Conan is insufferable

I flew JetBlue on my flight back from Boston (I will put up an On the Road post later). This was my first time flying with them, and after that sensational flight attendant from badassville I was curious about what to expect. Let me say JetBlue is great. I not only landed at LAX 25 minutes early, but also got to enjoy free satellite TV on-board.

Saw a few episodes of the Office (which, to my surprise, actually looked better than Season 4, when I abandoned the then-awkward show), the Nanny and a few minutes of Letterman, Leno, and (alas) Conan.

I never understood all the unjustified hoop-la surrounding the golden child Conan. In the whole Leno-Conan-NBC fiasco, everybody coddled him as if he were the lost son of Zeus. Give me a break. The man is staggeringly unfunny. And yet - against my better judgment - I was tempted to check out his new show on TBS.

BIG FREAKING MISTAKE. Horrible, horrible skits. I did not chuckle even once. One word: insufferable. Actually, two words: still insufferable.

Hey Conan, I am gonna find a lawyer to file an Eighth Amendment lawsuit. Cruel, cruel punishment, man.

The Economist is so damn funny

If you don't know much about the Economist magazine, it is quite possibly the best source of detailed analysis of major events around the globe. Each issue is densely packed with in-depth articles on a wide-variety of topics.

Basically, it is like Time magazine on horse testosterone.

But of course, it is published from Britain so it has a distinctively British flavour to it. And I am not even talking about the perfunctory differences in spelling and diction. I am talking about some full-blown peculiarities:

Each letter to the editor hilariously begins with  "SIR-". Now I wonder, do readers write like this, or are the editors diligently adding the greeting? Hmm, it would be funny if someone said "SIR - I hated your article on the instability of Nigeria."

What bowled me over, though, was their absolutely snarky and dry captions. Take a look at this one:

No way to cement a relationship

This is taken from their most recent issue (October 30), and the article discusses a fairly boring takeover bid of a construction company in Germany. Look at the caption though!! Get it? Cement...construction...hahahaha.

Here is another one: (from an article about France's pension reform)

Bet he wasn't worried about his pension

HAHAHAHAHA. Genius.

Just incredible that this stodgy, staid magazine serious enough to append SIRs to the letters to the editor sneaks in little nuggets of humor (or should I say humour). Seriously, who comes up with these things? Do they hire a bloke whose sole job is to churn out sarcastic one-liners to match the article? That would be a pretty cool job IMO.

Those monocle-wearing, tea-sipping, cricket-playing Brits are masters of subtlety, aren't they?

Celeb look alike?

Is it just me or does Jon Hamm look a lot like our newly minted Speaker of the House John "Orange" Boehner?

[Image courtesy: alan.org and austinpost.org]