Today's featured daily humor:
Random House Publishing Dad Humor So I'm a proud dad and a podcaster who is host of the Breaking Math Podcast- a show about math and engineering, and what it means to think like an engineer in problem solving. Pretty stereotypical dad stuff. My podcast frequently gets solicitation emails from book publishing companies offering us advance copies of books in hopes that we'll consider interviewing the author on the podcast. Yesterday, I spent the day corresponding with a very kind representative from Random House Publishing Co. By the end of the day, I was tired and suddenly feeling very "dad humor" like, and I wrote her a long email about my plans to open up a competitor publishing company called "Arbitrary Abode" and my plans to publish knock-off versions of the best sellers from Random House, but totally legally as they will be clearly different enough and funny enough to be clearly considered "parody" under trademark law. But wait...there's more! See the even below. I'm still waiting for a response! PS- happy to send proof. You'll have to pardon me- I'm new to Reddit (posting, not reading) and I'm trying you figure out how to include images or screenshots here. I'll edit this post when I can do that! "Hello [redacted], Okay funny story. I just got out of the most boring 90 minute meeting of my life at work (I'm an engineer. It's a project that my boss is working on that I have **zero** stake in whatsoever..). My colleague and I were passing notes back and forth and I was telling them about the book "Our Moon" by Rebecca Boyle, published by Random House Publishing. Suddenly we began discussing the marketing behind, "Random House." Why Random House? Who decided that name and why? Is there a story behind that? And.... Do you all get asked this question often? Now before the meeting was out, it is very important that I tell you that we occupied our time discussing the following: 1). What if we hatched a plan to start up *another* publishing company called "Arbitrary Abode". So Not random house, but .... Vaguely similar. Right? But wait- there's more! What if we then began to publish books that were oddly similar to the best sellers out of random house- but just basically knock-offs. Much shorter. Cruder. Funnier. The main points w/o the fluff and a bunch of humor and shoddy writing. Think, "7 and a half shades of Grey." You following? But THEN! It gets deeper.... Suddenly one company after another...after another keep popping up all in the same vain. "Haphazard Hutt." "Slapdash Shack." "Erratic Edifice." All doing the same thing. All putting out these books that are... well, kinda similar to Random House, but different enough to be entirely legal and fall under the clear definitions of 'parody' under trademark law. The phone is ringing off the hook, "Sir! Another one.. a Willy Nilly.. Wigwam? ' But it gets deeper... What if these 'off shoot' companies are something all-together more sneaky... What if... (Dun..dun..DUNH!) They are *all* in fact owned and operated secretly by none other than Random House Publishing. See- by doing this, they make money not only on the original titles but **also** on the (excuse the term) "Knock off" titles- while at the same time- capitalizing on all the publicity from people talking about this strange occurrence. Is that evil genius or is that... evil genius... Whew! Okay- this entire thing came from my colleague and I being completely bored out of our mind at a meeting and occupying our time any way we knew how- by getting creative. I hope you got some enjoyment out of this email and feel free to share this with whoever at Random House Publishing... Any.. **Random** people ; ) And if the marketing and strategy people see it.... Don't worry- I wont tell ; ).