Quotulatiousness

February 19, 2019

LOONEY TUNES (Looney Toons): Rookie Revue (1941)

Filed under: History, Humour, Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

8thManDVD.com™ Cartoon Channel
Published on 8 Dec 2013

Random gags around military life, set on an army base. A bugler uses a jukebox to play reveille. In formation, one private has a great deal of trouble remembering what comes after “3”; after he gets it, he decides not to go for the $32 question. In the mess hall, the machine gunners machine gun their food while the bombers catch falling biscuits. The infantry marches for miles – past a “next time, take the train” billboard. The camouflage troops march by, invisibly. We see training substitutes: wooden guns, cars marked “tank” and, alas, a banner marked “parachute” deployed in mid-jump. More training: aerial games (of tic-tac-toe). The anti-aircraft division has target practice, on an aerial shooting gallery. Finally, in an elaborate process, a general provides firing instructions to a big gun; when it hits his own building, he says, “I’m a baaad general.”

8thManDVD.com and all content © 2013 ComedyMX LLC. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use is prohibited.

The looney tunes (commonly mistaken as Looney Toons) series features characters such as bugs bunny, daffy duck & porky pig. The looney tunes cartoons, movies and new looney tunes show have been produced for years. The looney tunes full episodes, produced by the official looney tunes are available on DVD and TV.

February 6, 2019

Yes, Minister – The North

Filed under: Britain, Government, Humour, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Greger Tomasson
Published on 9 Oct 2012

February 2, 2019

Remy: Better Now?

Filed under: Economics, Humour, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

ReasonTV
Published on 1 Feb 2019

Promised an improved way of life, Remy does everything he can to believe in a new ideology – except the math.

Written and performed by Remy. Video produced by Austin Bragg. Music tracks and mastering by Ben Karlstrom.

Reason is the planet’s leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won’t get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.

—————-

LYRICS
Listened to those leaders so intently
Those Che Guevara shirts all seemed so trendy
Thought that things would be so good and friendly
So why’m I eating my neighbor’s dog Benji?

Twenty million killed, sure, that’s stuff I don’t like
But I could stay on Momma’s plan for the rest of my life
A guaranteed job digging ditches? Well what’s not to like?
It’s failed miserably each time so trying again seemed wise

Now I’m looting, looting, looting, looting
Grabbing wieners like I’m Kevin Spacey
Told a crowd “we need free markets instead”
Now my neck is no longer attached to my head

They promised things would all be better now, better now
If pure equality was finally found, finally found
Now we’re all grocery shopping at the pound, at the pound
Said that we’d have everything
Now we don’t have anything
Whoa…

How much plasma are they gonna take?
Before I finally have enough to trade?
For toilet paper or a rodent steak?
I keep on looking back on better days

They promised things would all be better now, better now
If free expression it was not allowed, not allowed
But I just caught my Roomba texting Mao
Said that we’d have everything
Now we don’t have anything

They promised things would all be better now, better now
If men with guns took farmers’ land and plow, land and plow
Now it’s another night of Rat Kung Pao, Rat Kung Pao
Said that we’d have everything
Now we don’t have anything

They promised things would all be better now, better now
If we just nationalized oil in the ground, in the ground
Now somehow gasoline can not be found, not be found
Said that we’d have everything
Now we don’t have anything

January 22, 2019

Rowan Atkinson Live – Headmaster kills student

Filed under: Britain, Education, Humour — Tags: — Nicholas @ 02:00

Rowan Atkinson Live
Published on 24 Jan 2014

One of the most loved clips from Rowan’s vast back catalogue, a hilarious sketch where the angry teacher played by Rowan invites a father in to talk about the trouble with son…

Whether mesmerising us with the sheer visual mastery of Mr. Bean, beguiling us with the acerbic wit of Edmund Blackadder, or simply entertaining us as the suave, but rather hapless British Secret Agent Johnny English, you surely won’t have escaped the comic genius that is Rowan Atkinson.

In Rowan Atkinson Live, co-written with Richard Curtis (4 Weddings & a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually) and Ben Elton, Atkinson runs the whole gamut of his remarkably versatile 30 year career, with sketches, mimes and monologues that are guaranteed to have you shedding tears of laughter. Performing live on stage alongside ‘straight man’ Angus Deayton, the show features a number of original and familiar routines, including sketches that appeared in the original Mr. Bean series.

I first heard this sketch many years ago (pre-internet days when we knapped our own flint) on an audio tape of clips from the Dr. Demento radio show, put together by my friend William. He didn’t know the performer, so he titled it “Fatal beatings”.

January 16, 2019

A Tourism Video For Australia (Made By A New Zealander)

Filed under: Australia, Humour — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

chrisdrabble
Published on 3 Dec 2018

“A Tourism Video For Australia (Made By A New Zealander)” is my mock tourism video advertising North Queensland, Australia.

“Fancy a swim in a tropical paradise? You can’t do that here because there’s crocodiles.”

So come and explore Australia’s vast range of animals that want you dead, including ‘salties’, ‘stingers’, snakes, spiders, and cassowaries.

Please LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and turn on NOTIFICATIONS for more mock tourism videos as I set my sights on promoting Australia’s other states, as well my home country, New Zealand.

January 9, 2019

“I felt resolved to write this article in order to defend my generation”

Filed under: Humour, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Godfrey Elfwick refuses to accept the abuse heaped on his generation by “dinosaurs” like Louis C.K.

I sat down on my futon the other night to enjoy a nourishing but humble bowl of organic vegan noodles with wakame seaweed and steamed honey-gilded pak choi. As I sat cross-legged at my chabudai and browsed the Wot’s Woke blogosphere on my iPad, the enjoyment of my simple peasant’s dish was severely marred as I came across a story about Louis C.K.

The article contained the link to a clip of a ‘so-called’ ‘stand up’ ‘comedy’ ‘routine’ in which ‘Louis’ ‘C.K.’ stood in front of his ‘audience’ and ‘delivered’ what can only be described as a torrent of hatred, the like of which I have not experienced since Ricky Gervais refused to call Caitlyn Jenner stunning and brave. He was accusing my generation of being weak and overemotional. Disrespecting the genuine need for nonbinary pronouns. My shoulders began to shake. Blind rage took over as I hurled my bowl of artisan noodles across the room, where they rained down like the tentacles of a tiny sea monster onto my priceless collection of Thelonius Monk original vinyl recordings.

As I sat there on my zabuton cushion, watching pieces of pak choi slide nonchalantly down the face of the greatest improvisational jazz pianist who ever lived, I felt hot angry tears drip down onto my cheeks. I rolled onto my back and wailed like a newborn babe. I let the sound of my screams cleanse and renew me. I did not hold back. After a while, maybe an hour or so, I curled my body into the fetal position where I slowly drifted off into an exhausted sleep.

I awoke around 4 a.m., the spiteful words of that vile white cisgender ogre still ringing in my ears. I had no more tears to give, I was spent. Instead, I felt resolved to write this article in order to defend my generation. To combat the hatred of old white cisgender men who accuse nonbinary people of being ‘attention seekers’ who only obsess over their fashionably made-up pronouns because they have a need to constantly feed their victimhood fetish… I mean, as if that could even be true! I felt resolved to confront this detestable bigotry head on. To fight the oppression with my fists a-flailing (metaphorically). To resist the prejudice (literally). To rise up to the challenge of our rival. To fight for the will to survive.

December 23, 2018

A Very Libertarian Christmas

Filed under: Economics, Humour — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 06:00

ReasonTV
Published on 21 Dec 2018

Deck the halls and spread some Yuletide cheer. Or don’t. You’re your own person.

—–
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/reasontv
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason
Subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts: https://goo.gl/az3a7a

Reason is the planet’s leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won’t get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
—–

Written by Austin Bragg, Meredith Bragg, and Andrew Heaton. Performed by Heaton and Austin Bragg. Edited by the Braggs.

Music:
“Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies,” “Deck the Halls,” “Jingle Bells Calm,” “Silent Night,” “The Snow Queen,” and “We Wish you a Merry Christmas” by Kevin MacLeod. Available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Download link: https://incompetech.com/music/royalty

December 22, 2018

Repost – ‘Tis the season to hate the senders of boastful holiday letters

Filed under: Humour — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Gregg Easterbrook receives the perfect, perfect holiday letter:

Don’t you hate boastful holidays letters about other people’s fascinating lives and perfect children? Below is one Nan and I received last week.

Dear Friends,

What a lucky break the CEO sent his personal jet to pick me up from Istanbul; there’s plenty of room, since I have the entire aircraft to myself, to take out the laptop and write our annual holiday letter. Just let me ask the attendant for a better vintage of champagne, and I’ll begin.

It’s been another utterly hectic year for Chad and I and our remarkable children, yet nurturing and horizon-expanding. It’s hard to know where the time goes. Well, a lot of it is spent in the car.

Rachel is in her senior year at Pinnacle-Upon-Hilltop Academy, and it seems just yesterday she was being pushed around in the stroller by our British nanny. Rachel placed first this fall in the state operatic arias competition. Chad was skeptical when I proposed hiring a live-in voice tutor on leave from the Lyric Opera, but it sure paid off! Rachel’s girls’ volleyball team lost in the semifinals owing to totally unfair officiating, but as I have told her, she must learn to overcome incredible hardship in life.

Now the Big Decision looms — whether to take the early admission offer from Harvard or spend a year at Julliard. Plus the whole back of her Mercedes is full of dance-company brochures as she tries to decide about the summer.

Nicholas is his same old self, juggling the karate lessons plus basketball, soccer, French horn, debate club, archeology field trips, poetry-writing classes and his volunteer work. He just got the Yondan belt, which usually requires nine years of training after the Shodan belt, but prodigies can do it faster, especially if (not that I really believe this!) they are reincarnated deities.

Modeling for Gap cuts into Nick’s schoolwork, but how could I deprive others of the chance to see him? His summer with Outward Bound in the Andes was a big thrill, especially when all the expert guides became disoriented and he had to lead the party out. But you probably read about that in the newspapers.

What can I say regarding our Emily? She’s just been reclassified as EVVSUG&T — “Extremely Very Very Super Ultra Gifted and Talented.” The preschool retained a full-time teacher solely for her, to keep her challenged. Educational institutions are not allowed to discriminate against the gifted anymore, not like when I was young.

Yesterday Rachel sold her first still-life. It was shown at one of the leading galleries without the age of the artist disclosed. The buyers were thrilled when they learned!

Then there was the arrival of our purebred owczarek nizinny puppy. He’s the little furry guy in the enclosed family holiday portrait by Annie Leibovitz. Because our family mission statement lists cultural diversity as a core value, we named him Mandela.

Chad continues to prosper and blossom. He works a few hours a day and spends the rest of the time supervising restoration of the house — National Trust for Historic Preservation rules are quite strict. Corporate denial consulting is a perfect career niche for Chad. Fortune 500 companies call him all the time. There’s a lot to deny, and Chad is good at it.

Me? Oh, I do this and that. I feel myself growing and flowering as a change agent. I yearn to empower the stakeholders. This year I was promoted to COO and invited to the White House twice, but honestly, beading in the evening means just as much to me. I was sorry I had to let Carmen go on the same day I brought home my $14.6 million bonus, but she had broken a Flora Danica platter and I caught her making a personal call.

Chad and I got away for a week for a celebration of my promotion. We rented this quaint five-star villa on the Corsican coast. Just to ourselves — we bought out all 40 rooms so it would be quiet and contemplative and we could ponder rising above materialism.

Our family looks to the New Year for rejuvenation and enrichment. Chad and I will be taking the children to Steamboat Springs over spring break, then in June I take the girls to Paris, Rome and Seville while Chad and Nicholas accompany Richard Gere to Tibet.

Then the kids are off to camps in Maine, and before we know it, we will be packing two cars to drive Rachel’s things to college. And of course I don’t count Davos or Sundance or all the routine excursions.

I hope your year has been as interesting as ours.

Love,
Jennifer, Chad, Rachel, Nicholas & Emily

(The above is inspired by a satirical Christmas letter I did for The New Republic a decade ago. I figure it’s OK to recycle a joke once every 10 years.)

December 20, 2018

Remy: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (EV Tax Credit Edition)

Filed under: Business, Government, Humour, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

ReasonTV
Published on 19 Dec 2018

Government plays Santa Claus with your tax money.

—–
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/reasontv
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason
Subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts: https://goo.gl/az3a7a

Reason is the planet’s leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won’t get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
—–

Have a Tesla on your Christmas wish list? Don’t thank Santa — thank Tom in Ohio.

Parody written and performed by Remy. Video by Austin Bragg. Music tracks, background vocals, and mastering by Ben Karlstrom

LYRICS:

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Everywhere you go
Folks with six-figure salaries
Are shopping in galleries
With a gift card paid by Tom in Ohio

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Roadsters all around
And while Tom can’t afford a car
He’ll buy part of one for John
Cuz somehow that’s allowed

Well a black Model X and a tax credit check
Is the wish of Connor and Ken
And a dark Model 3 that is partially free
Is the hope of Bobby and Ben
While Tommy takes the bus and eats Vienna sausages

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Hear those sleigh bells ring
But what else could you expect
With a tax code so complex?
Ensuring just these things?

Yes a car with aplomb that’s, in part, paid by Tom
Is the wish of Victor and Von
A sedan that can drive and takes years to arrive
Is the hope of Lenny and Lon
While Tommy pinches pennies never flushing number one

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Soon the credits end
But the funniest sight to see’s
When typical for DC
They’re renewed again
Everything’s renewed again

Dropkick Murphys – “The Season’s Upon Us” (Video)

Filed under: Humour, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Dropkick Murphys
Published on 3 Dec 2012

Music video for “The Season’s Upon Us” from the upcoming album SIGNED and SEALED in BLOOD (out Jan 8).

Directed by Garrett Warren.

http://dropkickmurphys.com

December 5, 2018

Yes, Minister – The Six Diplomatic Options

Filed under: Britain, Government, Humour — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

HenryvKeiper
Published on 28 May 2009

My favorite scene from one of my favorite TV shows of all time.

November 24, 2018

QotD: The Anglo-Saxon invasion

Filed under: Britain, History, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The withdrawal of the Roman legions to take part in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (due to a clamour among the Romans for pompous amusements such as bread and circumstances) left Britain defenceless and subjected Europe to that long succession of Waves of which History is chiefly composed. While the Roman Empire was overrun by waves not only of Ostrogoths, Vizigoths, and even Goths, but also of Vandals (who destroyed works of art) and Huns (who destroyed everything and everybody, including Goths, Ostrogoths, Vizigoths, and even Vandals), Britain was attacked by waves of Picts (and, of course, Scots) who had recently learnt how to climb the wall, and of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who, landing at Thanet, soon overran the country with fire (and, of course, the sword).

    Important Note

    The Scots (originally Irish, but by now Scotch) were at this time inhabiting Ireland, having driven the Irish (Picts) out of Scotland; while the Picts (originally Scots) were now Irish (living in brackets) and vice versa. It is essential to keep these distinctions clearly in mind (and verce visa).

The brutal Saxon invaders drove the Britons westward into Wales and compelled them to become Welsh; it is now considered doubtful whether this was a Good Thing. Memorable among the Saxon warriors were Hengist and his wife (? or horse), Horsa. Hengist made himself King in the South. Thus Hengist was the first English King and his wife (or horse), Horsa, the first English Queen (or horse). The country was now almost entirely inhabited by Saxons and was therefore renamed England, and thus (naturally) soon became C. of E. This was a Good Thing, because previously the Saxons had worshipped some dreadful gods of their own called Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That, 1930.

November 21, 2018

The wisdom of Zim Tzu, post-Bear-mauling edition

Filed under: Football, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

After every game, even a putrid excuse for a game like the Sunday night contest in Chicago, the NFL requires that all head coaches make the time to talk with the local (and sometimes national) sports media about what the hell just happened. Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer is rumoured not to enjoy this particular part of his job, and as a result tends to carefully craft his words to cloak their real importance from the smelly, small-minded hoi-polloi he has to face from the rostrum. Fortunately, the Daily Norseman employs the world’s top expert in Zimspeak, Herr Doktor Professor Theodore “Ted” Glover, BA, MA, Ph.D, etc. Every week, Herr Glover works tirelessly to decipher, decode, decrypt, and de-everything-else required to dig down to the primal essence of coach Zimmer’s koans for we weak-armed, weak-willed, and weak-minded normies.

The Vikings warrior poet coach dispenses his words of wisdom

ED NOTE: This has bad words. Most of the other things we write on here usually don’t, but this one does. It seems to be a popular bit, so until the law catches up with me, I’m going to keep doing it. Thanks for understanding, and thanks for not reading and not letting your kids read it if bad language isn’t your thing. Hope you enjoy the rest of our articles—Ted

When you’re a warrior poet, you have to be on the lookout for self-fulfilling prophecies from your troops. Self fulfilling prophecies tell you that you can’t do X because of Y, based on past history. You can’t invade Russia in the late summer because of the Russian winter, or that you can’t masturbate without arms, for example. And as much as you tell your troops there is zero correlation between X and Y, because you have a cousin without any arms and he says he did just fine in that department thank you very goddamn much, once your troops believe weird shit happens in Chicago and that you’ll lose, when weird shit does happen in Chicago and you do lose, your troops are almost relieved. But you can’t let them walk around thinking they’re a bunch of no arms whacking reverse Nostradamus fap gods though, because then everything you’ve worked for is lost, and you’re on the street looking for work in someplace other than Cleveland. Yeah, fuck The Land, which is quite possibly the dumbest nickname for any city I’ve ever heard. Except for Green Bay, which is known as the toilet paper capital of the world, and that’s the most accurate nickname for any city ever.

Because you are Zim Tzu, The King In The North, Emperor of the Motor City Feline Tribe, Grounder of Airplanes, Defrocker of Cardinals, Subduer of Equestrian Excrement Consumers, Nightmare of Clan Fromage, Breaker Of Gold Fever, High Septon Of Eagan, Lord Commander Of The Iron Range And Twin Cities, Master Of Fortress TCO, Honorary Elder Of Mankato and Protector Of The Realm.

And when the Great Unwashed want to know how to keep their fears from becoming a real life Ouroboros, you must speak, to calm them and make them throw up their own ass, so you can get things back on track. And that is where we come in, your friends at The Daily Norseman.* We take what is said in the day after a game press conference, regurgitate what is really inferred,** and then everyone can walk away happy with an understanding of what’s to come.***

*I have no friends.

**We do nothing of the kind. The law firm of Franklin, Bash, and Bateman gently reminds you that this is a work of satire, and any and all interpretations are just mindless bullshit that have no inference on actual words of Mike Zimmer, spoken or otherwise, and they can sue you and take Ted for all his money in exorbitant lawyer fees if you try to sue him.

***If you understand any of this, seek professional medical help.

November 17, 2018

Alistair Dabbs on the “Church of Failure”

Filed under: Business, Humour — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 05:00

He says he’s a recent convert:

“Work out loud,” my prospective new employer tells me, adding that “we are a team, not a family”. Sister Sledge need not apply.

I try to keep my best poker face but I can sense my left eyebrow raising by itself. When I first entered the work market in the 1980s, the prevailing language of corporate bullshit rolled its tongue around paradigm-shifting and envelope-breaking. Today, we talk about “high-bandwidth collaboration” and “it’s OK to fail”.

Come to think about it, my prospective employer just said something about “failing quickly and cheaply”. Earlier, they pontificated that “failure breeds success”. Clearly, failure is the key skill they’re looking for in an employee. I’m their man.

I come well-prepared for this onslaught of hipster interview gibberish: I grew some stubble, put on a lumberjack shirt, boned up on my IT certifications (just in case) and, most important of all, learnt the language of corporate culture decks. You too can master modern marketspeak for the digital era by reading Culture Decks Decoded by Brett Putter.

Unfortunately, the interviewer is now talking about “pseudo-harmony” and has just invited me to be “a no-ego doer”. My left eyebrow feels like it is travelling towards the back of my head.

It’s when he says “date the model, marry the mission” that I realise I couldn’t possibly keep up the pretence in such a workplace for more than five minutes. I can control it no longer. Visibly shaken by my sudden and uncontrollably explosive yell of laughter, my interviewer wishes me a good day. No worries, there are plenty of other organisations out there who’ll pay me handsomely to fail for them – quickly, cheaply and even frequently if that’s what’s required.

I am a recent convert to the Church of Failure. Previously, I regarded failure as undesirable and unnecessary if there was an option of not failing. My LinkedIn profile would list items under the “Experience” heading thus:

    Provided consultancy to major newspaper group on how to maximise digital publishing productivity at minimal cost; was ignored; watched helplessly as six-figure sum poured needlessly into incompetent alternative system that inevitably failed; left company to work elsewhere; those who instigated embarrassing disaster received promotion.

Now I get the picture: bosses can forgive and even admire a brave failure, no matter how avoidable… but absolutely nobody likes a smart arse.

November 14, 2018

Ronnie Barker – British Rail

Filed under: Britain, Humour, Railways — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

T.V Allsorts
Published on 13 Apr 2016

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