Random Thoughts

[MadMan]

I use Twitter mostly for horror movie talk. Politics are a close second, although some days adorable pet stuff overtakes everything else.

[number8]

I've been really enjoying Dear Prudence since Mallory Ortberg took it over, and lately it feels really cathartic. Too often on the internet you just hear angering perspectives and left to stew with it. It's nice to have them be stated in the form of questions and then get put down by an authoritative response that I like.

[number8]

I don't listen to the Judge John Hodgman podcast very often but I definitely remember the episode with this guy's argument. This is so sad: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/e...198675289.html

In late January two years ago, teenager Carl Garner Jr. was featured on a national comedy podcast for an essay he wrote about whether a hotdog was a sandwich. Afterward, he was honored by local school district officials for that work.

The attention brought Garner, a normally quiet student at Lexington Day Treatment Center, pride and confidence, said Eric Little, his teacher at the time.

On Sunday night, Garner, 19, became Lexington’s second homicide victim of 2018. He was found shot inside a south Lexington home.

[Dead & Messed Up]

One of the truly terrible advancements of the modern age is online job postings.

(1) Please fill out all these dialog boxes with your address, previous jobs, education, software experience.

You did that? Oh, great.

(2) Please upload a resume with the exact same fucking information.

[number8]

Boy, this is a really bleak interview. I've felt a lot of this myself, but this interview is truly putting it into cataclysmic words: http://splitsider.com/2018/02/how-fa...illing-comedy/

We’re used to a world where if you put something out there that’s good, people see it and share it. But that’s just not true in this world. Someone can make something really good, and just because of some weird algorithmic reasons, or if it’s not designed specifically for Facebook, it doesn’t do well. And then it becomes impossible to know what a good thing to make is anymore.

Facebook is an absolutely fine repository for the names of people I’ve met in my life, and for photos I have of those people, and it would be a nice memorial to my life when I’m dead. But it has no business being a publisher, and they don’t even like to acknowledge that that’s what they are. Facebook hides behind all of this machinery, when what they’re doing is very human. Recommending things for people is a personal act, and there are people who are good at it. There are critics. There are blogs. It’s not beneficial to us to turn content recommendations over to an algorithm, especially one that’s been optimized for garbage.

What do you want to come from what happened at Funny or Die?

The next time some cool place cuts back or shuts down, I want people to not blame that place, I want them to blame what’s going on. I want people to think about what people are doing online in the same way that you think about what you buy at the grocery store or what shop you go to.

Is any comedy outlet doing well? For example, is The Onion in danger?

I would gladly give money to anyone who could tell me of any digital publisher that is doing well other than Facebook. And woe to those who want to start something new right now.

[MadMan]

I don't listen to the Judge John Hodgman podcast very often but I definitely remember the episode with this guy's argument. This is so sad: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/e...198675289.html

Bloody awful. Shootings happen so often in this country it becomes easy to be numb to when they do occur.

[megladon8]

One of the truly terrible advancements of the modern age is online job postings.

(1) Please fill out all these dialog boxes with your address, previous jobs, education, software experience.

You did that? Oh, great.

(2) Please upload a resume with the exact same fucking information.

This is also usually followed up with going to an interview where you have to fill out paperwork by hand that reiterates this information again.

Then when you are interviewed it’s by someone who hasn’t read any of it and just knows your name (maybe) ad will ask you to then verbally state everything you have now given them 3 times.

Then you won’t get the job because it requires 35 years of on-job experience, even though that particular job has only existed for 3 months.

And the job will go to the son of the building manager. Who really always had the job, but they are legally required to show that they went through an interview process.

[Dead & Messed Up]

This is also usually followed up with going to an interview where you have to fill out paperwork by hand that reiterates this information again.

Then when you are interviewed it’s by someone who hasn’t read any of it and just knows your name (maybe) ad will ask you to then verbally state everything you have now given them 3 times.

Then you won’t get the job because it requires 35 years of on-job experience, even though that particular job has only existed for 3 months.

And the job will go to the son of the building manager. Who really always had the job, but they are legally required to show that they went through an interview process.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to megladon8 again.

[amberlita]

Sometimes I just really fucking hate Air BnB. Is there ZERO regulation of the accuracy of listings? How can something listed as being 2 bedrooms/2 beds with a sofa sleeper turn into, after booking, 1 bedroom/1 bed without a sofa sleeper and instead an air mattress? To say nothing of 60+ reviews with 5 stars and nobody mentions this discrepancy. WTF people?

[Dukefrukem]

I'd be so irate.

[D_Davis]

I am WAY hotter as a chick.

[megladon8]

I dunno. I’d hit it either way.

[D_Davis]

I dunno. I’d hit it either way.

That's a true friend.

[MadMan]

Posts like that are why I came back, heh.

[Ezee E]

Sometimes I just really fucking hate Air BnB. Is there ZERO regulation of the accuracy of listings? How can something listed as being 2 bedrooms/2 beds with a sofa sleeper turn into, after booking, 1 bedroom/1 bed without a sofa sleeper and instead an air mattress? To say nothing of 60+ reviews with 5 stars and nobody mentions this discrepancy. WTF people?

I haven't had bad luck yet, :crosses fingers:, but I stick with the "verified" or whatever their term is, for places only.

[[ETM]]

I always look through all the pictures and detailed listings of everything. If it's not complete and absolutely transparent - next listing, please.
Granted, I've used it only three times so far (Budapest, Berlin and Krakow) and every time it was amazing.

[Grouchy]

Yeah, in my very limited experience you can usually tell if the host is not telling the full story because of the pictures or lack thereof.

[megladon8]

I think I’m developing a huge crush on Sarah Silverman.

[Grouchy]

She's beautiful and sexy but I don't find her material all that funny.

I recently discovered Norm McDonald and I can't stop watching him. My favorite stand up of all time now.

[Ivan Drago]

She's beautiful and sexy but I don't find her material all that funny.

I recently discovered Norm McDonald and I can't stop watching him. My favorite stand up of all time now.

I liked him for his voice acting as a kid and now I love him for his comedy as an adult.

[Grouchy]

I mean, look at this. That really shouldn't be funny. It's a tired concept (the "have you ever noticed this shit at restaurants" set-up), and the punchline is just sex stuff out of context. But his delivery is so unique he makes it hilarious. And he clearly knows it. He loves to play the idiot.

And the first part of this is just beautiful. He makes a completely serious statement with his face and he makes his co-host laugh at the randomness of it, then puts him on the tight spot for laughing. Everything in this video is so awesome.

[Skitch]

I hate game shows for the most part. That being said, I've discovered by random a British show called 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Apparently it's been on forever. It makes me laugh so hard that all my stomach muscles are sore. Has anyone else seen this? Please check it out on youtube.

[Winston*]

I hate game shows for the most part. That being said, I've discovered by random a British show called 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Apparently it's been on forever. It makes me laugh so hard that all my stomach muscles are sore. Has anyone else seen this? Please check it out on youtube.

You should watch Taskmaster.

[D_Davis]

She's beautiful and sexy but I don't find her material all that funny.

I recently discovered Norm McDonald and I can't stop watching him. My favorite stand up of all time now.

Norm McDonald is the greatest comedian of all time.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I mean, look at this. That really shouldn't be funny. It's a tired concept (the "have you ever noticed this shit at restaurants" set-up), and the punchline is just sex stuff out of context. But his delivery is so unique he makes it hilarious. And he clearly knows it. He loves to play the idiot.

And the first part of this is just beautiful. He makes a completely serious statement with his face and he makes his co-host laugh at the randomness of it, then puts him on the tight spot for laughing. Everything in this video is so awesome.

Norm's one of the all-time greats, and he's become better as he's dipped more and more into pointless shaggy dog jokes (the moth joke, the young dolphin joke), intentionally juvenile third-grade gags (Bob Saget's roast), and sub-Borscht-belt side-eyes (this amazing collection).

And I always feel bad for Courtney Thorne-Smith in this video, but he's so quick-witted.