Semantic Drift » humor

Guilty as Charged: I am White and Love to Study Abroad

semanticdrifter — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 02:56:20 +0000

The eerily prescient blog Stuff White People Like, is like most really funny things, absolutely true. Whether it’s standing still at concerts (#67), public radio (#44), or microbreweries (#23), this newly discovered (by me anyway) site is a treasure trove of things that make me laugh by cutting just a little too close to the bone.

Their latest offering is especially evocative. It feels like the author wrote this article after reading through my travel journal circa 2003 and having a drink with me after I had just gotten home:

Thing White People Like #72: Study Abroad

I’ve done it (multiple times, for a very long time in South Africa) and am planning to do it again very soon, and I have found myself thinking or saying everything in this article at least once since then.

“By attending school in another country, white people are technically
living in another country. This is important as it gives them the
opportunity to insert that fact into any sentence they please.
“When I used to live in [insert country], I would always ride the
train to school. The people I’d see were inspiring.””

The Lamest Thing I Said Last Week: Uncomfortably Awkward Innuendo Edition

semanticdrifter — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:54:38 +0000

Me to Classmate: “So what’s your moot court case about?”

Classmate: “Oh, it’s about a lesbian being artificially inseminated.”

Me: “Oh, that sounds juicy.”

Classmate: “. . .”

The Lamest Things I Said Last Week: Shakespeare on Tex-Mex

semanticdrifter — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:33:57 +0000

When discussing the interchangeability of one South-Western style burrito restaurant for another establishment of like ambiance, price, and menu, for some reason I thought it would be funny for me to say this:

“A Moe’s by any other name would smell as beefy.”

It got about the response you would think. That is to say it made people groan, sigh, and roll their eyes. And shake their heads.

The Lamest thing I Said Last Week: Hunger makes a man Cheesy

semanticdrifter — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:26:13 +0000

“Man. I am hungry. I’m matriculating at St. Arvin university.” – uttered after sitting through a 3.5 hour torts final.

Now, making a pun on the way the abbreviation of a nonexistent college to convey one’s hunger is incredibly lame. But I can’t take all the blame for this one, as I got it from a series of macaroni and cheese commercials from a few years back. I think, though, that the fact that I filed this little bon mot away for future reference and actually used it in every day conversation is my own personal brand of pathetic-ness.

I do this all the time…

semanticdrifter — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:43:37 +0000

No I mean all the time. If I spent the same amount of mental energy I have used in a lifetime of imagining improbable rumble royales on thinking of important things, I probably would have cured cancer, solved all the problems in the middle east, and invented a flying car by now. So I guess you can blame all that on me.

via the frequently hilarious XKCD

The Stupidest Terrorists in the World

semanticdrifter — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:28:35 +0000

With the success of the Transformers movie, it seems quite likely that other 80s toy properties will find their way to the big screen. G.I. Joe seems like ti could be at the top of the list. Despite the fact that no one ever died, even in jet airplane explosions, this was my favorite cartoon when I was a kid. Something else that always kind of bothered me was the way that Cobra would try an insane plan that made zero sense to rational human beings, like tying chainsaws to cats or something. Then their retarded plan would almost work, except for one little problem that enabled the Joes to triumph by using mice to distract the cats. Then, in the next episode Cobra would come up with a completely new bat-shit crazy plan instead of refining their attempt by using dogs or something. I realize that it would not have made for great Saturday morning television, but from a resource allocation perspective, it would have made way more sense for Cobra.

I realize you might be thinking that I spend way too much time thinking about this stuff. You’re probably right, but I don’t spend anywhere near as much time as Zack Parsons over at Something Awful. Thank god for that. He looks at what went wrong with Cobra operations at the strategic, tactical, and logistical level in his Cobra After-Action Report. If only Destro would have cc’ed Cobra Commander on one of these things we might be living in a very different cartoon society.