“How to Write Funny,” this Saturday

Friday May 25, 2018 • Howard Tayler

TOMORROW, Saturday, May 26th, I’ll be teaching an online workshop called “How to Write Funny.” The focus of the class will be how to refine and improve your written humor using some very intuitive techniques.

Being “born funny” is absolutely not required. It helps a little, but understanding these techniques will make your written humor better. You’ll also be better equipped to troubleshoot jokes that aren’t working, whether they don’t fit the tone of the rest of the piece, or because for some reason they’re just not coming across funny.

We’ll explore these techniques by looking at examples, both good and bad, and by applying the tools to some of these examples to see how things can be improved.

The class is $99, and it’s a class, not a comedy routine. Funny things will certainly be said, but only so we can take them apart and re-assemble them to be funnier than before.

NOTE: we are only recording this workshop for the use of the students at the streamed session, and seating is limited.

Yet Another GDPR Post You’ll Probably Ignore

Friday May 25, 2018 • Howard Tayler

Your mailbox is probably full of messages talking about updates to privacy policies. Today, May 25th, is the deadline for websites to comply with GDPR legislation, and I think GDPR stands for Go Do Privacy Right or something like that.

Anyway, this is yet another announcement regarding an update to a privacy policy. In this case, it’s ours. You can read it here. Here’s the summary: we don’t sell information about you, but we do have information about you, especially if you’ve shopped with us. If you want us to delete your information from our systems, we’ll do that.

We do use cookies, and yes, our turnkey advertisers track those like crazy, but you can turn that off in your browser.

Full details can be found in our privacy policy.

Deadpool 2

Friday May 18, 2018 • Howard Tayler

Deadpool 2 was more fun and less uncomfortable than 2016’s Deadpool. At least for me. YMMV, of course. The film unmistakably earns its R-rating, so it’s not one to bring the kids to.

That said, it does clear my Threshold of Awesome, thanks to some final scenes putting it over the top. Yes, there’s a scene interrupting the early credits, and although there’s no after-the-credits scene, stick around for the audio at the very end.

In terms of tone, I’d categorize Deadpool 2 as an action-comedy in the same vein as Spy and The Hitman’s Bodyguard (both of which I really enjoyed.) And then there’s the way Wade Wilson breaks the fourth wall¹, allowing him to tell jokes other movies can’t get away with like commenting on the soundtrack².

¹ Deadpool knows that the Marvel Cinematic Universe exists, and that he’s not part of it. If you’re heavily invested in the Avengers films Wade Wilson’s commentary may be very satisfying.
² Children of the 80’s may get a bit more out of the musical juxtapositions than later generations will. My daughter loved that the music was weird and out-of-place. I loved that it was weird and out-of-place, and yet perfectly suited for the scene because I remember the music video.