We made it back alive. Here’s a photograph of the American West:

I’m now about two weeks out from moving to New York which means a number of things including a great chance of increased personal bullshit posts in this space, but I’ll try to keep up with some real-person news, too. Jokes coming up in the near future, I swear. Meantime, if you’re already in New York, be sure to see Zebro this Thursday at the PIT! And if you’re in Boulder, be sure to see the Secret Circus this Friday at Old Main!

PS: More photos of the American West to come… I’ll just put ‘em below the fold on this post eventually.

PPS: For readers of the column, you’re looking at the main characters. From left to right, The Lady, me and Drinkin’ Boots. We’re walking on a big (big) rock in Arches National Park.

Dear jokes,

I’m going to be writing you, but not digitally for a while. This is because I’m going camping.

See you when I get back.

Your pal,
Davers.

Dave Horwitz & co. are very funny. I was just talking about them yesterday. Pretty recent, huh? Check this clip (not of me talking about Dave, but of Dave and other people saying things):

They’re in LA. Some of them.

This week’s column is up. I forgot to post it because… it’s complicated.

Here’s some of it:

It must have been two hours that I spent on the Anthem Web site, poring over the minute differences in insurance policies before I realized that I had no idea what I was reading. Like one of those times when you’re too sleepy to read, so you read the same sentence over and over again for 15 minutes until you see you’re not getting anywhere.

My sentence was something like this: “deductible out-of-pocket HSA blah blah I don’t know it was all in doctor-plus-lawyer language.”

Being on the verge, however, of lacking coverage, I soldiered on and blindly bought bizarre coverage. Some guy immediately showed up at my door, socked me in the face and told me that’d be $15, but then a doctor was right behind him, and that guy iced my jaw, gave me some aspirin and told me it was gratis.

A friend and I were discussing today the nature of the Denver comedy scene. Its nature is dark. In honor of that discussion, here are a couple of quick, really dark jokes that I’d be unlikely to say on most stages.

Here’s some cool news: a Japanese billionaire has been giving his mansions to homeless native Hawaiians. Well, not really. He’s been letting the homeless into his mansions and then calling the cops for giggles.

John Edwards recently had a press conference to announce some sad news personally and possibly some bad news for his campaign. Inside his wife’s right rib, doctors found a malignant cancer. It was John Kerry.

I’ve got a really annoying friend who’s always doing dumb stuff on dares to get attention. I hate that. So this week I dared him to eat some dog food. That shut him up forever.

These aren’t news jokes, they’re just joke jokes. Sometimes you have to write joke jokes. And sometimes you have to update your blog. When those times meet, you get this crappy post.

So, I’m currently unemployed. I do almost nothing during the day, which is not terribly different from life when I was employed, except that I’m even less likely to go out at night. I just sit around at home, eating and digesting. I’ve gotten really good at me. Friend of mine called me and asked, “Yo Dave, what are you up to tonight?” I said, “I’m eating a giant baked potato and taking a giant crap.” And I said that fully looking forward to both parts.

He said “I’m going to a huge party with a lot of babes, you want to go?” I said, “I told you, I’m busy.”

I’ve been meeting a lot of people from other places lately. I met a guy from Michigan and asked where in Michigan he was from. He said Michigan is shaped like a hand, then held his hand up and pointed between his thumb and forefinger and said that’s where he’s from. Every state has one of those. I met a guy from Florida and asked where he was from and he pulled out his flaccid dong and pointed to where he was from.

Key West, it turns out. But these are really absurd ways of telling someone where you’re from. Colorado has the best one. We’re a rectangle. We’re in the shape of a map of Colorado. So if someone asks me where I’m from in Colorado, I just pull out a map and point at my flaccid dong. I don’t know why I do that, just habit, I guess. A bad habit. I’m on the patch and the gum, but I can’t stop pointing at my junk.

I’m looking for apartments in New York right now. I’ve been looking on Craigslist, which is a terrible idea. You have no idea if people are crazy or not, so you look for little code words. If someone says they’re “neat” and looking for a “tidy roommate,” it probably means they’re not a crackhead and not looking for a crackhead roommate. If they say they’re looking for a “tidy roommate” and once had a roommate who said they were tidy but weren’t actually tidy, it means they’re gonna be real assholes about everything.

Yeah, OK, there were going to be more, but I had to go tell them. The maps thing went very well. Goodnight.

Video-eo-eo.

Ah, I’m slacking when it comes to joke-writing, but it’s ultimately for good. There’s plenty of madness coming right around the corner, and to sate my irrepressible desire to upload content to the Web, here’s a video from a couple of Circuses ago. It’s Yaffe, which means it’s hilarious. Enjoy!

P.S.: Thanks to the efforts of BCB, we’re gonna have even more videos up soon. He’s a machine. Thanks, dude!

Sunday morning dork-out, quickly this time…

Sports Illustrated talks about how global warming could affect… sports! Grist, in covering the, uh, cover story, did ‘em one better and dug up a bunch of information on sports going green.

More sports, more mainstream media. USAToday on senior dance squads!

The NYT has the first chapter of word-nerd tome “When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It.” Read only if you totally want to talk adjectives. I do.

The column this week is built around two emailers responding to two recent diatribes on whatever it is I write about. One emailer was bummed that I wrote about Scientology and the Freemasons in the same paragraph:

“I’m certain you have already been contacted by the legal department of the ‘Church’ of Scientology. These jokers will sue people to the point of bankruptcy even without grounds for a case.”

Not so far, no, but this is exciting already, isn’t it? Erik really writes to grab the attention. I did get a chuckle or two out of someone suing me to the point of bankruptcy. If that ever seemed to be on the horizon, I’d probably just buy a fancy meal and beat them to the punch.

The other wrote with very sweet tips on a long-distance relationship:

“Don’t scrimp on phone bills. It’s part of the rent. Use land lines when you can, because the tone of voice comes through more clearly.”

Yeah, I believe in a related rule, which is that people in long-distance relationships should never, ever IM each other. While it’s tempting, I find that people get distracted easily. Maybe you get caught up reading a Web site or the nutritional values of your pint of comfort ice cream. Whatever it is, you’ll eventually accidentally ignore or offend someone.

Plus, there’s the option of logging your chats, which is like setting bear traps all over your psyche. “But you said” is annoying enough without a transcript.

Hey folks. There are a lot of transitions afoot! One includes me writing for a pretty sweet blog called EcoGeek.org. Having looked at the bios and experience of the other writers, I’m probably slightly underqualified, but that’s when I do my best work anyway.

The basic idea? We tell you about the various ways in which awesome technology (recent posts include flying cars) can help cut back on carbon emissions or help the environment in other ways. It’s kind of like combining your love of gadgetry with that desire to get all hippied out and live on a commune. A geek commune.