I'm so glad the Internet exists. Were it not for this glorified geek toy, I might never appear even remotely "cool."

You see, in the many days I've spent examining online profiles for this singular post (I was doing research), I have noticed that one of the characteristics that comes up more often (besides "smart", "charming", "dark", and "handsome") is the wonderfully vague characteristic of ... "humorous."

Now, I realize that humor is an artform, with many different manifestations. You have your slapstick humor, your subtle humor, your absurd humor, etc. etc. Most of these, I think, we can all accept as being fields in which we can develop skills. Sure, people like Jim Carrey are quite talented in slapstick humor, but if we all applied ourselves, I think we could all become modest comedians.

The one type of humor that is close to impossible to learn or teach is witty humor. I have known only a few witty people in my life, and I can truly say that witty humor is the best type. A true witician (neologisms, here I come!) brings out the best (or worst) in everyone else. Every conversation reeks of Tarantino-ish comebacks, and all topics seem profound and meaningful, while maintaining that wisp of transcience.

The problem is that truly witty remarks have a total timeframe of 3 seconds.

If someone (let's say for the sake of clarity that we're talking about Yush) were to say, "Roy, you would hit anything with a hole because you're so desperate", I would have roughly 3 seconds to respond. Failure to respond to this insult with an equally witty response would end with me losing credibility.

If I were to almost immediately respond that to comment (we're talking in real life, here) by saying, "Yeah, like your butthole," then I have achieved a victory. You see, when Yush sent that insult to me, he opened the door for the response, full well-knowing that if I made a "witty" remark, he would accede defeat and I would be victorious.

However, had I waited close to 4 seconds to make that response, Yush would be forced to shake his head at the less-than-mediocre response time.

The problem is that for people who are truly not witty, it's hard to fit in a nice response in that 3 second timeframe. You can hone these skills by thinking of every possible insult someone would send you, and then having a prefabricated response, but eventually people will see through these lame attempts at humor.

The beauty of the Internet is that the witty timeframe is extended to 10 to 15 seconds ... maybe even 20!

Because of the very nature of IMs, people are always under the assumption that I'm doing "something busy." So when I take about 15 seconds to come up with a witty response, they think "Wow, although that response was long, it's probably because he's chatting with 4 other people!" Bzzt. No, it just took me that long, but I'm taking advantage of the medium to maximize my image.

Being "funny" online is a double-edged sword. People can then find you in real life and expect a free comedy club act ... but you might really not be funny (as it is in my case!).

But I still love the Internet.

. . .

A little while ago, John Mayer had one episode of a show called "John Mayer has a Show." I found this show amazingly fresh and funny ... I've uploaded a 250meg DiVX so you can download it. Right click, and save target as:

John Mayer has a TV Show download

Hey, what is the song being played in the intro with the guitar riff? It's "Only Heart" off of "Heavy Things" by John Mayer.