Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site. This was an odd topic, because it basically combine two topics they've used over and over; drinks and horror movies. But it was different enough to work. There were a lot of fun ones. I went off topic a bit, submitted the Magnificent Seven & Seven (which was ignored) and then, in a bit of a stretch, I submitted Indiana Jones and the Shirley Temple of Doom. Okay, one, it's not a slasher movie (although the heart removal scene gif was used) and secondly, you can't get sloshed on Shirley Temples. But it got picked. I did 15 or so and got 8 included, so, yay me! Check out the fun from a couple of weeks ago at:
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Because of lack of resources, I’ve taken to “producing” my sketch ideas with AI. This is not a recommended solution. See that logo? AI generated. And yet I had to run it through photoshop to really get it right. There were a couple of things I already had to tweak, besides. Anyway, on to more creative things:
Pirate Patch was something I wrote back in 2004, originally for Prairie Home Companion. A quick little commercial pun, from back in the day when Big Pharma was pushing patches for everything as a drug delivery system to work to fight smoking, pain, addiction, hunger. It was rejected (my sketch, not the patches). I sent it around but nothing worked.
Doing the blog has reminded me of a lot of material I had forgotten about, but this sketch always stayed in the back of my mind, especially come "Talk Like a Pirate Day." So, I once I got to playing around with AI, I decided to use it. But here's the thing about AI; it's a bear to work with. After doing a couple of other things with it, I just gets annoying to use. And the idea of attempting to do an office set up with two co-workers conversing seemed like a daunting task and then trying to do a character who has to go through a before & after change? AI would totally change the guy's look. I'm sure an expert could pull it off, but I'm just a writer, so I decided to do it as audio. And even then, it's tricky to get audio that doesn't sound like a bored actor reading his lines. I finally got them to a point I was satisfied with, then realized I hadn't done the character's 'after' dialogue, so I just recorded myself as the post-pharm co-worker, because my goofy voice works in the role. And frankly, it just seemed easier that way. It's up at Sound Cloud and here it is for your enjoyment. Expect me to repost this every "Talk Like a Pirate Day." Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site. At first I thought it was just Monster Movies (hence "Spankenstein) then I got the hang of it. Fortunately slasher movies have longer titles, so it's easy to parody them. I submitted a bunch and got 5 in, so it's all cool.
Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site. This was one of those randomly vague hashtags, so it had a lot of possibilities. And I tried them all! Wreck synonyms. Bad meals. Stupid morning items. They all kinda work, although I did lean toward the "wrecked" version of puns. I really hit it when I took the cereal Total and made it Totalled. That was pretty good. Especially because one-word titles and names are hard to make a solid joke with. I submitted a bunch and got 8 in, so all's good. Oh, wait...Corn beef hashtag! How did I miss that??? Oh, well, check them out at:
Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site. I guess this is scatological...sewer suggests matters of the fecal kind, so we try to open the scope a bit to other bodily fluids and functions. Some extended the range to a wider range of sewer-themed items (my alligator-pun got passed over) and now I'm kicking myself for not thinking of Mock Ninja Turtle Soup or some Ed (Won) Norton or It-themed item. Oh, well. But I got 6 in so that would probably have been my max anyway.
Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site. This was a decent twist on the hashtags, despite my lack of knowledge of any video games post 1980. And making obscure Watergate and cyclone reference would seem to be a handicap, but I got in 5, so that's pretty good. And I even managed to get political. I mean, villainous covers a wide range of topics.
Recently our company updated our office software. It'll be "transparent" to you, they said. When we opened up our PCs that Monday, there was a lot of stupid changes. I mean, I get "updating" something to make it process faster, interact with other programs better, or run smoother, but how is changing the color of stuff an "update?" And where's my cursor??? I had a lot of opinions concerning our updates. Knowing our tech guys are deaf to our complaints, I decided to vent in a piece of prose that the Weekly Humorist thought was amusing and they published it. So, here are my thoughts on software updates:
Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site. Food puns; Those are fun, right? I mean, to be honest, I didn't get a lot of the jokes, but then my knowledge of appetizers is from Chili's. I've been coming into the games a little late, so I try to check out what's up, as not to repeat or copy anything. But here, someone made a post about the movie 12 Monkeys and I instantly thought monkey bread and we were off to the races. I got 8 picked, so that was good. They didn't pick my favorite. A number of people posted variations on "Artichoke Dip." I decided to flip it and post "Choke Artie Dip." I thought it was cute. Anyway, as we reach the End Times, leave some room for:
Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site. Falling a bit behind, busy digging out from a major snow storm. I almost didn't bother submitting to. It's been very sex-related lately. I guess they have their reasons. I was ready to click off then a joke popped into my head, so I submitted it. Then another, then I did the usual thing, googling a list of space movies and synonyms for "nookie." wound up doing the usual dozen or so and got 7 in. Enjoy!
Because of lack of resources, I’ve taken to “producing” my sketch ideas with AI. This is not a recommended solution. See that logo? AI generated. And yet I had to run it through photoshop to really get it right. Oh, and I just notice the exclamation point at the beginning is the wrong way for Spanish. There were a couple of things I already had to tweak, besides. Now, as for Cake Hoarders, I'm starting to get the hang of it. I picked this material because it is a series of cuts to different people, so I avoid the stress of trying to keep the people looking the same from scene to scene. Based on budget, I had to bounce between creating "talking avatars" and "talking pictures." The first is a video of a person talking and motioning. The second is a very Clutch Cargo effect of lips moving on a picture. The sketch was written for radio, but I actually switched some dialogue to simple visual reactions (the line "whoops" becomes simply a face-palm). And one verbal gag (about reusing material) I turned into a visual gag by actually reusing clips over and over. Subtle? Maybe. But jumping between different AI sites does create different levels of image quality. Still trying to figure out which site is giving me what I need. Some sites are incredibly stupid and not paying attention to me at all! In the end, I think it comes off well. The writing is there, so I hope that carries the audience through. |
Dan FiorellaFreelance writer, still hacking away. Archives
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