Living with a big family

The stand-up comedy routine by Brian Regan titled “Big Family Stuff” is particularly funny to me because being in a large family I have been in some of these situations or situations like the ones he describes. When he mentioned the story when his brothers did not let him play games with them, I immediately thought about a time when my brother Tom was having a party in our back yard so me and my sister had to stay upstairs or stay out of the way because it was a “big kid” party. Tom was a sophomore in high school and I was in fourth grade while Laura was in sixth grade. So it really wasn’t right that “Tom’s little sisters” were at the party. Well, Laura and I did not like this decision so we thought we asked politely if we could be at the party with everyone else and he still said no! As my room is over-looking the pool in our back yard and it was pool party, we thought my brother and his friends should have water balloons at their party! Just as Brian said his brothers didn’t let him play games and then he played a trick on them, my brother didn’t let me and Laura come to the party so we played a trick on Tom.
The scene he puts in your mind when one of the other kids got hurt, I remembered when my sister fell off her bike and although she didn’t break her arm, she skinned up both of her knees really bad. Our friends Lauren and Heather were outside playing as well and the three of us did not want to tell mom what had happened because we were supposed to be doing our homework anyway.
When Brian Regan talks about the situation with a big family you have to call your possessions, it is true. If a Laura goes to the kitchen to get a snack or something, she says, “Dibs on the remote and the chair”. Of course I listen to what she says because she is older than me and I am being nice to let her have it, but when I say, “Dibs on the remote and the chair”, normally, it isn’t before I’m out of the room that she took both of them. And it doesn’t exactly work the “I call the hump!” I always ended up on the hump no matter what I did.

Robin Williams on Golf

The stand-up comedians normally discuss a simple part of life and make it funny discussing the small stupid stuff people do in life. Robin Williams is an actor and stand-up comedian who is able to describe the simple game of golf in a very funny way. He says, “The way you play golf is you hit a small ball into a gofer hole. Is this hole close?! Fuck No! It is hundreds of yards away!” It is very funny because he asks questions and answers them himself. When he answers his own questions, which is part of the reason he is so funny.
Robin Williams was able to incorporate his audience into the conversation about the game of golf because everybody knows the concept of the game of golf and can relate to it. Everyone has the same feeling of getting very frustrated when they are unable to hit the ball or unable to the ball into the hole. When he made the comment about a person thinks they are going to have a stroke every time they hit the ball and that is why they call it a stroke. I laughed really hard because I actually play golf and I know the feeling.
What makes Robin Williams’ performance unique is the way he describes every time he says no to the questions asked, he always answers, “Fuck No”! He also comments on the stereotype of the Scottish people wearing kilts and playing golf and the accent they have. His stand-up comedian act would not be the same without his accent. They mention the clothes that the golfers wear, the lack of athletic ability, and the commentary of the professional golf association.
Robin Williams, like most other stand up comedians, fluctuates his voice and changes his voice when he does an accent or is being another character. He puts on the accent of a person from Scotland throughout the entire act because he is being a Scottish act until the last 20 seconds of the act.

conscience=little person inside of you:)

Mary Twain turns the message of “a conscience is actually good for making people behave” into a joke. He does this because he does not believe that the conscience is the main thing that controls everything you do. He makes the joke that whenever his grandmother comes over and starts to yell at him about the smoking, his conscience gets very groggy, tired, and then falls asleep. I guess he is saying that his conscience does not care at all about his grandmother or he is saying he does not care at all when someone tells him how bad it is for him and for him to stop smoking .
When he makes a joke of this message, he is doing so because he does not believe that the conscience can control the actions of a person. He believes that it is a little person inside of you that you can ignore and can just put away whenever you want to. The way he puts it in the story, a person can control his conscience, the conscience does not control the person. He is frightened though when his “little person” of a conscience freaks out when something he has done bad is thought to be extremely bad. Normally the actions he does feel bad about are very minuscule and would not mean anything to a person if they were not the person who actually committed the action. He is frightened at the beginning of the story because the little person of a conscience tells him that he has cheated the woman out of food when it was there and he also told the lady that the chef was not in the kitchen when he was right on the other side of the wall in the kitchen. When the conscience tells him this, it frightens him because he was the only person who knew that the woman asked for food and that the chef was there.

confusing love...wait, its all confusing. Raterman's Blog

I truly and fully believe that Cyrano loves most truly in the book “Cyrano de Bergerac”. There are very few people who would be able to write love letters to a person who they do not truly love. The letters are a way Cyrano shows his love for the woman he is madly in love with without him saying it to her directly. The woman he is writing letters to is Roxane. Cyrano starts out by telling his friend, Christian that he can write letters to Roxane for him but then Cyrano writes Roxane without telling Christian. He is telling Roxane whatever he wants and is putting Christian’s name on the note. This has him get his feelings “out”. He is just saying the words he feels by signing another person’s name to it. He is using his words but is having another person’s name on the work.
As Cyrano is trying to express his friend’s (Christian) strong and love feelings for Roxane by writing letters to Roxane, he finds himself falling him in love with her. There is no possible way Cyrano would be able to write such passionate and heartfelt letters to this woman without feeling some strong feelings toward her.
When Roxane tells Christian she is not in love with only his face but also with the words he wrote to her, it is then that he knows then that Roxane is in love with Cyrano. Christian knew that Roxane was not in love with him anymore when she said, “ I would love you even if you weren’t beautiful”. She was saying that although she was at first shallow and was just in love with his looks, after hearing “his” words he wrote to her, she was in love with the words he wrote and his heart. Even though Roxane might not even know that he is in love with Cyrano, it is true. She is in love with Cyrano because Roxane is in love with the heart that wrote the beautiful words which she read and those beautiful words were written by Cyrano.

conservationists vs soldiers

In the chapter “Rare or Medium Rare?”, Adams describes the obsessive passion of the conservationists of Mauritius in the terms of war. These people, who are described as “passionately obsessed”, are described this way because they love the animals so much. They connect it to the terms of war when they say they are “They loved them with an extraordinary fervour, and had devoted their entire adult lives to working in the field, often in awful conditions and on horribly low budgets, to save rare birds, and the environments they live in, from extinction.” They make this connection saying it is like war because people who fight in a war have to love what they are doing. The conservationists love the work that they do as well because a person who would not like this field of work would never go into this work.
The connections these two work fields have in common vary. They both require long hours of hard work. They both require being away from their family. They both earn horribly low budgets for the work they do. The environments each of these people work in are very extreme and extremely dangerous at different times.
The effects this comment may have on a reader include more respect for soldiers, if they are more educated about the conservationists of Mauritius. On the other side of this, a person may have more respect for the conservationists of Mauritius if they are more educated about the soldiers that fight in war. The persons respect for the conservationists or the soldiers increased because they realize how much hard work, total dedication, and love for the activity is needed.
In conclusion, the reason Adams described the obsessive passion of the conservationists of Mauritius the way he does is because he is trying to make a point that both are hard fields of work and they both require a love for the job they have.

He's going to be a Character...whatever the hell that means!

Vonnegut is trying to make the point that people are discouraged to be something other than plain and boring. They are encouraged to be just like everyone else. Earlier in the passage, Campbell is trying to convince the American men to go with his group and fight the Communists. People were being cowards when they did not stand up for what they believed in and let Campbell just walk all over them.
The line stated, “People are discouraged from being characters.” This means that people were discouraged to be their own person and stand up for their beliefs, whatever their beliefs may be. They are also discouraged to be their “own person”. When you think of a character, you normally think that you will remember them for something special that they did, whether it be very bad or heroic. In this case, Derby was a character hero in the sense that he stood up for his beliefs and did not let Campbell walk all over the entire group in the slaughterhouse. He did not let Campbell talk to the group of American soldiers like they are animals.
When people are discouraged to be characters, they are told to be boring, bland, and like everyone else. People are discouraged from being characters because they authority is scared of what actions those not in authority will take. The authority puts such a threat on the people to not be characters the people listen and the authorities do not have to do anything.
As Derby did take action and did speak up for the group in the slaughterhouse, he was a character and was something other than just another bystander. He told Campbell what he thought because he was fed up with the crap that they all were being put through. By him standing up, he is a character.

Private Eddie D. Slovik

In Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut mentions Private Eddie D. Slovik. Private Eddie D. Slovik was drafted to war and like many people, did not want to be there. Not all people are “cut out for combat”. Some people are physically not strong enough to be a soldier and then on the other hand, some people are not strong enough mentally to be a soldier. Private Eddie D. Slovik was on his way to France when his platoon assigned and then him and his friend, John Tankey, took cover because of an artillery attack and they became separated from their group. Tankey wrote to their regiment to explain how they were late and everything was okay. The next morning, Private Slovik realized that he “was not cut out for combat” so he decided to write a letter to Captain Ralph Grotte and tell him he was too scared to be in the rifle company and was asked to be reassigned. When the Captain said no, the next day Slovik was gone. When he approached an enlisted cook after walking several miles, he gave the cook his note. After Slovik refused to rip up the note, he was brought before the Lieutenant Colonel and when he still refused, he was forced to write he understands the consequences of deliberately incriminating himself and he would get a court martial. The execution was by a firing squad and he claimed it was not because of him deserting his country, it was because he stole a piece of bread when he was 12.
Private Eddie D. Slovik was mentioned in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughter-House- Five because Vonnegut was trying to make a point that not all people are strong enough to be a soldier. Private Slovik ran away because he was not strong enough and he was scared. Vonnegut was making a point that people have to go to war no matter how they feel about the war. They can completely dispise the fact that there is war and they still have to go.

Duck song :)

The song “Sex with Ducks” by Garfunkle and Oates is a song which says protecting the rights of two people having a gay marriage legal is basically the same concept as protecting the rights of a person who wants to have sex with a duck. This song says it is just ridiculous. It can be considered art because this piece rhymes and uses the perfect words to convey the message that protecting the rights of two people having sexual relations is utterly absurd. In the song, they mention that Pat Robertson said “it’s a long downward slide that will lead to legalizing sex with ducks if 2 men can stand side by side.” This quote says that if 2 men or 2 women eventually are able to legally marry, they will legalize anything and anything will happen; even having sex with ducks will be legal. The words used can be crude but are said to make a point. Although some find it offensive, it is just another person making their point. They are trying to say their point not just through words in a sentence but turn it into a song. When people say their thoughts, less people become offensive than when they are said rather than sang. As the song goes on, they become creative with different ways the duck would have sex or innuendos. I guess the “Sex with Ducks” song is less offensive because this is funny and it is beautiful because of the music with the song. It is also less offensive because it does not necessarily use offensive language as it does use sentences that a person would look twice at and think or ask themselves, “What was the person thinking when they wrote this song?” As some people would be offended if a story was read with this same story, people are not as offended listening to the song.

Carol Raterman's Blog :)

I laughed more at the scene from Emma when I watched it. The scene was a lot easier to follow and to understand seeing the actors and actresses faces. As Emma said to Miss Bates, “But there may be difficulty. Pardon me- but you will be limited as to number-only three at once.” She was laughing because she was making fun of how boring of a personality Miss Bates has.
In the movie, Miss Bates, at first, shows that she is not bothered by what Emma said; but that is because she did not fully understand what she said. Miss Bates shows her pain after a few moments because she finally understood what Emma was talking about. The audience laughs at the fact that we are not the one in the situation. We are laughing at the fact that Miss Bates is the ‘boring’ one who is being picked on by Emma. Emma wants to bring back the attention to her when she is first making the game and then the cruel comment.
The quote by Thomas Hobbes reads, “It is incident most to them that are conscious of the fewest abilities in themselves; who are forced to keep themselves in their own favour by observing the imperfections of other men.” This means that the person is looking for the flaws in other people to be happy with who they are as people. When a Emma laughs at Miss Bates, Emma laughs because she wants to be happy with who she is. The quote then says, “And therefore much laughter at the defects of others is a sign of pusillanimity. For of great minds one of the proper works is to help and free others from scorn, and compare themselves only with the most able.” Hobbes is saying that people laugh because they do not have the other person’s problems. Emma laughs at Miss Bates because Miss Bates has a quality that Emma is happy she does not have.

Laughter is contagious. Like the flu...but better:)

Carol Raterman
People laugh for many different reasons. The reason Robert Provine gives is shown through his quote which says, “Another attraction of laughter is its remarkable contagiousness. Think of the last time you sat in an audience, laughing and letting the waves of laughter wash over you. A pleasant experience- one of life’s best. But consider now the primal nature of the animal chorus and the way the members of the audience synchronize their noises. How odd that we can’t help laughing when we hear others laugh!”
Some people have very contagious laughs and people around them cannot help but laugh when they hear it. It is very good to be around people with contagious laughs because if a person is upset and is around a contagious laugh, it makes the person happier because they cannot help but laugh.
When a person is in an audience, normally the actor or actress says something to make the crowd laugh. As a few people laugh, it spreads throughout the room and eventually, the entire room is filled with laughter. The reason the room fills with laughter is because either many people found the comment or joke funny, or a few different people had contagious laughs, or some of both.
Laughing is healthy because it improves a person’s spirit if they are in a poor or sour mood. As a person is laughing, they are temporarily forgetting about their problems and are expressing happiness. As a group of people are watching a movie, the contagiousness of laughter is what makes the few people who do not find the comedy funny laugh. They are laughing because they cannot help but laugh.
Robert Provine had a point when he said that laughing was a pleasant experience- one of life’s best. He was saying that it feels so good to laugh and not many other experiences are better than laughing and I definitely agree.