What’s the proper way to use a semicolon?
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How long could you survive after kicking a bear in the balls?
These and other burning questions are answered in fun graphical form on a Spot Cool Stuff website favorite: The Oatmeal.
Almost everyone knows Amazon.com for its bargain deals on books and electronics. Amazon is also a good source for discount groceries. We like their DRM-free MP3 store (even more than iTunes). And we love their Amazon Kindle. But Amazon also has a surprisingly large selection items that defy categorization, from the odd to the downright wacky.
Here’s our look at some of the weirdest items for sale on Amazon and the solution they provide to some of life’s most common problems:
Sure your standard bookshelf dictionary is useful for looking up the definitions of words that are, you know, “acceptable.” But what about cutting edge slang words? Or words no longer in use? Or words you can use to insult a Klingon? For that you need an out-of-the-ordinary dictionary. Here are eight of our online favorites:
We absolutely love maps. We have since we were six years old when we traced out a giant map of the world and then painstakingly demarcated the territories that would be controlled by each of our stuffed animals.
In the hope that some of our readers enjoy maps as much as we do we present one of our favorite blogs: Strange Maps.
How should we categorize Breed ‘Em And Weep? This blog from Berkshires writer Jenn Mattern is ostensibly about the trials and tribulations of motherhood but, really, it is about so much more.
We could see putting Jenn’s blog under our Quirky category because how else would you describe, say, an imagined couple’s therapy session between Obama and McCain? It could go under Communication because Jenn has written the world’s wisest words on how to talk to a sad person. Humorous could work too, because virtually every post of Jenn’s has a comic touch, as could Community, because Breed ‘Em And Weep has a loyal group of readers who form friendships through her site.
In addition to being used to relay the exact words from another source, quotation marks can be used to convey misnomers and denote inaccuracies. If you write Her shirt looks interesting then that may be taken at face value. Her shirt looks “interesting” probably means that her shirt was, in fact, butt ugly. Though even more insulting would be Her “shirt” look interesting, indicating that what she was wearing could hardly qualify as a shirt at all.
If you are single it may feel like you’ve searched everywhere for your special someone. But maybe you haven’t really searched, you know, everywhere. Like inside prison. Now, thanks to the magic of the internet, you don’t have to be a petty criminal to look for love inside the big house. At meet-an-inmate.com you can peruse prisoner personals—#198676 has a love of animals and a passion for cooking, #213783 loves all types of music—and then write an old fashion snail mail letter to your selection. If nothing else it is a way to brighten some one’s day. We’re just not sure we’d give our home address for a reply.
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