Random Thoughts Thread

[jp1]

The Ricky Gervaises of the world are, in my opinion, every bit as harmful to world peace as the Islamic extremists.

Wait, what??? Sorry, but this is just nuts!

About the most harm Gervais has ever caused the world is forcing someone to change the channel. He's not spreading "blind hatred" in any sense of the concept.

I'm not aware of the Gervais situation, if there is one. I was talking about the point of the post in general. There does seem to be a lot of Gervais hate for some reason, it is apparent after checking into him to see if there was something related that I hadn't heard of. I saw that he hates religion, but apparently not religious people. I saw that he used derogatory terms for people with Down's syndrome, and then denied that was the context he was using it in, even though apparently it obviously was. I saw that he was an "arrogant asshole" but I didn't find anything related to the topic. Maybe he made some comments on twitter or something. I don't follow much of what he says, quick google search just alludes to him being an asshole, but that isn't really the same thing...if it's true. Kalessin, did he have some extremist views that were published?

I mean the Down's syndrome thing is enough for me to second guess the guy, if it is indeed true. That could be a culture thing though.

[Luke]

It's called satirical comedy, and Ricky does it well. Think Carlin, Williams, Stewart, Silverman, Rivers, etc. Your intention is to provoke a response from someone who "doesn't get it" and make those that "do get get it" laugh. It's very simple.

These people have zero intention of hurting one's feelings, but too many people are too fragile to recognize a joke for what it is. A joke. And contradictory to definition, comedians do not strive to be funny, they strive for a crowd's reaction.

That said...If you've never performed stand up, you have no room to speak.

[nullPointer]

I'm not so sure on this point. I mean ... you can be funny and be an asshole. These two personality traits aren't mutually exclusive (Bill Cosby anyone?). Further I don't think needling someone into a reaction is necessarily comedy, a verbal bully maybe, but not strictly comedy.

OTOH, art is subjective and I've never performed stand up, so it is entirely possible that I have no room to speak. (Excepting the fact that I just did of course ...)

[Luke]

OTOH, art is subjective and I've never performed stand up, so it is entirely possible that I have no room to speak.

I was being satirical as a point to point out satirical comedy.

But I did get a reaction so not all was lost.

[nullPointer]

I was being satirical as a point to point out satirical comedy.

But I did get a reaction so not all was lost.

Ha! I love it. Well played man, well played. And FWIW I don't really have a horse in the Ricky Gervais race. My Mom couldn't stand him for whatever reason, but as for me I probably couldn't pick him out of a lineup. ... I've never been a huge Don Rickles fan though, if that means anything. :shrugs:

[J T]

Maybe it's in reference to this Ricky Gervais stand up?

Still a long stretch away from Islamic extremists. Actually rather funny, I think.

[Erik_Twice]

Another punctuation question for you guys

There are many other games; Fire emblem games, even, that are good from the start.

How do you punctuate that phrase correctly?

[nullPointer]

Another punctuation question for you guys

There are many other games; Fire emblem games, even, that are good from the start.

How do you punctuate that phrase correctly?

I'm sure that dsheinem will have a much more definitive answer for you, but I was a journalism major at one point in my life with an emphasis on news writing for what ever that's worth.

If I were editing that sentence I'd point out that it's a bit of an oddly constructed sentence to begin with. From a strictly punctuation based standpoint though, the semi-colon is being misused. A semi colon joins two independent clauses (meaning either 'side' could be used as its own separate thought/sentence). The bit beginning with 'Fire Emblem' is not the beginning of a new independent clause. I think you could replace the semi colon with a dash and make that part slightly more correct. A dash can be used as sort of 'an interrupted thought' within a sentence, which seems to be the case here.

Ideally you could change the word order completely in the interest of making the sentence flow a bit better. Using a simple dependent clause you could possibly yield something like this:

There are many other games, even Fire emblem games, that are good from the start.

[Luke]

Ha! I love it. Well played man, well played.

Glad you saw some humor in my post. Comedy is and should be polarizing.

Ricky tells jokes. IS beheads a dozen people for watching soccer. There is no comparison to be made between the two.

Totally a super, yet deadly, opening for a fake ISIS comedian.

[Ack]

Ricky tells jokes. IS beheads a dozen people for watching soccer.

One of these is hilarious, and the other is Ricky Gervais.