Friday 8/27

Accidental Humor

“To err is human” right?  Well, there are over 6 billion humans running around this rock, so you can bet there are a lot of “errs” every single day.  The best part is, some of those errors are very funny.  Lucky for us, the evidence is often recorded.  Many comedy films have gag reels at the end or in their special features menu.  The internet is absolutely loaded with blooper videos.  We even have the illustrious “Darwin Awards.”  (If you don’t know what they are, look it up.)  Here are a couple of examples:

Sometimes, accidents can be in the form of oversight or failure to proof read.  For example, if you’re going to type “add” and your finger somehow slips over to the “s” instead of the “d”, spell check won’t correct you.  In programming, it’s not uncommon to run the wrong routine or forget to check for verbiage consistency.  This is a real message, found in the device manager of Windows Vista:

Other times, actual accidents tend to be funny.  Take the following image, for example.  Car accidents are typically no laughing matters, but if you find yourself scratching your head in the aftermath, you might not be able to hold back the chuckle.

I would be nice if I could just tell you to just keep an eye out for accidental humor, but that’s kind of the whole point.  It’s unexpectedly funny!