Ammon Brown
Ammon Brown's Humble Blog

I don’t consider this my best show, but it is all new jokes. Enjoy.

I just did another show at Caroline’s, and I think it went really well. I focused on maintaining eye contact, having more energy, pausing for the inevitable laughs, and staying in one place. I should have the video shortly, so I will get it posted as soon as I can. Few other updates, as I don’t want to bump the last video off the front page!

I promised I would post it, so post it I shall. This is my 5 minute bit from May 18th at Caroline’s on Broadway. My next show is this Monday, the 16th, also at Caroline’s. Enjoy!

So the day finally came and I did my stand-up comedy routine at Caroline’s on Boradway. I think I did well and I had a great time. So great, in fact, that I plan on doing it again. This weekend. At Comix. Feel free to book tickets for $10 (they are $15 at the door) then call ahead to 212-524-2500 in order to get on my guest list. Should be a blast! I’ll post a video of the performance at Caroline’s when I get it. I have also been invited back to Caroline’s on June 16th, so I’ll get details on that soon. Laugh hard!

There, I said it. It’s true. Sometimes America sucks. It sucks to travel overseas and feel embarrassed to be American. Yes, I feel proud to be American, but it is an overabundance of pride that gets us a lousy reputation. It is sort of sad when you meet someone in a foreign country and they are shocked that an American could actually be a person they would want to know. I was in my corner store this weekend and I told the clerk that I thought it was cool that they had Saudi money taped on the wall. He was amazed that I knew it was Saudi because I could recognize King Faud. Are we really so solipsist that people are floored when we acknowledge something beyond our borders?

But I digress, this was not the point of this post. I began thinking that America sucks because we are so litigious. We took our dog to the beach yesterday. Actually, we drove our dog an hour to a beach, illegally allowed him to set foot on the boardwalk, and then hustled him off the sand when he illegally jumped onto it. We looked for a beach that allows dogs for about an hour. None to be found. I asked a cop and he had no idea if such a thing existed. He also confirmed my suspicion that it is due to fear of lawsuits that dogs are not allowed. This is not an irrational fear. If the media is to be believed, Americans sue at the drop of a hat. And for you non-dog-loving folk out there, they also ban kites at nearly all of the beaches. You can’t fly a kite at the beach for fear of litigation.

I am not going to go into the whole debate of whether we are too litigious and whether that is good or bad. You can read fun stuff on that here, here, here, and here. These links are a pretty wide spectrum of ideas, I try to include all sides.

No, what I want to do is propose a solution. In a book I am reading, Nudge, the authors propose an optional “no-sue” clause for doctors and patients in order to discount medical care and prevent overly-cautious medicine. My proposal is similar. At my beach, let’s call it Liberty Beach (oh, I loves me some jingoism!), there will be a huge sign: “Warning: You are entering a no-sue zone. Alcohol, dogs, kite flying, nudity, radio playing, and any other activity that does not physically harm the beach or other people is expressly allowed. By entering, you waive your right to sue. If you don’t like it, go elsewhere. Jerk.” Sure, there have to be some rules. People are largely stupid and pathologically lack personal accountability, so you have to police it a bit. But the idea is simply that as a condition of entry, you accept that shit might happen, as it tends to do. And that you are OK with that. I would gladly exchange my freedom to file a frivolous lawsuit for the freedom to take my dog on a beach. That just sounds like good economics to me.

I have no doubt that this is likely a complete fantasy and 99% infeasible. Most people are not intelligent or self-aware enough to accept complete freedom, they need rules. The rest are libertarians. However, it would be nice to live on Liberty Beach and play fetch naked while drinking, listening to a radio, and flying a kite without fear of the sight of my naked ass causing millions of dollars worth of emotional distress and/or pain and suffering. Again.

EDIT: More US tomfoolery here and here.

A few weeks ago I blogged about a cheat I developed for Boggle (or Scramble, whatever). Well, I guess I will post the link. It was a fun little project at the time, and hopefully you will enjoy it, too… for recreational purposes only. So here is my Scramble and Boggle Cheat. Enjoy.

I also developed and honed a program a few months ago to pull potential geographic modifiers for search keywords out of a database of zip codes. It was helpful for a few things I was doing at the time and a friend requested the link. I figured I would post it here as well. You can check out the GeoTerm Generator here. Should be self-explanatory.

Geez, one would think that my life is actually interesting lately. I am planning another paintball excursion, but this time with bus charter! Check it out here.

I am also going to be doing a 5 minute set of stand-up comedy at Caroline’s on Broadway on May 18th at 4:30. Book early! Call 212-757-4100 and book the 4:00 show on May 18th and mention that you are there to see Ammon Brown. Please show up at 3:45 PM. I may do a few open mics between now and then to warm up, so I’ll update this as necessary.

My brother is also moving back to NYC next week, so this is shaping up to be an awesome summer!

Anyone who knows me knows I hate the subway during rush hour (I know, drama-bomb!). Riding the train puts the ugly stupidity of crowds on display. My favorites are the people who crowd to the door to be the first one on… and then stop and stand right inside the door. Or the people who are so anxious to get on the train they start pushing past the people trying to get off. People just don’t get it. But they do get a solid passive-aggressive shoulder thump from me.

So now I am doing something about it. I bought a bike Saturday and timed my ride to work on Sunday. It took me 49 minutes to go the 7.5 miles to work. That is about what the train averages. Once I am in better shape I can likely do it in 35 minutes. So yesterday and today I rode to work. Yesterday was 40+ minutes. Today was closer to 50-55 minutes due to ridiculously sore quadriceps.

However, the ride is quite pleasant (except for the exhaust from the west side heliport). I get to ride across the Brooklyn Bridge and up the west side highway bike path, avoiding most traffic lights. I was always worried about sweating like Pavorati on a treadmill, but it is not too bad. After 10 minutes at work I am good to go. I really have no goals with this, I just want to save the $80 per month on a metrocard, lose the 20 extra pounds my desk job has bestowed upon me, and get sexier than Fabio and Clooney combined. My happy-fun route is below, courtesy of MapMyRide.com.

So I started playing the scramble game on facebook recently. I am a big scrabble player so it appeals to me. I got to thinking that this would make an interesting computer science problem. So I put my puny little mind to it and came up with a script that not only uses the Scramble dictionary to find every possible word, but can also type hundreds of words into the text box in under thirty seconds. I have been testing it and it is close to 100% accurate. I am such a complete and utter nerd I just cannot believe myself. There was no real reason to do this, it just seemed like a fun challenge, which it was. I have still not decided whether to post a link to the script publicly, as that may kill a fun game. Sort of the way bots are threatening online poker. If I do post it then I will go into detail about some of the novel and elegant (I think) ways I solved a few programming problems.

The most fun is when I cheat and get scores in excess of 1500 points (average is less than 100), I get all kinds of mixed reactions from people in the chat box. Some get pissed off, some get very amused, some try to rather loudly ignore me, and some beg and plead for me to divulge my secret. The best by far are the people who see my score and say, “Wow, you are a fast typist!” or “Hey… is that guy cheating?” The funny thing is, I am too embarrassed to admit that I did this on a complete lark just for gits and shiggles. I tell people it is for a computer science class. So I am a cheater and a liar to boot! This little computer science experiment has turned into an interesting psychology experiment, as well. For me and my “victims”.