(phrase) The classic alibi for students lacking completed assignments. An ancient excuse passed down through generations, invoking the mystical power of mischievous canines. Often accompanied by exaggerated tales of voracious paper consumption. A reliable source of amusement for teachers and a desperate plea for leniency, met with skeptical eyes and collective eye rolls.


(also: I forgot to do the assignment)
(also: My computer crashed and I lost all my work)

(n.) a specimen of utter dependency and helplessness. often equipped with such sad eyes and default facial expressions.
perhaps the sadness of the toys they have access to playing with -- the supposed, pale mimicry of real prey -- is too much for them to bear.

A magical elixir that transforms non-morning people into semi-functioning human beings.

(n.) a zebra crossed with a kangaroo. probably evolved from a population of kangaroos that strayed into southern africa and developed a stripey coat in order to camouflage in the treeless grasslands, analogously to other grazing animals of the region.

... does not actually exist. But then again, if it doesn't exist, why do I have a picture of it?

the period of history following the rule of roman emperor winston churchill, who, shortly after his victory in the boer wars, was assassinated at the senate building by john wilkes booth.

during this period, churchill's adopted son john f kennedy became the new emperor, cementing his reign by defeating the rebellion of lunar governor napoleon bonaparte and his mistress cleopatra.

n. Uncommon extension of the fear of death.

(also: longanimity)

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(n.) basically between the camel and the sheep on the hoofed animal hierarchy. an unabashedly surly animal that can eat basically anything that fits in its mouth

real name of united states of america according to my ass
(also: america)

The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity. The student of history who has not been taught to expect the unexpected may justly boast himself inaccessible to the light. "In time of peace prepare for war" has a deeper meaning than is commonly discerned; it means, not merely that all things earthly have an end — that change is the one immutable and eternal law — but that the soil of peace is thickly sown with the seeds of war and singularly suited to their germination and growth. It was when Kubla Khan had decreed his "stately pleasure dome" — when, that is to say, there were peace and fat feasting in Xanadu — that he

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heard from afar
Ancestral voices prophesying war.

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One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of "hands across the sea," and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night; professions of eternal amity provide the night.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Coins with which the populace pays those who tickle and devour it.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

The immortal parts of dead Greeks and Romans. They were in a state of dull discomfort until the bodies from which they had exhaled were buried and burned; and they seem not to have been particularly happy afterward.
(also: the devils dictionary)

n. A vulgarian's name for a woman. A Lieutenant-Governor of California and Warden of the State Prison once reported the number of prisoners under his care as "931 males and 27 ladies."

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(also: the moon)

A bird whose thievish disposition suggested to some one that it might be taught to talk.

(541 – 604) Founder of China's Sui Dynasty and reunifying China in 589
(also: 100 most influential people in the world)
(also: sui wen ti quotes)

A spiritual entity concerning which there hath been brave disputation. Plato held that those souls which in a previous state of existence (antedating Athens) had obtained the clearest glimpses of eternal truth entered into the bodies of persons who became philosophers. Plato himself was a philosopher. The souls that had least contemplated divine truth animated the bodies of usurpers and despots. Dionysius I, who had threatened to decapitate the broad-browed philosopher, was a usurper and despot. Plato, doubtless, was not the first to construct a system of philosophy that could be quoted against his enemies; certainly he was not the last.
"Concerning the nature of the soul," saith the renowned author of Diversiones Sanctorum, "there hath been hardly more argument than that of its place in the body. Mine own belief is that the soul hath her seat in the abdomen — in which faith we may discern and interpret a truth hitherto unintelligible, namely that the glutton is of all men most devout. He is said in the Scripture to 'make a god of his belly' — why, then, should he not be pious, having ever his Deity with him to freshen his faith? Who so well as he can know the might and majesty that he shrines? Truly and soberly, the soul and the stomach are one Divine Entity; and such was the belief of Promasius, who nevertheless erred in denying it immortality. He had observed that its visible and material substance failed and decayed with the rest of the body after death, but of its immaterial essence he knew nothing. This is what we call the Appetite, and it survives the wreck and reek of mortality, to be rewarded or punished in another world, according to what it hath demanded in the flesh. The Appetite whose coarse clamoring was for the unwholesome viands of the general market and the public refectory shall be cast into eternal famine, whilst that which firmly though civilly insisted on ortolans, caviare, terrapin, anchovies, pâtés de foie gras and all such Christian comestibles shall flesh its spiritual tooth in the souls of them forever and ever, and wreak its divine thirst upon the immortal parts of the rarest and richest wines ever quaffed here below. Such is my religious faith, though I grieve to confess that neither His Holiness the Pope nor His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury (whom I equally and profoundly revere) will assent to its dissemination."
(also: ginger)

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier Caucasians — who are Hogmies.
(also: humans)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

a piano haunted by the ghost of a pianist, left to forever play whatever piece it was that led to his death.

Knowable to those only who think it worth knowing.