Comedy and the Internet

*Just on a personal note, yeah, I know I didn't post last week.  It happens sometimes, especially with celebrating my son's birthday (he finally hit the terrible two's), and well, other stuff as well.  Since I was busy with that, I figure I write up a post that might show a little insight on what makes me tick.  And what better way to to do that than a synopsis of when I'm at rest, calm and relaxed.  This is what I do when I'm away from all the hub-bub of the day-to-day from working and family life, enjoy.*

Oh how I love wasting time (and bandwidth) crawling to all my local haunts for a good laugh. We all do cause if we don't have the time to unwind we'll all go friggin nuts. It seems that nowadays to succeed in comedy on the Internet is more than just telling a good joke, it needs to be visually appealing. After all, it is an escape from the doldrums of the mundane. It could be as simple as some stupid CG or a clip on what they're referencing to as extravagant as a full-on onslaught of a performance. It's dependent on whom is presenting. And for internetphyls like myself, it's a great wealth of hilarity. And I'm not just talking about fails, I'm talking about those who on whatever periodic basis shell out the laughs for us. Now I'll try to stay off the whole YouTube thing because that's just a pool of stuff, I'll stick to stuff that is directed to a self hosted site if possible and barrage with a crap-ton of links to them if you might not already frequent. So here's my synopsis on the state of the funny shit that keeps me coming back for more. 

The first on this rant is Cinemassare. James Rolfe and Mike Matai seem to just shell out interesting stuff everyday. Sometimes two or three times a day. And with my schedule they're feed is a godsend cause sometimes I might miss out on something and it'll be two or three days before I get to it. Most noteable for their Angry Video Game Nerd videos, oddly enough that's not what brought me to them all so many years ago. It was a YouTube clip in reference to one of their earlier "You Know What's Bullshit?" skits back in 2007. Followed the URL at the end of the credits and it's was like a drug, I was hooked. Found other stuff they kept on adding and I'm glad to see it grow as a phenomenon it has become. That, and it doesn't help that I had a soft spot for anything from Philly. And it seems like most juggernauts, it broke ground for other Internet haunts of mine such as ScrewAttack and That Guy With The Glasses (which I also frequent) and all others from association of them. Everything they touch is pure gold. Just spread a little of that love over to BootLeG is all I ask James. 

Another good waste of time is The Oatmeal. In the realm of webcomics they are Penny Arcade meets Far Side with a little bit of Office Space thrown into the mix. It's not about gaming or other nerdy stuff (ok, they're nerdy stuff) but it's mainly a satiric look on people that are web-smart to aide those that aren't. And cats, some sort of weird fixation about cats, and other animals. (Note to self, don't ever move to Seattle). It's a breath a humor and fresh air after a long days work that someone just chalked up all the funny and fucked up crap in a day and put it on a panel or two of "well, it could've been worse..." And now I feel like punching a dolphin.

Another occasional place to browse is clean comic Tim Hawkins. This guy is living proof that you don't have to be foul to be funny. A lot of us could learn from him, especially me. He's essentially the anti-Bob Saget, not that there's anything wrong about Bob Saget but you can only hear him talk about sticking his pinky up Kimmy Gibler's butt so many times. Tim offers a rare brand of comedy that once dominated the scene and it's only overshadowed by the charisma he put into his act. He's mainly on YouTube but his latest videos and all of his music videos are on his site and are worth watching over and over. I even go as far as buying the DVDs for all the stuff that he didn't put up on the Internet to view. You'll thank me later I'm sure. 

Now as a gamer, you would think that I would look for all my gaming news on G4 or IGN. Nope, although I do follow IGN on my Facebook; but all things gaming my first destination would be to ScrewAttack 99% of the time. This is a great example of what a group of people that are passionate (and nerdy) can accomplish if given the opportunity. Daily there's stuff added on that is related to the gaming industry in a witty and often comedic stance. Keeping to short media clips of news, reviews, and other random stuff to keep you coming back for more. And as an added bonus, they recognize that they wouldn't be where they are if it wasn't for the fans that log on everyday. They even let their subscribers (it's free to sign up BTW) submit user created content and even profile some of the best weekly for all to gawk at. It literally wreaks of awesomeness. You've might've noticed me talk or referenced them a few times on the blog. So give them a shot if you haven't already. 

One final site that I frequent is That Guy With The Glasses and pretty much anything affiliated with Channel Awesome. This think tank of, well, awesomeness, is a cornucopia of all geeky, funny, and WTF. Doug Walker and his many personas like The Nostalgia Critic and Chester A. Bum headlines the brood of chaos and hilarity that is shelled daily and the various contributors such as Spoony, The Game Heroes, The Nostalgia Chick, Benzie, Angry Joe, Linkara, MarzGurl, and a whole lot of others that would take forever and a day to go though. It's a helluva site to check out to see all the content that is produced. Like I said, some of these I probably wouldn't have known if they weren't referred from other sites like Cinemassare so I hope that this is an opportunity for me to pay it forward. 

Also just as a notable mention, you should check out Stupid Game Show Answers. Even though it's not updated on a regular basis, it's still full of gems and other coolness. That and we all know my addition to gameshows. But as of now I'm gonna get the hell off of this and go to another place of humor and stupidity, as if my blog isn't full of that already. 

BootLeg sampler.. signing out...

*No dolphins were harmed during the creation of this blog post.*

WTF PEOPLE!?! Tech support

I can't really complain about this, since I've been on both sides of the tech support chain. Trust me it's a fickle mistress for those that call and those who receive. And I would like to bring up the different genres of both the helper and the helped that makes up the majority of such. Wha, you thought that this was a going to be a serious post?!? Listen, just cause I've taken a little time off between posts and I've been on a serious kick for most of my recent posts, so I decided to just let this one rip. I've been long overdue for a WTF PEOPLE!?! for a good while now. So let's get'r dun and have some fun on this one...

Let me start with the funnier of the two. The people that call in for help or even worse brave enough to meet with the diabolical supernerds to help them with whatever. Oh how I can so poke fun at this. Recently a coworker had shown me this site, The Oatmeal, it opened my eyes to what I wanted to WTF about for a good while. And the sad thing is, most of this stuff is right on point. It's almost like it seems that to the tech support person on the receiving end's brain is imploding in front of their client with their queries. Most of which are reasonable because they either are 1) sincerely too daft to perform such tasks themselves without any help or 2) to lazy to RTFM!!! That's the good kind of customers. Need some help and can normally be coached to do the right thing or at least figure out where they can research where to do the right thing. Than they're the ones that wants you to not only wants you to pull a rabbit out of a hat, but out of my ass and their asses as well. The ones that think that we (the technical support help community) are magical techno-genies that within a blink of an eye not only fix their issue but make their computer faster, turn into a transformer, and cure cancer while making sure their email will never stop working; ever! The kind of people that knows that such and such are impossible but we try and tell them time and time again that no those files can not perform that action or no it does not double as a cup holder. And then there are also the ones that think they know everything (like me at times and yes I'm playing the humility card here) and totally get owned by the one that is helping them either by proving that it was something done that was their fault or using the prescribed methods of troubleshooting after they failed to RTFM and it worked. Those kind are a special breed...

I mean I could go on and on about the side on the phone needing help; but alas, we to as the tech supporters have our own idioms that makes us flawed. Oh and in case you haven't figured it out by now, I do tech support as a nine to five; but I don't let it try to drag me into the stereotypical realm of other technical support reps that I've experienced (or at least I try to rise above that for my own right.) They are the condescending ones that try to talk as if you're tree and a haff years old wishing that you just follow their script to do this, this, this, and not that to end as quickly as possible. Those guys are epic wastes of space and they can kiss my Sasquatch-hairy ass for all I care. (Seriously I could go for a mani-pedi-glutious maxi if there was such a thing. But that's probably TMI.) Than they're those who just read off of a friggin' script, and I mean it's so bad that my seven-year-old did a better job at our church's Christmas concert last year making it more believable than these tools did over the phones. Also the outsourcing, dear Lord the outsourcing. Hence why people (like me) try to fix it ourselves most of the time unless we know we have no choice and it needs to be done on their end, my ISP for example when they were experiencing droppage of connection. I'm so friggin' done with calling Abu-Dabi that I'm ready to go out to the junction box and clear the issue my own damn self the next time it happens. But then there are those that honest, earnestly do care about their client's issues (like me, not really tooting my own horn but I do at my nine to five.) They go the extra mile to make sure that the clients truly understood what happened and even help them to be more proactive on the whatever it was about. And it's sad to say that in the industry in a whole, that's a minority. Not to say that it doesn't happen, but it doesn't happen enough. Oh, and I almost forgot about bot-techs. They're the worst. I don't want some stupid bot telling me what's wrong even after I'd RTFM and it's still not working. The bot isn't going to fix the problem. I rather have all bots eliminated and replaced by a pop-up to the help article that I'm at that will answer my question. Or at least make the bots more human like and type out snarky comments like 'is your son/daughter here to help you' or 'it seems to me that it's a PIBKAC error.' That'll at least give me a chuckle or something rather than a "WTF is that BS?!?"

If we improve our techs supporting our clients, than we won't have as many people knowing that their computer is not a Deloran and trying to find the flux capacitor and suping up their power source to 1.21 gigawatts will fix the issue. But then again, the flip side of things is that those clients that can't seem to find the Any Key will keep nerds like me employed for a long, long time. What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment.

BootLeG sampler.. signing out...