Bret is very proud of his Oscar

Perhaps you've heard that a song from The Muppets won an Oscar. I was so happy about that. For one thing, I love the Muppets; for another, Bret McKenzie (of Flight of the Conchord fame) wrote the songs for that movie, and it just kinda rekindles my faith in the whole movie industry that a man like Bret McKenzie can win an Oscar.

As soon as I found out it, I decided to look up Bret's Wikipedia page to see what it had to say about this honor, and I found myself having to hold back my laughter. I think Bret himself probably modified his Wikipedia page to make it read this way. This is copy-pasted from that page (I've added highlighting so you can get the gist without having to actually read the whole thing):

Academy Award winner McKenzie has appeared in the first and third films inPeter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. His silent role in the first film as Figwitachieved some minor internet fame, which led to Jackson giving him a line in the third film. In April 2011, McKenzie, the winner of an Academy Award, was cast as the elf Lindir (who in contrast to Figwit is a character created by Tolkien himself) for the upcoming The Hobbit. His father Peter McKenzie played the role of Elendil in Lord of the Rings.

Along with Clement, Oscar winning McKenzie was featured as one of 2008's "100 Sexiest People" in a special edition of the Australian magazine Who.

Bret "Oscar-Winner" McKenzie and fellow Conchord Clement guest starred as a pair of camp counselors in "Elementary School Musical", the season premiere of the 22nd season of The Simpsons, which aired on 26 September 2010.^[3]

Oscar winning McKenzie, together with Australian comedian Hamish Blake is set to star in a New Zealand feature film, Two Little Boys, currently under production in New Zealand and set for release late 2011.^[4]

During the summer of 2010, Academy Awardee McKenzie flew to Los Angeles to serve as the music supervisor for the The Muppets.^[5] He went on to write five songs for the films soundtrack including "Man or Muppet" and "Life's a Happy Song" both of which were nominated for Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards and Satellite Awards for Best Original Song.^[6]

In 2012 his song, "Man or Muppet", won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Post 243

I heard the joke countless times in my childhood:

Q: What's the difference between a piano and a fish?
A: You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish.

It occurred to me recently that, either this is a mistelling of the joke, or the joke's creator really fell short of the full potential here. I propose the following revision:

Q: How is a piano like a fish?
A: You can tune a piano, and you can tuna fish.

It's harder to grasp, I think. That's why I imagine that the joke originally ran this way but the six-year-olds who spread it around couldn't get it right. Or maybe we should just blame it all on REO Speedwagon.

Can is the pivotal word here. Replacing it with synonyms, we get "You are able to tune a piano, and you place tuna fish into cans."

You can tune a piano, and you can tuna fish. It's a lot more interesting grammatically, and it makes the pun work better because the sentence actually makes sense (because, really, what does "you can't tuna fish" mean? Would you say "you can't sardine"? I can't think of a reason such an utterance would be made).

In a week and a half, I'll graduate from BYU. I've spent 3 years studying the English language, and I've spent 2 years trying my hand at stand-up comedy. The result? I am now fully qualified to be a children's joke critic. Fantastic.

Post 242

And now a very subtle joke:

To error is human.

Bahahahahahaha!

(Sorry. I just barely learned that error is a noun and err is a verb, so to "to error" is an error.)

Post 223

Why haven't I posted in so long? Well....

Post 221

It's snowing today here in Provo. Snow on April 6th! A friend texted me this morning to wish me a happy white Christmas. Hahahaha. White Christmas indeed! THAT, my friends, is good, clean, down-to-earth funny, right there. What a kidder.

My apologies to anyone who isn't a Mormon and doesn't get the joke.

Post 220

If it weren't for holidays and YouTube, I would never post, it seems....

Post 210

Hahaha. I love literalism! And I love the 80s. If you love these things also, you will love this video:

Post 209

Awesome headlines in the Chicago Tribune in the early 1900s:

Girls sold by gypsies; whole town up in arms

BALLOT OR THE BALLET? HERE'S A NEW ARGUMENT FOR WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE.

DANCES 3 DAYS; CAN'T STOP, Girl Whose Feet Won't Keep Still Drugged to Save Her Life. MANIA PUZZLES DOCTORS. Only Thing Like Philadelphia Case Is Tarantula Madness.

FATHER LOST FOR 34 YEARS; FOUND ONLY TO BE ARRESTED

'BASEBALL BABY' BORN IN PARK AS CUBS TROUNCE PIRATES

PASTOR TURNS MATCHMAKER Men with Proper Credentials May Meet Young Women Tonight.

CREATES FICTION, ALL RIGHT, BUT IT'S BY WORD OF MOUTH. Proposed Double Wedding Called Off When One Bride-Elect Finds "Story Writer" Fiance Is a Barber.

BURGLARS HALT THEIR WORK TO GIVE MAN HIS MEDICINE

LET A PHYSICIAN FIT YOUR CORSET Latest Straight Front and Easy, Well 'Made Waist Adds Health, Says Doctor. MAKE WOMEN BEAUTIFUL

Post 201

Okay, here's a fun game: I'll give you a picture; you come up with a caption. I just happen to have the best picture in the whole wide world; let's see how well you can caption it. Ready? Go ahead and scroll down a bit.
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Post 196

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Oh man! Ohh man! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaa!

Funiest!
Thing!
EVER!

Hahahahahahahaaa!

*gasp*

*gasp!*

ahem

Okay. So. I have this professor who's always telling us that, if we start harping on people for grammatical mistakes, people will just lie in wait to pounce all over us should we ever slip up. And that's true; I think we see that sort of thing all the time. In my mind, usage ain't no thing in casual speech: if I can understand you, you're probably speaking well enough. In writing, you have to be more careful because it's easier to have multiple interpretations of written stuff, but in speech, whatever whatever, ya know?

On the other hand, I occasionally watch stuff on YouTube, and I'm always dismayed at just how poorly people write comments. I'm fairly liberal in a lot of ways, but sometimes people totally appall me.

Today, these two things collided when I found people correcting each other's grammar in the comments of a Mitch Hedberg video. I've copied the string 'cuz I think it's pretty hilarious. I'm saddened at how vulgar people can be (seriously, folks, if you're going to cuss, the least you can do is be good at it!), but that's the interweb for you.

Here's the string:

DuckwalkSupreme
Unfortunately, the spelling leaves a bit to be desired....But go ahead, continue to animate, but no comic strips because that involves spelling.

NihilisticEye
lol @ DuckwalSupreme.

DuckwalkSupreme
My lot in life is to point out the assholes and stupid people, occasionally both can be used to describe the same person, as in this case. Just look at his username, nothing to seperate the individual words....

psychadelic1967
I'm really enjoying your hypocrisy. You're "lot" is pointing out someone's gramatical errors. However there are 3 errors in the two sentences that you wrote:
"assholes and stupid people, occasionally both..." They are independent clauses that should be separated by a semi colon rather than a comma.
"username, nothing..." This is the same mistake as above.
And you spelled "separate" as "seperate".
You see, I get kicks out of pointing out stupid people, and assholes. I'm lucky. You are both.

DuckwalkSupreme
I didn't realize I was flexible enough to get my foot all the way into my mouth...Plus, commas are my weakest point in writing and separate is one of the words I've never been able to spell. Among this list is definitely (recently rectified this) not sure about rectify, though. Oh well, this is youtube and not a college essay and it was Mr. Nirvana that started out as an asshole; (see, semicolon, probably used incorrectly) I was just coming to the defense of a fellow Youtuber. Party on dudes!

RuthmcEvoy
Watch out , there's grammar nazis about !!!

Bobbajoowop
Correction: There are...

RuthmcEvoy
Touché Sir , Touché

liquilux9
I believe you meant to write "Your 'lot,'" not "You're 'lot.'" Also, you misspelled "grammatical."

Sorry -- I couldn't resist. :)

polompon1
To the fuckhead that noes howto spell and shit,,I hope you die in your loft space above your mothers house where you have lived till forty six,,yes people are not perfect on here,,bur at least they try,,you my sad friend ,,well,,your a self wanking prick,,i would bet all i have you have not been with a woman/man..for fucking years.
Very sad to think,,but it's shit like you that runs and ruins this earth,,go away and just die sad bastard,,,get it..spelled loads wrong,,get it though,??????????

Post 167

And now this amazing prophecy from the February 1959 issue of Time magazine:

Owlish Cellist Pablo Casals, 81, ventured a hopeful thought on a species of U.S.-bred cacophony scarcely ever ventured on his mellow instrument: " Rock' n' roll is a disease that shall pass away as quickly as it was created. It is a sad thing for your country. It is nothing, nothing. "

Post 159

As one who is sometime not very careful in the way he chooses his words, I really appreciated this bit from John Taylor. This is coming to you from the Journal of Discourses, Volume 26, Discourse 10.

(And I'm not just including this because it's kinda funny the way he says it--I really do believe this.)

You have drank from the river the streams whereof make glad the city of our God. The light of eternal truth has beamed upon your minds, and your hearts have been glad in the hopes of eternal life which have been presented to you when under the influence of the Spirit of God. You have rejoiced in the hope that blooms with immortality and eternal lives. Filled with this Spirit you feel that you are an eternal being having the principles of the everlasting Gospel within you; that you have received the everlasting Priesthood, that you are associated with principles that will exalt and ennoble man in time and throughout the eternities to come. There is something pleasing about it.

And when these miserable “dogs” howl and the coyotes yelp and exhibit their folly and nonsense—I was going to say, who the devil cares? Some people would think it is impious to say a thing like that. Yes, and the same people think it very honorable to lie in order to oppose the truth. No matter what men think of these things. I am not very precise in choosing my words in reference to such matters.

Post 149

It's been a while since I've posted anything--long enough that Confuzzled's been complaining, at least--so here we have something totally unprecedented, something, in fact, that flies completely in the face of some of my most precious credos: a post wherein I'm nice to Confuzzled. Kinda. Actually, this is something that I've been meaning to do for quite a while, but it happens to be in response to something she said a couple months ago, so it might appear that I'm being nice to her, I dunno. If I am, in fact, being nice to her, we'll just call it an anomaly--me stirring the waters just to make sure we don't get stuck in a rut (er--canal, I guess, if we want to avoid mixing metaphors)--or something like that.

Rest assured, Confuzzled: I will, no doubt, be returning to the lambasting that we are all so much more accustomed to here shortly.

Anyway, anybody remember my review of Kung-Fu Panda? That post is an interesting one because I basically claimed that I laughed so hard while watching that movie that my brains fell out and I had no more desire to be a gloomy, pensive individual. In the comments section, my dear, naysaying brother questioned whether such a change could be made all at once, and I honestly didn't know.

Well, it's now been just over two months since I made that declaration, and, though I still find myself being isolationistic in my pensive habits on a regular basis, I think that I've generally become a more happy-go-lucky sort of individual. So take that, causality--er--whatever--!

I've actually wandered far away from where I intended to be, so let me back up: the reason I bring up that post is because Confuzzled commented and said, "Also, you should start writing jokes. Because I don't know any. And you could help me!" Though I responded to the rest of her comment, I purposely avoided that part of it because I wanted to do then what I was about to do now.

Ya see, just a week or two before the historic Kung-Fu Panda Post, I had auditioned for a stand-up comedy club here at BYU, and I had just found out a few days before writing that post that they had decided that I was not funny enough to be in their club. Meh. Whatever. I wasn't terribly interested in being in the club: I mostly just auditioned for the sake of giving stand-up a try. I would've liked being in the club now, but I have different interests developing now that would probably conflict anyway, so 'sall good.

ANYway, what I wanted to do in response to Confuzzled comment that I haven't been able to do just now is to post my audition here. It took me longer than I expected to get that video file from the club, and it's taken me a few weeks to get around to using a campus computer that had the wherewithal to take the video from DVD to computer to blog, but I finally did it today, so here it is. This is me trying (and evidently failing) to be funny. I dunno, you be the judges of funny, I guess:




So there you have it. I generally consider myself a situationally humorous kind of guy: I ain't no performing monkey here to make you giggle on demand, no sir! But, if nothing else, I hope you can find humor in the attempt.

I have another, more melodramatic video I'd like to post sometime, but this has taken me a lot longer than I expected it to, so that will have to wait for another time, I guess.

Post 139

And now, it's time for another Good Idea, Bad Idea:

Good Idea

Pulling down that old toaster oven that nobody ever uses to melt some mozzarella on some bread.

Bad Idea

Tilting said toaster oven toward yourself while attempting to put it back on top of the cupboards before it has totally cooled, thus allowing the door to flop open and deploy a piping hot browning tray onto your face.

Not that I did that....

Post 133

Automated emails are so funny sometimes!

JetBlue again. This time they said, "As a TrueBlue member, you can enjoy jetting with JetBlue even more knowing you're earning free travel along the way. And with the 0 TrueBlue points you've earned as of June 3, 2008, you're on your way to redeeming for your next Award Flight. But you could be even further than that, with our offer to get you jetting sooner with the JetBlue Card from American Express."

0 points is really something, huh?

Post 127

I is a diphthong and so is you!

Post 84

Ready for your warm fuzzy for the day?

People, the world has gone crazy. I'm all for optimism, but fatalism seems a lot more reasonable lately--especially looking at politics. So, even though I'm not generally one to endorse happy-feel-good kinds of stories, I saw this one taped up in the stall of a bathroom I was cleaning and was immediately taken by its charm, so humor me and read it.

It was a hard one to find online; there are a few different versions floating around, but this one (with a few stylistic alteration by yours truly) is the best, I think.

Enjoy!

****

In 1986, Dan Harrison was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Dan approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Dan worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Dan stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away.

Dan never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Dan was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Dan and his son Dan Jr. were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Dan, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Dan couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant, so summoning all his courage, he climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Dan's legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

****

See? Don't you feel better now?

Look, we can't be despairing here, folks--leave that to the people at Yahoo. I mean, yeah, the world's gone to crap and we have the unequaled joy of rolling around in it--well? So what! At least we'll keep warm.

Old man trouble--I don't mind him. You may find him 'round my door, but I'll just make a big ok sign with my hands around my head and shake, shake, shake my blues away.

[If you could help me find a graphic for that, Th., I'ld appreciate it--I know his allusion was to "My Favorite Things" rather then "I've Got Rhythm," but I type it like I feel it; you understand.]

Here. Go listen to this. It'll make you feel better.

Post 82

I realized recently that I am not a very dedicated sort of person in some ways. I've started a lot of books that I've never gotten around to finishing, and in the last six months, I've held four different jobs. I don't think that this says much for my character, and I worry about the implications for the future. I mean, what if one day I

Post 51

And now this exciting bit of news:

When Chuck Norris goes cow-tipping, he lifts a cow up and drop kicks it into the neighboring farm. All the other cows simply tip themselves over to keep from having to walk back in the dark.

That is all.

Okay, not really. My absolute favorite Chuck Norris joke--er--fact is:

Chuck Norris owns the greatest Poker Face of all-time. It helped him win the 1983 World Series of Poker despite him holding just a Joker, a Get out of Jail Free Monopoly card, a 2 of clubs, 7 of spades and a green #4 card from the game Uno.

That's an impressive poker face! He probably uses that often now:

Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn't stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.

THAT'S all.

Post 12

FM/PM

Haha. It's funny, yeah? Anyone?
No one understands me....