I’ve come to dislike birthdays. One time I threw a party and only a handful of people came. Since then, I’ve been weary about throwing a party for myself. It could be that I just botched the planning of it and didn’t give the whole thing enough thought… but there’s still a lingering feeling that people just have better things to do then to spend their day with me.

So some years I just don’t put in the effort to plan something. Not because I’m a slouch, but because sometimes I feel bad about asking people to come because they feel bad for not being able to come and then there’s this infinite “feel bad loop” that’s really hard to break.

30 is different though. I’ve been on the earth 3 decades after all. I should do something grand. Celebrate what I’ve done in life. There are a lot of things that I’ve done that I’m really proud of. 30 is a good time to look back and recount those things.

I’ve acted way more than I thought I would have. I’ve made some truly good friends. I’ve landed a job that I’m very fond of. Married a great girl. Seen a good chunk of the world. And laughed. A lot.

It’s somewhat of a sad time too. The fact that you’re getting older and less hip. Gaining (a little) weight. The 9 to 5. Losing energy and needing to drink coffee to get past 2:30pm. And the growing fear that my life might be one big gigantic failure if looked at a certain way.

I don’t think I have too many regrets right now. But its not the regrets that gets me. It’s the fear that I’m heading towards a regret. A feeling that is amplified by being at what I feel is a crossroads. There’s still some time left to change direction if need be. The last threes words of that sentence are key. Maybe I don’t need to…

So yes, birthdays are confusing times. I don’t know whether to hide in bed all day or get drunk. Maybe I’ll do both at the same time this year.

I’ve been married for about 5 months now. It’s a wonder that I somehow convinced myself to do it. I lead a immature, fickle and messy life full of loose ends and red herrings. There’s no rhyme or reason to most of what I do. I just kind of float.

Given my personality, it was obvious that I was going to be a little reluctant. My wife, then girlfriend, must have been frustrated with me. In my head the wedding band was a shackle; an infinite weight I was going to carry around forever. Everyone jokes about the “old ball and chain”. But I was afraid that it might actually be true.

What was I afraid of really? Abandoning the prospect of other women? I thought that it was, but in retrospect, I got about as much game as an accounting book. Not that I wasn’t people’s type. I like to think that I am. But I was always content to just let things be and never pursue. Partly because I was scared, but maybe the real reason was that I didn’t want to.

Responsibility? Maybe that was it. Having to “look out” for another person’s well being and feelings. But my wife is so low maintenance that even if I were scared of that, the thought would have evaporated before too long.

In reality, I think I was just afraid of life becoming normal; a series of days indistinguishable from each other. There are many perks to being single. But the biggest perk of all is the promise that tomorrow will bring something, or even someone, different. It is a restless existence, but one that I was fond of, and something that was hard for me to let go of.

Some promises were fulfilled and others were not. There’s always hope when you’re single, but some days that’s all that there is. Was I a happier person back then? Before all this marriage business was thrown about?

I will say this about marriage. If your relationship is strong, like ours is. Then your life won’t change that much after marriage. It’s just more time with the one person you love the most. And that’s not a bad thing. The biggest difference I can say, is that the restlessness in my life has been replaced with peace. And it’s really nice. It’s something more than just hope. It’s something real.

I remember too when he proposed to her. It was a big public event and she had no clue. Of course, all of us in attendance knew. When she was singled out and he went down on one knee, the cheers were deafening There were screams, tears, clapping and hollering. It’s hard to top that kind of moment in a personal list of your most treasured memories: A perfectly executed marriage proposal.

But the months went on and they grew apart. It is 2011 now, but there is no more talk of marriage between them. They have since split up and he has come to live with me for a little. He is ever cheery and strong despite everything. But he’s quieter now. Almost like if he were to speak too loud it might shatter the invisible glass that holds back the tears.

She was the one who broke it off, and at first I was angry. But no one is to blame, really. Love is and always will be a mystery. Here in one moment, and gone the next without as much as a warning or farewell.

The thing is, sometimes relationships continue on even after the love has packed its things and moved on. Couples stay with one another hoping to find what they had lost, sometimes forever. Other times, couples think that there is love when there really isn’t any, like a well that will never be filled again. I was in a relationship which ran out of love once. There’s no other way to describe it other than this: It’s hard to let go even when you are certain there isn’t any hope. Maybe that’s what happened to my friends. The proposal was the feather that tipped the scale in one direction.

We’re taught that love, in it’s purest form, is everlasting. That once we find it, it will be the source of unlimited happiness. I still believe that to be true despite all that’s happened to me and my friends. But the perfection that is love is tainted by our own imperfect hands. We all make mistakes in life, we are taught. And it’s also true that we all make mistakes in love, no matter how pure that love may be.

That’s why when we love, we need to work at it. But even then, all the work in the world can’t fix something that isn’t there.

Let me talk about my car rides first. I consider myself a
very good driver. I’m considerate, patient and follow all the rules
of the road. Inside my car, however, I’m a nutcase. If I’m by
myself, which I am most days, I spend a good amount of time making
up words to the song on the radio. Not just english words. No. That
would be too easy. I make us gibberish. “How am I supposed to live
without you?” Turns in to, “Hower bee bee poo jay lang
palooga?”.

Some days, I just pick a syllable and
say it over and over again until I get home. Other days, I have
conversations with myself in a made up language. Sometimes I laugh
at nothing. Once I wanted to see if I could make myself cry. And I
did.

I make such a ruckus in my own personal
space that I sometimes question if I’m even fit to drive. But it’s
these brief fits of spontinaity that keep me sane.

Our lives are so blanketed with routine and so doused in
cliche and anything I can do to break that humdrum and do something
original is a relief for me. Even things like talking and writing
make me feel like I’m treading on already treaded ground. These are
things that everybody does every day. This same sentence is
probably being typed somewhere else in the world. For a
civilization that’s been around for as long as we’ve been around,
how original can our words and thoughts really be?

So to ensure that I don’t become just one in a very long
line of same thinkers and speakers. I say to you: Blumtorgit, jam
jam! The wilder is lomping the grabe!

Let me back up a little and give you another theory. I believe we’re all just as crazy as everyone else. The only difference is that some people don’t hide it as well. The worst ones at hiding it are those that are certifiably insane and perhaps a danger to either themselves or those around them. Comedians are not far off though.

Looking back at my own life. I can see very clearly that my sense of humor was bred from a deep seated insecurity. A feeling that everyone was better than me. That no one would think I was special or even pay attention to me. But there was more than insecurity. There was anger. And Envy. And a list of girls that I was attracted to but never had the courage to say anything to. Sounds like a lot? I have a feeling I’m just scratching the surface.

But these parts of me; the anger, the envy, the feeling of disgust with myself and with others, they became tools for me, motivation even, to be funny. It was a shield at first. Something I could use to hide behind so that people wouldn’t see me for who I really was. Pretty soon, my sense of humor and I became one and the same. And eventually, it became the very thing that saved me from the insecurities that birthed it.

So what is it about insecurities, pain, anger that is so funny?

It’s simply funny because it’s true. We’re all somewhat insecure. Even the best of us. And when someone shows that they’re vulnerable. We laugh, not because we’re mocking, because we’re empathizing

I suppose the only difference between a joke and a sob story is a punchline.

But although my heart belongs to comedy, my mind was stretched and prodded in the halls of an academic computer lab.   5 years of programming and 3 more years of software testing has turned me into a rigid analyst.  Maybe a little more than I’d like, but hey, it’s puts the bread on the table.

So I’m going to write about comedy from the point of view of both a comedian and a scientist.  Both of which are fighting inside my brain as we speak.

PART I: Why the F@*# is Music so Funny?

I’ve written 20 or so sketches for my sketch comedy troupe.  The first ones were awful, but I finally got a knack for it after about a year or two.

The moment I really knocked it out of the park was when I wrote a musical sketch.  I picked up a guitar, wrote a couple of innuendos into some soft rock chords and the sketch blew up.  I was showered with all sorts of praise for it.  Many said it was the highlight of the show.  One girl came up to me and said that “After hearing you guys sing, my life is complete.”

That last one was hyperbole (i think), but ever since then my troupe has found musical sketches to be their favorite to work on.  I’ve written about 5 or so sketches that involved music or dancing and they’ve pretty much been our bread and butter, knocking audiences dead wherever we go.

And I’m not the only one keen on this information.  Andy Samberg has practically made a living off of pairing bizarre subject matter with familiar beats.

So what makes this so funny?  Why is it that music and comedy go together like milk and cookies?

To make a long story short, music is so funny because it is so serious.

The music generes that I make fun of tend to be the most serious. Rap music, love songs, R&B. These music genres thrive on something called “cred”. That’s basically the currency of being taken seriously. Without it, artists are deemed weak, soft, sellouts, what have you. If fans even see a glimmer of insincerity from an artist, they could loose they’re whole fan base. This whole system of cred has turned the music industry into sort of a humourless place.

Which makes it perfect to make fun of.

Put on a dope back beat, a straight face and start singing about ponies and rainbows. Watch people start laughing at you. What they’re laughing at is your character, a serious artist, willingly giving away cred.

I forgot to mention another game from my past that had me at hello. Rock Band.

I remember my wife (GF at the time) asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I said Rock Band. Not only did I say I wanted it, I asked for it a week early and went to the store with her to buy it.

Much like my board game experiences of my youth, my video game experience were much more viceral, but far less tramatic. Mostly because I was better at Video Games at I could readily beat most of my friends.

But when Rock Band came out, magic happened. This game didn’t have people killing each other. Punching eachother (KO!) or even hurting eachother. We had to work together.

Now, co-op is nothing new in video games. Games like X-Men and TMNT, for instance, had you working together to defeat the bad guys. But Rock Band wasn’t about defeating anything. It was about creation. Colaborative creation. I remember the first couple of songs we played. I don’t think I’ve ever given so many high fives in my life. We all felt so good. Like we had done something special.

I’m not saying that Rock Band is a substitue for rehearsing, creating and performing in front of an audience. I know what that feels like too. But it was rare to feel that way when playing a video game. The feeling of making something instead of destroying something. I love a good spray of virtual blood as much as the next guy. But I’d choose Rock Band over that any day.

I can say that the majority of my Rock Band days are over. I don’t play as much as I used to anymore. When you start seeing colored bars in your sleep, it’s a good sign that you should stop playing and maybe proceed with living your life… maybe even picking up an actual guitar. So 5 sequels and three drums sets later (I play hard), I’ve finally put the musical controllers to rest.

Wait, they have a keyboard instrument now?

::Puff of smoke in the towards the nearest gamestop::

Monopoly. The very definition of ruthless capitalism. Oops, you landed on my Boardwalk. There’s a hotel? How did that get there? Looks like you’re going to have to mortage off any property you own just to pay your debt to me.

Scrabble. This one felt like the unforgiving environment in a college course. A battle of the mind where the smartest, brainiest kids set the curve and the rest of us are destined to linger in 3rd or 4th place for the rest of the game (er… lives?)

Risk. World domination and death at a global scale… all at the hands of chance. Defending Poland? Better have twice as many men as your attacker because dice rolls that end in ties favor the aggressor.

Chess. By far the most viceral and harrowing. Two armys of equal size and shape. No dice. No chance. Just your intelect and someone else in a smackdown fight to the death. I cried more than once over a game of chess.

I was never really a competitive person. Yet even still these board games would put me in a gloomy mood. Why is my sister trying to eradicate my armys? I owe my friend how much money? How did my dad, who took my queen, both of my knights and half my pawns, turn into such an unrelenting killing machine?

And to tell the truth, even winning a board game like this would make me a little sour. I felt like I had gotten away with murder. Lied, stole, and decieved just to get ahead.

So you can imagine the joy I felt when a friend told me about a new board game. A board game where you and your friends work together and thus win or lose together. A co-op board game!

The name of the game is Pandemic. It tasks the players with stemming the tide of 4 viruses world wide and ultimately finding a cure for all of them. It’s tense to say the least, but playing with friends… relying on them, trusting them and cooperating with them is something I’ve never experienced in a board game. As a result, regardless if we won or lost, I felt that much closer to the people I’ve played with. And really that’s how it should be shouldn’t it? These are your friends and family after all.

I’ve been borderline obsessed with the game since I’ve bought it.

But I think that’s just making up for the years of emotional scarring from playing Chess with my dad. (who I’ve still never beaten).

But with great power comes great personality disorders. Or something like that.

I’ve be programming now for about 10 years. I’ve been fortunate enough to save most of social skills and self respect. However I’ve just recently begun to notice the toll programming has taken on my mind.

I’m becoming slightly “OCSD”. And only about computer things too.  Hence the official term (that I just made up right now) Obsessive Computer Station Disorder.

Now, mind you, I’m not a neat person. In fact I’m just about the slobbiest, messiest person you can find. But it’s different about computer things.

Just the other day, my boss told me to move a Virtual Machine to another server. The problem was that server 1 had all Windows XP machines and server 2 had all Windows 7 machines. Moving machine to the other would violate some imaginary order that my mind had set. I procrastinated doing that until the end of the day. And doing it was hard.

Also, I can’t seem to delete anything at work. Anything and everything is tucked into a folder that I can easily get to. My bookmarks are organized and sorted and a cluttered desktop drives me crazy.

So what happened to me?

Well, I have a theory.  Programming is basically talking to a computer and telling it what to do.  The only thing is, you have to talk the computer’s language.   Which would be fine if you can fudge things one way or another and the computer would still understand the gist of what you are saying.   But that’s not the case at all.   If you aren’t 100% correct with what you said, then the computer will shrug at you, freeze and become utterly useless.

Imaging working with someone like that.  If you wanted someone to open the door for you.   You’d have to tell that person which direction to walk, how many steps to take, where to put his or her hand, and then how far to pull the door open.   If you didn’t tell that person all those things, he or she would simply stand there and look at you, or even worse, collapse on the ground.

So needless to say programming requires a bit of attention to detail. Something which has leaked into my other computing habits.

From ICS to OCSD.

From one acronym to the next.

Looking back, I’m not sure why I was so happy.

Choosing a Godparent is a necessary thing. But also a little morbid and disturbing to think about.  Will you take our son or daughter in if something should happen to us?  Something that would prevent us from taking care of our kid.   If we died basically.

I love my sister and her husband.   I love my little niece like she was my own.   Of course I would take her in a raise her if you couldn’t.    But I hope to god that I will never have to.

More than just that though, being a Godparent means something else as well. It means being a positive role model for your Godchild, being there if they need you for guidance and basically ensuring that you’ll be a part of their life so long as you live.

I’m already a Godparent for my wife’s niece.   I feel more than a little blessed that two different couples have chosen me to be that person for their kid. Although my wife has 5 under her belt, which probably means that she’s more of a beacon of good than I’ll ever be.

But all joking aside, I must have done something good in another life. To be seen as good enough to be trusted.  To be seen as being capable of love.  Not the fickle, fading kind of love.  The the deep, enduring kind of love.  For all the sacrifices that have to be made for children.  I feel lucky to be seen by people as a person that can and will make those sacrifices.  I must have done something good in another life.

Maybe I did something good in this life.