Written by Jordan Valinsky
Bored with Pearl, the cursing toddler landlord demanding rent money? Not amused by those cutesy pictures of cats with the baby-speak captions?
Maybe you need some fresh sources of Internet humor. The Web is full of clever blogs and funny sites, including many that collect amusing gags from users and find comedy in real life.
Click away from the cats and replenish your list of favorite bookmarks with these 10 new or lesser-known humor sites:
Snapping the perfect family photo creates stress for anyone involved. Should we go casual and wear blue jeans with polo shirts on a beach or be a bit crazy, wear matching outfits and — wait for it — lean toward the camera? Ah, choices. This user-powered blog highlights the most well, awkward, family photos submitted by its contributors. Just don’t show this to your mom for portrait suggestions.
Breaking news: Your life is most likely mundane and not glamorous or melodramatic like “Gossip Girl.” Thankfully, someone has finally created a Web site for average people to commiserate about their average-ness. For a taste, here is a recent posting: “Today, I ate a “Fun Size” Snickers bar. I think that the regular size is more fun. MLIA (My life is average).”
Logging on to Facebook, one is bombarded these days with pointless quizzes, embarrassing photos and a friend request from … Mom? The inevitable has happened — your parents are on Facebook. Using submissions from users, this site highlights just what a foreign place Facebook is to parents. If you think associating with them in person is uncomfortable, this blog highlights the awkwardness that comes when your mom takes a “What porn star are you?” quiz.
Someone has found a way to make the Garfield cat comic strip funny: edit out Garfield. The author, who recently released a book of these comic strips, digitally edits out Garfield for a less-than-flattering portrayal of Garfield’s owner, Jon Arbuckle. Without his lasagna-loving cat, he looks like a lonely man who talks to himself — and whose life resembles that of “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” Remember, if you are having a bad day, it could be worse — you could be Jon.
The 1980s brought great advancements in the photography world, such as the first SLR camera, the BetaCam and … laser backgrounds. It was a magical world back then, where little Jimmy posed for his school picture not against a typical light-blue background but a “Tron”-like video game gone awry. Looking at these pictures, one has to wonder if the use of those dangerous lasers injured any kids.
Who needs high school when history can be explained in 140 characters? Did you know the origin of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech? @martinlkjr tweets: “Bought a sleep journal. I keep having dreams but forget to write them down.”
Safety signs are supposed to protect us from the dangers of big, scary machines and equipment. But most of the time, the signs turn out to be a parody of themselves. This blog gathers photos of actual safety signs with symbols of people being electrocuted, crushed by garage doors and so on. The “No Weapons Allowed” sign would not deter any killer from shooting the place up.
These electronic greeting cards offer wry commentary on everything from birthdays to topical events such as swine flu and the death of Michael Jackson. A recent Father’s Day card said, “You’re the best father I can imagine unless you lost my inheritance in the economic meltdown in which case I can imagine better.”
The task of illustrating a depressing point, like a company’s plunging profits, always lands on the poor graph. But no one said the lowly graph always has to be bleak — or boring. This Web site displays the best user-submitted graphs on a variety of oddball topics, from the percentage of people who dislike Michael Jackson to things people want to do in New Jersey (No. 1 option: Leave). Although GraphJam has been around for awhile, it remains one of the cleverest sites on the Internet.
Feeling regretful about those French fries you had with lunch? Here is a site that makes those greasy treats look healthy. Witness the chicken finger bacon pizza, which is drenched in Thousand Island dressing and baked to golden perfection, or the Pattie LaBurger, a triple-bacon cheeseburger that uses deep-fried burger patties as buns. If you dare to eat any of these, make sure you have a cardiologist on speed dial.
Wow, you stole this from CNN…very impressive. How about crapping out some original content for once???
FAIL