Archive for August, 2007

No Butt Cams For Me — No Ifs, Ands, Or Buts

Friday, August 24th, 2007

If you’re ever in Scottsdale, Arizona and feel the need to buy jeans, prepare yourself for a scary rear view:

Worried that new pair of high-fashion jeans may just make your butt look fat? Now shoppers in one upscale Scottsdale store [The Hub] can check it out for themselves before someone else makes the observation – using the Butt Cam, a camera positioned just so that’s connected to a video screen on a dressing room wall.

And if that doesn’t sound bad enough:

The setup also allows Hub employees to display views of their more confident shoppers on flat-screen TVs behind the cash registers for all to see.

This brings me to my latest limerick:

No Butt Cams For Me — No Ifs, Ands, Or Buts
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The Butt Cam sure sounds rather crass,
But it gives you a view of your ass
While you’re trying on jeans.
And you know what that means?
It should tell almost all: “Take a pass!” 

(You can find more of my fashion and shopping humor here.)

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Posted in Business Humor, Fashion Humor, Limericks, Marketing Humor, Physical Appearance, Polls, Shopping Humor | 3 Comments »

Bulletproof Backpacks: In Case Your Kid’s Classmate Is Packing

Monday, August 20th, 2007

It’s mid-August, which means back-to-school day is just around the corner.  And that in turn means it’s time to start shopping for school supplies: rulers and notebooks and pens and lunch boxes and calculators and computers and school clothes and … bulletproof backpacks???

“We’re just trying to give kids a defensive tool to use in case something does happen,” Curran said of the backpacks, which sell for $175 US. …

Since they started selling online last week, they’ve sold out of their initial stock of several hundred backpacks and are now ordering a new shipment from Massachusetts.

Methinks this calls for a limerick:

Bulletproof Backpacks: In Case Your Kid’s Classmate Is Packing
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Selling bulletproof backpacks?  How sad!
Could the safety of schools be so bad,
That parents must buy
Such an item? Oh my!
Are they needed, or just a mad fad?

(You can find more of my school and education humor here.)

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Posted in Children Humor, Education & School Humor, Family & Relatives Humor, Guns & Safety Humor, Limericks, Mothers & Fathers Humor, Polls, Shopping Humor | 6 Comments »

Hoax Ticket Sales For Brooke Astor’s Funeral … and How I came To Be Quoted In A Gannett Article About The Hoax

Friday, August 17th, 2007

Yesterday I wrote this post in my other blog: Selling Tickets To Brooke Astor’s Funeral: Scam Or Satire. My post includes a haiku, a limerick and a one-liner about Brooke Astor and the uproar over a Craigslist ad purporting to sell two tickets to Astor’s funeral for $500.  My post also tells the saga of how I came to be quoted in this Gannett Journal News article, Ticket sales for Astor funeral branded a hoax.

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Posted in Celebrity Humor, Entertaining New Yorkers | 2 Comments »

Magical Women Bloggers

Friday, August 17th, 2007

Thanks so much to Anja Merret for naming me to this “magical list” of admired women bloggers.  I’m very honored to join such a laudable group.

As I understand it, any women blogger named to the list is encouraged to add to the list and promote it.  And so I’m delighted to add these three outstanding (not to mention magical) bloggers:

Melissa McEwan at Shakesville

Avedon Carol at the Sideshow

Digby of the Hullabaloo

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Posted in Female Bloggers | 7 Comments »

This Doesn’t Pass The Smell Test

Tuesday, August 7th, 2007

According to this odd story, a smoking ban in British pubs has managed to make British bars smell even worse.  Apparently, the acrid smell of smoke is a delight compared to all the foul odors smoke used to mask: “stale food and beer, damp, sweat and body odour, drains and – how do you put this nicely – flatulence.”

So what’s the solution?  You might think cleaning supplies would be in order. But you would be wrong.  Instead, they’re pumping perfume into 2000 pubs — the essence of  “leather, freshly cut grass, and ocean breeze fragrances.”

This cries out for a limerick, don’t you think?

This Doesn’t Pass The Smell Test (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The stench of Brit pubs once was hidden
By smoke, but now smoking’s forbidden,
And since folks can’t abide
The foul odor, they hide
It with pumped-in-perfume.  I’m not kiddin’.

(You can find more of my food and drink limericks and humor here.)

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Posted in Food & Drink Humor, Limericks, Smell Humor, Smoking Humor | 6 Comments »

The Five-Second What???

Wednesday, August 1st, 2007

I guess I must have led a very sheltered existence.  Why do I say that? Because I’d never heard the phrase “five-second rule” until my husband Mark used it as an excuse to eat some treat he’d just dropped on the floor.  (And yes, we’re still married.)

I naively assumed that Mark was the only person crazy enough to think germs politely wait five seconds before they attach themselves to goodies. But apparently lots of people (mostly men, I’m assuming) believe that if you drop food on the floor and pick it up really, really fast, it’s safe to eat. 

In fact, the belief’s so widespread that some scientists (who apparently didn’t have anything better to do with their time) actually studied the issue. And yes, they concluded that the rule isn’t valid. (Did you really need me — or the scientists — to tell you that?)

This leads to my latest limerick, in which I use the word date instead of husband to protect the guilty … and because husband has too many damned syllables:  

The Five-Second What???
By Madeleine Begun Kane

My date dropped dessert on the dirt.
“Please don’t eat it,” I managed to blurt,
As he started to chew
On his now blackened goo,
Saying “5-second rule — it won’t hurt.”

=========

(You can find more of my marriage humor here and more of my food humor here.)

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Posted in Behavior & Personality, Dating Humor, Family & Relatives Humor, Food & Drink Humor, Health & Medical Humor, Limericks, Marriage Humor, Polls, Relationship Humor, Science Humor, Social Satire, Time Humor | 1 Comment »