Wednesday, March 18, 2009

a funny link, and thoughts that follow

This webpage makes me laugh.

I think part of why it's so funny to me is that I sometimes have a similar experience reading pro se briefs. I'm not saying that cavemen appear in the office or anything like that, but the combination of bad handwriting, interesting spelling, and creative grammar can make pro se briefing very funny at first glance. I'll read a sentence to myself based on what I see, and then if it doesn't make sense I have to figure out if I misread some of the letters or if the guy might have meant a different word than the one he apparently wrote. "Surely he didn't say the policeman found out he had thrown a baby," I'll think to myself. "Even this guy isn't that crazy. Oh, I get it -- he said the policeman found out 'through a lady.' That makes much more sense." But my initial reading sometimes makes me laugh.

Speaking of crazy pro se parties, many people are familiar with the famous case of United States ex rel. Mayo v. Satan and his Staff, but I recently came across another case with an equally provocative name: United States v. Vampire Nation. Doesn't that sound like a great B-movie horror flick title?

This is why I get so easily distracted during lectures or talks -- it's a short jump for me from comments about poorly written internet remarks to a mental image of a colony of bats descending on New York City and turning into vampires on the ground, while Will Smith looks on disbelievingly and says, "Aw, hell no!"

Of course, thinking of Will Smith makes me think about that time he sang "Aati Kya Khandala" on Indian Idol, so then I start thinking about what the Bollywood version of United States v. Vampire Nation would be like. And that makes me laugh as much as that original webpage did.

2 comments:

Adam said...

How do you know he hadn't really thrown a baby? I've heard there is a video game where you can actually do that. In fact I think it's safe to say you've thrown a baby on said video game.

Cindy said...

Good point. I forgot about throwing that baby.

In this case, though, there hadn't been a baby mentioned before -- it had been this long narrative about the officer accusing him of dealing drugs and shooting at him when he reached for something in his pocket, and the baby seemed to come out of nowhere.