It’s Supposed to Stick

Joseph: Ever since Dave Thomas died, Wendy’s food quality has gone down the flusher.

Joel: Their advertising, too.

Kimberly: Now there’s just that cartoon girl.

Joseph: …”Wendy”?

The Road Less Travelled

Australian hikers following a trail in Papua New Guinea find the suspected remains of a WWII airman hanging in a tree.

Doesn’t a trail imply that people have walked on it? You know, like some time more recently than WWII?

The European Schedule

A conversation about scheduling lunch:

Ken: 12?
Josh (not me): sure
Ken: awesome
Josh: 10-4
Ken: um
Ken: i can’t do a 6 hour lunch 
Josh: hah

Learn by Repetition

This one is courtesy of yours truly. I almost just typed:

I’ll configure the e-mail features to be configurable, so you can change a config file to configure them.

I think I’m suffering from Mountain Dew deprivation.

Mr. Hyde

Josh: the only sport i’m into is mario kart

Kelli: ha
wow
not too into sports, are we?
i’m not really myself
really, myself
i am really myself

Noodle on This

North Korea has reportedly invented a noodle that delays hunger, amid UN warnings of possible famine.

If this isn’t good PR, I don’t know what is. Delays hunger? I always wished that my food would do that! …instead of…what food usually does…?

Apples and Oranges

Australia’s ‘Elvis of cricket’ – If Australians were asked to name a national hero, they may well refer to Sir Donald Bradman…cricket’s first superstar.

Let’s ignore for the moment the fact that this is another BBC non-headline.

The title “Elvis of cricket” seems to be unnecessarily crossing into different realms. I get that Elvis was famous. But are there no stars in other sports they could have used? I know less about sports than almost anyone, but come on…have the British never heard of Michael Jordan? Why not just throw all reason to the wind, and say “Bradman is the Ferrari of cricket”?

Update: I misspelled Michael Jordan at first. Hah! Unintentional genius!

BBCpedia

I held off on posting this as long as I could, but things have only gotten worse.

The BBC’s news feed is actually kinda funny to read, because all the headlines are almost exactly the same length – about five words. Space limits – I understand that. But now some of them are even shorter. And it’s not that they aren’t complete sentences – it’s that they aren’t thoughts. They’re more like topics – they don’t communicate any information. Here’s a sampling:

• Combat losses
• The colour purple
• Pakistani views
• Water struggle
• New reality
• Show of strength
• Under blockade

“New reality? That seems like something I would have noticed!” Attention, BCC: you are a news outlet, not an encyclopedia.

Chemistry Fail…or Alchemy Win?

Oh, The Onion…for so long a bastion of sarcasm. Yet even you are not immune to error!

Granite Countertops May Contain Uranium

Many homeowners are having to remove their new countertops because the granite in them has been found to emit hazardous levels of radon.

Even if you don’t know anything about chemistry, you might ask the question: “Radon? I thought you just said the countertops contain uranium.”

When you do know something about chemistry, it gets even stranger: uranium and radon are both elements. The whole point of an element is that it’s completely different at the most fundamental level from all other elements.

Perhaps, then, they’re using “uranium” colloquially? A term for any radioactive substance — presumably also green and ooze-like?

(Seriously, someone correct my chemistry here. Obviously radioactive decay does change one element into another. It’s still hilarious, though, no?)

You’re two tents

I have a feeling I’m about to expose my ignorant Americanism – but that’s OK. I like getting news from the BBC, but they seem to have some trouble getting their verb tenses right.

• Septuplet couple ‘need support’
• China win women’s trampoline gold

The couple need? China win? I’m pretty sure those are both collective plurals, so that there’s only one couple, and there’s only one China. It sounds like the BBC writing staff “need” some grammar lessons.