In today’s Style Invitational, contestants were asked to come up with ways to make modern life more complicated than necessary.
Speaking of which, I feel compelled to point out that washingtonpost.com has found just the way to do this – now each article online comes to you on 3 to 5 separate pages instead of one. This has two effects: one, I suppose it makes you see more ads, which is the probable reason for the change. Two, it makes it impossible to follow the flow of an article and generally makes your reading experience a big old pain in the ass. BOO, Washington Post! Bad! BAD!
But I digress.
For some reason, this contest brought out the geeks. Many, many entries — with no apparent sense of irony — read like this: “Reconfigure Excel without disabling the serial ports to access sufficient RAM for most applications, then stand back and watch the mess.” Also, Marc Leibert of New York reports that he knows a woman who programmed all the phones in her house to speed-dial 911: “So to dial it now,” he writes, “you have to hit Memory-1-6. She doesn’t understand why this is funny.”
Third Runner-Up: It is no longer sufficient to clean up after your dog. By law, you must catch the offending substance before it hits the ground. (Andrea Kelly, Brookeville)
Second Runner-Up: Replace the computer mouse with two Etch-a-Sketch knobs. (Jim Risner, Greenbelt)
And the winner of the “Armpit of America” T-shirt from Battle Mountain, Nev.:
Eliminate surnames, as in the old days. (Danny the Elder, son of Joseph of Great Neck)
Honorable Mentions:
Drive-on-the-left-side-of-the-road Thursday. (Russell Beland, Springfield)
Replace friendly, knowledgeable humans with an automated voice that prompts callers to ceaselessly punch buttons until they no longer remember why they called or even have the will to live. Oh, wait . . . (Marie Harris, Elkridge)
Sell tires only in multiples of seven. (Joel E. Baker, Monterey, Calif.)
Viagra takes 2 days 4 hours to become effective. (Marc Leibert, New York)
All election punch cards must be completed in reverse; i.e., stick chad into the holes you don’t want punched. (Kevin d’Eustachio, Linwood, N.J.)
