Here's a collection of fonts about jokes and graphic design found around the internet. (thanks to Tom Saaristo for emailing me this first joke)

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Four fonts walk into a bar.
The barman says, "Get out! We don't want your type in here."

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How many designers does it take to change a light bulb?
Couldn't say--ask an account executive.

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How many web designers does it take to change a lightbulb?

Three. One to change the structure, one to update the style, and one to blog about the inadequate bulb support offered by today’s socket manufacturers.

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What font did the astrologist use to write the daily horoscopes?
Futura

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1st Designer: “Wow, you always have so many fonts, where do you get them from?”

2nd Designer: “Oh they come from Monaco, Geneva, Chicago, New York… I get them delivered at various Times throughout the day…”

1st Designer: “By who?”

2nd Designer: “A Courier!”

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What did Helvetica say to Arial?
You're such a copy cat.

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What did the horse say to Bordeaux?
Why the long type face?

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One font meets the other in Rome. He asks: "Hey, are you a roman too?" "No," says the other, "but i'm an Italic!"

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A font walks up to Gill Sans and asks: "do you want to go out with me?". But Gill Sans says "no". "Why don't you want to go out with me?" the other font asks. Gill Sans: "Because you're Grotesque!"

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If you have anymore puns about fonts or jokes about graphic design, please leave them in the comments.

If you take the letters of "Sammy Sosa" you get "Sassy Ammo"
Rather fitting.

Here's part of my auto-reply email message for work today:

I'm out of the office Tuesday, November 28. Did you know that the Gateway Arch in St. Louis was completed on this day in 1965? It's true! AND the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Cleveland. WHAT A GREAT DAY OF PUBLIC NATIONAL MONUMENTS. So, I'm off today dedicating my own national monument. Once it is dedicated today, I'll post it up on my website at http://www.spudart.org

I'm currently working on the national monument. I'll post it here when it's done.

Oh crap. It's one day later now and I never came up with an idea for a new silly small national monument. Any ideas out there?

1) after working out
Your body desires carbohydrates after a workout to repair the muscles and make them stronger. Otherwise, the muscles end up eating themselves to repair themselves. Apples have a good amount of carbohydrates. It tastes soooo good to have an apple after a workout, because it's what your body is desiring the carbohydrates of that apple.

2) apple picking
You can pick many different types of apples off trees and take a bite. Usually when you eat an apple, you eat just one. But at an apple orchard you can try out different types of apples and compare the taste. It's fun. Plus, they are so fresh. Try eating an apple while it's still haning on the tree! You can't get anymore fresh than that! And it's fun, kinda like bobbing for apples.

I'm a big fan of the Dice Collection on: http://membres.lycos.fr/arjan, so I made this chart as a sort of table of contents to the different types of dice shown on that site. Who knew there are so many different types of dice with so many sides! It would be fun to try out board games with these different dices, uh, dies, uh... dice.

	D2 Dice cylinder
	D3 Dice Rounded-off triangular prism
	D4 Dice pyramidal (also called tetrahedron or tetraeder) This die does not roll well and thus it is usually thrown into the air instead.
	D6 Dice cube, cubical, also called hexahedron or hexaeder
	D7 Dice Pentagonal prism
	D8 Dice octahedron Each face is triangular
	D10 Dice di-pyramidal shape (also called decahedron or decaeder or pentagonal trapezohedron) Each face is kite-shaped;
	D12 Dice rhombic dodecahedron or dodecaeder Each face is a regular pentagon.
	D14 Dice heptagonal dipyramid or cuboctahedron. Each face is in the shape of an isosceles triangle.
	D16 Dice octagonal dipyramid Each face is in the shape of an isosceles triangle.
	D20 Dice icosohedron or icosaeder
	D30 Dice triacontahedron or triacontaeder Each face is in the shape of a rhombus (diamond-shaped).
	D32 Dice icosidodecahedron
	D34 Dice
	D50 Dice
	D100 Dice Zocchihedron

"huh" and "uh" are often confused. Let's take a look at these two words from dictionary.com:

huh
used as an exclamation of surprise, bewilderment, disbelief, contempt, or interrogation.

uh
used to indicate hesitation, doubt, or a pause.

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It's too bad that they totally bashed up the definition of huh. It should totally be broken out into different numbers. Here's my stab:

huh
1) used as exclamation of interest. i.e. "huh, that is really interesting!"
2) used as exclamation of interrogation. i.e. "what were you doing on the night of the sixth...huh!?"

uh
1) used to indicate hesitation or pause. i.e. "uh, i can't make this decision right now."
2) used as expressoin of disbelief. i.e. "uh, are you sure about this?"

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Now "huh" and "uh" shouldn't be confused with uh-huh, uh-oh, unh-unh, um, um-hum, ur, ur-uh, umph. Click the comments below to view their definitions.

Only eight players have hit 20 or more triples in one season since 1945:
23 Dale Mitchell 1949
22 Snuffy Stirnweiss 1945
21 Lance Johnson 1996
21 Willie Wilson 1985
20 Cristian Guzman 2000
20 George Brett 1979
20 Willie Mays 1957
20 Stan Musial 1946

(photo under creative commons license from dgphilli)

Here's all the stats the Cubs had leaders in for the 2006 season:

SLG %: 9th-Ramirez .561
Total Bases: 8th-Ramirez 333
Homeruns: 9th-Ramirez 38
RBI: 6th-Ramirez 119
Extra Base Hits: 6th-Ramirez 80

Games: 1st-Pierre 162
At Bats: 1st-Pierre 699
Hits: 1st-Pierre 204
Triples: 2nd-Pierre 13
SB: 2nd-Pierre 58
Singles: 1st-Pierre 156
At Bats per Strikeout: 1st-Pierre 18.4
Outs: 1st-Pierre 532

Sac. Hits: 6th-Cedeno 15

Era: 5th-Zambrano 3.41
Wins: 6th-Zambrano 16
Won-Loss %: 3rd-Zambrano .696
Hits Allowed/9IP: 2nd-Zambrano 6.81
Strikeouts/9IP: 3rd-Zambrano 8.83
Strikeouts: 4th-Zambrano 210
Bases On Balls Allow.: 1st-Zambrano 115
Wild Pitches: 6th-Zambrano 9, 7th-Guzman 8

Games: 4th-Howry 84: 10th-Ohman 78

Saves: 9th-Dempster 24
Games Finished: 1st-Dempster 64

So Pierre is a stud. He played every game. He lead the league in hits and stolen bases. He has the best strikeout ratio, yet is second in triples. Incredible.

Ramirez had more power than I thought. Zambrano, of course, finished high in many stat, but I was suprised to see him #1 in walks allowed. It's also shocking that Dempster finished the most games. And Howry was fourth in most games for a pitcher? Whadda year.

If I really pay attention to something and think about the noise, I will notice everything has these blue and red dots on it. Does anyone else see this sort of thing? As far as I can remember from when I was a child I saw this.

(photos under creative commons from (left to right) azote, bigman606, ktb, rdott_s, robbyt, and valerierenee )

The media is all over the people who camp out for days for a PS3. "Crazy!" they say. But think of it this way. Camping. People like to camp, right? They sleep outside in the woods just for the heck of it. Now take these PS3 folks. Not only are they camping, but they a "reward" after three days. They get to buy a PS3. Yeah, yeah, some of you might pessimistically say, "what kind of reward is that?" But compare it to people who camp outdoors like normal. At the end of their trip they just pack up and go home. But with the campers for the PS3, this camping with a mission.

Plus, these urban campers get to hang out with other people who are like them. Comradery. That's fun. Aaaand urban campers get to tell their goofy story about how they camped out for days to buy a video game system.

Hooray for urban campers. It's nice to see your passion. It's great to see you go after it. Besides, anything that gets gamers out of their house for extended periods of time is very good for them.

Set aside the regular six-sided dice and try these replacements for dice.


Coin
Instead of playing monopoly with a regular set of dice, what if instead you played with just one coin? It would totally change the dynamic of the game. Heads would be one, tails is two. Each player could only move one or two spots at a time. It sounds like it would really slow up the game, but instead, it would speed up the game. Almost every property would be bought in the first round of the game. How would people build? Would someone end up bankrupt after just two rounds on the board?


50-sided die
Try a die with 50 sides. A Monopoly board has 40 squares, so using a D50 die would enable you to go around the entire board with just one roll! To make counting the number of squares easier, you could mark a number on each square on the board. The numbers would go up sequentially. So if you are on Baltic Avenue (#3) and you roll a 31 on the die. That means you go to property #34--Pennsylvania Avenue!

Deck of squares
Now if the math from the 50-sided die is too much for you, then why not just make a deck of cards where each card represents a square. So every turn a player draw a card from the deck to see where that player will end up. It's completely random--but not quite. Because once a card has been drawn from the deck, you know it won't be used again until all the cards are used. Therefore the properties would be bought so much faster.

It would be more fun if there were two copies of every square in the deck. That way when you buy something, there's still a chance that someone might land on your property on the very next turn. Plus, it adds an element of memory and strategy to the game where you have to keep track of what cards have been drawn already.

The past two days, I covered why the SOFA show in Chicago sucks, and why urban craft fairs rule. Now here's a list of upcoming urban craft shows in Chicago.

DIY Trunk Show
Sat, November 18, 10am-4pm
Pulaski Park fieldhouse
1419 W. Blackhawk
www.diytrunkshow.com
vendors: a lot (see the photo on their site)

DEPART-ment
Fri, December 1, 7pm-11pm
Sat, December 2, 11am-5pm
Sun, December 3, 11am-5pm
2000 West Fulton, #310
Chicago, IL
www.depart-ment.com
October 2006: 100 vendors.

Renegade Craft Fair
Sat, December 9
Sun, December 10
Pulaski Park fieldhouse
1419 W. Blackhawk, Chicago, IL
www.renegadecraft.com
September 2003: 70 vendors
September 2005: 150 vendors

Those are the three main DIY shows in Chicago. Click the comments to view more shows.

(the owl is from renegadecraft.com

Yesterday I covered why the huge S.O.F.A. show in Chicago is no longer an inspirational show. SOFA is a nice show, but when you compare it to the urban craft shows of Chicago, SOFA looks like a dry stale piece of toast. No. It's not even toast. Toast would at least be intersting. SOFA is a block of glass on the sidewalk when you compare it to dynamic coolness of Chicago's urban craft shows. (Yes, SOFA literally had a block of glass on top of concrete at the show--which might have been one of the coolest things there).

Why urban craft shows are cool:
(and i'm not talking about grandma craft shows, these are the urban shows with artists in their 20s and 30s)

1) Wide range of medium
Silk-screen prints, paintings, jewelry, crocheted items, felt stuffed animals/bags/purses, canvas bags, tshirts, knitted cozies, and much much more.

2) Great range of subject matter
You won't find the SOFA bland abstract art here. There's so many cool subject matters that the artists use in their work, it blows your mind.

3) Affordable
You can actually buy stuff at these shows. Things typically cost around $5 to $40.

4) It's for anyone
Now while the people you usually see these shows are the cool-beatnik-artist-type-people in their 20s and 30s, the show is fun enough that anybody of any age range would enjoy it. I've even seen dogs enjoy the show!

5) Friendly people
The sellers are very friendly and open to talking to you.

6) Cameras allowed
Now, even though you can bring your camera in, I think I would still feel awkward taking pictures of other people's stuff. So actually this is a mute point.

7) No ticket price
Just walk right in.

8) Artists right there
The people selling the artwork are almost always the people who make the art. They have a personal interest in talking to you share ideas. SOFA sometimes has the artists there, but you don't always know if it's the artist or not.

Tomorrow I will list the upcoming urban craft shows in Chicago.

Background on SOFA:
Chicago's Navy Pier has a huge art show every year with 100 worldwide galleries showing off their sculptural art called S.O.F.A (Sculpture Objects Fine Art). In the past ten years that I've attended the show, it was a source of inspiration, but now the show just seems so dull. Am I just getting older and more picky? Have the shows changed through the years? Here's an analysis:

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Why the SOFA stinks now:

1) Glass, glass, glass.
The show is being overtaken by glass. It's shiny. It's transparent. Most of the time it's usually crappy. Yes, there are some fun optical illusions you can achieve with glass. But at the SOFA show, they rarely couple that with an interesting subject matter. You see the same abstract glass over and over again. I'm sure there's some innovative stuff done in the glass field. But you ain't gonna find it at SOFA.

2) Abstract art leaves you empty
There is more and more abstract art in the SOFA show. Yeah, some of it is ok. But I can only see so many blobs and blank fields in one day. Give me something to think about.

3) Expensive
The show always has been expensive. I never went there to shop, but I did go there for inspiration. But it's unfortunate that there's been a lack of inspiration there.

4) It's for old people
Old people like expensive abstract glass.

5) Wood bowls
Oh in addition to the abstract glass, there's plenty of wooden bowls that sell for over $15,000. Right. I'm gonna have my entire cupboard at home filled with $15,000 wooden bowls to eat my cheese and macaroni.

6) Stodgy gallery owners
If you are in your 20s, good luck trying to get the gallery owners to talk to you. Yes, occassionally they may take the time to explain something to you, but they are there to sell their $15,000 works of art.

7) No cameras or bags
SOFA does not allow any cameras into the show. When you visit their website, there is a popup that says in big capital letters. " PHOTOGRAPHY IS NOT ALLOWED AT THE SHOW!" Ok. ok. whoa baby. They even used an exclamation point. They also do not allow "big purses or bags." Ok, so check it at the coat check? That's $2.50 per item. ugh.

8) $15 ticket
You now have to plunk down $15 to enter the show. The line to buy a ticket was about 40 people long (yes, i counted the number of people in line). You'd think for $15 to enter the show, they could add a couple more ticket booths to shorten the line. But I guess they want to protray the idea that the show is elusive and in demand by having long lines. And just to show that they don't care about the younger audience, they eliminated the student ticket price.

9) Urban craft shows are much better
The past few years there have been fantastic urban craft shows. Artists in their 20s and 30s selling their rawking DIY art projects. When you go to these shows you are just overwhelmed by the great work there. It totally makes you want to go home and make art, unlike the stale SOFA show.

Tomorrow I will tackle why urban craft shows are cool.

My name is Matt. People often call me Mark or Mike. Ocassionally Max.

Other names that get mixed-up:
--Terry, Tracy
--Erik, Aaron
--Tom, Todd
--Otis, Curtis

What are some other name mixups?

I was about to leave Bloomington, Illinois, but I lost my keys. Luckily I had the $190 Loc8tor to find them.
I drive home 130 miles to Chicago and use just one gallon of gas in my fancy "Witty Wheels" prototype achieving a top speed of 80 miles per hour. On my way, I see a robot riding a bicycle all my himself!

It's raining when I arrive home, but I have my $95 drip patrol umbrella that sheds water. I get inside my apartment and toss an apple into the $200 food sanitizer. My $250 doting dinosaur pet robot walks up to me and I pet his head. The talking head appears on my $19,995 talking mirror and says in a snooty English accent, "by jove, your cat misses you." Sure enough the $3,950 hypoallergenic cat purrs in the corner. I go to get a cup of water, but the faucet isn't working. So I head out to the garage where I have my $300,000 Rainmaker that is able to pull water out of thin air. I gulp that down and plop into my $1.5 milion dollar floating bed.

Professional voiceover artist, Larry Simon gave a talk on voice technique for the Chicago Area Podcasters Network at the Apple Store on November 7, 2006. Here's some of my notes that I jotted down:

Imagine your voice as an instrument.

Pick a persona that fits your voice and stick with it.

Stand centered. Imagine your self grounded. Solid grounded on the ground. Feel the ground.

Pre-recording practices:
--Act like someone else so you get you get out of yourself and it expands your range.
--Nasal Check: Put your finger on one side of your nose and talk. If you feel vibration, then you are talking too nasaly. Focus on breathing to cure this problem.
--No peanut butter. No milk. Those are snot-producers. Snot bad.
--Apples are great to solve dry mouth, so is tea and warm water.
--Quickly count from one to ten, start with "one" being very loud and go down quietly to ten. Then repeat quickly this sequence quickly three times.

Keep straight posture. You want to breath out of your diaphram, and that's like in your stomach. If your shoulders are slouched, you won't be able to breath as well, and you'll end up talking out of your throat or nose.

Interviewing:
--Don't talk too much (it's much harder to edit out hours of talk)
--Let them talk, you want them to talk much more than you.
--Lead them to an answer not only with your questions, but your body language. It's helpful to overemphasize things like tipping your head forward to imply a response.

He talked about much more at the event, and his tips really come alive MUCH more than the type on this page. He's such a great animated guy overflowing with wonderful advice. I would really recommend him for any of your voiceover and narration needs.

Looking for fun items to add to your wish list? You should check out my Amazon wish list, cuz it's the coolest in the land. It's got over 230 fun items ranging from:

• Ninja equipment, such as Ninja Utility Belt
• Cool Transformers, such as Optimus Primal
• Christian books, such as Luther on Vocation
• Hot Wheels Toys, such as Hot Wheels Roll-Up Raceway Track Set
• Illustration books, such as Cartoon Cool: How to Draw New Retro-Style Characters
• Fun Games, such as Monopoly Game 70th Anniversary Edition
• Interesting books, such as 14,000 Things to Be Happy About

To find some of the most greatest items for yourself on Amazon.com, check out my Amazon wish list!

Yesterday we looked at the five greatest words to connote great. But what about the greatest? Let's take yesterdays words and put them into their superlative form:



It's fascinating to see that "most fun" takes off in August 2005. Crazy. This has to be one of the most fun charts I've ever seen.

By the way, "greatest" is totally the best word and off the charts.

Using Google trends here's the five best words to describe something as cool:
great, fun, cool, hip, interesting



honorable mentions:
funky, incredible, awesome, excellent

Oh, I should mention that, "best" is bar none the highest. But it's sooo off the chart here, that I didn't mention it.

Every self-respecting ninja will find this challenge mat very challenging!
Karate Chop Challenge

• Flashing karate mat (38" x 31-1/2") includes cool sound effects and a sensei's voice to guide you to ultimate power!
• After each workout, the sensei will rate your incredible skills on the control board (12-1/2" x 11").
• Features 4 karate patterns and 3 skill levels to give you ultimate POWER.
• For ninjas aged four and up; requires 3 "C" batteries. And "C" stands for "Cool."

Want more dance pads? Click on the comments to see two more dance pads to push your ninja powers beyond your imagination!

The nine essential items every ninja needs from amazon.com:

A must have for any ninja, or ninja in training! And very comfortable. I have a pair of tabi socks already, but I like them so much that a second pair would please my ninja toes.	The pockets on this belt have velcro, self-defeating the stealthness you need as a ninja, but just imagine storing paper clips and pencils then wearing this to work. Then in a meeting you go all ninja on everyone throwing paper-clip-ninja -stars!	This is an essential piece of equipment for croquet. I don't know how I have managed to play croquet without a ninja hand claw.
C'mon won't this be cool to have just hanging around your home? Plus, it serves an actual purpose--in emergency to jump out your window in case of fire. Rated to over 800 pounds and comes with 33 ft. of tough braided nylon rope	Every ninja needs clothes. Otherwise ninjas would be running around naked. Get some clothes, you naked ninjas! Read the long review on this item, it is HILARIOUS.	With these boots, Bob from finance will never bother you again. Eat ninja boot, finance scumbags!
A ninja book that was originally written in Japanese and translated to English. This is the real thing, folks. Learn way of ninja. Become ninja. Master fantasy baseball.	I own this book and let me tell you, it's the most hilarious book on ninjas EVER. If you like ninjas, you are an idiot if you do not own this book. If you are a ninja and you don't own this book, then you are one idiot ninja.	The highest featured ninja DVD on amazon. You can't go wrong with this 1983 classic. *cue 80s music*

My girlfriend and I decided to be LEGO blocks for halloween. Here's what I found online for LEGO costumes. Almost all of them are based on wearing a box. We both know from the past that is way too cumbersome. But it's interesting to see what works with the peg treatment, and what doesn't work.


Here's an example of what cups to NOT use. The pegs look totally dumb here.


An interesting treatment for the back. However, we want our backs to be functional to be able to connect our lego blocks together.


Even lego.com has a lego costume suggestion! Here they have you using a 24"x24" board. Interesting, but not quite what we want.


Notice the dude on the right, he has a cool treatment for the lego hands. It looks like a margarine tube cut in half. Then attach a stick to one end of each of the halves. Then just put your hands inside your sleeves and hold onto the lego hands.


This looks like the only one that didn't use cups for the pegs. Not sure if it really looks any better. Maybe even worse.


It's essential to make the paint job equal all over. Otherwise, you end up with different color pegs from the block. Then again, we might be just stapling or sewing our pegs onto a colored shirt for maximum flexibility.

For 12 more pics, click the comments below.