Seeking Crazy Female, Normals Need Not Apply
These days, there seems to be no better place to look for anything you need than Craigslist. Second-hand gadgets. Cars. Bikes. Stolen puppies. Furniture. Robot components from the future. Romance. Even things people just want to get rid of for free. You name it, Craig‘s got it.
The Personals section can be a lot of fun to read through when you have a few minutes to kill. Some of the listings people put up in the dating and “missed connections” sections are unbelievably weird, and great for a cheap laugh. So, when Tara was talking about some of the listings she was reading the other night, I thought it might be funny to create a ridiculous personal ad myself (obviously directed at her) and post it.
I took to Craigslist and started writing a personal ad in the “men seeking women” section. It took me about five minutes to write. My intention, the whole time, was to write something that would immediately sound so ridiculous that nobody would take it seriously. Especially if I mentioned someone by name.
Click me! CLICK MEEEE!
There’s no way anyone would actually respond, right?
I got four responses within half an hour of posting it. I was surprised. Seriously. Read this crap (click the image to the right). Tell me if you don’t immediately know that it isn’t for real. By the way, the “PAWTY PLATTAH” and “WITH MY PANTS” parts are Clone High references. You know, just so you don’t think I’m weird or anything. 
In any case, for the record (I say that too much), I’m not interested in Craigslist dating. Especially after being told by @4Whorin, “I met my first love AND my first STD on the Craigslist personals.” Dude makes me laugh.
But I’ll admit that one of the people who responded to the ad piqued my curiosity. She described herself as nerdy (bonus points), and in her email signature, quoted, “God is real unless declared an integer.” Both of which I appreciated, as a geek myself. Sounds like a cool person, at the very least.
So there you have it. What started as a joke with Tara ended as an interesting social experiment with surprising results.
Maybe people are more attracted to “ridiculous” than I thought. I know I am.
3 people have commented. What do you think?Walk Like Hooker. Draw On Arm. Eat Tomato.
Dares are fun. It’s fun daring other people to do things. It’s even more fun when they actually do them (which doesn’t happen often, in my experience). I’m not talking about utterly stupid things that endanger people or break the law. Of course, I can’t condone that. But if you’re comfortable enough with yourself that you can do something fun, albeit potentially humiliating, without backing down, then you have my respect.
Yeah. Anyway. This is just going to be a fun little summary of a beautiful Toronto afternoon this past weekend with Dudehead and Lisa.
The lovely Liz recently asked me if I would go wear some hooker shoes (she called them “stripper heels” – same thing, right?) and take pictures. I said yes. She didn’t think I would actually do it. It’s funny, I get that a lot.
I'm sitting on a giant shoe. How fun is that?
We found a store on Yonge Street that had what I was looking for. We went upstairs and found a wall full of shoes and boots of every shape and size. Some of those boots were longer than my legs, I’m sure. But the gigantic red heels screamed to me. They were the ones.
The girl who found my size was most helpful. I’m sure she thinks I’m a transvestite now. It’s just a shame that she wouldn’t let us take pictures. Props to Dudehead for the ninja picture taking, but I would’ve loved to have had video footage of what came next: The walking. How hard could it be?
I have a newfound respect for women who can wear shoes like this, and actually walk properly. I also think they’re crazy. But skilled, nonetheless. Lisa described my attempt at walking in this ridiculous footwear as akin to a baby deer taking its first steps. I would’ve hit the floor at least five times if she hadn’t been holding me up.
The poor, shocked employee had a mini heart attack every time I went down. I’m really quite impressed with the build quality of those babies. I was sure they were going to break at some point, leaving me to pay for them.
The rest of the afternoon was almost as much fun as scraping my feet to pieces trying to walk in shoes that made me as tall as Dudehead. It was a surprisingly beautiful, sunny day after what was a fairly dismal and rainy Saturday.
We walked past a gym, in front of which were people trying to get passersby to accept free trial memberships. They were super friendly. One of the reps was drawing on another rep’s arm with his pen. The girl let me draw on her other arm in exchange for my information. How could I refuse an offer like that?
@ladyowar likened me to Picasso. That's right. PICASSO.
Hours later, after some dinner, drinks and laughs, we found ourselves in a grocery store, where I ate a tomato. Apparently, I was still hungry. Apparently, I wasn’t supposed to eat that tomato, either. Good tomato, though. We also met a really cool dude named Shane, who happens to be a fellow tech guy out of university, working as a web developer. Seriously, how cool are the random people you meet on the street in this city?
You should consider taking the next dare someone throws you. It could be a very liberating experience. And hey, you might just have some fun in the process. So how about telling me about some of the dares you’ve made good on? I know I’m not the only one. Live a little!
2 people have commented. What do you think?You Devious Bastard
Most people appreciate a good prank. Even more people appreciate watching them happen to others. If you’re going to be the one dishing them out, then it’s important that you’re also able to take them as well. We call people who can’t, “sore losers.”
There are few things I enjoy in life more than pulling a prank on a friend. Note: I emphasize friend. I don’t usually subject strangers to my devious ploys. That’s what high fives are for. The great thing about a good prank is that you can sometimes derive the most enjoyment out of the smallest ones. They don’t have to be complicated – just unexpected.
Bonus points if you guess which one is Turkish.
For those of you who don’t know, or follow me on Twitter, Turkish and I work together. He’s a close Italian friend of mine who is 12 feet tall and weighs 945 lbs. And yes, those numbers get bigger and bigger every time I describe him.
So he had this unfortunate habit of always leaving his email logged in at his desk. Naturally, when he left, I couldn’t resist leaving little “surprises” for him to find when he got back. Occasionally, I would open his email inbox, and send utterly ridiculous, nonsensical emails to various contacts in his address book (CC’ing myself, of course, in case anyone replied-to-all, which they often did).
The responses he got back never disappointed. The first couple of times, people thought he was going mad. And he didn’t quite understand what they were going on about when they replied, as he knew nothing of “his” original messages. However, after a while, my reputation started to precede my work, and people recognized the masterpieces for where they truly came from. I started getting emails directly from Turkish’s recipients, thanking me for making them laugh that day. Nice.
For my final piece, I decided to switch things up a bit, and provide some entertainment for his address book in the form of poetry. Keep in mind that poetry is, by no means, my forte. That said, let me know what you think of this novice poet’s work!
Yo. Yo.
I’m the Italian fiend
Suckin cannoli and gettin’ creamed
Nine feet tall, 800 pounds
My love affair with coffee knows no bounds
Hit me up with a laxative
You know my ass is capactive
Rollin down your street in mah Protege fiiiiiive
With my gino beats, nodding mah head as I driiiiive
Rockin my hairy chest like a mediterranean forest
Let it run wild, don’t need to hire no florist
You mess with the family, you gonna get whacked
Don’t even think about it effe, it’s a matter of fact.
For the record, I’m going to point out right now what a great sport Turkish is for taking the hundreds of pranks I’ve thrown at him over the years (like at my grandmother’s funeral) with grace, patience, and a hearty sense of humour. If you’ve been around on Twitter, then you’ve likely read about some of them in the past. Also for the record, he’s gotten me back more than a few times, so our friendship is in no way one-sided.
Talking about former pranks can be almost as fun as actually performing them at the time. I’m looking forward to hearing about some of the fun you’ve had at the expense of some of your friends, or vice versa!
P.S. Turkish, when you read this… Sorry about that picture. It was the best one I could find, I swear.
Laugh Inappropriately (You Jackass)
Sometimes you just can’t help it. You know it’d be wrong to laugh. This a serious situation, damnit! But the more you think about trying not to laugh, the harder it becomes to resist.
It happens to all of us, and I love it. Most of the time. And since everyone enjoys a good list, I present to you the top five most inappropriate situations to laugh in. In no particular order.
1. During a movie. Better yet, a serious movie.
You’re in a movie theatre, and half the audience is getting teary-eyed. But for some reason, you just can’t help but laugh. @diredhanan laughed during Schindler’s List. And it happens to me all the time. Maybe I just like the weird looks I get from people sitting around me when it happens.
It doesn’t even necessarily have to be a sad movie. Have you ever been to a movie that had funny parts, which made everyone else laugh, but you seemed to laugh at all the other parts? You’re the only idiot sitting in the theatre, laughing when the dude gets fired from his job, or when his dog dies.
2. During an important phone call with a client.
You’re in an important phone call. You know you shouldn’t be browsing Fail Blog while you’re talking to that client, but you’re doing it anyway. Or something funny just pops into your head. A good memory of the time you threw your friend over a fence into an unsuspecting gardener’s yard in grade school.
Yesterday at work, Turkish was talking to a client. I was cleaning up some garbage from breakfast, and he threw his garbage to me to put into a bag. Apparently, I temporarily forgot how to catch things, because the garbage hit me in the face, and we started laughing. I’m not sure what the client thought, but Turkish was laughing so hard, he had to hang up the phone.
3. During a public speaking event/conference.
A couple of years ago, I attended a VMWare conference in Toronto with a colleague. During one of the talks, I looked over to see him scratching some paint off his jeans. He turned to me and, in his best Russell Peters impression, said, “Just got some paaaaaaint.” I started to crack up. I’m not good at holding in my laughter.
I could feel my face turning three shades of red. Maybe seven. I started to shake with laughter-induced convulsions. My colleague, who had started to laugh at me at this point, was now wheezing like a chain smoker from trying to hold it in. The more he laughed, the more I laughed. People around us started to get visibly annoyed. By the time we had finally calmed down, more than half of the people sitting around us had left and our section looked empty!
4. The big one – during funerals!
The scene: My grandmother’s memorial service. The audience is asked to read a quoted scripture from their Bibles. Turkish opens his, turns to the page requested, and finds a little piece of paper hidden in the book. On it, a short message: “Hola senor Turkish! *smiley face*” He starts to crack up. He shows it to Dom, who’s sitting beside him. Dom starts to crack up.
Laughter is highly infectious. Especially Dom’s laugh. Kudos to them both for the effort they put into hiding it, but I could hear them both from the front. I sat there and smiled, vaguely recalling hiding that little note in his book months prior. Turkish still feels embarrassed to this day, but I continue to assure him that we (the family) were all happy about the incident – my grandmother was a jovial woman, and probably would have pulled the prank herself, if she was able to. She would have been glad that it happened at her funeral.
That said, not everyone has as good a sense of humour as my family, so I don’t officially condone this behaviour.
5. At the expense of others’ pain/injury.
We all laugh at those fail videos. Don’t even try to tell me this isn’t funny:
A guy gets wholloped in the jacobs by a child (been there). Boyo walks into a metal pole (seen it). Girl gets poked in the eye by her boyfriend (@TheChicoProd gets credit for that one). In those precious few moments before it hits us that they may actually need help, we laugh. Who knows why, but if it isn’t serious, then why not?
It’s truly a sad existence that someone lives if they can’t laugh at themselves. I do it all the time. It keeps me sane. It keeps me grounded. It keeps me humble. So next time you feel the urge to run away embarrassed, try just laughing at yourself, instead. Out loud. It helps. And it shows people that you don’t take yourself too seriously.
I’m really enjoying hearing some of your inappropriate laughter stories. Stick yours in a comment and join us all while we laugh at you, too!
8 people have commented. What do you think?A Little Vatican Humour
Got this in an email the other day. It made me laugh. I hope it makes you laugh, too.
Nananananananana Popemobile!
After getting all of Pope Benedict’s luggage loaded into the limo (and he doesn’t travel light), the driver notices the Pope is still standing on the curb.
“Excuse me, Your Holiness,” says the driver. “Would you please take your seat so we can leave?”
“Well, to tell you the truth,” says the Pope, “They never let me drive at the Vatican when I was a cardinal, and I’d really like to drive today.”
“I’m sorry, Your Holiness, but I cannot let you do that. I’d lose my job! What if something should happen?” protests the driver, wishing he had never gone to work that morning. ”Who’s going to tell?” says the Pope, with a smile.
Reluctantly, the driver gets in the back as the Pope climbs in behind the wheel. The driver quickly regrets his decision when, after exiting the airport, the Pontiff floors it, accelerating the limo to 205 km/h (remember, the Pope is German).
“Please slow down, Your Holiness!” pleads the worried driver, but the Pope keeps the pedal to the metal until they hear sirens. ”Oh, dear God, I’m going to lose my license – and my job!” he moans.
The Pope pulls over and rolls down the window as the cop approaches, but the cop takes one look at him, goes back to his motorcycle, and gets on the radio. ”I need to talk to the Chief,” he says to the dispatcher.
The Chief gets on the radio and the cop tells him that he’s stopped a limo going 205 km/h. “So bust him,” says the Chief. “I don’t think we want to do that. He’s really important,” says the cop. The Chief exclaims, “All the more reason!”
“No, I mean really important,” says the cop with a bit of persistence. The Chief asks, “Who do you have there, the mayor?”
Cop: “Bigger.”
Chief: “A senator?”
Cop: “Bigger.”
Chief: “The Prime Minister?”
Cop: “Bigger.”
“Well,” says the Chief, ‘Who is it?”
Cop: “I think it’s God!”
The Chief is even more puzzled and curious: “What makes you think it’s God?”
Cop: “His chauffeur is the Pope!”
What do you think? Leave a comment!
