John M. Scalzi's Weekend Assignment #189: Amuse me, damn it!



Yeah, that's right. You amuse me for a change. Tell me a joke. Tell me a story. Show me a funny picture. point to a good online video game. Suggest a good book or movie. Link me to a diverting YouTube or AOL Video, like those soda/Mentos fountain things (but not that, I've already seen those). Anything, people, just as long as it's amusing. You know, something you think I would like. Like what, you say? Well, you know. Surprise me.

Extra credit: Share your favorite pun. I love me a good pun.

Dear John,

Fresh out of my own words. Picture and others' scribbles will have to do. Have a nice weekend. Yes, Athena, you're right. That is Uncle Wil's fat ass on his blog ... and your mommy is right. It is better call it a "derrière" or "fat butt" than "ass" but you know how rude I am.

wil

Postus Scriptus Interruptus: On Puns ...

The goodness of the true pun is in the direct ratio of its intolerability. ~Edgar Allan Poe, Marginalia, 1849

Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person loves to spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in fact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they have plenty of food and water. ~Dave Barry, Why Humor Is Funny

A thief in Paris planned to steal some paintings from the Louvre. After careful planning, he got past security, stole the paintings, and made it safely back to his van. However, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas. When asked how he masterminded such a crime and then made such an obvious error, he replied,

"Monsieur, that is the reason I stole the paintings....I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh."