(no subject)

[prog]

No longer automatically funny: zombies, and zombie accessories ("braains" et al)

[Flying graphic resembling "DONE" if stamped with a "DONE" stamp swoops in and lands with a THUDD diagonally over frame, fades.]

Feel free to remind me of this the next time I make a zombie joke.

I think I have been tired by all the stock "geek humor" characters for a while actually. (Free feel to remind me of this etc.)

Somewhat relatedly, let me use this space to announce that I'm purposefully going to avoid taking another programming job, even if I have to take a job sometime in the future. I actually have been consciously thinking for a while now that I've lost any will to hack on things I don't really care about. Or rather, to care about things solely because I'm paid to hack on them. (Feel free etc.)

Comments

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

I love the "DONE" stamp on Monster House. When they did the Paris house, they only finished one project, but it got stamped with a giant "C'EST FINI" stamp with the usual echoing voice-over. I had to pause the TiVo because I was laughing so hard.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

No, no, no, zombies are always funny. They're like weasels.

Anyway, using zombies to make fun of a stupid eskimo myth: funny.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Not how it was presented. A zombie would never talk like that. And it doesn't make sense, anyway. Why would an Eskimo zombie have more of a sense of nuances in brains than a more temperate-dwelling one, eh?

Better idea would have involved, I dunno, maybe a depiction of the zombie at a language symposium being shown brains in different contexts and grunting some different words appropriately, to the rapt attention of the audience.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Doesn't make sense? Maybe you've never heard the "Eskimos have 30 (or 50, or whatever) words for 'snow'" myth. Which linguists hear endlessly. Repeating it a lot doesn't make it true.

So an Eskimo zombie would have more nuances about brains simply because the Eskimos are so incredibly nuanced in their language doncha know. They're funny that way.

Speaking from the linguist's point of view, I don't think it needs to be more subtle, or zombie-accurate, or the like. It's enough, for me, that it's poking fun at the Eskimo-word-for-snow lie.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Yes yes yes [waves dismissively]. I think a complicating factor may be that I too read the Language Log, which has been posting comics about the Eskimo thing all week. So I was already feeling done with them when this one came along, less subtle than any of the ones already posted.

I'll buy your argument in the second graf. It still would have been much funnier if respun in such a way so that the zombie wasn't simply telling you how many words he had. Zombies don't talk in complete sentences. Not even language-genius Eskimo zombies. Everyone knows that! Come on.