Marc Benton dot Com

Do deer poo in the woods?

If you’re reading this post based on the title you might have thought it was a witty reference to some social media practice a’ la Chris Brogan.  I’m sorry to say its not.  You see potty humor is never beneath me, I’m still age 13 in some ways.

This weekend I was walking the trails on Roosevelt Island and noticed a deer off in the woods.  She was standing very still and her tail was sticking straight out horizontally, something I’ve never seen before.  No matter how much I moved about she didn’t move an inch, normally they’re very skittish.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get a clear shot of her, too much brush was in the way.  The camera was set to auto bracket so I have number of shots in sucession.  It wasn’t until I got home and was looking at them with my wife that we saw what we confirmed our suspicions.

Yes Virginia, deer do poo in the wood…and here’s the proof…

The Sad Tale of Soyono’s Love and Loss

Soyono is a Sumatran Tiger that lives at the National Zoo.  The images below document a day in the life of a kitty in love with a ball.  Be prepared, this is a sad sad tail, you may want to have a Kleenex handy.  Also, its a well known fact that all kitties, big and small, talk in LOLCat speak.

Best viewed by clicking the first photo and walking through Lightbox mode.

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How do you say < ?

I was reading off some passwords over the phone to a co-worker today and realized I was using the phonetic codes I learned during my Navy days.  You know what I mean…alpha, bravo, charlie, delta…and so on to zulu.  During this process I realized there was no phonetic for symbols like @, #, % or $.  So my conversation went something like “alpha capital kilo sierra uh uh number sign charlie uh dollar sign”.  Not at all like the smooth transmissions I made as a military radio operator but then again I never had to pass # or @ in a standard conversation.

Well anyway this made me remember an old poem I posted on my previous site back in 1997.  I had to go into my archives to find it.  I actually found quite a few of my old humor pages that might sneak into this blog from time to time.

The following poem appeared in INFOCUS magazine. The original authors were Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese of Calvin College & Seminary of Grand Rapids, MI.

A poll conducted among INFOCUS readers had established “waka” as the proper pronunciation for the angle-bracket characters < and >, though some readers held out resolutely for “norkies.”

The text of the poem follows:

<> !*”#
^”`$$-
!*=@$_
%*<> ~#4
&[]../
|{,,SYSTEM HALTED

The poem can only be appreciated by reading it aloud, to wit:

Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH.

Horde or Alliance

For @tbridge on twitter….

My Favorite Web Comics

Here’s a quick post with my favorite web comics. I’ve read most of these for over a year and thought it was time I gave them some publicity.  I was a long time player of City of Heroes and World of Warcraft so most of my online humor comes in the form of gaming comics.

Looking for Group – Great art
and storylines.  Follow Cale’anon and his band of adventurers as they
make their way through a Warcraft type world. Richard the Warlock alone
makes this site my favorite (see video below).

PVP Online – by Scott Kurtz.  Updated daily this is my longest running read.  Highly recommend it to anyone from the gaming generation (that basically includes anyone).

Dark Legacy Comics – Based on World of Warcraft so you need to have some WoW experience to get this one.

The noob – Another MMOG based comic. If you’ve ever played an MMO then you’ve experienced most, if not all, of the situations reflected here.

City of Zeroes – Based on the City of Heroes game.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – Updated daily.  If you like irreverent over-the-top humor then this is the site for you.

Binary Souls / Other Dimensions – This is a relatively new comic online created by a local author that I found via Twitter.  Great graphics.

Enjoy!  Please share some of yours.