Sideswipe: May 1: Sarcasm detector broken

Sideswipe - ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz·NZ Herald·

30 Apr, 2015 05:00 PM3 mins to read

Opinion by Ana SamwaysLearn more

Via yesthatsthejoke.tumblr.com, a site featuring pedants and other people who missed the joke.

Seinfeld in Te Atatu
That topless hairdresser would have been much better than my recent experience in Te Atatu, says Doug. "I walked in the door and asked 'How much?' Asian woman asks 'Are you over 65?' I'm in my 50s so in a huff replied 'No, ARE YOU?' Anyway, she said sit down, the hairdresser is in the toilet. He turns up 10 minutes later and brushes his teeth next to me for 10 minutes. He asks what style and I say short but no buzzcut. He starts buzz cutting and I say "no buzzcut!" He laughs and laughs and apologises. I thought I was in a Seinfeld episode."

Scary ridiculous things
The Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency reveals it has created a self-steering bullet that can change its own course in mid-air to hit a moving target. In a video, a sniper fires at a target that moves out of the bullet's predicted path. The bullet follows and finds the target. Even an inexperienced shooter hit the mark, LiveScience reports.

Stupid ridiculous things
A story about how Australian Sunrise host Sam Armytage said something racist turned out not to be the case. Armytage interviewed twins Maria and Lucy Aylmer, who have very different appearances due to a genetic anomaly. While introducing the twins, Armytage congratulated Lucy on her pale skin.

Nothing racist about comments on twins Maria (left) and Lucy.

"Maria has taken after her half-Jamaican mum with dark skin, brown eyes and curly, dark hair, but Lucy got her dad's fair skin - good on her - along with straight red hair and blue eyes." The comment sparked a petition with about 3000 signatures calling on Armytage to apologise. Channel Seven said the comment was a self-deprecating joke. "She frequently jokes about the fair skin that runs in her family and how difficult it can be to manage in extreme environments."

Just ridiculous things
Salta beer in Argentina has designed tooth implants for the country's rugby players. Thing is, the implanted teeth are also bottle openers.

Barista has philosophical comeback
"Today I was at a Starbucks, and I said my name was Lord Voldemort. When my drink was ready, the cashier didn't say 'He-who-must-not-be-named', she just said Lord Voldemort. Then another cashier said 'you can't say his name!' Her response? 'Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself.' Needless to say, I was no longer disappointed."

Video: A glorious episode of New Zealand's Blind Date from 1989...

Picture this: Ghetto Tarot is a project from documentary photographer Alice Smeets and a group of Haitian artists who create a new tarot deck with a photographic version of each card using settings and objects in the ghetto of Haiti... "we were shooting the scene of the Death card, I asked the artists if they had real skulls to place them in the picture. Five minutes later, Claudel, one of the artists and my dearest assistant, came along holding a plastic bag filled with skulls in his hands as if it was the most normal thing in the world to carry dead peoples heads around," says Smeets.

You can buy them here...