12-year-old Bonny Jain, an 8th-grade student from Illinois, recently won the 2006 National Geographic Bee and an accompanying $25,000 scholarship. Throughout the contest, he correctly answered all but one of the very difficult global geography questions asked by Alex Trebek, of Jeopardy! fame.

Bonny aspires to attend MIT. He speaks, reads and writes Hindi fluently. He’s currently studying German and Spanish. For Bonny, I’m sure, “studying” a language connotes a much more comprehensive endeavor than what I consider “studying” a language. (I would like a burrito, s’il vous plait. Que? Yo no speako Spanisho. The only Spanisho I know is “burrito”, “chimichanga”, “Macarena”, “Shakira”, “Salma Hayek”, “cantalupos gigantes”. And “s’il vous plait”.)

In addition to having just won the National Geographic Bee, Bonny also recently took the SAT (again, he’s in EIGHTH GRADE). He scored 800 in math, 790 in writing, and 720 in critical reading for a 2,310 composite score out of a possible total of 2,400 points (800 points per section). I have a feeling MIT will be saving a spot for him. Maybe even this year.

Below are five questions from this year’s competition. This contest was not in multiple choice format: The contestants had to come up with the answers independently, without any hints or clues.

Bangweulu is an area of extensive swamps formed largely by the flooding of the Chambeshi River in which African country?
(to see the answer, click here, hold down your mouse button, and move the cursor down over the white space below)

Zambia

Name the small island at the north end of the East China Sea that is a province of South Korea.
(to see the answer, click here, hold down your mouse button, and move the cursor down over the white space below)

Cheju

In 1995, the government of Niger signed a peace agreement with rebel forces belonging to which traditional group in the Sahara region?
(to see the answer, click here, hold down your mouse button, and move the cursor down over the white space below)

Tuareg

Majestic views of Mount Everest can be seen from a town in northeast India that is the capital of a district of the same name. Name this town.
(to see the answer, click here, hold down your mouse button, and move the cursor down over the white space below)

Darjeeling

Name the last remaining independent Polynesian kingdom.
(to see the answer, click here, hold down your mouse button, and move the cursor down over the white space below)

Tonga

Listed below are the names and home states of the little geniuses who competed in this year’s National Geographic Bee, in seating order.

Neeraj Sirdeshmukh - New Hampshire
Suneil Iyer - Kansas
Yeshwanth Kandimalla - Georgia
Paige DePolo - Nevada
Autumn Hughes - Colorado
Mathew Vengalil - Michigan
Krishnan Chandra - Massachusetts
Drew Coffin - Iowa
Kelsey Schilperoort - Arizona
Bonny Jain - Illinois

The following is a snapshot of the population of the United States, as per the 2000 Census:

Similar to other unexplained racial phenomena found in the United States such as ice hockey (white), basketball (black), NASCAR (hick, a subsegment of “white”), and gold Rolexes (Chinese, a cross-segment of “good at math” and “bad at driving”), the National Geographic Bee’s distribution by ethnicity bears no resemblance whatsoever to the general population distrubution of the United States:

Guess which kids were the first four contestants to answer wrong and be eliminated. Amazing, I know: All four “Not Indian” kids were the first to be eliminated.

Bonny competed in last year’s National Geographic Bee as well. At the start of this year’s competition, Trebek asked Bonny about his fourth place finish in the 2005 contest. Bonny replied with confidence: Since the first, second and third place finishers are not allowed to return, he preferred to finish fourth if he couldn’t finish first.

I guess it all worked out.

tags :: humor : National Geographic Bee : Bonny Jain : Asian Indian American

To protect the guilty who are party to this post (screw the innocent- they’ve got nothing to be arrested for!), names have been redacted, aliases assigned, genders switched, chest hairs glued on, rubber masks donned, and pants stuffed.

Below is a picture of my friend, The Notorious C.N.G. No!- No!- No- torious! (sing it, baby!) is a man of many talents, with a long list of hobbies and preferred activities. Two of his favorites, as you can see, are travel and photography.

Now, the human race for some reason loves to build phallic monuments to itself. Everywhere you go around the world, there are a plethora of giant, skyward-pointing, rock hard (they are made of stone, after all) penises declaring “My country/ religion/ ideology’s horsedick is bigger than your [whatever's] pencildick. Come stand in the shadow of its erect glory and touch it.”

But The Notorious C.N.G. ain’t buying that! Whenever he travels, he sets aside a few hours to find the local cock-nationale so that he can snap a photograph of himself posing suggestively in front of it.

Part self-mocking and part monu-mocking, The Notorious C.N.G. has many such photos in his personal collection. These monu-mockumentaries are not doctored or Photoshopped in any way, except for the blurring I did of The Notorious C.N.G.’s face (again, to protect the guilty). After all, much of the fun is in getting dirty looks from disapproving strangers while posing for the pictures.

Because what happens in D.C. doesn’t always stay in D.C.

Sometimes it gets stroked and snapped, then splashed on the Internet.

Those of you who have read about my pizza restaurant prank have probably surmised that I, too, enjoy practical jokes. I have been the instigator or victim of many a prank in my lifetime. But every practical joke that I have pulled or been subject to has been a spur-of-the-moment affair, devised and executed in a few short minutes. Cheap laughs for minimal effort- I’m lazy that way.

The Notorious C.N.G., though, is a true practical joke artiste. For The Notorious C.N.G., a good prank is a labor of love, meant to be savored like a fine wine.

When The Notorious C.N.G. started his freshman year in high school, he had a Plan. A Plan that would take four years to execute. The first step was to join the yearbook committee. As a lowly freshman, he helped out on the yearbook staff, but did not have much decision-making power. Following The Plan, he worked his way up the ladder, and by his senior year The Notorious C.N.G. was put in charge of the yearbook Clubs section.

Right where he wanted to be.

To this day, the high school faculty rues the day that The Notorious C.N.G. was made Editor of the Clubs section.

The picture above is a scan of a half-page spread from The Notorious C.N.G.’s senior year yearbook. The club featured is a complete fabrication.

Hard to believe, I know, but there really is no “International Low Budget Jaw Harp Guild and Orchestra” at any high school in Orange County. Especially not one whose members gather to watch B-Movies like The Deadly Art of Rooster Fighting.

The Notorious C.N.G. also took the liberty of adding non-student members to the Jaw Harp Guild. In fact, these members were not real people at all. Because not many parents would name their children Mike Hunt (”my c**t”), Benjamin Dover (”bend over”) or Haywood Jablome (”hey, would you blow me”).

That infamous yearbook was, needless to say, the last to be assembled and published at The Notorious C.N.G.’s high school without close faculty supervision.

tags :: jokes : humor : practical jokes : monuments : high school : yearbook : clubs

Remember the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld? Well, he’s a real guy named Al Yeganeh, and his original soup shop is a real place in New York City. Al has always despised the “Soup Nazi” moniker. He is, however, quite enterprising. In the past year, he has opened over a dozen stores under the brand “The Original SoupMan”, with plans to open a few dozen more this year. Soup Nazi Man also has his packaged soups on grocery store shelves in fourteen states.

Soup Nazi’s penchant for Rules with a capital R is no myth (Move to the left! Have your money ready! No talking!), as one of his new business partners attests: “Al is obviously temperamental…”. Boy, I guess that soup is better than crack, if people keep going back despite the rude service. Or maybe it’s got crack in it. Someone should remind Yeganehnehnehneh that his soup is only “World Renowned” because Nazi joke-totin’ Seinfeld made it so.

Here are a few other very well-known places I have been to or heard about, where the service is famously rude and the food sometimes good.

House of Nanking, San Francisco. This Chinese restaurant is in every San Francisco guide book I’ve ever read. The line is always out the door, populated mainly by tourists patiently waiting for a bit of Nanking magic. It’s a tiny place (hence the line) with old tables and chairs, and the food is served on industrial-style metal plates. I went there once, to see what all the fuss is about.

Waiter: You! Order now!

Jack: OK…I’d like the kung pao chick…

Waiter: [shakes head, cuts me off] BOO HOW!!! [" NO GOOD!" in Chinese] You won shicken! I bling you shicken!!!

He then proceeds to jot down an order for some random chicken dish I didn’t want. O well. The food’s too sweet anyway, so I’ll leave it for the tourists.

One day I will be brave enough to shake my head and wag my finger at the waiter while he’s shaking his own head at me, yelling “BOO HOW!”. Do you think this will enrage him even more?

Wong Kei, London. Like Nanking, this London landmark is notorious for rude service (I am beginning to see a pattern here: What’s up with the rude waiters at Chinese restaurants?). The waiters at Wong Kei rush you to order quickly, throw your food on the table, and shove the bill down your throat so they can clear your table for the next customer. They’ve even been known to spit on the floor in plain view. Gross.

This one I will not mess with. You never mess with a spitting waiter unless it’s after your food is served and you never intend to go back.

Many people swear by Wong Kei, though: It’s good food at a good price, and the place is huge. I prefer Mandarin Kitchen across the street from the Queensway Tube stop. Better food in my opinion, and no sightings of spitting waiters.

Sushi Nozawa, Studio City. This Los Angeles area sushi place often has a line halfway down the block, and many consider it to be the best sushi place in Southern California. Like his soup-ladling counterpart, though, Master Nozawa is jokingly referred to as “The Sushi Nazi”.

If you manage to score a table, do not order a California roll. If the chef suggests something to you, do not say no and order something else. Do not order too much of the daily specials- they need to be rationed out sparingly to all the regulars. Any of these infractions are liable to get you politely excused. At Sushi Nozawa, your meal can sometimes be over before you think it’s over.

One of these days someone with a shaky hand should cut up some blowfish and force feed it to El Maestro until he agrees to make a California roll. (El Maestro- If you are reading this, I’m just kidding. Please please please don’t cut me off. My real name is not Jack anyway. It’s Pooky.)

I wonder why these places are so popular. For some, I guess it’s the quality of the food. But at Nanking, for example, the food isn’t even very good. Perhaps it’s the entertainment value of the rude service that keeps people coming back. Because it’s all fun and games until a waiter spits in your dinner.

tags :: humor : rude service : restaurants : Soup Nazi : Wong Kei : Nanking : Nozawa

Everywhere I go in the Blogosphere this week, I keep hearing about how yesterday, May 25, was Towel Day. Naturally I Googled it, and discovered that Towel Day is a tribute to Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

But given Towel Day’s surprisingly widespread support by bloggers of all stripes and not just sciphiles, they should have named it “Yet Another Excuse for Nerds to Invite More Ass Kickings by Meatheads Named Biff”. Or something like that. (talk like Christian Slater imitating Jack Nicholson in Heathers for the following…it’ll be funnier) Just kidding, bros! It’s all good! I got my own nerd flag right here!

Man, am I the world’s loserest nerd. I have never read Hitchhiker’s, nor any other Douglas Adams book. So please please nerds more nerdy than I, please don’t pelt me with slide rules! They hurt! And if you must, hurl some pocket protectors my way. They don’t hurt as much as slide rules, and I can always imprint a fuzzy Jesus silhouette on them and sell them to superstitious Catholic hackers on eBay.

Not to be outdone, here is where I out-nerd the nerds more nerdy than I. I Googled further and found another Hitchhiker’s nerdifact: the Babel Fish, which is a fish that translates any form of language for your comprehension when you stick it in your ear. A-ha! It all comes together! That’s why AltaVista named their web translation utility BabelFish!

So to get back into the good graces of the towel-wearing, Hitchhikers-reading crowd (which apparently includes a disturbingly large number of mommybloggers), I have translated some of my all-time favorite passages which I just wrote this very minute into French and then back into English, using the Babel Fish translator:

Original Sucky Masterpiece:
People who wear towels to work need to have their heads checked.
BabelFrench:
Peuplez qui les serviettes d’usage pour travailler le besoin d’avoir leurs têtes ont vérifié.
AngloBabel:
Populate which them towels of use to work the need to have their heads checked.

Original Sucky Masterpiece:
Not even I am a big enough nerd to wear a towel to work.
BabelFrench:
Non égal je suis un assez grand ballot pour porter une serviette pour travailler.
AngloBabel:
Nonequal I am a rather large bundle to carry a towel to work.

Original Sucky Masterpiece:
Have a happy Memorial Day weekend my blogging friends. Be careful with those towels near the grill, because one hundred fifty thread count steak tastes like shit.
BabelFrench:
Ayez un week-end heureux de jour commémoratif mes amis blogging. Faites attention avec ces serviettes près du gril, parce que cent biftecks de compte de cinquante fils goûtent comme la merde.
AngloBabel:
Have one happy weekend of commemorative day my friends blogging. Pay attention with these towels close to the grill, because hundred beefsteaks of account of fifty wire taste like the shit.

That last translated translation sounds a lot like the crazy Lebanese guy who’s always cursing at me when I walk by his cardboard box home: “What it is arue you to doing! You to stealing from me the things! The F#%K to you, and the F#$K to your the mother too!”

OK, enough fun for one day. I’d better go exercise now, since BabelFish says that I am a rather large bundle with nonequal.

tags :: jokes : humor : Hitchhiker’s Guide : Towel Day : Babel Fish

Pick up handset.

Press “Line 1″.

Dial phone. [doo! dOo! Doo! doO! dOO! DOO! Doo! doO!]

[RING RING!]

Press “Hold”.

Press “Line 2″.

Dial phone. [doo! dOo! Doo! doO! dOO! DOO! Doo! doO!]

[Riiiiing!]

Press “Conference”.

Press “Mute”.

[Riiiiing!] [RING RING!] [Riiiiing!] [RING RING!].

Pizza Hut: [Picks up] Hello! Pizza Hut! Would you like to try our Meat Lover’s Pan Pizza today? [Riiiiing!] Hello?

Domino’s Pizza: [Picks up] Thank you for calling Domino’s! Will this be for delivery or pick-up?

PH: Hello?

DP: Hello?! Yes, delivery or pick-up?

PH: Excuse me? Did you want delivery, or pick-up?

DP: Huh? Who is this?!

PH: This is Pizza Hut! Who is this?!

DP: This is Domino’s Pizza! Do you want to order a pizza or not?!

PH: No I don’t want to order a pizza! This is Pizza Hut! Why would I want to order a pizza?!

DP: Well, why’d you call me then?!

PH: I didn’t call you! You called me!

DP: I didn’t call you! Why the hell would I call you?!

PH: I don’t know why!

DP: Well, don’t call again! [Click!]

PH: Asshole! [Click!]

*sigh* Life was so much more fun before Caller ID.

tags :: jokes : humor : prank calls : Pizza Hut : Domino’s Pizza

So I heard about this online store that unexpectedly gained an important new customer from Canada. This customer was ordering hundreds of Bart Simpson Sippy Cups every few weeks.

Got me wondering- what use did this customer have for so many of these things? There couldn’t be a Simpsons convention in that city every single week! Clearly he was reselling them, but to whom and for what purpose ?

The truth was finally discovered. This guy was buying the sippy cups, converting them into bongs, and selling them on the Internet!

I never found out what he called them or what marketing slogans he used, but I’m sure it was entertaining.

I guess some stoners have enough brain cells left to be entrepreneurial.

tags :: jokes : humor : Bart Simpson : Sippy Cup : Bong

Some wise, experienced blogger who actually has readers said that posts should end with a question as a way of soliciting comments. Or, if you still don’t get comments, as a way of proving to yourself that you have no readers. Or friends. Just kidding. Or not.

So I thought: Why don’t I take it to the extreme? Why don’t I just write a whole ton of questions? If people are commenting more because you insert a question, shouldn’t they comment even more if if the whole thing were just a bunch of questions?

Are you sick of reading all these inane questions yet? Should I stop now? Or should I go on longer? How many sentences do you think I can continue to write in interrogative form? Am I spelling “interrogative” correctly? Hey, isn’t it funny that I posed the idea and implemented it all in the same paragraph, at the same time? And isn’t it even more clever that the post title itself is also a question? I planned in advance, get it? That’s awesome, isn’t it? No? You don’t think so? More like boring?

Well, I guess everyone’s got their opinion, don’t they? How about you let me opine on my blog, and you opine on your blog? O wait, I don’t want that, do I? Wasn’t the whole point for you to opine in my comments section?

Do I sound like an airhead yet? Or an insecure 20-something girl at an interview? You know the kind I’m talking about? The ones who end even a declarative sentence like it was a question?

Do you think I’m still on track with this? Or am I so far off topic that it’s just ridiculous? You think it’s ridiculous? Really? You shouldn’t call a guy ridiculous in his own blog, should you? Wouldn’t your mommy wash your mouth out with soap if she heard you say that?

You think I’m out of steam already on this? You don’t think I could go on for another 200 sentences? Will you stop reading if I actually do? How many people do you think managed to read this far? Nobody? Really? Not one person? But if you’re reading this sentence, that means you’ve read this far, doesn’t it? I should stop then, shouldn’t I? Wow, this is easier than I thought it’d be, thinking up so many questions.

Oh, darn. Broke my train of thought and stopped asking questions. You can stop reading now. Feel free to comment. Or ask a question.

tags :: jokes : humor : blogging : comments : questions

When I was in college, a friend ran the cable tv feed from outside the building through his window. We plugged it into a signal booster and piped it to our friends’ rooms through the foreign language tv network cabling, and ran cable above the ceiling tiles (so nobody would notice) to connect to our rooms. We enjoyed cable tv for a few years from that little endeavor. Nothing as scandalous as an illegitimate child, but a dirty little secret nonetheless.

There are, of course, much bigger dirty little secrets out there. They’re everywhere. Some are actually spelled out in footnotes somewhere. Others are discoverable if we’d only look hard enough. Many, I’m sure, are very carefully guarded and will never be known to anybody who is not connected to them in some way. Here are a few I can think of:

1. The brand new Korean grocery store down my street offers super fresh produce at ludicrously low prices. Migrant farmers are California grocers’ dirty little secret.
2. Southwest Airlines is the airline industry’s stock market darling. Their financial performance seems to do consistently well while other airlines are toppling like dominos. Are they so much more efficient at operations that they can make money while others lose it hand over fist? Southwest Airlines’ dirty little secret: They locked up fuel prices via long-term contracts a while back. In hindsight, this was a brilliant move that has contributed the most to sustaining their profitability of late, and will really impact them when the contracts expire.
3. Remember Intel’s 386 chip? (yes, back before the Internet). They sold a less expensive version that did not feature a math coprocessor, called the 386SX (back then they tried to make their products SeXy. They’ve since given up). The dirty little secret: 386 and 386SX chips were actually the same- they were all manufactured with the math coprocessor function. Intel simply disabled the coprocessor on the ones they sold under the 386SX name so that they could have two pricing tiers.
4. What do you picture when you think of San Diego, California? Blue skies and ocean breezes with sandy beaches warmed by the sun? Well, San Diego is frequently subject to a gloomy marine layer, which is a blanket of fog-drenched air that is several hundred feet thick and blots out the sun, leaving the area chilly and overcast.
5. Ashlee Simpson is a bad singer. This was a well-known dirty little secret, and she was ultimately outed during an equipment malfunction while performing on Saturday Night Live. She joins Milli Vanili in the Lip-Synch Hall of Fame for Most Embarrassing Career-Ending Performance. Gee, between all the bad singers and fake backup bands that are there for looks and don’t really play the instruments, I guess most of pop music packaging is one big dirty secret.
6. Buy a computer from Dell, then call them asking to return it for a refund. Chances are the operator will look at her computer screen and then offer you some sort of discount if you would be willing to keep the computer. Some MBA or McKinsey consultant told them that it would be cheaper to offer these rebates than to process the returns. My friend who told me about this likes to call this little secret the Dell Special Discount.
7. A majority of people who have ski racks installed on their cars don’t actually use them. They are just there for show. I saw that in a survey somewhere. I guess that’s a lot of people’s dirty little secret.

That’s about all the dirty little secrets I can think of for now. Oh, and I don’t eat vegetables. Don’t tell that to anybody I know. Or to any migrant farmers.
tags :: jokes : humor : rants : secrets

Cylons are the bane of the human race, constantly watching us through their roving red eye, plotting to bring about our extinction and the end of our civilization.

After a bathroom trip at the Portland Airport, I now know the truth.

They are already here. Armageddon is nigh.

Step step step. Good, no janitor sign
Sink. Soap. Paper towels. Check
Open stall. Gross. Bastard didn’t flush. Next
Open stall. No TP. Crap. Next
Open stall. Clean seat. TP. Seat covers. Check
Sweet
Enter. Shut door. Lock
Take off jacket. Hang on hook
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***. Crap!
Roll roll roll. Wipe wipe wipe seat.
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***. Crap!
Roll roll roll. Slowly wipe wipe wipe seat
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Place seat cover. Slowly
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Turn around. drop trow
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***. Crap!
Turn back around. Pull up tighty whiteys
Pants between ankles
Roll roll roll. Slowly wipe wipe wipe seat
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Place seat cover. Slowly
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Turnarounddroptrow! Fast!
Hold breath. No flush! *YES*
Lean in to sit
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***
Seat cover swirls down. Mother f****r!!!
Turn back around. Pull up tighty whiteys
Pants between ankles
Roll roll roll. Slowly wipe wipe wipe seat
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Place seat cover. Slowly
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Turnarounddroptrow! Fast!
Hold breath. No flush! *YES*
Please please please no no no flush
SIT. slowly. carefully
No flush. *YES*
Poop
Roll roll roll
Wipe wipe
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***
Shit. This sucks
Roll roll roll
Wipe
Stand up. Dress. Turn around
No flush
Wave hand over sensor
No flush
Cover sensor with palm. Uncover
No flush
*sigh*. Push button on Cylon head
Wait. Wait
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***

Damn Cylon terrorists. So this is how you plan to drive the human race insane, to render us defenseless when you finally launch the nukes.

tags :: jokes : humor : toilet : flush : Cylon : Battlestar Galactica

79 6F 75 20 61 72 65 20 61 20 74 6F 74 61 6C 20 67 65 65 6B 20 6A 75 73 74 20 6C 69 6B 65 20 6D 65 00

To see the answer click your mouse here, hold down the mouse button, and drag down over the space below:

in hexadecimal: “then you are a total geek just like me!”

tags :: jokes : humor : hexadecimal : geek : nerd