If you know the answer to “What’s yellow and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice, this corny a cappella YouTube video is just for you:

The path of love is never smooth
But mine’s continuous for you
You’re the upper bound in the chains of my heart
You’re my Axiom of Choice, you know it’s true…

Oh, and the answer is “Zorn’s Lemon.”

OK, well, I thought it was funny. Maybe, somehow, you just had to be there.

• fu fu fu (hu hu hu) = a strange laugh. M.J.: “The evil chuckle in the back of the throat.” (see also ku ku ku, pu pu pu)
• ku, ku ku, ku ku ku = giggle in the throat
• paku paku = opening and closing mouth, eating, gobbling. This is where Pac-man came from! (see also hau, gatsu)

Now, can you match each sound effect with its definition?

The first one said, “Rabbi, I have a pear tree in my yard. My father planted it, I keep it watered and don’t let the chickens peck on its roots. One of its branches hangs over my neighbor’s wall. So what do I see yesterday but my neighbor standing there eating one of my pears. This is theft, and I want him to pay me damages.”

The rabbi nodded his head. “You’re right, you’re right.”

The other neighbor said, “Rabbi, you know that I have seven children–without my garden to feed them, how would I manage? But that tree casts a shadow where nothing will grow. So yesterday, when I go out to dig some potatoes, a pear from his tree falls and hits me right on the head. How am I hurting my neighbor if I eat it? And doesn’t he owe me something for his tree’s blocking sunlight?

The rabbi thought and then said, “You’re right, you’re right.”

Meanwhile, the rabbi’s wife had been hearing all this. “How can you say, ‘You’re right’ to both of these men? Surely one of the men is right, and the other is wrong!”

The rabbi looked unhappy. “You’re right, you’re right.”

For a while, the neighborhood was quiet. But then, little by little, Tom took up his midnight wandering and singing, softly at first, then louder and louder, until even his owner couldn’t stand it. The owner said, “Tom, what is this? I thought you were fixed!” Tom said, “Yes, but then I thought–why not become a consultant?”

Today, as I struggled to drive my car through a short green light, Frank took me to a new level of enlightenment:

Betsy, to the pedestrians who couldn’t hear me: “I don’t suppose it means anything to you that I have a green light here.”

Frank, in the persona of a pedestrian: “It means we can walk but we can’t make eye contact.”

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I guessed right on Gerald Sussman, but wrong on Sam Berkowitz.

My score: 6 of 10.

Their assessment: I’m not cut out for police work or IT recruitment.

You think that’s funny? I’d like to see you do better!

And it comes with a spreadsheet?

As Bill and Ted would say, “Heinous!”

The term is used mainly in situations in which a speaker takes a stance of solidarity or camaraderie, but crucially in a nonchalant, not-too-enthusiastic manner. . . The reason young men use this term is precisely that dude indexes this stance of cool solidarity. Such a stance is especially valuable for young men as they navigate cultural Discourses of young masculinity, which simultaneously demand masculine solidarity, strict heterosexuality, and non-conformity.

It’s enough to send you running to the “aargh” page*…

A man sold all his possessions and left his family to travel the world, because he wanted to know the meaning of life. After many years of seeking, and near despair, his last hope was a guru who lived high up on a very dangerous mountain. Up the mountain our seeker went, through a thunderstorm, tired and desperate and hungry–his food was all gone, he injured one foot but struggled on with a cane out of a tree branch. Finally, on top of the mountain, there sat the guru, surrounded by tame animals, with bright sunlight breaking through a hole in the clouds to shine all around him.

The seeker staggered forward. “O holy guru, I have given up everything to seek the truth, but it will all be worthwhile if you can answer my question: What is the meaning of life?”

The guru smiled and said, “My son, here is the answer you seek: Life is a fountain.”

After a long pause, the seeker shook his head. “A fountain? I have come thousands of miles to hear your words–my possessions are all gone, I’m starving, I’ll probably die on this mountain–and all you have to say is, life is a fountain?”

The guru trembled. “You mean…it’s not a fountain?”

And, I have to admit, I like the tale even better now that I’ve read these variants by philosopher Robert Nozick:

A man goes to India, consults a sage in a cave and asks him the meaning of life. In three sentences, the sage tells him, the man thanks him and leaves. There are several variants of this story also: In the first, the man lives meaningfully ever after; in the second he makes the sentences public so that everyone then knows the meaning of life; in the third, he sets the sentences to rock music, making his fortune and enabling everyone to whistle the meaning of life; and in the fourth variant, his plane crashes as he is flying off from his meeting with the sage. In the fifth version, the person listening to me tell this story eagerly asks what sentences the sage spoke. And in the sixth version, I tell him.

Anyway, thanks to Jeanne Kane who just sent me email saying how much she enjoyed “It reduces to a problem previously solved”–one of my favorite catch-phrases, which popped up in my podcast with Dave Winer. Jeanne, here’s another favorite, hope you can use it!

This is no game. You might think this is game, but, trust me, this is no game.

This is not something where rock beats scissors or paper covers rock or rock wraps itself up in paper and gives itself as a present to scissors. This isn’t anything like that. Or where paper types something on itself and sues scissors…

…and that’s just the beginning of a glorious Jack Handey rant, in this week’s New Yorker. Read all the way to the end, and just one more thing.

When you send Jack his $500, send me some too!

Dear customer,

I will be arriving in New Hampshire soon. I am in a freight train car in New Jersey and will be leaving soon. I am tired of being in a box and look forward to sitting on your desk.

Yours truly,
John Stark

I wasn’t expecting the postcard I got today from Revolutionary War hero General John Stark. Or maybe I should say a postcard from the John Stark bobblehead doll I ordered last month from the Museum of NH History.

If you had grown up, as I did, in Manchester, NH, near the lovely green hillside called Stark Park, then you too would have grown up admiring John Stark.

• The Hero of Bennington!
• The originator of NH’s state motto, “Live Free or Die”! Not to mention,
• “Tonight our flag floats over yonder hill or Molly Stark sleeps a widow.” (Too long for a license plate, but eloquent.)
• And now this postcard…

Bravo for the good-humored outreach of somebody at the Museum of NH History! I look forward to doing business there again.

But then, I’m not the one who was tapping my toe, keeping an ear out for the mailman’s arrival. No, that would be my Jane Austen action figure…