The 50 Funniest States

I was at the Renaissance Festival last weekend, and so I did Ren Fest-type things. I ate food on a stick. I made fun of people wearing bad costumes. I bought a sword (yeah!). And I went to see the mud show. Love the mud show.

Naturally, the mud show was exactly the same as last year (mud shows don't change much), except for one line that changes at each show, when one of the actors declares to an audience member "I love you with a love that's illegal in 49 states - thank God for Alabama!" Except, of course, it's not always Alabama. Sometimes it's Tennessee, or Georgia. Because these states are funny, for a variety of reasons, both in rural identity and general amusement factor of its population. Which made me wonder, what's the funniest state?

Let's say you had a generic joke, for which the punchline was "Well, I guess that's the case - unless you're from (name of state)!" Or perhaps one where it was "Well, that's not the way I ever did it - but then, I'm from (name of state)." What would the funniest state to put in that slot? I thought about it for a while, and here's what I've come up with.

1. New Jersey
2. Alabama
3. Minnesota
4. North Dakota
5. Alaska
6. Kentucky
7. Texas
8. Georgia
9. California
10. Tennessee
11. West Virginia
12. Mississippi
13. Vermont
14. Idaho
15. Utah
16. Rhode Island
17. South Dakota
18. Louisiana
19. Florida
20. Virginia
21. South Carolina
22. New York
23. Delaware
24. North Carolina
25. New Hampshire
26. Iowa
27. Arizona
28. Indiana
29. Maine
30. Oklahoma
31. Connecticut
32. Montana
33. Wyoming
34. Arkansas
35. Ohio
36. Wisconsin
37. Nevada
38. Illinois
39. Kansas
40. Massachusetts
41. Maryland
42. Oregon
43. Nebraska
44. Missouri
45. Colorado
46. Michigan
47. Pennsylvania
48. New Mexico
49. Hawaii
50. Washington

Scientific Breakdown: It turned out there was almost nothing funny about Washington. Weird, right? There's a giant differential between North Dakota and South Dakota, because North Dakota turned out to be much funnier, while the Carolinas were much closer together. Arizona got a huge jump on New Mexico, because "Arizona" is so much funnier to say, and New Mexico is really a one-joke state.

Why is Ohio so much funnier than Michigan? I don't know. But it just is.

This was fun. I might do another one.

But a less vicious version...

My cat was declawed today, and is now limping around my apartment on his hindquarters, holding his front paws out gingerly and flinching whenever they touch anything. I wasn't able to get a picture of him in motion, but when he's walking, he looks for all the world like a sad, furry velociraptor.

The vet told me to replace all the cat litter with shredded newspaper, so I surreptitiously grabbed pile of one of the free newspapers at HEB and ripped them up. While tearing through them, I glanced at the stories offhandedly - an interview with TV anchor James Brown, an Al Sharpton retrospective, a discussion of the exorbitant prison terms handed to black teenagers. "Man, there's a lot of black people in this issue." It was at this point that I paused and looked at the newspaper heading, and realized I was tearing up The Defender, a local African-American issues weekly. Which made me feel vaguelly racist, as if I'd subconciously grabbed the issue in order to destroy the newsletter out of spite. "Take that, James Brown, and your smoothly cheerful broadcasting style!"

A bad, bad week in fantasy football

Some weeks you get lucky, other weeks you don't. I couldn't have done much worse than I did in Fantasy Football this week:

I started Mike Sims-Walker (deactivated for partying the night before, 0 points) in several leagues, over such players as Cedric Benson (27 carries for 120 yards and a touchdown, 19 points) and Roddy White (8 catches for 210 yards and 2 touchdowns, 33 points), and made the last-second decision to start a banged-up Calvin Johnson (1 catch for 2 yards, 0 points) over Ahmad Bradshaw (11 carries for 110 yards and 2 touchdowns, 28 points) in two separate leagues, one of which I lost by a single point.

The problem with liking certain players is that you always end up picking them up over and over again, and then getting crushed when they disappoint.

For example, I started David Garrard (181 yards, 0 touchdowns, 3 points) in more than half the leagues I'm in this last week. Sigh.