SCIENTIFIC COMEDY CONCLUSION: You don't really need me to spell it out for you, it's pretty clear. My Stand-Up Debut! Place: The Comedy Store. I looked out over the crowd. A sea of smiling faces, buzzing from either the alcohol or the comedy, or some warm combination of the two. The buzz created an energy that I was ready to feed off of with my guaranteed, Science-vetted comedy. I had five minutes. "Hey folks," I said, adjusting the microphone stand to a comfortable level. They clapped politely. I decided to start with Rule 15 of the Reader's Digest article about exaggerating problems. "So I was walking down the street today and I realized that the situation in Darfur is so bad…" "How bad is it," someone in the audience eagerly offered. "It's so bad," I continued, "that all of our attempts to remedy it are useless! I mean is it just me, or are several hundred thousand dead already? Even if the civil war ended, that won't culturally or economically stabilize Sudan. And how about the health situation over there, I mean, what are these, super diseases? Are these super diseases that are wiping everyone out? I think so. There is literally nothing that anyone can do to fix this problem, like, even if the whole world joined together it would do nothing. The tragedy is insurmountable. Or should I say 'insurgentmountable'? Ah, but it's great to be here folks, you all look nice." They weren't exactly laughing, but I wasn't going to let that slow me down. It's not my fault that they're not Science enough to appreciate my comedy. I decided to dumb it up a little bit, and strip my routine down to the basics as determined by the gross-out comedy scientists. "So the other day I was walking down the street and a guy got hit by a bus but he was totally fine after, no real damage done." The crowd stared at me, expressionless. "I said he was fine. And he either marinated or had sex with a dead chicken, depending on where you are with respect to the Cartesian plane. So you guys who are closer to me, you'd laugh a lot, and the rest of you I… I forget, you just want chicken I guess." That got a few nervous chuckles from the crowd, so I decided to turn it up a notch by delivering my next bit with a Swedish accent. "I vas valking down the street the other day. There sure are a lot of differences between white people and black people, am I right? I bet you could make some sharp observations about those differences and highlight a couple of stereotypes if you really put your mind to it. Anyway, my parents just got the Internet for the first time. Can you believe it? They're like, 'email?' It's pretty nutty." I could tell that the audience wasn't totally feeling my Science, which I attributed to the fact that I lost my Swedish accent almost immediately. I really should have practiced, or maybe spent just a few seconds confirming whether or not I'd ever actually heard a Swedish person before. ("No," turns out.) I needed to sneakily consult my notes, so I stalled for time by utilizing