Dead Kennedys

Thoughts from Ted Kennedy's funeral:
• Bill Clinton is now magenta apparently? Is someone on top of this?

• Also, do you think he got handsy during the kiss of peace? (Answer, yes. As a friend said: He's aiming for kiss of piece. And this led to 20 minutes of Catholic sex puns.)

• Uh, there sure are a lot of Kennedys left. For a family with a knack for dying, someone has made sure to manufacture plenty of spares.

• And the orthodontia bills! My God, those chompers. You've got competition, Biden.

• The men seem more handsome than the women are pretty. "Square-jawed" is not a complimentary term for a lady.

• I don't know this kid, but keep an eye on him. He'll be trouble. And kudos, kid, to whoever set you up with this photo-op idea. You got yourself into the New York Times.

• A lot of the eulogies seem to focus on the lesser-known Kennedy tragedies: A kid with a fake leg who's slow at sledding; a kid with asthma. Truly these are the worst times this family has endured.

• The son who told of his dad helping him get up the hill to sled – yes you can climb this hill and face the challenges of life! – made me teary, yes, but as a friend and I discussed: A hill metaphor, really? Is this the relative of some of our nation's greatest leaders or 8th-grade me writing inspirational poetry? As my friend said, "I feel like I could be holding on to you with one hand while you're dangling from a cliff and if I said, 'Hang on! I won't let you die!' I'd still have to add, 'Ugh, that was cheesy.' "


• Hey lookit! It's Yo yo Ma! (A chellist so nice they named him twice.) Bringing the tally up to 547 white people, two Obamas and one Asian.

Yeeeaah, I meant to say "brute bump bump bump butt"

Somehow I'd lived all these years without knowing the corporate joy of working with dictation software. (I hate to name names but let's just say it rhymes with "Mac Speech Dictate.") Trust me when i say I was enunciating.

And how'd things go? A little something like this.

I said:

Hello, I'm not sure if this dictation is working or not. The words aren't appearing on the screen. Hello, I'm not sure if this is working or not, but I would like words to appear on the screen please. Please. PLEASE! Please, please, please, please. I'm worried now because please is an easy word. An EASY word.

What the machine wrote was:

Hello I'm not sure depletion is working or not at the words to appear in the screenplay hell I'm not sure if this nation is working or not but I would like some words to appear on the screen needs plea plea USENET believes to be for Lee believes leave believes he easily worried if and eat EA is if it is an EEG word if an easy word

I don't know what this was:

If I worked in worked is that if worked a day or way old lady old he
only with a don't lay I know I can say is and I just saved my and make
her I am I just stayed out of just a just staying gestating A.D.

Finally, this is the alphabet as the software heard it:

ABCDE and GHIJK era (and no PE you are asked TUV W. at why is the lets
try that again a PC the 80 GHIJK and Amanda PQFT you see preview at
line and see what you

Then I tried to make it type burp, because that's what you do when you're 11 and someone hands you a new robot toy to play with:

Brooke bunt brute bump bump bump butt, but but bump

This is all cut and pasted exactly as it came out. I'd still be saying "burp" over and over into a microphone but the cleaning lady walked in. You'd think things couldn't get more awesome, but oh they can. I emailed the text to myself and the targeted gmail ad for this gobbledygook text was: