Google Search Comes in Colors

So now Google Image Search lets you specify what color you want. A perfect way to search for blue donuts, pink squirrels, or orange pants.

If James Dean Had Lived...

What would have happened if James Dean didn't die in a fiery car crash in 1955?
Until now, no one knew. Now, experts from the psychic world and the entertainment industry have been brought together to provide some real answers.
If Dean hadn't been tragically killed in 1955, he would have spent the next several years making three more movies, say experts. Then he would have died in a motorcycle accident in 1959. If he hadn't died in the motorcycle accident in '59, he would have lived until 1961, at which point he would have succumbed to a tragic drug overdose.
But what if the overdose wasn't fatal? Experts say Dean would have lived for several more years before experiencing another fatal car accident in 1965. Then in '67, he would have disappeared and been presumed dead. In '68 he would have died from another drug OD, and in '71 he would have fallen to his death in a Hawaiian cliff-diving accident. In '75, Dean emerges from his 1967 disappearance. He is okay. But then he dies again in late '78, killed by a deranged fan.
In 1982, during a comeback, he again is murdered -- this time anonymously in an attempted mugging near Denver. Other than that, thanks to a reclusive lifestyle through most of the Eighties, Dean would be alive today and living in Wyoming.

People You May Know (March 6, 2009)

Caitlin Batman Shaw
Michael Dung Nguyen
Jackie Earle Haley
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
Vijay Mallya
Adolfo Doring
William "Bud" Cowsill
Alexis Stenfors
Archimandrit Efrem
Shannon Jenest
Latreasa Goodman
Cash Warren

High School Nicknames Throughout History

The classic, one more time:

Jesus
“J.C.,” “Jeez”

Sampson
“Sam-bone”

William the Conqueror
“Conks,” “Conky”

Nero
“Neroid”

Henry VIII
“8-ball,” “8-dog,” “Hank”

Claude Monet
“C-Money”

Pope Pius III
“Pie-eye,” “Threepeat”

Oedipus
"Fast Oeddy," "Octopussy"

Marco Polo
"Marky Mark," "Water"

Confucius
"Connie," "Luscious," "Con-fuc-u-ous"

Ferdinand Magellan
"F-Mag," “Ja-Mellon”

Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Dusty,” “Skeezer”

Franz Kafka
“Vitamin K”

Nikola Tesla
“Testes”

Emperor Hirohito
“Hitman”

Mohandas Gandhi
“Mogus”

Queen Elizabeth I
"La Liz," "Her Heinie"

Charlemagne
"Chip," "Charlie McCarthy"

Euclid
"Ukee," 'Urkel"

Karl Marx
"The Mailman"

Louis Pasteur
“Germbo,” “Milkman,” “Big Lou”

Julius Caesar
"Jujubee," "Salad,"

Johannes Gutenberg
"Typo," "Jojo," "Steve"

Martin Luther
"The King," "El Protesto"

Chiang Kai-Sheck
“Kaiser,” “Shecky”

Alexander the Great
"A-Rod”

People You May Know (February 11)

Bob Skelding
Amanda Gessner
Emma Sophina
R. Dodd Haynes
Ruth E. Hogg
Vavra Suk
Chad Joy
Morgan Tsvangirai
Stewart Parnell
Ilya Dall
Reggie "Concrete" LaCrete
Tyler Winklevoss
Graham Gooch

People You May Know (February 6)

Schapelle Corby
Shai Agassi
Shane Hurlbut
Dewey Martin
John Schnatter
Boaz Weinstein
Felix Gen
Nadya Suleman
Christian Susana
Osamu Tezuka
Rodson Tong

If this list didn't bother you much, you'll love People You May Know: The Mega Directory.

Where Are They Now? With real-time updates!

A fancy new online service called Google Latitude lets you track your friends on a map in real time. Reminds me of something I did more than 8 years ago with the help of a site called Modern Humorist: a celebrity "Where are They Now?" tracker. Here it is. Though, uhh, this introduction sorta spoils the joke a little.


Johnny Bench
A member of the Cincinnati Reds from 1967 to 1983, Hall-of-Famer Johnny Bench was arguably the greatest catcher in baseball history.
Where Is He Now?



Janine Turner
As Maggie on “Northern Exposure,” Janine Turner was one of the hottest television stars of the early ’90s.
Where Is She Now?



Michael Dukakis
This four-term governor of Massachusetts was the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988.
Where Is He Now?




Ray Walston
As the lovable spaceman on “My Favorite Martian,” Ray Walston was a ’60s TV favorite.
Where Is He Now?

People You May Know (January 29)

Bennie Wint
Vince Offer
Rajendrasinh Babubha Makwana
John Bulloch
Esther Wenck
Cecil Suwal
Tiffany Cherry
Reina Villatoro
Richard Lobb
Knowshon Moreno
Helio Gracie

Flashbacks

When I was around 14, my dad showed me a book he had read when he was around 14. It was a 1948 compilation of zany stories by Max Shulman, a novelist and TV writer best known (and now forgotten) for creating the Dobie Gillis TV character. I actually never read the book. But together my dad and I read the introduction, which was hilarious at the time. The intro was titled "How to be a Writer, or Oblivion Made Simple." My favorite part was a section on how to use flashbacks in narrative. In my opinion it belongs on every writer's shelf next to Strunk & White. I'd like to illegally share it:

"A story can be told in one of two ways: chronologically from the beginning, or in flashback. Flashback, in turn, lends itself to several variations:

Simple flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated.

Double flashback -- Two characters each remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated.

Triple flashback -- Three characters each remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated.

(There are also quadruple, quintuple, sextuple, etc., flashbacks. The beginning writer is advised not to go beyond sextuple.)

Telescoping flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. A character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated.

Double telescoping flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. A character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. A character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated.

Telescoping double flashback -- This is not to be confused with double telescoping flashback. In double telescoping flashback, you will recall, one character remembers an incident in his past in which one other character appears who remembers an incident in which one other character appears. But in telescoping double flashback, two characters who appear during the narration of these incidents remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated.

Double telescoping double flashback -- Two characters each remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated. Two characters who appear during the narration of these incidents remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated. Two characters who appear during the narration of these incidents remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated.

(As you can see, any number of attractive variations suggest themselves. For example, telescoping triple flashback, double telescoping triple flashback, triple telescoping double flashback, etc.)

False flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. Then it is discovered that the incident never happened to this character at all.

False telescoping flashback -- This is like telescoping flashback except both incidents never really happened.

False telescoping true flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. This incident really happened. A character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. This incident never happened.

True telescoping false flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. This incident never happened. However, a character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past which really did happen. This incident is narrated.

(Again the combinations are endless. Indeed there are types of false flashbacks for which the nomenclature has not yet been determined. An example is a flashback in which three characters remember incidents in their pasts, the first false, the others true. In the narration of these incidents three other characters remember incidents in their pasts. But -- and mark this well -- the character in the false incident remembers a true incident, and the characters in the true incidents remember false incidents. To call this flashback either a false double telescoping true triple flashback or a true double telescoping false triple flashback would be misleading.)"

-- Max Shulman, 1948

Rock the Jokes: As of Today, Your Vote Counts

Hello. Thank you. For the past seven years or so, Blue Donut has been home to a page called the 100 Funniest Jokes of All Time (applause). The list was compiled originally for a late-1999 "comedy" issue of GQ magazine. Everyone in the media was making contrived end-of-the-millennium lists at that time, and I thought it would be funny (and also funny) to list the "funniest jokes ever" and rank them in order, as if it were as precise a science as listing the top 100 novels of the century. I talked to some comedians and piled up old joke books and put together a list, which the magazine chopped down to 75 jokes for space and added some stupid ones. After that, I put the original, non-editor's-cut version online, and for lack of anything better to do it has become the world's #1 Google result on searches for "funniest joke" and #3 for "funniest jokes."

The list has always been static, and stuck in the past, just like the cultural references on a newspaper comics page. Now that all changes. Thanks to finding a guy who knows how to write online dabatase code, the joke list is undergoing the biggest change in its history. Now you can vote on each joke, giving each a rating from one-half-a-star to five stars. Jokes will be re-ranked continually based on their average world ranking. The hegemony of the French Toast Joke is over! I will be able to add jokes to the list (we'll still call it the "100"). And, coming next: I will accept jokes from site visitors and add many of them, too (after reviewing each submission -- you know how much I dislike the mean and the tasteless). I encourage you to take this opportunity to make your voice heard. The ballot awaits here.