C’est Rire category archive

Via Funnyordie.

Spot the ch-ch-ch-changes.

Comically Vintage explains.

Effectively captured by Comically Vintage.

Life imitates art lavishly produced, badly written, poorly acted, over-the-top B-movies:

The MBTA held up a Red Line train at JFK/UMass station and again at the Braintree terminus after a female passenger reported losing a snake on the subway just before noon yesterday, T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said.

The woman became concerned that she could not find Penelope, her pet snake, as the train surfaced between Andrew and JFK/UMass stations. At the stop, the MBTA held the train for about four minutes as T employees helped search the car in which the woman was riding, but Penelope was nowhere to be found.

Penelope is apparently condemned to ride forever ‘neath the streets of Boston.

The Comically Vintage way.

Or “How To Rethink Air Travel without the Help of the TSA.”

Radio Times reports. From the website:

JENNIE ERIN SMITH’s new book takes the reader inside the world of illegal reptile trafficking. She tells the story two reptile smugglers and the collectors and zoos that they supply. There are rare tortoises that disappear from a wildlife reserve in Madagascar and end up in the Bronx Zoo, and a suitcase that arrives in New Jersey stuffed with 100 reptiles. This hour, Marty talks with science writer Jennie Erin Smith about her new book, Stolen World: A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skulduggery.

Follow the link above or click here to listen (MP3).

Comically Vintage wants to know.

Dave Barry looks back on 2010. A nugget:

This is not to say that 2010 was all bad. There were bright spots. Three, to be exact:

1. The Yankees did not even get into the World Series.

2. There were several days during which Lindsay Lohan was neither going into, nor getting out of, rehab.

3. Apple released the hugely anticipated iPad, giving iPhone people, at long last, something to fondle with their other hand.

Via Gene Weingarten.

Reverse mirror-image regression Oedipus complexities with a high “ick” facto one step removed from being his own grandpa amongst the Gore-Tex heirsr:

Susan W. Gore, one of Wilbert’s five children, triggered a five-year Delaware Chancery Court battle by adopting her ex-husband. The event that adoption experts call incredibly rare and perhaps unprecedented — a man becoming his former wife’s son — occurred in 2003 in Wyoming, where the Gore family has roots.

Susan Gore went through with the adoption so that each of her three natural children could reap tens of millions of dollars more from a family trust worth hundreds of millions. But she did it without informing her mother, Genevieve W. Gore, Wilbert’s widow and overseer of the trust, or other relatives outside Susan Gore’s immediate branch of the family.

It is a long and bizarre story that illustrates, among other things, the consequences of attempting to micromanage in our bequests events that may take place after we are gone.

Boston Globe columnists round up their favorite words in the news of 2010. A nugget:

refudiate (v.)

REFUDIATE THIS: Sarah Palin is a marketing genius who turned herself into the Kim Kardashian of politics.

Heh.

The local rag translates Auld Land Syne. It’s a cute article with interesting background on a tune that has become a world-wide standard.

An excerpt (their alphabetical order–not mine):

auld – old
lang – long
syne – since
be – buy
pint – pint
stowp – cup
twa – two
hae – have
braes – slopes
pou’d – picked
gowans – daisies
fit – foot
paidl’d – paddled
burn – stream
dine – dinner
braid – broad
fiere – friend
gude-willy waught – good-will draught

Persons who were planning on watching Sunday night football on their big screen televisions in their centrally-heated houses are griping that the NFL and the Eagles decided not to play at night in a snow storm.

I’ve been caught on I-95, the main route to and from the ball park, in a snow storm. I think they made the correct decision.

Don Russell takes on the critics in the Inky (among other things, he points out that in recent years Philly has gotten more snow than Minneapolis). A nugget:

But I was steaming when I heard our governor pander to Eagles fans by claiming the cancellation was “part of the wussification of America.”

“We’ve lost a lot of our pioneer spirit,” Gov. Rendell said in one TV appearance. “We used to be a hearty, strong frontier people, and we had that spirit that we could do anything that we set our minds to.”

This from a guy who attended prep school in New York City.

Perhaps the governor was referring to the spirit of those hearty Midwesterners who headed for California in the winter of 1846-47 only to find themselves trapped in a blizzard. They were strong frontier people, too, with a fine pioneer spirit (but apparently no snow plows).

They went by the name of Donner.

The whole thing is just a delicious read.

We have CFLs scattered all over the house and a cabinet full of them for replacing incandescent bulbs as they blow.

I’ve never noticed a difference, but apparently they drive this lady batty. (I have noticed differences with tubes, but not so much any more. I think the tubes have improved.)

I’ve heard other persons, male and female, complain about them. Maybe it’s some perception gene.

From the BBC:

While the African elephant – the largest living land animal – defies its size by running at speeds of up to 25mph, its legs are so heavy they cannot change direction fast, which means the animal is not so good at more graceful or intricate moves.

It also means they cannot jump, which rules out the pirouette.

But hamsters dance.

Follow the BBC link to find out why hamsters don’t need parachutes.

Having been a teen-aged boy and, despite what you might hear from my kids, remembering clearly what it was like (for some escapades, too clearly), I would say the “foolish and dangerous” pretty much sums it up.

Except, of course, for the “exciting and daring” part, that grown-ups never seem to get:

Police in the Australian state of Queensland have rescued three teenagers who tried to use air mattresses to float 30km (20 miles) on floodwaters.

The three boys were trying to get from Ipswich to central Brisbane via the swollen Bremer river.

Police said the trio had floated 15km before they were retrieved, labelling their actions “foolish and dangerous”.

From Comically Vintage.

. . . can be disastrous. Science 2.0 reports:

Research by dating site FreeDating.co.uk found that 36% of women would end a relationship over an ‘inadequate’ Christmas gift. This was particularly the case when the present was the latest in a series of disappointing let-downs within the relationship.

Examples of gifts which were deemed inadequate included cooking utensils, cleaning products, and a sticky tape dispenser.

(snip)

Just 17% of men would end a relationship over their partner’s choice of Christmas present. Which means that, once again, men are the less materialistic gender – and we mostly care about sex.

On this day, I wish you many happy returns.