Just a reminder.......

The deadline for my VERY EXCITING CONTEST is tomorrow (Thursday, April 1st) at midnight. I'll post the winners on Friday.

If you forgot what the VERY EXCITING CONTEST is, check the entry for March 18.

And that's that.

My grandfather is amazingly racist. But he's well over 80 years old, though, so his racism is a little outdated.

He still blames the Japanese for everything that is wrong with the world (he's wrong of course; the real problems started when we gave those damn women the right to vote.)

I'm used to this about him, but every so often I'm surprised by the things he blames on the Japanese.

The other day he was getting into our family's Honda Accord. As he was stepping into the seat, he hit his head on the top of the car door.

"Damn Japs," he said, "Still trying to kill us."

True story.

Thank goodness we still hate North Korea or the poor man would be totally out of the loop.

Today I'm going to give you a little insight into the writing process of a stand-up comic. Me, to be exact.

Writing comedy is a long and arduous process. My process looks something like this:

1) Choose some insanely small detail about life that I find interesting or annoying.
2) Write down my incoherent thoughts on the subject using particularly bad spelling and grammar.
3) Cut 98.4% of what I wrote and find a punchline.
4) Publish it on my blog or try it in my routine.

Today's entries are concepts that never made it past step 2. Maybe you can turn them into something humorous on your own. And yes, I'm still sick. When I'm not, I'll get back to writing you real jokes.

I used to think that “greatest thing since sliced bread” was a stupid phrase. I mean how great is sliced bread really?

But then I started to think about it. Without sliced bread, you'd just get whole loaves handed to you. The only way to eat them would be to tear of random hunks of bread. Which would be fun for a while but it would get old, what with getting both the bread and your fingers dirty. Everyone would have to have their own loaves of bread.

And sandwiches would be completely out of the question.

Come to think of it, sliced bread is pretty great.

An argument that people use against premarital sex is, “He won’t buy the cow when he can get the milk for free.”

That is, of course, assuming that he only wants the milk, in which case he was probably not thinking about buying a cow in the first place. He would, instead, just go get milk. This is far easier, I think, than the process of caring for a bovine. I, for example, drink milk every day but have little interest in buying a cow.

So I think if someone’s in the market for cow buying, odds are he actually wants a cow. Maybe he wants to cuddle with it. Or tip it over late at night. And all the free milk in the world does not a cow make.

I hope I'll open a fortune cookie one day and, inside, it says "Confuscious Say: All the free milk in the world does not a cow make."

Wait, am I saying that this is a bad analogy or just proving its point? Either way, now I’m thirsty.

I'm sick. Like really sick. And I'm so doped up on Thera-Flu (a gift from the Gods, if you ask me) that I fear that my writing will be even more incoherent than usual.

Thusly, I'm posting something from my archives. After hearing on the radio tonight about an "unconfirmed terrorist threat" to oil wells in Texas, I thought the following post from last year was appropriate.

Thank goodness after September 11th, there haven’t been any more terrorist attacks in the United States. But, with everything going on in the rest of the world, we've had a lot of "uncomfirmed terrorist threats." You hear them on the news all the time—"Today the CIA announced an uncomfirmed terrorist threat to harm banks on the east coast." Or "There is an uncomfirmed threat that terrorists will be attacking embassies in Africa."

Well, what I want to know is, how exactly does one go about confirming a terrorist threat?

"Hi, yes, I'm trying to confirm that you are, in fact, going to kill thousands of innocent people. Yes? OK. We thought so but with all these rumors flying around, we just had to confirm. Thanks. Buh-bye."

or

"Do you think maybe we could get a confirmation number? That was you'll know exactly which threat we're talking about and we can check in and confirm that it's running on schedule."

Two things I would like to say to my LSAT students but never will:

"Well, if it was the Whining-About-Your-Life test, your score would be much higher."

"You're kind of an ass and you talk too much. Yes, I think you'd make an excellent attorney."


Wow, I can be pretty mean at 1 o'clock in the morning.

Apparently if you do a search for "Puppy eating bad things" on MSN.com, my website comes up.

Don't ask how I found this out, but it amuses me immensely.

If there’s anything more mortifying than singing and dancing in a carrot costume, it's forgetting your lyrics while you’re singing and dancing in a carrot costume.

Oh yes, it was a good day.

I met this guy yesterday who was like 55. At one point in the conversation, he made a reference to some old TV show that I'd never seen. When I told him I'd never seen it, he replied, "Oh, you might be a little bit younger than me."

Might be?

A little younger?

I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was confused about how old he was.

This week I'm doing children's theatre in the morning (I'm playing a carrot. And that's all I have to say about that,) tutoring Albanian children in the afternoon, and doing comedy at night.

And not sleeping ever.

So rather than making an attempt at comedy I'm going to re-post my two favorite poems from the archives of my very first week writing this blog. Enjoy.

ODE TO ANNOYING GIRL
There once was a girl
With a curl in the middle of her forehead
And when she was good, she was really...annoying
And when she was bad she was annoying too.
So pretty much she was just annoying all the time
Unless she was gagged.
Which isn't such a bad idea.

WHAT THE WORLD WOULD BE LIKE IF ALL BOYS WERE ON CRACK
If boys were on crack, they'd be really dumb.
Their thoughts would move slowly or just never come.
They'd refuse to stop and ask for directions
And never listen to anyone's corrections.
If boys were on crack, they'd leave the toilet seat up
And drink from the milk carton without any cup.
They'd be really mean and make girls cry.
They'd do stupid things and we wouldn't know why.
Eventually boys would just push us too far.
If boys were on crack. Oh wait, they already are.

If I ever get a dog, I think I'm going to name it, "Syndrome." That way when it jumped on people, I would yell, "Down Syndrome!"

Yes, I think we can all agree that is officially the worst joke I've ever written. It being 3am is no excuse. I should have standards. And, "It made me giggle at 3 o'clock in the morning" does not count as a standard.

Sure writing bad jokes seems like a good idea late at night.

But will you respect yourself in the morning?

Ever have a date where you can pinpoint the moment when you realize things just aren't going to work out between you?

I went out with a new guy the other night (you know, when I read this blog, my social life sounds far more exciting than it does when I'm living it). Anyway, I let him choose the topic of conversation so, naturally, we ended up talking about strippers.

"I could never be a stripper," I said.

Now, by that, what I meant was, "Although I understand that stripping is a stellar career option for some people, I would never ever ever ever want to have that job. Ever."

But apparently what he thought I meant was, "Poor me. No one would ever pick me to be a stripper. Alas."

Because his response was, "Sure you could. You'd be a great stripper."

I think life was easier when I just dated gay men.

Sooooo....if you happened to want to nominate me for best NYC comedic website, you could go here. You know, just if you wanted to.

http://www.baldalienpimp.com/ECNY/nomination_form.php

Guess what, boys and girls! It's time for another VERY EXCITING CONTEST.

The last VERY EXCITING CONTEST was such a success that I decided to have contests on a regular basis. By "regular basis" I mean "whenever I can't come up with any of my own jokes."

And since I actually got the prizes from the last contest mailed out today (only a month or so late), I figured it was about time to start a new one. So here it is:

While I was out on the road, I noticed that all the other comics have exciting merchandise to sell or give away at the shows. CDs, shot glasses, bumper stickers, all advertising the brilliance of the comic.

I want merchandise too.

You, dear reader, know me better than anyone. So I want you to write the slogan for my bumper sticker.

Top three slogans get a VERY EXCITING PRIZE.

Please email your entries to jilltwiss@hotmail.com

Deadline is April Fool's Day---two weeks from today.

When I was out in the midwest, a lot of the bars and clubs that I performed at had these computer poker machines. They were like strip poker---when you won a hand, the woman on the screen would remove an article of clothing (I think the computer had a game where men took off their clothes too, but I never saw anyone playing that one. And no, I won't comment on that.)

I think, to be fair, people should play these games on the honor system. If you win the hand, the computer woman takes off an article of clothing. But if you lose, I think it's only reasonable that you strip as well.

Right there in the bar.

It's only fair.

So, if you start to see lots of naked people in bars throughout the midwest, you'll have me to thank for it.

Look at my newest exciting endeavor. I now have a space where you guys can comment on my posts. This is due to how exceptionally computer savvy I am. Me, with my comment boxes and all.

But I feel that some of you, not being as computer-esque as I, may need a little help with the comment box. So I, Jill Jessica Twiss, shall give you a few sample comments to lead the way. That's just the kind of good neighbor I am.

Comment 1: "Jill--I liked your joke about old ladies on crack. How would I go about sending you large gifts?"

Comment 2: "Your astute observations about foot deodorant have changed my entire view of hygiene and life as a whole. As a thank-you for the joy you've added to my life, I would like to buy you a house. And perhaps a brick of gold. Maybe some girl scout cookies too."

Comment 3: "Your posts bring a ray of light into the darkness that is my day. I wait breathlessly till you post again. Nothing I could give you could compete with the happiness you give me every day just by existing, but I think as a start I will buy you an island. Perhaps Haiti. They don't seem to be having much fun there anyway."

You can feel free to use any of these examples as a template for your own comments.

By the way, that part earlier where I said I was computer savvy was a lie. Well, unless "computer savvy" really means "rarely able to complete simple tasks like word processing without exchanging stern words and a few tears with the computer." In which case I'm as computer savvy as they come.

Sometimes I think that I turn guys gay.

Judging by the vast numbers of guys I have dated who have later decided that they would rather date men, this seems a distinct possibility. Which would suck dirt.

On the other hand, I'd have a great business opportunity on my hands. Gay men would come to me from miles around with straight men they had a crush on. I'd date them for a while, turn them gay, and they'd live happily ever after.

Everyone would win.

Except me. I would become an old spinster with piles of money from my lucrative business.

On the news today they said that a 95 year old woman was arrested yesterday for possession of crack cocaine. Apparently she had been hiding the crack in her wheelchair and in her prosthetic leg.

Call me lenient, but I think that if you're 95 years old and live in a wheelchair and you want to keep a little crack in your prosthetic leg, so be it.

The police said they suspect that she was hiding the crack to protect her son, the true drug user, who lived with her.

Call me lenient, but I think that if you're 70 years old, single, and still live at home with your 95 year old mom, and you want to keep a little crack in your mother's prosthetic leg, so be it.

On a side note, I think "A Little Crack in Your Mother's Prosthetic Leg" would be a good name for a song.

In the two hours I was sitting on the runway waiting for my plane to take off on Monday, I made a list of things in the Skymall catalog that I would like to own.

Volkswagon New Beetle Toy Car--Goes 2.5 mph forward and reverse.
I would like have this car to drive to my mailbox and back. Or maybe I'll just drive it around my building. I'll wear a hat that says "SECURITY" and when I see people, I could tip my hat and say, "Howdy, ma'am. Just tryin' to keep the halls safe for the children."

Nose and Ear Hair Trimmer
I only want this because their slogan is: "Get one for yourself before someone buys it for you." Point taken.

Plantation Grown Teak Shower Seat
I do not know why I need a seat in the shower. And if I did, I'm not sure that I would need it to be grown on a plantation. And, frankly, I have no idea what Teak is. Nevertheless, I feel this would be an excellent addition to my life.

The World's Largest Crossword Puzzle
It has 27,000 clues. The other magazine in the seat pocket on the airplane had a crossword puzzle with about 100 clues. I got three right. I figure out of 27,000 I could get at least four.

So I've been in the midwest doing comedy shows for the past week. And the only computer I had access to would immediately shut down every time I tried to log into this page (there's no accounting for tastes.) Thus I haven't been writing.

But starting tomorrow I will be right back on track. Fear not.

It kind of freaks me out when they have kids' week on Jeopardy.

It's bad enough when adults have all this random knowledge, but children? It's not natural.

Children's brains are smaller, you see, so they can't hold as much information. My theory is that, after a certain point, every piece of mindless trivia a child learns take the place of something important in the brain.

The kid used to know his phone number, but now that space in his brain is occupied by the names of all the Roman Emperors.

Sure he can speak three languages, but he can no longer tie his shoes.

I think the more stuff they learn, the more vital the brain functions that are replaced by random facts. The winners? They've probably completely lost bladder function.

I'm convinced that's why they stand behind those podiums.

There's this creepy guy, Dave, who has a crush on me (and before you say that I'm a jerk for stating this publicly, know that names have been changed to protect the creepy.)

He's really about the creepiest person I've ever met.

And on one hand, I really don't like him. After all, he follows me around and does all sorts of creepy things (note that I'm not being specific. Again, we're protecting the creepy here.)

On the other hand, it's not often that you meet someone who sets a whole new standard in your life.

I mean, for the rest of my life I can say, "So, on a scale of one to Dave, how creepy was he?"

I kind of like that.