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According to a study by the University of Wolverhampton commissioned by TV channel Dave, the world’s oldest recorded joke was made in Sumer in 1900 BC. It goes like this: “Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.”

Okay, it doesn’t exactly make you weep with laughter, but remember they had just invented cities at the time. I’m sure there are older jokes, but no one bothered to write them down as writing hadn’t been invented yet.

The second oldest joke dates back to 1600 BC Egypt: “How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish.” Pa-rum-pum.

An Anglo-Saxon joke from about 1000: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before? Answer: A key.” This tells us that the Q&A format, dirty jokes, and unfunny jokes are nearly as old as recorded history. What I want to know is how many people were executed for gags that flopped. Like the jester in Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex, going : “TB or not TB, that is consumption…”

In the documentary The Aristocrats, comics riff on what is purportedly the filthiest joke ever made. The joke itself isn’t that funny, but embellishing, adding layers and stretching it out to a half-hour is impressive.

Do Social Networks Bring the End of Privacy? Daniel J. Solove asks in Scientific American.

Key points:
– Social-networking sites allow seemingly trivial gossip to be distributed to a worldwide audience, sometimes making people the butt of rumors shared by millions of users across the Internet.
– Public sharing of private lives has led to a rethinking of our current conceptions of privacy.
– Existing law should be extended to allow some privacy protection for things that people say and do in what would have previously been considered the public domain.

Remember the Star Wars Kid? Tens of millions of people around the world saw his video, and he had to drop out of school and get therapy. (via 3QD)

Sign on the side of a plumber’s van: “Flowjob Inc.” Clever, catchy, accurate, I’d hire them.

Marquee of a former movie theatre now used by Christian community: “What we do in life echoes in eternity.” Wait a minute, is that from the Bible, or from Gladiator? The Book of Maximus?

A Fil-American friend in the US had a problem with his credit card so he called their helpline. He got their call center in the Philippines. He knew the call center was in the Philippines because although the phone was answered by an agent affecting an American accent, he could hear the people around the agent talking loudly in Tagalog. It was like listening in on your neighborhood sari-sari store. “Kumusta kayo diyan?” my friend asked.

The call center agent replied, “I’m sorry sir, we’re not allowed to speak in Tagalog.” 

P.S. from Din: There’s an auto detailing shop in our neighborhood where cars are polished with genuine carnauba wax, meticulously and painstakingly by hand. I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the shop, but I’ll never forget their slogan: “Best hand job in town.”

“Researchers have discovered that surprisingly small factors – where we meet someone, whether their posture mimics ours, even the slope of their eyebrows or the thickness of their chin – can matter as much or more than what they say about themselves. We size up someone’s trustworthiness within milliseconds of meeting them, and while we can revise our first impression, there are powerful psychological tendencies that often prevent us from doing so – tendencies that apply even more strongly if we’ve grown close.

“‘Trust is the baseline,’ says Susan Fiske, a social psychologist at Princeton University. ‘Trustworthiness is the very first thing that we decide about a person, and once we’ve decided, we do all kinds of elaborate gymnastics to believe in people. . .”

Confidence game: How impostors capture our trust instantly, and why we’re so eager to give it to them by Drake Bennett in the Boston Globe.

Very short reviews.

Big Stan. 90-minute sodomy joke.

Clone Wars. Screw you once, shame on George Lucas. Screw you thrice and now again, shame on you.

Death Race. Oh look, directed by Paul Anderson. But not the Paul Thomas Anderson. Wonderfully nasty insane B-movie mayhem. We love Jason Statham: no matter what he’s wearing, he looks naked. Must-see Jason Statham movie: The Bank Job.

The US classification: “Death Race” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Mauling, maiming, bruising, beating, impalement, immolation, detonation, decapitation and a flagrant disregard of automotive etiquette. Hmm, are they warning you or tempting you?

 

Louvre photo by Rickyv, originally uploaded by saffysafina.

The winner of our caption-writing contest is lance, for not stating the obvious. That’s winner, not wiener. Please email your complete postal address in the Philippines to urban.matthias@gmail.com, and we’ll send you your prize.