When Business is 'Ha-Ha Funny'

I WAS WATCHING television while on the treadmill at my gym yesterday. One of those newer Geico ads with the super-CGI Eastender gecko came on. You know the one where he's in a tree talking to another newtish sort. Anyway, I couldn't hear what the lad was saying, since they keep the sound off on the telly at the gym, but they have the captions set to "on". At one point the Geico caption read as follows:

[Ambient jungle noise.]

This struck me as very funny, and as a great name for a band.

I DINED at a Friendly's earlier today while down in Fredericksburg, Virginia. That was cool, since I hadn't eaten at one in at least 15 years. I was happy to see that the Friendly Frank I ordered (Note: Hot dog contains milk) still comes in a cardboard cozy and in a toasted bun, and was equally happy with my Coffee Fribble. No, asshole, not a Fribbleccino. (Side note: When I was in 7th Grade I got a cat and named him Fribble. He lived to age 17, and survived being shot once and run over by cars several times.)

BILLY BRAGG is pretty much first and last on my list of socialists I admire. So when my friend Leena -- who was supposed to get us tickets for one of his upcoming Birchmere shows -- emailed me a couple of hours ago to tell me that both shows had sold out, I was bummed. Figuring I'd try to find a ticket anyway I went online to Ticketmaster. I went through the steps to buy and when I got to that point where they ask you to fill in the made-up word (a process I've previously written about with great fondness) I was greeted with the following word:

Chode

I had to squint for a moment to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing. But yes, as you can see above, there in all its glory was in fact chode.

If you're not familiar with the definition of the word, go here. If you're bored and want to play with Ticketmaster's word generator, pretend you're buying a ticket and then refresh your browser to your heart's content.