Terminalcoffee discussion

Althought I read a lot of Sf, mysteries and history, every now and then I like a completely light humorous book just to have a good laugh while reading.

Your comedy suggestions, my friends?

Here's my "may make you laugh" shelf, Mary...

http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/...

i'm a sucker for Palahniuk, but you have to have a strong constitution for some of his stuff, he tends to be on the graphic side, yet most of it is with a purpose.. most of his stuff are easy reads, people complain about how he isn't a good writer as far as logistics go, but he has quite a way with words and the points are good as well for the most part.. Fightclub and Choke are my favorites though i do like Rant and Haunted a lot, though haunted had more potential then i think he gave it, and his latest Pygmy isnt as bad as his worst but its a little different then a lot of his stuff..

http://chuckpalahniuk.net/books/haunt...

thats a link to a short story from haunted called guts.. to give you an idea of his style.. that is if you havent read him before.. its good stuff..

Haven Kimmel - A Girl Named Zippy and She Got Off Of The Couch and also anything written by any gay guy. they are always funny (ie: see david sedaris)

John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces is the funniest novel you will ever read.

I loved Confederacy of Dunces too...the book seems to be one of those highly divisive (sp?) books around GR...looking through my friends' reviews I can see Lori didn't finish the book and Jackie didn't like the gas angle.:)

Them folk who don' like A Confederacy of Dunces is jus' Communiss...

Carl Hiaasen is very funny.

I find Augusten Burroughs can be quite funny.

But the best at making me guffaw is A.J. Jacobs.

I thought The Know-It All was pretty good, sure...

Ha...yes, Gus and KD, get the wrong (or right?) people together, and the conversation is one long reference to Confederacy of Dunces, complete with valves, pirates, and hot dog cart bicycles...heh.

The Year of Living Biblically was pretty great too.

Confederacy of Dunces gave me the hiccups I found it so funny.

Speaking of humor, my nine year old son just asked his brother to shake his hand...and shakes his hand the entire time...as he said this...

Nine year old: Do you have a house?
Six year old: Yes.
Nine year old: I have a box. Do you have a toilet?
Six year old: Yes.
Nine year old: I have a hole. Do you have toilet paper?
Six year old: Yes.
Nine year old: I have a hand.

i agree with sally tonight. aj jacobs and augusten burroughs

has no one read the Zippy book?

RA - see, that kind of stuff is always funny. my fav is this:

you tell someone you heard if their hand is bigger than their face they might get cancer. then when they put their hand up onto their face to measure, you shove their arm and smash their palm into their own face. A HOOT!

man i was a hilarious 12 year old

The Importance of Being Earnest is pretty awesome. I have yet to finish Confederacy of Dunces, although it's on my list (I didn't get very far... I stopped reading around the masturbation scene).

RA: Oh man, that's hilarious. I pulled something similar on a new friend when I was in India, actually. As we were parting, he shook my hand and then placed his left hand on top of my hand. I just kinda looked at it and then went, "... You're still using toilet paper, aren't you?" He was flabbergasted until I explained that for about a month after you go toilet-paperless, you don't do anything with your left hand (consensus of my friends, maybe Kevin can enlighten us if this was the case on his travels), and he had been in India for like a month.

I found Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen by Marilyn Chin very hilarious, especially if you're familiar with the Chinese-American who owns a Chinese restaurant/crazy Chinese grandmother stereotype.

OH! Duh. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy! Especially if you're into science-fiction.

Ha...Angie...what if you're left-handed?

Kevin, I think my nine year old will be using this on people for at least 72 hours. I'll teach him the hand in the face one today...

angie - right hand clean everywhere i go. you use your left hand to clean yourself with so you keep your right hand "clean" for eating, shaking and touching people. if you put a left hand on someone it skeeves them way out. the places i have been in africa, china and central america it is the same. even in china the right hand is kept separate it seems. this goes way back i understand primarily for hygiene reasons but has become almost religious or symbolic. it is talked about in the bible and other religious writings. (christians - ever heard of the "right hand" of christian fellowship?) it is a practical way to have a same mind-set for a semblance of cleanliness. i have been in many villages around the world where utensils are not used (you scoop the food, primarily soupy rice, up and form a ball with it and roll it into your mouth) and also have eaten where you squat down on the ground around a central bowl and each eat your "wedge" of food. in this case it becomes even more crucial that your right hand is clean and that you are trusted to put it in the same bowl. you never see anyone using their left hand, in fact it is somewhat tucked away. as an example of how this is ingrained even in us, try extending your left hand out to shake when you meet someone. totally wonky feeling if someone does this to you (unless they only possess a left hand/arm)

almost as weird is that in MOST 3rd world countries, even if they do have regular "western" toilets, they do not flush used toilet paper. there is a basket or can next to it for you to put it in. this is primarily because their infrastructure is not designed for that much waste and it can clog up the whole system. surprising it does not seem to smell that bad.

and don't get me started on chinese squat style toilets! (i have one very funny but sorta crude story about the facilities in a village way out in La Moskitia...)

I totally agree Ignatius Reilly was so obnoxious that you just want to strangle him. But his character appealed to the misanthrope in me who feels stifled by norms and conventions; hell, sometimes I feel like I'm an ignored genius like Ignatius. I think that's the reason why I also love Larry David.

Most annoying character ever? Duh...that's Holden Caulfield.

Kevin, I love Haven Kimmel. Zippy was great, as was her novel, Something Rising (Fast and Swift).

I must be the only person alive that's never read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or any Douglas Adams.

Kevin "El Liso Grande" wrote: "angie - right hand clean everywhere i go. you use your left hand to clean yourself with so you keep your right hand "clean" for eating, shaking and touching people. if you put a left hand on someon..."

I've heard... interesting stories about Chinese toilets. But yup, our situations mirror each other, except when people would make rice and dal balls on the Indian trains, they'd give foreigners spoons and I'd use those.

The Deer Park Institute in Himachal actually has a room full of plastic. They recycle everything they can, have the bin for toilet paper, all that... and any time someone brings plastic and tries to throw it away, they store it in a room because they can't recycle it. They're waiting for the day they can, but until they figure something out, it just gets stuck in the room. This includes pop bottles, bags of chips, juice boxes (apparently the worse)...

Gus: READ IT. It's not for everyone, but if you google some of Douglas Adams' stories and quotes, you might get hooked. If not, that's okay too, because British humor (humour, really) isn't for everyone.

how bout staring at this after a long night of full grain alcohol, sea snails and turtle soup?

Honestly, the sea snails bother me more than the toilet. (Have you ever tried balut?)

I love the really fancy squat toilets. I've seen some really nice porcelain ones that look more like a water decoration than a toilet, with pretty blue tile and a continuous waterfall.

... At least, I hope that was the toilet.