Month: October 2011

From The Archives: Joseph L. Owades Inventor of Light Beer

/ Jim Earl / Leave a comment

Morning Remembrance Portraits by Nathan Smith copyright 2011

Joseph L. Owades, the biochemist whose recipe for light beer achieved the impossible feat of making crappy beer even crappier, is now more stale than a Herman Cain pick-up line.

Fresh out of college, Owades got his first job researching for Fleischmann’s Yeast. Then he found out Fleischmann was one of his mom’s canasta friends and “Yeast” was another thing entirely.

In the 1950s he created the first “diet” beer by discovering an enzyme that destroys fat starches, and in the process, any reason for wanting to drink beer in the first place.

When Miller Brewing Co. bought his process they marketed the new beer with the familiar “tastes great, less filling” jingle, replacing the less successful “Hey! You gotta chug twice as much of this crap to get a buzz!” jingle.

Over the years Owades wrote over 40 research papers on beer, all of them supporting the same thesis that he’s okay to drive and nobody understands him.

Owades requested his body be brewed into a tasteless yellow liquid and poured directly into the toilet to save time.

William Irwin Wolff, M.D., Father of Modern Colonoscopy

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William Irwin Wolff, M.D., originator of the modern colonoscopy procedure now practiced in well-ventilated clinics around the world, has finally seen the murky light at the end of the long, disgusting tunnel.

After graduating from New York University in 1936, Wolff spent years pioneering the field of colonic investigation. Then he became a doctor.

He was the first to develop a safe method for examining the full length of the colon without having to first unhook it from the family Slip N’ Slide.

As a result, the relatively unknown surgeon “exploded from behind” to become the “Number One” expert on where “Number Twos” come from.

A dedicated intestinal surgeon, Wolff was known for diving headfirst into each procedure, barely stopping even to catch a breath. Friends say there was no impediment that could keep him from getting his hands dirty.

As president of the New York Surgical Society, Wolff published more than 120 scientific papers. All of them double-ply.

Wolff was a gifted speaker, and his colonoscopy lectures would often leave the audience gripping their seats.

Wolff’s procedure inspired several technological advances, the most useful being a wire loop attached to the end of the endoscopic device that doctors now use to remove car keys.

Wollf’s last request was that his sons might continue his legacy taint-free.

Elwood Perry, Fishing Lure Inventor

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Morning Remembrance Portraits by Nathan Smith copyright 2011

Elwood Perry, who in 1946 invented the Spoonplug fishing lure loved by millions of fishing enthusiasts, is now chum.

The 90 year-old Perry reportedly died while testing his latest invention, the “toaster-oven lure.”

On July 24, 1954 before dozens of witnesses, Perry used his Spoonplug 30 times to land 30 bass, setting a new world record. Not for fishing, but for holding the attention of dozens of people while doing something that boring.

During his career, Perry discovered two profound truths about outdoor sporting:

One: Always drag a lure so it bounces off the bottom.

Two: Never, ever, ask Ned Beaty about that rape scene in “Deliverance.”

Perry requested his body be folded in two, impaled on a hook, and dragged along the bottom of a pond so fish could freely nibble on his jig wobbler.

Steve Jobs, “Dear Leader”

/ Jim Earl / 3 Comments

Morning Remembrance Portraits by Nathan Smith copyright 2011

Steve Jobs, the computer pioneer who co-founded Apple and inspired people all over the world to think outside the box, is now stuck inside one.

Sources say just moments before his death, the ailing Jobs turned beige and dragged himself into the trash.

The news came as a shock to countless Apple fans, who still insist they’re not going to buy his death until a later version comes out.

Historians rate Jobs on a par with Thomas Edison. Mainly because they both loved to make silent movies of guys with big mustaches sneezing.

A true visionary, he was the first to see the real commercial potential behind the graphical user-interface. Especially when it was manufactured in Chinese sweat shops.

Among his many patents was the “Hockey-puck shaped mouse,” or as Chinese workers call it, “the only thing strong enough to snap my neck after securing the chord to an 8th floor railing so that I may leave this daily torture and finally taste the sweet relief that is death -mouse.”

Jobs recently fought hard for city planners to approve his new company headquarters built in the style of a spaceship. The hope was to attract non-union labor from Pluto who only eat discarded Zunes.

Jobs’ last wish was for Apple Police to search the surrounding neighborhood in order to find out which one of his employees accidentally took home his liver.

This obit was made on a Mac.

Arch West, Creator of Doritos

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Arch West, who 50 years ago took a warehouse full of cornmeal, MSG, and pork excretions, and turned it into the world’s first edible Superfund site, is now covered with an orange, crusty-coating of crispy death.

Doctors say dying was the only natural thing he did his whole life.

A company spokesperson denied West died while testing his latest creation, “Double-Fisted Kettle Cooked Carburetor-Cleaner Flavored Chips With Tangy Asbestos.”

Food historians say you can still find vintage examples of the first Doritos ever manufactured moldering inside Paul Sorvino’s intestinal gas pockets.

A humble man by nature, West often declined to take full credit for Doritos’ inception in 1961, instead giving most of it to NASA’s helpful staff of Nazi chemists.

In 2008, the company launched their “out-of-this-world” advertising campaign, beaming a 30 second ad for Doritos into a planetary system 42 light years away. Their ultimate goal? To dissuade aliens from ever using us as their food source.

The family plans on tossing some Doritos over West’s urn before burying him, but not until they do marketing research on 5,000 other graves.