R.I.P. James Brown.

James Brown, The Godfather of Soul, died today of a P.C.P. overdose.  He was 69 years old, and still funky.

Christmas time tragedy for Nicholas Cage.

When actor Nicholas Cage was only 12 years old, his parents were killed in a housefire on the night before Christmas.  They had left the lights wrapped around their Christmas tree turned on when they went to bed, causing the most tragic event ever to befall Nicholas Cage.  Prior to becoming an actor, his name had been Francis Simmons, but he took the name of the manufacturer of the lights that caused his parents' untimely death, St. Nick's Cage and Lightbulb Company.

Weird Al Yankovic

I was the guitar player in Weird Al Yankovic's touring band in the '90s. Weird Al took a prescription drug that made him funny. It stimulates the part of the brain associated with humor. He went off it for a while, and he wasn't funny anymore, so he went back on it.

All the comics use it. That's why they never test comics for humor drugs.

I never got hold of any, which is why I'm not funny. Otherwise I would be hilarious.

Cabin Fart

Once on a flight from Los Angeles to New York, this huge guy farted and it smelled so bad we had to change planes in Chicago.

Warrior Planet Frenzy

I was so good at playing Warrior Planet Frenzy online that I wiped out all my opponents, everybody else, and the entire game Universe. I destroyed the whole game so bad that no one else could play it, which is probably why you never heard of it.

Intelligence

I told my wife, "You have only a fraction of the intelligence that I do."

"I'm sure you're right," she said, "About three halves, probably."

"I'm glad you agree," I said.

My Dissertation

I did my Masters dissertation on computer-assisted probability modeling. I led a team that built a system comprised of multiple high-speed video cameras and a Cray mainframe computer. We painted a penny white on one side and black on the other. Then we would flip the penny and record its motions. While the penny was still mid-air, the computer would predict whether the penny would land heads (white) or tails (black).

Impressively, the computer had a 52% chance of being right, which is way better than weather modeling. Unfortunately it took 14 days after each coin landed for the computer to finish running the model. Plus, the faculty was biased against me out of jealousy. So I only got a C-.