Ask Me About My Shirt

My collection of t-shirts—I got more of those than I probably need—has taught me a couple of things. Since explaining the same thing over and over is a total drag, consider this a public service.

  • Haikus are easy. Not many people agree. Ignoramuses.
    Also, very few people seem to know just what a haiku is. So I have to explain to them that a haiku is a short poem, consisting of just seventeen syllables, spread over three lines of five, seven and five syllables, respectively. And that it originated in Japan. Which should be basic knowledge, really.
  • Considering a venn diagram of {A} people who understand venn diagrams and {B} people I know, the intersection A∩B (i.e., people I know who understand venn diagrams) is very small.
    This incredibly complex situation is, of course, best explained with a venn diagram.

    people who understand venn diagrams
    people I know
    people I know who understand venn diagrams

    Capisce? No? Well, since I’m not going to explain it again, here’s a video:

    Now, do you see why this shirt is so so freaking hi-la-rious?

  • Most people know jack about alternate, scientific creation theories.
    Most people know that the theory of evolution by natural selection is a very poor explanation for the beginning of the universe and the earth and life and all that. And there’s a good reasons why it isn’t: the theory of evolution doesn’t say anything about how everything came to be. It only explains how the different species we know now developed from a common ancestor. But what only a few people seem to know, is that the scientific theory of divine creation in six days isn’t all that either. So, because it’s a good thing to ‘teach the controversy‘, I strongly suggest that schools will be required to teach the theory that the disc of the earth sits on giant elephants which in turn ride an even gianter turtle through the vastness of space.
  • What part of ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn don’t you understand?, or, why isn’t H.P. Lovecraft more widely read?
    O, how I envy those lucky people who don’t know Cthulhu from Dagon, and think that Voldemort is, like, totally badass. If you don’t know who great Cthulhu is, you should (paradoxally) thank the Elder Ones on your knees, and hope that they will never truly understand the horrors that will occur when the stars are finally right, sunken R’lyeh rises from deep, and the dread dead dreaming one awakes to devour the soul of the world. Oops.
    Seriously though, I understand that Lovecraft isn’t for everyone. His prose is a bit long-winded at times, there isn’t a adjective he hasn’t used, and, of course, not everybody is into gothic horror and arcane lore and all that stuff. Which is a shame, really, because explaining over and over again that my endorsement of Cthulhu/Dagon for the upcoming presidential election in the US—why choose a lesser evil?—has nothing to do with the supposed end of the world as predicted by those Mayans is no fun. Unless they knew that the stars would be right. In which case we’re totally screwed.