Now you can find out! The team at Comic Wonder Towers has added a new feature to the Web site to allow members to find out once and for all how their sense of humor rates in comparison to others! Introducing the Sense of Humor (SOH) score. Now you and your friends no longer have to argue about who the funnier person is because the numbers don’t lie!

If a person has a high Sense of Humor (SOH) score, it is because that person is funny, or that person can recognize funny. There is a complex, patented formula developed by a global consortium of really funny mathematicians, psychologists and law enforcement officials that determines the actual scores. But - all you really need to know is that it works!

Click here to learn more and get started in the process of finding out exactly how much better your sense of humor is than everyone else!

I’m sometimes a little hesitant to make fun of broken English because doing so is terribly hypocritical; after all, I only speak some broken Hebrew and a few phrases in Arabic, like Itbakh al-Yahud! (Slaughter the Jews!) and Umi fi-shook (My mother’s at the market). Hypocrite or not, few English-as-a-second-language speakers mangle our language as delightfully and creatively as the Chinese and Japanese. With the Olympics coming to Beijing, it’s time to check in and see if the Chinese are well-prepared for the throngs of English speakers that will soon crowd their fine capital city.

Huh?

 This one is sort of PC, but not. They have the “special” part down.

Yes, don’t be rude; please die somewhere else. And make sure ahead of time that somebody will dispose of your corpse.

 Even if there’s Sucker fish in the water—just don’t do it!

  I think I’ll hold it and wait to use a different restroom.

Apparently Chinese society is much more accepting of transsexuals than our own society.

Fun-having violators will be arrested and sent to reeducation camp!I, too, hate it when people hit me with spittle as they talk to me. I’m glad to see the Chinese are at the forefront of putting a stop to this!

Straight and to the point; no mincing words here.

 

What?!

Mmm—that’s appetizing.

Gives a whole new meaning to “sitting on the throne.”

You’re thank you for having us!

 Want more Engrish fun? Visit: http://www.engrish.com/

My parents got a kitten a few months ago to act as a companion to the dog they adopted. The day they brought the kitten home I came over to check it out. My mom said, “I tried to get the most outgoing one of the litter.”

At the time, Emmet, as my sister named him, was a little freaked out by his new surroundings. But as Emmet grew over the weeks and months, so too did his personality (catinality? Felinality?). He eventually became, perhaps, the boldest cat I’ve ever met. Even when my parents have loads of guests over, Emmet walks around the house like he owns it. Although Daisy the family dog is half Newfie—and therefore huge—Emmet loves to play with her, and is usually damp because Daisy is constantly dragging Emmet around by the head (it looks horrendous, but Emmet always comes back for more, and Daisy is obviously gentle).

Emmet’s behavior has made me wonder: does he have a sense of humor? He clearly does things that people find funny. For one, if I cradle him in my arms so that his belly faces up, he extends his front and back feet out completely straight, as if he’s been rigor mortified. It’s the cutest, funniest looking thing. As a result, we all laugh and rub his super long, lithe adorable little furry belly—and he loves it. My brother was holding Emmet once and gently tossed him onto a couch. The moment Emmet’s four paws hit the couch he bounced up onto the back of the couch without even bending his legs—just boing! We laughed and tried it again. Boing! Now, every time I come over I just have to toss Emmet onto the couch to watch him boing-bounce. Other times, Emmet will come flying out of nowhere, tag the dog, and keep running, as if saying, “Ha ha, surprised you—you can’t get me!” And sometimes Emmet will intentionally push things off counters or tables so that they fall onto the floor. Little brat!

So, does Emmet have a sense of humor? I looked up some online discussions to see what others had to say. Check it out; it makes for cute and interesting reading: http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pets/msg1123535226667.html And here’s a short article that suggests some animals may laugh: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7348880/ This brief article examines if cats have a sense of humor: http://www.petcentric.com/article.aspx?C=1&OID=50

My view on the matter is that Emmet, and cats like him, do not have senses of humor. Rather, Emmet likes attention and he’s learned over time that certain behaviors result in the attention he craves. He’s smart enough to have picked up on that—hence his seemingly funny behavior, which gives the outward appearance of a cat with a sense of humor.

Now, if I could only train Emmet to piss on my brother’s feet—that would be hilarious!

  

So I’m trying to wrap up my Master’s thesis but the problem is I can’t seem to force myself to sit down and finish them damn thing. Part of the reason why is because writing a thesis is BORING. 

Okay, so I find my thesis topic to be somewhat interesting, but the style in which I am obliged to write takes all the fun out of it. I’m talking about “academese”—that garbled pseudo intelligent-sounding language so endemic to the Humanities. 

Some surmise that academese is used by academics in order to obscure really bad ideas—like Marxism. Everybody knows Communism sucks—even the Russians!—yet the only place on earth where the “virtues” of Marxism are still extolled are in the Humanities and anti-WTO protests (and in Cuba; but I reckon most Cubans have had enough of their socialist paradise).  

In order to argue that Communism (which sucks) is good, and that Capitalism (which isn’t perfect, but is far better than Communism) is bad, everything has to be turned on its head—including language. And that’s where academese comes in. Not only does it obscure meaning, it also intellectually intimidates the vast majority of people who can’t make heads or tails out of what the hell the academic is writing. The result is the majority of us assume that the sage professor—far more intelligent and educated than the rest of us proles—must be right, because by gosh, just look at how “intelligent” his writing sounds! 

If you are visiting this Web site, odds are you have a good sense of humor and an intuitive, if not intellectual, understanding of humor. Well, look what happens to humor in the hands of academics: 

Academese: The superiority theory of humor traces back to Plato and Aristotle and Thomas Hobbes Leviathan. This theory explains that a person laughs about misfortunes of others, because these misfortunes assert the person’s superiority on the background of shortcomings of others. For Aristotle, we laugh at inferior or ugly individuals, because we feel a joy at being superior to them. Socrates was reported by Plato as saying that the ridiculous was characterized by a display of self-ignorance. 

Translation: Some people laugh at the mentally retarded, Paris Hilton, the President of the United States (does a Bush joke make me a hack?), because it makes them feel smarter.

Academese: Incongruity: The incongruity theory states that humor is perceived at the moment of realization of incongruity between a concept involved in a certain situation and the real objects thought to be in some relation to the concept. Since the main point of the theory is not the incongruity per se, but its realization and resolution (i.e, putting the objects in question into the real relation), it is often called the incongruity-resolution theory. Francis Hutcheson expressed in Thoughts on Laughter (1725) what became a key concept in the evolving theory of the comic: laughter as a response to the perception of incongruity. Arthur Schopenhauer wrote that the perceived incongruity is between a concept and the real object it represents. Hegel shared almost exactly the same view, but saw the concept as an “appearance” and believed that laughter then totally negates that appearance. For Sigmund Freud, laughter is an “economical phenomenon” whose function is to release “psychic energy” that had been wrongly mobilized by incorrect or false expectations. The first full formulation of the incongruity theory is attributed to Immanuel Kant General Theory of Verbal Humor. The General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) proposed by Victor Raskin and Salvatore Attardo (and known for some time under the name of semantic script theory of humor, SSTH) identifies a semantic model capable of expressing incongruities between semantic scripts in verbal humor; this has been seen as an important recent development in the theory of laughter.

Translation: Goofiness can be funny.

  

I just came across the website Clientcopia. It makes fun of people for asking stupid questions or making equally dumb remarks - typically clients, but also managers, employees- anyone really is fare game. The sites focus is “to cope with difficulties of a client attaining professional services - and act to overcome them, despite the client’s blatant stupidity.”

Visitors can leave their “Stupid Client Quote” and it gets rated by other visitors on a 1-5 scale. Now…some of them are really funny and will make you ask yourself, “can anyone really be that dumb?”

Yet, when I was reading I began to think of some of the ringers I’ve said over the years that could very well be on there. Most of them stem from when I graduated from college and started working at a computer security company and had never owned my own computer. As you can imagine, I said some pretty priceless stuff. I have this awful habit of spewing things out of my mouth without thinking - or - if I know there is someone close by that can answer something for me fast, I will yell out my question. Gchat only made this situation worse, for obvious reasons. The worst feeling is when it comes out of your mouth, you know you’ve said it and it’s so blatantly stupid and it is hanging in the air and you can’t take it back. Plus, I’m blonde. Double wammy.

The site is great for a quick laugh at the expense of others -but, if you stay too long it may make you a little down regarding the state of our decreasing intelligence levels. But, then hopefully you get a good one, it makes you laugh, and sucks you back into reading more.

Here are some great ones:

• I work as a computer tech at a local high school and lets just say we have some computer illiterate teachers. Here is a story I heard from my boss: One of our teachers called my boss and said, “Mr. B, my printer ain’t working! Could you come by and take a look?” My boss says sure and goes over to the school figuring she was just hitting the black and white copy button. When he gets there he asks her to show him what she was doing. She says, “It won’t print in color.” So my boss asks her again to show him. She proceeds to pull out a black and white picture of a tiger and hits the color copy button. She says, “See it don’t work.” My boss justs shakes his head and explains, “Now this is a smart machine, but it don’t know that you want that tiger orange.” She says “OOOOOOHHHHH”. Boss just shakes his head and walks out.

• Customer: I think I need you to come out to the office and give me the cable to connect to my bank as I don’t have access to it. Myself: What exactly do you mean by cable (I usually have to ascertain if his terminology is the same as my own)? Customer: I can access the google, but when I try to access my bank it doesn’t work. I think I am only using the google cable. Myself: Sir, there is only one internet. Do you perhaps mean some sort of accounting software that’s on your intranet? Customer: I wouldn’t know about that. Myself: Ok, how do you usually go about accessing your “bank”. Customer: (provides me with the website address of a bank). Myself: Ok Sir, that’s actually on the internet. If you can access google you should be able to access your bank. Customer: Ok but I’ve already gotten under my desk and unplugged the google cable already. Myself: Why? Customer: because I usually switch between 2 cables when I’m going to access my bank, but my banks cable no longer makes a click so it must not be working. Myself: (confused) I think I’ll need to come out. Eventually I went out and found that whoever had set up there network had left a spare network cable just lying on the ground behind the PC. The customer previously had tried getting access to his banks website and it failed (maybe the banks server was down, I don’t know) so the customer had gone under his desk, found the spare network cable and plugged it in. He could then get access to his banks website, an unfortunate coincidence, as now every time the customer wanted to check his banks website he would switch the cables around under his desk, he had been doing this for 2 years. But recently the clip that holds the network cable in the wall had broken so when the employee didn’t hear the reassuring “click” he assumed the cable was now broken. I showed him that the “google cable” worked for both his banks website and everywhere else. He wasn’t even embarrassed that he had been crawling under his desk switching cables around for all those years.

• Designer: “We should probably talk about the look and feel of the Web site before we get to work. Just explain how you would like it to look…” Client: “Well, I don’t think we really want it to look too much like a Web site. You know what I mean?” I looked at my partner who was about to burst into laughter. I didn’t know what to say except “Okay”.

• Client: “We want a website that can play DVD quality video, but we don’t want to use streaming video and the load time must be zero.” Designer: “That’s impossible. Everything has a load time. DVD quality runs about 100 megs a minute.” Client: “We’ll take our business elsewhere…”

I haven’t had much luck with Internet dating in the past. But I had this idea the other day: Maybe give Internet dating another shot and include some links to my jokes at Comic Wonder on my profile; that way potential dates might find me funny and thus like me more. Maybe … maybe not. Nah, probably not, and I’ll tell you why—because Internet dating never works for me.

With the advent of Internet dating years ago I thought for sure my days of singletude would be over. The concept seemed perfect and simple: Browse online, find profiles you like and shoot them a message. Meanwhile, the ladies could browse my profile, see my pictures and read my musings. Between my decent looks and cleaver wit, I thought, dates would no doubt be forthcoming.

Years later and I haven’t had much luck with online dating. Why?

My first guess is that I must be a terrible profile writer. When I try to write something earnest, it comes off sounding trite to me. But then if I write something humorous or goofy, it must come off as too edgy, offensive, or just not funny at all. This doesn’t make sense to me because in person I’m told I can be funny.

Then there’s the height issue. At 5’5 I’m not exactly a towering giant, and yet I refuse to lie about my height. I wouldn’t want to disappoint as I’ve been disappointed before. Example: I once met a girl online whose idea of “sexily voluptuous” was actually morbidly obese.

I go online and see profiles of girls I like, but it seems a bit pointless—and it’s certainly demoralizing—to contact a girl when you discover off the bat you don’t meet her minimum height requirement. I don’t begrudge girls their preferences. For example, I’m not attracted to fat chicks. But if I wrote on my profile, “No fat chicks,” I’d be called an asshole. But it’s all so hypocritical, because whereas a fat chick can lose weight—I can’t grow!

Then, in a pathetic attempt to make my grandmother happy and bring home a Jewish girl, I joined Jdate (the “J” stands for Jew, in case you were wondering). I thought I chose the perfect screen name: LawyerDoctor1973. After all, what Jewish girl can resist a guy who is both a lawyer AND a doctor?! That didn’t work. I guess I forgot to add Nobel Prize recipient.

But if I think my profiles are lame, they are nothing compared to some of the ones I’ve read. Here are some really lame ones I just found:

 “Sometimes I like to go out at night, but I also like to stay in and watch a movie—LOL”

 Really?! Do you sometimes like to sit down, but other times stand up? Wow, somebody who sometimes goes out and sometimes stays in—what a marvel.

“I love to laugh!”

Well that’s nice to know. I thought you were one of the many people out there who hates laughing.

“I’m rilly smart.”

Sure you are. Did you ever hear of spell check?

“I like talking on the phone.”

That’s charming.

“I am a cool calm person and ready 2 meet new people I enjoy taking walks in the park and just relaxing i have an eight year old little girl she is my world a lot of my time is spent with her when I’m not at work and i am willing 2 share some of my time with that cool calm somebody like myself.”

i 2 speak in long run-on sentences without ever taking a breath or using any sort of pause whether it’s a comma or a semi-colon because the fact is u just can’t stop me from speaking once i start and don’t get me talking about my cat henry who is my world and with whom i spend 2 much time with but hey when you’re single hanging with cats is the only way to get any puss-oops i won’t say it but i think you know what i mean okay i’m done no wait i’m not because if you didn’t notice i also don’t hit the shift key.

“I’m looking for my knight in shinning armor. He should be able to take apart a car’s engine and hunt, yet be funny, educated and sensitive.”

Good luck finding a sensitive educated and mechanic who enjoys hunting. I guess everybody is allowed to dream, right?

Well, I could go on and on, but I feel guilty browsing profiles for blog fodder while I’m at work!

 

Last night I became statistic. I became one of the 18 million Americans who have been “Rickrolled.” I’m still recovering from the traumatic experience.

So, what is Rick Rolling, you wonder? According Wikipedia:

 Rickrolling is a prank and Internet meme involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up“. The meme is a classic bait and switch: a person provides a Web link they claim is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the Astley video. The URL can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true source of the link without clicking (and thus satisfying their curiosity). By extension, it can also mean playing the song loudly in public in order to be disruptive.^[1] A person who falls for the prank is said to have been “Rickrolled”. 

Here’s how it happened to me. I was chilling out last night, perusing jokes on Comic Wonder, when I clicked on one of StabbytheClown’s jokes. Half way through the joke, out of nowhere, BAM!—I got Rickrolled.

Here’s a link to the offending joke: http://www.comicwonder.com/joke/8a46a9b4a. If anything, it’s a great way to learn how to set up a Rickroll. Also, here’s another link to Rickrolling: http://www.yougotrickrolled.com/

Me, I’ve learned two things from this episode: One is never trust a clown. The other thing I’ve learned is that …

 Time and time again it’s true
Girl I want to be with you
Every night and every day, yeah

And girl, therefore:

Never gonna give up on love
(I’ll never)
Never gonna give up on you
Never gonna give up on us
(I’ll never)
After all we’ve been through
Never gonna give up my heart
(I’ll never)
To no one but you
Never gonna give up on love
Never gonna give up on you, yeah 

Oh the humanity! Will somebody please get this song out of my head! Curse you, StabbytheClown, whoever you are!

It’s terribly trite to say, I know, but humor and laughter are truly … global. Take, for instance, the three months I spent teaching Engrish, er, English, in South Korea. Not many English speakers in Korea, I tell you. And the Koreans that can speak English often have indecipherable accents. But that’s where humor can save the day. What better way to break the ice and language barrier than by pantomiming and cracking up your interlocutors?

Teaching English to children provided me numerous opportunities to make them laugh—and I took advantage of every one of them. And I’m pretty sure they laughed at my jokes rather than simply laughing at me because to them I was some hairy Caucasian with curly hair. In fact, I have proof:

Happy Birthday Zak- look at this card!!

Happy

Hi Zack teacher? My name is Eun-Jung Jang. My class name is 6-5. Your class is too funny and interesting and I miss your class becays your class is funny. I’m exciting to your class. Nice to meet you! Don’t you think?? However, I wrote this card for you because Today is your Birthday!

See, Eun-Jung Jang said my class was funny—twice! What more proof do you need?

Of course, the laughing wasn’t a one way street. The Koreans made me laugh often as well, although usually at their hilariously mangled English. Check out these other birthday cards. You can’t make this stuff up. This one was from Mrs. Chung, a really outgoing teacher at the school:

Happy Birthday Jackary! (I had to give up correcting people and simply resigned myself to being called “Jack” or “Jackery.”) You know that most of Korean people believe in what Buddhist says. According to them, it must be an act of Karma that you teach Korean students. I hope that you love Korea and Korean people. Also, I hope that you have very nice time in Seoul. Happy Birthday to you!! From: Chung.

I really liked Mrs. Chung. She was always smiling and very outgoing.

And here are some other cards from students:

Hello Zack

I’m Ho-Jin Happy birthday to you. Maybe you are happy now, and you have many present. I speak English very small. You are best teacher. You are top! Please, -Ho-Jin-

Hello Zack!

It’s Yea Na from 6-5. Happy Birthday Zack. I wish you could like this card. You are nice teacher. I don’t have gift for you, but this card. Have a nice day.

To Zack teacher.

Ha~~i = Hi, I”m Lee-Ye-Chan. Happy birthday Zack. When I meet I was very happy because before you came I thought “if English teacher is foreign then I’m very happy. But it just my wish?” But, you came and I said Hot Dog!!! (When we were learning about foods I taught them that “hot dog” was a food and an expression.) Happy birthday to you ~ Happy birthday to you ~ lovely Zack (is it right?) Happy birthday to you ~. Self Introduce: I’m Lee-Ye-Chan. My family name is Lee. I have one sister. My hobby is play computer games. I can speak English just little so I want learn English to you a lot. Happy Birth day (next page) I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS LETTER AND KOREA

HI Jack,

My name is Lee-Jae-Won. Congregation your birthday. I think thunk your study

Thank you.

from Jae-Won

Dear Jack,

Hello. I’m Il-in Choi in Six grade. Happy Birthday! I think you’re unhappy because you had birthday in other country. First, I’m sorry to you because I can’t give you presents. Last, Happy Birthday -From Il-In Choi

Hellow teacher …

I’m a Taehwan. My English is very bad so I hate English and English is hard. One year ago I’m going English academy Middle score is better I going high school. Bye bye.

-Congraturation your birthday from Taehwan.

Anyway, when I wasn’t teaching English or spending time with my host family, I could be found at the gym. There, I met “Golf Girl”—a cute young lady who taught golf in the indoor golfing place located in the same building as the gym. The guy who worked at the gym spoke passable English. One day he told me she liked me. I wrote her a note asking her out to dinner and he translated it. She agreed.

Now I had a date with a girl I couldn’t communicate with. No fears—before the date I made sure to grab my Korean “mom’s” electronic dictionary, pad of paper and a pen. Between pantomiming, using the dictionary and drawing pictures, we were able to have a nice dinner date.

After a few beers and some soju we both started loosening up. I thought Golf Girl gave me a knowing look, so I tried to ask her if she wanted to get a room (many Koreans rent private rooms because most unmarried Koreans live with their parents). She didn’t understand. I tried pantomiming. Still, nothing. Finally, I drew pictures of male and female genitalia next to two stick figures making love.

A moment later I learned that getting slapped in the face by a Korean girl feels just like getting slapped by an American girl. I also learned that taking offense at untoward sexual advances is just as universal as humor and laughing.

(Full disclosure: I did go out on a date with a pretty Korean girl named Seung-ee, whom I nicknamed Golf Girl. We did enjoy a nice dinner and we did drink copious amounts of alcohol. However, I was the perfect gentleman and did not make unwanted advances.)