As a smokin’ hot woman, I found this book hilariously funny and I’d seriously consider making out with any guy I saw reading it.
- Diana Wales

I HAVE to buy this book! My kidnappers had a copy but my dad foolishly paid the ransom an hour too soon.
- Richard Factor

Even though this book killed my father, broke my brother’s legs, sold my mother into a life of prostitution, burnt our home to ashes, and left me an orphan on the street, jitter-bugging for pennies, I can not stay mad at it…it is just too funny.
- Kevin Allen

A delightful read…it has everything; humor, words, dangling participles, and did I detect a hint of nutmeg?
- Chris Bachman

I was reading this to my mother when she died. She refused to enter the light until I had finished.
- Geoff Bonvallet

I don’t want to say that this is the best book ever written, but as I slid it into my bookshelf a chorus of angels began to sing and my other novels were engulfed in holy flame. I guess that’s a little ambiguous, though.
- Ryan

Before I found this, I was a pathetic, depressed, underappreciated, overworked, sexually impotent, joyless shell of a man. Now, I’m all those things with a funny book.
- Kevin

Well, think again. Mouse avoider is a flash game designed to pit your manual dexterity against a sly little man hell bent on stealing your cursor. Don’t be fooled; he’s faster than he looks. He’ll jump around, bounce off the walls and ceiling, fire missiles and bombs at you… anything to get rid of your mouse cursor. All you can do is avoid his attempts for as long as possible.

The game’s much more clever than it appears at first. It seems like, the longer you have it open, the more new moves the little man uses against you. He’ll throw bigger missiles, immolate himself, teleport, or create a seemingly inescapable chain of explosions. All of this is in contrast to his earlier moves, so stay on your toes… err, fingers. Also, don’t get spooked enough to move your cursor off the flash screen, or else your points will drop back to zero.

That’s just my strategy for Monopoly, though, and it’s far from perfect. If you’re looking for something a little more comprehensive, Tim Darling has an interesting strategy based on property-specific ROI. There’s some great analysis to back up his conclusions, although his final exception rule (i.e., buy properties to prevent opponents from controlling monopolies) seems like it would reduce his rules to “buy everything.” Nevertheless, I plan to try out his suggestions whenever I can convince my friends and family to play me again (don’t hold your breath…).

If you’re interested in giving this strategy a shot, though, don’t count on being able to play Monopoly online. The old Monopoly sites like Games.com, Hasbro.com, and Atari.com don’t fit the bill anymore, and a few that do make you download and/or pay. The only free, online, multi-player Monopoly site I’ve been able to find that doesn’t look like total spam is this Australian site, and I can’t vouch for its authenticity. If anyone knows where you can still play Monopoly online for free, let me know and I’ll link to it.

Anyone else notice something funny here. If you didn’t catch it, check out direction #42. It reads, “Swim across the Atlantic Ocean – 9,207 km.” Naturally, because of the Panama Canal, I should have assumed Google Maps wouldn’t be able to find a driving route. Still, I didn’t think Google’s solution would be for Daniel to swim more than 9,000 kilometers across the Atlantic Ocean!

Best Six Word Stories

Computer, did we bring batteries? Computer?
- Eileen Gunn

Automobile warranty expires. So does engine.
- Stan Lee

Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time
- Alan Moore

It’s behind you! Hurry before it
- Rockne S. O’Bannon

Epitaph: He shouldn’t have fed it.
- Brian Herbert

Bush told the truth. Hell froze.
- William Gibson

God to Earth: “Cry more, noobs!”
- Marc Laidlaw

Dinosaurs return. Want their oil back.
- David Brin

Deadline postponed. Five words enough…?
- David Brin

I saw, darling, but do lie.
- Orson Scott Card

Mozilla devastates Redmond, Google’s nuke implicated.
- Charles Stross

I win lottery. Sun goes nova.
- Steven Meretzky

Steve ignores editor’s word limit and
- Steven Meretzky

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled “93211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post…Hominid skull.” We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago. Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety that one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be “Malibu Barbie.” It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:

1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.
    
2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-homonids.
    
3. The dentition pattern evident on the skull is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.

This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:

1. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.
    
2. Clams don’t have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon-dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating’s notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results.

Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name Australopithecus spiff-arino.

Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn’t really sound like it might be Latin.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a Hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly.

You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your Newport back yard. We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation’s capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Of course, there are plenty of other examples, like “Human Remains at Amazon.com” or “Buy Cheap Babies on eBay.” Just plug “cheap” or “used” anything into Google and see what you get. It’s definitely good for a laugh.

At any rate, I asked Adam where he picked up the expression and he pointed me to this “End of the World” Flash video. Basically, it’s a parody on nuclear MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). I won’t go into too much detail, since I couldn’t really do it justice just by talking about it, but the narrator’s voices are hilarious.