Found at imgur.
At the very least, I have found a new desktop background. 
Yearly Archives: 2012
Shelley Berman: Tenjewberrymud
Despite the fact that it has been widely copied and published on the net as an actual conversation from a hotel in Asia, and purportedly published in the Far East Economic Review, the dialogue below never actually took place in any hotel anywhere in the world. It is an intentionally composed humorous fiction and is entirely the creation of Shelley Berman, written as a chapter in his book, published as A HOTEL IS A PLACE, A HOTEL IS A FUNNY PLACE, and A HOTEL IS A VERY FUNNY PLACE, by Price/Stern/Sloan Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 1972, 1985. Any claim to the contrary is utterly baseless and erroneous. I post it here not only because it’s very funny, but because the true attribution (and the correct version) deserves more widespread exposure.
(Reading hints: You are on the phone. The other party is also in the hotel.)
Morny, rune sore-bees.
Oh sorry, I thought I dialed room service.
Rye. Rune sore-bees. Morny. Jewish to odor sunteen?
Yes, order something. This is room thirteen-oh-five. I want…
Okay, torino-fie. Yes plea?
I’d like some bacon and eggs.
Ow July then?
What?
Aches. Ow July then? Pry, boy, pooch…?
Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry. Scrambled, please.
Ow July thee baycome? Crease?
Crisp will be fine.
Okay. An Santos?
What?
Santos. July Santos?
Uh…I don’t know…I don’t think so.
No? Judo one toes?
Look. I really feel bad about this, but I just don’t know what judo-one-toes means. I’m sorry…
Toes! Toes! Why Jew Don Juan toes? Ow bow eenlish mopping we bother?
English muffin! I’ve got it! You were saying toast! Fine. An English muffin will be fine.
We bother?
No. Just put the bother on the side.
Wad?
I’m sorry. I meant butter. Butter on the side.
Copy?
I feel terrible about this but…
Copy. Copy, tea, mill…
Coffee!! Yes, coffee please. And that’s all.
One Minnie. Ass rune torino-fie, strangle-aches, crease baycome, tossy eenlish mopping we bother honey sigh, and copy. Rye?
Whatever you say.
Okay. Tenjewberrymud.
You’re welcome.
State Farm Road Atlas, 1950
Utah gets nothing but sugar beets (now a defunct industry.) Colorado gets a mint, Montana gets Injuns, the South gets nothing but happy darkies workin’ in the fields. Pretty sad map all the way around, if you ask me; even discounting the racism, it doesn’t even highlight the best things each state has to offer.
I’d like to think we’ve come a bit farther than this.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
A card for Malala
Head over to Rookie magazine and check out their campaign:
It’s a mag for teen girls, but I loved the idea – so here’s my contribution:
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Au Bon Coin, 1929
photo by André Kertész, 1929. Found at Frog Blog.
Famous Russian Inventor: Regus Patoff
The Cliffs of Moher, Ireland
Taken in 1998 during a family trip to Europe. As everywhere else in Ireland, it was raining that day – until we got up to the edge of the cliff, where the wind was rushing up the precipice so fast that the rain couldn’t get to the ground.
Is fearr liom Éire ná áit ar bith eile…
The Troll, 1820’s version
Some time ago I posted about internet trolls, familiar to anyone who frequents forums and discussion groups. Indeed, one of the net’s most prolific and unsavory trolls was recently outed by Gawker (I’m not posting the link because it’s a pretty sordid story, but it’s out there if you’re interested.) Today I happened across a description of this kind of behavior from the early 19th century, which I thought was interesting – Trolling is not new, and apparently the only thing that has changed is the medium.
This litigious humour is bad enough: but there is one character still worse — that of a person who goes into company, not to contradict, but to talk at you. This is the greatest nuisance in civilised society. Such a person does not come armed to defend himself at all points, but to unsettle, if he can, and throw a slur on all your favourite opinions. If he has a notion that anyone in the room is fond of poetry, he immediately volunteers a contemptuous tirade against the idle jingle of verse. If he suspects you have a delight in pictures, he endeavours, not by fair argument, but by a side-wind, to put you out of conceit with so frivolous an art. If you have a taste for music, he does not think much good is to be done by this tickling of the ears. If you speak in praise of a comedy, he does not see the use of wit: if you say you have been to a tragedy, he shakes his head at this mockery of human misery, and thinks it ought to be prohibited. He tries to find out beforehand whatever it is that you take a particular pride or pleasure in, that he may annoy your self-love in the tenderest point (as if he were probing a wound) and make you dissatisfied with yourself and your pursuits for several days afterwards. A person might as well make a practice of throwing out scandalous aspersions against your dearest friends or nearest relations, by way of ingratiating himself into your favour. Such ill-timed impertinence is ‘villainous, and shows a pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.’ – William Hazlitt, “On the Conversation of Authors,” 1820
Found at Futility Closet
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Austria: Travel Posters
In simpler times, travel was fun, exciting, and romantic. Compared with today, when any part of the world is accessible to those with a little money, a high tolerance for discomfort, and a willingness to be violated by the petty thugs of the TSA, potential travelers of a day gone by would amuse themselves with stereopticons at parties and dream of the leisurely exploration of exotic locations.
Stereopticion
Vienna, Karlskirche. Cross your eyes until the images come together for a stereo view.
Even travel posters were works of art, designed to evoke images of romance, comfort, and sights never-before-seen. The following posters promoting travel to Austria were created mostly in the years leading up to World War II, before the Anschluß. They depicted Austria as a cheap and picturesque travel destination, which it was. After the depredations of the war, Austria rebuilt itself from the ashes and remained a popular destination – cheaper than other high-profile areas like Paris, Rome, or Geneva because of its relative obscurity. Even as late as 1971, when I traveled through the country with a friend, it was insanely cheap:
This Gasthof in Lofer cost us $4.00 for the night – breakfast included.
And this was the view…
Modern travel posters employ high-resolution photography, but somehow they don’t quite capture the imaginative aspect of travel that existed before the days of mass media and digital everything.
Edit: Snow bunnies. Has anyone thought about what it would be like to do a faceplant with a pipe in your mouth? That wouldn’t be terribly gemütlich, if you ask me.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Unneccessary Dairy Overlap
Saw this today over at Frog Blog:
It reminded me that my grandmother, gone to her reward these 33 years, used to be terribly precise about how she made sandwiches.
A great cartoon over at Left-Handed Toons addressed this issue with regards to how Subway made their sandwiches:
I always thought this was terribly funny, mostly because it was true. What I didn’t know is that people like Drew Mokris, poking merciless fun at Subway for their un-geometric procedures, actually made a difference. At least in Australia and New Zealand.
Found this over at Gawker; the original article from The Consumerist is gone (and their robots.txt file stopped the Wayback Machine from scraping it), but it was picked up by various news feeds, including NPR.
However, not all store managers were down with the change:
This manager is a douchebag.
And the article over at the Inquisitr documents one particular sandwich artist named Chris whose sole purpose in life appeared to be frustrating customers.
I’ve been working at subway for about a year and a half, and it always amuses me when people complain about not tessellating cheese. Now, merely to amuse myself, not only do I not tessellate the cheese, but I also leave gaps in the cheese placement so that an indeterminate amount of your bites will be cheeseless. Also, I put a really small amount of dressing on your sandwich whenever you ask for it. Then when you ask for more, I squirt out a large quantity before you can say stop so that your sandwich has far too much dressing. Then, when I cut the sandwich in half, I only cut it 3/4ths of the way through so that you have to messily tear the rest of the sandwich yourself.
Yes, he’s a douchebag too. If I were running a Subway store, he’d be looking for a job at McDonald’s faster than you can say “bogan.”
I don’t eat at Subway all that often, but I’ve never had a bad experience there. Now I’m tempted to go, just to see how they do it in my vicinity.
The Old Wolf is hungry.
Playing in the World Game 
