The Construct of Joke-Space

I've noticed that for most people, the popularity of little "in-jokes" tends to follow an inverted u-shaped function. Someone says something funny, the comment gets picked up by more people, the comment gets used by these people for a couple of weeks (or months), and then gets put back in the vault. Jokes tend to be "over-done".

Not so with my friends. We push through to the point where its so not funny anymore that its funny.

Example: This would be the transcript of the beginning of every bi-weekly phone conversation that I have had with Hessels since October, 2003:

One of us: Hello?
Other: Dipshit.
One: Dipshit.
Other: What's up?
One: Not much. You?
Other: Not much
[5-7s of silence]
Other: Okey Dokey! Well, good talking to you.
One: Righty Roo! Talk to you next week.

Every single fucking time. And we laugh hysterically every time. And really, is it that funny? I read it, think of someone else reading it, and I think "that's gayer than the time I saw 2 guys kissing on a bench." But I still laugh my ass off. Why?

Because we find a ridiculous amount of humour in redundancy.

'Nother Example: The very first week that we met in grad school (September, '97), we made plans to do something over the weekend. I believe it was a Saturday. One of us walked into another's office and said "Hey, what are you doing Saturday?" The other said, "I've got plans to do [X], but how about Saturday?" This, of course, resulted in a running joke when it comes to making plans. You can keep it going forever: "Well, Saturday is OK, but Saturday works much better for me." or "Saturday is out, but...Hey! Why not Saturday?" This joke is particularly funny because it is doubly redundant: 1) we can literally keep it going for several minutes with new permutations of plan-making sentences, and 2) we have been using the same goddamned joke for 8 YEARS. I repeat: 8 YEARS. That has GOTS to be some sort of record. Even Seinfeld "Told Us for the Last Time".

There was a joke that ran the risk of running its course. In 2002, Gilette came out with a horrible series of deodorant commercials where men would ski down slopes, sniff their armpits at the bottom of the hill, and turn to the camera with a cheesy grin and say "Nice!" or "Sweet!" Worst. Commercial. Ever. But again, funny as hell. So, instead of saying "Great!" or "Good Job!", we resorted to smelling our armpits and saying "Nice!" or "Sweet!". We would use that joke with whoever we could, and it would usually be received with eye-rolling or groaning. People actually started to hate us.

Unfortunately, geography limited us from using that joke for over a year.

However, during a Euchre game at the Hessels' family home over the Christmas vacation, Hessels took a trick in a rousing come-from-behind fashion. It was as if distance had never been an issue: my reaction, [*armpit sniff*] "Nice!" Hessels: [*armpit sniff*] "Cool!" Never forgot that joke again.

And the really good thing is, both Michelle and Kevin will now sniff their armpits and say "Sweet!". Much to their chagrin. Well, Michelle ain't sniffin' her armpits yet, but she'll be there very, very soon.

Conclusion: Our interest in personal jokes tends to follow an exponential function. And that saves valuable time in coming up with new material.

Great Photo by Hessels

This is Berton. Sandra's cat. Namesake: Pierre Berton. Sandra's idol, and arguably one of the best Canadians ever. Oh, and Guinness.



More examples of Hessels' photographic talents can be seen HERE

The Current Edition of the Journal of Neuroscience "Came" Out

And get a load of the title of one of the brief communications:

The Sensory Cortical Representation of the Human Penis: Revisiting Somatotopy in the Male Homunculus

Hugh just came running into the office to show it to us. His comment..."I want to read the methods".

This may rival other classics, such as

Rectal blowout by personal watercraft water jet: case report and review of literature.

or my personal favorite:

Rectal Salami


Succinct and to the point. The way science should be.

Here's a Word you Never Want to Hear Out of Your Father's Mouth

Sugardaddy.

And One Protracted Thought...

I had a conversation last week that has just stuck in my mind. This conversation had to do with sexism and whether or not it still exists (this was after seeing the movie Crash, which will bring out any opinions in discrimination). Sexism is a funny issue: for some reason, some people feel as if females are discriminated against, even though they are the MAJORITY of the population. Are females truly perceived to play an inferior role in society? Could I be further ahead in my career if I were male?

Now, I would never presume to know how it would feel to be a racial minority. I am positive that being Black in the Southern States, for example, would have it's downsides. I've met enough snooty crackers to know that there are a lot of white-folk who have a serously inflated sense of self-worth. And I've been in Florida and Georgia enough to know that there is a hell of a lot of discrimination going on down there, no question. And that would suck. Kudos to people who can break that cycle.

I am a corn-fed white girl from St, Marys. I grew up in a town that contained no racial diversity whatsoever. Well, there was the Chinese family that owned the Chinese restaurant in town. And a couple of adopted kids that weren't WASPs. But I would say that a population statistic of 7 non-whites:4993 whites would not exactly constitute a "cultural mecca". Point of diatribe here: I did not grow up in a region where discrimination was an issue. So really, I never even thought about it until I moved from my little bubble and onto bigger things.

You can imagine my surprise when I walk into a world that is telling me that, as a female, I have been discriminated against. Apparently, my wages are lower, I don't garner as much respect from my coworkers, and I have to be more careful about what I wear because I AM A WOMAN. If I were male, I would be so much more successful in life...

But I've never been in a position that has made me feel inferior because I'm female. And I HATE the fact that there are women out there who exhibit enough presumption to tell me that I have (to be fair: the conversation that I had was with Chris (male) who was telling me about a conversation he had with two females a couple of weeks before about women's rights). But it still pisses me off to know that some chicks are out there "Speaking on behalf of all womenkind". It is especially frustrating as I have a) worked at a Cement plant (where my job involved hard labour and heavy machinery operation), and b) work in psychophysics, which is still a predominantly male profession. I think that if anyone is/was going to be discriminated against, it would be me. The fact that I have not posits three potential explanations:

1. I am so unattractive that others do not consider me to be a female, hence I have not been sexually discriminated against. Possible, but I can think of at least one little toad who has cried sexual discrimination that is undoubtedly less attractive than I.

2. I have been discriminated against, but am so naive that I did not recognize it. I admit that I can be very naive. But so naive that I couldn't recognize the fact that I was degraded simply because I was a woman? I find that unlikely.

3. Sexual discrimination is a crutch term that is often used by people who have an extreme external locus of control. In my 30 years, I have learned that a lot of people are idiots. A lot. And, by and large, most of them don't know it, and instead blame their inadequencies on the world around them. This is especially true in the silver-spoon population. Instead of claiming responsibility for their own failures, they blame anything and anyone around them instead.

Don't get me wrong... I am sure that there are still cases of sexual discrimination that exist. And thank god that I have not had to deal with that. But when I sit there and have to listen to a 20-something year old say that they recieved a "C" on a political-science paper simply because they were female... I mean c'mon. That's just insulting and disrespectful to the millions of peope who face REAL discrimination every day. Grab some sense of responsibility.

And let the hate mail begin!