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December 15, 2004
Selected Tips from Emily Post's Etiquette for Ukrainian Dinner Parties
Guests should be seated beside their spouses and opposite their assassins.
Use a darkly colored tablecloth, so that spilt wine or bodily fluids are less noticeable.
The large spoon is for soup, the medium spoon for eye-gouging, and the smallest spoon is not to be used until coffee or tea after the meal.
When pulling the ol’ switcheroo, always start with the poisoned goblet to the left of the victim. Goblets should be swapped in a counterclockwise flourish.
Salad is too early to kill, dessert too late.
When choking or strangling, see to it that the victim’s chair is first pulled back six inches from the dinner table, so that his flailing arms and legs do not upset the place setting.
Keep some rolls of paper towels nearby, so as not to ruin the fancy napkins mopping up blood.
When serving poisoned soup, always serve from over the victim’s right side.
If stabbing a guest, do so under the table so that no blood will splatter bystanders or their meals.
After successfully killing your mark, do not shout any victory whoops or slogans in favor your cause. It is uncouth to shout at the dinner table.
Keep the music low enough to maintain pleasant conversation, but loud enough to veil the gurgles of a wounded victim. Bach seldom fails.
No hats.
Always wait for a suitable lull in conversation before stabbing with a butter knife. (Tip: For effectiveness, butter knives should be inserted between the third and fourth ribs.)
Dioxins and dry white wines are best served at a temperature between 8º and 10º centigrade.
Avoid discussion of politics or religion in mixed company, or at least until after those with differing opinions have been brutally dealt with.
Don’t sit next to Rasputin.
Posted by yankee at 09:08 PM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2004
Letter of Rejection to Dr. Phil
Dear Dr. Phil,
Thank you for submitting your application for the director’s position at the National Institutes of Health. As the N.I.H. is the principal force guiding America’s efforts in medical research, we have strived to consider every candidate’s application seriously.
Our first impression was not a good one. You have a loud and exuberant manner that is an oddity in our network of colleagues, and for the duration of the interview process, you were physically sitting on top of Dr. James Watson (a man considerably smaller than you), oblivious to his muffled and strained murmurs beneath you. We found this quite distracting and wonder what this reflects of your character. Furthermore, although he has only a minor role in the selection process, the Nobel laureate was quite put out. As the conversation continued, we found other characteristics that troubled us. Your commitment to, as you call it, “big ideas,” whilst commendable, seemed a tad impetuous. Your mention of using your television program or perhaps “your good friend” Oprah’s television program to (in your own words) “GIVE FREE GENE THERAPY TO EACH AND EVERY MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE!” is frankly very unsettling to us.
In truth, we fear that your celebrity status may ultimately impede our principal mandate of excellence in health research. Although some of our members thought it wonderful that you have a Muppet in your likeness on “Sesame Street,” your list of other references (e.g., “I drink scotch with Kelsey Grammer on a regular basis”) hardly elicits confidence. To be blunt, your scientific C.V. is poor and your repeated attempts to demonstrate your scientific prowess were laughable at best. (Adjusting the pH in your hot tub does not count, nor does your vasectomy.)
Finally, we found your tendency to talk in meaningless, corny phrases very irritating. Responses like “Sometimes you just got to give yourself what you wish someone else would give you” or “You’re only lonely if you’re not there for you” are very confusing, to say the least. In fact, our members felt that overall you were even more irritating than the applicant who used the word “testicular” 67 times in his interview. One member of our hiring committee actually wrote the comment “Who the [expletive] is this guy—Foghorn Leghorn doing Yoda?”
Consequently, the hiring committee regrets to inform you that your application has not been shortlisted for further consideration at this time. Please tell Ms. Winfrey to stop bothering us.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Paul Batley Johnson
Hiring Committee
National Institutes of Health
Posted by yankee at 02:35 AM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2004
Advice from Topeka
A woman slips a note into a copy of the latest Reader’s Digest on sale at a shop at Dallas airport. The note reads:
Hi. I’m Muffy. I'm young and gorgeous but lonely. Please write to me!
miffedmuffy23@hotmail.com.
Edna Appleby finds the note and responds:
Dear Miss Muffy:My name is Edna Appleby, from Topeka, Kansas. My granddaughter, Dotty, bless her heart, gave me that Reader’s Digest with your note in it because she knows how much I love Reader’s Digest, dear. She herself never reads it because she’s a fashion designer in Los Angeles. I’m much older than you, I suspect, and I’m very, very concerned you might be slipping this contact information in other magazines and it will fall into the hands of an ax murderer, one with brains enough to figure out where you live. And I know all about ax murderers because Elmo, my uncle by marriage to my sister who never had any sense, was one. He done killed six women in a farm outside of Topeka in the space of they say three minutes, including my sister and her bingo friends, because he was a very big horribly strong man with a vile temper and no control at all and ugly as a dung beetle to boot. And they fried him, thank the Lord, so he’s been getting his just deserts for years.
You’re a very lucky young lady, Miss Muffy. I just got this Web TV thing in the mail from my grandson Bobby and my naybor's son Billy teached me how to use it and I’m having so much fun. Just imagine yesterday I found one of my elementry school classmates what lives in Baton Rouge and she writes me all about little Joey Figs, what used to be class clown, so she tells me all about how he’s been indicated for securities fraud. You never can tell about people I always say which is what you should always be bearing in mind, dear, because the world is full of all sorts of terrible people and I don’t know why but the Lord has a reason for everything. Amen.
Now my husband, Willy, who passed away five summers ago, bless his heart, was a good man and he worked hard while the babies came bursting out of me like little popovers. We fed those babies and I took a job in the tire factory and they all growed up in good health except for two who was stillborn. And except for Elmo and my nasty drunk daddy, I can’t really say I got too many complaints about my life because I was very very careful to never get mixed up with dangerous mean fruitcakes so now I’m ripe as an apple what's already fallen from a tree, but a little bored but don’t you be telling anyone that.Maybe you’d like to correspond and make a lonely old lady like me happy because the kids and the grandkids don’t write or visit much because they’re very busy and to tell the truth they try not to speak to me probably because I lost most of my hearing and had to get a hysterectomy, and then decided to go for a sex change, you know life is a bitch when you’re a woman. Anyways, I look forward to finding out where you live and what you do and whatever else you want to tell me.
Sincerely,
Edna
Posted by yankee at 02:28 AM | Comments (0)
December 06, 2004
“American Pie”—A Fresh Slice
The song “American Pie,” by Don McLean has been heavily analyzed since it was first released in 1972. As with many popular songs containing largely symbolic lyrics such as “Stairway to Heaven” or “Hotel California,” the song’s meaning is examined and often misinterpreted. Of the three, “American Pie” is the song with the most widely accepted interpretation. However, close examination of an early draft of “American Pie” reveals the song’s true meaning. Without the confusion of vague metaphors and mythology in later drafts, one sees how the song’s simple message has been misunderstood for more than thirty years.
“American Pie” (the first draft)A long, long time ago
I watched Bill’s TV show
And prayed he’d never build a time machine
’Cause I knew that if he had the chance
He’d charm my teenage mom out of her pants
And keep me from ever being conceivedBut my faith in God was shattered
When Bill Nye studied antimatter
I began to panic
When he learned quantum mechanicsI swear I almost shit my pants
When I saw him make those neutrons dance
I knew I wouldn’t stand a chance
If Bill went back in timeSo Bill Nye the Science Guy
Was sooner or later gonna travel through time
And hit my mom with some bad pickup line
Saying “Hey there, baby, your place or mine?”I never knew who my father was
I never asked my mom because
She always kind of freaked me out.
One day she looked deep into my eyes
Said my dad was the kid from “Family Ties”
But I knew she was telling sweet, sweet liesI chalked it up to all the LSD
She took when she was pregnant with me
I though it was senility
A scientific impossibility! (Whoo!)Back at his lab on the very same day
Bill made a time machine out of a Chevrolet
I knew he’d take my life away
The day Bill traveled timeI started screaming:
Bill Nye the Science Guy
Was gonna travel back in time to my mom’s junior high,
And keep my dad from ever catching her eye
Nothing could stop him but I still had to try.I jumped in the back of Bill’s car
With fungus in a jelly jar
I had a plan to save the day
When we got there I ran in my mom’s house,
Slammed the door and locked him out
He wouldn’t keep my dad from getting laid.I found my mom and used my confection
Designed to give her a yeast infection
She said she’d seen me somewhere before
But then a knock came at the doorI looked out the window, didn’t trust my eyes
A DeLorean was parked out in the drive
And I knew that I would stay alive
Even if Bill came insideHe got there too late
Bill Nye the Science Guy
Drove his Chevy to my Mom’s house
But my mom was too dry
He came back from his car with a tube of K-Y
And walked in on her with Marty McFly.
Posted by yankee at 08:46 AM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2004
What Truffaut Taught Me
I knew nothing of the world. Experience abandoned me to my adolescent womb, my senses dull from disuse. Then, one day, I ran away.
I ran and the strong ones followed, determined to invalidate my freedom. When they got close, I ducked inside a dark theater. They hurried past, while I remained to enjoy the rest of the film. I already knew The 400 Blows and recognized the final scene at a glance, a boy running. I knew the runner. It was Donier.
So I joined the marathon.
We ran together but Donier did not notice me at first. I shadowed him until the beach, which had captivated his attention. Finally, he turned and froze.
I spoke. “What happened to you? Why were you running?”
Reticent at first, he soon warmed up to me and began to tell his story. He told me everything, including his first experience with a woman.
I wanted to know about the fucking. “What was the best part?”
He considered the question for a moment, unwilling to look me in the eye, then he grinned, demure and amused. “Le cigarette.”
We laughed together and started running again.
Posted by yankee at 10:51 PM | Comments (0)