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Going clockwise from the big blurry window in the top-left, we have:

• Textmate, with my 'jokes.txt' file currently being edited. The system is pretty simple - I think of a joke, I write it in. Once that joke is used in a tweet, I delete it from the file. The original file is saved every time I make a change to it, and copies are saved to an external drive and my webserver(after being renamed) four times a day, for redundancy.

  There's no particular order to the jokes - they're arranged by the order they get entered in. It tends to highlight trends in my thinking(there's an odd section full of 'political' jokes around the middle of the file). When it comes time to post a new tweet, I give the file a quick once-over and chose what I think is funniest at that moment. This means that I look at almost every single joke several times a day, and as a result they get edited heavily, which is a nice side-effect.

  The next window is Peggle, from Popcap games. I am addicted to this game in a foul way. Seriously - it's worse than heroin. I like to play Peggle whilst thinking up jokes because it focuses the mechanical parts of my brain entirely, leaving the creative bits to stew and come up with something for me.

• iTunes needs no introduction, of course. I listen to music mainly to drown out the sounds around me - my Mom's flat can be a noisy place at times(as I type, she's doing the washing up whilst watching the TV. TV is always on loud anyway, and the bowl of clanking plates requires it to be louder.) I don't listen to new music whilst I'm writing, because it's too distracting. Instead, I go with older stuff that I've heard a thousand times - Imogen Heap, Head Automatica, the Shins, and Metric feature heavily.

  You'll notice that the currently playing album(Head Automatica's "Popaganda") in that window is flanked on either side by stand-up CDs(Jimmy Pardo's "Pompous Clown" and the Sklar Brothers' "Poppin' the Hood"). I listen to a lot of stand-up comedy, and it makes up about a quarter of my library. Again, though, I don't listen to it whilst I'm writing - it's saved for stuff tasks where I need my hands, but not my ears(washing up, laundry, getting dressed in the morning). See also: podcasts.

• After iTunes, comes Flextime from Red Sweater Software. I use a simple timer to remind me to Tweet every half-hour(or once every hour before 0700 PDT). I tend not to do many @replies on Twitter, instead preferring direct messages, so scheduled posting works for me.

• And last, of course, is the Iconfactory's Twitterrifc. I'm sure most Twitterers will at least be familiar with this great program. I do switch to the main Twitter.com site every now and then to send welcome messages to my new followers, but I mainly stick with Twitterrific. I have yet to purchase a license, since it's not essential(the ads are fairly unobtrusive, and I've even clicked a few), and I am writing on an airbed on my Mom's floor - I am not burdened by excess currency.

That's about it - obviously I pretty much live in my web-browser of choice and check in with my RSS feeds in NetNewsWire a couple of times a day, but that's about everything.

The film caused a pretty big hubbub in 1979(it was picketed at some cinemas), when many people(religious and atheist/agnostic) deemed it to be a critique of Jesus Christ, despite the creators' assertions that it was instead a comment on religion in general, rather than the Christian one in specific.

(And yes, it borrows elements of Christ's story - but the writers were raised in Judeo-Christian societies. At worst, the use of that mythology could be deemed ethnocentrism, and at best, six men attempting to give something back to their own culture by contributing to religious debate.)

This kind of misunderstanding of satire continues to this day, of course, running rampant this past week in discussion of the New Yorker's current cover, depicting Presidential hopeful Barrack Obama as a Muslim, terrorist-fist-pounding his wife Michelle, who is decked out in guerilla couture.

Both the artist, Barry Blitt, and David Remnick - the New Yorker's Editor - have defended the cover, stating that it targets the media's fear-mongering in this current Presidential race¹. An unsurprisingly hilarious summary of that shit-stirring(and support of Blitt and Remnick's argument) was presented to us by The Daily Show's Jon Stewart:

Good satire speaks to our base emotions like anger, and our sense of injustice- rile those feelings up in people, and their reactions can be somewhat knee-jerk, and their minds not always clear enough to accurately perceive your original intent.

This is especially true for the people you are trying to mock with your satire. Satire works really well when it is focused on an ideology or opinion². The people indoctrinated by that very ideology will do anything to avoid receiving the message of your satire. Their brains will re-frame the content to support their beliefs. Like the Christians who added Life of Brian to the list of things that cause their Savior to suffer, and the media channels that argue that the Obama cover is only going to reinforce the harmful Obama myths(because the cover is a cartoon, guys, and can't possibly have anything important to say, and because the public at large is too stupid to form it's own opinions.)

Satire is, then, a dangerous weapon that can backfire on you just as often as it hits the target, at least in the short-term. Time, of course, does tend towards helping you out. In 30 years, will the outrage at the New Yorker seem as ridiculous as the protests against the Python film in 1979?

1 - SeoulBrother has a very compelling argument for a much deeper level of satire in his post "The Cover".↑

2 - Examples of good, nay - great satire can be found in the work of Chris Morris and Bill Hicks. These are obvious choices, yes, but for a reason.↑

I hadn't really noticed it gradually building up. Sort of like how those morbidly obese people(presumably) don't really realise every time they put on a few pounds, and by the time they get to elephant-like girth it feels like it's snuck up on them.

(Yeah, this situation is just like that. Except I'm not getting removed from my house via. crane. So it's a little different.)

As I was wiping away all the dirt and grime, I realized that this was the detritus of six months of writing being wiped away. It was a little symbolic, like a Baptism(but, y'know, a shitty Baptism.) My writing has made a dramatic shift in style and tone(as well as length) in the past week or so, and it was nice to get rid of the physical remains of my old system.

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I am generally a very clean person. My room at university was described by other students as 'pristine' on more than one occasion. Which kind of makes me sound a little like a serial killer(do not be worried - I assure you I have murdered only once and have no plans to feed my foul urge once again.) Mostly the tidiness was a result of procrastination, something that seems to be endemic amongst... well, everyone nowadays. I spent much of this past year attempting to sit down at my desk and write, and then deciding that the desk was too messy for that writing to take place. Hence- a spotless, organized room(and a rise in Cillit Bang's stock price.).

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There's no small irony that I am now getting my most 'successful' writing done whilst living and sleeping on an airbed(as helpfully hinted at by this blog's title.) It is certainly not comfortable, and in no way ideal, but it seems I am willing to transcend my surroundings to continue writing.

This is because writing is some kind of noble, mystical thing.

This is because writing is fun, especially when you know other people are enjoying it too.

In yesterday's post I talked a little about how my brain has gotten better at making and analyzing jokes due to the constant stream of them that Twitter subjects me to(very willingly, I should clarify.)

I noted that in class we'd been taught the formulae of 'how to write a joke'. On our first day with our writing lecturer we were told that all one needs to do to write a successful gag is to create an expectation and then violate it. For instance-

Two blondes walk into a bar. You'd think one of them would have noticed.

That joke sets up the expectation that the two flaxen-haired compatriots have journeyed into a drinking establishment(a common humor trope), before the second part lets us know that no, they just hit their heads. Most jokes adhere to a structure akin to this.

(Even anti-jokes work with this classic structure - they violate the expectation that an expectation is going to be violated.)

The violation of expectations creates laughter because our brain is designed to recognise patterns. Working with the same example, when the brain hears "Two blondes walk into a bar" it creates a whole world around the idea of them entering a pub('tavern' for the Americanos), and the brain forsees the pattern of something funny to them happening in that pub(or, again, tavern.)

The quick shift of scenarios(perhaps placing the blondes on a street near a metal pole) is jarring to the brain for a fraction of a second. In his book 'Lateral Thinking', Edward De Bono asserts that (paraphrasing due to poor memory):

A temporary paradigm shift[an experience of looking at something in a different way - Aves] creates laughter, whilst a permanent one leads to insight.

I am inclined to agree.

But of course, one can't simply reduce the entire world and range of humor out there to "X + Y = Z". There are many other aspects of a joke that provide laughter. Let's dissect one of my most popular tweets as an example:

Wish there was a way to service my sexual needs whilst re-enforcing my agonizing loneliness... Oh, hey there, pornography!

(Note 2 - not all these 'reasons' for why the joke was funny will be true for you. Hell, maybe none of them will.)

It definitely adheres to the 'violate expectations' rule(I am seemingly unaware of porn, and then discover it) but there's a bunch of other stuff in play, too. To start - there's a second layer of violation, too. At this point in my Twitter career, I'd started doing a steady stream of jokes - by finishing the set-up with such a depressing revelation(my 'agonizing loneliness'), I cause the brain to switch paradigms(from 'read this as a joke' to 'read this as serious'). This switch is only temporary, though, as the last line is designed with a sense of fun(the exclamation mark helps, there) that it's clear this is all meant as a gag(causing the brain to switch back.) Temporary paradigm shift == laughter.

The faux-naivete is also funny. With the readership mostly aware that I am more than knowledgeable about this sort of thing(at the time my Twitter bio referenced the SuicideGirls), they could likely guess that pornography is the 'answer' to the question of how to solve the horniness. Remember, the brain is all about making patterns between things, so when the end of the joke confirms the presumption of 'porn', the reader is rewarded.

(Since it's in the brain's best interests to keep recognizing patterns, we've evolved to release pleasure chemicals when it does so. Hence the 'reward' that is then attributed to the joke.)

And of course, there's more base stuff too. A chick openly talking about pornography is almost guaranteed to hit home for guy readers, especially when you throw in acknowledgment that women have sexual needs. Favrd is noted for it's appreciation of the puerile.

There are small details as well, that make the joke more satisfying - the needless verbosity (especially "agonizing loneliness"), and the anthropomorphization of the concept of porn being the most obvious.

That's all I've got that I can work out how to verbalize right now. Think I missed something? Hit me back in the comments.

Enjoyed this post? Point your friends/tweeps to http://bit.ly/avejo so that I don't have to indulge in more horrible self-promotion. Thanks!

For someone who loves comedy as much as I do, that can hurt a little. I've always prided myself on being able to make people laugh, but a year of not being 'the funny one' slowly ground at my confidence, even making me re-consider how funny I was in the past.

"Maybe I was just the annoying one that everyone put up with."

Luckily, something has happened recently that put the little paranoia demon in my head to rest, at least a little. Hell, a lot

But let's re-wind a little, first. Okay?

I joined Twitter in march of 2007, and used it on and off to post the usual updates such as "Walking into university" or "Oh no, it's rainings!" for the better part of this past year. Ostensibly, that's really what Twitter is for - after all, it does ask "What are you doing?" Gradually, though, Twitter has evolved into a pretty nifty platform for jokes and one-liners. This evolution is documented amazingly well at Blognabbit. That page also includes a link to a Commoncraft video that excellently explains Twitter far better than I could here.

To take a super-relevant bit from the Blognabbit post, I'll quote the explanation of Favrd:

Favrd is now the go-to site for the latest in what's funny or clever on Twitter. Two thumbs up by the eligible pool of voters places your tweet on the front page of the site, until it's pushed off by the next wave of favorite tweets. At its worst, like Favotter, Favrd preys on the insecurities of the wiseacre crowd. But at its best, it highlights the work of new and funny Twitterers who have few followers. One can subscribe to the RSS feed of the Favrd main page to keep a finger on the pulse of the Twitter comedy scene without even signing up at Twitter.

As someone who consumes content on a massive scale(read: unemployed) I started subscribing to the main Favrd players of the time, purely to add extra doses of comedy into my life. And over a few weeks, I found the stuff we were taught in lectures about how to write jokes actually sinking in as I saw those same techniques play out over and over again in the updates of those tweeters.

(Note: yes, the language is a little odd when used so often and in such close proximity, isn't it?)

And once those lessons embedded into my head, I found myself actually being able to write jokes on the fly, which is something I've had a problem with before. And hey, I was actually making some decent headway with regards to humour. Here's my first Favrd tweet:

Want to have your cake and eat it, too? BUY TWO CAKES.

And as mentioned above in the Blognabbit quote, Favrd highlights new work - once I was on the front page, even for the small amount of time that that tweet earned me, I gained a few followers and they liked my next posts, which got me Favrd, which got followers, and they liked-

And on, and on. (You can see the history of my Favrd tweets here, starting with the newest first.)

At first I was worried that I wouldn't be able to keep up with the rate of jokes needed to satisfy the odd imagined 'demand' in my head. (Incidentally, I try to tweet about once or twice an hour whilst I'm awake. Again - unemployed.) But I found myself not being able to get to sleep at night without entering 5 or 6 jokes into my phone for storage. My brain was learning to take in information and twist it into something short and humourous. Admittedly, my brain should have been doing this over the past year of university. Um, my bad?

With practice, of course, those jokes were getting better, smarter, harder, faster, stron- wait, that's something else. But I was enjoying my own jokes more, and others were too. I started getting Direct Messages from people telling me that they liked my 'work', and that I made them snork coffee outta their nose and all sorts of cool stuff.

I set up an auto-reply to welcome new followers, and then changed to a manual system with individual thank-yous and (usually) personalised jokes for everyone. Subsequently, I tweeted:

All my new followers get an ostensibly witty thank-you message thought up on-the-fly. And *yes*, that is _just_ as tiring as you'd think.

A cynical person might suggest I do this to foster a one-to-one personal connection with the people who follow me, in order to further earn their layalty. Really, I do it because I think it's a nice touch, and a little unique among the 'humourists' on Twitter(could be wrong on that front, feel free to correct me.) It also provides me a nice opportunity to make sure that person isn't a spammer. A few days ago I spent some time getting rid of the spammers I already had, so that my follower count is a more accurate reflection of how many people are reading my stuff.

So, anyway, my follower count was growing, and I was getting praise for my jokes. My self-esteem went up, especially when Moltz, one of the Favrd superstars, tweeted:

@aedison Will you _stop_ that?! You're making it really hard to not follow you!

When one of the Pros likes what you're doing, you're doing something right, right? (Previous sentence intentionally muddy to confuse readers whilst I pilfer their coinpurses.)

(And just to add, Moltz did cave and follow me. WIN.)

Of course, it's at this point that someone pops in to remind me that it's not all about how many followers you get, or how often you're Favrd. That someone was Tony Delgrosso who, in an e-mail to me, wrote:

The only, ONLY person we *ever* need to please with our work is ourselves. Everything else follows from that. [...] DO NOT compromise your voice to please anyone. Hone your voice and practice your craft, and the audience will follow.

He's entirely right of course, and while I am very excited by how many people follow me, and how well I do on Favrd, at the end of the day it's about the satisfaction I get from _finally_ being able to get the stuff that's in my head out into the world in a way that others enjoy. There's a lot of bluster about how important Web 2.0 is, the democratization of content creation and all that. But I say without hyperbole that Twitter has made my life better.

I have an audience, and I have content. And, as proved by this tweet:

Think I tweet too much? My 16kb _jokes.txt_ file begs to differ.

I can keep going for a very long time.

So thanks. Thanks to my followers, thanks to the tweeps that've pimped me out, thanks to Dean Allen for Favrd and thanks to all the guys at Twitter for making this(in my case) life-changing web app.

If you're a reader who likes my stuff, why not check out my Twitter page, maybe sign up yourself and follow my tweets, or even just grab the RSS feed? I'd hate for you to miss some funny stuff.

For the people who came here from Twitter, and who want to read some of my more long-form writing, why not start with "Warts and All", "Liveblogging 'Drillbit Taylor'" or my favourite post, "From my novella. Due soon. Probably." ?

Anyway, got to go, tweets to write, and all that. And I should probably eat sometime, too.