I once asked "How would a Native American have known what a whale looks like?"
I just had it in my head that they lived miles in land. How the others laughed at me and informed me of the Native Americans ability to build boats.
( Peej, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 11:56, 1 reply)

My mate Steve used to work in an Argos Superstore
on the games/consoles counter. This was back in the early-mid 90s. One day a woman brought in a Sega Megadrive and said she was having trouble with it. She said the games would load up OK but the controllers weren't working.

"Fair enough said Steve, let's have a look. You might have just got a couple of faulty controllers in the box. We'll set it up and have a look. If it is just the pads then I'll just swap them for a couple of new ones."
So he unboxed the console and plugged it in, connected it to a TV and then plugged the controllers in.
"Is that where you connect them?" asked the woman.
"Yes, why? Where have you been trying to connect them?"
"I didn't know you had to plug them in, I just had the wire trailing across the floor pointing at the Megadrive."
"Ahh, problem solved" said Steve and boxed everything back up.
"Thank you" she said and left, happy.

Steve then had to flee into the warehouse in order to burst out laughing. He told me that it wasn't just the stupidity of it that amused him, but on top of that, the fact that she didn't seem embarrassed in any way at making such a silly error.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 11:44, Reply)

Is it any surprise that he's a 'fan' of Sarah Palin?
A complete fuckwit of a bloke I went to school with become a police officer. This rather surprised me, as I always knew him to be a racist arsehole, mainly evidenced by his free use of the n-word and the fact that he used to beat up a kid with Down's Syndrome. I accepted his Facebook friend request, mainly to see what a complete cockmaster he had become.

His mate recently loaded himself up drink and hit an Amish buggy, killing two and (more upsettingly to the locals) a horse.

As the police officer in charge of investigation, he really shouldn't have made his status update, "Im gonna lose the evidence to make sure [drink driving friend] walks free, ROFL."

Also, those pictures of him in blackface, sig heiling and 'arresting' somebody for being 'a fucking fag' were quite ill-advised, even for a total plank of a corrupt cop.

I made a complaint, complete with screen grabs.

He's still employed and still on the case, months later.

Who's more ignorant - him, for posting those things on Facebook or me, for thinking somebody would actually do something about it?
(TheSnark oh, c'mon, like you didn't see me coming, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 11:28, 10 replies)

So I’m just about to go into a meeting with a friendly, but officious young man with ideas above his station:
He comes over to my desk as I’m listening to my tunes:

Him: Hey, Vagabond. Hey! What have you got on your headphones?

AV: Oh! Well, er … some New Model Army, a bit of dub, some Badmarsh & Shri …

Him: New … Model … Army … ?

AV: Yeah – you know them?

Him: Er …

AV: They’re a sort of 80s post-punk agit-rock outfit, er … prototype of the 90s indie band The Levellers? Er … I’ve also got some dub? You like dub? Like reggae? Bob Marley and that?

Him: I don’t know. I’m not really into music.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 11:28, 4 replies)

How fast?
At lunchtime on day the other week at work, my friend had a cheapo penguin rip-off, and it had animal based facts on the back. Finding herself amazed at the fact, she asked us to guess how fast bears could run.
We weren't really sure, and apparently it's about as fast as a horse, 30 MPH. This was of vague interest, until she pipes up with a second question:

"Is that on four legs or two?"

Cue fantastic mental images :D
(Dovvit bee, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 11:13, 5 replies)

Working for the a multinational company (1000+ employees) means that I have seen my fair share of stupidity.
I could go into countless tales regarding admin fuckups or the number of clueless people that complain to us about our level of service but the greatest display of fuckwittery comes on behalf of the company owner (Reffered to from now on as Bossman) a bloke that likes to be hands on despite we are a pretty successful firm.

Usually I would not knock him as he has shown to be pretty astute when it comes to the day to day running of things and has run this place from a one man outfit to what it is now, it’s just his choice of staff hiring can seem a little….off (Yup he still oversees the hiring and firing despite the fact that he could hire someone else to do this).

Firstly there’s the basic staff, they are a number of clueless tards with no idea how to do simple tasks, one time a couple of the blokes were sent to pickup some IT kit our department had thrown away after a takeover of a smaller group (Turns out that the useless kit that we acquired during the takeover of another company was actually important business info that needed recovering before we threw it away). Trying to trace the kit was a waste of time and we still haven’t got it back (God knows the net cost lost on that).

But his major fuckup has to be the incident with AS. AS was a guy who started way before I did and pretty good at what he did until he was involved in a little domestic incident that required a pretty long and painful hospital trip. Despite the lengthy operations AS was still pretty fucked up, both physically and mentally and never really the same person he once was. Gone was the optomistic IT bloke who could repair many faults and instead there was a more sullen and pissed off bloke being anal and picking up on staff for the smallest of matters, the first time I saw an incident involving A was when he kicked the crap out of Gary from accounts in the canteen.

Anyone in their right mind would have penalized AS for this and referred him to a psychiatrist but no. Bossman turns a blind eye as AS is a director and untouchable. Thankfully this came back to bite my boss on the ass.

A few months later Bossman got a chance to meet L an up and coming lad in the world of business. Bossman sees potential in this lad and offers him a job on the spot, the trouble is that he offers him a job as director, more specifically the same directors job that was currently done by AS with a view to replace ASA from what I was told). The moronic part was that Bossman voiced this offer while AS was stood in the same sodding room. AS was very pissed at this and was about to kick off when L mentioned to bossman that he could shove his job he was happy where he was for now. Bossman was a tad pissed off at this and gave the cocky little sod a slap which turned out to be dumb thing number 2 to do as AS was L’s dad and didn’t take that too kindly (They both had the same sodding surname at one point and Bossman was informed of this beforehand).

AS released a shedload of pent up range on bossman and eventually threw him down a well. Apologies for length, spelling and leading you to read a longwinded post that turned out to be fictional.
(mon bison powered by magnets, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 11:00, 7 replies)

Tides
My Mum, trying to explain to 6-year-old dred where the water goes when the tide goes out:

'into the sand'...
(dred, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 10:43, 1 reply)

Me so dumb...
I read the newsletter on Friday. I got to the joke at the end (basically something along the lines of 'Who wants to be a millionaire is unfair to gingers, they only get two lifelines'

And didn't get it.

In anyway at all.

Then I kinda did, but spent the entire weekend asking people 'What is the other lifeline on WWTBAM? I can remember Ask the audience, 50/50 and Phone a friend, but what's the fourth?'

Refusing to believe that there were only three. Telling people that 'see, you can't remember the fourth either'...

Until my brother sat me down in front of Challenge TV last night and made me watch a repeat.

Boy, do I feel like a twat.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 10:01, Reply)

Lol Facebook
I've got a number of facebook connections with people with whom I was at primary school, and with whom I'd fallen out of contact since 1988.

One of them is M, and M has a tendency to sign up for those badly-spelled vigilante groups that pop up reasonably frequently. A few weeks ago, someone attacked the bloke convicted in the Baby P case in prison; unsurprisingly, a facebook group quickly emerged expressing support for the attacker. M joined it.

That's dumb enough in its own right. What's dumber is that this public declaration of support for violence in prisons was made by someone who is currently employed as... um... a prison officer.

Well done, M.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 9:46, 3 replies)

Swimming the channel - not as tough as it sounds.
When I moved down to Bournemouth from London for my first job, it was only a matter of weeks before my younger brother (who would have been about 17/18 at the time) rocked up for a weekend drinking in my new beachside home (well, actually a rented bedsit in what turned out to be a brothel, but that's a whole other QOTW answer).

Sat on the beach, drinking a couple of cans of lager and perving at women, my brother looked out at the Isle of Wight - always visible on a clear day.

'Fuck me,' he mused, sipping his Carlsberg. 'France is miles closer than I thought it was'.

*sandyfacepalm*
(Bappage, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 9:32, 1 reply)

How Homeopathy Works
by Dr. Werner. With a little help from Einstein, "Professor Hawkings", and a scant disregard for math, science, or (apparently) basic knowledge of the world.

Wonderful, wonderful video.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 9:28, 13 replies)

When I worked for a popular greetings cards retailer several years ago
A girl I worked with (known for being a little young for her age) told me what shooting stars were...Apparently when stars 'die' they fall from the sky, so what we see are dying stars falling through space. And her Mum told her that, so it's definitely true.

I'd love to live in her world.
( Two Hats 🎩🎩, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 8:03, 2 replies)

Remembered another
We were talking about our upcoming holiday when a friend mentioned that near where we're going is a huge water park, one of the biggest in the world he says. 'Our world?' pipes up his girlfriend.
(RainKing What do I put here then?, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 7:57, Reply)

Rafa Benitez
After the defaet to Merchandise United on Sunday, says "This game will show that we are strong. We can score goals in any stadium. We can beat anyone"

Errr, "beat anyone"? Didn't you just lose the game Rafa?
(GingerIrishTosser isn't dead yet., Mon 22 Mar 2010, 6:30, 6 replies)

Sheer unadulterated gormless stupidity
I'm not kidding. How fucking stupid are those twats?

Choice quotes: nah, fuck it. Read it yourself.
(McChinaman banned, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 5:29, 17 replies)

Peeing.
Okay, I'm still not entirely sure as to whether or not this is true or not, but subsequent internet research (limited mind you, given the subject matter) and numerous (and for some reason rather heated) debates on the issue with alcohol fuelled friends has had me looking quite the ass on more than one occasion.

Right. Well. A friend of the family (in some capacity, can't say I've ever met the bugger) had the misfortune of having his entire "man-bits" lopped off. So I asked "how does he pee?" and was told that he merely sweated it out. "All of it?" I asked. "Yes." replied Grandad who was head of surgery at hospital "X".

For some reason this comes up at the pub (as these things have a manner of doing down the local SU) and I was promptly laughed at and made to buy a round for being an utter arse. *sigh*.

I'm still not sure I was right or not but I was an arse for buying them all a round.
(spiderslut, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 3:47, 6 replies)

the joy of PhDs
Tim, double first in Biology from Oxford, PhD in Marine Biology from Harvard, was helping me carry a (full) filing cabinet from place a to place b.

The sharp edges at the underside being a bit much, he put his end down for a moment, took a good look at his (now bleeding) hands, held them up and said to me "Jo, is this *my* blood"?

Then K, my marvellous, lunatic, manic depressive Ex, also of the Cambridge PhD persuasion, once spent an hour trying to convince me that an island in indonesisa was mostly populated with women, as the men had been wiped out in world war 2, and the balance was still skewed.

Then again, if we're talking *really* stupid, I was the one who said no when she tried to give me a 7 grand ring back...
(pounana Slept well, and dreamed of large women, on, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 1:53, 5 replies)

I do a bit of work on the side fixing peoples' computers for a small fee
I don't make millions or anything, but it gets me the extra clothing and holidays.

Somebody came to me recently telling me that their friend wanted me to fix their computer, as they were 'locked out' and couldn't rememebr their password. This wasn't completely unfeasible as mnay students have came to me for the same reason. I decided to have a go anyway.

The bloke could not remember even the format of the password, and he claimed to have changed it when drunk so it could be anything. Fair 'nuff, I have a look. I ran the password recovery disc and found the Administrator password.

I boot up the computer intially, and find that there are about 12 associated networks to log on to. Alarm bells are ringing at this point, but he was adamant that it was his, and he has just joined a lot of business networks.

The final straw was when I logged in to the machine and, upon asking him how long he'd worked for [London company], he immediately started aweating and asked if I could reformat the computer.

Needless to say I phoned the police and he was arrested. I was almost crying to the police officer as I was certain that I was going to get it in the neck for handling stolen goods. Luckily, that wasn't so.
(Iggy Pop's Teeth, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 1:32, Reply)

I was at work...
and the office was ridiculously loud. In order to concentrate properly I decided to remove my hearing aids, and in full view of my rather blonde colleague I placed them on my desk. 5 minutes later I'm on the wrong end of a kick from her blondeness and I have no idea why. I turn towards her so I can lipread to find that she's chewing me out for... Not listening to her when she's talking to me!!!

I casually pointed out that seeing as she'd watched me remove my hearing aids and they were currently about 6 inches from her hand, she should have realised I wasn't going to hear her... Her response? 'Why does that make a difference?'

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at such sheer idiocy!
(Kimberelli is addicted to the shiny little magnets..., Mon 22 Mar 2010, 0:50, 4 replies)

This is a story I've had for a while and it only just occured to me that it actually fits this question
One September evening a few years ago I was sitting outside a café opposite Amsterdam's Oude Kerk, a beautiful church in the centre of one of its less salubrious areas when a tour group walked along. Identified as they were by their matching yellow jackets they patiently followed the guide's yellow umbrella as he stopped near the church entrance waiting for the slower stragglers at the back to catch up. Right at the back of the group the last to arrive were an American couple, probably mid-western from the accent who both looked up at the architecture and the woman said "Hey honey, look at this church, it must be pre war"

I will probably never forget the smirk on the face of the tour guide as from the front of the crowd loudly stated "Madam, it is not just pre war, it is pre America"
(bill, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 0:27, 5 replies)

Shitting in the dark.
Two years we lived in this property two fucking years of shitting in the dark when the light-bulb went (for some reason they never lasted long in the bathroom) until we discovered one day upon cleaning the bathroom mirror that there were lights behind it.

Even worse, we couldn't work out how to switch the bugger on until we removed the mirror and noticed the pull-cord switch on the side closest to the wall.
( Slippery Mick ‏, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 0:06, 8 replies)

Thems brown people are like us?
Though atheist, I am very tolerant of people that are religious. I am also patient with people who try to spread the good word. What I can't tolerate is religious people who are complete fucking idiots and somehow believe that god wants them to spread their idiocy by being a missionary.

My cousin is one of these people. I would like to start this story by mentioning that she got her masters degree in biology.

She went to Africa to be a missionary with her husband for a few months, and sent home a letter to the family about her experience. The part I will never forget is that she expressed her surprise at the fact that the "women over there" were similar enough to "us" to use the same kind of birth control.

Wow.
(Exempt OH WOW, VICODIN, Sun 21 Mar 2010, 23:52, Reply)

All alone in the big bad London
and I was getting my first fridge delivered. Charged by my Dad's advice of not letting anyone in without I.D. I asked the delivery man if he had any.

"Yes" replied he "your fucking fridge"
(allthatglittersisglitter, Sun 21 Mar 2010, 23:03, 4 replies)

BT came round to install teh fast internet for a flatmate
They had disconnected all the phones while working. When i came home my two flatmates complained that they would have to call them back the following day because 'they broke all the phones'. I assumed this was what happened but as the problem was not fixed the following day (they hadn't called) i checked it out myself. Yes both phones were unplugged.
Reminds me of a couple who went to the tiolet in the dark for six months because they assumed there was something wrong with the electricity in the bathroom. Then her brother came over for dinner and changed the lightbulb.
(bovine intervention, Sun 21 Mar 2010, 22:25, 1 reply)

Mother-in-law
Some time ago, Bloke and I went to the pub, and stayed at his house. The next day, we both woke up feeling rough. Wasn't a hangover, neither of us had been drinking. When he explained to his mother that we weren't feeling well, and that we definitel weren't hung over because we'd only had Coke (actual Coke) all night, she diagnosed the following:

"Oh, you've got Coke poisoning. That can happen if you drink too much of it. It's got cocaine in it, you know."

We had had between a pint and two pints of coke each. This would be standard-issue pub coke, which may be watered down but contains absolutely 0 per cent cocaine, even in Essex. The conversation went on for a good 15 minutes, yet she was adamant; she may well still have utter faith in her diagnosis.

It was a stomach bug...
(Trauma, Sun 21 Mar 2010, 22:20, 4 replies)

First thing I heard when I got home today
I walk into the house with my suitcase after a week working in Cologne, and one of my two housemates came up to me saying that we were out of bin bags. He was quite concerned that the dustbin men hadn't left us replacements.

He didn't realise you bought them, he thought that when you put the bins out you get a roll of bin bags left after it's taken.

He's 21 and has clearly never bought bin bags OR brought the bin back in from the pavement.
( Ungersven would support SpankyHanky's patreon, Sun 21 Mar 2010, 22:00, 7 replies)

I hate game shows,
specifically the current trend of "talking through your answers".

Who is the most evil person to walk the earth ever?
A) Jesus
B) Adolf "The Jew Killer" Hitler
C) The Good Samaritan

Well, I think, but I'm not sure about this, I'm gonna discount A because he always walked on water. Ooh, I've never heard of the other two, but I'm gonna go C, because I think it's a trick question. My instinct has been good so far, so I'll pick C.

You sure? Let me explain the ramifications of this. *sly look to camera* If you are right, you are the best person ever to exist ever. If you get it wrong, you are the biggest twat and I shit on your head. Twice.

Come back after the break to find out if dick here is right.

No thanks, I know the answer, but if I didn't, I have the internet at my disposal and can find out in two seconds without having the phrase "life-changing sum of money" rammed into my brain 50 times in ten seconds,
( nightbuffalo needs more duct tape, Sun 21 Mar 2010, 21:47, 4 replies)

I once asked my mum if infertility was hereditary
I know what I meant.
(allthatglittersisglitter, Sun 21 Mar 2010, 21:39, Reply)

Anyone who votes and doesn't think that it's all a sham
Right wing/left wing, New Labour/Conservatives, Republican/Democrat.

Choice of ruling parties is an illusion. They're all the same bunch of corporate-cock sucking thieves and degenerates...
(Miraclefish How appropriate, you fight like a cow, Sun 21 Mar 2010, 21:25, 7 replies)

A friend of mine...
... had honestly never heard of how you can press Alt+F4 to make your web browser prioritise the current website you're looking at - therefore speeding up your download speed.

She had been surfing for years - the slow way - waiting for the computer to execute all its other processes! Imagine not knowing about Alt+F4!
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Sun 21 Mar 2010, 21:12, 10 replies)