11 Points Inbox-O-Rama, Number 6

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11 Points Inbox-O-Rama, Number 6
Posted Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 10:00:00 AM

For the sixth installment of Inbox-O-Rama, I'm trying something I've, frankly, wanted to do for months: Change around the layout of my lists. Let me know what you think.

As always, Inbox-O-Rama features e-mails, Tweets, Facebook messages and comments from 11 Points readers and my answers to said pieces of correspondence. Anyone who is featured in Inbox-O-Rama gets an 11 Points sticker but (1) please be patient on them (2) you have to send my your address and (3) no, I still haven't figured out international shipping, so, for now, you have to be in the U.S.

11. These two things should not be sold by the same company.

[Regarding the list 11 Businesses Selling Two Hilariously Unconnected Items], there's a Liquor and Insurance store in Rouleau, Saskatchewan. It's been seen several times in the CTV series Corner Gas...what most people probably don't realize is that ... it was in business long before that.

KewlioMZX from Saskatchewan, via the comments

I've never heard of "Corner Gas"... I'm pretty sure the only Canadian TV shows I've heard of are "Degrassi" and "Canadian Idol"... but a store that sells liquor and insurance intrigues me a lot. They definitely can't jack up your premium if you get a DUI. Or deny you health insurance because of a pre-existing liver condition. Or get mad if you when you walk in there and you're eight years old but smell like Christian Slater.

Anyway, I tracked down a picture of this wonderful business, and here it is:

10. Yet another glorious bit of Photoshopped racial switching.

@11points Another phototshopped hand for your collection!

Jessica via Twitter

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm so, so proud that I'm becoming THE online encyclopedia of photos where black people were awkwardly Photoshopped in or out. I can't believe companies keep doing it, and yet I love them for it.

This is a great one with a mysterious black hand popping up in an eHarmony ad.

9. Kenan and Kel

Upon reading your recent mailbox list of dumb comedies you inexplicably love I feel that I must let you know that I too love Good Burger. I actually saw it in the theater with a friend of mine and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. I have no excuse for this, I am currently 31 years of ag and at the time of the film's release I was a high school graduate and probably not in the demographic they were going for. Because of that I am fully ashamed of my love for the movie and I pretty much never bring it up to anyone ever.

Thinking now fondly of that strangely enjoyable movie I have to wonder whatever happened to Kel? Why did Keenan go on to fame and fortune, or at least a gig with Saturday night live while Kel was relegated to obscurity?

--Warren

Oh Warren. You must never have seen the greatest dance show of ALL TIME (yes, all time)... "Dance 360"! Kel was the co-host (along with a former member of the rap group Onyx for some reason) and the show was absolutely, insanely good.

Tag ya man! Tag ya man! Head to head! Head to head!

8. Another great T9 switch

In the first Inbox-O-Rama I started inviting people to send me funny examples of a cell phone predictive text (T9) switching one word for another. Here's another classic...

This one completely confused me. A friend was visiting UC Berkeley, and I wanted to write to her "I know a place by campus where you can get great bagels." Unfortunately, my phone doesn't know "bagels" and substitutes "acid." Fitting given the context =)

--Daniel

Absolutely. And hopefully this will create a new stereotype that my fellow Jews are always eating acid. "Man, Kol Nidre just got a lot more interesting ever since that creature grew out of the side of the hazzan's head."

7. 11 Points costs a reader extra credit

I am in a Web Page & Development class this semester, and one of our assignments was to find a web page that had been designed incredible poorly, and one that had been well designed. Big name sites run by professionals weren't allowed for the well designed web pages category. Anyway, we had to present whatever web page we found to be well designed and show why it was well designed, and after the class would vote on the best one and the person who shared that site would get extra credit. Congratulations Sam, I chose your web site to share with the class!!

I had all my reasons prepared on why your web page is so well designed (Choose between two visual styles, articles separated by category, sentences highlighted to bring out the important parts of your lists), I was able to taste that extra credit, and when I loaded up your page to share with the class, I started my little speech, and when I went to demonstrate how well your articles are categorized, the mouse didn't move anywhere. It turns out the computer froze!!

Everyone figured it was your site that froze the computer, needless to say, I didn't get the extra credit. On an unrelated thought, a free bumper sticker would be even better than extra credit! Anyway, I still love the site, keep up the great work.

--Daniel in Auburn, Maine

I get lots of e-mails from people saying 11 Points ruined their productivity at school, but this is the first time that my site can be directly blamed for someone not getting a higher grade.

Fortunately, Daniel will be a freakin' ace if he ever takes a class and has to do a report about a dog does at picking NFL games over a season. Or reasons why 10 Things I Hate About You should've been called 11 Things I Hate About You.

6. Oh, so now "bitch" is disrespectful?

I got a lot of e-mail responses to my list of 11 Hip-Hop Lyrics That Are Supposed To Be Romantic But Fail Miserably; this one was my favorite addendum.

what about akon and david guetta 'sexy bitch': "I'm tryna find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful / Damn girl / Damn you'se a sexy bitch."

--Miss Rainbow (via the comments)

I wasn't familiar with the song, mostly because I absolutely despise Akon, so I went and looked it up and, yep, those are actually the lyrics. Ridiculous.

You can hear the clip here, from 1:16 to 1:26.

5. Rappers have the funniest names

[In your 11 Favorite Rappers' Real Names list,] you missed Plies whose government name is Algernod Lanier Washington.

--Jaydon

Wow. That might be the best one of all time. It's like when I found out Jake "The Snake" Roberts is really named Aurelian Smith, Jr.

4. This is the best season of "American Idol" ever!

In my most recent list, 11 Photos Ruined By Animals Doing Nasty Things In the Background, I open with the sentence "One of my most popular lists ever is 11 Sexy Photos Totally Ruined By People in the Background." This caught one reader's eye...

How come about half your lists are "One of my most popular lists ever"? :p

--APS

I didn't even know I was doing that so, apparently, my subconscious is a better hype man than I ever realized. (But, in my defense, 11 Sexy Photos Totally Ruined By People in the Background has received the most views of any of my lists, and almost 600,000 more than the second-place list, 11 Photos Where Black People Were Awkwardly Photoshopped In or Out. So it isn't just one of my most popular lists ever, it's my single most popular list ever.)

I promise to tone down the hype in the future. I used to joke with my old roommate JD that, on "So You Think You Can Dance", Nigel Lythgoe takes something I would call a "hyperbole pause." He'll say a sentence like "That was one of the best routines" ... then take a one-second pause to decide just how much hyperbole to pile on ... and go with either "tonight!" "this season!" "ever on this stage!" or "in the history of dance!" I don't want to be that guy.

3. Kim Jong-Il needs Johnny Depp on staff.

Someone finally responded to my 11 Craziest Kim Jong-Il Moments list! Definitely one of my least popular lists ever. (Which burns me up inside, because I think he's a fountain of jaw dropping insanity.)

How about he has staff that trims the lawn of his palace with scissors? From http://www.atimes.com/koreas/CH04Dg01.html:

"Outside our enchanted garden where the grass was impeccably mown I noticed that most of the lawns had a scruffy look and I could find no explanation for this. Well, the explanation was that the job of cutting grass was assigned to work details of hundreds of laborers scattered all over the lawns.

"These people were armed with tiny scissors and they cut the grass leaf by leaf stuffing the proceeds into special bags. What an imaginative way to achieve 'full employment' I thought. I made several attempts to photograph these scenes from the middle ages, but every time I lifted my camera lens the grass-cutters would all stampede away in panic."

I mean, I know Kim Jong-Il is crazy and evil and has done terrible things... but we're all going to miss stories like this when he died. (And/or 20 years after he dies and the North Korean press is finally allowed to publish that news.)

2. The mystery of my pink text

What is up with the highlighted text? I can't figure out any rhyme or reason to it. If they were all links I'd get it, but it doesn't seem to have a pattern. Help me understand! And why is it always reminiscent of vomit and Barbie?

I get a lot of questions about why I highlight one sentence or part of a sentence in every point with big pink italic letters. There really is logic to it.

I found that when I read a list (by someone else, of course), I eventually get into the mode where I start skimming for two things: Photos and bold words. So, I decided that, in every point, I'd highlight a key phrase, a funny phrase or something that would catch the eye... with the hopes that it'll stop skimmers in their tracks and invite them to read what's written.

Does it work? Hard to say. But it's become one of my signature styles, so I can't stop doing it now. Change is always bad, no matter what the Liberals tell you. (Liberals hate families, by the way.)

1. The Duck Hunt Dog Tattoo