Yeah, I've done a little studying over the summer, trying to get a base for hitting the big time this semester. My dad's got a couple of shelves of classics in the basement. Nothing real hard—a little Dickens, a little Frost. Some Emily Dickinson. Chick was fucking messed up, dudes. But she could scan like shit. "Because I could not stop for Death, / He kindly stopped for me." Yeah, I think I'm going to try and really hit the ground running. Start with some Shakespeare sonnets, maybe work my way up to memorizing "Howl" by fall break. I think I could totally do it, if I really just put in the time, went to the library every day and hit the books.

After extensive testing I've discovered you need 1 catastrophic event or tragedy for every 167 words in the rest of the email. I usually toss in a couple extra for good measure.

"We've been not coming here every August for as long as I can remember. The chief activities we don't engage in are swimming, sailing, and canoeing. At night we don't sit around sipping gin and tonics and playing Scrabble or Crazy Eights, or we don't read the old Life magazines piled up behind the davenport that go back to 1947, or we don't dip into the oddball collection of broken-spined books by long-forgotten authors like Irvin S. Cobb and James Gould Cozzens. At the moment I'm not working my way through John Gunther's Inside Asia, published in 1939. You'd be surprised how little has changed!"

Round one: fight!

rentzsch said, "This is exactly why I won't let the Post photograph me."

What these critters _really_ look like...

"Fleck is: patent pending, world changing, paradigm shifting and user experience enhancing technology. Tagging, search, blog, AJAX and social networking, every WEB2.0 hype is covered."

"What happens when a bunch of non-mechanically inclined nerds, with no knack for design, decide it would be a good idea to build a MAME (arcade) cabinet? Lots of really ugly shit happens. That's what."

"Dear No Value:"

"...she's been using daily for a few years now. Could interactive fiction act as a methadone - or does it result in just as much harm? What other strategies have users employed to get clean?"

"From similes recently used in newspapers and magazines to describe the shapes of federal and state legislative districts."

Using Fundable to bankroll a Freecycle donation (!).

"Michael forever!"

"A merry Christmas to all, and to Bill O'Reilly ... Happy Holidays"

(Turn up the volume when looking at this page.)

"Classic" game Dopewars is released in Dashboard Widget format. Pretty lousy design, but worth a laugh.

Device that prints RSS feed of your choice onto toilet paper for "situational access." Includes a weight-sensitive toilet seat, allowing the printer to identify visitors and print their preferred feeds.

Series of ads with good cmyk humor.

Series of interviews with people having moved out of Grand Rapids, MI. Cool cities indeed!

"From a circular sent on August 17 to Western Michigan University staff and students from the university’s Building Custodial Support Services."

"Eight legs, 1000 songs."

Great idea -- two of zefrank's Flash Frogs laugh through usability problems on a web site.

"BY ACCEPTING THIS BRICK THROUGH YOUR WINDOW, YOU ACCEPT IT AS IS AND AGREE TO MY DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS WELL AS DISCLAIMERS OF ALL LIABILITY ... THAT MAY ARISE FROM THE INSTALLATION OF THIS BRICK INTO YOUR BUILDING."

"Use of this device or substance may require, imply, and/or endorse the existence of one or more of the following: chemistry; evolution; electromagnetism; gravity; mathematics; thermodynamics; education."

"Bulletin board/kiosk at the University of Michigan."

Definition: social software is stuff that gets spammed.

Hilarious collection of photos of "Ambient Findability" O'Reilly book around Ann Arbor by its author.

Including "bogus infographics."

Description of Myspace worm.

Windows software, scans a EULA for questionable contents.

Howard Dean: "Certainly the president can claim executive privilege ...  But ... with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, you can't play, you know, hide the salami, or whatever it's called."

"I walked into the men's bathroom in my dorm and saw these two lovebirds in an open stall, both completely passed out."

"I am the evil. I am the unfont. I am Comic Sans MS."

"Meet Jack Torrance."

"The creature has been at least partially revealed in all his slime-covered yet oddly majestic glory, allowing us to learn much more about the mysteries of his existence."

I recommend that you print and file this page, in case you ever need to introduce Ed in a pinch. Very comprehensive and well-written.