Sunday, February 24, 2008

My Trip to Ecuador and Peru

So, thanks to Mom and Dad, I found myself embarking on a 24 day trip to Ecuador and Peru on Dec 14th, 2007. Here's how it went down.
So that's it. 25 days or so wrapped in ~500 photos and a few bullet points. Every day was like a new personal episode of National Geographic. It was a great trip. South America! It's easily the 2nd best America!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Recurring Comedy

Something I hear myself say every so often is "that kind of joke is always funny to me." So here's my best attempt at listing all "those kinds" of jokes that I can think of right now.
  1. Taking a historical or hypothetical situation and paraphrasing it into casual conversation.
    • Example from Chuck Klosterman's book IV: Chuck is writing about the viability of whether or not, in today's day, the US really even could overthrow its government assuming it wanted to. In discussing this, he hearkens back to our forefathers and the possible reason for writing the "right to bear arms" amendment. Klosterman says and I quote: "'Future citizens will need muskets to assassinate their oppressive viceroys,' James Madison might have hypothetically remarked during the intermission of a slave auction. 'In fact, this is probably the second most important freedom any of us will be able to come up with. Somebody should write this shit down.'"
    • A joke like that is brilliant and hilarious. And I'm telling you, if you present me with a joke built on this same premise of a hypothetical (and almost definitely completely implausible) conversation, I will most likely laugh.
  2. Repetition
    • Look, you find something funny and run it at me over and over again, I'm probably gonna break eventually. Family Guy does this all the f'ing time. They take something sorta funny, and then repeat it about 10 times or for 10 seconds too long and I laugh.
    • Here's a decent example from a current commercial. The key to this commercial is when the dog swtiches from the plural to the singular. In other words, this commercial had me at "Sausage!"

  3. Non-sense
    • See: Will Ferrell. The man has pretty much created and mastered the world of non-sense comedy. You just speak confidently and make no sense at all while doing so and you're all set.
    • See his latest Semi-Pro / Old Spice commercials:

    • Or see any of his doctor sketches from the old SNL days. Or any of his Harry Carey impersonations. Or the movie Anchorman. See what I mean? He's cornered the entire market.
  4. Just the punch line -> raucous laughter
    • I'm referring to jokes typically delivered on TV shows or movies where you break in on someone telling a joke and only hear the punch line.
    • Joke examples that I can think of off the top of my head:
      1. Tommy Boy: "So I said rectum? Damn near killed 'em!" "HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
      2. Dumb and Dumber: "So she said 'Do you love me?' And I said 'No ... but that's a real nice ski mask!" "HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
    • Really selling the raucous laughter is key. I've actually done a variation on this joke in real life a lot. I'll make a really bad joke about something and then laugh like mad. There have been times when I've sold the laughter so hard that people really thought I thought my joke was legitimately funny and not ironically funny. This is how hard you should be selling the laughter.
    • Another great variation of this joke is the ending to the fake news story. This is where you're watching the news on a TV show or in a movie (get my drift?) and they only show you the very end of the story.
    • Example from Hot Rod: they cut to the news caster and she says "... and then the dog walked itself home, ate a whole pizza and took a nap."
  5. Cussing
    • That's pretty much all there is to it. I find cussing to be humorous in many many circumstances.
    • Example: Dane Cook. I know the man has come under fire with his recent ridiculous rise in popularity, but there was a time when I felt like he was writing all his jokes just for me. And most of them were funny cuz the dude really sold the cussing. If anyone saw him do stand-up before the idea of "Employee of the Month" was even thinking about being turned into an actual movie, I think you know what I mean.
    • Horribly off color example from an episode of South Park about touret's syndrome ... here it is. Be advised that this clip IS NOT office safe and furthermore I should say that when I laugh at this clip, I'm not laughing at the syndrome or anyone who has the syndrome or even the idea of the syndrome. I'm just laughing at the cussing ... and then eventually crying from laughter:

[Editor's note: holy crap I already wrote about this in December, 2006. I don't quite know what it says about this blog or about me if I've now reached the point where I'm plagiarizing myself. Huh.]

Monday, February 11, 2008

Caution

So I walk through the gate that leads to my office today and come across this sign:
Apparently, both English and Spanish speaking people alike should be on guard since my office may be swarming with these:

Thanks.