractiveness/sartorial skill or despairs at the insincerity of people around them. In the final scene of the director's cut it will be revealed that the protagonist was in fact an exceptionally attractive robot all along.
posted by Dr Dracator at 10:01 AM on December 31, 2016 [3 favorites]


Yeah, #3 sounds like something the IOC would definitely do.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:05 AM on December 31, 2016


Dysk, you phrase things so well! You go, girl!
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:30 AM on December 31, 2016 [2 favorites]


Anybody needs me, I'll be at the "coffee" shop.
posted by ftm at 11:10 AM on December 31, 2016


"This is kind of disappointing."

"Say what?"

"I mean, thanks for asking me to watch your bag with you, but it's not doing anything."

"It's a bag. Sorry."

"Well, it's not even all that great a bag, is it? Looks like a cheaply-made ripoff of the classic Samsonite 'Vacationer'. You can see that the handle is working loose and the edges have scuffed, like it's 10 years and 300 trips old, but I bet it was purchased recently."

"Not THAT recently. A couple of years ago, maybe."

"Trust me, that's recently. I can see your shoes are also second-rate knockoffs, so I guess this just must be something you do...life's not about saving money. Splurge every once in awhile. You'll enjoy life more. 'Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.'"

"My shoes?"

"I think I remember this bag...Costco or Walmart, eh? Didn't it come in two colors, a fairly bold red and this boring--sorry, 'safe'--gray?"

"Who buys a red bag?"

"People with some joi de vivre, that's who. Authentic people. People who don't put 'Nairobi' stickers on their bag despite never having been there."

"I was going to go!"

"I'm sure. Still, I must say it's a bit like those tacky people who accumulate lift ticket stubs on their ski jackets...oh."

"You're just geh-lous!"

"Geh-lous? Geh-lous, geh-lous...oh my god. Jealous?"

[Runs]
posted by maxwelton at 12:26 PM on December 31, 2016 [11 favorites]


#13 has (sort of) already been done.
posted by neckro23 at 1:38 PM on December 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


The gif / gif one wouldn't work.

See the recent UK article 50 case

LORD PANNICK: Can I come on to the fifth topic which is De Keyser and the other case law.
LADY HALE: Have I been mispronouncing that case all my adult life?
LORD PANNICK: Would your Ladyship like to tell me the correct --
LADY HALE: De Keyser.
LORD PANNICK: I will call it De Keyser.
LADY HALE: I may be wrong, I am often wrong.
LORD PANNICK: You say De Keyser, I say De Keyser.
LORD CLARKE: Down here we think it is De Keyser.
THE PRESIDENT: We can each stick to our own because the transcript will not give away what we have called it.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 2:54 PM on December 31, 2016 [7 favorites]


I would totally do the varied coloured T-Shirt thing if I had the money. That would be seriously cool.
posted by Mitheral at 11:01 on December 31


[make it stop]
posted by Night_owl at 11:19 PM on December 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


I would watch the hell out of the TV show

"It's like Shark Tark but without the assholes."
posted by sylvanshine at 2:05 AM on January 1, 2017


A show called Shark Tank with an actual tank of sharks you throw people in.
posted by gottabefunky at 12:35 PM on January 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


#13 also applies to Kanye Quest.
posted by msbrauer at 9:46 AM on January 2, 2017


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