The Stella Awards

View the Stella Awards Page

Here's an example of the silly lawsuits that people win.

January 2000: Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas

was awarded $780,000 by a jury of her peers after

breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was

running inside a furniture store. The owners of the

store were understandably surprised at the verdict,

considering the misbehaving little bastard was Ms.

Robertson's son.

Composer x Joke

One afternoon, Sir Adrian Boult was conducting a program of
contemporary music, one of the items being a work by the composer X.
The rehearsal had been going on for some time when Mr. X himself
arrived, sat in the hall, and listened to the music for a while,
showing increasing signs of restlessness and irritation. In the end he
stood up. "Sir Adrian," he called out, "Sir Adrian, could you PLEASE
take it a little quicker?" Sir Adrian Boult peered out into the hall.
"Ah, Mr. X," he said, "Yes, certainly, we can take it quicker if you
wish. But you do realize that we haven't come to your piece yet, don't
you?"

Japanese Haiku PC Messages

In Japan , they have replaced the impersonal Microsoft error messages with Haiku poetry messages. Haiku Poetry has strict construction rules: Each poem has only 17 Syllables - 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, 5 in the third. They often achieve a wistful, yearning, and powerful insight through extreme brevity. Here are some actual error messages from Japan.

(Aren't these better than "your computer has performed an illegal
operation?")

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- ------

The Web site you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
------------ -------- ------------ --------- ---
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
------------ --------- --------- --------- -----
Program aborting.
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
------------ --------- --------- --------- -----
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
------------ --------- --------- --------- -----
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
------------ --------- --------- --------- -----
Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
------------ --------- --------- --------- -----
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
------------ --------- --------- --------- -----
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
------------ --------- --------- --------- -----
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
------------ --------- --------- --------- -----
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
------------ --------- --------- --------- -----
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
------------ --------- --------- --------- -----
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
------------ --------- --------- --------- -----
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
------------ --------- --------- --------- -----
I ate your Web page.
Forgive me; it was tasty
And tart on my tongue.

The murder of Rasputin

The mysterious Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, a peasant who claimed powers
of healing and prediction, had the ear of Russian Tsarina Aleksandra.
The aristocracy could not stand a peasant in such a high position.
Peasants could not stand the rumors that the tsarina was sleeping with
such a scoundrel. Rasputin was seen as "the dark force" that was
ruining Mother Russia.

This is a fascinating moment in Russian history. Nothing much good ever happens in that mysteriously unexplainable country.
Read More

Rasputin

Rasputin is one of the more interesting men from pre-revolution history who partially contributed to the downfall of the Romanoff Family.

Grigori Efimovich Rasputin

So Much for the Information Age

Today's college students have tuned out the world, and it's partly our fault

By TED GUP

I teach a seminar called "Secrecy: Forbidden Knowledge." I recently asked my class of 16 freshmen and sophomores, many of whom had graduated in the top 10 percent of their high-school classes and had dazzling SAT scores, how many had heard the word "rendition."

Not one hand went up.

Read More

Read all about Insane Monarchs throughout history

Joan's Royalty in History Site (Peculiar Royals in History)