When I was very young, the gravity inside our house was accidentally reversed. Upon crossing the threshold a person, unless he was prepared, would immediately fall upwards, cracking his head on the ceiling. On one occasional, this effect paralyzed a mailman. Those of us who knew what to expect partially rotated our bodies so as to land on our feet. There we would find a whole living room set resting upside down—though of course it appeared right side up once you were up there—on the ceiling. My mother took this quite within stride, but my father could usually be found, after work, strapped in a harness and hoisted up to the floor, where he could pretend the house was still normal, but when his favorite television show came on, my father would usually return to the ceiling and say, “I’m not going to sit on the ceiling like some damn savage, but if the TV’s up here, I suppose I can make an exception for an hour or two.” Read more
Nice Stories
The Mystery of the Locked Room Murder
Inspector Ford tried the knob. It didn’t budge. The heavy wooden door was locked from the inside.
“Lord Bromley always takes breakfast at half nine, sir,” the butler, Remington, pontificated. “When he didn’t respond, that’s when we called the constabulary.”
Inspector Ford knelt and looked through the keyhole. He could just make out the motionless form of Lord Bromley under the bearskin on the four-poster bed. “And you say there’s no other way in or out?”
“No sir. The window is much too high for any ladder and the chimney flue, well, it would be impossible for any man to shimmy through that, sir.” Read more
Nepotism is Great!
Nepotism is much maligned among losers without famous and rich parents, but in the most exclusive clubs in America, the truth is whispered: nepotism is great! Nepotism is the lifeblood on which our society runs. If you don’t believe me, just ask its beneficiaries. I mean, who are you going to trust: a bunch of deadbeats who have mortgages and fly commercial, or subscribers to the Robb Report? The sooner that people without homes on at least two continents realize they should not have opinions of their own but should simply follow the wishes of their betters, the happier everyone will be. Read more
Hair
“I’ve always thought that I had the perfect hair to play Jim Hawkins from Treasure Island. But now that I’m too old to play him, I feel that my hair has been wasted! Keeps me awake at night, man!” — James McAvoy
Me too, James. Me too.
Dating the Uzbek Way
As if their ability to consume mounds of boiled cabbage and not get fat isn’t enviable enough, Uzbek women have yet another reason to make their American counterparts jealous: their relationships. According to Gulshanoy Nebiyeva, author of What Uzbek Women Know: About Love, Sex and Other Matters of the Heart and Mind, Uzbek women enjoy a satisfaction in romance that we in the States can only dream about. In order to give women on this side of the Atlantic a leg up in the love department, we asked Nebiyeva for her thoughts on what makes their dating practices so wildly successful — and what American women can do to capture a little of that ya nye znayo chto themselves. Read more
I Had a Balloon
When I was a child, I had a balloon. I enjoyed the balloon. Whenever I met another child who also had a balloon, I would say, “This one is like me, he also has a balloon.” There was an immediate bond between us. If he asked me a favor, I would comply, reasoning that he would reciprocate in the future if I was in need, and even if no such situation ever arose, I could still feel satisfied doing the right thing. It was part of the brotherhood of those who had balloons. Read more
You Couldn’t Pay Me Enough to be a Millionaire
There’s a lot of people in this country with tough jobs. There’s the dog groomer, risking rabies every time he picks up his scissors. There’s the chimney sweep, covered in soot and singing some nonsensical ditty in a Cockney accent. There’s the chicken-sexer, constantly being propositioned by chickens. But I think the worst job of all, the job that there’s no way you could pay me enough to do, is being a millionaire. Read more
Plug
I wrote a book.
The only way Domenech Fera can save his life is to abduct a child supergenius and find a man who disappeared a decade ago while speaking to the last surviving Artificial Intelligence. What was discussed at that meeting, why were all the other A.I.s destroyed in a plague, and why did Fera’s partner betray him? The answers lie somewhere in the sprawling megalopolis of Mexico City.
The Laffer Curve vs. Starve the Beast
Llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllet’s get ready to rumbllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllle! Innnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn this corner… from Chicago, Illinois… we have… the Aggro Mnemonics of Macroeconomics… the Golden Calf of the Powerpoint Graph… the Nomad Pagan of Ronald Reagan… the Laffer Cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurve! And in the other corner… weighing in at small enough to drown in a bathtub… we have… the Hellfire Nemesis of Welfare Benefits… the Plato in Cahoot with the Cato Institute… the Kosher Fist of Grover Norquist… Starve! The! Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeast! Two mutually contradictory concepts go head to head in the Thunderdome! Two ideas enter, one idea leaves! Who wins? You decide! Read more
Mailbag
We get a lot of mail here at Weird Proof Headquarters, and while we try to respond to all of it, the sheer volume is overwhelming! But since we love interacting with our many fans, we decided to devote a day to share some of the most intelligent, perspicacious, and flattering mash notes we’ve received since we began blogging. Though the letters occasionally reveal a less than perfect grasp of English grammar, spelling, and punctuation, their passion is undeniable.
As always, these are actual emails from actual readers.