Planet Sillicon

Sleep deprevation increases humour

By blog on Aug. 22, 2009.

That sounds like an odd thing to say, but I’m quite serious, it does. I’m sure you’ve noticed than when you’re awake for a really long time, or have had too little sleep, what was once mildly funny is now riotously funny? Well, I have…

I love that about being tired, it’s about the only upside. Earlier today I was on I Can Has Cheez Burger and noticed they were self-promoting for a new site, Comixed, which is another of their funny caption sites, taking seemingly innocuous pictures, and in this case, stringing them together with funny captions to form an almost comic strip like effect.

These are actually quite good, and the comments aren’t quite as inane as those sadly found on I Can Has Cheez Burger and the dog version, I Has A Hotdog, which are so mind bogglingly stupid that I have to steer clear of them lest I surge into a total Nerd Rage. There are of course the ongoing references to internet memes, as with this comix here, and a few humerous ones of easy target, Sarah Palin.

Now, whilst I was viewing this site, I happened to have had about three and a half hours sleep the night before. This gives anyone a bent to either being angry and laughing, I’ve found, and I can switch between both quite quickly. My SO was busy with something that required I not be overly noisy, she was working, so I was quietly stuffing around on the internet filling in time. Once I happened upon this site, and viewed page after page, I couldn’t help myself. I was laughing out loud, I was guffawing, I was choking back laughter behind poorly concealed snorts.

I was also missreading and miss-seeing things, which is fun. What is a chair turned away from you, seen from the corner of your eye, suddenly becomes a four foot Buttercup from the Powerpuff Girls hovering in mid air, and what is actually a can in the fridge with the words ‘Health Benefits’ written on it becomes ‘Health Brain Fish’ when one reads it too quickly.

So yes, it’s almost fun to go around sleep deprived, so long as I don’t drive or try to do anything that’s actually important.

Bad Cab Rides

By blog on Jul. 29, 2009.

My SO and I decided take-out was the order of the day, last night, so off I went in a cab to pick it up. Seems simple enough, right? Wrong! Add in a ridiculously bad cab driver, it was anything but simple!

I called the cab around twenty past nine and was pleasantly surprised to find it on my doorstep at nine-thirty. When I say ‘on my doorstep’ I mean, parked across the street with no intention of coming over. Okay, so I cross the road, and hop in the back seat. Now, I live in a suburb just outside a major city centre. I tell him where I wanted to go – a very well known restaurant in the city. Whilst having the car pointed towards the city, he says to me, ‘You’ll have to give me directions’ and then says ‘can I get out this way’. This is a street, not a court, mind you.

I tell the guy the directions for getting onto the main road going into town – the restaurant is on that road. Now, as we are driving along, I hear this annoying ding, ding, ding, noise. I can see in the dashboard that the seat belt buckle sign is flashing at the driver… He’s not wearing is damn seat belt! He’s also pushing the speed limit, driving right up behind a huge truck, and quite jerkily too.

We get closer to the restaurant, all he has to do is go a short way around a large round-about, and then drive into the car-park for the place. I tell him exactly where to go – whilst my mind boggles that I even have to tell him, seriously, this restaurant is that well known – and he completely misses the turn off into the car-park. I tell him what he’s done, and he pulls over, and I have to tell him to do a U-turn, go back round the round-about, and turn into the car-park.

He turns around, goes round the round-about, without a turning signal(!?) and turns into the wrong car-park. It’s close enough, so I pay and get out. Usually, I would ask the driver to wait, as I was just picking up some take-out, but I couldn’t stand this driver, so I didn’t say anything. I made a mental note of the number of the cab, and I will be calling the company later today to mention the numerous traffic infringements and plain lack of necessary geographical knowledge for the city.

By the time I got home I could at least relate the story to my SO without any fury, I can see the funny side of it, but at the time it was very annoying.

Keep a straight face

By blog on Jul. 21, 2009.

I just heard a song that reminds me of something funny, so I figured I’d share. This entry is about those times in life when something occurs to you as being funny, but you know without a doubt that it would go over very, very, badly should you actually laugh. This entry is about a few of those that relate to each other, because they all involve look-alikes, like that website; totallylookslike.com.

This video here belongs to a French semi-spoof band, Fatal Bazooka. That’s all well and good, I actually like most of their songs. Now, in my local games store, the manager looks exactly like the lead singer. Whenever I am in there, I have to try really hard to keep and straight face, and I am constantly running through the scenario in my mind of what I just blurted out that this guy looks exactly like the lead singer of Fatal Bazooka? I would never be able to shop there again!

Now, the other look-alike funny stories both relate to being at University. When I was at Uni, I had a lecturer that my SO thought looked strikingly similar to Merriweather from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. She’s the fat one in blue. Can you imagine how difficult it is to have serious discussions with someone your SO has announced repeatedly as looking like a fat fairy? Rather difficult, actually.

This last one is just great. My course coordinator for my degree at University looks strikingly similar to John Malkovich. This man looked so much like John Malkovich that my SO and I called him Malkovich between ourselves at all times. I was once having a discussion with the man in his office, sitting there, talking normally, and then all of a sudden it popped into my head just how much he looked like John Malkovich that I wanted to howl with laughter, I think partly because I knew how rude that would be.

Hopefully if you find yourself in my situation, you too can keep a straight face!