The Best 10 Words You Will Read All Day

From People magazine, January 1997. The best part is highlighted, though the whole paragraph is pretty tremendous.

Clerk Robert Waller was working the late shift at the Wal-Mart in Fredericton, N. B., when Elmo-mania hit him. Literally. It was after midnight on Dec. 14, and a crowd of about 300 had gathered to get their hands on the store’s latest shipment of Tickle Me Elmo, that vibrating, giggling, must-have toy of the holiday season. Waller, 27, was holding an Elmo when the crowd spotted him—and stampeded. “I was pulled under, trampled—the crotch was yanked out of my brand-new jeans,” says Waller, who suffered a pulled hamstring, injuries to his back, jaw and knee, a broken rib and a concussion. “I was kicked with a white Adidas before I became unconscious.”

Just think about that. It’s not bad enough you’re being run over by dozens of people. It’s not bad enough that they give you a concussion, a broken rib, and a pulled hamsting. It’s not bad enough that they “yanked” the crotch out of your jeans and left you lying there, unconscious and crotchless. But what really seemed to bother Robert was that these jeans were BRAND NEW. That’s just going over the line. I mean, if you’re going to give a guy concussion over a stuffed animal, that’s one thing, but don’t rip the crotch out of some jeans that he just bought. Now you’re just being inconsiderate.

Five Cool Things We Learned This Week

 

  • Barbie dolls were based on an “adult” gag gift in Germany known as a Bild Lilli doll. “Early fashions are noted for their particular seductive design. Originally this doll had been produced as an advertisement gag for adults.” In 1956, an American woman named Ruth Handler, whose husband was one half of the Mattel ownership team, went to Germany on vacation. She came across the Bild Lilli doll, purchased three, and gave one to her daughter, whose name was Barbie. Her daughter loved the toy, and Mattel decided to take a chance on the first adult doll for kids. Needless to say, it paid off handsomely.

3 Philly Funnymen You Should Be Following on Twitter, Part 3

On Monday we brought you part one, on Tuesday we brought you part two, and today we bring you part three of our funniest Philly folks to follow on twitter. First, I must give credit where credit is due. I got the idea from Larry Mendte, who I steal all my great ideas from. Some of his suggestions for funniest were spot on with mine (Chip Chantry, Blake Wexler, Mary Radzinski, Paul Triggiani) and some were a bit off the mark (No names, but some of the ones on his list were pretty bad). But Larry also included some people with like 40,000 followers, where my goal is m0re  to show off people that not a lot of people follow, but should be following. So here are our next 3.

Blake Wexler. He’s young, he’s dumb, and he’s full of fun. And I was just kidding about the dumb part. He’s pretty smart. He goes to some fancy pants college up north. I won’t bother to look up which one, but I think it’s one for smart people. And he’s funny. Here’s a small sample.

Going to see Harry Porter tonight, where I plan on making a HUGE deal about bringing my own 3D glasses.

My ex treated her body like a temple. And by that, I mean every Friday night she’d fill it with Jews.

At a bar. Just walked up to a married women, sensually removed her wedding ring, and swallowed it. #nowwhat

Doogie Horner. A brilliantly quirky local comedian and master of the flowchart, though he is best known by suburbanites for appearing on America’s Got Talent. As great as he was on AGT, he’s even funnier when non-idiot audiences let him actually tell his jokes. Go see him live. He is also damn funny on twitter.

A lot of people ask me how I write my jokes. Let me tell you: I write them at the piano in an empty house, tears streaming down my face.

If someone is about to beat you up, but stops and says, “You’re not worth it,” what they mean is, “only valuable people deserve beatings.”

How many brazen, up-and-coming pan flute novices have challenged Zamfir for his title?

Christian Alsis. One half of the laugh-out-loud Feeko Brothers, perhaps my favorite sketch duo in Philly. If you ever get a chance to see these guys, DO IT. Seriously, they never disappoint.

Amish people are just hippies without the shitty jam band music.

Buying a bran muffin is like paying $1.75 to poop at work.

The way that nomadic tribes move from place to place is unsettling.

I’ll be back tomorrow with 3 more funny folks.

3 Philly Funny Folks You Absolutely, Positively Should Be Following on Twitter, Part 2

Yesterday I gave you the twitter accounts of three of the funniest guys in Philly. Today I’ll give you three more. Well, two more guys, technically, and one girl. Here goes.

Luke Cunningham. I dunno where this guy is these days. New York, Philly, LA. He seems to be all over the place looking for comedy work. A guy working hard to make it happen. He’s from Philly, he performs here regularly, and he’s damn funny. A member of the hilarious Bird Text crew, best known for their Real Househusbands of Philadelphia skit. Here’s a few funny things he’s posted in the past few days.

Casey Anthony is the Michael Vick of babies. Only way I’d ever root for her again is if she was electrifying in the open field.

Busch Gardens Europe is so realistic. My girlfriend spent a semester there and came back a pretentious lesbian.

I’m hilarious as long as we spend less than an hour together and don’t see each other again for at least 3 years.

Mary Radzinski. This Philadelphia funnywoman is as clever on twitter as she is doing standup. She hosts a comedy open mic at Urban Saloon every Monday at 8 p.m.

My grandfather talking about a transgendered woman at his church, “she’s got a hell of a handshake”. #notsurehegetsit

Someone was ripe at the nail salon. And not with anticipation.

There are people who say, “if you can think it, you can do it”. I wish those people would think about piping down.

Mike Rainey. If you like warped, twisted senses of humor, this is the dude for you. He’s the kind of guy that you find yourself laughing at hysterically while simultaneously feeling a slight twinge of guilt for laughing. Here’s a sample:

A surprise party for Nelson Mandela in theory would have been a great idea. But blindfolding him and leading him to an unknown location..bad taste.

I hope Kenny G is the loudmouthed, drunken racist I imagine him to be.

You should be able to exchange a negative pregnancy test for a 4 pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

3 more funny folks coming tomorrow! If you want to follow me on twitter, click here. And also be sure to follow our Philly Sports History twitter account as well. Also, I’ll be doing standup on Friday, July 29th at the Shubin Theater. Details forthcoming.

JGTSI Scores Are Up; New Physical Challenge Posted

Here are the scores after 6 weeks. Things are getting interesting. The top of the leaderboard is littered with teams who are taking this physical challenge stuff seriously. After that, we’ve got our usual suspects (Steak Em Up, the Jams, and Duane’s World). I think our Top 10 teams are all but settled. That leaves a lot of teams vying for our final 5 spots. You wanna get a leg up on earning one of those spots? There’s a new physical challenge on facebook. Extremely simple, and should be pretty funny to see photos of you guys as kids.

Now, before you decide whether to do a physical challenge and get your team out to quizzo the next few weeks in the hopes of earning a spot, keep this in mind: you are not only vying for fabulous cash and prizes, you are vying to be a part of history. The Top 15 teams not only get an invite to the JGTSI, they will be representing Philadelphia against Denver, Albuquerque, and Austin in a City vs. Smackdown at 7 p.m. on Sunday, August 7th at the National Mechanics. We’ll have live music, drink and food specials, and a lot of fun. And the city whose top 10 teams have the best average scores? They get to name the Cup that will be presented to the winning city at either Geek Bowl if it’s one of their cities or at Quizzo Bowl if it’s Philly. I really want Dicker, the head of Geeks Who Drink, to have to walk on stage and present me with that trophy.

There is some hope if you don’t finish in the Top 15 and want to be a part of this historic event. You can earn a wild card spot by winning first place at a quiz on the last week or performing a series of extremely difficult physical challenges. But you can make things a heck of a lot easier on yourself by getting your ass in gear the next two weeks. Between finishing Top 3 at the quizzes and getting physical challnge points, there is no reason any team can’t shoot to the top 15 in the next two weeks.

But there’s no time to waste. Your best shot to earn points? Right now it’s playing at City Tap House, Ugly American, and the Bards. They’re the easiest bars to score a win in right now. And furthermore, I’ll have physical challenge points to give out at actual quizzos this week. So be there! Hope to see ya this week!

3 Philly Funnymen You Absolutely, Positively Should Be Following on Twitter

It seems like the people whose tweets I enjoy the most also have the fewest people enjoying their tweets. It goes to show what a s**tshow twitter is. Whereas 8.3 million people are apparently fascinated by Kim Kardashian (latest tweet: “I learned so much about couture today!”), most of the funniest, most talented standups in Philly only have a couple hundred followers, if that. Well putting them on this site ain’t exactly gonna make them famous, but that’s not the point. The point is that if you are a fan of my quizzes and my sense of humor, then I think you’ll get a kick out of picking up what these guys are putting down. So each day this week I’ll post 3 new people who write my favorite accounts. And if you’ve got any recommendations for people I should be following, please post on facebook or in the comments. Oh, and if you wanna follow me on twitter, just click here. For day 1, I’ve got 3 of the funniest guys on twitter.

John Kensil. Completely off-key and hilarious. He once told me, “Never go for the first joke that comes to mind. Always go with the second one.” Thus his strange and zany twitter account, where his jokes never tend to end where you think they will. Here’s a sample:

I broke my nose watching womens soccer. The phone rang and my pants were around my ankles.

It’s so hot this morning I just saw a kid making tar angels in the street. Oh wait a minute. Breakdancing? No scratch that. It’s a seizure.

The Octomom had a flash mob in her uterus.

Jim Grammond. Edgy, hilarious, and clever. A former member of MAGMA from back in the day turned very funny comedian.

A lot of people forget that desegregation halved business for a lot of hardworking, honest water fountain makers.

These Tropical Starburst make me feel I’m relaxing in an island paradise that’s littered with Starburst wrappers and contains my work desk.

Going to Wildwood for the day because I want to dodge roving packs of trashy kids on wooden planks rather than sidewalks.

Chip Chantry. Just as hilarious online as he is in person. But don’t tell him I said that. I don’t want him to know that I think he’s funny.

Fireworks are like pornography: Professional ones are prettier, but amateur ones are way more fun.

Justin Timberlake & partners just purchased MySpace for $35 million. In a related story, Joey Fatone bought a futon off of craigslist.

Tone Loc pleads not guilty to domestic violence charge, stating “That’s what happens when bodies start slappin'”.

I’ll be back tomorrow with 3 more Philly funnymen.