Jobs Report
I hadn’t entered The Late Show with David Letterman’s online Top Ten contest
[dead link] for several months before doing so this week. As usual, I threw in a couple of options that weren’t stellar along with my personal favorite(s), because you never know what will ring the bell of whomever makes the selections. Even though I didn’t submit very many, there was a winner among my...
Top Five Surprises in the Steve Jobs Biography
5. He slipped Bill Gates’ barber a fifty every month for 30 years.
4. But for the flip of a coin, he’d have been wearing black pants and a denim turtleneck every day.
3. His kids had to show him how to program the VCR.
2. Ironically, he got the idea for the Apple when a book about Isaac Newton hit him on the head. (Think about it, people!)
And the Number One Surprise in the Steve Jobs Biography...
1. He was actually more of a papaya guy.
It’s not a contest for submissions to the actual show, remember; Dave has writers for that. You can check out the previous contest’s winners and the current topic, as well as submit your own entries, at the Late Show website via the link above — the only place the winning entries get seen, apart from the weekly Late Show newsletter. Once upon a time there was a prize for having submitted one of the ten entries selected, but now you’re not even notified; you have to subscribe to the newsletter or check the website yourself.
I liked my Number Five the best, which is the one that got chosen, although I do have
a soft spot for the slightly tortuous Number Two. Numbers One and Three were mostly submitted because they seemed closest to the kind of humor that’s usually on the list of winners. Number Four ain’t so hot, but I wanted at least five and it’s the best I could do at the time.
Related: The Devil You Say • Gluttony for Punnishment • Prom Numbers
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Number 5 and 2 made me laugh out loud! Not LOL, actually laugh out loud!
ReplyDeleteI like 2 too. (Does that make me a ballerina?)
ReplyDeleteBut shouldn't that be a book about gravity? I mean, Newton wasn't hit on the head by Steve Jobs.
ReplyDeleteHa! Congratulations, a well-deserved win for Sir Blamington the Witty-Brain.
ReplyDeleteI happen to like number 4 the best :)
ReplyDeleteArben: But shouldn't that be a book about gravity? I mean, Newton wasn't hit on the head by Steve Jobs.
Yeah, I thought about that. The problem is that then the analogy/joke starts to break down because it's the actual falling of the apple and not the apple itself that legendarily gave Newton the idea about gravity, so having a book about gravity hit Jobs on the head becomes redundant: Jobs=Newton, book=apple, Apple=gravity, yet the falling of an object needs to remain constant in both images to suggest the whole situation.
It's like the old cartoon of the newsboy on crutches yelling "Shazam!" — back when enough of the general public was actually familiar enough with Captain Marvel to know that Freddy Freeman was Captain Marvel Jr. but not enough to know (or at least care) that Freddy's own magic phrase was actually "Captain Marvel!".
So, y'know, I suggest that you stuff a denim turtleneck up your nose.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ashlie!
Cool, LK! (Yes it does.)
Of course you did, Joanie...
I also liked #4 (and #2). Great minds Joan, great minds!
ReplyDelete