CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
The publicist for that bedsheets firm just got sacked.
Apparently, she had made too many blanket statements. There are
whispers of a king-sized money laundering scheme that would have folded
the company and taken everyone to the cleaners. Police are
already on the case, and the details are being ironed out. (It's
a royal case of mistaken identities, because she's a twin, you
see.) Her career shouldn't be affected: she's already turned down
one offer.
Did you hear the one I just made up about the post office? Everybody
knows that you can send letters to Santa Claus. But did you know that
the post office also handles letters addressed to Satan? Alas, those
letters always come back, marked "Return to Cinder."
Why is a squid's word better than its deed? Squids sign their deeds with erasable ink.
Why is squid graffiti so vicious? It's the irascible ink.
Squid ink is both indelible and inedible -- or so they would have you believe!
Why did the squid's world come tumbling down? It was juggling too much at once.
All squid police are armed.
Squid police never take fingerprints (too much work). Instead,
they take ink samples (hence the phrase "police blotter"). The
ink blots also provide instant Psych Evals, which can come in very
handy.
Q: Jack graduated last in his class at optometry school. There
were 99 higher grade-point-averages than his. How many pupils
were there?
A. 200 (all bleary from studying)
B. 199 (our hero was a one-eyed Jack)
C. 202 (Suzie was nicknamed "four eyes")
D. 579 (Timmy brought his collection of glass eyes to Show-and-Tell)
E. All of the above, depending on how you count
F. Does Oedipus figure into this?
Did you hear that prospective factory workers in Chicago have to see a
psychologist as part of the interview? Apparently it's to "look
for the Jungian label."
Did you hear about the gourmet mystery writer who was surprised to find
a spent citrus wedge garnishing his key lime pie? He said: "This
is an unexpected twist!"