In the mean time enjoy this joke:

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Sushi.

Sushi who?

So she lost her keys.

 I must say it worked rather well. Everyone that went for a doughtnut had to do a double take before they realized what it was. One person actually thought they were still edible. Which I suppose they are, they may taste bad but they are at least non-toxic. Got a pretty good reaction from everyone. Nice middle of the rode prank that didn’t offended anyone.

 Here’s a pic of the prank doughnuts. Yes someone actually took one.

Second year at the same job. Actually that was back at the end of February. But the point is things are fairly stable at my job. I finally feel comfortable pulling a mild practicle joke. It helps that I get along fairly well with my immediate coworkers.

I was trying to figure out what would make for a good joke. I thought about baking something with a fould taste. I just can’t do that. I like to cook and it would be a shame to make something on purpose that was awfull. Then it hit me. Just buy some doughnuts and ask for a second box.

Take the second box and fill it with cheap plastic doughnut rings from walmart. Leave the fake box out on the table. Sit back and wait for people to come up and go to take a doughnut.

Nice, simple, harmless, and you get to enjoy some doughnuts. And we already know, I loves me some doughnuts.

 Now I admit it is not much of a joke. And I may do more little things as well throughout the day. Like a post-it not under the mouse, sticky side on the mouse. Works well for both laser and ball mice. You could always go with the prank email, but those can be tricky. You have to be carefull with the content and wording.

I am certain there are other “work place safe” pranks so lets hear them.

After defining the top level of the classification system, Humor, as whether the joke is to be funny or not, we move down to the next level. Originally the levels were defined as

• Humor
• Content
• Style
• Type

However, at further consideration, content is perhaps to detailed or specific to by the second level. Instead I have made the bold and presumptutious desicion to make style second.

Style could mean several different things, from structure such as knock-knock, question/answer, story, and so on. Or it could be as simple as content rating. Further consideration makes me wonder if style and type are not to similar. After such carefull consideration, I flipped a coin and decided to drop type and add rating and to make rating the second level.

Having changed the second level of the classification system several times now, I am fairly satisfied if not ready to just move on. Besides, its not like anyone is really paying attention to me anyways.

So the rating is very much like movie or tv ratings. It is a simple way to classify the content and language of a joke. For example jokes about sex would be adult, jokes about bodily functions would be crude, jokes with foul language could be consider graphic. In most cases there is no place for violence in a joke, although it does happen especially in cases of accidental humor situations, ie stupid human actions and so on. THen there are the benign kid jokes, and the regular pg jokes.

In summation, the rating of a joke should fit one of the following:

• Adult
• Crude
• Accident
• Family
• Kid/G
• PG

Sounds good to me, and I should know. I have a degree from a Technical Institute and I am an authority on what is funny. Everyone will be using my classification system in no time, so you might as well start now.

How many GA Tech grads does it take to change a light bulb?
None, they call maintenance and wait for the UGA student to do it.

While I agree many jokes may be called corny, I do not feel as though “corny” should be a type of joke. At least not in the sense I menat last week. How to write a joke…
Perhaps instead of just a list of categories, some sort of classification system similar to one in biology should be used. I do not think as many levels of classificiation are needed, but perhaps 3 or 4. Something along the lines of the following:

1. Humor
2. Content
3. Style
4. Type

Then defining how to write a joke becomes defining the rules for each level of classification. Which then means to write a joke you start at the top and work your way down based on the content,style, and type of joke you want to create.

So this week let’s define the first level, Humor. Whether the joke is funny or not funny. Pretty straight forward there. Although why on earth someone would want to write a non-funny joke eludes me, this is most likely more applicable to existing jokes then writing a new one. Writing a joke starts with deciding if you want it to be funny or not. Most likely you want it to be funny, although in some cases you may want to write an unfunny joke, either to just not be funny (which may be the funny part), or as an example, or perhaps you just aren’t funny. Although it is rather presumptious to assume more then just myself would use these guigelines to write a joke so new jokes will most definitely have some that are not funny as well.

If you have suggestions or comments on the level of classifications let me know or suggestions for next weeks topic, Content, I would appreciate hearing them as well.

And now enjoy the following little gem:

Why did the tissue like to dance?
Because it had a little boogie in it.

 I want to know what makes a good joke. A good joke that is always good. This by nature excludes any current event related jokes, those are generally to easy anyways. What I want is to write a funny joke that could be told years later and still be funny. Typically knock knock jokes are good as are plays on words. But knock knock jokes are stupid and my vocabulary skills were stunted in college (you don’t really develope a mastery of the English language by watching movies instead of reading books for the English classes). Then there are also the story jokes and the prop jokes. Story jokes can be to long, prop jokes well Carrot Top is only mildly entertaining. So perhaps what needs to be done is to define a few different categories of jokes and go from there. After defining each category then rules for generating jokes can be established and the jokes can commence. So for the next week I will be working on listing what I feel to be different joke categories. So feel free to leave your thoughts on the subject. Any input would be welcomed, but not necessarily appreciated or used. And think high-level, as in the style of the joke, the subject matter of the joke and length of the joke. A little background on why I am doing this: After explaining the basics of the knock-knock joke to a coworker (English is a second language for them) they proceeded to work on a joke of their own. The following day the laid this nugget on me:

Person1: Knock-Knock
Person2: Who’s there?
Person1: Amnesia.
Person2: Amnesia who?

Granted the first knock-knock joke I introduced to them was the Interupting Cow. So While they got the basics down, I feel as though their KK-joke could be improved. And that got me thinking, well how do you write a good solid joke?

Here is an initial list of categories for types of jokes to get things started:

• Knock-Knock
• Political
• Word-play/Alternate definition
• Insult/Your Mom/Polish/Blond/Redneck/etc…
• Holiday
• Adult
• Prop/Visual
• The Pun

That is a good start for now. Now to leave you for now enjoy the following two jokes:

A pirate walks into a bar with a stearing wheel in his pants. The bartender says, “Hey, you have a stearing wheel in your pants.” To which the pirate replies:”Arrrrrrr, it’s drive’n me nuts.”

The following joke was told to my sister, who heard the punch line wrong (she heard “bam”) and thought it was incredibly funny and proceeded to tell her kids. Only to find out the actual punch line later. As her brother, this just made the joke even better.

Question: What does a fish say when it hits a cement wall?
Answer: Dam!

So what category would you say they belong to?