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GOD LOVES COMEDY

Well, it's about time!

The sky doesn't stay gray forever, even here in Maryland (despite considerable evidence to the contrary). Finally we all get to laugh at a few things! Now admittedly, some of this stuff is in the "laugh to keep from crying" category, but we have to make do with what we have. Take Microsoft, for example -- please! (Thank you Henny Youngman, wherever you are.) First, [drum roll] the Amazing Smoking Video!

[applause, whistles, stamping of feet]

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson must be the most tolerant human on the face of the earth, after Hillary Clinton. The poor judge was reduced to holding his head in his hands in utter despair of ever hearing a truthful statement from a Microsoft witness, and who can blame him? After days of hearing over and over that a certain videotape was God's own truth brought down from Mt. Redmond, it turns out to be a fake. They wanted to show that Windows 98 was a piece of junk without Internet Explorer, but a video of the real thing just wasn't good enough, so they patched together several different clips of who knows what and came up with a cassette-full of farce. Oh, it showed a slow-as-molasses Windows, all right, complete with voice-over: "It is taking a very long time, unusually long." (Actual script!) Well I'll be -- who'da thunk it?

"Hell, that's good enough for me!" said the judge, reaching for the phone to order up a van-full of ammonium nitrate as Microsoft lawyers dropped their pants and mooned the press. Prosecutors trampled spectators in a mad rush to make the exits before they were lynched or worse, and --

That didn't happen, of course. No, even though the government clearly showed that the tape was a cut-and-paste job, Judge Jackson gave the varmints another chance! Only this time, they had to promise to videotape an actual computer, running actual software, under actual conditions, with actual observers present. (Pretty harsh, huh?) Everybody flew back to Redmond Wednesday night for the Big Video Shoot, and the first thing they did was throw the lawyers, the government lawyers, out of the room! (So much for observers.) For two whole hours the Microsoft testers fiddled and diddled, then let the feds back into the room to watch everything but the de-browsering. They just couldn't make their PCs run as badly as they had hoped, improbable as that may seem. Their excuse for not being able to replicate the "problem"? Bad Internet connections! (chortle, gufffaw!)

Apparently all the bazillions in the world can't buy a decent 56K hookup, not even in Microsoft's own offices. (giggle, smirk!) Then again, maybe after paying for the brilliant lawyering, all they had left were tin cans and string! At any rate, on the flight back to D.C. someone must have thought of Richard Fish (Ally McBeal show) and came up with the line that the first tape was an "illustration." (chortle! guffaw! wheeze!) Remember that line the next time you're arrested for counterfeiting. . .

("Wait a minute, officer, you don't understand. See, I didn't mean that this was an actual $50 bill! It's just an illustration of what I think a real one would look like if I'd been able to make one. . .")

Outrageous overpaid bozo morons. I'd like somebody to tell me why we're not impeaching the other Bill! (Achtung, Henry Hyde! Lying is a crime? Hello??) I feel like General Dreedle in Catch-22 : "Take him out and shoot him!" I'm being sarcastic, of course. And if you've ever read Joseph Heller's wonderful book, you'll remember that Dreedle's "idiot son-in-law" takes the disappointed general aside and tells him he doesn't have the authority! (Thanks to reader Richard Regan for pointing me to the correct reference -- it turns out my dog-eared, thrice-read paperback copy is missing quite a few pages, anyway!)

Anyway, ya gotta laugh. What a world. How can people be such arrogant, brazen idiots? I guess this is just another one of God's gifts to humanity, something to lighten our load. While pondering this lunacy, I chanced upon another present in the Baltimore Sun that caused me to laugh out loud and spill coffee down my chin. It was so bizarrely comical, I immediately rushed upstairs to harangue my wife as she tried in vain to do her makeup in peace before rushing off to work. The headline read, "Crash Cafe Proposed for Harbor Location: Developer envisions disaster-theme dining as 1st in national chain."

I'm not kidding, folks: the developer, Patrick Turner, already has a company, Crash Concepts, Inc., and "wants to make the Key Highway Crash Cafe the first in a national chain of restaurants that would tap into the public's fascination with 'crashes, collisions, and other forms of destruction.'" Well, all I can say is, it might not work in Baltimore, where you can already see all that stuff for free. Nonetheless, Turner has already agreed to pay $600,000 for a liquor license and a defunct brewery that he plans to turn into an eatery, "highlighted by an airplane piercing the front wall." He's even buying an old DC-3 in Mexico and wants to whack off the plane's tail for decorating purposes. (Reason enough to take him out and "shoot him," in the eyes of this DC-3 admirer!) Responding to the obvious criticism that his venture is tasteless and stupid, Turner said: "We are not a theme restaurant attempting to glorify death and destruction. . .it's not gruesome or anything. It's no different than walking onto the set of a movie, pushing the rubble aside and creating a fine dining place." (Oh, well all right, then.) The Sun also reported that "the menu will not follow the crash theme and will include a wide array of gourmet fare." However, the article also reveals that "menus will be printed on sheets of aluminum designed to look like fragments of an airplane fuselage.". . (gasp, chuckle, gag!)

If people like Microsoft lawyers and goofball developers weren't put on the planet to provide comic relief, then I have no idea what the Supreme Being was up to. Anyway, in the case of the Crash Cafe, I'm really disappointed with the proposed "gourmet fare." They could have done so much, combining the food with the disaster theme. The mind reels at the multitude of hilarious possibilities and puns: you know, stuff like "Crash Victim Chili" and "Salted Bone Chips," etc. etc. And what about dressing up the waitresses with torn dresses and bandages? Somewhere in this world, a group of venture capitalists is preparing to plunk down $2 million to get this thing off the ground (if that's the right metaphor), so keep your eyes peeled (ouch!) for a "Crash Cafe" opening in your neighborhood soon!

Whew. . .had enough? Well, I haven't. Whilst perusing the Web site of a certain northern New Mexico newspaper, I came across another gem. And I have to warn you, the background on this story is truly horrible and not funny at all! (You may wish to stop reading right now. I'm not kidding!)

It involves the brutal murder of a 18-year-old local youth whose body was dumped from a bridge into the Rio Grande gorge last November. I'll spare you the details, but you should know that the place where the body was found is a truly beautiful spot, revered by locals and tourists alike, believed by many to be imbued with great spiritual significance, and that the local community was utterly outraged and shocked by the callous cruelty of the crime. Hundreds turned out for a special memorial service at the scene, and people are still very much upset. Meanwhile, down the road in Santa Fe, a certain clueless state legislator, one Rep. Art Hawkins, R-Albuquerque, has proposed spending state money for a feasibility study on bungee jumping off the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge!

Reaction from the community and local legislators has been, shall we say, less than positive: "idiotic," "asinine," "insensitive," and "absolutely foolish" are among the milder comments. Representative Hawkins, who says he got the idea while visiting South Africa last summer, appeared on a local radio talk show to respond to the massive public outrage: ""I still don't know why it's causing a reaction other than it's been misrepresented. I don't see how a study will hurt anybody."

(Well, Art, those Microsoft lawyers didn't think anyone, least of all the judge, would be offended by an "illustration." And ole Patrick thinks that fine dining and disasters go hand in hand. Personally, I think all of you should be made to go bungee jumping off the Washinton Monument with a rope of so-called elastic from my old Jockey briefs that have been washed oh, maybe 30 or 40 times!)

Time to break out the old clown mask and horn. I'm gonna put it on, honk like hell, and thank the Big Guy I'm alive to witness all this merriment. You'd better do the same, 'cause otherwise, there aren't enough hankies in this world to wipe up all the tears.

(Laugh, dammit!)

John H. Farr also edits the Apple Computer News for Applelinks.com and welcomes your comments. His own website, the ZOO ZONE, is an animated-GIF wonderland originally hand-coded on an LC II! (No kidding)

EXTRA-SPECIAL TREAT this week! Go to this Web site immediately! Visit LordCo® as often as possible, that's an order! Prepare to laugh your brains out or run screaming from the room! Be sure to check out the "E-nail" greeting cards and send one to an uptight friend! We love this site! Christ in a Can, Lord-o-matic Personal Computers, Turin Wipes Toilet Tissue and more! Why didn't we think of it first? This site is simply divine!!!

Picture credit: Anglo-Saxon God icon from LordCo®, where else?

May 16, 2012