Shawn Bayern
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shawn.bayern
Shawn Bayern
@shawn.bayern
author, professor, etc. when I first heard about greyhound racing, I thought it involved buses.
the Australian Parliament looks like they repurposed an indoor competitive swimming pool for their chambers
April 13, 2025 at 11:06 PM
most royalty-free music libraries still have dozens of recordings of "god save the king." where's the outrage?
February 28, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Dreamed last night that I was someone’s emotional-support animal on an airplane. (I was still human.)
February 10, 2025 at 9:57 PM
"always the nursemaid, never the nurse"
February 9, 2025 at 10:32 PM
when i was 10 or 11 i’d sometimes randomly say “i know you’re listening!” when i was alone just because i thought it would be funny for spies to worry about how some kid had seen through their tradecraft
February 1, 2025 at 10:08 PM
"i get imposter syndrome whenever i try to commit bank fraud"
January 13, 2025 at 11:25 PM
As the game of Monopoly teaches us, one of the ways to fail as a real-estate baron is to stay in the overpriced hotels of competitors.
January 11, 2025 at 11:34 PM
my handwriting is so bad that i once accidentally told someone "i'd love to see you in prison someday soon" (instead of "in person") when inscribing a book
January 7, 2025 at 6:23 AM
just found some shakespearean sonnets i wrote about a (fictional) alien "mistress" when i was 17:

Her ventral stoma bears the sweetest scent
Of lemons. Don’t ask; I know not wherefore.
And people know exactly where she went:
She leaves a trail of liquids on the floor.
January 6, 2025 at 2:59 AM
wonder what the taps are like here
January 6, 2025 at 12:52 AM
A Concise Cynical Deconstruction of "A Christmas Carol" in View of Anachronistic Features of Tax Policy, to the Tune of "Ding Dong Merrily on High":

Ebenezer sees a wraith;
His selfishness relaxes.
Did he donate in good faith,
Or was it for his taxes?
December 1, 2024 at 7:13 PM
Dreamed last night that UPenn opened a campus in Ljubljana and called it PennSlovenia.
December 1, 2024 at 7:03 PM
publication is the best form of data backup
November 22, 2024 at 11:42 PM
there should be "central australia or mars?" captchas
November 22, 2024 at 2:00 AM
years ago i had a recurring dream in which i hosted a game show called “is it zeugma?”

i’d read out phrases and the contestants had to buzz in and say whether they made use of zeugma or not.
November 21, 2024 at 5:42 AM
job interview:

Q: What are your long-term goals?

A: I'd like to avoid becoming a fossil fuel.
November 20, 2024 at 8:40 PM
for years Delta misparsed my name as "SHAWN BAYE RN" and classified me as a nurse. i couldn't get it fixed and worried they'd need me to deliver a baby in a midflight emergency
November 20, 2024 at 5:20 PM
this poster takes on a very different meaning when you imagine you’re in a militaristic science-fiction novel
November 20, 2024 at 4:39 PM
whenever i hear the expression "grow a pair" (which is fortunately very rare), i like to imagine the speaker is talking about antennas
November 20, 2024 at 4:28 PM
I was just talking to someone who doesn’t believe in doctor copayments. When he gets bills for them, he assumes they’re all fraudulent and throws them away.
November 20, 2024 at 4:08 PM
game show idea: Supreme Court Justice or Yogurt Brand?

examples:

Brennan
Breyer
Breyers
Dannon
Ellsworth
November 20, 2024 at 4:05 PM
"Once a mortgage, always a mortgage."

That appears as a legal maxim in Bouvier's 1856 legal dictionary.

(Amazingly many law professors still take "maxims" and "canons" like this seriously.)
November 20, 2024 at 4:01 PM
In a job listing at a university:

"bending, kneeling or standing during
events and presentations may be required"

Presumably only when the university president enters...?
November 20, 2024 at 3:55 PM
Spam email: "If there is no order in your sexual life it may be difficult to stay with a whole skin."

What is it even trying to say? It sounds like advice a social worker might give to a snake.
November 20, 2024 at 3:50 PM
given that this was in the fruit section, i genuinely thought, for an embarrassing fraction of a minute, that they were selling shampoo and conditioner for fruit
November 20, 2024 at 3:44 PM