Happy St Patrick's Day

As St Patrick's Day approaches, so do the Green smilies and animations. Here's one to get you going. Send us your favourites and we like them, we'll add them into Friday Fun.

Where do all the Smilies come from?

Every day a few more of these smilies arrive in my inbox. They're not really smilies any more, they are animations on almost every subject you can think of. I often wonder where they all come from. Someone must be out there somewhere thinking to themselves .... I must make an animated gif of a bloke catching a fly with his tongue. today!

Anyway I'm glad they do. I delete most of them and the rest I pop on Friday Fun, like the ones that made it there this weekend. Hope you enjoy them (lots of new videos too by the way!)

Download the Internet here

Make sure you have enough disk space ...



(Click the picture to see it full size)

Reading test

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh?

Caught sleeping at your desk?

Here's the top ten things to say:

10) "They told me at the blood bank this might happen."

9) "This is just a 15 minute power-nap like they raved about in that time management course you sent me to."

8) "Whew! Guess I left the top off the White-Out. You probably got here just in time!"

7) "I wasn't sleeping! I was meditating on the mission statement and envisioning a new paradigm."

6) "I was testing my keyboard for drool resistance."

5) "I was doing a highly specific Yoga exercise to relieve work-related stress. Are you discriminatory toward people who practice Yoga?"

4) "Why did you interrupt me? I had almost figured out a solution to our biggest problem."

3) "The coffee machine is broken..."

2) "Someone must've put decaf in the wrong pot..."

And the #1 best thing to say if you get caught sleeping at your desk...

1) " ... in Jesus' name. Amen."

Mensa suggestions of new words

Here is the Washington Posts Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

The winners are:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus: A person who is both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign breaking down in the near future.
5. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
6. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
7. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
8. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
9. Karmageddon: It's when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, and then the Earth explodes, and it's a serious bummer.
10. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you
11. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
12. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you have accidentally walked through a spider web.
13. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
14. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you are eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n. the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted, adj. appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
3. Abdicate, v. to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade, v. to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly, adj. impotent.
6. Negligent, adj. absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
7. Lymph, v. to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle, n. olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence, n. emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash, n. a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle, n. a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude, n. the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon, n. a Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster, n. a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism, n. the belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck here.
16. Circumvent, n. an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Extra Man!

Count them, watch them move, count them again. Where's the extra man from?

Office Dares

Well as my week's holiday draws to a close and I think about going back to the office next week, here are my favourite Office Dares. Try them, they're fun!

One Point Dares

1. Run one lap around the office at top speed
2. Groan out loud in the toilet cubicle (at least one other 'non-player' must be in the toilet at the time).
3. Ignore the first five people who say 'good morning' to you.
4. Phone someone in the office you barely know, leave your name and say, Just called to say I can't talk right now. Bye."
5. To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your head.
6. When someone hands you a piece of paper, finger it, and whisper huskily, Mmmmmmm, that feels soooooo good!"
7. Leave your zipper open for one hour. If anyone points it out, say, "Sorry, I really prefer it this way".
8. Walk sideways to the photocopier.
9. While riding in a lift, gasp dramatically every time the doors open.

Three Point Dares

1. Say to your boss, "I like your style" and shoot him/her with double-barrelled fingers.
2. Babble incoherently at a fellow employee then ask, "Did you get all that, I don't want to have to repeat it".
3. Page yourself over the intercom (do not disguise your voice).
4. Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle (there must be a 'non-player' within sight).
5. Shout random numbers while someone is counting.

Five Point Dares

1. At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to conclude with the singing of the national anthem - (extra points if you actually launch into it yourself).
2. Walk into a very busy person's office and while they watch you with growing irritation, turn the light switch on/off 10 times.
3. For an hour, refer to everyone you speak to as "Bob".
4. Announce to everyone in a meeting that you "really have to go do a number two".
5. After every sentence, say 'mon' in a really bad Jamaican accent. As in "the report's on your desk, mon". Keep this up for one hour.
6. While an office mate is out, move their chair into the lift.
7. In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and mutter, "Shut up, damn it, all of you just shut up!"
8. At lunchtime, get down on your knees and announce, "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again."
9. In a colleague's diary, write in 10am: "See how I look in tights".
10. Carry your keyboard over to your colleague and ask "You wanna swap?"
11. Repeat the following conversation 10 times to the same person: Do you hear that?" "What?" "Never mind, it's gone now".
12. Come to work in army fatigues and when asked why, say, "I can't talk about it".
13. Posing as a maitre d', call a colleague and tell him he's won a lunch for four at a local restaurant. Let him go.
14. Speak with an accent (French, German, Porky Pig, etc) during a very important conference call.
15. Find the vacuum and start vacuuming around your desk.
16. Hang a two-foot long piece of toilet roll from the back of your pants and act genuinely surprised when someone points it out.
17. Present meeting attendees with a cup of coffee and biscuit, smash each biscuit with your fist.
18. During the course of a meeting, slowly edge your chair towards the door.
19. Arrange toy figures on the table to represent each meeting attendee, move them according to the movements of their real-life counterparts.

Fun out of the office

1. At lunchtime, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hairdryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.
2. Tell your children over dinner. "Due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go."
3. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.
4. Put your rubbish bin on your desk and label it "IN."
5. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over his or her caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
6. In the subject field for all your e-mails, write " FOR SEXUAL FAVOURS".
7. Finish all your sentences with "In accordance with the prophecy."
8. Don't use any punctuation
9. As often as possible, skip rather than walk.
10. Ask people what sex they are. Laugh hysterically after they answer.
11. Specify that your drive-through order is "to take away" (or "to go" if you are in the US).
12. Sing along at the opera.
13. Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme.
14. Put mosquito netting around your work area. Play a tape of jungle sounds all day.
15. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you're not in the mood.
16. Have your co-workers address you by your wrestling name, Rock Hard.
17. When the money comes out of the ATM, scream "I Won! I Won! 3rd time this week!!!"
18. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the car park yelling, Run for your lives, they're loose!"

And the final way to keep a healthy level of insanity... Send this to everyone in your address book, even if they sent it to you or have asked you not to send them stuff like this, I dare you!

Voicemail messages

The other thing I get bored with in an office environoment is getting people's voicemail messages. Especially those that start with "please listen to this message".

These are much more fun - I like 1 and 10 best. If you know more, add them to the comments for others to enjoy.

1. Hi. This is John: If you are the phone company, I already sent the money. If you are my parents, please send money. If you are my financial aid institution, you didn't lend me enough money. If you are my friends, you owe me money. If you are a female, don't worry, I have plenty of money


2. Hello, you've reached Jim and Sonya. We can't pick up the phone right now, because we're doing something we really enjoy. Sonya likes doing it up and down, and I like doing it left to right...real slowly. So leave a message, and when we're done brushing our teeth we'll get back to you.


3. "Hi! John's answering machine is broken. This is his refrigerator. Please speak very slowly, and I'll stick your message to myself with one of these magnets."


4. My wife and I can't come to the phone right now, but if you'll leave your name and number, we'll get back to you as soon as we're finished.


5. (Narrator's voice:) There Dale sits, reading a magazine. Suddenly the telephone rings! The bathroom explodes into a veritable maelstrom of toilet paper, with Dale in the middle of it, his arms windmilling at incredible speeds! Will he make it in time? Alas no, his valiant effort is in vain. The bell hath sounded. Thou must leave a message.


6. "Hello, you are talking to a machine. I am capable of receiving messages. My owners do not need siding, windows, or a hot tub, and their carpets are clean. They give to charity through the office and don't need their picture taken. They are also VERY happy with their current phone service. If you're still with me, leave your name and number and they will get back to you."


7. The College Special. A is for academics, B is for beer. One of those reasons is why we're not here. So leave a message.


8. He-lo! This is Sa-to. If you leave message, I call you soon. If you leave sexy message, I call sooner!


9. "If you are a burglar calling to check, then we're probably at home cleaning our weapons right now and can't come to the phone. Otherwise, we probably aren't home and it's safe to leave us a message."


10. "Hi. I am probably home, I'm just avoiding someone I don't like. Leave me a message, and if I don't call back, it's you."


11. You have reached the CPX-2000 Voice Blackmail System. Your voice patterns are now being digitally encoded and stored for later use. Once this is done, our computers will be able to use the sound of YOUR voice for literally thousands of illegal and immoral purposes. There is no charge for this initial consultation. However our staff of professional extortionists will contact you in the near future to further explain the benefits of our service, and to arrange for your schedule of payment. Remember to speak clearly at the sound of the tone. Thank you."

I'm out of the office ....

It's summer holiday time and half the emails I send get me an "Out of Office" reply. Great for email marketers - at least you know they are being delivered. But aren't they dull?

Here are some I enjoyed - if you have others, stick them in the comments. I can think of a person that could use each one of these! Can you?

1. I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. I may be a little moody so be prepared.
2. You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn't have received anything at all.
3. Sorry to have missed you, but I am at the doctor's having my brain removed so I can be promoted to our management team.
4. I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless emails you send me until I return from vacation. Please be patient, and your mail will be deleted in the order it was received.
5. Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged £5.99 for the first 10 words and £1.99 for each additional word in your message.
6. The e-mail server is unable to verify your server connection and is unable to deliver this message. Please restart your computer and try sending again.
   ( The beauty of this is that when you return, you can see how many in-duh-viduals did this over and over.)
7. Thank you for your message, which has been added to a queuing system. You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 19 weeks.
8. Hi, I'm thinking about what you've just sent me. Please wait by your PC for my response.
9. I've run away to join a different circus.
10. I will be out of the office for the next 2 weeks for medical reasons. When I return, please refer to me as "Sally" instead of "Steve"

Choosing your Website name

What does your website name say about your company? Well in the case of the following - not quite what the company owners had in mind!

These are all legitimate companies that didn't spend quite enough time considering how their online names might appear - and be misread!

1. Who Represents is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their Web site is www.whorepresents.com
   
2. Experts Exchange is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at www.expertsexchange.com
   
3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at www.penisland.net
   
4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at www.therapistfinder.com
   
5. There's the Italian Power Generator Company at www.powergenitalia.com
   
6. And don't forget the Mole Station Native Nursery in New South Wales www.molestationnursery.com
   
7. If you're looking for IP computer software, there's always www.ipanywhere.com
   
8. The First Cumming Methodist Church Web site is www.cummingfirst.com
   
9. And the designers at Speed of Art await you at their wacky Web site,
   www.speedofart.com

So where is all the Easter stuff?

This year, as with most years, there have been very few new Easter funnies. The pic above is not new but is about as good as it gets at the moment. If you have anything that will meet our 'laugh out loud' test then don't forget to send it to us at the email address.

Out with the Christmas Funnies

It's that time of year again when PC Screens start flashing with Christmas lights, Reindeer sing to us, Santa does moonies and we all dig out our Christmas Funnies. Having recently spent some time with our legal department I still like the old legally approved Season's Greeting:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit my best wishes for a socially responsible, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all, together with a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2005, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make Britain great, (not to imply that Britain is necessarily greater than any other country), and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee. By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms.

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

And then there are all the Christmas Smilies, here are a couple to get you going - all the rest will appear on the site shortly:




And finally the videos and things. I think my all time favourite is still the singing Reindeer.



Enjoy - and let us know your favourites. Better still, send 'em in. If we like them, they'll appear on Friday Fun very soon.

Working at home and sick leave

I'm working at home today. Then this email turns up from someone in my team with nothing but this video in it. I'm not sure I follow her point ;)

When is 'family friendly' not?

We pride ourselves on being "Family Friendly" at Friday Fun. Which means a lot of very funny stuff goes in the bin as it's simply not suitable. Sometimes, though it's a real dilemma.

Here is a good example from today. My seven year old drew my attention to this game. It's great fun. You fire a cat from a canon and see how far you can make it bounce.

Sounds harmless enough (unless you're a cat, that is). But then you find out that the things that make it bounce further are sticks of dynamite and explosives. Not nice for poor pussy. And the reason it finally stops is that either it runs out of steam, or it's snapped up by a cat-eating plant or worse still, impaled on spikes. Yuck!

It's in!

Friday Fun Enhancements

We're always thinking about ways to improve Friday Fun. Here are some of the items we have in mind. Vote below for any or all you'd like to see. If there are others that are not mentioned, use the comment option below to let us know what YOU think. Select the anonymous option for speediness.

More regular email updates. We update once a month and send an email to subscribers at the same time. One option would be to make that weekly or more frequent.

Next / previous buttons. We'd like to add a link from one item to the next so that you don't need to go back to the indec each time.

Rating. Well we think we select the best funnies but what do you think? One thing we'd like to add is a simple rating system so you can see what others like best and to add your own vote.

Sorting. At the moment we list the newest funnies first then the rest are alphabetical. One option would be to sort by name, date or rating.

Which Friday Fun enhancements would you like to see?
	More frequent email updates
	More frequent content updates
	Next / Previous buttons
	Ratings
	Sorting
	Other (Use Comments option below)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Funny Videos vs Company Virals

When you put a site like Friday Fun together you know that some of the clips are amateur footage of funny events and some are expensive extensions to corporate branding or marketing strategies.

Do we care?

Personally I don't. As long as they are funny, they deserve a place here and on sites like this. Mind you, we put most content in the bin! Whatever the source.

I'm still rather fond of The Lenovo Tapes - the three videos are close to my heart - anyone know why?







But even with these expensive virals around, there is still plenty of space for the amateur ones, which in my view, deserve even more credit if they can break through the noise that company marketing creates out there.

Here's a favourite:

Do you have a preference? Do you care? Or do you just want to be entertained?

Who makes animated GIFs?

You may have noticed we have a ton of animated gifs and smilies on the site. Has it ever occurred to you that someone must sit down and make all these? The smiley sets I can understand but dancing supers? What’s that about?

And who sits down to make an eyeball poking through a hole in a screen?



The ones that make fun of a situation or person I can cope with:



But some are just plain odd:



Either way - whatever the reason, and whoever is out there making this stuff, we like them! And our stats show that you do too!

Does the site need porn?

There seem to be two sorts of fun web sites like Friday Fun.

Those like ours that started as a bit of fun and grew into something that thousands of people visit each day, looking for a laugh. Mostly not for profit.

And then there are those that set themselves up primarily as businesses to charge companies that want to seed their viral marketing campaigns.

Oh and there’s money to be made! A recent viral I was involved with, cost several 10s of thousands of our nice British pounds to seed properly. That meant getting it listed on sites and blogs where hundreds of thousands of people would see it, copy it, send it on and get the ‘viral’ aspects of the job done. And to be fair, it did well.

However, almost all the sites were covered in porn. “Why?” you ask. The answer, it seems, is to drive up traffic. Sadly in a world of numbers, the thing that brings the punters back in droves, is porn. Amazing huh?

So why no porn on Friday Fun? Well two reasons really. First we are not a money making operation - we do it for fun. Sure we get paid for some of the clips, but you know what, they still need to make us laugh first. We hand pick every item we list - if they are not funny, they ain’t there!

And the other reason is we really do believe there must be space for just ONE site on the web that adults can happily send their kids to, without worrying about what they see.

So if you want smut, porn, snuff or scat, go somewhere else. So we may not make money this way but at least one little corner of the web is sticking with it’s principles.

Take it or leave it.

You're Beautiful

I happen to like the song by James Blunt. The video is weird and deserves to have the piss taken out of it. So I was pleased to find that one of our silly British sketch shows has done just that:



Like it?

And then for people who work in those lovely cubicles, here's a version for you ...

To Spam or not to Spam

So here’s a weird one. We use (even pay for) an official, above board, email service, to allow people to get updates on what we’ve added to Friday Fun.

“Fine” you think. They opt in, they confirm, they reconfirm, they receive the email, they open it, they laugh. Job done!

Not so!

On average only 47% of recipients open the emails they receive from Friday Fun. I’m told that’s great compared with a 37% industry average. But that’s for business selling stuff to punters. We’re not selling anything. We’re giving away fun … for free! How can so many people opt in for some fun, then ignore it? Perhaps their spam filters are getting there first? But for 53% of emails - no way!

So then we find of all the people that open the emails, only 62% actually click on a “funny”. So what do the rest do? Go “Oh yeah some fun I asked for” then delete it? Well apparently so! But why? I give in. Again, the experts say I should be happy as the average click-through rate is 8.9% - but I already explained why that makes no sense.

So maybe they opt-out? No - less than 0.5% do. Maybe they ain’t there? Nope - under 4% bounce.

So here’s the thing - 100s of people who ask for our emails don’t open them. Blah!