I should send these to Ed Ruscha or something

For all y'all with iPhones you know that for some odd reason those people at Apple couldn't find it in their hearts to allow us to receive images in a text message. You can do just about anything else with your phone, but not this. An oversight perhaps, but it has led to a wonderful thing. Verging on the genius of some spam email names like Hope E. Esparaza and Hilario P. Mooney, the log in passwords to view multimedia messages are sheer genius. Here, in order, are the ones I've received:

what3limb
bin9barb
hear65west
hoax50veal
dame5fees
used92sill
doom8drew
vain36wink
pang1sags
tout07iced
grip57slip
get1span
bun7errs
hold8bind
hag5prop
raps3wire
puns54just
slow12edit
vows62gee
obey44slid

technical jargon is hilarious

Today I learned that 'tightwad' is an actual academic term. The world is a hilarious place.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/weekinreview/16rampell.html?_r=1&hpw%E2%80%9CSpendthrifts

direct objects DO serve a purpose

I saw a man handing out pamphlets of a religious nature in the subway yesterday. Obviously a believer of his message, he wore a sweatshirt that was airbrushed with his message about allowing Jesus to save your soul from eternal damnation. Of course, "Jesus: Believe in Him and he will save your soul from the fiery depths of Hell" was too long a message for a sweatshirt front, and besides, you have maybe 3 seconds with which to get your general message across to busy commuters who won't even take your leaflet and probably don't want to be saved by you or your savior's message anyway. So, editing occurred, direct objects were omitted and the meaning was obsured. I wish I had taken a picture but there was just no way to do it, plus: what if I missed my train? Yes, commuting has taken precedence over photographing weird things. This is a major difference I've noted between my life here and my life in Tokyo. ANYWAY, the shirt read:

Jesus Saves
from
HELL

Of course the words were engulfed in flames. FLAMES!! It was the most hilarious thing, and I kept thinking how metal it would have been if there had been a vengeful looking Jesus with hand curled into a claw emerging from the flames as well. Oh, hell. Photoshop is my friend. I'll just take a few moments to show you what is in my imagination. Happy Wednesday to you.

Gross miscommunications

I attended a reception for a Japanese ceramicist yesterday. It was cool to be hearing the usual art reception banter going on but half of it occuring in Japanese. I was doing my slow drive-by walk looking at the art, floating in and out of conversation/banter bubbles when I walked by two people conversing in English in the corner. The participants in this conversation were an elderly white lady (ewl) and a youngish white hipster (ywh).

ewl: Do you speak any Japanese then?
ywh: I wish I did, but I only know like a word or two. (laughs)
ewl: Yes (laughs). Ohayo.
ywh: (pauses; laughs) Texas.

This conversation snippet really happened and I had to turn my head to hide my huge grin and give a little cough to hide my guffaw, you know, lest I embarrass myself or the parties involved. I wish I could have seen what happened next, but I had to exit stage left in a hurry. Life is good.

es hilarante. seriamente.

Lately I've seriously been reconsidering nearly all of the well-intentioned decision making I've done in my life. Granted I wouldn't be here now had the happenings in my life not transpired in the exact order that they did, but I digress.

For example, while my love of the French language hasn't waned, I now realize that it would have been infinitely more useful to have studied Spanish with the same vigor. Which brings me to this post: I recently decided that you can teach old dogs new tricks and I decided to learn some basic Spanish. Not necessarily to achieve speech but perhaps just some level of comprehension that might prove useful living in a place like Bushwick. So I went to the library and came home with "Speak Basic Spanish In No Time!" It is filled with the same lame sentences that fill all beginning foreign language books: "What time is it?" "That ball is orange." "Where is the bathroom?" etc., etc. Having taught from these types of books, I know how unimportant content usually is. You grasp the structure, you grasp the grammar, you learn vocabulary, hopefully you can put it all together yourself, the end. I have learned to gloss over the rest.

Luckily an alert reader had borrowed this book before me. Otherwise I would have missed this hilarity completely. This is probably also not as funny as I am acting, but I swear I can't stop laughing.
Enjoy: