Today on Oprah: David Blaine holds his breath. That's it. I quit. →[More:] I cannot write anything funnier than that. I know a few people who can, but their jobs are just getting harder and harder. Dave Barry figured out the formula for lazy humor writing years ago; find something ridiculous, quote it verbatim, add "I'm not making this up", profit! FARK's snarky headline writing has narrowed down to 6 or 7 repetitive running jokes. I've heard that Bill O'Reilly and Stephen Colbert are now sharing the same writing staff. Why not? When they handed out cans of Brawndo at the ROFLcon and otherwise savvy people drank it, I realized that the era of Idiocracy had already arrived. The existence of the ROFLcon conference itself was an obvious warning sign, but I had to see where it was going to go. Apparently it was a two-day photo opportunity for the guy in the Tron suit. Nothing against him, but if I'd attended, I would've dressed as Megabyte from "Reboot" - and nobody would care. The highlight of Craig Ferguson's speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner? When President Bush had a joke explained to him. And BoingBoing thinks the sitcom is dead. Well, I do laugh at BoingBoing more than I laugh at "Two and a Half Men", and most of the time they aren't trying to be funny.

I am no longer able to separate the people who are taking themselves too seriously from the ones who are not, and I'm beginning to wonder whether trying to point out the absurdities is just the same as Specialist Lynndie England pointing at a prisoner's genitals.

But it has now become clear: the world will not end with a bang OR a whimper, but with a LOL. And the MeFi inside joke is getting more and more appropriate. "It will not wendell."

I haven't even tried to sell any writing since last December. I'm considering major changes in my web presence. Maybe the "Wit" in my blog title "WendellWit" is too high an expectation (although it IS based on my real last name). I have already registered the domain "WendeLOL.com" which redirects to the same place.

I may change my mind tomorrow. Or next week. But today I feel like I am less laughable than the world around me, and that is scary.