Uncle John's Presents Book of the Dumb 2

by John Michael Scalzi

  •At the sound of the whistle, load your mouth with sunflower seeds. Get the kernels on the inside and save them somewhere in your mouth. After five minutes the person with the most unbroken kernels and no shells in their mouth is the winner.

  •Find an out-of-order sign that is out of order. No infinite regressions.

  •Welcome Sam Ertal of the Pennington High School to the U. of C. class of 2008 with a singing telegram. Face to face. (Poor Sam!)

  •“Hand-sync” Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” in sign language, five people max, live performances (accompanying the not-live song) only.

  •Build a working Erector-set model of the reproductive system.

  •Locate a urinal coffee cake. (Use your imagination.)

  •Do a handstand while wearing a helmet affixed to (as many as possible) those cups that make a sound of a bleating sheep when inverted.

  •Cynics of the world unite—sculpt a hammer and sickle entirely out of press-on nails.

  •Get your mitts on a pop-up book featuring a knife-fight, heroin overdose, bombing, and cannibalism, you know, for the kids.

  •Slice a banana before peeling it. Don’t destroy the peel or banana.

  •Create a meal that breaks the rules of as many religions as possible. Provide textual evidence of the rules, and the judges mean primary sources.

  •Eat one Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut in ten seconds. You have one try. You have no milk. (No mention of coffee though. Hmmmmm.)

  •Bring a tire. On it, fit as many team members as you can. In diapers.

  Source: http://scavhunt.uchicago.edu

  Stupidity Is Alive and Well and Wearing Greek Letters

  Through the years, America has always turned to its fraternities as the frontline laboratories for incomprehensibly stupid acts. Be it swallowing goldfish, jamming pledges into telephone booths, or setting new records in the highly competitive field of undergraduate emergency stomach evacuations due to alcohol poisoning, everyone breathes a little easier knowing that the boys in the frats are hard at work.

  But then came the last couple decades, and universities cracked down on undergraduate stupidity. In these uncertain times, could fraternities be relied upon to maintain the noble tradition of rampaging stupidity that is their very birthright?

  The answer comes from the University of Missouri–Columbia chapter of Kappa Alpha. Among the various accouterments of the KA house was a cannon, which according to legend dated back to Civil War times. The cannon hadn’t seen much action recently—the Civil War is long over, even in Missouri—and some of the brothers apparently thought this was a real shame. The boys didn’t happen to have any cannon shot or black powder handy (there’s never a cannonball around when you need one), but they did happen to have fireworks. Lots of fireworks. Because what’s a fraternity without colorful explosives? The boys from Kappa Alpha stuffed that Civil War-era cannon full of fireworks and let her rip.

  So what happened? Well, for starters, the cannon’s not there any more. Well, parts of it are. But other parts of the cannon were flung across the street and into an apartment complex, blowing out windows, tearing holes into floors and ceilings, and destroying various objects. Chunks of metal were also embedded into the brick of the apartment complex. Fortunately no chunks of metal were embedded into human beings, either at the fraternity house or the apartment complex, but that probably has more to do with luck than anything else.

  The national organization of Kappa Alpha, which was shocked, shocked to discover stupidity going on at one of its chapters, immediately suspended the Missouri–Columbia house and noted on its Web site that the chapter’s president and vice president were facing charges. Kappa Alpha also noted it would be conducting its own investigation. We understand double-secret probation will not be on the plea bargaining table.

  Source: Associated Press, Kappaalphaorder.org

  If Nothing Else, He Has a Degree in Chutzpah

  Remember the golden age of Internet plagiarism, when you could just go online and cut-and-paste willy-nilly for whatever paper you were writing at the moment? Yeah, well, it’s been over for, like, a couple of years now. Most seem to have caught on to either that a) it’s morally wrong or b) college professors can use Google.com just as well as anyone, so this bit of news should come as no surprise. But there are always stragglers.

  Like “Ben,” a student at the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK. The day before Ben was going to get his degree in English, he was informed that in fact, his diploma would be withheld, on account of Ben’s plagiarism. Apparently the University of Kent is under the opinion that if you don’t actually write your papers, you shouldn’t get credit for them. How wacky!

  Ben’s response was to sue. He didn’t deny he rampantly plagiarized—indeed, the results would have been grim if he had—but he claimed he was never told plagiarism was, you know, bad. “I can see there is evidence I have gone against the rules,” Ben said. “If they had pulled me up with my first essay at the beginning and warned me of the problems and consequences, it would be fair enough. But all my essays were handed back with good marks and no one spotted it.” In other words, Ben shouldn’t be penalized because he managed to get away with breaking the rules for so long.

  University officials noted that there were places where the university clearly spelled out that plagiarism was a naughty thing to do—for example, in the university handbook, issued to all students, as well as the English department’s handbook, provided to all students who majored in that subject. In other words, to borrow a phrase from the geek world, this is another case of “RTFM,” short for “Read the Freakin’ Manual.” One ought to be able to expect at least that much out of an English major.

  Source: BBC

  How to Become the Most Hated Man in College Park

  It’s not often that a college student will actually want to go out of his or her way to become the most unpopular person on campus. But if it’s the weekend and you don’t have anything better to do, you can follow the path of “Brad” of the University of Maryland, College Park, campus.

  As a bit of background, the university had a computer program called Direct Connect, which allowed people all over the Maryland computer network to share files (and by “share files,” you can understand this to mean “massive egregious copyright violations as every student on the network swaps music and movies with everyone else”). The University of Maryland has sternly warned the students on the network that if copyright holders chose to sue them, that the students were on their own.

  Well, as a prank, Brad—by all indications a devotee of the file sharing system himself—sent out a note to some friends saying that he’d tipped off the suits at the RIAA (the music industry watchdog group who is famously suing downloaders left and right) of all the copyright violations on Direct Connect. The e-mail, it turns out, was a prank. Ha! Ha! Ha! Brad, in fact, never alerted the RIAA at all. However, the Maryland student who ran Direct Connect on the Maryland network was not aware that the e-mail was all good, clean, geeky fun. And so, he shut down Direct Connect, depriving 25,000 undergraduates and 10,000 grad students of their infinite jukebox and cineplex.

  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Brad instantly became the most hated man in College Park once news of the failed joke got out. All over campus, fliers went up that said “Can’t Get on Direct Connect? Say Thanks to Brad.” They included his picture, his e-mail address, IM sign-on, physical address, and phone number. He received tons of threats and hate mail; Brad even filed an assault complaint after he was pushed around a bit. Let’s just say until the whole thing got cleared up, Brad probably spent a lot of time under his bed and not answering the banging at his door. We also don’t expect he’ll be going back for reunions.

  Brad’s lesson—on the whole, people love pranks, especially when they involve a cow. But mess with their “free” music and movies? They’ll hunt you down and kill you. Really, a lesson for us all.

  Source: Baltimore Sun, Diam
ondbackOnline.com

  A Double-Entendre that Has Absolutely Nothing to Do With Sex

  Did you know that in England, a “flashlight” is known as a “torch”? We’re not exactly sure why that is—after all, there was a perfect good meaning for the word “torch” already, namely, “that stick with fire on the end.” But you know the British. Just because they invent a language they think they know how to use it. Anyway, remember this little fact about flashlights.

  Now, come with us to England, where “Brian,” a student at Bath Spa University College (speaking of odd language structure—Bath Spa University College? Does everyone there major in redundancy?) had lost his shoe. He knew it was somewhere in his room—probably under his bed—but he couldn’t see it anywhere. He peered under his bed, but it was dark under there. He needed some extra light. “I didn’t have a torch but I had a lighter and I used that,” Brian later told the local newspaper.

  Now, let’s review what we have so far: a cigarette lighter, which while indeed illuminating, is also an open flame. This open flame was then thrust under a bed, made up of a flammable mattress (and possibly an equally flammable box-spring), into a space filled with dust bunnies, shoes, and other kindling-like objects. Not an ideal spot for an open flame at all.

  Put all of that together, and suddenly he had a hot time under the bed, and not the good kind of hot time. No, we’re talking actual fire. Brian and his roommates tried to douse the flames, but the smoke got to them and they vacated the premises. Brian ended up burning his room to a crisp and otherwise causing structural damage to the house he and his roommates rented.

  So, if we were in jolly old England, we could say, in amusingly arch fashion, if only Brian had had a torch, he wouldn’t have torched his house.

  Source: The Chronicle (Bath, UK)

  The Really Stupid Quiz

  Big Dummy on Campus

  One story is true—two are false. Pick the right one, and you’ll have received your BA in BS detection. Miss it, and you’ll have to go back for yet another year of lazy college days, intermittent classes, and all the partying you can stand. Yeah, we know. Not much incentive to get it right, is it?

  1.Two Emory University undergraduates were sent to the emergency room after playing a new drinking game for several hours. Described in the university’s student newspaper, the Emory Wheel, the game, called “The Online Dating Clichés Chug-a-Lug,” is played similarly to the television drinking games in which alcohol is consumed whenever a TV character says one of his or her stock phrases. In the online dating game version, students log into an online dating service, cruise through the profiles, and drink whenever common clichés arise (i.e., “Looking for new adventures” instead of “newly-divorced”) and when dubious titles appear in the Favorite Books and Favorite Movies categories. Sartre and Godard are immediate signals to chug, according to the article.

  2.An administrator of the University of Canberra, Australia, got his knickers in a bunch when a quartet of men he thought were burglarizing his home turned out to be students. The students had broken into the home of university vice chancellor and president Roger Dean and were ruffling through his wardrobe when police arrived to make the arrest. The students were participating in a school-wide scavenger hunt being run as an adjunct to a fund-raiser for school charities; objects on the scavenger list included “the pyjama bottoms of at least one university administrator.” “If they’d have asked, I would have cheerfully handed them over,” Dean said. “But having them mysteriously appear in my home was somewhat distressing.” Canberra police initially arrested the four on attempted burglary charges but released them after Dean declined to press charges.

  3.The two art students from the Czech Republic wanted to make sure their creative efforts would be noticed—it was the end of the term and so they needed their work to go off with a real bang. And so the two cobbled together two objects made out of old electronic components, slapped stickers on them which said “EXPLOSIVE,” and then dropped them off in the city center of Brno, one of the Czech Republic’s largest cities. Well, the effort was noticed; the city center shut down for hours while bomb disposal experts fiddled with artworks. The police came after the students and charged them with conspiring to cause a public disturbance. Who turned them in? Their professor. Guess they shouldn’t be counting on that “A” after all.

  Turn to page 329 for answers.

  Dim Bulbs in Bright Lights

  Dumb and Dumber (1994)

  Welcome to Dim Bulbs in Bright Lights, a celebration of some of the best dumb characters in film. You don’t have to be dumb to enjoy dumb characters—in fact, it helps if you’re not.

  Our Dumb Guys: Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels)

  Our Story: Two big-hearted but essentially brainless guys hit the road in their shaggy dog-shaped van to drive cross-country and return a misplaced suitcase full of money to its rightful owner, Mary, a woman (Lauren Holly) in trouble with a couple of thugs and with whom Lloyd falls in love. Hilarity ensues.

  Dumb or Stoned? Clean livers both, Lloyd and Harry are just plain dumb. The closest these two come to taking drugs occurs when Lloyd takes revenge on Harry, who he believes stole his girl, by slipping him a mugful of laxative.

  High Point of Low Comedy: On their road trip across the country, Harry and Lloyd use a container to relieve themselves in the car. Unfortunately, a state trooper pulls the two over and mistakes this open container for beer and not pee. That’s a taste test he won’t ever forget.

  And Now, In Their Own Words: Lloyd has just traded in their nice big van for a teeny moped, and Harry says: “Just when I thought you couldn’t get any dumber, you go and do something like this . . . and totally redeem yourself!”

  They’re Dumb, But Is the Film Good? Not really. But it is an acknowledged classic of the “Effluvia and Stupidity” comedy genre, so if you’re a big fan of poo jokes, it’s a must see.

  CHAPTER 2

  Blame It on the Fame

  Look at it this way: everybody does dumb things. We do. You do. Even hugely famous stars do. But most of the time, when regular people do something a little dippy, the paparazzi isn’t waiting in the bushes to try to snap pictures of the event and sell them to the highest bidder. (Sometimes obscurity is a good thing.) But just because celebrities are easy targets, they still don’t get a pass. Clearly, any sympathy for the rich and famous only goes so far.

  Not Exactly a “Smooth Criminal”

  We can believe that formerly beloved and now mostly inexplicable celebrity Michael Jackson has an aversion to being identified—honestly now, given his personal history over the last several years, if you were him, would you want to be identified? Jackson’s problem is that his attempts to be “low-profile” end up being pretty obvious. If a skinny man of indeterminate skin tone comes toward you wearing both a surgical mask and a jacket with sequins and epaulets, who else is it going to be? And when he’s not being obvious, he’s simply scaring the townsfolk.

  Case in point: February 2004, Michael Jackson is in Colorado with his children when he decides that what he really needs to do is visit the Wal-Mart located in West Glenwood Springs—apparently Jackson, like many Americans, is all about value. But of course Jackson is concerned about being mobbed by the fans, so he decides to enter the store incognito. “Incognito” in this case meaning “while wearing a ski mask.”

  Well, as most people know, wearing a ski mask into a commercial establishment that’s not directly adjacent to a ski slope is the universal symbol for “Hello! I’ll be your robber for today.” So the good news is that the Wal-Mart employees and customers did not realize that Michael Jackson was in their midst. The bad news is that they thought they were being robbed. And the last thing Michael Jackson needs at this point is to be confused with a criminal, smooth or otherwise.

  The employees called the police, who arrived after Jackson had left the store, but who then questioned Jackson a short time later in his vehicle, which had been described to
the cops by the Wal-Mart employees. Interestingly, this wasn’t the first time that week that Jackson had frightened the water out of a retail worker; Jackson pulled the same “ski mask” trick at a camera shop in Aspen, causing an employee to note, “When he first came in, I thought we were being robbed.” The employees at the Aspen Sharper Image store didn’t think they were being robbed, but as one noted: “I had no idea it was him, but I did think it was a bit strange for someone to be wearing that outfit.”

  Source: TheDenverChannel.com

  Rub & Roll

  Here’s what you do when you spend a boatload of money to acquire a guitar signed by one of your all-time guitar heroes. When you get it, first you take pictures of yourself with the guitar, in a rock god pose, fake pinwheeling your arms like Pete Townsend or hammering the frets à la Eddie Van Halen. And then, once you’ve had your fun, you mount it on your wall like a prize marlin and you never touch it again. To do otherwise is to tempt fate.

  This much British guitar fan Tim Walker found out when he paid £1000 (about $1,600) for a guitar signed by Brian May, the guitarist from Queen (whose unique guitar sound comes in part from the use of a six-pence coin as a pick). Walker snapped up the guitar from a charity auction, and when it arrived, he was so thrilled with it that he couldn’t resist rocking out with his new toy. When he was done, he discovered to his horror that his enthusiastic rockination had caused his sleeve to wipe off most of Brian May’s signature. Now it just read “Bri,” which was just enough of a signature for Tim to say to his friends “Look, that’s Brian May’s signature!” and for his friends to say “Yeah, sure it is, Tim,” and roll their eyes.