Surprise update.

You'll still get the weekly post tomorrow, but this is a topic that demanded immediate attention.

People who think they are funny, who actually aren't.

I had the misfortune of meeting two yesterday. A professor who thought he was being clever by making as many bad puns as possible, and a student who spent the entire class period spitting game at every girl within earshot, and making as many bad jokes as possible.

Addressing #1
Puns are the lowest quality of humor. They immediately say to the world "Hi! Im not clever enough to actually create a joke from nothing, so instead Im going to take what you just said and make a bad play on words about it." They are funny, ONCE. If you make one pun over the course of a day, excuse yourself for the bad joke, tell it anyway, and move on. Everyone will remeber you as someone with a sense of humor, granted, not a good sense of humor, but a sense of humor atleast. If the only humor you can get out is puns, you need to stop trying to be funny. Puns are "groaner" jokes. Everyone gets it, but only the person telling the joke thinks it's funny. Move on with your life. You aren't funny, get over it, please stop making the rest of the world suffer.

#2
Is a slightly different topic, bad jokes remain the same, but moreso I am addressing the bad character displayed by trying to be the center of attention. People as a whole are fairly democratic in how they like to divide their attention, they inherintly feel that everyone deserves their own time in the limelight, and as long as you don't interrupt their own time, everything is kosher.
People like this young man feel that they should always be in the limelight, and to hell with everyone else.
*rolls up newspaper*
No!
*hits with newspaper*

This is a bad quality to have and the only people it attracts are people who want attention, the same attention that you want from them, so what ends up happening is you get two people who feel like they are in the spotlight, and never actually pay attention to anyone else, or eachother.

More than that, it's highly irritating to everyone else who actually listens to what other people say. We pay attention, we notice every thing that you do wrong, because you won't give up the spotlight. So we all spot each of your bad qualities rather quickly and soon have no interest in listening to you anymore. Sucks to be you.
Life sucks, wear a hat.

In closing, being funny is not about being able to recite a joke, or make a play on words, or cut down on other people. It's about paying attention to other people and knowing what will make them laugh. Good comedians watch their audience, they pay attention early on to what jokes elicit what noises from the audience. If a joke elicits boos, they clearly avoid jokes like that, if a joke elicits groans, maybe risk one more, but don't press your luck. The art of making other people laugh is not about making yourself feel important, it's about making everyone else feel better than they were feeling before.