Monday Brain Teasers

Welcome back, class. Let's start with an essay question. Was there anything short of WWII that Germany could have said to communicate their dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Versailles and desire for a more liberal peace as exemplified by the Marshall Plan? Try to show how violence is never the answer. Now a word problem: Where x is the value, measured in headline position and column inches, of 11.8 million human lives threatened by famine, while y is that same value for the story of a dead pop singer, prove by induction that y>x. Be prepared to show your work.

A fictitious narrative which terminates in an atrocious pun.

He stood in the doorway with a paper plate in his hand. Covered in aluminum foil, it contained a double portion of the complicated quinoa salad he had complimented so effusively at dinner. Now the leftovers were his to take home, if he could ever get out the door. But the two women were still saying goodbye. He looked at his host and smiled. And his host smiled back. They smiled at one another. There was absolutely no eye rolling. Shifting his stance, he tapped, deferential, upon her shoulder. “Let us go now,” he said. “Without further adieu.”

I must blog about this immediately.

Remember Tamagotchis, the little electronic pets that first came out about 15 years ago? Kids would carry them around as they simulated an organic life cycle, demanding to be fed and cleaned and otherwise attended to at preprogrammed intervals. All virtual, of course; what you actually do is push certain buttons whenever the machine tells you. A silly toy- it teaches you nothing, prepares you for nothing. Still, a generation of kids walked around bent over these little beeping boxes, absolutely absorbed by this utterly meaningless activity. Those kids are now in their 20s, and have outgrown such childish pastimes.

Here's what makes us unique.

I'm looking at an outdated promotional calendar that carries upon it the mission statement/motto of the company that gave it away: “Our commitment to sophisticated technology is an investment in customer satisfaction.” Isn't that delightful? It's the sort of thing that's a perfect example of the sort of thing it is. I can envision them agreeing after hours of earnest debate and revision that, yeah, this really gets it. And one guy says, “But what about our tradition of innovation?” Then after a few moments of consideration, somebody says thoughtfully, “I think the tradition of innovation is pretty strongly implied.”

Mad, am I? The fools!

I think probably Homer didn't write the Odyssey. As a blind wandering bard he would've had little access to even the primitive word-processing software of the time, let alone today's far superior GUIs that allow seamless WYSIWYG user interaction through keyboard, mouse and screen. Also, there is no evidence that he attended any sort of school where he could have studied ancient Greek, a notoriously difficult language. My candidate for the actual author of Homer's works: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, our 35th President, who not only attended Harvard but then there's his wife's second husband, an actual ancient Greek. Mere coincidence?

Up against the wall.

You know when you're at a social event and somebody you barely know thinks you look lonely so they walk over and say something like why so glum, chum? and you go heh-heh and they start talking and before you know it you're nodding your head up and down so fast you might actually beat your own brains out against the inside of your skull which doesn't seem so bad compared to what's happening on the outside of it which is your new friend is getting ready to open his wallet and show you baby pictures? Facebook is like that.

Cordial and Substantive.

When you said, "I respect your opinion," you meant, "I hold you and everything about you in utter contempt." To which I responded by saying, “We're really not that far apart on this,” which means, “I'm pretty sure we're not the same species. Can you prove you're even a mammal?” You replied, “We just have to take the time to listen to one another,” which is to say, “I hope you get lung cancer in your eyes.” But I meant every word when I said, “I heard you wrong.” I heard you. You were wrong.