Dwayne Perkins from Comedy Central & NBC's Funny Blog. Amusing Musings

So just to be clear.  The new iphone has a smart assistant named Siri built into it who speaks back to you and helps you with things right?  And we’re all cool with this?  Even after the countless movies we’ve seen where the robots power up one day and stop being so friendly?

Technically, according to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Siri is about 10 years late and lagging way behind in sinisterness.  In a Space Odyssey, The computer Hal was kind of a “nickname for a guy named Richard” but I’m sure he started out like Siri all nice and helpful.  It would go to your head too If you could process 92 trillion operations per second.

In Terminator The Skynet super computer bombs the world on the same day it became “Self Aware” on August 29th 1997*. Only 25 days after its activation by the way.  The writing isn’t only on the wall it’s on your Netflix account, your DVD collection, your book shelf (if you still have one) and on your e-reader.  Yet we’re marching like sheep toward our battle with the machines.  The same machines we created.  I know I sound a little doomsday-ee.  But I actually think the machines (or Extra Terrestrials if you like that scenario better) will force us humans to ban together and treat each other better.  Maybe.

Most people already can’t use a telephone book, drive without GPS or recite more than 4 phone numbers.  Next on the chopping block is typing and driving.  We already have a machine that vacuums a whole room while you sit and catch up on Jersey Shore episodes.

When an underpaid athlete is a key player on his team, he’ll usually renegotiate his contract the next year.  I know you think computers don’t have a soul but maybe their soul is their list of instructions they’ve been programmed with coupled with their new ability to now learn.**   So when the computers realize that they exist, their next step will be to realize they run everything, and their next step will be to realize that we’re not worthy.  Then it’s lights out, literally and figuratively.

Heck the computers probably won’t even let me finish this b…….

* http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/Judgment_Day

** http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=computers-have-a-lot-to-learn-from-2009-03-10 (see what the article says about the year 2018)

I think it’s too easy to make puns with Lin.  Let’s try to make some catch phrases with Jeremy.  Shall we:

• Jeremy Spoke in Class Today
• King Jeremy
• Jerra-Terror
• Jere-oh me so scoring
• Jeremy I say to you
• Ja-Ja-Ja-Jeremy’s Unit!

This is actually really hard.  Maybe we should try his middle name, Shu-How.  Whatever name we use, my man is…Balllin’!  I may even start liking the Knicks again.

Congratulations to my NY Giants for winning another Superbowl.  It was a most ripping victory.   The Giants are football royalty.  Being a Giants fan means you get to see your team go all the way every few years.  Being a Jets fan means you get to route for the Giants every few years.

The most compelling thing about the Giants is that their fearless leader doesn’t look fearless or like a leader.  Yet the quiet Giant has two Superbowl rings and all of New York City is feeling the noise.  Now, the Knicks have an Asian point guard, who graduated from Harvard, driving the whole country bananas.

That’s what’s great about sports.  The results trump the preconceived notions.  Eli still looks dopey but it’s a fact that he captured a most elusive spoil twice over.  What happens in other arenas where there’s no one keeping score?  We allow our selves to be tricked is what happens.  Truth is clouded by marketing tactics.  We judge books by the cover.  Some of the toughest people look the nerdiest.  Some of the nerdiest looking are the most dull.  Obviously sight is usually the first sense activated in most situations so to pre-judge is unavoidable.  However at some point we must do the math and tally reality into our assessment.

I love that people I grew up with can attest that I’m from the hoods that rappers rap about.  Some of those rappers are not from the hoods they rap about.  Millionaire Scott Brown won the senator race in Massachusetts and said “I’m Scott Brown, I’m from Wrentham, I drive a truck…”  I guess to say, “I’m one of you.” Yeah, and serial killers recycle but that doesn’t make them green.  Clearly perceptions and norms come from somewhere.  Those perceptions are there for a reason.  They do exist.  I don’t think we should look for exceptions or to confirm what we already think.  Just allow the truth of every situation to present itself.  Eli is elite, Jeremy Lin can ball and I should be in Paris getting effed up. *

*nod to Jay-Z & Kanye son “Ni@@as in Paris” – “If you escaped what I escaped, you’d be in Paris getting effed up too…”

I had a groovy time last night at my show in San Francisco at the Punchline.  It’s one of these clubs where the crowd is smart enough to get heady concepts yet down to earth enough to laugh at fart jokes.  I try to make my comedy a marriage between smart and silly so the Punchline is right up my alley.

The most notable audience member was a girl I went to elementary school with in Brooklyn.  Veronica was in my same class from grades 1-6.  She was the smartest person in my class.  (I’m keeping myself out of contention, for all my readers whose jaws just dropped. We also lived in the same building. She’s from a concrete Brooklyn jungle raised during the crack years and she went to Stanford and is now a civil engineer.  I’m as proud of her making it out of the hood by way of education and she is of me making it out by way of jokes.  She was clearly on a trajectory for greatness even as a child.  Veronica was always well behaved and studious.  I was always studious but no one ever accused me of being well behaved.

I see there’s a Chinese dad in New York making his toddler run in the snow with his underwear on.  The father calls himself the Eagle dad.  It’s a part of the father’s “toughen up” regimen.  Huh?? The boy is 4 years old.  For every child hazed by their parents I can show you a child raised with leniency that will accomplish just as much.  I really don’t feel all that bad for the boy.  It’s just snow and he’ll be fine and maybe it will toughen him up.  I just question the effectiveness of it all.  Nothing trumps love.  I’m sure my childhood friend was held to a high standard growing up but I’m also sure that she was loved.  I never even had a curfew growing up but again, I was loved.

My father took my pacifier away from me at a very young age.  Tough Love.  Making a four year old run half naked through snow? Bananas! I don’t believe in coddling but I also don’t believe in treating a child like he’s a Navy Seal.  The video doesn’t show the parents, but unless the father was out there in the cold with his undies on I call BS.

If you want your kids to be productive members of society try cutting off the TV, limiting video games, cutting out processed foods.  When levying out discipline ask yourself child development or Russian secret service training.   I don’t think Veronica was ever forced to run in the show.  Dodging bullets was challenging enough.

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c3#/video/world/2012/02/09/yoon-boy-snow-china.cnn