All Posts Tagged With: "funny"

Students at Nipissing U. early to embrace trend

Students have a new online obsession. Quickmemes.com allows anyone to add their own funny captions to photos of familiar Internet stars, like Rebecca Black, before sharing them on Facebook.

The trend is starting to spread, but one community’s Facebook walls are already littered with Quick Memes. There are more than 1,300 “likes” on the unofficial Nipissing University Memes Facebook page. That’s a lot for a school with just 4,500 students. The page for the North Bay, Ontario school has become a place to share both points of pride (the fries at campus pub The Wall) and common complaints (transportation to the hilltop campus). Here are just a few of the dozens of memes from the Nipissing page that will make you laugh and then share, just like that Rebecca Black video.

Share your Quick Memes with us in the comments section!

Follow @JoshDehaas and @maconcampus on Twitter.

Entertaining, if you don’t take it too seriously

Most universities get stereotyped—most unfairly.

Guelph is thought of as the cow college, even though agricultural students comprise only a tiny fraction of the student body.

The University of Victoria has a reputation for attracting laid-back hippies, even though it’s a research powerhouse that ranked second in the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings.

And Queen’s University? Well, its stereotypes are multiple… and legendary. Queen’s has a reputation for being an upper-crust, primarily-Caucasian institution where students drink to excess, have a lot of sex and think very highly of themselves.

Continue reading Fake Queen’s University advertisement plays up sterotypes

University of Toronto researchers among this year’s winners

Still from video by gray726 on YouTube

Researchers with Canadian connections won awards at the annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony for their “improbable research.” They’ve simultaneously proven that research can be fun—and funny.

John Senders, Professor Emeritus of Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto, won the 2011 prize in the “public safety” category for “conducting a series of safety experiments in which a person drives an automobile on a major highway while a visor repeatedly flaps down over his face, blinding him,” as seen in this YouTube video from 1967. In it, Senders notes calmly that “the shorter the interval between looks, the more difficult that section of road is to drive,” as he speeds down a Boston highway with his view increasingly obscured.

The annual biology prize went to Darryl Gwynne, also of U of T, and Gwynne’s Australian partner “for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle.”

Although there isn’t a Canadian connection to this year’s medicine prize, it’s worthwhile research for all students to know. Two international teams won for “demonstrating that people make better decisions about some kinds of things—but worse decisions about other kinds of things‚ when they have a strong urge to urinate.” That research is from two papers, Inhibitory Spillover: Increased Urination Urgency Facilitates Impulse Control in Unrelated Domains and The Effect of Acute Increase in Urge to Void on Cognitive Function in Healthy Adults.

The awards were presented Thursday evening at Harvard University by real Nobel laureates. It’s easy to see why Nature calls the ceremony “arguably the highlight of the scientific calendar.” Congratulations to all.

Comedian says that dreams can change, but that’s OK

Conan O’Brien is just one of the many comedians who have given commencement speeches at U.S. schools this graduation season. His was arguably the funniest — and the most wise. Here’s a recording of Sunday’s speech to the Class of 2011 at Dartmouth College. Here’s how it started:

“Graduates, faculty, parents, relatives, undergraduates, and old people that just come to these things: Good morning and congratulations to the Dartmouth Class of 2011. Today, you have achieved something special, something only 92 percent of Americans your age will ever know: a college diploma. That’s right, with your college diploma you now have a crushing advantage over 8 percent of the workforce. I’m talking about dropout losers like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg…”

He also poked fun at the general laziness of today’s college students, their propensity for stimulants and Wikipedia, like this:

“When I got the call two months ago to be your speaker, I decided to prepare with the same intensity many of you have devoted to an important term paper. So late last night, I began. I drank two cans of Red Bull, snorted some Adderall, played a few hours of Call of Duty, and then opened my browser. I think Wikipedia put it best when they said “Dartmouth College is a private Ivy League University in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States.”

And, more seriously, he talks about how found success, by accepting that “dreams change.”

Your path at 22 will not necessarily be your path at 32 or 42. One’s dream is constantly evolving, rising and falling, changing course. This happens in every job, but because I have worked in comedy for twenty-five years, I can probably speak best about my own profession.

Way back in the 1940s there was a very, very funny man named Jack Benny. He was a giant star, easily one of the greatest comedians of his generation. And a much younger man named Johnny Carson wanted very much to be Jack Benny. In some ways he was, but in many ways he wasn’t. He emulated Jack Benny, but his own quirks and mannerisms, along with a changing medium, pulled him in a different direction.

And yet his failure to completely become his hero made him the funniest person of his generation. David Letterman wanted to be Johnny Carson, and was not, and as a result my generation of comedians wanted to be David Letterman. And none of us are. My peers and I have all missed that mark in a thousand different ways. But the point is this : It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It’s not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.

So, at the age of 47, after 25 years of obsessively pursuing my dream, that dream changed. For decades, in show business, the ultimate goal of every comedian was to host The Tonight Show. It was the Holy Grail, and like many people I thought that achieving that goal would define me as successful. But that is not true. No specific job or career goal defines me, and it should not define you. In 2000—in 2000—I told graduates to not be afraid to fail, and I still believe that. But today I tell you that whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality.

Queen’s student writes exam in full armour

A video on YouTube captures the giggles of fellow students at Queen’s University when a student strode into his medieval history examination last month wearing a full suit of armour. The video, entitled Going to War by Mastadufus, has received nearly 2,000 hits. The student was met by an entertained exam proctor who quipped, “You know you lose your knighthood if you fail, right?” According to the The Kingston Herald, Medieval Studies is growing in popularity at Queen’s, as evidenced by a new minor in the subject that was approved in May.

Japanese man gets diploma after teacher digs up his old report cards

There’s at least one guy with a new high school diploma who’s not worrying about getting into college or finding a job.

After all, Takeshi Murata is 84.

He left University High School in Greeley, Colorado, in 1944 when he was drafted to fight in World War II, according to the Greeley Daily Tribune newspaper. The son of Japanese immigrants, Murata was trained as an interpreter in case of an invasion.

Murata says he barely spoke Japanese but was sent to Tokyo after the war ended. He married in Japan and returned to northeast Colorado in 1947, where he farmed and raised five children.

The high school finally granted Murata’s diploma Wednesday after a teacher heard his story and found his old report cards.

- The Associated Press

Kim Jong Il could give a heck of a graduation speech. So could our dear leader.

We are in the last days of the season for commencement speeches, the annual rite in which famous and successful people urge graduating students to follow their hearts, live their dreams, change the world, hug everyone, floss daily, be nice to kitty-cats and, oops, sorry we went and broke the global economy just as you were preparing to look for work. Enjoy destitution!

The truth is that graduates don’t need to be bombarded with well-meaning but dubious expressions of optimism: that’s what wedding vows are for. What they need is practical advice they can actually use in their lives—real wisdom based on real experience, preferably stated by those who know the taste of disappointment. (Note: the “taste of disappointment” can be acquired through one’s own personal failures or by licking the poster for the movie Wolverine.)

Take Kim Jong Il, for instance. An unorthodox choice as commencement speaker? Sure. But really, who’s more qualified to extol the virtues of perseverance? Here’s a guy whose dreams literally crashed into the sea and detonated in a feeble puff of weapons-grade futility. But did that stop him from perpetuating national famine, strife and authoritarian menace in his pursuit of the means for inflicting upon the earth a raging nuclear hellfire? Not a chance. If Hollywood executives had that kind of resolve and determination, we’d have four or five terrible Hulk movies by now, instead of just the two.

Here at home, I can’t imagine Brian Mulroney received too many invitations to speak this spring, and even fewer that met his minimum gratuity. But think of all he’d have to offer. The former prime minister could talk about the hazards of hubris and the perils of demanding a public inquiry into yourself. He could talk about all that, but being Mulroney he’d probably speak on the topic of “Can Anyone Here Break a $1,000 Bill?”

Or what about the current occupant of 24 Sussex Drive? Stephen Harper has experienced his share of dismay and defeat, and that’s just with a hairbrush. The man has wisdom to impart. Of course, the Prime Minister is busy managing the recession we can’t be having right now because we didn’t already have it before, so I took the liberty of writing the uplifting conclusion to his commencement address:

“Graduates, as you look to the future, I urge you to remember that no matter the scope of the problems you face, no matter the magnitude of the challenges you confront, there is always a way to triumph. Stand tall and remember: courage, honesty, integrity—these are for wusses. A much better solution is negative advertising.

“Over the years, I’ve found that my own chronic shortcomings are best addressed not by personal improvement or sacrifice, both of which can be a real pain, but by emphasizing or even inventing the flaws of others.

“Every school robs you, but at I Know A Guy U, we’ll rob you for less.”

“Every school robs you, but at I Know A Guy U, we’ll rob you for less.”

Have you ever wondered if there’s life outside of the classroom?