Tragedy or Comedy?

1. There's a lot of bad shit going down around the world. But it's always been like that, right? To me, though, the Virginia Tech massacre seems all the more tragic because a lot of them were so young. Dying is awful, but it's worse when it happens to people who haven't had a chance to do everything they want to do. (Tragedy)

2. What's with the Koreans Gone Wild? (Hm, I just thought of an inappropriate spoof* of Girls Gone Wild videos- Comedy). First there's that second year Penn law school student, John Cho, who barged into his downstairs neighbors' apmt door and fired 15 rounds because he thought they were commie spies, or something. Then this Cho Seung-hi guy. Two don't mean a thang, though.

*Word History: We are indebted to a British comedian for the word spoof. Sometime in the 19th century Arthur Roberts (1852-1933) invented a game called Spoof, which involved trickery and nonsense. The first recorded reference to the game in 1884 refers to its revival. It was not long before the word spoof took on the general sense "nonsense, trickery," first recorded in 1889. The verb spoof is first recorded in 1889 as well, in the sense "to deceive." These senses are now less widely used than the noun sense "a light parody or satirical imitation," first recorded in 1958, and the verb sense "to satirize gently," first recorded in 1927.

3. I recently experienced some drama-trauma myself, when my ipod went missing for a full 4 days. (A tale for some later time.) But I got it back yesterday, and when I went home, I scrapped all my evening plans, hooked up my ipod (my baby!) to Sarah's speakers, plopped down on the living room floor and listened to glorious music until well past midnight. For the record, I did, in fact, croon "dear ipod, I've missed you so!" not once, but twice! With feeling! (Near-tragedy)

4. Sanjaya making it into the top 7 in American Idol. (Comedy)

5. Sanjaya singing country. (A Tragedy for the Country music industry, a Comedy for the rest of us)

6. Sanjaya winning American Idol (Tragedy).

7. Ryan Seacrest's look this season just screams "MINI-PAT SAJAK!" They should get him a wheel. (Comedy)

8. A giraffe with a fear of heights. (Tragi-Comedy)