February 23 2012

I've been on the road and out of the office for work recently, and trying to do this from a phone, or some "business center" is a pain in the ass.  I'm blown away by the sheer (and growing) numbers of viewers and I'm gratified that people care enough about the state of the comments on Deadspin to read a secondhand account of what made one person laugh on a given day.

For context, the past few weeks, I'm averaging 350 pageviews per day, which is surprising that I don't have any jump pages and very few comments. The average daily audience is right around 500, and at any given moment I have 20-30 people browsing around, a number which skyrockets every evening. I have regular readers from the US, Canada, UK, Russia, Mexico, Germany, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bangladesh, Ukraine, Jordan, Cayman Islands, Norway and Denmark.

I feel lame letting this go to seed, but I'm not getting any less busy at work, and this is just another thing to devote time to, no matter how enjoyable. I truly liked doing this, sincerely appreciate the patronage, and will (probably) pick it up again in the future.  I'm just not really able to do it the way I'd like now.

Now for the important stuff:

As you can tell, I care a great deal about the comment section, and relish the opportunity to sometimes be a part of it, and to enjoy what the commenters provide. There are so, so many good comments dropped on any given day on Deadspin, that it is hard to pick the ones that I post here. As I said a while back, if I didn't feature your comment (that may have been the belle of the ball in a thread) don't despair - we all know how good it was.  I didn't expect, when reading with these eyes to have so many unstarred and less-known commenters surprise me with what they brought. Granted, there are certain recognizable commenters who, day in and day out, show tremendous wit, creativity and intelligence, and I applaud them for their exceptional talent and dedication. There are others who dip their toe in now and then with inconsistent success, and some who only rarely hit the sweet notes. Regardless, the comment section reads best when there are a number of voices, with their own unique angles and perspectives taking cracks at jokes.

Be generous with your support of new commenters. Be forgiving and look past biases or dislikes, and give credit and reward where it is due, no matter if you found the commenter bad, or tiresome in the past. Lead by example, but offer positive feedback and encouragement. There are well-regarded, funny commenters among you (who may be on their first or their fourth screen name) who bombed when they started.  If they'd be aggressively drummed out of the place, we'd be poorer for it.

I'll be back soon, but I have some dragons to put to bed.

Keep kicking ass.

February 20 2012

See you all tomorrow!

February 17 2012

Radon Zeppelin That's pretty good.
IMG A bit of work, but I laughed.
Miles Long I snickered a little.
Walk Off HBP I don't think there's anything close to a punchline here, but I'm definitely laughing at it.
This whole thing was a ridiculous diversion. Liked it.
Eddie Murray Sparkles Pushing the Lin puns to the max.
Robot Jerry Rice Not bad at all.
Robot Jerry Rice again The perfect joke for that setup. Really good.
Same Sad Echo
Post ApocalypticRecSpecs
Same Sad Echo

xxxxxxxxxx

LAIceBurg This isn't the worst joke in the world, but, really? Another MSG and Asian food pun? You can do better, I'm sure of it!
Inferior League Uh, ok.
SkaHimself Awesome, bro.
5Hole

February 16 2012

Raysism That's quite a catch.
Lionel Osbourne
Norm DePlume Eh, I'm not proud that this made me giggle as much as it did.
[person]'s [thing]
Fat-leaveher
Radon Zeppelin HA!
David Hume  Simple, accurate and effective.
Captain Homeless  Not necessarily a hilarious joke, but I liked this comment.
Taco Mailman
Lionel Osbourne and Arthur Digby Sellers played well together.
Can I Borrow A Feeling Nice misdirection.
Raysism
Arthur Digby Sellers That is funny.
Toronto Maple Beef Great wordplay.



----------------
TonyM
This whole thing was annoying.
As was this.
And this.
PSAMP This is really disappointing.

February 15 2012

Pos:
The Iowa Hawkeyes post this morning was hilarious, especially so for the pink comments.The very first comment on the article was pink, and did nothing to indicate the shitstorm of idiocy about to be let loose: 
MadOx75 Wed 15 Feb 2012 10:00 AM *applauds the last paragraph*

What followed was this (or some version) over and over and over:  

bmahlerWed 15 Feb 2012 10:36 AM "so for all intensive purposes this story is over. But I'm still harping on "pre Madonna." I know that on the internet, garbled idioms are a diamond dozen, so maybe I shouldn't poke fun." No you shouldn't, since the phrase is "intents and purposes", not "intensive purposes"

The Ninja's work there was delicious.

The SI hashtag post had a ton of great comments, too. No time! Never any time!'s comment was great and had a nice bit of synergy with his username. Sgt. Hammerclaw killed it. Just excellent.

SteveU This is outstanding.
Almost everything in the half-head guy post was good. Such red meat for the hyenas. The Amazing Sneijederman and Can I Borrow A Feeling and Gamboa Constrictor did well there.
Dr. Spaceman Esq. approved jferanda on a comment that made me snicker, too. Well done all around.
Raysism
Bronze Hammer Pointed.
Mattinglys Sideburns Oh, I love that.
I'd gotten used to being annoyed with Medicated World Peace but this little off-kilter line made me laugh.
Radon Zeppelin

I'm not sure how I feel about this Lord Comment thing that someone is doing. I'm of the mind that playing it straight and actually making jokes is the real work, and any dick can sit back and throw stones (yeah, I know) but with his comment here, Lord Comment fired some sharp commentary on the never ending use of that particular joke template, which, when used straight up and without any tweaks is pretty tired. Lord Comment's schtick, while peevish and occasionally annoying isn't particularly threatening or aggressive, like some vigilante "Street Justice" things in the past. It works as much as it does for making you snicker at how obvious and lame his joke is, and think, with a shiver, "do I sound like that?" I hope he doesn't overdo it and makes it work for a little while longer.

Neg:
Can I Borrow A Feeling
More Feeling being Borrowed.
Constipated World Peace ARGH!
Crack Rockies  Dumbass.
SAN-dusky!

February 14 2012

♥ Always Winning
Hatey McLife
SteveU
ClueHeywood
Mmole
TDK
Brando
WhatWouldTebowDo
Raysism 
UniversalEnvelopingAlgebra  Ok, I wasn't planning to add any embellishment to any of the comments I featured today, but this made me snort with laughter for reasons I cannot explain. It's sort of clumsy, a little bit of a stretch, and delivered with an obtuseness that has me in stitches. Dammit.
Eddie Murray Sparkles
Lionel Osbourne
AOBTS That was a lot of work, but it was good.
fat-leaveher
snoop-a-loop

*****
There was plenty that was justifiably ninja'd. Good work.
David Oliver .
JimmyDTU
Bob Sacamano  - this is like an unironic, non-gimmick version of what that Lord Comment dude is doing.
Snarky As was this.

February 13 2012

Up:
Clue Heywood God-damn.
RMJ=H I rolled my eyes at this while laughing. This is so right up RMJ's alley.
More RMJ=H
Lionel Osbourne
Reverse Ape Chemist
Eddie Murray Sparkles That's an amazing get.

Down:
For every 1 good joke related to something Jeremy Lin, there are 5 bad ones. How many dumb puns playing on words like "slant," "yellow" etc or tiresome rehashes of stereotypes like little weiners and slanted eyes must we suffer through? These "jokes" aren't even clever in reworking or turning the stereotype on its head in an unexpected way, or doing anything sophisticated with it beyond making fun of someone for being Asian. I get it, the novelty of seeing an Asian person play basketball has blown all of our minds. People are so desperate to mine this epic vein of comedy (sarcasm!) that people are even unironically using Pearl Harbor and "eats dogs" (hint: those references apply to Japan and Korea, not Taiwan) as gimmicks to set up jokes. What's next, a joke tying Jeremy Lin and the killing fields or agent orange together?
Pointing out that Jeremy Lin is Taiwanese, or merely observing that he may or may not share unflattering physical, economic or social characteristics with others isn't, by itself funny. Remember when we all laughed at this joke: "Hey, didja hear about that black guy? He's black!"  I didn't think so.  This isn't an issue of offendedness or political correctness, it's an issue of laziness and stupidity.
Boo.  Boo this joke, and other cheap ones like it.
Oof.  Stop it.


For your interest: a fragment of an unpleasant pink comment from the Jerry Sandusky post in which the author, who has seen too many "Saw" movies shares a bizarre, disturbing prison fantasy:

"He ain't going nowhere and perhaps he'll do the right thing and end it all if indeed he's guilty as charged. Can't do THAT being babysat at the county medium security lockup, the LAST THING lefties want criminals to do is KILL THEMSELVES.
After all, why not give each one a steak knife on a short linked chain inside their cells, and hope each one cuts their wrists and throats by the end of the week as a better way. Give em the choice at least.. and get the illegals some interpreters to give them the heads up on what they're there for. Wanna be equal opportunity now. ;)"