May 03, 2004
Fun
I have been slack lately.
It is not as if I have any excuse; it's not as if much else is going on in my life. I could be Mr Obsessive Blogger these days, if I wanted; I have the time. But really, what good would that do anyone?
In any case, it has been brought to my attention that my blog is not as much fun as it used to be. Not that anyone has said so outright: "Matthew, your blog is depressing and dull." No, my readers are far too polite for that. But recent events have reminded me that there was a time, not so long ago, when Walky Talky was rather more entertaining than at present.
This is not entirely my fault. Or, more accurately, the fun then was not properly my responsibility; for much of it I was merely an innocent bystander. The likes of Max, Dan, Adam, Faustus and Stairs lit upon the opportunity to play, and in doing so made this place considerably more amusing than I could ever hope to manage by myself. For assorted reasons that I am to varying degrees aware of, that is no longer the case. Which is right and proper: there is only so long one can get by as a parasite on the talents of others.
Still, there has been a certain amount of gloom abroad in these parts. Joblessness is certainly partly to blame, and there are other factors too. Life, though almost certainly better than for the majority of the human race, is not quite a bundle of laughs just now. I cannot, in good faith, promise that that will change. But I really should make an effort to inject a little mirth into the proceedings from time to time.
So, let's see. How about a joke?
How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Ah, the old ones are the best.
Posted by matt at May 3, 2004 11:10 PM
You know, I don't think you can measure how much fun your blog is entirely by the degree of interaction. I find my own degree of engagement (assuming it doesn't become boring qua itself, which I don't believe it has) is a function of too many other factors/preoccupations etc to count, and with all netplaces I'm active in, peaks and troughs unpredictably and repeatedly ...
Like, I still want to sort that photo blog that you're now blatantly linking to. But for reasons
entirely opaque to me, I have not for some months now been taking pictures. I hope I will start again. It was fun.
Incidentally, at the gym yesterday some guy was wearing a t-shirt that said 'chefs do it in the kitchen'. I realised it was ages since I had seen a version of this pathetic would-be-naughty formula, and wondered whether I could come up with a version that was actually amusing or at least substantially ruder. But I couldn't.
I like things that come in 4s.
No, you're right about the interaction, although it is certainly fun for me when people like you get the bit between your teeth. But the double dactyl episode was a special case anyway, and I wouldn't expect a repeat of that.
This post was really more of an admonition to myself to try to enjoy the whole thing a bit more, rather than allowing myself to get mired in doom and gloom. Easier said than done, but worth a reminder from time to time.
Don't worry about the blogging-gloom: it's not been that bad and, besides, for apparently about fifteen years my blog was entirely about how rubbish a time I was having :)
Things'll be shiny and bouncy again very soon from now. Just you wait. Yay!
Hmmm... I hope you're already out of the trough, so to speak.
As for how many surrealists it takes to change a light-bulb, I ought to know, living in Belgium, a country which proudly proclaims that its overlit motorway network can be seen from space.
You ought to, but apparently you're not telling.
There are actually
two traditional answers to this riddle. The first, which I don't like at all, though it has a certain art-historical merit, is:
Fish!
The second -- and to my mind altogether more satisfactory, if only because it is more subtle, superficially cooperating with the "lightbulb joke" form even while undermining it -- is:
Two: one to hold the giraffe, the other to run the bathwater.
There are two other old lightbulb jokes that I like, both of which are similarly deconstructionist.
The first is very dated, relying on a shared understanding of the inadequacies of a particular handwriting-recognition system that is no longer current:
Q: How many Newton owners does it take to change a lightbuld?
A: Foux! There to eat lemons, axe gravy soup.
The second is only marginally less dated, and also rather ideologically unsound, but is still quite amusing in its way:
Q: How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: That's not funny!
Yes. Well.
Moving right along...
There's always the old standby:
Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Sorry, can't be done. It's a hardware problem.
Ha ha - those are all very good :-)
I must say that the Newton joke reminds me of something I saw in the toilet of one of our conference buildings the other day.
Someone, enraged by the fact that there was nowhere to hang his jacket in the toilet cubicle, had drawn a circle on the door and written "Portemanteaux" (coat-hooks).
A subsequent user had removed the 'x', which is after all silent, and unnecessarily pluralises the whole word. Although the way that French works, you could almost argue that it might mean 'hook for coats', but that's not the accepted way the word works.
Anyway, as if by way of a comment on French's rather treacherous orthography, someone else had written "Le porc te ment tôt", which sounds exactly the same and when properly translated comes across as "The pig will always lie to you early [on in the relationship]". The square bracketed bit was what the phrase seemed to be saying to me, somehow.
