I am Garfield sitting alone on a Sunday afternoon...
Something, take me away...
Dangit, I can NOT get out of this physical tiredness...I really need a couple days off from everything...EVERYTHING. But I have to wait for that to come, cuz it won't, for at least a month. I have to wait until pop is completely stable, and my cousins are here, so pop can go home and someone can be with him all the time. I have to wait until AFTER I've taken my test, which is in 23 days. So I have to be patient...and boy, do I ever need an extra helping of patience right about now. I know that one of the reasons I'm so tired is because I've been thrown out of my workout schedule, and I was gonna start again today, unfortunately I couldn't get up. So my lil ailment is even preventing me from taking countermeasures. I'm losing the battle, but I will win the war...Tomorrow, we strike again.
World's Funniest Joke
Okay, now I have never really pasted an entire article, but this one caught my eye...
LONDON, England -- The world's funniest joke has been revealed after a year-long search by scientists.
In an experiment conducted in Britain, people around the world were invited to judge jokes on an Internet site as well as contribute their own.
The LaughLab research, carried out by psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire, attracted more than 40,000 jokes and almost two million ratings.
And here it is...
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services.
He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"
Wiseman said the joke worked across many different countries and appealed to men and women and young and old alike.
"Many of the jokes submitted received higher ratings from certain groups of people, but this one had real universal appeal," he said.
As well as identifying the joke which appealed most to people around the world, the experiment revealed wide humour differences between nations.
People logging onto the LaughLab Web site were invited to rate jokes using a "Giggleometer" which had a five-point scale ranging from "not very funny" to "very funny".
One intriguing result was that Germans -- not renowned for their sense of humour -- found just about everything funny and did not express a strong preference for any type of joke. (Full story)
People from the Republic of Ireland, the UK, Australia and New Zealand most enjoyed jokes involving word plays.
Many European countries, such as France, Denmark and Belgium, displayed a penchant for off-beat surreal humour, while Americans and Canadians preferred jokes where there was a strong sense of superiority -- either because a character looks stupid or is made to look stupid by someone else.
Europeans also enjoyed jokes that involved making light of topics that make people feel anxious, such as death, illness and marriage.
Wiseman said: "These results are really interesting. It suggests that people from different parts of the world have fundamentally different senses of humour.
"Humour is vital to communication and the more we understand about how people's culture and background affect their sense of humour, the more we will be able to communicate effectively.
"Also, we find jokes funny for lots of different reasons. They sometimes make us feel superior to others, reduce the emotional impact of anxiety-provoking situations or surprise us because of some kind of incongruity.
"The hunters joke contained all three elements."
Bizarrely, computer analysis of the data also showed that jokes containing 103 words were thought to be especially funny. The winning "hunters" joke was 102 words long.
Many jokes submitted contained references to animals. Jokes mentioning ducks were considered particularly funny.
-Courtesy of CNN.com 10/03/02
...okay, now a couple of things that came to MY mind. 1) That joke is NOT really that funny. It's okay, but I guess they said it had a universal appeal...so probably had the best average. 2) The cultural differences pointed out are interesting...that there are some cultures considered to be 'not generally having a sense of humor(who figures that out?) and 3) What significance does this article make? What have you really learned? And THIS is what we pay these people to do?
Thumbs up to...
-The Angels, winning 8-6 over the Yankees to even the best of 5 series 1 apiece.
-Fellowship
Thumbs down to
Pimples that refuse to leave, sore throats, and mono-like symptoms
"Just remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him, requires a lot of courage and know-how."
-Thomas Merton
