In grade school, I'd eagerly await the arrival of every issue of Boys Life magazine, with its stories of loyal dogs rescuing lost kids, its wholesome cartoons ("Pedro!"), its how-to tips for constructing a tipi in your backyard, and, yes, its back page ads promising many exotic thrills...

At the top of my list of thrills were the many novelty or prank items that I could afford on my meager allowance. "X-ray glasses" that almost made you think you could see the bones in your hand, packs of gum that snapped the finger of anyone who withdrew a piece, and much more. I loved it all, but now it's vanished from our cultural scene, leaving us to ponder a very fundamental question:

"Why are kids no longer entertained by fake blisters that squirt water at unsuspecting friends?"

Read this Creative Pro article for a few theories and travel in time through novelty catalogs from a much simpler era. True, juvenile sadism was always lurking behind many of these pranks, but somehow it never seemed to produce the deep trauma or large-scale massacres of our modern age... gosh, am I starting to sound like a geezer, or what?!! Read More...

 
Finally -- anecdotal vindication! For years I've been advising friends to avoid listing their Hotmail accounts when applying for jobs. Here's why:

Hotmail users deemed too dumb for employment at firm

"A guy from a Human Resources consultancy says their selection process for one job included a requirement for ample experience in using the Internet (navigation, searches, formats...)

"They received about 50 applications, of which 30 listed Hotmail addresses. All 30 were immediately deleted... why?

"The official reason: You can't be an Internet expert and use a Hotmail account at the same time..."

From Sugiero via Boing Boing Read More...

 
After reading these beautifully crafted insults, there's clearly a need for university-level courses to promote the mining of our ironic ore deposits. How much poorer our language would be without wit like this!

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
Clarence Darrow

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."
Abraham Lincoln

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
Groucho Marx

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
Mark Twain Read More...

 
I'm not sure where I first saw this, but it's spread across the Internet like a wildfire in a box canyon that burns all the boxes in its path to a crisp, like that guy in Predator after he was accidentally hit by the flamethrower...
  Read More...