Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

NEW ELEMENT: GOVERNMENTIUM

A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science.

The new element has been named “Governmentium”.

Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons,and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 311.

These 311 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert.

However, it can be detected, as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.

A minute amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over 4 days to complete, when it would normally take less than a second.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 4 years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutron exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

The characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration.

This hypothetical quantity is called “Critical Morass”.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element which radiates just as much energy, since it has half as many peons, but twice as many morons.

Ever wonder what inspiration a brilliant poet might draw from your blogpage? How about a random poetry generator? Here’s the freeverse rendition it offered for me–some expert alliteration shows up in line 4, plus of course loads of symbolism and mystery:

Jo wants to change
British pub etiquette
involved in
Motorcycling!!! Montauk Rider
International Taxman
There, After another Nobel
Prize: Imagine
my bongo playing
all Cambridge
is gray soup with
lilacs,
Hello
neighbors.
do you fill your choice
in my Back Pages
Sister Age
Betsy Devine in
their golden book
is outraged by
Betsy Devine

Mr Sun will soon start livemocking the Oscars.
I love the idea, but I can’t stay awake long enough to copy him. So I
decide to pre-mock them instead–collecting some fine bouquets of
verbiage from around the web and leaving them here for you to toss at
the contenders.

I’ve lined up columns A and B to my own satisfaction, but feel free to mix and match them as you will:

CNN headline today: Microsoft offers free security program.

Putting ” Microsoft ” into the same sentence as the word “security” is a funny-ha-ha moment that’s hard to top, but Bill Gates has been trying.

He just told CNET that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is “the best” browser.

Really, Bill, stop–you’re making people squirt coffee out their noses here.

Look, it’s the Christmas alphabet–no L!

Do you know what goes “Ho-thud, ho-thud, ho-thud”? Could it be maybe Santa Claus jumping rope?

OK, remember how shepherds watched
their flocks by night, then an angel came down and told them all
“Fear not.” Now I told you what the angel said, can you tell me what the sheep said?

The sheep said, “Fleece Navidad,” and I wish you the same.

2 B OR NOT 2B TAHT IS DA QUESTION1!!!!1 OMG WTF

The New Yorker recently ran a wonderful piece about joke collectors (printable version), going back to the Greeks.

But more fascinating to me than Palamedes and Philogelos was Garamond Legman–whose first published work was about–er, well, he claimed to
have invented the–er, well, among other things, he claimed to have invented the phrase “Make Love not War.”

Legman left the US for a life of poverty a French castle, where he
collected crates full of index cards covered with extremely dirty
jokes. (“Zut alors, this joke should be filed under ‘offspring from sex with sheep’–what is it doing here in ‘outrageous farting’?”)

Legman’s story spooked me a little bit–maybe because I too have spent years collecting old jokes, though my specialty is nerd and scientific humor. Maybe because his real life in poverty sounds much uglier than the glamorous life of writerly French poverty I once dreamed of.

A physicist, a mathematician, and an engineer walk into a bar.
The bartender says, “Hey! Is this some kind of joke?”

Interesting to think what kind of joke Legman would have made of it….

I just sent my first gmail–to my friend Susan Mernit.

The buzz is that Google will scan stuff we write or receive for
hints about ads to show us. Proactively, I’m starting by spamming their
ad-bot.

“Dear Susan,” I wrote, “I love flowers–roses, lilacs, lilies of the
valley. I love my neighborhood florist shop. Her stargazer lilies have
the most wonderful perfume. I have never actually ordered flowers from
1-800-FLOWERS or Calyx and Corolla, but I’m exactly the kind of person
who might.”

I also told Susan ( a sweet, tolerant person) more than you might want to know about my fondness
for shiny Waring blenders and bright-red sports cars. I hope Susan also
likes flowers, kitchen gadgets, and cars, because if my hypothesis is
correct she will be seeing ads for them too!

If this silly game works, consider its dark-side potential. I’d never
ever send get-well email to Gmail–“Dear Uncle Ern, Hope your
hemorrhoids are improving…”–just think of the ads Uncle Ern would
get
thereafter.

What kind of ads have you been seeing in Gmail?  Were they related to anything you wrote?

Adding to my blogroll: in #joiito the other night, lefauxfrog whose blog is at “curious frog” told this joke:

I love that! So today I went over to Michael’s weblog and I found a lot
more good stuff, most of which you should go there and find for
yourself. So how does he manage to overhear such funny things, e.g. this Harvard Square conversation:

“I learned that when I was in law school. Here in Massachusetts it means ‘no more than three cars may pass through’.”