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. ;)"

February 10 2012

I have the day off, so I won't be doing a normal post today.

I didn't like:
That flopping post was just a shitstorm of trite wordplay puns and predictable Visanthe Shiancoe-type remarks. Blech.
Dumbass A "/shits pants" comment? A lovely ode to Letich-era Deadspin. Well done. Nah, I'm kidding, you suck, dude.
Original!

Bye for  now.

February 9 2012

Pluses
Brando Wow. This is a gross, funny, creative joke. Too bad it came in close to noon in the day's first post. There were other very good jokes in that post, but none that made me involuntarily cough when I read them. +1.
Norm DePlume I'm surprised this didn't get any love.
Noir Juggling  That's a smart joke. Tyler Bray's Back Tattoo followed up with a decent reply.
In Re Hightower  Man, that's great. Every time I go back and re-read the joke, I laugh out loud, and hear the song in my head. The fact that he called the waiter's foil a "Big Wig" is funny by itself. He earned every one of those +1s, and showed that you don't need to be a frequent commenter to be a prominent commenter. Comment of the day.
ReverseApeChemist I know just enough rasslin to know that was a clever joke. RAC is going from flying under the radar to flying, um, in the middle of the radar, I guess.
Universal Enveloping Algebra  and Lionel Osbourne took different, funny exits off of the same road. I liked both of them. UEA's line wasn't really a joke, but a funny, snide and pointedly on-point observation. Lionel went with the simple throwback one-liner.Very nice.
Delonte, Interrupted
Azure Texan  Ba-dum-tiss.
TheodoreDonaldKerabatsos [dying]

Minuses
Neither am I, man.
Cool inside knowledge, bro.
Hey Look! Nickly made a shitty joke, and then turned it into some quasi political correctness free speech thing. Maybe Nickly will appreciate that Article 1 Section 1 of the Deadspin Constitution says "Be funny, don't  be unfunny" and subsequent amendments have clarified that to mean that you should offer funny, smart and original comments. [edit] I see that Chief Justice John Paul Ninja wrote a scathing opinion. Nice.
Oh dear. What is happening here?
Super.

Special feature:
Today's Vancoq Setatesties Painful Comment Of The Day is sponsored by all-new Habanero-Infused Astroglide Inferno.
"Astroglide Inferno: Like Vancoq Setatesties, a pain in the dick."

Vancoq, let's see what you've got: VANCOQ!  Ooooooh, that's a bad one!

So long.

February 8 2012

Pleasure:
Maverick Is Airborne Opened with something worthwhile.
Eddie Murray Sparkles A favorite target, hit with a clever attack.
More EMS
Lionel Osbourne  Groan.
Steve U This made me sort of sad, and made me laugh too.
Forest Thrills This was good.
Brechty Jesus, it took Barry P to promote this? This was great.
Ron Zook On Red Bull  Sort of dumb, but then, I am too.
RMJ=H I'm a sucker for silly.
Let's play compare and contrast with FlakJack and StripMcNealy.
Gamboa Constrictor  That's a funny angle to the story.

Purgatory:
I've been righteously freaking the fuck out about Sandusky attribution jokes, and I was ready to rip my shirt off and punch a brick wall when I saw this, but... it actually has a scintilla of merit. It is relevant to and effectively plays on the facts of the Sandusky case and the contours of post at hand and is more than just a "I ♥ Buttholes! Signed, Jerry Sandusky." joke. Ok then.

Pain:
Bleahford Buford has internalized his identity as Deadspin's least effective commenter, and is just running with it.
Ultra fuckhead. 100% raw , organic, unfiltered, unprocessed, not-from-concentrate fuckhead. Reagent-grade fuckhead.  If we were going to find our planets purest fuckhead to engrave on a gold disk to be shot into outer space for aliens to find, it would be this.
Huh?  What the fuck is this shit?

Fuck it, I'm out of here.

February 7 2012

Clinton Portishead Dirty, creative, off-kilter. Laughed out loud.
Steve U If you came to this joke, without having read the prior post, you might not find it as funny. Seeing how the Canadian superbowl ad post was the one just before this, and it was fresh in my head, I got a real laugh out of this.
♥ Always Winning and AzureTexan had a smart little exchange.
Scientific Mapp hit the bullseye.
The golf course assault post was a goldmine. So many good jokes. Rubio (For Her Pleasure)  and Eddie Murray Sparkles made me wince, David Hume, Gamboa Constrictor and Raysism concocted funny little lines. 
Puffy Taco  Oh man, I laughed hard at that. So perfectly vulgar; just a wild-ass swing from the heels.
Gamboa Constrictor Beauty.
RonZookOnRedbull hit the nail on the head perfectly here. On point, and accurate.



Stink:

AnonymousCraponymous I'm completely bored with tacking a Jerry Sandusky-related attribution on to every vaguely sexual remark. They're the equivalent of saying "THAT WHAT SHE SAID!," at every opportunity except with even less potential for laughs. A Jerry Sandusky attribution, in the right place, at the right time could be a massive hit, but it seems like every time there is a post with any reference to a shower, a child, or the words "penetration," "hole," "slap" etc. some walleyed whack-off trips over himself to vomit out "JERRRRRYYYY SANDUUUUUSKYYY!!!!"
VanderlerpSmergmatron There are SH Cho jokes to be made, and this is just a crude grab at what was, unfortunately, not a live high tension wire.
bdan It's about you not getting it. That's what it's about.
This headache.
Minus one I hope Malik Sealy didn't hurt his finger jabbing his Instajoke machine's "create joke" button.

I hope you all have a great afternoon.

February 6 2012

All Over But The Sharting No one will ever accuse AOBTS of being simplistic in his approach, but then again, no one will ever accuse AOBTS of farting out word salad and hoping something sticks. This joke poked a needle in the over-inflatedness of the original post (a post I really liked, and agreed with) but did so with suggestion, a funny reductio ad absurdum extension of the mathematicising (yes, it's a word) of the NFL, and by referencing the stereotype of Tom Coughlin's personality.
Raysism chose the exact wording of this joke to incorporate the song reference and the implications thereof and not just jump up and down hollering "HEY, look at the connection I thought of!" I could imagine Norm MacDonald reading this with a straight face on Weekend Update.
More Raysism  Boy, he was feeling his oats today.
Washington Foreskins This is an example of a comment that transcends wordplay, or gimmickry, and shines with creativity and voice. It reveals the gag early on, and uses the readers acknowledgement of the twist to build laughs as the joke flows and piles on. Nice. SteveU got me laughing in this post, too. Such a nasty little observation.
ReverseApeChemist A most Deadspin comment. Punny, zinger-ish and referencing the intersection of sports and pop culture. RMJ=H played on the same concept, and in some ways, needled Tebow and the NFL even more effectively. I liked both of these.
crazyjoedavola cjd has been around since day 2 of Deadspin, if not day 1. I was glad to see him get restarred whenever he did. That sappy shit out the way, this was a fantastic comment. It didn't piss on Amar'e's situation or the tragedy itself. In many ways, it was everything that is good about Deadspin's comments - it took a chance in a delicate situation, wasn't another insipid "My Sympathies" or some ghoulish shock trash, and was funny! Plus one.
Iron Mike Gallego Nailed it.
Bring Back Anthony Mason I didn't want to like this as much as I did. The "Eli as naive goofball" bit has been squeezed so hard for so long, we can start see the copper under the chrome plating. BBAM's closing line of "Eli, to himself, softly: I'm the King!" gave the joke, and his "Eli" character an endearing gentleness that made it charming and funny.
Sponsored By V8 I feel like I'm pointing out the obvious here, but this was great.
Eddie Murray Sparkles Skimming through the comments on Deadspin will result in you shrugging and saying "I didn't see anything that funny. What's the deal?"  Take the time to read carefully.
TheAmazingSneijderman I love Macbeth. Maybe I'm being generous based on my personal likes. So be it.
 MarkKelsosMigraine


This whole mess falls on both sides of the line. -1 to TV's Frank for being a real-life red shirt guy, and +1 to MopUpReliever for his remark.

Annoying:

This was annoying.
You always what? What did you always?
Thanks, Ninja!
Remember that person who like, did something that time? Here's what I imagine they might say.
FloriTexaYork That's a grade-A asshole comment, fella. Funny, people lament the passing of the "good old days" of Deadspin, and how precious the comments were back... whenever. They grouse about how the site became coarse and crass and hard. The odd thing is, comments like that were dime a dozen in those days, and no one blinked an eye.  It's weird how memory is so malleable, isn't it?
Terrell_Browens That's every bit as artless as you'd expect from someone named "Terrell Browens."
MarkKelsosMigraine

Peace.

February 6 2012 - programming note

Note: Today was a giant clusterfuck.

I'll see if I can get something up later.

For the time being, here's a video about cuttlefish.

February 3 2012

Enjoyable:
Universal Enveloping Algebra If I remember correctly, a while back Universal Enveloping Algebra expressed slight annoyance at the comment section's focus on jokes, and claimed not to be a funny guy. At first I believed him, but recently, I've come to believe that he was lying to us, or underestimated his ability to adapt. If UEA had misspelled the name on purpose, and used it to make the joke he did, in that manner (the recontextualizing existing text), I think we'd have all yawned. Instead, he not only caught the misspelling*, but used it to craft a funny concept that relied on the non news-ness of the item, and the inherent silliness of Archie having an illegitimate Laotian love child who happened to almost share a name with his famous brother.  +1
DandyAndyMoog
Usually, when a post falls under the Jurisprudence tag, I anticipate good comments. Not that law-based jokes are inherently funny, but they provide a familiar box of references that commenters can twist into setups and punchlines. The commentariat's general familiarity with the subject matter means that these posts are usually winners. Sure enough, TDK, Hatey McLife, Orin Incandeza, MILF Hunter, Sonar Jose and David Hume took advantage and dropped some gems. Hatey's comment was stellar.
RMJ=H Wow, this is good.
The tattoo helmet joke brought out some good work. ptmarion's joke was not the most sophisticated thing in the world, but sometimes simple and to the point works great, as further evidenced by sweatingmullets' Dangerfield-ish line and vodkanaut's little tossed-off remark.  (Metaphor alert): Obviously, some epic mindmelting and devastatingly perfect joke that goes 65 yards for a TD is great, and the crowd goes nuts; a load of well-run 7 yard screens and slants are really important in keeping a drive alive, too.
Azure Texan 
Hugesunglasses This isn't the sort of comment you read twice to let the exquisitely-constructed association sink in slowly, this was just a nasty, perfectly targeted bit of sarcasm.
UniversalEnvelopingAlgebra and Azure Texan saw similar things, and made jokes that, while related, didn't step all over each other. Liked both of them.

Underwhelming:
Buford Justice Not only was a Civil War reference the lowest of the low-hanging fruit here, Buford mangled it.
HeathenKiller  Yawn.
Vancoq Sweilrnsljenhsaeoith The whole "looks around for ninjas" thing is just an admission that you're about to post shit. I don't think the ninjas are hunting people for sport, they're dropping hammers on lame comments. If you have to worry about offending them, you already know you're... Jesus, do I really need to explain this?
Funnyinmyhead A swing and a miss.

*Can you imagine if that had been a Gizmodo or i09 post? Instead of using it to everyone's advantage (i.e. making a joke), there would be some unfunny, piss-on-the-post, self-congratulatory "Hey look, you screwed  up! #corrections" nonsense.

 The weekend is here!

February 2 2012

Junkyard Psycho and Sgt. Hammerclaw both hit home with "It's funny because it is true" type remarks.
Britt_Pollack Oh man, this got me laughing. I'm so, so glad that Sponsored by V8 promoted this.
ReverseApeChemist  Continuing my unofficial inadvertent theme of highlighting unstarred folks today, RAC's contribution here was just ridiculous enough to make me smile out loud.
BronzeHammer As someone who excitedly read Dean Koontz books in middle school, I winced and then laughed at this random zap.
BronzeHammer This is just a funny straightforward comment on what anyone who has ever played fantasy anything has experienced.
Gamboa Constrictor made me laugh with this re-imagining of Brian Cashman as this rogue horndog writing random reference letters, sort of like the gimmick a while back of Bob Costas blurbing everything, no matter how bad.
Sponsored by V8 This comment made me laugh out loud. Not the first time I read it - I was like "blah blah, A-Rod likes 'em burly, whatever" but I read it again, and found myself imagining actually finding a Hustler in an airplane seat pocket, and having it scribbled up with weird shit, like 6-pack abs and "bulging lats" (an inherently funny turn of phrase), and feeling confusion, annoyance and amusement; I don't know if that was exactly what SBV8 was going for, but it had that effect on me, and I loved it.
More SBV8  That's freaking great.
Scientific Mapp Any joke that can make me go "Oh Man!" out loud gets my attention. +1
MantisTobogganM.D.  This took me a second to get. Subtle. Love it.


The Bad:

You know, maybe I just got hit in the head too many times, but there weren't many comments that made silently yell "OH, COME ON!" Sure, some were less great than others, but, in keeping with the Ice Cube-iness of the week, today was a good day.


Take it easy.

February 1 2012

TorontoMapleBeef It's funny the power of preconceived notions - I had gotten used to seeing Toronto Maple Beef's name and glossing over the comment, having penciled in a "C+" next to it. He has started dropping a number of comments considerably better than "C+". This wasn't a grand slam of a remark, but it was every bit as good as those left by starred commenters in that post. Nice going, and keep it up.
More Beef  This is good too!
RubioForHerPleasure This is good. Star this person, already.
FreemanMcNeil
Clinton Portishead was 3 minutes behind Washington Foreskins in getting to the "motor" joke, but Clinton's more efficient setup gave him the edge - Foreskins' setup was wordier, and played off the actual phrase "high motor" a phrase which NFL analysts beat into our heads in connection to Jared Allen. Clinton left us to do a little more work, and instead of just referencing the phrase "motor," put the that phrase to work in the service of taking a shot at Beasley. Advantage: Clinton Portishead.
SteveU SteveU's comments have excellent comedic construction. In this case, he saves the punch line for the last possible moment, after priming us with the first sentence. This particular joke was a straightforward setup/knockdown that, in a context about fishing and writing, referenced a mystery novel gimmick (the red herring) to perfection. Not only did he recognize the excellent punch line significance of "red herring," he packaged it great. SteveU is an example of a commenter who has been around a long time, and has evolved his voice and grown from using recontextualized text from the article (which is perfectly fine, btw) to making "whole cloth" jokes and more. I hate to be just another person blowing more sunshine up his ass, but he really does it well.
More SteveU  Oh man, that's sad. And funny.
OwenGood Pithy, terse, good.
More Owen Good  - A Kotaku editor coming over to Deadspin and making good jokes? I fucking love it.
BevrajOfChoice and Sonar Jose and BringBackAnthonyMason and TheAmazingSneijderman made me laugh in the SPFL post.
[person]'s [thing]  That's so preposterous.
Eddie Murray Sparkles  This needed more love.
Sponsored by v8  Oh. Man. This is really insensitive, raw and in horrible taste, and it was dead fucking on. Bullseye.

Curiosities: SnarkyCianfrocco Are we grading on a curve? Is the fact that this joke was actually competent, compared to the rest of this guy's usual shit what prompted his starring?  Sheesh.

No, thanks:
SnarkyCianfrocco What? Huh? This is nothing more than a rephrasing of "Hey, that Chad McGhee guy that Hickey posts is pretty loony, huh?"
OccupyDS  ???
ErikTheRed  So much for common sense.
Maverick Is Airborne  What the hell is this, Maverick?
Yuck there is a huuuuuge difference between this and SB v8's joke above here. Jesus. If I have to explain what the difference is, you'll never understand.  God, that is uncool.

I'm done for the day, so enjoy.

Programming Note. 2-1-2012

Hi.

To respond to some recent emails, and less recent comments:

1.) Yes, I'm aware of the conversation going on at another Deadspin-related blog, and no, I'd prefer not to weigh in.

2.) I'm not in any way competing with or trying to outdo anyone else's production; I'm not ignoring or spurning anyone, just doing my own thing.

3.) To the people who offered support, thanks, I appreciate it. To the couple of people who told me I suck, thanks for reading. To the person who actually threatened me, I'm hoping you make it through your time of distress OK.

Thanks again