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Thu 20 Feb, 2003 12:55 am
SAN FRANCISCO MAN BECOMES FIRST AMERICAN TO GRASP SIGNIFICANCE OF IRONY
Jay Fullmer, 38, yesterday became the first American to get to grips with the concept of irony. "It was weird" Fullmer said. "I was in London and like, talking to this guy and it was raining and he pulled a face and said, "great weather, eh?" and I thought "wait a minute, no way is it great weather". Fullmer then realised that the other man's 'mistake' was in fact deliberate. Fullmer, who is 39 next month and married with two children, aged 8 and 3, plans to use irony himself in future. "I'm like using it all the time" he said. "Last weekend I was grilling steaks and I burned them to sh!t and I said "hey, great weather!".
I should've mentioned I stole it from a BBC daily e-mail that includes a joke each day.
Good Lord, when I saw the title "SF Man becomes.....etc....
I thought your were talking about Science Fiction or Sinn Fein.
Any Americans I've spoken to thought irony was a newly disovered metal
Err, sounds like a direct lift from "TheOnion". As far as Americans go they have a very good grasp of understated humour.
eg: Newlyweds Regret Saving Sex For Marriage WETUMKA, OK
Two weeks after their Feb. 1 wedding, Matt and Liz Kuchen, both 32, regret remaining virgins until marriage. "Why the hell did I wait?" Liz said Tuesday. "I could've been having mind-blowing sex with dozens of guys these last 15 years, and instead I spent them making little uptight speeches about how it'll be more special if I hold out." Matt agreed, saying, "Stacy Pratt totally would've done me. Oh, man."
Ok, there are bits and pieces of irony (not the metal) scattered sparsely across these united states. A nice source of humor is the daily e-mail from SF Chronicle, the SFGate Morning Fix, example from today:
Please Duct Tape New Jersey's Bangs Back Down
Fears of a biological or chemical weapons attack have spurred sales of plastic sheeting and duct tape in some places, like New Jersey, of course, naturally it would be Jersey, where general intelligence isn't known to be any sort of, you know, pastime, where there just isn't much to do besides, you know, running around to various hardware stores in a fun little panic about having enough duct tape to, um, seal off all the broken windows in the '91 Ford Escort on the lawn, presumably, which isn't really at all fair to very kind and ever-beleaguered New Jersey, because God and Allah know if hordes of angry terrorists come swarming in in teeming screaming hordes the first place they'll want to annihilate is, you know, Jersey, prompting customers to run from store to store -- and even state-to-state -- in search of items the government urged them to buy, because they're just that, you know, medicated. Although some stores sold out since the nation elevated its terror alert last week, no widespread shortages appear to have developed, mostly because everyone sort of senses the gov't is full of crap and that they're being regularly and systematically lied to and they're just sort of sick of it and wish Donald Rumsfeld would go have a nice colonic so they could remove some of the prickly wart-encrusted demons that are so clearly nesting in his large intestine.
or
President Fondles Warheads, Goes Thhhpppbbbbttt
Shrub had the smirky cute little nerve to declare on Tuesday that he wouldn't be deterred by global protests against war with Iraq, by the millions and millions of people from all points around the globe, hundreds of thousands in his own country, protest after protest, who generally think he's a warmongering imbecile whose cadre of neo-conservative CEO cronies want to destabilize the world and gut the environment to expand their power, saying "I respectfully disagree" with those who doubt that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace, many of whom are some of the most prominent thinkers, analysts, scientists, military experts, and people who still possess an iota of soul in the world. Bush said that the size of the protests against a possible U.S.-led war against Iraq was irrelevant. "Size of protest, it's like deciding, 'Well I'm going to decide policy based up on a focus group.' The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon the security -- in this case -- security of the ! people." Millions of people around the world took to the streets over the weekend to protest such a war, apparently not realizing ShrubCo was about to bomb the living hell out of a worthless nation and kill about 500,000 people and inspire a hundred thousand more terrorist factions who will immediately really really loathe the U.S. and wish us all a painful screaming, all for their own good, to protect them from, you know, higher gas prices.
yup - I DO know....like...
Superman knew about irony - in the old days....
The trouble with irony is that it turns to rustic if it is left out in the rain too long ( an original quote from the hiama book of one hand clapping songs)
Hmmmm - is that the origin of the term "to rusticate"? Such an ironic term.
No silly rusticate refers to the well known beautiful australian actress blanchett
she is rusty? how ironic!
Yes isn't it ironic ?
She is rusty and beautiful and well paid and living over here
Like an ironic filing to a magnet...
Oh, the pressure of being so many things at once!
If she used a little Rustoleum and an iron, she could just be beautiul, well paid and living over there.
Over here is over there to those over there - ironic, isn't it?
Actually, over there is over there to those over here.
I think I need to take my irony pills!
Antipodeans whichever way you look at it