Protests have erupted in Istanbul (not Constantinople) over… something.



Honestly, I know absolutely nothing about the protests in Turkey. I don’t know why it’s happening, if there’s an oppressive regime in power or even where Turkey is on a map. I heard on the radio that this could be another “Arab Spring” so it’s in the Middle East, right?

Well, it’s kind of in the middle of everything but I’ll call it the Middle East because they’re all probably brown and Muslim anyway.



Okay, next: Are Turkeys from Turkey? Is that why they’re called Turkeys?







Okay. I googled it. They’re from Mexico. Let’s move on.



Why are they protesting? Well, according to CNN, this all started when Turkey’s government was going to demolish a park to make a shopping mall.



… Must be one hell of a park.



I guess the park thing must’ve been the straw that broke the camel’s back (not racist! I would totally use that term in describing something that went on in someplace else than the middle east!) and now rioters are clashing with police. Police have been accused of using excessive force when dispersing the protesters with tear gas, water cannons and magic carpets (okay that one was pretty racist).



Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was democratically elected but has been accused by detractors of wildly abusing his powers and not just to demolish apparently incredibly beloved parks.



What will come of these protests? Nobody is sure and since it’s on the other side of the world I’m sure Americans will forget all about this in a few days.



Unless they’re sitting on some oil we want then we are ON THAT SHIT.

I’m a man who likes a good meme.



I really shouldn’t. I’m a comedian. I spend most of my free time trying to create original stuff and put it out on stages or the internets for a few people to chuckle with and memes are the complete antithesis of originality. It’s community aggregated humor. Most people don’t even know who originally came up with almost all of the image memes on the web but people will throw some text under a picture of Fry from Futurama and all of the sudden they’ve made a joke –

Some of these reach a dizzying height of unoriginality. The “Overly Attached Girlfriend” meme is just a picture of the Overly Attached Girlfriend character with text of something she might say. So people are basically just writing jokes in the style of something a comedian already does and then puts it on a picture of them. It’s the internet equivalent of a shitty Rodney Dangerfield impersonator that I usually end up opening for in bar gigs in North Dakota –







While the sheer hackiness of a lot of memes pisses me off, there are some that I do find pretty funny and –







that’s why I love knowyourmeme.com. Created by the people who started the “I can haz cheezburger” site that arguably took memes out of 4chan obscurity and into the cubicles of office drones screwing off all over the world, knowyourmeme is like the wikipedia of memes. You can find out about where image memes came from (usually 4chan or reddit) and how they spread. You can find out about overly manly man, good guy greg and they even have videos on some of the more popular ones.







Ehrmagerd! Merms!

A masocore video game is one that is difficult. No, difficult is too kind of a word. It’s one with near impossible tasks, with a world of possible mistakes and little redemption. It’s a game that seems unwinnable. They tend to lead to rage quits…. tantrums of excessive frustration thrown by a gamer when they fail at a task.

And you can watch a room full of people play these games and throw these tantrums… FOR CHARITY.

I’m involved with a group called High Charity. This group throws a couple of marathons a year to raise funds for Child’s Play Charity. Child’s Play provides game consoles and other toys to children’s hospitals.

Picture this: A little girl is diagnosed with leukemia. She’s in the hospital, going through an awful ordeal. but the room has an XBOX 360. Video games. This is a thing she knows. This is a way to pass the time she needs for her body to fight cancer. It’s a distraction. It keeps her from focusing on all the needles and doctors. It brings a bit of normalcy to a horrid experience.

Child’s Play provides that console, with money raised by various gamer groups running marathons and collecting donations.

How does our Masocore Marathon work? Simple- the more you donate, the longer we have to play frustrating games for your amusement.

The games we’re playing are:
I Wanna Be the Guy
La Mulana
Bit Trip Runner 2
N+ Co-Op
Super Meat Boy: Dark World

We play these games, and they’re live-streamed to our website HighCharity.org, where you can watch the marathon and chat with the gamers.

Now, as we play through these games, you can donate money. When you donate, you can pick your favorite games, and at certain intervals, we will play the game that garners the most donations.

You can also donate money to buy us a drink if you’re feeling sympathetic. Or think we’d be funnier drunk (you would be right).

We will also have various auctions, raffles, and rewards.

And if that isn’t enough, there will be special guests throughout the weekend. Apropos of Nothing will be there. Mr. Skullhead of Kingdom of Loathing will be there. the Glovers from Vilification Tennis, Fearless Comedy, and Geeks Without God will be there. The Choosatron (and its creator) will be there. Local talent from around the twin cities will be there. Ridiculous Puppets will be there.

Can a puppet play video games? Maybe we’ll find out.

So, starting at Noon today, we play videogames. Pop on over and watch me play games and throw a tantrum.

For the children.

Pope Francis isn’t your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather’s pope. He’s a big advocate for the poor, which must be hard for him now that his house is an entire city made of nothing but gold, priceless artwork and priceless artwork made out of gold –

He’s also a big fan of interfaith dialogue. Just yesterday he said that all who do good are redeemed, not just Catholics. Even atheists are cool in his book! Check out this chunk of a huffpo article I copy-pasted!



““They complain,” the Pope said in his homily, because they say, “If he is not one of us, he cannot do good. If he is not of our party, he cannot do good.” And Jesus corrects them: “Do not hinder him, he says, let him do good.” The disciples, Pope Francis explains, “were a little intolerant,” closed off by the idea of ​​possessing the truth, convinced that “those who do not have the truth, cannot do good.” “This was wrong . . . Jesus broadens the horizon.” Pope Francis said, “The root of this possibility of doing good – that we all have – is in creation.” Pope Francis went further in his sermon to say:

“The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can… “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!”.. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”



This has seriously got atheists confused. just one glance at reddit’s r/atheism feed and you feel like a bomb went off. Everybody’s just dazed

While some people are applauding the Pope for his progressive-by-Catholic-standards stance, I’m a little wary that this could just be some sinister plot from the Pope to wipe out all the atheists.



…Hear me out.



Atheists have to disagree with religion, that’s how atheism works but what if religion said atheists were good people? Atheists think that atheists are good people but they can’t agree with religion, right? The computer processors that they have where their souls should be can’t handle the logical paradox and before you know it –







If this isn’t just some clever atheist genocide plot, I say good for Pope Francis for trying to steer the Catholic Church in the right direction. I mean, it’d be even better if he could get priests to stop molesting children and spending millions upon millions of dollars to lobby the persecution of homosexuals but this atheism thing is a good start.

I wouldn’t call myself an enthusiast. An enthusiast is a person who goes all out, who gets every gadget, who fully immerses themselves into it. They participate every opportunity they get. Sometimes, they get specialized ones. Ones that look like this:

Or one of these:

Or even one of these:

Bicycle enthusiasts are those people that build a killer pedal float and continue to use it.

An enthusiast is a person who joins a bicycle “marching” band. Though, it really is pretty sweet to watch.

I am not an enthusiast. But I have recently gained a love of biking.

I am incredibly lucky to live in Minneapolis where they make bike riding so easy. We consistently rank in the top few US cities for biking (usually #1 or #2, depending on how pissy Portland is being that year). In fact, AAA is going to start offering roadside assistance for bikes in Hennepin county. And we have a very easy and affordable bike sharing system, which I use as my main means of bike transport.

I’m a huge advocate for the Nice Ride system (see the sexy blue and green bike pictured above). Living in Uptown, I’m a block away from a station. I bike two blocks to a bike boulevard, and from there, I can get onto the greenway, a bike “freeway” for bikes. It’s like a whole different world down there, with cute gardens and bike friendly restaurants. The path is lighted, there are emergency call boxes, and even a volunteer Trail Watch group that patrols the greenway.

From the greenway, I can go a great distance safely. I try to put in 7 miles a day. Sometimes this is to or from rehearsal, which has a Nice Ride station next door. Sometimes, this is to local businesses. Sometimes this is biking around a couple of lakes I happen to live near.

Now, there aren’t Nice Ride stations everywhere I want to go. I think my only complaint is that there aren’t more of them scattered throughout Minneapolis. But that’s a trade off I’m willing to make for my favorite reason to use Nice Ride- I don’t have to worry about the bike itself. Just pick out a bike at the station, check it out with my fob, and go. No taking it in to get fixed or even filling the tires. And absolutely zero worries about someone stealing it.

Which is what happened to Danny Lesh in Washington. Someone stole his bike. Cut the chain and took it. And then, Danny found the bike listed on Ebay. He called police, but they had more pressing engagements at the moment. So Danny did the only logical thing.

He stole his bike back.

He contacted the thief as an interested buyer. Showed up, looked it over, and asked if he could take it out for a test ride. And then just pedaled off with it. After 4 blocks, a sympathetic cabbie gave him a lift. By the time the thief called Danny to ask what was up, Danny was on the other side of town.

My favorite part is that the thief threatened to call the police on him. Okay buddy. You go ahead and do that.