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Insights
Thanks for visiting my page of weird insights about life.
(All of these are older than 2006, because 2006 was when I started putting my weird insights into my Abby and Norma comic instead of here.
For more recent weird insights, see the comic , which ran until 2019.
For more recent than that, see my Twitter .)
BEING DIFFERENT
(On going to sleep at 7:30)
I don't see why I should stay up and get drunk when I can spend the night unconscious or hallucinating by purely natural means.
Some people think wearing a calculator watch is nerdy, but all it proves is that you're not enough of a nerd to be able to do math in your head.
Obsessive-compulsive Disorder is an oxymoron.
The concept of being unusual has gotten such a bad rap that it's okay for a punishment to be cruel, it's just not okay for it to be cruel and unusual .
I'm a heterovestite. That means I enjoy wearing clothes that don't match. People of this preference are among the most persecuted students in American schools.
Alcohol is for people who don't have enough imagination to act crazy on their own.
(In grade school)"What are you doing in the boys' bathroom, Erika?"
"Protesting segregation."
(On protesting segregation in the bathrooms at school)
Yes, I used to do that. I guess you could call it a shit-in.
SCIENCE AND SCIENCE FICTION
I'm a time traveler. Since this time yesterday I've traveled 24 hours forward in time. Since this time last year I've traveled forward 365 days. I'd say I'm a pretty good time traveler, wouldn't you?
Hey, there's a UFO. Oh, it's an airplane. Rats. Now it isn't a UFO any more. It's an identified flying object.
Motion is relative; objects can be described as moving only in relation to other objects. You could visualize the solar system exactly as Galileo did, and still think of the sun as moving around the earth.
I've found a distance between two points that is shorter than a straight line! It's called a straight line segment.
What do you call it when the ground shakes on another planet?
I read that, of the carbon produced by the various processes on Earth, millions of tons are unaccounted for-- no one can find them in the air or the ocean or any of the places carbon usually ends up. We're insufficiently carbonated. The earth is flat.
PLANTS AND ANIMALS
How the Robin Got His Colors
The robin was once a pure white bird... until one sunny day he put on a pair of Speedos and lay down on his back to get a tan.
He forgot two things: sunscreen and a towel to lie on. His back became dark from the dirt, his front burned bright red, and his butt stayed white because of the Speedos.
This is how the robin got his colors.
It is also where we got the term "baskin' robins."
Earwigs. For when you don't have enough ear hair.
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
(On being called a nitpicker)
If you have ever had nits, you know that if they are not picked, they continue to make your head itch.
Respect one-celled organisms. Not only are they our ancestors, but each of us started out as one.
RELIGION
The word "original" can refer either to something old or to something new. Hey, maybe an original sin is one that's really creative.
I sold my soul. I prefer classical music.
Anyone can walk on water at the proper temperature.
The original sin was eating forbidden fruit. Immaculate conception is conception without original sin. My mother did not eat anything she wasn't supposed to eat during my conception and gestation. Therefore, I was immaculately conceived.
PHILOSOPHY
The world is like a birdbath. Why? 'Cause there are birds in it.
Cloudy days make great philosophical questions easier to answer.
"Why is the sky blue?"
"It isn't."
The ultimate test of optimism and pessimism actually depends on what's in the glass.
Burning pollutes. Recycle your bra.
What's the Meaning of Life? That's easy. It's a Monty Python movie.
I'm a Gemini, and Geminis don't believe in astrology.
(On a PHI 110 class evaluation form that asked me to rate the prof's teaching of the course)
Not applicable; according to chapter 4 of Pieper's "In Defense of Philosophy," philosophical thought can be neither taught nor learned, but must be inspired by a catharsis or shock to one's life, such as death or Eros...
WORDS AND WORDPLAY
Is it considered perjury if you use a double negative under oath? Like saying "I didn't steal no money" when you did steal no money?
I've been arrested a number of times. A... nice, round number!
I am hungry! I want to eat! Yo quiero comer! Yo quiero co-fricking-MER! ...Wow, I just split an infinitive in Spanish.
If "chevro-lait" means goat milk, then does "cattle-lac" mean cow milk?
What do you get when you cross a street with a bicycle?
You get to the other side!
All this junk on the counter is revolting. It's a counter-revolution!
"Abby, I value your opinion greatly. Could I be making the biggest mistake of my life?"--quote from a Dear Abby letter, taken out of context
To say that calling that an understatement would be an understatement... would be the greatest understatement in the history of understatement.
Rechtschreiberreform? Ich folge keiner Reform, die sieben Konsonanten nacheinander hat.
"Die Sache" ist weiblich und "das Weib" ist saechlich?
Ich liebe diesen aus vielen Woertern gemachten Adjektive.
"In case of fire, elevators are out of service." That's why the elevators here never work! They installed permanently out-of-service elevators just in CASE there's a fire!
Split infinitives are considered incorrect because in most languages the infinitive can't be split. Because "to go" is one word in Latin, for example, you can't put anything between "to" and "go" in English. Here's the thing, though: in a lot of the same languages where infinitives are single words, so are futures and conditionals. "Will boldly go" and "would boldly go" are technically just as bad as "to boldly go." But nobody ever complains about a split future or a split conditional.
Because conjunctions must come between one clause and another, they may never go at the beginning.
When they do, a sentence fragment results.
Although many people make this mistake, it is still not acceptable.
If you do it, you should stop.
"How are you?"
"How AM I?"
"Yes; how ARE you?"
"By thinking."
"What?"
"I think, therefore I am."
If the plural of "octopus" is "octopi," and the plural of "cactus" is "cacti," then why isn't "I" the plural of "us"?
Why do people get so upset about the development of Spanglish and other language fusions? It's just the English language's way of making up for all those times it chased other languages into dark alleys and rifled through their pockets for vocabulary.
Frontal nudity is when you have nothing but the clothes on your back.
LOGIC
I'm majoring in German, minoring in Spanish and more than middling in logic-- that's a categorical syllogism joke that nobody gets.
(In logic class)
"The author of our text committed fallacy of ad hominem circumstantial only twelve pages after he defined it!"
"Ad hominem" is not to be confused with "ad homonym," which is my silly term for the equivocational fallacy.
Equivocational fallacy: The use of a word or phrase in two or more different senses throughout an argument, reasoning as though they had the same meaning.
Example:
If I have a point, my logic is valid.
I have a point at the tip of each of my ears.
Therefore, my logic is valid.
A Simple Three-Step Proof of Life After Death
(making use of a paradox in the system of propositional logic)
Theorems:
Tautology: P<=> [(P + P) + (P v P)]
Material implication: [(~P => Q)<=> (P v Q)]
Propositions:
D = I am dead
~D = I am not dead
Proof:
1. ~D (given)
2. ~D v ~D (by tautology)
3. D => ~D (by material implication)
Conclusion:
If I am dead, then I am not dead. Therefore, there is life after death.
"Something that has a one-in-infinity chance of happening is impossible, right?" I asked her.
She agreed.
"Pick a number, any number," I said.
She picked fifty-four.
"You had an infinite number of numbers to choose from," I told her. "You picked one of them. Fifty-four had a one-in-infinity chance of being picked. The impossible has just occurred."
FOOD
If snacks before meals ruin your appetite, why are they called appetizers?
Kentucky Fried Chicken is made out of roosters and hens, and its mascot is a colonel. Kellogg's Corn Flakes are made out of kernels of corn, and their mascot is a rooster. Hey, and the initials of the two products are KFC and KCF. It's a conspiracy!
A watched pot never boils, but you should never leave your cooking unattended.
Is it vegetarian to eat your boogers after you've smelled meat?
Why would anyone wish to be an Oscar Meyer wiener? Or any item of food, for that matter? I think psychologists would call it an Edible Complex.
Living alone as a college student is educational. One of the first things you learn is that if you eat nothing but candy, you get diarrhea. Then you learn that if you eat nothing but pasta, you get constipation. What you have to learn eventually is to keep a perfectly equal balance between pasta and candy.
(Response to friend asking why I can't eat slowly) Look, I read somewhere that women experience sexual pleasure in the gradual buildup of tension, and men experience it in an immediate release. Well, I experience eating pleasure in immediately wolfing it all down, and you experience it in savoring your piece of chocolate and holding it between your cheek and your gum like Nicorette until it dissolves. People are different. That's just the way it is.
DOCTORS AND MEDICINE
Here's a hypothesis that can't be proven or disproven: I hypothesize that people who refuse to participate in medical experiments are over 70 percent healthier.
Allergic to cigarette smoke? Oh, of course I'm not allergic to cigarette smoke. How could anyone possibly be allergic to a deadly poison?
Extraterrestrials abducted this guy and took him up to their spaceship to do experiments on him. Soon he noticed a strange medical device they were using, and asked what it was."It's sort of the opposite of an endoscope," they replied. "An endoscope is for looking inside you, and its name comes from the Latin endo meaning 'inside,' as opposed to exo meaning 'outside,' or epi meaning 'on the surface.' This device is for looking at the surface of your skin, and it is called an episcope."
"But then," said the guy, "what are you doing using Latin? You're not Catholics. You're Episcope Aliens!"
Freud was oversimplistic in his dream theory. Dreams of tooth loss do not always symbolize castration. I had a dream once about losing my teeth, and it clearly symbolized the fact that my retainer fell out in my sleep that night.
SEX AND GENDER
Ah, college roommates. You know why they're called roommates? Because they are always mating in your room!
I'm half man and half woman. My father's a man and my mother's a woman.
(On cross-dressing)
Wouldn't it be far more comfortable for men to be the ones who wore skirts?
"I need sex. There are deadly dangers associated with remaining a virgin."
"Like what?"
"Well... um... there's the danger of being sacrificed to a volcano..."
And here's a joke about X and Y chromosomes:
How do you tell whether an organism is male or female?
Look in its genes.
I can't believe my mind can be this far in the gutter and still not be far enough in the gutter to function in this world.
(On the word "homophobic")
"Homo" means either "same" or "man," depending on the language-- a fact clearly evidenced in the words "homosexual" ("same-sex") and "Homo sapiens" ("intelligent man"). I am afraid of conformity, and of many males of my species-- does that make me homophobic?
(On silly words)
If a man who acts like a woman is "effeminate," then is a woman who acts like a man "emasculate"?
(On "orientation" vs. "preference")
Why do people feel that the term "sexual preference" implies that it's a choice? Preferences aren't choices. What's your favorite color? Did you choose to like that color the best? Hey, if I could decide to prefer broccoli to chocolate, I'd be a heck of a lot healthier.
MISCELLANEOUS
I am not wearing the Orange Ribbon of the War on Terror. I am wearing the Orangish-Red Ribbon with Yellow Tips for the Right to Wear an Orangish-Red Ribbon with Yellow Tips for No Reason at All.
What happens when the sprinklers on the ceiling turn on during an electrical fire?
I don't buy hair oil. My hair produces its own, natural oil.
Why should I cut my split ends? Some people have surgery to increase the number of hairs growing on their heads. I could double the number of hairs on my head just by letting my split ends grow a bit more!
A year is actually slightly more than 365-and-one-quarter days, so every hundred years or so, we have to add an extra day in addition to leap year. Today is that day, and therefore, it is not April first, but March thirty-second.
--my April Fool joke on my advisor, who didn't doubt it for a moment
"The young never think about death," old people say. "They think they're immortal." But then when you talk about death to old people, they say, "Oh, you're much too young to think about that now!"--from my story "If the World Ended, Would I Notice?"
The thing that has desensitized me most to violence is the news.
The only occasion I regularly wear a dress for is doing my laundry, because then all my other clothes are in the wash.
She could look into infinity just by closing her eyes, because then her range of vision had no edges.--from my story "If the World Ended, Would I Notice?"