“This sandwich is gross,” Tom said deliberately.

“My Frisbee is stuck on the roof of that circus building,” Tom said discontently.

“I hate Google,” Tom said probingly.

“Godzilla swallowed a United Nations bunker, but then he threw it back up,” Tom said unfortunately.

“I think Objectivism is stupid,” Tom said randomly.

“It’s so exciting to visit Leonardo’s birthplace,” Tom said invincibly.

“Persephone must marry Hades and live with him half the year,” Zeus said despairingly.

“I now control majority shares of CBS, FOX, and the New York Times,” Tom said immediately.

“Enemy fighters just scored a direct hit on my plane! I’m going down!” Tom said knowingly.

“We were badly injured in the struggle with the Orcs, but luckily the Ents’ medicine restored our health,” Tom said tremendously.

“I took Gollum’s precious trinket in a riddle contest,” Tom said wonderingly.

“I’ve lost this Maxis game ten times in a row on the easiest difficulty setting,” Tom said sympathetically.

“I can commit adultery three more times and still be just under the threshold for damnation,” Tom said syntactically.

“O Lord, why are you punishing me like this?” Jonah said inefficiently.

“Look! Nicaraguan guerillas!” Tom contraindicated.

“I forgot to give up meat before Easter, so I’ll do it before Christmas,” Tom said redolently.

“I’ll see you in court!” Tom said supersonically.

“When I speak Japanese, I think of myself as a young, cute person,” Tom said mechanically.

“Iä Cthulhu! Iä Azathoth!” the man called maniacally.

“Stay away from Stalin,” Tom commissioned.

“It’s one of those old phones, from before wireless and touch-tone,” Tom said cordially.

“She’ll have sex with me for $20 any time I phone her up,” Tom said horrifically.

“I read the Cliff Notes to Dante’s Inferno,” Tom said synergistically.

“I’m going to recover the lunar lander from the surface of the moon and make a fortune,” Tom said apologetically.

“I covered myself in a layer of gold,” Tom said amblingly.

“I covered myself in a layer of pyrite,” Tom said shamblingly.

“I covered myself in the Golden Fleece of Colchis,” Tom said ramblingly.

“The poverty rate has increased 10% recently, but I don’t have any kind of visual presentation of its course,” Tom said pornographically.

“We should perform an autopsy,” Tom said wide-eyed.

“That tree is naked under its bark!” Tom said prudently.

“I can afford either an iPhone or a yacht, but not both,” Tom said on self-ownership.

“The guy who was installing the granite tops in my kitchen had a cardiac arrest,” Tom countermanded.

“We can stop progress by attacking a conference on new ideas with a many-headed monster,” Tom said well-hydrated.

“You’re a bell,” Tom told me.

“The wages of sin is death,” Tom said diurnally.

“Abortion is murder,” Tom said prolifically.

“Can do!” Tom said candidly.

“I have a present for you, Madame,” Vincent said endearingly.

“Arrrrrr,” Tom aspirated.

“My lower social status as part of the new rich prevents me from winning my true love,” Gatsby said lackadaisically.

“The Minoans sucked,” Tom said discretely.

“Well, if you think the Minoans did a bad job with their empire, you should try ruling them yourself,” his teacher said, giving him a B−.

“Ha ha, just kidding,” Tom ingested.

“Sheep can’t have sex changes!” Tom said, heedless of the ramifications.

“I wrote a synoptic Gospel,” Tom remarked.

“People used to lay wires across the country for the telegraph system, an early precursor to the telephone,” Tom said according to protocol.

“My laptop came bundled with malware that causes a serious security flaw,” Tom said superficially.

“We need artillery cover!” Tom said canonically.

“Someday my family will rule the world,” Tom said clandestinely.

“The West’s treatment of Palestine is an example of Orientalism,” Tom said.

Since the creators seem to be restricting themselves to the literary world, I hope they won’t mind if I fail to resist the temptation to steal their technique for my own field of interest. Disclaimer: two of these are widely-known philosophy jokes and not original to me.

Parmenides goes up to the counter. “Same as always?” asks the barista. Parmenides nods.

Pythagoras goes up to the counter and orders a caffe Americano. “Mmmmm,” he says, tasting it. “How do you guys make such good coffee?” “It’s made from the freshest beans,” the barista answers. Pythagoras screams and runs out of the store.

Thales goes up to the counter, says he’s trying to break his caffeine habit, and orders a decaf. The barista hands it to him. He takes a sip and spits it out. “Yuck!” he says. “What is this, water?”

Gottfried Leibniz goes up to the counter and orders a muffin. The barista says he’s lucky since there is only one muffin left. Isaac Newton shoves his way up to the counter, saying Leibniz cut in line and he was first. Leibniz insists that he was first. The two of them come to blows.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel goes up to the counter and gives a tremendously long custom order in German, specifying exactly how much of each sort of syrup he wants, various espresso shots, cream in exactly the right pattern, and a bunch of toppings, all added in a specific order at a specific temperature. The barista can’t follow him, so just gives up and hands him a small plain coffee. He walks away. The people behind him in line are very impressed with his apparent expertise, and they all order the same thing Hegel got. The barista gives each of them a small plain coffee, and they all remark on how delicious it tastes and what a remarkable coffee connoisseur that Hegel is. “The Hegel” becomes a new Starbucks special and is wildly popular for the next seventy years.

Socrates goes up to the counter. “What would you like?” asks the barista. “What would you recommend?” asks Socrates. “I would go with the pumpkin spice latte,” says the barista. “Why?” asks Socrates. “It’s seasonal,” she answers. “But why exactly is a seasonal drink better than a non-seasonal drink?” “Well,” said the barista, “I guess it helps to connect you to the rhythm of the changing seasons.” “But do you do other things to connect yourself to that rhythm?” asked Socrates. “Like wear seasonal clothing? Or read seasonal books? If not, how come it’s only drinks that are seasonal?” “I’m not sure,” says the barista. “Think about it,” says Socrates, and leaves without getting anything.

Rene Descartes goes up to the counter. “I’ll have a scone,” he says. “Would you like juice with that?” asks the barista. “I think not,” says Descartes, and he ceases to exist.

Jean-Paul Sartre goes up to the counter. “What do you want?” asks the barista. Sartre thinks for a long while. “What do? I want?” he asks, and wanders off with a dazed look on his face.

William of Occam goes up to the counter. He orders a coffee.

Adam Smith goes up to the counter. “I’ll have a muffin,” he says. “Sorry,” says the barista, “but those two are fighting over the last muffin.” She points to Leibniz and Newton, who are still beating each other up. “I’ll pay $2 more than the sticker price, and you can keep the extra,” says Smith. The barista hands him the muffin.

John Buridan goes up to the counter and stares at the menu indecisively.

Ludwig Wittgenstein goes up to the counter. “I’ll have a small toffee mocha,” he says. “We don’t have small,” says the barista. “Then what sizes do you have?” “Just tall, grande, and venti.” “Then doesn’t that make ‘tall’ a ‘small’?” “We call it tall,” says the barista. Wittgenstein pounds his fist on the counter. “Tall has no meaning separate from the way it is used! You are just playing meaningless language games!” He storms out in a huff.

St. Anselm goes up to the counter and considers the greatest coffee of which it is possible to conceive. Since existence is more perfect than nonexistence, the coffee must exist. He brings it back to his table and drinks it.

Ayn Rand goes up to the counter. “What do you want?” asks the barista. “Exactly the relevant question. As a rational human being, it is my desires that are paramount. Since as a reasoning animal I have the power to choose, and since I am not bound by any demand to subordinate my desires to that of an outside party who wishes to use force or guilt to make me sacrifice my values to their values or to the values of some purely hypothetical collective, it is what I want that is imperative in this transaction. However, since I am dealing with you, and you are also a rational human being, under capitalism we have an opportunity to mutually satisfy our values in a way that leaves both of us richer and more fully human. You participate in the project of affirming my values by providing me with the coffee I want, and by paying you I am not only incentivizing you for the transaction, but giving you a chance to excel as a human being in the field of producing coffee. You do not produce the coffee because I am demanding it, or because I will use force against you if you do not, but because it most thoroughly represents your own values, particularly the value of creation. You would not make this coffee for me if it did not serve you in some way, and therefore by satisfying my desires you also reaffirm yourself. Insofar as you make inferior coffee, I will reject it and you will go bankrupt, but insofar as your coffee is truly excellent, a reflection of the excellence in your own soul and your achievement as a rationalist being, it will attract more people to your store, you will gain wealth, and you will be able to use that wealth further in pursuit of excellence as you, rather than some bureaucracy or collective, understand it. That is what it truly means to be a superior human.” “Okay, but what do you want?” asks the barista. “Really I just wanted to give that speech,” Rand says, and leaves.

Voltaire goes up to the counter and orders an espresso. He takes it and goes to his seat. The barista politely reminds him he has not yet paid. Voltaire stays seated, saying “I believe in freedom of espresso.”

Thomas Malthus goes up to the counter and orders a muffin. The barista tells him somebody just took the last one. Malthus grumbles that the Starbucks is getting too crowded and there’s never enough food for everybody.

Immanuel Kant goes up to the counter at exactly 8:14 AM. The barista has just finished making his iced cinnamon dolce latte, and hands it to him. He sips it for eight minutes and thirty seconds, then walks out the door.

Bertrand Russell goes up to the counter and orders the Hegel. He takes one sip, then exclaims “This just tastes like plain coffee! Why is everyone making such a big deal over it?”

Pierre Proudhon goes up to the counter and orders a Tazo Green Tea with toffee nut syrup, two espresso shots, and pumpkin spice mixed in. The barista warns him that this will taste terrible. “Pfah!” scoffs Proudhon. “Proper tea is theft!”

Sigmund Freud goes up to the counter. “I’ll have ass sex, presto,” he says. “What?!” asks the barista. “I said I’ll have iced espresso.” “Oh,” said the barista. “For a moment I misheard you.” “Yeah,” Freud tells her. “I fucked my mother. People say that.” “WHAT?!” asks the barista. “I said, all of the time other people say that.”

Jeremy Bentham goes up to the counter, holding a $50 bill. “What’s the cheapest drink you have?” he asks. “That would be our decaf roast, for only $1.99,” says the barista. “Good,” says Bentham and hands her the $50. “I’ll buy those for the next twenty-five people who show up.”

Patricia Churchland walks up to the counter and orders a latte. She sits down at a table and sips it. “Are you enjoying your beverage?” the barista asks. “No,” says Churchland.

Friedrich Nietzsche goes up to the counter. “I’ll have a scone,” he says. “Would you like juice with that?” asks the barista. “No, I hate juice,” says Nietzsche. The barista misinterprets him as saying “I hate Jews”, so she kills all the Jews in Europe.

It’s a classic staple of action movies and Tom Clancy thrillers – the Islamic terrorist group that takes over a failed state, forcing the heroes to mount a decisive response. But some geopolitics experts think such a scenario could soon move from political fiction…to political fact.

If carbon dioxide levels reach 500 parts per million, it could initiate dangerous “runaway global warming”. But more conservative scientists urge laypeople not to worry, noting “Carbon dioxide levels are not that high yet.”

A sufficiently large nuclear war could completely destroy human civilization. If the bombs struck major manufacturing centers, they could also cause thousands of people to be put out of work.

Remember that time your boss paid you a few days late? Or that time the supermarket stopped carrying your favorite brand of cookie? Then you might not be surprised to hear many analysts believe the world economy will crash causing a giant decades-long depression.

[An informative, scientifically rigorous explanation of the dangers of climate change, but the picture on the top is that image of the Statue of Liberty buried in ice from The Day After Tomorrow]

A giant asteroid could smash into Earth at any time, scientists say. Indeed, already we are having to deal with avalanches and landslides that have blocked several major roads. Geologists think stabilizing our nation’s cliff faces may be the answer.

A group of meteorology nerds have sounded the alarm that a major hurricane could form in the next week – and now they’re turning their giant brains to the question of where it will make landfall.

Tacticians worry Russia might invade Ukraine – for example, they could choose to paradrop the 5th Battalion in under cover of night. But our experts say that that the 5th Battalion is not capable of night-time paradrops. Therefore, Russia will not be invading Ukraine.

The new superplague is said to be 100% fatal, totally untreatable, and able to spread across an entire continent in a matter of days. It is certainly fascinating to think about if your interests tend toward microbiology, and we look forward to continuing academic (and perhaps popular) discussion and debate on the subject.

“Pennies look really different under a microscope,” Tom said magnificently.

“A griffin is a kind of flying lion,” Tom said uproariously

“Our flight path has brought us directly above Yellowstone National Park” Tom said overbearingly.

“Obama absolutely buried Romney in the election!” Tom said intermittently.

“I grew two inches last year!” Tom said ambiguously

“I want to trick one or another rich woman into marrying me so I can steal her fortune,” Tom said consummately

“The auction is now open,” Tom said forbiddingly.

“I deny everything!” Tom said all-knowingly.

“The telegraph network was over capacity, so you’ll have to send your message again” Tom said remorsefully.

“Ender, the Formics have dug themselves into fortifications!” Tom observed trenchantly

“I’m going to miss work for the next few days, I’m stuck doing my civic duty at the courthouse,” Tom said injuriously

“The Zoroastrians seem to control a disproportionate amount of India’s wealth,” Tom said parsimoniously

“Nana seems to be developing Tourette syndrome,” Tom said grammatically.

“This prison will be the perfect place for my unethical Human Centipede style experiments,” Tom said confusingly.

“The bounty hunter was my favorite character in Star Wars,” Tom said prophetically.

“Brutha, the Great God is not just a turtle, but also within the hearts of all mankind,” Tom said ominously.

“Chelsea Manning mailed me one of her teeth,” Tom said transcendentally.

“I got a job producing another season of Lassie,” Tom said moronically.

“I was out at the brothel until after midnight,” Tom said scintillatingly.

“I’m sorry, but the lady is spoken for,” Tom said mistakenly.

“I’m going to an all-you-can-eat restaurant tonight,” Tom said forgetfully.

“The girl from my blind date last night was a 4/10,” Tom said metaphorically.

“The medication cured my autism but also made me gain weight,” Tom said fatalistically.

“I used to have to walk everywhere,” Tom said precariously.

“Hades seems like a pretty credible guy,” Tom said disbelievingly.

“That commercial really helped spread awareness of the risks of intelligence explosions,” Tom said admiringly

“To think this entire tree grew from a single nut in just a few years,” Tom said exceedingly quickly

“I got selected for the role of Juan Peron in an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical!” Tom said inevitably

“After playing Juan Peron, no one ever cast me in a play again,” Tom said exactingly

“SAT scores should be given more weight in college admissions,” Tom protested.

“I will start a campaign to convert @aristosophy and @donovanable to Catharism,” Tom would prognosticate.

“The Notorious B.I.G.’s death was a predictable result of his career,” Tom would rhapsodize.

“The zoo’s exhibit on African wildlife was a big disappointment,” Tom said hypocritically

“It’s the Leviathan!” Tom said superficially

“I’m afraid you’ve got an atrial septal defect,” Tom said whole-heartedly

“I first met my wife in the restroom at a bar,” Tom said accommodatingly

“I picked up a nice new casual shirt,” Tom said apologetically

“The cat-goddess is a threat to the American way of life,” Tom said bombastically.

“I can’t figure out how to stop our boat!” Tom said cantankerously

“Satan is the original source of evil,” Tom said urbanely

“I can slay the Jabberwock,” Tom said demonstrably

“I realize I missed the meeting by two whole hours,” Tom said isolatedly

“Kosher kitchens need separate plates for milk and meat,” Tom said judiciously

“Bill Clinton got a divorce!” Tom said exhilarated

“Lower-ranked demons can kiss my ass,” Tom said imprudently

“Help, I got stuck inside this cattle pen,” Tom said inoffensively

“My throne sits on the floor,” Tom said lackadaisically

“It costs one thirty cent stamp to send one letter,” Tom said permissively

“I forbid you to take the ladder to the topmost room of my house,” Tom said anti-climatically.

“Ho ho fucking ho!” customarily.

AIDS Specialist: You know, people think AIDS is a death sentence. But how long do you think the average person lives after getting HIV?
Me: I don’t know.
AIDS Specialist: Thirty years! Isn’t that amazing? You can get HIV, and probably you’ll live another three decades!
Me: Really?
AIDS Specialist: Yeah.
Me: So, the trick is, give yourself HIV when you’re eighty, then live to be a hundred ten.
AIDS Specialist: I like you.
Me: Really?
AIDS Specialist: No.

And a few weeks later:

Me: Do you have a family history of alcoholism?
Alcoholic Patient: No. Why?
Me: Well, I am trying to figure out whether to prescribe you this medication, and studies suggest it works best in patients with a genetic predisposition to alcohol abuse.
Alcoholic Patient: I don’t understand.
Me: The medicine only works if one of your parents drinks too much.
Alcoholic Patient: Well, I think I can get my dad to start.
Me: NO!

So here’s my list. Some are repeats from my old blog. Some are similies or other forms of figurative language. Some are a little vulgar. Some (most) I have lost the attribution for, but will credit if someone reminds me. All come with a serious trigger warning for groanworthiness.

***

The night passed like a kidney stone: painfully and with the help of major sedatives.
— Little Lytton Contest

This raises more red flags than 1956 China
— kodiak_claw on Reddit

This day is moving slower than a snail moving backwards on a turtle moving forwards

When I saw those two girls kissing I was as hard as Chinese math.

You find your prodigal memory accesses have been stomping around the heap like the Incredible Hulk when asked to write an essay entitled “Smashing Considered Harmful”
— The Night Watch

It turned out that Obamacare, despite all the massive brainpower behind it, had some “glitches,” in the same sense that the universe has some “atoms.”
— Dave Barry

Justin Bieber is to music what Justin Bieber is to Marine Biology.
— GS Elevator Gossip

John M. Byrne is so tragic that breast cancer walks to end him.
— cracked.com

Healthy foods, like reality show stars, tend to be both high-maintenance and tasteless.
— cracked.com

Off he went, faster than a French border guard with track shoes and a coupon for cigarettes.
— Silfay Hraka

Men are like chocolate…they come in bars, head straight for your thighs, and can never last long enough to satisfy you.

Fake relic dealers in the Middle Ages created enough crowns of thorns, Holy Grails, and apostle-femurs to stock a macabre, New Testament-themed Wal-Mart.

As corny as Kansas in August
— South Pacific

I hate to call a guy fat, but he had more chins than a Taiwanese phone book.

His frenzied movements made him look like a lunatic trying to learn semaphore
— John Larkin

He uses statistics the way a drunk uses a lamppost – for support rather than illumination
— Andrew Lang

He had a Dickensian relationship to alcohol – exposure to spirits would completely change his personality

You are a girl with as much talent for disguise as a giraffe in dark glasses trying to get into a polar bears-only golf club.
— Blackadder

Dan Brown has a gift for metaphor and detail – a gift that’s defective and needs to be returned. I hope he has a receipt.

On reflection, all the mistakes I have made are, in some way or another, your fault. You’ve been at the helm, sowing chaos and stupidity through the landscape of my days like some sort of retarded Johnny Appleseed.
— www.goats.com

Work is like a dick. If it gets hard, fuck it.

I get hit more often than a blackjack player facing a deck of deuces.
— Order of the Stick

When you get right down to it, museums are basically zoos for inanimate objects.

Japan is to crazy as the Middle East is to oil

The plot is as engaging as watching a foot race between two convenience stores.
— cracked.com

It’s like you crystallized the best sex you’ve ever had with a woman and put it in a tiny bottle on your spice rack. No, wait, it’s like you took THAT spice and snorted it while screwing her hotter sister. – OotS

Ayn Rand was the Evel Knievel of leaping to conclusions – NYMag

Monopoly is to the contemporary board gamer as garlic-infused kryptonite snakes are to Super Vampire Indiana Jones. – Lore Sjoberg

A good coffee must be hot as the kisses of a girl on the first day, sweet as her love on the third day, and as black as the swearing of her mother when she hears of it. -Old Chinese proverb

Videogames and movies get along like cats made of oil and dogs made of water. – Lore Sjoberg

I’ve got the strong feeling that [this movie], based on the talent involved, this is going to be a “loose adaptation,” in the same sense that the Holocaust was a loose adaptation of Nietzsche – Cracked

Rowling is as subtle as a large elephant with a big sign reading “I am subtle.”

This movie’s plot has more holes than the PGA championship
— TriggerStreet

He’s as bright as Alaska in wintertime.

The MPAA’s deals are shady as a 100-year old elm.
— Tech Industry News

The giant spider web was created by many spiders working together in harmony, like a United Nations without Russia.

Sitting on the dais, overlooking Washington’s elite, I felt like the Best Man at a wedding between the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore.
— Stephen Colbert

It sounded like the smell of raspberries tastes
— Terry Pratchett

There are a number of body parts [like the appendix] that may have served some important purpose in the distant past, but are now more likely to host disease and infection, much like pay phones.
— Lore Sjoberg

The Church of England is to religion what the cucumber sandwich is to food – it goes quite nicely with a cup of tea, but that’s about it.
— Pat Condell

Tom Cruise is so far in the closet he’s talking to Aslan.

We aren’t ranking the dumbest hip-hop lyrics ever. That would be like making a list of people Hitler was mean to. — cracked.com

His head was as empty as a eunuch’s underpants.

I am such a hard-core atheist I make Richard Dawkins look like the Virgin Mary
— Bruno Maddox

This game is to free time what whales are to krill.
— Defective Yeti

If the crib’s on fire, you don’t speculate that the baby is flame-retardant.
— Al Gore

I’m straighter than John Wayne voting for Reagan on a horse.
— Achewood

O God, who is as far beyond the universes I span as infinity is beyond six…
— The House Beyond Your Sky, Benjamin Rosenbaum

At last, I’ll be goin’ home, as sure as Thor don’t own shaving cream!
— Order Of The Stick

He has all the common sense of Medusa checking her makeup
— Order Of The Stick

Mother, more gravy. This turkey is as dry as Oscar Wilde
— Stewie, Family Guy

I have more muscles than a New England clambake.

The Assyrians were the first people to start using iron weapons instead of bronze which, to put into a modern perspective, is sort of like showing up for a knife fight with the Death Star.
— cracked.com

With a wet, tearing KERRRAAAAACTCH sound, Molly exploded like a meat piñata at a birthday party for very strong, invisible children.
— John Dies At The End

The debate club is one of Cork’s most venerable societies. We’re older than John McCain and cooler than Barack Obama. Joining is easier than Sarah Palin’s daughter and simpler than Sarah Palin’s son.
— Introductory speech at the Cork debate club

Most of her cooking ended out as the culinary equivalent of the Tunguska event
— Jasper Fforde

It’s like I’m drowning, and monkeys dressed as lifeguards are throwing me anvils
— Dilbert

As far as appropriate national slogans go, “The luck of the Irish” isn’t far behind “The easy and high paying jobs of the Mexicans.”
— cracked.com

The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying “And another thing…” twenty minutes after admitting he’s lost the argument.
— Douglas Adams

Jokes should be short and elegant, like a mathematical proof or a midget in a ballgown.
— Bottled City

On the David Wong Social Awkwardness Scale, with “1” being going to the “Pickup” instead of “Order” counter at a restaurant and “10” being a guy getting caught on national TV having sex with a dead baboon, I’d have to say that the following minutes alone with Amy rated about a 9.6.
— John Dies At The End

About the film’s merits I prefer to be silent at this stage, except to say that it seemed quite long, in the same sense that the Thirty Years War probably seemed quite long to anyone who had been expecting it to be over sooner.

I am more touched than a congressional page.
— Scott Adams

It’s the most blatant work of fiction since vows of fidelity were included in the French wedding service.
— Blackadder

He swings the bat…it’s a hit!…it’s going…going…and like America’s credibility on the world stage, it’s GONE!
— The Simpsons

Our marriage has been through more hardships than the Jews and Charlie Brown combined.
— The Simpsons

You’re making less sense than an epileptic auctioneer
— goats.com

Her art was about as deathless as a mayfly working on an oil rig.
— Ursula Vernon

I go through life like Helen Keller in a room full of Rubix Cubes
— Scott Adams

Someday, it will be one of those things we look back on with heartwarming nostalgia, like the Atari 2600 and polio.
— Defective Yeti

He asks how, if God is a person, He can speak to billions of people simultaneously, which is rather like wondering why, if Tony Blair is an octopus, he has only two arms.
— Terry Eagleton

Like the ski resort of young girls looking for husbands and husbands looking for young girls, the situation was not quite so reciprocal as it appeared

His jokes were like oil, crude but precious.

Ambition is like a frog sitting on a Venus Flytrap. The flytrap can bite and bite, but it won’t bother the frog because it only has tiny little plant teeth. But some other stuff could happen, and it would be like ambition. – — Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts

The tension was as thick as a community college student
— goats.com

He was as guilty as a Catholic O.J. Simpson
— goats.com

I kept my cool like Steve McQueen’s corpse in an interstellar void
— goats.com

I will help, but the cost will be higher than a Volkswagen full of hippies on a mountaintop
— goats.com

Angrier than a mother bear whose cub has just been sold on Ebay.
— Questionable Content

As famous as the unknown soldier

He makes lichens seem dynamic

Bush interprets the constitution the same way a Unitarian interprets the Bible

The American media has the attention span of a caffeinated Irish Setter.
— Defective Yeti

She was not only homely, but it was one of those homes with a burnt out trailer in the front.
— Terry Pratchett)

Instead they stand immobile on the escalator, like tourists at the Mount Olympus Zoo’s gorgon exhibit.
— Defective Yeti

Radon is an interesting element, because it is both noble and deadly, like Vlad the Impaler
— Lore Sjoberg)

Many say that DOS is the dark side, but actually UNIX is more like the dark side: It’s less likely to find the one way to destroy your incredibly powerful machine, and more likely to make upper management choke.
— Lore Sjoberg

My indifference to that comment can only be described as sexual in intensity.
-– Martin Terman

It’s the most pointless book since How To Learn French was translated into French.
— Blackadder

I like computers. To me, computers are kind of like tangerines, in that I can’t think of a good analogy about either right now.
-– Scott Adams

It was more difficult to understand than Bob Dylan reading Finnegan’s Wake in a wind tunnel.
— Dennis Miller

Everyone at the party was as stoned as a United States embassy.
— Anonymous

Life is short and hard, like a body-building elf
— The Bloodhound Gang

A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there.
— Brent Wade

The building was a true skyscraper – thousands of tons of steel and more stories than a bar full of Vietnam veterans.

A telegraph system is like a giant cat, stretching across the country. You pull on the tail in New York, and the head squeals in Los Angeles. Radio works exactly the same way, except that there is no cat.
— Albert Einstein

Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche (apocryphal)

Love is like pi – irrational and very important.
— Lisa Hoffman

I’m as happy a dingo in a nursery.
— St. Leo

[See also: puns]

I don’t want to get in a hijack or bombing
Which seems to be most of the plot of a thriller
I’ve noticed that when you say “mystery book”
You mean “brutal unstoppable serial killer”
I don’t want to be in a romance
If it ends with divorce from my spouse
Or trudge off to the stores to buy heavy steel doors
To zombie-proof all of the gates to my house

I don’t want to be in a novel on war
And be sent forth to die at the edge of the globe
Though the future sounds swell, I’ll stay out of of sci-fi
If it has the words “parasite”, “anal”, or “probe”
I don’t want to be in dystopian fiction
And get renamed something like “Janitor Eight”
I’m far too high class to be happy with fanfic
And ladies, no slash please – no, honest, I’m straight

To inclusion in works of some authors of note
I object with particular force
Solzhenitsyn, Wiesel, Kafka, Salinger, Plath
Either Bronte – plus Lovecraft, of course
Victor Hugo would make me le misérable
And George RR Martin inspires some doubt
It’s not just the fact that he’d probably kill me
It’s that I would have to wait years to find out

A Rand book would probably help the economy
There’d always be jobs in a world of tycoons
But I’d have to sit through all those monologues
By long-winded lone libertarian loons
Neal Stephenson’s better, but isn’t for me
I always found programming hard
And although I loved Ender, I’m leftist on gender
And boycotting Orson Scott Card

I promise I’m doing my best not to tempt you
I’ve put away plot hooks and tied up loose ends
I’ve found my real parents with DNA testing
Confessed all my crushes on all my cute friends
I’m staying away from ruined cities and taverns
Avoiding emotions like angst and ennui
If I find in my home some forgotten old tome
I will back away slowly, and let the thing be

I’m not taking actions that might have a Moral
Like dissing my elders or mocking the poor
I won’t undervalue the Power of Love
Or disregard friendship ’cause cash matters more
I won’t sell my cow for a couple of bean plants
I won’t kill my magic gold-egg laying goose
Or challenge the sky, with my fist raised up high
Shouting “I AM MORE [ADJECTIVE] EVEN THAN ZEUS!”

My actions don’t show We Must Value Diversity
They don’t provide proof Being Different’s Okay
I try to avoid Overcoming Adversity
Based upon race, gender, class, or Teh Gay
I will not discover The Faith Of A Child
Is purer than that of priest, rabbi, or lama
Wherever I’m able, I’ve sidestepped each fable
In ways that exclude any lesson or drama

And really, your talents are wasted on fiction
Why not try your hand at political prose?
I hear that some papers pay pundits good money
And blogs are more lucrative even than those
You could be the guy who gets studies in Nature
Or who writes for the popular press and explains
The import to clients of breakthroughs in science
Like how vaccinations won’t melt their kids’ brains

What if you find yourself thwarted by writer’s block
Hands stained with ink and a face stained with tears?
Hunching at desks for too long causes joint pain
I hear carpal tunnel stays with you for years
The kids these days just play computer games anyway
Each year the market gets smaller and smaller
And editors milk you and agents will bilk you
And publishers only pay cents on the dollar

Our mutual interests align pretty nicely
You don’t want a half-finished draft on the shelf
And I’d rather not be thrust into a conflict
With Man, Nature, Culture, The Gods, or Myself
So go take up dancing, or look at a sunset
Rekindle the flame with your husband or wife
Don’t write one more letter – we both deserve better
Put down the damn pen and get on with your life!

[dedicated to Alicorn for obvious reasons]

So we need to make replications more glamorous.

I propose a reality TV show, Replication Lab!, where every week they try to replicate one of the most famous experiments from the past few years.

It starts with the host explaining the experiment, maybe an interview with a very distinguished elderly professor who talks about how confident he is that his results will hold up. The techs chat with each other as they construct the experimental setup about how they’re doing and how their date last night went and how they’re going to avoid the problems that confounded the original study.

Suspense builds as we see the participants come in. Some human interest stories. He agreed to participate because they offered $30, which he’s going to use to buy a present that will win back his estranged daughter’s love. She joined because she’s right on the border of failing her psych class and needs the extra credit to save her dream of becoming the first person in her family to graduate college.

The experiment itself. The suspense is unbearable. We get a running commentary as everything proceeds. Oh man, look how harsh that guy is being on his Milgram Obedience Experiment, can you believe he would do that? That girl in the control condition seems to be running through her Stroop task at lightning speed – how do you think that’s going to affect our results, kindly-looking bearded scientist attached to the show?

After a tension-building commercial break, we get the results. Everyone is huddled around a computer as the statistician makes the final mouse click, and…oh no, p = .30! Total failure to replicate!

The scene cuts to the distinguished elderly professor’s face as he sees his great discovery going down the toilet. “How do you feel right now?” asks the host, and the professor sputters “I…I’m sure time will vindicate me! I know it!” and then he runs off the set, crying. Our host turns to the kindly-looking bearded scientist attached to the show. “Tell me the truth,” she says “Do you think Dr. Zuckerman’s career is ruined?” “I can’t imagine it wouldn’t be,” says the bearded scientist, shaking his head sadly.

I feel like Mythbusters has probably pretty much exhausted our cultural stock of urban legends by now and could be profitably recruited for this project. I would also accept “Welcome to Replication Lab! With your host, John Ioannidis!”

Of course, deep down inside I know that this would be morally wrong. Groups need to be determined by random assignment.

The Anti-Reactionary FAQ is by far the most popular entry on this blog, with a total of 28,000 page views. Many of those views came from links by bloggers and news outlets, but others came from random netizens who stumbled across it during Google searches. WordPress records the terms they used to get there, which gives us a little insight into their minds.

Were these searchers liberals looking for help debating Reactionaries? Were they Reactionaries dutifully searching for counterarguments against their ideas? Curious political science students lured in by the wide-ranging discussion of social trends?

Actually, they were none of these things. They were porn viewers who wanted videos of people fucking aunts, who had misspelled “aunty” as “anti” and misspelled “fuck” as “faq”.

I wish I was kidding, but read the search terms: “pak anti hot sex with monki and dog”, “dog indin boyfriend sax faq”, “arabis faking indian job antis porn”, “anti best figer sexi image”, “50 yars anti indyan faking fat anti”, “hot sexy bobz pakistani anti u tub”, “ancal anti bobs kising you teub”, “hot indan sexi anti romance in doods”, “ankal and anti se saleeping with baby full sexy viduos on youtube”, “sought indian sexy anti thims”, “pakistani hot and sexey figar yung anti pitcher”, “anty masive nippals”. And on and on it goes.

I couldn’t figure out what was going on until finally, like an old-timey archaeologist decoding Linear B inscriptions, I realized that the word “ankal” (or sometimes “ancal”) appeared beside “anti” in a disproportionate number of these phrases and so they were probably talking about aunts and uncles. Then I noticed a lot of them mentioned Indians or Pakistanis, and found from Urban Dictionary that in Indian culture, “aunty” is a general term for a middle-aged woman. So I think in Indian/Pakistani porn, “aunty” is their equivalent of “milf”.

I’d previously read several accusations that Pakistan, despite its austere women-in-burkas-at-all-times image, leads the world in most pornographic searches. While not actively disbelieving the data, I felt like a lot of this was media outlets being too quick to play up the man-bites-dog-esque “very Islamic purity culture is actually obsessed with porn!” angle. But after monitoring how many pornographic searches my blog gets from Pakistan, I no longer doubt.

(anyway, now the man-bites-dog segment of the media has moved on to the story that very Islamic purity culture Pakistan also leads the world in searches for gay porn)

A while back we conducted a little experiment to see if blog readers knew how the average person thought. Athrelon won and attributed his success to his work as a medical student, where he got to see a broad cross-section of the population instead of the People Like Us In Our Little Bubble whom the rest of us interact with.

If you can’t get into medical school, looking at Google search terms seems like your next-best option. It’s a good way of reminding yourself that most people in the world are neither liberals nor conservatives, but just people looking for some hot aunty porn. So without further ado, here is the second installment of Slate Star Codex’s quasi-annual feature, Search Terms That Have Led People To This Blog.

Search Terms About Being In Love With Your Sister

I made one little post about the phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction, and now I am cursed with a never-ending stream of Google searchers who want my advice about incest.

I already mentioned last year how I got queries like: “siblings attracted to each other”, “my sis is so pretty”, “sweet sister so pretty”, “sister can you not so pretty”, and the scientifically intriguing “are attractive siblings more prone to incest”.

In the last eight months, I can add to that collection: “attract with sister”, “how to attract sister”, “how to attract my sister”, and “how to atract sisters”, which is my favorite both for the spelling error and for the implication that he just wants sisters in general, not necessarily his sister – any girl with a living sibling is good enough for him.

But there’s also “my sister is pretty”, “is my sister prettier”, and “my sister is so much prettier” (hey, man, it’s not a contest). Others are more interrogative, asking “why my sister pretty”, “why i am sexualy attrect our sister”, and the very philosophical “why is my sister”.

Also, one person who got here with “are people attracted to siblings”. I would say that the above answers the question pretty thoroughly, except for one thing – I haven’t gotten anyone claiming to be attracted to their brother. I don’t know if this is just because the original post used the example of sisters (the exact title was “If Opposites Attract, Why Is My Sister So Pretty?”) or because brothers find sisters attractive but not vice versa. So, for science, I’m going to type the following phrase and let Google crawl it and see what happens:

IF OPPOSITES ATTRACT, WHY IS MY BROTHER SO PRETTY?

There. Anyhow, not everybody was asking Google about how much they loved their sisters. I also got “why is my sister a bitch”

Search Terms About Not Being Entirely On Board With Polyamory

I wrote an essay about my experiences with polyamory, and in the comments Spandrell of Bloody Shovel responded with a theory that only ugly people were able to remain polyamorous successfully. In one of my most memorable experiences as a blogger, a commenter then responded with a picture of his fashion model girlfriend, leading Spandrell to admit that “That’s a big piece of……data.”

Anyway, Spandrell’s opinion seems pretty widely shared, since that post has then gone on to get search terms like: “polyamorists are ugly”, “polyamory people are ugly”, “why are polyamorists gross and nerdy”, “why are polyamorous people ugly”, “are all polyamorous people ugly”.

But other Google searchers have entirely different reasons for hating polyamory! Like “polyamory aspies” or “poly or just a whore”.

And finally, some people just keep it simple: “i hate poly people”.

Search Terms That Imply A Heartbreaking Story

“if a woman pleads insanity can she have her kids back”

“can i sue the hospital for oversedating my husband with pain medication and causing his death”

“my grandfather’s leg is starting to rot will he die?”

“is it possible for someone with vascular dementia to be upset with you, yell at you, and then start to be distant?”

“my hearts aches when i think of my mistakes”

“can you condition yourseld to like sex”

“id didn’t match for residency but it turned out good”

“wat can i do to die slowly”

“what happenes to those whoreare addicted to sucking things”

Search Terms By Time Travelers

You may have heard about Nemiroff and Wilson (2013), the study where scientists at Michigan Tech did an automated examination of all search queries looking for things that were searched or discussed before people could possibly have known about them (ie Comet ISON before it was discovered; Pope Francis before he was elected) in order to catch time travelers. Alas, they didn’t find anything suspicious.

On the other hand, someone got to my blog by the search term “survive march 4 2014″, which until I read that query was not something I was worrying about.

Less scary but still time-bending: “scott alexander gets married”. I can just see someone getting increasingly exasperated that my wedding photos aren’t online yet and then slapping their forehead when they remember they have to wait until August 2017.

Time travelers from the past would theoretically be harder to detect, but some of them aren’t even trying: “trial of king leopold ii of belgium next week”.

People Who Typed A Political Manifesto Into Google For Some Reason

“pity the people who idealize the dictators in pakistan”

“sexuality is learned and reinforced like all behaviour. eg. baby rapist are born raping babies, they learn their sexual orientation from by being raped or abused as infants”

“hire a competent white person to do the work of a few minorities that cannot do the job”

“isn’t using birth control better than having unwanted teen pregnancies and abortion?”

“the rothchilds are not good enough to feed to swine may thay fester burn rot and stnk of decay in a sewer in hell full of excreament”

I think we all have our days when we enter long screeds against the Rothschilds into Google search boxes, but some of us are definitely more creative than others.

Search Terms Obviously By Students Trying To Cheat On Their Homework

“some people were trapped during world war ii. one man used elephants to get them to safety. many people feel that the true heroes of a war are those fighting. what do you think?”

“write a story how you and your friend fell out. alternatively you can write about someone else’s quarrel. which of the friends was right / wrong?”

“demonstrate how federal laws are impacted by the times, political influences and even changes in social norms?”

“evaluate shelley’s philosoophy in adonais”

“explain using your own words forms of government under adolf hitler of germany and louis xiv in france” (I like the thought process here: “Hm, it says explain using my own words. Better include that in the search query to make sure I only get pages that are written in my own words.”)

“if you have something white point 075 pounds how many pounds is that be” (I don’t understand this question at all)

“imagine yourself as an aztec nobleman, describe to me your way of life and that of your family,court,slaves,finances,etc?”

“what are the status of feudal monarchies, specifically the actions of king henry iv and the intended and unintended consequences of those actions”

But as always, the granddaddy of the Students Trying To Cheat On Homework Questions is the alien question. I have spun that off into its own post to avoid attracting seventh-graders here and making them read about antis with masive nippals.

People Interested In Albino Black People

This is second only to the alien question people in terms of “I mention how weird it is that something gets so many search hits, and now all those search hits come to me”. On a post about using Google Correlate to play with data, I checked to see what search term was most disproportionately entered by white people – that is, what search term was most likely to be entered by a white person as opposed to a person of color – and the answer was “black albino”.

Well, after that, the readership of Slate Star Codex got just a little bit more white.

“black people turned white”

“albino people”

“albino black people”

“black and white albinos”

And, of course, since this is the Internet: “albino booty”

People With Unexpectedly Detailed Questions About Reptilians

My post on Noisy Poll Results And Reptilian Muslim Climatologists From Mars was meant to use an error in a poll asking about belief in “reptilian aliens” to make a general statistical point. Instead, it made me people’s go-to source for statistics about reptilians. For example:

“percent reptilians on earth”

“are all reptilians muslim”

People Looking For My Commenters

“ozy slate star codex”

“eliezer yudkowsky polyamory”

“leah libresco slatestarcodex”

“scott alexander leah libresco”

“unequally yokes neo reactionaries”

“”multiheaded” marxist”

“madeleine ball fda”

“finnish surname sotala”

“gwern abstract reasoning”

“andrew rettek of metamed”

But the number one most popular commenter? “deiseach”, with 19 searches.

People Searching For Information About Rape Culture

As you may remember, I wrote a post detailing my problems with this term. And surprise surprise, even though I can’t get people to learn about statistics or medicine or transhumanism or anything interesting even if I drag them kicking and screaming, the level of fascination with rape culture remains at an all time high. We have “rape culture”, “is there really rape culture”, “what would women do different rape culture”, “rape culture philosophy”, and “bloody rape culture”, which I like to think of as being entered by an exasperated British feminist.

Others seem to lack a certain understanding that rape culture is a problem, like “why is rape culture bad” and “arguments for rape culture”.

Others are less scrutable, like “stars rape culture”. I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone noticed that that astronomical bodies are totally failing to speak out against the patriarchy and so are clearly misogynist. There’s also “modalrape dot com”, which is either a misspelling of “model rape” or else is referring to rape which necessarily occurs in all possible worlds. I hope some of the feminists in philosophy are doing something about this.

People Asking About Qwubbles

“qwubble”

“what is a qwubble”

People Searching For A Number of Stalins > 1

“two stalins”

“fifty stalins”

Miscellaneous Yet Delightful

“complications caused by eating slate sticks”

“genetics test 31 and me” (finally, genetic testing for donkeys)

“how much is 50 dollars worth of weed in central va” (this is, alas, not the kind of marijuana statistic this blog specializes in)

“sex russia ass big 2013″ (I feel sorry for the people who are still stuck on last year’s sex Russia big ass)

“mentally and magically reasoning with star systems of other galaxies and treat them as friends” (is this about acausal trade?)

“i can’t take anyone who uses the term ‘dudebro’ seriously” (My new friend! You are not alone!)

“transhuman pig”

“daniel boon whos making this shit up” (haven’t you heard? It’s all the fault of the Cathedral!)

“inefficient person” (darnit Google, just because I keep writing blog posts instead of doing work doesn’t mean you have to direct this search to me!)

“who is the best pun star in the world” (this, on the other hand, you can direct to my blog any time)

“dyspeptic ploughman” (I like picturing the Google ads for this query: “Top site on dyspeptic ploughman!” “Your source for dyspeptic ploughman!” “Buy dyspeptic ploughman now!” Actually, that works for all of these.)

“can beating yourself up help with conditioning” (Eliezer, someone has just proven you right)

“impregnate me sexual roulette” (Please don’t do this)

“mencius moldbug n*gger” (Whatever my case was, I hereby rest it)

“how to make a star very slowly” (First, get hydrogen. Then, wait.)

“doctor killed patient with fake euthansia” (…then it wasn’t fake, was it?)

And My Personal Favorite

“how to seem virtuous without actually being macintyre”