The safest target for humor is always yourself, and the best material reflects your personality.

So it’s time to start digging.

I have not had much success just sitting down and looking in my past for funny stuff. I have however, nearly always been able to come up with pertinent examples of past behavior when faced with a new humorous situation.

You can’t use what you don’t remember, so today start remembering.

Write it down.

It it’s funny, write it down.

If it strikes you as odd, write it down.

If it doesn’t make sense, write it down.

All of these notes become a foundation for future material. The idea that a major comic just riffs on their childhood is crazy. A good routine, with an absolutely natural delivery, that sounds like it’s the first time it came to mind, may take months to put together.

So start a journal, or notes on your iPhone, Blackberry, or computer. As you note present day events and thoughts, related thoughts will start to appear. Maybe not right away, maybe not for every item, and not all the time, but the thoughts will come.

So write them down.

We’ll cover what to do with all this stuff in a later post.

Meanwhile, comments are open, and if you want a unique speaker or MC for your next event… contact me! There are still good dates open for 2010. (2011 is still pretty much wide-open too. And 2012 may mark the end of the world, but I can still take your deposit.)

Image via CrunchBase

All Binged! out.

It is almost impossible…

BING! Make the impossible posible with the all new…

to read…

BING! Read the new novel from…

a web page these days without…

Bing! No need to go without! Call…

a window…

BING! New windows and doors from…

popping…

BING! Try new InstaPop Popcorn it’s gooooood!

open.

BING! Open a new account now with…

Bing!…

BING! Search now with Bing!

Isn’t the only one, but unfortunately for Bing! is the most visible…

BING! Visible results in days not weeks!

Since when does being irritating…

BING! Stop skin irritations with Aloe Aloe Aloe

and obnoxious, qualify as good advertising?

BING! Advertise with Bing!

Cover of 'American Gigolo'

If you immediately thought of the Giogio Moroder song popularized by Blondie on the soundtrack to American Gigolo… that was 29 years ago! You need to get out more.

I want to talk about voicemail.

And how bad messages drive me crazy.

The scenario goes like this:

Phone rings. I can’t answer in time, but I see on the Caller ID who called. I wonder… What did they want? and about that time the voicemail message comes through, “Ah ha!” I think, I can now find out what they want. So I push the playback button and hear that I have one new message, that if I want to playback the messages I need to push the same buttons I have been pushing for years. I hear that the message  came in at some o’clock on some date and finally I get to the message… “Dan this is (blank) Call me.”

Call you? Call you what? About what? How about a little detail?

Sometimes the caller will even tell you what time it is when they called, although this seems more to cover their butt than for any useful purpose, since their stated time is never even close to the time the message actually came in.

How hard is it to say “it’s about the fifty bucks,” or, “can we meet tomorrow at 9:00 am my office?” or, “I vote NO on the proposal.” or, “I saw your wife with Jimmy at the bar last night,” something, anything, other than “call me.” I even used to ask people to leave a detailed message, so they would say, “Call me, at home, after 5:00.” Not to mention how stupid you feel when you call and get their voicemail and your message has to be, “You said to call, so…” So what? What can we say?

And how long have answering machines and voicemail been around? Is there anyone on the planet that has trouble with this? But still, just about every cell carrier tacks instructions for how to leave a voicemail onto your greeting.

Recently David Pogue in the New York Times estimated: “I’m using, as an example, Verizon’s $60-a-month plan. You get 900 minutes for that, which comes out to 6.67 cents a minute.Verizon has 70 million customers. If each one leaves a message or checks voicemail twice a day, that’s 70 million * 6.67 cents * .5 (half a minute listening to two 15-second instruction recordings) * 365 days = $852,092,500. And that’s just Verizon!”

To be fair, ATT recently eliminated the phrase “To page this person please press 5 now.” If you have ever “paged this person” Let me know in comments.

I have to admit I tried it once.

The automatic paging text went out, with my phone number, (to the phone of the person who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, answer my call to begin with.)

I think the message said “Call me.”

Well! That was easy!

I have a running battle with easy-open containers. Most of them aren’t.

Medicine bottles with the cryptic “Push & Turn” instructions. Tabs on boxes that dispense paper cuts as often as the contents. Plastic packs that slice & dice. This Pop-Secret example of the “glue every possible edge” school of package design.

Hill’s Science Diet Cat Food bags, not only have an easy open design, but also a resealable zip-lock… Except tearing at the tab provided doesn’t open the bag, and cutting anywhere below it ruins the zip-lock.

After marrying me, Arlene had to get over occasionally seeing the naked cereal bag laying on the breakfast table next to what was left of the box.

I believe every architect should have to actually live or work in a building he designs, every doctor should take some of his own medicine, Congress should have to live with the laws they pass, and every origami expert who thinks they can design packaging, should be dropped on a desert island and forced to survive by actually opening their boxes, tubes, jars and bags.

It’s a small thing I know. But life is too short for bad staplers, pens that don’t write, web-sites desgined for Internet Explorer and easy-open containers, that don’t.

Share your experiences with easy-open containers in comments.

Wispy TP tendrils wafting in the breeze.

We got wrapped last night.

The picture was taken afrter quite  a bit of clean-up and does not do the effort justice.  And since Arlene and I don’t have any friends that stay up late enough to attempt this, we decided it must be some of Dalton’s friends.

Which reminds me of the time, back in the day, when I was wrapping a house with Dave Lane, John Bond and Brad McMinn, or it might have been Mickey Ford, Don Hill and Donald Freeman, or any number of others.

On this particular night, not caring what clothing cost, I crawled underneath a car to escape detection and aprehension by an irate father. Keep in mind that cars weren’t sealed so tightly then. Most driveways were ice-rink slick with oil drippings.

I survived.

My t-shirt and jeans did not.

Now parents call ahead to make sure it’s OK to do the TP deed.

Crime and corruption in Congress is one thing, you expect it. But calling ahead to ask permission to wrap a house? This is the kind of thing that makes me shake my head and wonder what has this world become?

It’s toilet paper thrown in a tree!

It’s made to dissolve in water!

People get upset and call the cops about this?

Call ahead and ask permission?

And that isn’t the only thing that’s changed. Where we used to look for the industrial strength sandpaper consistency cheap toilet paper….

Our tree was wrapped in Charmin Ultra Extra Strong.

This is one nice neighborhood! Nearly all of it was suitable for re-use! Unfortunately Arlene got the section with a twig stuck in it.

Maybe I should have called her first and asked permission.

At least it’s not as dirty as I remember…

…here under the car.