Humor: April 2008 Archives

...but dammit, it's funny.

So Moveon.org is having an "Obama in 30 seconds" competition in which people are supposed to submit videos of their campaign ads. Some are great, some are just plain weird, and some, well...

Tip for future would-be ad-makers: it's one thing to spell out your class year in an aerial group shot, but quite another to spell an easily "confused" name. Oh, and you need to tell your crowd members not to wear white tops, or your "B" will look like an "S".

So we belong to this club that sends a Jewish-themed children's book to our house every month. It's a not-for-profit effort, funded by a generous grant aimed at keeping the "people of the book" in the fold.

Some of the books are great. The first one we received, Before You Were Born, has the loveliest illustrations. There are Jewish folk tales, board books about the various holidays, and even the odd music CD.

And then there is the odd clunker.

Exhibit A: God Must Really Love... Numbers!

Check out a typical page spread.

Is it my imagination, or does the caterpillar on the left seem to have... a Hitler mustache?

And what's with the "Good job, God!" Does he really need positive affirmation that badly? Is he a two-year-old?

And then there's this spread:

The weird circles on the frogs? Not a disfiguring skin condition, but rather, shiny gold foil... which for some reason, the illustrator/author/publisher, in their God-given wisdom, decided to apply there rather than to... the flashing fireflies, where it would make more sense.

Anyway, there was really nothing particularly Jewish about this book, honestly. (If there were, wouldn't it say instead, "Nu, God, good effort, but next time make the frogs a little more hoppy"?) Looking at the publisher's website, I find it suspiciously evangelical in tone ("Keep growing in faith and joy through Little Simon Inspirations books for your child!")

So, we're not so into this particular book around our household.

However, I have great hopes for this month's offering...

This was Google's.

Virgle's goal is simple: the establishment of a permanent human settlement on Mars. Larry Page, Sergey Brin and I feel strongly that contemporary technology is sufficiently advanced to make such an effort both successful and economical, and that it's high time that humanity moved beyond Earth and began our great, long journey to explore the stars and establish our first lasting foothold on another world.

Oh wait, there's one more in Gmail that's much funnier.