idiotpruf

The blog that prevents scurvy…as long as you eat orange slices while you read it.

Archive for the tag “idiot”

The Grasshopper and the Ant

aesoop fableOne bright day in late autumn, a family of Ants was bustling about in the warm sunshine, drying out the grain they had stored up during the summer, when a starving Grasshopper, his fiddle under his arm, came up and humbly begged for a bite to eat.

“What!” cried the Ants in surprise, “haven’t you stored anything away for the winter? What in the world were you doing all last summer?”

“I didn’t have time to store up any food,” whined the Grasshopper; “I was so busy making music that before I knew it, the summer was gone.”

The Ants shrugged their shoulders in disgust. “Making music, were you?” they cried. “Very well; now dance!” And they turned their backs on the Grasshopper and went on with their work.

The grasshopper realizing he was much bigger than the ants, pushed them down and took their food.

The next day the ants returned with about a million of their friends, hacked the grasshopper into pieces with their big bitey mandibles, and carried him back to their colony to feed the queen.

Moral

Ants are vindictive little bastards.

ants pixar

“If you play The Devil Goes Down To Georgia one more time…”

Local Man Upset by Giant Pile of Dung on Prius

surprised expression

Mr. Philbert J. Weedly

Bemidji, Minnesota–The authorities had to intervene when a dispute between two local residents radically escalated.
“Would you look at this,” exclaimed Philbert J. Weedly of Bemidji, Minnesota, as he motioned toward the Toyota Prius parked in his driveway, “it’s completely buried.”
At some point during the night, Mr. Weedly’s vehicle had become covered in a mountain of blue feces.
“I don’t see why he’s blaming me,” fellow Bemidji native Paul Bunyan replied, “if you ask me, that giant pile of blue crap could have come from any number of places–a lot of people don’t care for Weedly.”
“Are you kidding me?” Mr. Weedly said in exasperation.
Mr. Bunyan continued defending himself, “I really don’t think it’s fair to blame me every time someone’s car, their house, or their mouthy know-it-all wife, who deserved it, gets covered in a giant pile of blue crap.”
“Are you kidding me?” Mr. Weedly said again.
The dispute began when Mr. Bunyan challenged Mr. Weedly for the presidency of the local chapter of the Minnesota Sierra Club and defeated him in the chapter’s election.
“I just felt it was time for a new chapter in my life,” Mr. Bunyan explained.
“We all know what happened,” Mr. Weedly said. “He’s a legend of American folklore. He’s Minnesota’s favorite son. His footsteps created the 10,000 lakes. It’s all just a big popularity contest.”
“I know Paul Bunyan seems like a strange choice for the presidency of a Sierra Club chapter,” Milton Shipley, a member of the Sierra Club chapter, admitted, “I mean, he is literally known for chopping down trees. He’s just so freaking huge; how do you say no to him?”
“My wife was extremely vocal in her opposition of his candidacy,” another member, who wanted to remain anonymous, told us, “but then she was involved in a rather unfortunate incident involving Babe, Mr. Bunyan’s big blue ox. I don’t want to go into too much detail,” he said pausing for a moment, “Let’s just say she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t know what he feeds that thing, but the stench was foul. It’s been six months, and my wife’s hair still attracts flies.”
“It s— on me,” his wife said tersely.
The authorities have issued warnings to both Mr. Weedly and Mr. Bunyan. They also asked Mr. Bunyan to try and control where his blue ox relieves itself, but they told him from a distance.
“Do you call this justice?” Mr. Weedly said in a final statement of resignation. “Are you kidding me?”

blue ox

The famed blue ox–I don’t know what he feeds it.

Sister City Disappointment

Opera House

Sydney, Australia: a lovely sister city.

North East, Pennsylvania–The residents of the small village of North East, Pennsylvania received a dose of bad news upon discovering their sister city wasn’t what they believed it to be.
The village was ecstatic when it received a sister city request from Sydney, Australia. “We couldn’t believe our good fortune,” the mayor of North East said.
Upon traveling to Australia to accept the sister city request, officials from North East (the mayor and his life partner Bruce) discovered the request came not from the city of Sydney but from a guy named Sydney who lives in a shack at the bottom of a pit in the desert.
“The disappointment is bitter,” Bruce said of the development, “Sydney, Australia is a metropolis with renown architecture and a thriving art world; Sydney from Australia is a filthy foul-mouthed little man who lives in a pit and scratches his testicles far more than should be necessary.”
“I have genital chiggers,” Sydney explained, “they bite.”
The mayor and Bruce gave Sydney a case of the world-famous Welch’s grape jelly, produced right in North East from local concord grapes.
Sydney reciprocated with a half-full can of Foster’s beer that he poured back into the can from the dog bowl.
“Everything in Sydney’s shack is sticky,” the mayor commented, “absolutely everything.”
While Bruce has returned home from the disastrous trip, the mayor remains in Australia recovering from bites from a highly poisonous eastern brown snake and three types of poisonous spiders.
Sydney keeps poisonous spiders as pets; the snake was just bad luck.
“A kangaroo kicked me in the nuts,” Bruce said upon his return, “it was the best part of the trip.”

eastern brown snake

PennDOT Confirms Using Explosives to Fix Road

Pennsylvania pot holes

This stretch of road seems oddly smooth.

Erie, Pennsylvania–Officials from PennDOT have confirmed the explosions heard emanating from the Route 5 area of North East, Pennsylvania was, in fact, a road crew working on a stretch of the road between the towns of North East and Harborcreek.

The road crew was employing dynamite to blow a gaping hole in the road, remedying the fact that there wasn’t already a gaping hole in the road.

A PennDOT official had been traveling along Route 5 when he realized there was a stretch of road nearly 50 yards long without any potholes. “I was driving along when I realized the familiar rumbling and shaking from traversing Pennsylvania roadways had stopped for several seconds…it was very disconcerting.”

The stretch of roadway fell far below PennDOT standards, requiring at least 39% of any 100-foot stretch of Pennsylvania roadway to contain potholes, debris, drunken hobos, or strategically placed orange cones that guide motorists into a pond.

Upon discovering the problem, PennDOT moved with the efficiency and swiftness for which it is renowned and dispatched a road crew within a year and a half.

“Sure, we could have put small holes throughout that stretch of road, but that’s a lot of work,” the foreman of the road crew said. “We decided to go with one big hole in the middle.”

“Blowing **** up is fun,” one of the crew members, Ron, “eight fingers,” Smith commented.

The section of Route 5 in question is now almost entirely impassable, bringing it into accordance with PennDOT standards.

PennDOT suggests if you find yourself traveling along this stretch of road, take care to follow the detour signs and orange cones–they lead you into a pond.

PennDot road crew

“I told you we should have used dynamite.”

This Christmas Give the Gift of the Rutabaga

rutabaga

It’s Christmastime again: the perfect opportunity to brighten the spirits of a loved one with the gift of the rutabaga.

What’s so special about the rutabaga you may ponder–what isn’t so special about the rutabaga is my response.

  • They can be roasted.
  • They can be baked.
  • They can be boiled as a flavor enhancer in soups.
  • They can be boiled as a flavour enhancer in soups in Great Britain. (You wouldn’t believe how much tastier the soup is with that extra U in the word flavour.)
  • They can be thinly julienned as a side dish, in a salad, or as a garnish.
  • They can be thinly julienned and used to clean up oil spills in the driveway.
  • They can be mashed into a paste and used to degrease engines.
  • They can be mashed into a paste and used as a beautifying face cream. (It won’t make you more attractive, but it will cover your face–which if you’re being honest, is the problem.)
  • You can make rutabaga ice cream.
  • You can make a rudimentary boiled rutabaga stew that was a staple of famine-ridden Europe during the war and pretend you’re living in famine-ridden Europe during the war…because pretending is fun.
  • You can chuck them at the heads of people you don’t like.
  • You can chuck them at the heads of people you’re ambivalent about.
  • You can chuck them at the heads of people you do like. (The thunk of a rutabaga bouncing off a human skull is surprisingly satisfying regardless of the target.)
  • You can fill your child’s stocking with them. (But ensure they’re fresh; they can attract flies.)
  • You can use them to attract flies.
  • You can carve them into lanterns as was the old Irish tradition.
  • You can carve them into lanterns and chuck them at people’s heads. (Hopefully the beginnings of a new tradition.)
  • And finally, you can make the traditional Finnish Christmas dish Lanttulaatikko.
rutabaga dish

Lanttulaatikko is a delicious Finnish Christmas dish–you can also chuck it at people’s heads.

Addendum: Don’t make rutabaga ice cream–it sucks.

Your Children are Loud, Sticky, and Gross

bratty child

Your child in one of her calmer moments.

Your children are loud, sticky, and gross.

So don’t vilify me just because I don’t want to hear your children, see them, smell them, or be in their general vicinity. And I certainly don’t want to touch them–unnecessary and unwanted touching is precisely how the Black Plague proliferated. Flea-infested diseased riddled rats have taken the blame for far too long–it was filthy little children like yours.

And don’t try to tell me I should treasure your children’s presence because all children are precious. So is uranium and I don’t want to be around that.

Let’s Compare: it causes weakness, fatigue, fainting, and confusion. Bleeding from the nose, mouth, gums, and rectum. Bruising, skin burns, open sores on the skin, and sloughing of skin. Dehydration. Diarrhea and bloody stool. Fever. Hair loss. Nausea and vomiting. Organ failure and even death.

Uranium causes many of those same things.

Uranium, however, doesn’t scream like a psychotic brat at the top of its lungs because you didn’t give it an extra piece of fudge–uranium knows it’s already had enough and so should its mother.

So you and your precious children: just leave me be.

Addendum: If you believe there is the tiniest shred of a chance this post is referring to you and your children–it is!

uranium

If you need someone to watch your uranium or your children–I’ll take the uranium.

Virginia Zoo Misplaces Weird Looking Panda

red-panda-2The Virginia Zoo has announced that it has lost Sunny, its prized red panda. A frantic search was launched Tuesday morning when it was discovered Sunny wasn’t in her enclosure.

Upon investigation it was discovered a dimwitted caretaker named Ron was responsible for the escape. It seems Ron believing that Sunny was some weird raccoon that had gotten into the panda enclosure, opened the gate and shooed it away by manically waving a feces encrusted pitchfork and screaming, “git you weird raccoon, git.”

It seems the zoo has endured several odd mishaps at the hands of Ron; some of them involving misplaced animals, many of them involving feces, all of them disturbing.

“The biggest problem we have with Ron is that he is almost completely stupid,” one zoo official said. “He was kicked repeatedly in the head by a bongo antelope, and he was remarkably stupid before he got repeatedly kicked in the head by a bongo antelope. You should never try to collect animals’ feces by standing behind it with a bucket.”

bongo antelope

Bongo antelopes prefer to do their business in private.

After days of searching, Sunny still has not been located. Zoo officials fear the red panda has escaped the boundaries of the Zoo.

“Ron has a way of driving things away,” the zoo official said. “Usually it’s women, but I guess this time it was a red panda.”

While the zoo officials remain hopeful, they do concede that when Ron drives something away, it generally flees the state and changes its name.

Addendum

While recalling one incident involving Ron, a wombat, and a bag of feces, one colleague began to laugh so hysterically he lost consciousness.

wombat poop

Wombat feces: they do look like brownies, especially if you’re an idiot.

Experts


expert
Ours is a nation whose shores are teeming with experts. They are vital to our existence. We could barely function on a daily basis if not for these titans of knowledge, and purveyors of wisdom.

We know these things because it’s what they tell us.

We expect our experts to tell us much, and much they tell us:

  • They tell us what to do.
  • They tell us what not to do.
  • They tell us what to think.
  • They tell us what not to think.
  • They tell us where we should go.
  • They tell us where we shouldn’t go.
  • They tell us not to be long-winded.
  • But they use a lot of words to tell us.
  • They tell us not to be abrupt.
  • But they say it very abruptly.
  • They tell us not to make things too complicated.
  • They tell us not to make things too simple.
  • They tell us how simple it is to not make things complicated.
  • But they tell us in way that’s really complicated.
  • They tell us what to say.
  • They tell us what not to say.
  • They tell us not to pronounce the T in the word often.
  • But when they tell us, they pronounce the T in the word often.
  • And they do it often.
  • They tell us not to interrupt people.
  • But they interrupt to tell us.
  • They tell us what to write.
  • They tell us what not to write.
  • They tell us not to end a sentence with a preposition.
  • But you can end a sentence with the word preposition.
  • You can do it twice in a row.
  • They tell us what to eat.
  • They tell us what not to eat.
  • They tell us how long to boil an egg.
  • They tell us how long not boil an egg.
  • Don’t boil eggs–poach them!
  • Stop! Eggs are bad for you.
  • Now they’re not.
  • Now they are again.
  • Now they’re not again, as long as you don’t put salt on them; salt is very bad for you.
  • Now salt isn’t bad for you.
  • Now it is again.
  • They tell us not be contradictory.
  • They tell us not to be smug.
  • But they’re really smug about it.
  • They tell us what to read.
  • They tell us what not to read.
  • Starting with seemingly endless and annoying lists.
  • They tell us how to feel.
  • They tell us how not to feel.
  • When we feel miserable, they tell us why we feel miserable.
  • When we don’t feel miserable, they tell us why we should feel miserable.
  • When we feel happy, they knock some sense into us, so we can get back to the business of feeling miserable.
  • They tell us what to do to avoid death.
  • When we do what they say and die anyway, they tell our relatives why it wasn’t their fault.
  • And they demonstrate to us the importance of employing high-powered lawyers, in the event that some people actually follow their advice.

If not for the tireless work of experts, how many of us would still be living under the dark veil of happiness.

It must be exhausting being an expert.

If you should happen to see an expert on the street today, be sure to stop and give them a heartfelt thank you.

If you don’t know how to properly give a heartful thank you: ask the expert, they’ll know.Dilbert. point haired boss

The True and Accurate Historical Story of Limburger Cheese

limburger cheese

The delightful aroma of feet.

There is one salient fact about Limburger cheese: it is just awful. The only time I would need Limburger cheese, would be if I needed something that smelled like death and the smell from my giant pile of opossum crap just wasn’t enough.

Did you know the bacterium used to ferment Limburger cheese is the same bacterium that is responsible for body odor, and in particular, foot odor?

If you’ve ever smelled Limberger cheese, you had your suspicions.

Limburger cheese was first created in the Duchy of Limburg in the 19th century by a man who had just come home from a hard day of cheese making. He had unbuckled and removed his boots and was attempting to enjoy a meal with his wife when he and his wife got into an argument that changed the history of cheese making forever.

Wife: What is that horrendous smell?

Cheesemaker: Ooh, we’re having stoofvlees, I love stoofvlees.

Wife: It’s the most putrid smell I have ever encountered.

Cheesemaker: I don’t smell anything. Pass the ale.

Wife: I think it’s your feet.

Cheesemaker: Seriously. Pass the ale.

Wife: It’s rancorous.

Cheesemaker: It’s not that bad.

Wife: It is that bad. There are people retching on the other side of the Demer River.

Cheesemaker: Do you know what this conversation isn’t doing? It isn’t remedying the fact that I have no ale.

Wife: Your feet smell worse than that giant pile of opossum crap you have behind the house.

Cheesemaker: I’ll get my own ale.

Wife: Why do you even have a giant pile of opossum crap?

Cheesemaker: I’ll tell you why, (he pauses to take a slug of ale) because someday you’ll be in desperate need of copious amounts of opossum crap, and you’ll be glad it’s there.

Wife: I’ve thought the same thing about you, but it still hasn’t happened. Besides, it’s the worst smell in the world.

Cheesemaker: Nonsense. It’s not the worst smell in the world. In fact, I’ll bet that I could make a cheese that smells worse.

Wife: I doubt it.

Cheesemaker: You’ll see; it will become my mission.

Wife: Shut up and drink your ale.

And drink his ale he did.

And succeed he did–beyond his wildest ale-fueled dreams.

Of course, his wife left him and his giant pile of opossum crap.

The Duchy of Limburg is now divided by modern-day Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. None of the three countries wanted it: it reeked of Limburger cheese and developed a huge opossum problem.

Addendum: there are historians who will tell you certain items in this story aren’t factual–historians suck.

opossum

The aroma of their crap is delightful.

Does a Bee Sting in the Penis Hurt?

bee sting

“You want me to sting you where now?”

A million-dollar National Science Foundation grant was given to Cornell University so a researcher could force bees to sting him on his penis to find out how much it hurts.

Let that sink in.

The idea was inspired by an unfortunate situation when a honeybee flew up Michael Smith’s shorts and stung him. “I was really surprised that it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would,” he said. The experience got him thinking: where is the most painful place on the body to get stung by a bee?

Oddly, it didn’t get him thinking about his choice of shorts when bike riding, or his strange proclivity for rubbing flower pollen on his inner thighs before he goes bike riding.

Note: the bee found the whole experience to be horrifying. “I was just buzzing along, very busy as we’re known to be, when suddenly I was all up in this dude’s junk,” the bee said.  

With the financial support from a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship grant to Cornell University, Smith forced honeybees to sting more than 25 locations on his body from the face to the genitals. He then rated the pain caused by each of the stings on a scale of “Ouch” to “Holy Crap, What Have I Done.

To compel a bee to sting, it was grabbed by the wings and pressed against the desired sting location.

Note: the million-dollar research grant pales in comparison to the multi-million-dollar lawsuit filed by the bees who were “compelled” to sting Michael Smith in the penis.   

bee sting research

One million dollars being spent.

The least painful locations to be stung by a bee for Michael Smith were the skull, middle toe tip, the upper arm, and in the face of some guy who happened to walk into the room at the wrong time.

The most painful places to be stung for Michael Smith were the nostril, upper lip, and the genitals.

Note: shockingly, being stung in the genitals does hurt.

Also painful for Michael Smith was the broken nose that resulted when the guy who got stung when he happened to walk into the room at the wrong time, punched him in the face.

Michael originally had his eyeball on the list of body parts to be stung but was talked out of it by his advisor Tom Seeley.

Note: I think it’s safe to say, despite the advice about the eyeball, as an advisor, Tom Seeley has failed Michael Smith miserably.  

Michael concedes this study is limited by its low sample size: one person, himself.

“It is possible that if other people were tested, they would not rank the painfulness of the stings in the same way or perceive pain similarly by location. It is also possible a female researcher may rate being stung in her penis or scrotum very differently,” Michael stated.

Did I mention how miserably Michael Smith’s advisor failed him?  

In case you’re wondering, these methods do not conflict with the Helsinki Declaration, which is a set of ethical principles for research involving human subjects developed by the World Medical Association.

In an “unrelated” experiment, researchers from Brown University set out to see if they could convince some moron from Cornell to compel bees to repeatedly sting him in the penis.

Helsinki is looking into it.

Addendum:

The assertion that Michael Smith rubs flower pollen on his inner thighs before he goes bike riding is purely speculation on my part…but he probably does.

bee sting penis

I think I see where Michael Smith went wrong.

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