ObsessTV

I'm the kind of person who enjoys watching commercials.  Yep.  And even though pretty much the only broadcast TV I watch is professional sports,  it's enough to fulfill my advertising appetite.  Sometimes, commercials even make for a good blog post.  

So, has anyone seen this commercial?  

Link to video: http://youtu.be/hQk7lhRYb10

It is basically DirecTV advertising one of their features in which the viewer can pause whatever they're watching  in one room of the house and continue watching it in another.  I have to admit, the technology is actually pretty cool, but it's also very American. . . and by "American" I mean indulgent.  

Think about it.  Who is that obsessed that they can't pause a movie for 5 minutes?  No one I know.  But then again, I have friends.

Top Notch Security

I guess they'll know if anyone steals that monitor!

Freeeeeeeeee!!!

Freeeeeeeeee!!!


Why didn't I post yesterday?  It's because I was busy unlocking my iPhone.  Yes!!!

I used to have AT&T and an iPhone that someone gave to me.  I eventually dropped my AT&T service, but continued to use the phone as a glorified iPod.  It has been working great for a long time.  I have T-Mobile, now, which the iPhone can be unlocked for, but I never tried to unlock my iPhone because I didn't want to jack it up.  (After all, it was making perfectly good music while I wrote Dry Humor Daily.  Why would I want to?)  

Anyway, I was updating the firmware on the iPhone in order to use some wireless headphones I purchased.  Bad move!  iTunes forgot to mention that when you restore your iPhone in order to update the firmware, you have to reactivate it with AT&T!  (In other words, I couldn't even use it to play music any more...)  My reaction was something like this:

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Son of a . . . . ."

"Gah!"

*Long sigh*

Then it occurred to me that I officially had nothing to lose by risking jailbreaking my device.  So I did some extensive reading and decided on a method on how to do it and got to work.  And voila!  Music and the ability to text like white lightning!  I'm in a happy place, now.  :)

Word Verification #17

Word Verification #17

Happy Wright Brothers Day!  Have you ever flown on a heavier-than-air-craft?  Thanks to the Wright brothers, your flight was made possible!  J  Now go bake a cake or something.

Here’s a Captcha that I’m sure we’ve all done at least once in our lives:

Litext:

-noun

1. An untruthful or deceitful text message

Ex: To cover the truth about where my friends and I were really going, I sent a litext to my girlfriend that we went bowling.

-verb

2. The act of sending untruthful or deceitful text messages 

Attached

Attached


Have you ever sent an email and promised an attachment, but forget to actually attach something?  (You're not alone.)  Then, you have to post-proclaim your brain lapse by writing a follow-up email, usually containing a "duh" or an "oops."  Sounds intelligent, doesn't it?

If this sounds like you, I have a solution:  Gmail.  (I promise Dry Humor Daily is not a google spokesperson.  They just keep coming up with good stuff!)  Here's a message you might get from gmail if you forget your attachment:

I remember thinking, as a matter of fact, I did mean to attach something.  Thanks, gmail!  (I might have actually said it out loud to myself.)  Anyway, pretty cool, huh?  From now on, I don't have to be that person: the notorious attachment-forgetter.  

What will they come up with next?  (Hopefully, teleportation or light sabers, you know, something cool like that!)

Google Blindly

Google Blindly


A little while back, Google started guessing what you're looking for for you.  What I mean is, if you start typing something into their search box, suddenly the top searches form a drop down box.  That way, if you are searching for one of the same things everyone else is, you can just select it from the list.  (I suppose it saves you a couple seconds worth of typing the remainder of your query.  I mean, I'm busy, but not that busy.)  Sometimes, I set out to search for one thing and then get sidetracked to something else Google suggested.  And sometimes, it can be pretty entertaining.

If you start typing "can blind people see," Google flashes this list:

The first suggestion is legit.  And the last three are decent, too.  But the second, "Can blind people see the taste of cinnamon toast crunch," is just funny.

This list is essentially based on numbers.  In this example, for all of the people who started typing "can blind people see," these five phrases completed the string as the top five searches.  Apparently, somewhere between wondering whether blind people see dreams and whether blind people see their dreams, the great Google public wants to know if the seeing-impaired can see the taste of cinnamon toast crunch.  I couldn't help but laugh.  (Then, I seriously wondered whether this was a joke like the Google/Chuck Norris thing.  I honestly don't think so.)

Either General Mills is funding some twisted advertising campaign in cahoots with Google or we searchers are really this idiotic.  Unfortunately, I think it's the latter.

Makeover and a Laugh

Makeover and a Laugh


I made some changes to my blog header and background.  Whaddya think?  :)

I poked around the code long enough to find where Dry Humor Daily's images were being held captive.  I copied them into Adobe Fireworks and went to town!  I then hosted them on photobucket and replaced the old image links in my template with the new ones.  And Voila!!  Depending on the zoom in your browser, it might be a little choppy around the edges, but hey!  It was my first try at my own template (at least manipulating the images, that is.)  (I promise, the next one will be even more awesome!)

So that's the makeover bit, but what about the laugh?  Well, I saw this on one of Google's webmaster tools that I use:

Google cracks me up.  In a world where everything has to be so serious, it's nice to break the monotony with quirky things like this.  I hope you get a chuckle out of it, too.

(Actually, I did have to go outside after reading this to fix a light on my car, which for some people is like playing.  LOL.)

Word Verification #4

Word Verification #4

Here’s number 4 in the series.  I have a bank-load of funny Captcha screen shots that I have to try very hard not to post every single day.  I’m trying my best to spread them out.

Holog:

-noun

1.  The entirety of a log

Ex: A holog blocked the whole path we were walking on.

2.  A bench for hookers to sit on, especially one in the shape of a fallen tree.

Ex: The holog was full, so the last ho had to stand while waiting for her pimp.

Subliminal Listening

Subliminal Listening

Last week, I posted about subliminal advertising and gave a couple of examples.  In the comments on that post, Boxxy reminded me about a conversation we once had about subliminal messages buried in music.  (And no, I’m not talking about playing “Stairway to Heaven” backwards.  That’s called backmasking and it’s idiotic.)  What I’m talking about is a scientific means for using music to influence human behavior, specifically in a retail environment.  Here’s a couple of techniques that you may not even realize you’re being subjected to.

#1  Does music make you move?  Does upbeat music make you swing your hips and snap your fingers, sometimes without you even realizing it?  For most people, the answer is yes.  (If the answer is no, then you need to get out more.)  You don’t play Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies when you’re home alone and cleaning the house.  You play some upbeat rock or country, something to get your blood flowing.  (I’m going to turn some on right now!)

Have you ever been to a coffee shop in the morning?  (Are you tired of answering questions?)  The music is usually upbeat, no matter what genre.  The reason is, people naturally move faster when music with a faster tempo is playing.  Coffee shops, in particular, need to blow through a ton of customers in the mornings to make some money!  This technique is very helpful.  If you go back to the same shop in the afternoon, you’ll hear a much more relaxing playlist.  Why?  So that you’ll sit around for a while.  Kick back.  Maybe, oh, I dunno, buy something else!  Coffee joints aren’t exactly busy in the afternoon, so any tactic to rake in more of your dollars is welcome.  I could go into many more examples, but I have another technique to get into.

#2  This one is a little creepy.  You know that guy at the end of car commercials who talks really, really, really fast?  So fast you can barely understand what he’s saying?  (Is he even human?  Yes.)  The advertisers typically record the person talking at a normal speed and then just speed it up with their techno-super-powers.  You can hardly make out every word, but your ears and your brain: they soak up every last bit.  Yep.  Your brain is smarter than you.  (I know what you’re thinking: huh?  But don’t say huh.  That just proves my point if you do.)  Your ears can pick up sounds which you’re not always aware of and your brain can interpret them, no problem.

A guy named Hal C Becker realized this decades ago.  He made something called the “black box.”  It plays messages at slower or faster speeds which your ears hear, but you don’t really recognize.  At the same time, regular music is playing in a department store, for example.  You hear music you know and love, but underneath, your ears and brain are hearing messages like, “I can afford this” or “I’ll get caught if I steal” and “Someone is watching so I shouldn’t shoplift.”  First of all, it’s scary.  But what’s scarier?  It works.  Sales increase a little bit when a store’s music is laced with positive messages, but the kicker is the anti-theft deterrent powers.  Some stores report that theft goes down as much as 30-40 percent when looping subliminal anti-theft messages with their music.  Can you believe that!?  My question is: what else are we being unknowingly coaxed into doing or not doing? 

Listen closely next time you’re buying something somewhere.  The music is telling you something . . . and something else, too.

Word Verification #3

Word Verification #3

I know I just did this on Wednesday, but I can’t help myself.  I invented something the other day in my own mind: Captcha Hunting.  Basically, I find someone’s blog who uses word verification, pop-out the comment window, and keep hitting the Refresh button until I find funny captchas.  Then I snap screen shots of them.  (I know.  I’m a nerd.)

I found this one and I just really wanted to share it:

Shters:

-verb

1. Stirs like a German

Ex: “Mixen dat flour und sugar und give it a good shter.”

OR

Sh’ters:

-noun (plural)

2. A group of commodes

3. A group of commode users

Ex: Several portable sh’ters ran along the edge of the state fair to accommodate the sh’ters who were waiting in line to use them.

Google Makes Me Laugh

Google Makes Me Laugh

I use Google Chrome as my web browser.  After the first couple of days of trying it, I was hooked.  I downloaded Chrome on all both of my computers and never looked back.  It works wonderfully with Gmail, it’s fast, and it’s very user friendly.  (There’s one website that I use at work that doesn’t like Chrome, however, so I do sometimes have to stoop to Internet Explorer.  And I mean “stoop” in a loving way.) 

I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s perfect.  If it were, no one at Google would have a job.  Chrome bombed on me the other day, mind you, only for about 2 minutes.  I launched the browser and tried new tabs, but this was all I got:

“Aw, Snap!”?  I couldn’t help but laugh.  I didn’t know what was funnier: the x-ed eyes on the sad, file-folder-of-death or the cliché, Tracey Morgan catch phrase.  I immediately deemed it worthy of a screen shot and a blog post. 

It’s nice to know that the folks over at Google have a sense of humor.  After a little bit of investigation, I realized I’m not the only one who thinks this is funny.  You can even buy an “Aw, Snap!” T-shirt.

(I’m pretty sure it says “GEEK” in big, bold letters on the back, too.)

Word Verification #2

Word Verification #2

Last week, I decided to start taking screen shots of amusing captchas (at least, amusing to me) and defining them in my own words.  Here is the second in the series.

Arlatch:

-adjective

1.  The opposite of their latch

-noun

2.  A sliding-bar fastening device for a gate or door, especially one worthy of a pirate 

Word Verification #1

Word Verification #1

I try to make it out there and comment on lots of other blogs.  I’m starting to discover that the more you put into the blogsphere, the more you ultimately get out of it.  As silly as it sounds, even commenting can be different among all of those blogs out there.  Some people monitor the comments that come through their sites.  In other words, they read all submitted comments and upon approval, publish them.  Other bloggers, myself included, just let ‘em fly!  No filtering. 

There’s another method of filtering out comments which is built into most blogging platforms.  It’s called word verification.  Maybe you’ve heard of captcha?  You know, that squiggly or blurry word that you have to read and type in order to do something secure on some websites?  (I don’t have it activated on Dry Humor Daily.)  It’s a way to deter computer programs from systematically spamming blogs via comments.  Anyway, most of the time, they aren’t real words.  It’s designed that way.  They’re seemingly random combinations of letters and each verification software is a little different.  Well, sometimes, those random letters form what look almost like legitimate words. 

One day, I started taking screen shots of the almost-words.  Now, I’m starting a series of defining them for you in my own words.  Every time I find another good one, you’ll soon see a post about it.  So here’s the first one:

Haffle:

-noun

1. Of or pertaining to the portion of a waffle not in excess of 50% and no less than half

-verb

2. The act of being partially indecisive

-adjective

3. Highly baffled

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!

Wednesday 8/18

Reader Shout Out

If you’ve ever been curious enough to scroll down Dry Humor Daily, you might have noticed this little gadget on the side:

This is a pretty basic hit counter.  The top number counts how many times any page on the site gets loaded.  The bottom number only counts every time a new visitor views the site.  How?  It’s top-secret-FBI-style-crime-solving-identity-tracking-software-that-if-I-told-you-I’d-have-to-kill-you sort of stuff. . . .  Just kidding (or am I?).  The internet just picks up any new IP addresses that come through.

Anyway, as of sometime last night (I’m pretty sure I was sleeping), the one thousandth unique visitor reached Dry Humor Daily.  In other words, a thousand different eyes have met these pages.  I suppose it’s more like two thousand eyes.  (Unless there are some avid, cyclopean readers out there.  You never know.) 

So officially, THANK YOU to everyone.

On a side note, the hit tracker can also pinpoint globally where IP addresses are feeding in from.  Interestingly, a little over 2% of hits consistently come from Malaysia.  That’s more than all of the other 18 non-US countries combined.  Extra thanks to whoever is over there!

Friday 8/6

Quesclamation

If you read the short welcome note on the side panel of my blog, you’ll see there’s a little part about how you’ll “maybe even learn something.”  Today’s one of those days. 

Have you ever heard of an interrobang?  No?  Good.  (If you have, then hats off to you, but for the majority of the English-speaking population, this is new.)  The first time I read about it, my first thought was, the whaty-what?  And, how come I never knew about this?  Well, the concept of the interrobang has been around for a while.  You’ve probably even been in a situation where you could have used one.  It’s used when someone needs to ask a question, but in a very emphatic way.  Like so:

You were driving 60 in a school zone?!

Or

Is that hot dog REALLY a whole foot long!?

The difference between the two is the order of the question mark and the exclamation point.  Which one is correct?  Both are actually okay, but the first one is more commonly practiced (that is, if you can find it commonly practiced).  But there’s an alternative to having to choose.  It’s called the interrobang, or the quesclamation mark.  (I like quesclamation mark because I like mixing words together.)  It looks like this:

                      ‽

It’s basically just an exclamation point sitting laid over top of a question mark.  And it’s completely legit, too.  It doesn’t work with every font, though.   Have you noticed, yet, that this post isn’t in the normal Times New Roman?  It’s Arial font.  Arial has the quesclamation built-in and Times New Roman doesn’t.  You just type “203D” and then hold “alt” and push “x”.  Voila!  It also works with Calibri and Helvetica.  You should try it.  It’s mildly fun.

Now, you can spend more time writing emphatic questions and less time pondering the proper placement of your punctuation. 

So get out there and exercise your punctual prowess!  What are you waiting for‽

Tuesday 8/3

Recognition


So I took this picture a while ago . . . hold on, back up.

I used to work at Starbucks, for almost three years, actually.  (Sweet gig, by the way.  If you've ever thought, "I like Starbucks.  I wonder if it would be fun to work here", well it is.  You should definitely check it out.)  Anyway, I digress.

The recipe for hot chocolate at Starbucks calls for chocolate drizzle on top of the whipped cream.  Yum, right?  For fun, I used to use the pointed chocolate bottles to draw chocolate smiley faces on all of the ones I had time for (especially the kids ones.)  Someone ordered six hot chocolates once and we weren't busy, so I took a picture with my phone and sent it to facebook.

If you're at all familiar with facebook, it suggests all kinds of things to its users, like friends you should be friends with, groups you should join, movies and music you would like, etc.  It has another feature which lets you "tag" people in your photos.  That way, someone who is looking at your photos can run their mouse over someone in a photo and their name will pop up.  Just yesterday, facebook was thumbing through my photos and, in its infinite wisdom, decided to suggest I name the person in this picture (my hot chocolates from Starbucks from like three years ago):

At least the facebook-photo-search-so-you-can-tag-your-friends-engine got one thing right.  Hot chocolate is indeed my friend.  But then it asks, "Whose face is this?"  I didn't know what to say, so I put "Quasimoto."

I guess you could take one of two angles on this.  One, perhaps my prowess as a chocolate artiste is easily recognizable, even by the mechanical means of a computer program.  Or two, face recognition software is so pitiful that even my crude chocolate rendition of positive emotion was deciphered as human.

I think I'll go with the first one.

By: S. Cole Garrett

Monday 7/26

Delete

I’ve noticed a very direct relationship between the length of time you have an email account and the amount of junk you receive.  The longer you have it, the more junk you get.  If you have a new email, it’s time to grab a mojito and sit out on the porch because you don’t have to waste that time cleaning out your email.  (Consider yourself lucky (or smart) if you don’t have this problem.) 

Granted, gmail tends to filter out most of the spam, but I still have to go through and delete the rest.  The problem is, it doesn’t really get … well … deleted.  It goes to a magic place: a folder called “Trash”.  Then, just like in real life, you have to empty the trash.  I laugh every time I see this button:

Delete Forever?  What’s the point?  Why not just delete it in the first place?

I suppose the “trash” system was designed to “dummy-proof” email.  Too many users were accidentally hitting delete on important emails, which inevitably led to uncontrollable wallowing in self pity and self-denial.  Terrible things happen when emails accidentally get deleted.  Jobs are lost…  Wars are started…  Justin Beiber becomes a superstar…  (At least, that’s how I understand it.) 

But what does that say about us, that the simple functions in our lives like email have to be dummy-proofed?  Are we all dummies?  I’d like to think not. 

(On the other hand, you can still buy Velcro shoes.)

By: S. Cole Garrett

Friday 7/23

Look No Further


This is Post #100!!!  Thank you, everyone who is reading Dry Humor Daily!  As silly as it sounds, it means a lot to me.  Here's to a hundred more!

Ever wonder how and why certain sites show up first when you google them?  In case you're unaware, there's a little thing out there called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  In a nut shell, there is some crazy algorithm used for websites to get SEO ratings for page impressions, keyword searches, update frequency, blah, blah, blah.  (If you're seriously interested in SEO, you should google that, too.)  (Or there's also a good wiki out there.)  Anyway, the higher your "rating," the higher your site appears on the seemingly infinite list of websites google can find.  As of this morning, if you were to search for "Dry Humor" (not daily), then this website comes up as number 12 out of however many bazillion (8,630,000 to be exact).  Here's what it looks like:

The first thing I noticed is Yahoo Answers right below Dry Humor Daily.  Take that Yahoo Answers!  The curious of the world need to look no further than right here!  (I'll admit, not every post would necessarily fall under the category of dry humor, but I try.  The name of the site was more so chosen to describe me personally.)

The second thing I noticed is how close Dry Humor Daily is to the top of the second page of google searches.  Next stop, page one!!!

Thanks again, everyone.  :)

By: S. Cole Garrett

Friday 7/16

BP Put a Cork In It

Congratulations, BP.  You’ve officially made a viable attempt to stop oil from spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.  And in American fashion, they outsourced the plug’s construction!

Oh, and according to BP, “this is not the time to celebrate.”  That’s code for “We’re not even sure if it’s going to work!”

By: S. Cole Garrett