Most Liked Excuses
Words per excuse (?):
evidence outside the is and out I I have give of I the day everyone locked and are third terrible.
#1 by anonymous
“My kids are locked inside.”
#2 by Cathy
“My dog is on fire.”
#3 by anonymous
“I need to give blood.”
#4 by Brian Potter
“My head got stuck in the dryer while it was on. I received massive burns to my retinas and was rushed to the hospital by my 8 year old daughter who drove one-handed after her hand got stuck in the toaster, we're both in critical condition with massive third degree burns and on life support. The doctors have given me a miracle cell regeneration shot and expect a speedy recovery in 24 hours like it never happened and hopefully I'll be in tomorrow. ”
#5 by anonymous
“I have to help my Aunt Flo in Omaha make cookies. She's much better now and she wants to send thank-you cookies to everyone who came to see her when she thought she was dying.”
#6 by anonymous
“My rheumatism is acting up. There's going to be a terrible tornado.”
#7 by Tad
“My doctor just called. He said he found the disease I have. It's called: Phnumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.”
#8 by Travis
“I wish that I could help you, but I don't feel that I have the expertise you require.”
#9 by anonymous
“I don't .... Want to ...”
#10 by Tad
“I have to go buy a Snuggie.”
#11 by anonymous
“I woke up with my head sewn to the carpet. ”
#12 by Travis
“I would love to! Wait, what day was that? Oh man, any other day would be perfect. But not that day. It's a religious thing. What religion? Um.. you know. That one with the holiday on that day. ”
#13 by anonymous
“The police are at the back door. Cover me.”
#14 by anonymous
“I need to check out the hole in the ozone layer.”
#15 by anonymous
“My kids are locked outside.”
#16 by anonymous
“I need to give up.”
#17 by anonymous
“Well I need to spend more time with my blender ”
#18 by anonymous
“I just don't like you anymore.”
#19 by anonymous
“My daughter is graduating from high school and I'd like to go to the ceremony.”
#20 by anonymous
“I set up a trampoline in my basement, and think I am suffering from a concussion”
#21 by Nicolas
“I'd love to come out but in my sleep deprived state I took my grandfather's Viagra instead of my multi vitamin and I'd rather not go out right now.”
#22 by anonymous
“ I would love to go out with you, but I need to ask my fiancé, and I don't think they would like that very much.”
#23 by anonymous
“I need to give evidence.”
#24 by anonymous
“I have to destroy the legions of the undead with my chainsaw. ”
#25 by Wendy
“I have the runs. It's running down my leg as we speak.”
What's going on here?
Some recent thoughts/research about HTML semantics, javascript, poetry, and tag clouds led to this. I wanted to use text from the Most Liked excuses as a way to visualize and navigate the information.
I started running a few words from each excuse into random sentences. I added some math to control punctuation (4% chance of punctuation, 50% chance that it will be a period. If not a period, there is a 20% chance that it will be a semi-colon, 20% an m-dash, and 60% a comma), and you're able to control the number of words that appear from each excuse.
Some of them are really funny (bless the folks who used "Salman Rushdie" and "Worldcomm") and some are really, really weird.
All, however, are awesome.