Humor

Google: a smart and funny company. Here’s today’s log-in page for Gmail:

This is too funny, and perhaps hits close to home. It’s from The New Yorker. (Thanks to Robert Niles, who pointed this out to Poynter’s Online-News list.)

I missed last night’s The Simpsons, but according to Mediabistro’s FishbowlDC blog, there was this funny scene:

“Did you watch last night’s ‘The Simpsons’? Like when Dan Rather introduced his panel of debate moderators, including ‘Ron Lehar, a print journalist from The Washington Post.’

“Prompting Nelson to point at him and say ‘Ha ha: Your medium is dying!’

“Rather: ‘Nelson!’ (Actually, it was Principal Skinner who says this.)

“Nelson: ‘But it is! There’s being right and there’s being nice.’”

A joke for we media geeks.

Addendum: Here’s the clip, found on DailyMotion.com:

I’m consistently delighted by some of the stuff that users post to our Enthusiast Group websites — which are citizen media based online communities geared for sport enthusiasts. And because we don’t censor or restrict what gets posted, some “interesting” content appears from time time to time — stuff that I just can’t imagine finding a home in traditional media.

Take this story, “Explosion on the Prow,” posted by a user to YourClimbing.com. It’s the story of a Yosemite climb with a real character who has a, umm, shitty mishap on the rock. It’s very funny and clever, and even includes a cartoon accompaniment. I suppose maybe a climbing magazine editor with a warped sense of humor might let this in, but I doubt it would turn up on the Outdoors pages of a newspaper. But we’re happy to have it appear on YourClimbing.com.

Bad taste? Should we exercise our editorial perogative and unpublish a story about a climber getting diarrhea mid-climb? Of course not. That would be old media, gatekeeper thinking.

I’ve long been a fan of animated editorial cartoons — but there are so few of them. The great Mark Fiore stands out as the best still, in my view. But there are indications that a new wave of animated editorial cartoons is coming.

A new entrant is Mike Shelton of the Orange County Register in California. He just started doing animated cartoons and has posted a few.

I can’t say that they do much for me. Shelton’s still editorial cartoons seem wittier and more powerful than his first animated attempts (though I’m no fan of his punch lines, which take a right-wing stance). I suspect that’s an indication that animated cartoons are not easy to pull off well.

I went to the Boulder Adventure Film Festival Monday night; a fun event. One of my favorite films was a 15-minute “mockumentary” called The Lost People of Mountain Village. It’s about a resort area built near Telluride, Colorado, that the locals joke is abandoned because of the preponderance of absentee owners of the mega-mansions.

While the film is definitely funny, it’s also a biting social commentary about America’s culture of excess. The filmmakers analyze a stone mansion with 19 bathrooms, and a mock anthropologist suggests that since that’s clearly more than was necessary for the owners, they must have some “ceremonial” purpose.

Also great were suggestions that the rich owners perhaps became cannibals as a result of the hired help being priced out of living in the area, so the residents had to fend for themselves but had no skills at cooking — and there was no grocery store or gas station in Mountain Village. Good stuff.

I couldn’t find the film online, but you can order a DVD from Sheep Mountain Alliance, P.O. Box 389, Telluride, CO 81435, 970-728-3729. Great stuff.

I’m guessing that most people younger than me won’t get this joke. (Launches a video clip.)

(Via Feld Thoughts…) Video: Microsoft redesigns the iPod packaging. … ROFL.

I love this Zits cartoon. It’s perfect. …

This one’s worth sharing. It’s been making the e-mail rounds. (Not sure where it originated, or I’d give credit.)