Redless Day

On average, men shell out more than double the money than women do on valentines gifts. Men buy most of the millions of boxes of chocolates and bouquets of flowers given on Valentine's Day.  Women purchase approximately 85% of all valentines cards, men purchase 73% of Valentines Day flowers and around 15% of women send themselves valentines flowers.  In order of popularity, Valentine's Day cards are given to teachers, children, mothers, wives, sweethearts and pets. About 3% of pet owners will give valentines gifts to their pets.

 

For some reason the Italian city of Verona receives about 1,000 letters each year addressed to Juliet from William Shakespeare's play.  Her admirers seem to have forgotten she dies at the end of the play.

 

Valentine's Day is banned in Saudi Arabia. The nation has a religious police force that uphold the annual ban with support from the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Everything related to the holiday is prohibited - chocolates, flowers, gifts, even the colour red. Nothing red can be worn or sold on Valentine’s Day in Saudi Arabia, florists put away their red roses and store owners take down anything that’s red, heart–shaped, or vaguely Valentine’s Dayish. The penalty for defying these orders is the store being shut down. Individuals are also not supposed to wear anything red on Valentine’s Day. If they do, they will be denied entry into school, work, stores wherever they go.  The ban is based on Islamic legal ruling against pagan holidays, under order of the religious police.

 

 

Christmas Card Etiquette

Oddly Christmas cards originated long before they could be printed and, even more oddly, before the tradition of Christmas. In pre-Christian Europe it was common to send good luck gifts for new years.  In Rome at the time, theses gifts were often accompanied with written cards. The cards were often sent on December 25th to ensure they arrived by January 1st.  When Christianity took over in Rome the tradition continued, though these cards still did not make mention of Christmas. The card tradition eventually migrated through Europe and to England, where these home made cards combined well wishes for both Christmas and the New Year and were delivered before Christmas Day.

Later in the fourteenth century with the advent of wood-block printing, small scale mass production of New Year's cards appeared in Germany. By the fifteenth century, religious Germans were creating New Year gifts called 'Andachtsbilder'. These cards still focused on the new year but were often decorated with a picture of the baby Jesus.  The lithograph was invented at the end of the 1700s and further promoted the printing of Christmas themed holiday greeting cards across Europe, but the final leap of the Christmas card was tied to the scocial etiquette of the early 1800s.

 

During the 1800's the practice of visiting one’s friends and relatives was a middle and upper class social convention with it's own etiquette revolving around the calling card.  Every well to do gentleman kept a ready supply of calling cards with him to distribute upon his visits.  A married man had a medium sized card, while an unmarried man had a smaller card. Men’s cards were always smaller than women’s.

 

On a first visit to a household a servant was often sent to deliver a calling card as it was not expected to be invited in.  A gentleman would give one card to each lady of the house.  If the lady of the house was not home, but her daughter was, the gentleman sent in his card and departed as a young lady did not receive calls from a gentleman unless they were very intimate friends.

 

When calling upon a friend, a gentleman gave his card to the servant answering the door. The servant would be holding a silver tray and the card would be placed upon it. If the person the gentleman was calling upon was home, the servant would take the card to them and they would come meet the gentleman. If the person being called upon was not home, the servant would leave the card for when they returned.

 

If a card was left with a folded top right corner it indicated that the card had been left in person rather than by a servant, and often other corners were folded down to signify the nature of the visit. For a congratulatory visit, the left hand upper corner was turned down, the left hand lower corner for a condolence visit, the right hand lower corner if you were visiting before a long trip. Alternatively a gentleman would inscribe initials upon the card, which stood for French words, to denote the reason for his visit.

 

Congratulations: p. f. (pour féliciter)
Expressing thanks: p. r. (pour remercier)
Condolences: p. c. (pour condoléance)
Happy New Year: p. f. N. A. (pour feliciter Nouvel An)
Taking leave: p. p. c. (pour prendre congé)
Introducing ones self: p. p. (pour présenter)

 

Visiting cards became an indispensable social tool, with rules governing their use, much more elaborate and sophisticated than clicking like on facebook. During Christmas and New Year it was common for the person you were calling on to be out visiting also so it became a seasonal exchange of cards.

 

The growing use of decorated printed stationary and the gradual development of New Year specific calling cards prompted Sir Henry Cole and his  friend Calcott Horsley to create the first official "Christmas" Christmas card for the masses in 1843 to take advantage of the new Public Post Office.  Selling for 1 shilling, the card had three panels. The outer two panels showed people caring for the poor and in the centre panel was a family having a large Christmas dinner in which a child was being given a glass of wine. 

As printing methods improved, Christmas cards became more decorative and more popular and were produced in large numbers from about 1860.  In 1915, John C. Hall and two of his brothers created Hallmark Cards, still one of the biggest card makers today. In the 1920s a trend back towards home made cards became popular, often made with foil and ribbon on them. Today, cards have all sorts of pictures on them: nativity scenes, Christmas trees, rude reindeer, naked Santa Claus etc. With the advent of cheaper photo-printing a disturbing trend in custom cards has arisen in the form of individuals and families taking Christmas themed photographs of themselves (or their pets) and producing them on mass as cards.

These days, Christmas cards make up approximately 45% of all greeting cards sent and, despite historically being a gentleman's social tool, only around 15% of those Christmas cards are purchased by men.

Creepy Crazy Relatives

Missed doing a post about Mothers Day the other week, on account of being overseas at the time.  Anyway, I think there should be more days to celebrate family members each year.  I propose Crazy Aunts Day and Creepy Uncles Day.

 

 

Crazy Aunts Day will be a day to give a token card to your mental aunty who's house is so full of hoarded trash that only her fifty seven cats can navigate it.

 

And similarly Creepy Uncles Day is a day to pay a visit to that uncle with the hentai collection who's isn't allowed within 500m of a school.

 

Crazy Aunts Day and Creepy Uncles Day is the best way to go to show your appreciation for those Uncles and Aunts that are completely unappreciable.

 

 

Krukolibidinous

 Krukolibidinous is the act of staring at someones crotch.  It's an important word to remember, because there are times when no matter how hard you try to keep your eyes up at face level, they just keep being drawn down to a less than appropriate spot.

 

I think they had the right idea in the middle ages with the development of the codpiece.  People are going to stair, so you might as well may a good show of it all.  The codpiece began as a simple piece of fabric to cover the gap in a gentleman leggings. As time wore on it became more elaborately decorated and padded.  Which is a good way to turn something unsightly to something more pleasing.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

 

Rock, Paper, Scissors, it's played around the world and in more recent years the game has developed it's own official, professional circuit.

The game dates back to the Chinese Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) and was called Shoushiling (translates as hand command).  The original game consisted of Snake, Centipede & Frog, where the snake feared the poisonous centipede, the centipede feared the frog, and the frog feared the snake.


When the game reached Japan the hand sign for centipede was misinterpreted as slug or snail.  By the 17th century the hand gestures had changed to Stone, Scissors, Cloth in China (& its neighbour Korea) and to Stone, Scissors, Paper in Japan.  By the early 1920's the game had spread from Japan to Europe where it became widely popular but didn't seem to reach America until the 1930's. Some time through the 20th century the term rock replaced stone.

 

Last year researchers at the University of Tokyo developed a robot that has the capacity to beat any human challenger 100% of the time.  The robot is essentially, a camera-connected mechanical hand, driven by a supercomputer that knows how to cheat so well it is physically incapable of losing at the game.  The robot reads the shape of its human challengers hand faster than the human eye can, then translates that reading into its own pre-emptive response.

 

 

Aside from potentially losing to cheating fembots, the problem with Rock Paper Scissors is that three hand gestures give only 9 possible outcomes and a 33.33% chance of a tie.  A growingly popular variation Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock, adds a couple of extra hand gestures to help remedy this.  The rules of engagement are: Scissors cuts paper; Paper covers rock; Rock crushes lizard; Lizard poisons Spock; Spock smashes scissors; Scissors decapitates lizard; Lizard eats paper; Paper disproves Spock; Spock vaporises rock; Rock crushes scissors.

The addition of the extra two options gives 25 possible outcome combinations and lowers the chance of a tie to 20%.
 

But when you are trying to make a serious decisions 20% chance of a tie is still far to great.  Again the solution is to add more gestures.  Fortunately someone by the name of David Lovelace has already developed the expanded solution.  Lovelace has devised a 25 gesture game, he seems to have renamed Spock to Alien (presumably to avoid and copyright trouble) and has reverted the Lizard to Snake.

Each gesture beats out twelve gestures, and is beaten by the remaining twelve, resulting in 300 possible outcomes and only a 4% chance of a tie.

But in the age of extreme sports this is just still not enough.  What's needed is extreme rock paper scissors and fortunately Lovelace delivers again. Extreme Rock Paper Scissors consists of 101 gesture many of which are so extreme they require two hands to form.

The game is Rock, Death, Wall, Sun, Camera, Fire, Chainsaw, School, Scissors, Poison, Cage, Axe, Peace, Computer, Castle, Snake, Blood, Porcupine, Vulture, Monkey, King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Police, Woman, Baby, man, Home, Train, Car, Noise, Bicycle, Tree, Turnip, Duck, Wolf, Cat, Bird, Fish, Spider, Cockroach, Brain, Community, Cross, Money, Vampire, Sponge, Church, Butter, Book, Paper, Cloud, Airplane, Moon, Grass, Film, Toilet, Air, Planet, Guitar, Bowl, Cup, Beer, Rain, Water, TV, Rainbow, UFO, Alien, Prayer, Mountain, Satan, Dragon, Diamond, Platinum, Gold, Devil, Fence, Game, Maths, Robot, Heart, Electricity, Lightning, Medusa, Power, Laser, Nuke, Sky, Tank, Helicopter, Dynamite, Tornado, Quicksand, Pit, Chain, Gun, Law, Whip, Sword.

Each gesture beats fifty gestures and is beaten by the remaining fifty gestures. The 101 gestures results in 5,050 outcomes with only a 0.99% chance of a tie! Follow this link here to open an interactive chart showing what beats what or follow this link here for a printable friendly list describing the gestures and their descriptive spoken outcomes such as "Scissors Stabs Brain", "Robot Hurls Rock" and "Rainbow Irritates Satan".  Follow this link here and you can purchase David Lovelaces RPS-101 guidebook describing all gestures and their verbal descriptions.

 

Love Amongst Europe's Creative Class

Most exciting comic ever...

 

Back & Crack

My latest idea is for an anti-dandruff shampoo called Back and Crack.  It's like Head and Shoulders shampoo, except it's for back and crack.

It's much needed.

Facebook

I have this good idea for a new social networking site.  It’s called Arsebook.  It’s like Facebook but arse.  I have no doubt it will very popular.

Why do the Cybermens pants resemble stockings and underwear...?