esrosedotblog

I just ordered new checks on-line.

The automation of it is almost hilarious.

But not quite.

It just avoids being a complete pain in the ass and I think that is because they keep improving the queuing and the voice of the fake operator. It seems as though we are getting different people each time.

Another thing is that they have key-clicking sounds as you put in your answers.

I liked this one. It made me laugh. It is arhythmic in the same way my typing is.

Another breakthrough in the robotization of America.

Also, hilariously, the image comes from an article about a guy who was in customer service and talked in a robotic voice.

This is the kind of thing I run into when sailing along the web. Little side stories that are as interesting as the one I am working on.

I laughed a lot over this one. He got into big trouble but you have to hand it to him.

Well, I do.

I understand that customer service is a hellish job and the people who do it invent all kinds of ways to make it fun.

This is one of the great lessons I learned from training middle and up managers in large corporations. People's sense of humor and the ability to laugh is one of the great antidotes to shitty work.

Look. It is work. It is not meant to be fun. But if you can bring fun to it then more power to you. To coin a phrase.

My best workshops were the ones where we laughed a lot. I mean a lot. Even at the stuff I was teaching. Even at me!

Labels: computers, humor, training, work

We will miss this guy.

Sorry about that ad. But it ain't free in the big time.

Labels: gay marriage, humor

Labels: humor

Today's movie was about laughter.

Lewis Black DVD The History of the Joke

The show is filled with comedians and jokes and is very funny.

It is not surprising that the connection was made between laughter and sadness, life and death. Humor is like that.

I have seen this disc before and it still seemed fresh and new.

A good time was had by all.

I liked that he had some of the old time comedians along for the ride.

For example, Shelly Berman finished with this.

Labels: humor

Well, when you put it that way, yes, he does look like a drag queen.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

It seems to me that mocking our adversaries has gone out of style somehow.

There used to be terrible cartoons and jokes about all the Russian dictators. But glasnost sort of made that inappropriate or something.

Of course, my perspective is a bit longer on this.

In my youth it was encouraged to call the Japanese "nips" and worse. It was WWII after all. German mockery was a little more precarious because we were of German stock and we lived in Eastern Pennsylvania. And we had German refugees living in our community. Non-jewish ones as a matter of fact. Politicals. A family of kids in school just made it out of there. So, no kraut jokes please. But it was open season on any orientals who might "worship the rising sun".

I suppose that once there was an atomic bomb it all got a lot less funny. If it ever was.

Nevertheless, I got a big laugh out of this cartoon and now that I have beat it to death I hope you laughed too. On the first bounce before you got all self aware and shit.

Labels: communists, humor

I am always interested in the MacArthur Award winners. The "genius" grant.

MacArthur Awards Go to 21 Diverse Fellows

The annual event is one of the most prestigious events for artists, a term that has a rather wide meaning where the MacArthurs are concerned.

This year a particular thrill to see that Alison Bechdel, a wonderful writer and cartoonist is one of the winners.

Bechdel is the creator of a series of cartoons depicting lesbian life and is the author of an autobiographical graphic book called Fun Home which I am sure that I reviewed here a long time ago.

I have gotten a lot of pleasure from seeing her work and am so happy to see her receive this substantial financial gift for her work.

She had a website, Dykes to Watch Out For which I would regularly "watch out for" on my daily internet travels. She has since retired that site to do the later books as well as to take advantage of several scholarly projects.

Such good news.

Her cartoons managed to bring humor to the counterculture without compromising the point. They covered a wide range of the PC territory.

Labels: cartoons, counterculture, humor, lesbians