E.J. Junior Senior Junior High

NPR has a weekly game show called “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” which they describe as “The Oddly Informative News Quiz” (and I’d say that’s a fairly apt description). There’re various panelists — P.J. O’Rourke, Paula Poundstone, Mo Rocca, and others — and either the host asks the panelists questions or listeners call in and the panelists ask listeners questions. It’s actually a lot of fun & mdash; a lot lighter than the usual NPR fare — and I’ve recently taken to ripping the episodes to mp3 to timeshift them.

One of their favorite games is “Bluff the Listener” where a listener calls in and hears a weird news story from three panelists. The catch is that two of the stories are fake and only one of them is real — and the user has to guess which. On last weekend’s show, they were playing a “best of” set of clips from years past. And, one clip in particular featured Roy Blount Jr and his telling of a news article about basketball player E.J. Junior (yes, his last name his “Junior”).

Spoilers below — including whether Blount’s story was the fake or real story that week.

Blount concocted a fabulous tale about how E.J. Junior had been named as father-of-the-year and a middle school was being named in his honor. Naturally, Junior’s son was also named “E.J.” and so the father was known as “E.J. Junior, Senior”. And, the middle school in question was a Junior High. I’m afraid that words alone can’t really do justice to Blount’s diction; however, as I already had the episode as a stand-alone mp3, I edited it down to just Blount’s pontification and uploaded this clip on the dedication of E.J. Junior Senior Junior High (1 min, 24 sec mp3).

Man, I must have listened to that clip a dozen times, but I laugh every time :). It’s too bad, though, the listener calls Blount “Ray” at the end (rather than “Roy”). D’oh!

PS Mad propz to Audacity, an open source sound editor (which is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux). I made use of it to trim the original 60:00 mp3 (the entire show) down to the (01:24) clip of Blount’s bit.

A New Use for PowerPoint

I ran across a novel new use for PowerPoint today. I don’t want to say too much about it so as not to ruin it. And try not to look to far ahead along the outline on the left side of the screen. All the same, part of me wonders if it’s fake; then again, I think I’d still find it amusing even if that was the case.

Because it’s a web-based adaptation of a PowerPoint presentation, it does tend to look better in IE (as that browser also displays a proprietary next/previous bar across the bottom for PowerPoint documents). And if you normally use Firefox (as I do), you may find the Launchy extension useful — it adds an entry in the context menu for links to view them in a variety of applications (including IE).

(Due credit: MetaFilter)

Update 2005-08-13: URI fixed — thanks MetaFilter!

Programming Stereotypes

I was reading the comments to a Slashdot article about Python programmers and I was amused by a comment by a fellow who goes by “DasMegaByte” on his impressions of programming languages and people who use them:

[…] I wonder how else we can pad programmer’s egos based on completely subjective hypothesis on language choice?

  • Perl users have more dense social lives.
  • Ruby users have big, full beards chicks love to run their hands through.
  • VB users have sensible shoes and drive Toyotas.
  • C++ users enjoy a good mystery now and then.
  • PHP users probably own one or more Dremel multitools.
  • Javascripters are full of little trivia snippets and are great fun at parties.
  • Cold Fusion users are kind of quiet but have very deep thoughts.
  • SQL programmers have annoying laughs but are otherwise okay guys

[…]

My favorite may be his comments on SQL programmers (though the comments on JavaScripters are jovial as well). Still, I’m left wondering if Bryan has a Dremel multitool ;).

A Korean’s View of America

I found this article written for JoongAng Daily (a Korean newspaper, I’m guessing) with a list of “You know you’ve been in the United States too long when…”. I found it amusing but in some ways unusual at the same time. I expected some of the items:

  • You wear sneakers and carry a backpack when dressed in a business suit.
  • You look forward to Monday Night Football.
  • You order a supersized Big Mac with a Diet Coke.
  • […]

But some of them left me scratching my head. For instance, “Sheer blue eyes no longer frighten you” — are blue eyes so rare in Korea as to be frightening? I mean, I wouldn’t mind meeting someone with purple eyes (though orange eyes might creep me out a bit).

And then there’s “You feel no guilt over trying on a dozen pairs of pants and not buying any of them.” Whenever I’m buying clothes, I make sure to try them on first; and, if they don’t fit, I put them back on the rack. Is it the dozen-pairs-of-pants part that Koreans find most odd or the putting-them-all-back that they’re not used to?

XHTML Jokes

I found these XHTML Jokes at Photo Matt though they’re originally from HTML Dog. I’m guessing that only standards-aware web developers will get these, but I found some of them rather amusing:

Q: Why did the XHTML actress turn down an Oscar?
A: Because she refused to be involved in the presentation.

Q: Why was the font tag an orphan?
A: Because it didn’t have a font-family.

Q: Why do CSS designers have too many children?
A: Because they employ lots of child selectors.

Q: Why was IE5’s 3-metre wide cell in the insane asylum smaller than IE6’s 3-metre wide cell?
A: Because the width of the cell included the padding…

Q: Why was the XHTML bird an invalid?
A: Because it wasn’t nested properly.

I think the XHTML/Oscar one may be my favorite, though I liked the IE/cell-width one as well. And considering geeks’ general penchant for tech humor, I’m almost surprised that these jokes have only come about now. In any case, they brightened my day a bit :).