From what the internet taught me about comedy, comedians take a long time to develop their jokes. They don’t just make up everything on stage, it takes a long time to polish a good “set.” And after hearing enough comedy cds, I like polished instead of unpolished.
That being said, Rory Scovel comes off as writing about 25% of his set and just stretching it out. Which works somehow amazingly. He somehow takes a small bit he has and just keeps with it; sometimes it feels like Peter Griffin rubbing a sore, and it works. Watch some more of his stuff and enjoy.
I am not opposed to the Occupy Movement, but this song is somehow better if you don’t take it with that layer to it. It’s gonna get stuck in your head.
I am just going to run with this nerd theme for the time being. For your entertainment over Thanksgiving I have decided to avoid term papers by sharing with you all my recent go-to distractions from studying. Instead of actually writing my Africana Philosophy paper I decided to look into some books I had been discussing in passing with my professor.
The first is How the Irish Became Whiteby Noel Ignatiev. A really good read and particularly interesting considering race in both the historic and philosophic context which in reality can’t be separated.
The second book is The Racial Contract by Charles Mill. Also coming from this class this book reexamines Social Contract Theory and race, conceptually and physically, in modern society.
Following the Irish thread from the first book, a few really good movies to check out from you local library because they certainly are not on Netflix Watch-It-Now I have already checked.
Some Mother’s Son which tells the story of two mothers living in Northern Ireland during the 1980’s specifically during the 1981 Hunger Strikes. One mother is an ardent INLA style mom who is active in violent resistance. The other mother is a more moderate teacher who seeks to remain distant from the violence. As both sons go on strike the mothers become closer friends. It is really good. Helen Mirren is awesome and David O’Hara is slightly less crazy than his most famous role.
The other movie is not as great but I watched it anyway and I liked it more for the story than the actual movie. It is about the Shankill Butchers and their leader Lenny Murphy. They were a fanatical group of Unionist paramilitaries who murdered innocent Catholics at random. None of the victims were in anyway found to be connected to the IRA, INLA, or other Republican paramilitary group.
Finally, I just started re-reading Trinityby Leon Uris. I am having a hard time imagining anyone in my family or the Travers’ has not read this but it is amazing. Conor Larkin is giving Aticus Finch a run for his money on my favorite literary characters list. If you haven’t read it yet… what are you waiting for?
How do you out-nerd Ken Jennings? Have you seen this:
Guess what. Roger Craig studied the show and built a program help him study and predict the questions he needed to know which led him to get the highest single day record on Jeopardy. He cracked Jeopardy. Take a look at him explaining how he did it.
The stories on Cracked.com are fun to read every now and again, but you have to have your bullshit radar on like you are reading a Jr. High school version of Wikipedia. You also have to have this radar on when you talk to a person who really likes Cracked.com (you know you are), because he can over-sensationalize an already sensationalistic article.
That being said, the other day I was told (with great confidence that it was true) that James Bond was based on Ian Flemming’s actual life in the MI6, the British intelligence. Also that he was one of a very small group of spys with the MI6 that included Roald Dahl and Count Duku. This was all learned from articles on Cracked.com. While it is not completely untrue, it is not completely true. Ian Flemming does seem like a badass that did some intelligence work, but he was never actually a spy. Roald Dahl did work with a part of the MI6, but it doesn’t seem like he was a spy. I can’t find any articles on the net where it says that Count Duku/Christopher Lee had any involvement in the war outside of being a pilot and possibly a Special Operations Executive (which was clandestine, but not a spy for the MI6).
So why is this article on TBB outside of being an asshole by publicly calling someone out on being incorrect? Cause the true parts are actually cool. The guy who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory also was a wing commander? One of Ian Flemming’s actual quotes is “I have always smoked and drunk and loved too much. In fact I have lived not too long but too much. One day the Iron Crab will get me. Then I shall have died of living too much.”
