|
Even the most serious amongst us needs to have fun.
This page will not house a collection of computer games;
rather fun and funny images and links, mostly to do with marketing
and innovation.
I have a long list of funny marketing positioning statements
(good and bad), examples of design (also good and bad), and
tricks that help you break out of the box and do some innovative
thinking.
Web humour
My favourite “page
not found” error message. I love parodies. Remember,
it’s a “Page not Found” message.
Word games
When I moved to San Francisco in 1996 to be part of the first
interet boom and bust, I remember emailing a guy at Wired
magazine and asking him about a term he had defined in an
issue
that I couldn’t put my hands on. I was working for
an Internet start-up, and we were private-labeling the Netscape
browser. The term of course was:
| throbber |
Animated icons that are used
to replace the “meteor shower” icon in Netscape
Navigator. Taken from the nickname given to the original
Netscape logo, which appeared to throb during document
transfers. |
Yes, Gareth emailed me back with his answer. One of the things
I always loved about his
column were the examples. Here’s one that appeared
in September 1994:
| Webmaster |
The name given to the person
in charge of administrating a World Wide Web site. |
It’s hard to imagine now that there was a time when
that was a new term requiring a definition.
Correlation does not imply causation
My friend Tom Keenan writes “Tyler Vigen has made a hobby out of discovering apparently crazy correlations. On his website, he explains how the divorce rate in Maine correlates with U.S. consumption of margarine. He also cites the strong statistical relationship between how much cheese Americans eat and the number who die each year by becoming entangled in their bedsheets.
“In his recent book, Spurious Correlations, Vigen suggests that ‘It could be that melted cheese clogs airways. Or it could be that cheese causes night terrors. Or it could be that the correlation is totally spurious and accountable to chance. Almost certainly it is the latter.’ ”
Mensa?
An oft-forwarded email explains that the challenge is to
“add, delete, or change one letter” to create
a new word with a new meaning. (Observant readers will notice
that some on this list change more than one letter—they’re
still interesting.)
There is no such thing as the “Washington Post Mensa
Invitational”. A few of these words appeared in a Washington
Post Style Invitational back in 2 August 1998. Naturally,
people have added to this list over the years; some of these
entries come from various Internet searches.
Despite the Mensa urban myth, there’s no denying the
value of this kind of mental exercise.
| From the Washington
Post Style Invitational 2 August 1998 |
foreploy
(fifth runner up) |
any
misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting
laid (Greg Oetjen, Lorton) |
fortissimoe
(fourth runner up) |
the
musical moment produced when someone serially slaps the
faces of the first-violin section (Jean
Sorensen, Herndon) |
tatyr
(third runner up) |
a
lecherous Mr. Potato Head (Chuck
Smith, Woodbridge) |
doltergeist
(second runner up) |
a
spirit that decides to haunt someplace stupid, such as
your septic tank (David Genser,
Arlington) |
giraffiti
(first runner up) |
vandalism
spray-painted very, very high, such as the famous “Surrender
Dorothy” on the Beltway overpass (Robin
D. Grove, Arlington) |
sarchasm
(the winner) |
the
gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the recipient
who doesn’t get it (Tom
Witte, Gaithersburg) |
| |
|
| Gareth could have entered the contest himself: |
| vubicle |
the much coveted office cubicle with a window
(from Wired
magazine) |
| |
| And more... |
| acme |
a
generic skin disease |
| arachnoleptic
fit |
the
frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally
walked through a spider web |
| beelzebug |
Satan
in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom
at three in the morning and cannot be cast out |
| bozone |
the
substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright
ideas from penetrating; the bozone layer, unfortunately,
shows little sign of breaking down in the near future |
| burniture |
chairs
you get from a fire sale |
| calebration |
festivities
begun upon learning that all your lab instruments are
finally reading correctly |
| cashtration |
the
act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially
impotent for an indefinite period |
| caterpallor |
the
color you turn after finding half of a worm in the fruit
you're eating |
| celebation |
party
at a monastery or convent |
| decafalon |
the
grueling event of getting through the day consuming only
things that are good for you |
| deifenestration |
to
throw all talk of God out the window |
| DIOS |
the
one true operating system |
| discomboobulated |
to
be confused and stupid, simultaneously |
| Dopeler
effect |
the
tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come
at you rapidly |
| glibido |
all
talk and no action |
| Goodzilla |
a giant lizard that puts out forest fires by stamping
on them |
| Guillozine |
a
magazine for executioners |
| hipatitis |
terminal
coolness |
| ignoranus |
a
person who is both stupid and an asshole |
| inoculatte |
to
take coffee intravenously when you are running late |
| intaxication |
euphoria
at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize
it was your money to start with |
| jobstacle |
anything
that prevents you from doing your work |
| karmageddon |
it’s
like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad
vibes, right, and then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s
like, a serious bummer |
| loanation* |
money given, typically to a close relative, which the provider considers a loan and which the recipient considers a donation (from investorwords.com’s funny definitions) |
| meanderthals |
a
group of people meandering obliviously in your path who
are impossible to get by without walking in the street |
| orcanization |
union
of killer whales |
| osteopornosis |
a
degenerate disease |
| puntuate |
flavoring
a speech with this low form of humor: the pun |
| reintarnation |
coming
back to life as a hillbilly |
| sesquipedaliac |
one
who is fanatic about using long words, or an individual
whose verbal communication paradigm obsessively accentuates
polysyllabic words |
| synapple |
a
perfect beverage to accompany brain food |
| top
prayority |
whatever
you ask God for first |
| vaseball |
a
game of catch played by children in the living room |
|
upgrage* |
the uncontrollable anger which occurs whenever a software upgrade deemed to be either essential or beneficial proves to be a pointless waste of your time, or a quick way to cripple your outmoded computer (read
the article by Tim Dowling of the Guardian newspaper) |
| whitetater |
a
political hot potato |
|
*new
item |
|
|
