Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with humorous

do they make you smile ?

nicolin — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 04:14:29 -0800

I'd like to learn and sing traditional English songs with a twist. I mean funny songs. In order to expand my database of songs, and to be able to introduce kids to the joy of singing with a smile, I would like to know traditional - or not so traditional - songs with a humorous content from all over the English-speaking world.

Dwight says GET BACK TO WORK

kenbennedy — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:34:25 -0800

passiveaggressivefilter: How can I get a (humorous) anonymous call to ring a nearby phone at the office? There is a visiting employee in a cubicle adjacent to mine,; He spends hours at a time chatting it up (loudly) with the neighbors. I remember when "snakes on a plane" came out, Samuel L Jackson would call your phone if you entered it in to leave you a voicemail. That site isn't up now, what similar ones are?

This guy is frigging annoying! I need to break up his irrelevant monologues with hints that he needs to get back to work. I saw an older one for Dwight from "the office" which would be perfect, but I can't find the link now... Help!! (or feel free to give a better suggestion, besides actually approaching the guy and voicing my concerns).

I have the phone # to send it to, I just need to initiate the call so he can't pin me down on the caller ID.

Humorous Army Songs?

ubiquity — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:57:48 -0800

Help me find songs for a CD of humorous songs about the Army. My former stepdaughter has just joined the army reserves, and is heading off for six months of training at the end of the month. I wanted to send her off with a CD of humorous songs about the Army. Nothing too deep, nothing that might make her dwell on the possibility of being killed (like Country Joe's "be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box"). Here's what I have so far:

"Army", by Ben Folds

"It Makes a Fellow Proud to be a Soldier", by Tom Lehrer

"Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning", by Irving Berlin

"The Army Song", by Brecht & Weill

"Arthur McBride" (traditional song about the evils of recruiting officers)

I plan to close with "In the Navy".

Please include links to recordings or videos of the songs you suggest, or I probably won't be able to include them.

Can you help me make an impression (literally)?

jasbet07 — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:29:36 -0800

Can you help me make an impression and/or leave my mark (literally)? I'm putting together a series of gifts for my partner's birthday all playing on the (slightly corny and very intentionally "punny") theme that she's made a very lasting "impression" on me and/or that she continues to leave her "mark" on my heart.

So far I've ordered personalized M&Ms (she makes me melt in her hands) Sharpies (she will always have a permanent place in my heart), and am having a cake made with a picture of her (sweet face) on it.

Other things I've considered:
Hiking boots (she needs new ones)
a piece of engraved jewelry

I have become known for theme presents. I also know that despite the eye rolls and her indictment of my humor as "grandpa-like," she actually very much appreciates it (it's the stifled laughter that gives her away).

So...I'd love to hear your other ideas (since I regularly use this site to research such things and am always amazed at the amount of creativity around here) - big, small, funny, serious, corny...I'll take them all! Nothing is too outrageous.

ow ow ow

monkey!knife!fight! — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:31:11 -0800

My broken humorous is hilarious. Well, not really. Please help me understand what I can expect from my shiny new pins and plate in my arm. I pulled a superman off some stairs into a bar in Paris. I was already flying to Frankfurt the next day (later the same day by the time I was out of the second hospital) and on the advice of Paris doctor, decided to see some orthopedic specialists there instead of in Kiev, where I'm currently living. I was told that surgery was pretty much my only option, and went under the knife last Thursday. I got out of the hospital on Tuesday, and it seems to be getting a tiny bit better each day, but wow, does it still hurt.

The amazing this is that I'm typing this with both hands (with my laptop in my lap, I can't raise my arm up to put it on a table yet) and I'm not in a cast, or a sling, or anything. I put my hand in my jacket pocket when I'm out walking around, but the hardest part is sleeping. Other then that, compared to the horrible agony I was in pre-surgery, I'm feeling like a million bucks (which is only like 40 Euro with the weak dollar).

Here are a few questions I have, however, since this is my very first surgery, broken bone, stitches, etc. If anyone has had anything similar - about how long did it take to get mobility back? Did you need to get the pins/plate out? I'm doing physical therapy currently, and will continue next week when I get back to Kiev and as long as I need to, of course.

Stitches in general - they told me at the hospital to not get them wet and keep them covered for two weeks, but online it says to put antibiotic salve on them and you can get them wet - what's the best way to make my scarring as minimal as possible? I also has a "pain catheter" from my neck going into my arm, and as they were taking it out it snapped, so they had to go in through my neck to find it (good times). This means I also have a few stitches in my neck, and both those and the ones in my arm have hard bumps underneath them. Normal? They are they dissolvable type.

In case anyone wants to see the bones here's a photo (blog self link) of the before and after. Thanks in advance. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'm not going to hear "and I was never the same again" over and over.

Where to find BIG stuff. The opposite of miniature versions.

Wild_Eep — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:00:49 -0800

Is there an online store that carries nothing but humorously large versions (preferably functional) of everyday items? Like a 2-foot long paper clip, ceremonial ribbon-cutting scissors, these solo cups, a huge clothespin, a six-foot-long pencil, etc.

Funny Native Accents?

IndigoJones — Sun, 16 Oct 2005 11:23:32 -0800

Funny native accents? Most languages seem to have a place with an acknowledged pure or best spoken form - Florence for Italian, Hanover for German, Salamanca for Castilian, Egypt for Arabic (true?), Tours for French (Quebecers try to make the purity case for their nasal twang- which I actually kind of like- though I have seen Montrealers shut right up when confronted by a real Frenchman. Odd.). Other candidates for these and other languages interest me.

My real question, however, is - what regions or dialects do native speakers of (fill in language here) find intrinsically funny? Also, why funny? Rube or Snob? The French mock the Belgians as bumpkins. Americans mock rural southerners and New Yorkers for similar reasons, but also Locust Valley Lockjaw for the unspeakably upscale. (No moralizing, please- I get it, it's wrong to judge people by the words they use and how they use them. This is purely a non-scientific inquiry. Though links to scientific inquiry would be appreciated. Or perhaps foreign films that illustrate these differences. All languages welcome, of course.)

As usual, thanks in advance.