The biggest problem with writing comedy or humour (for me) is trying to be funny. Chances are, when you actually try to be funny you don't succeed. Humour tends to be impulsive and it works best when it isn't expected.

The funniest stuff isn't someone having an accident or getting hurt. Pain and suffering are not funny. Though people will laugh when they are nervous or upset. Is that really the kind of laugh you, as a writer, are looking for?

Humour works best when it takes us by surprise.

I had the idea for an upsidedown cheesecake. Thinking it would have more fruit and less crust. The crust could be just a sprinkle of a nice crumb on the top. I didn't find a recipe I wanted to try, most were for pineapple upsidedown cheesecake, looking like a flip on an outdated idea with pineapples and cherries. Still, it would be a start to trying the idea with different fruit.

I did find a recipe for apple pie cheesecake which looks really good. I only wonder how the pie crust on the bottom is cooked, and not burnt. I think that would be the tricky part. I will try the recipe sometime with my niece. Leaving myself the link and the recipe here so I know where to get it.

APPLES: The best apples to use for baking include Honey Crisp or Granny Smith. Apples should be peeled and sliced.

CHEESECAKE: Just like our homemade cheesecake, this layer needs just 4 ingredients. Cream cheese, vanilla, sugar, and eggs. Simply mix and pour.

Cheesecake:

• 24 ounces cream cheese softened, 3 x 8oz packages
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs, room temperature

Make Cheesecake Layer: Combine cream cheese mixture & fill the pie crust.

Make Apple Mixture: In a separate bowl, combine apple filling. Gently place on top of cream cheese mixture.

Add Crust: Top apples with second pie crust. Ingredients

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 7 tablespoons unsalted cold butter cubed
• 7 tablespoons shortening cubed
• ⅔ to 1 cup ice cold water

Instructions Combine flour and salt in a large bowl with a whisk. Using a pastry cutter, cut the butter and shortening until the mixture resembles the size of peas.

Add ice cold water a tablespoon at a time to one area of the dough and mix with a fork. Move to one side of the bowl and continue adding water just until dough is moistened (you don't want it to be sticky). Once mixed use your hands to quickly and gently fold over the dough a couple of times. Divide into two balls. Roll one of the balls into a 12" circle on a lightly floured surface. Gently roll the dough onto a rolling pin and unroll over a 9" pie pan. Cut the edges so you have about ½" overhang. Crimp the edges and bake according to recipe directions.

Tips for perfect pie crust

• Make sure the butter is COLD for the flakiest crust.
• Use just enough water to hold together.
• Mix only until the fat pieces are pea sized.
• Handle the dough as little as possible.
• If time allows, chill the dough before rolling.

Bake (per recipe below) & serve. VARIATIONS: Sprinkle with a few pecans, and drizzle with this homemade easy caramel sauce. Or, serve with ice cream! Skip the top crust and use an apple crumble topping instead.

Tips for Perfection

• Cream cheese should be softened to room temperature.
• Don’t overmix the cream cheese mixture.
• Ensure the apples are thinly sliced so they cook through.
• Be sure to cut slits in the top crust so that steam can escape.
• For a glossy crust, combine one egg with 1 tablespoon of water. Wisk until combined and brush over the crust.
• Depending on your apples, the pie can sometimes bubble over so place the pie plate on a pan lined with parchment to save my oven any mess.

I'm starting to get fed up with cookies, especially having those notices half filling my screen and no option to say NO/ deny them. Some sites do let you say no to cookies and then you can go on to see the site. Most do not. Why not, wasn't that the point of being asked? Otherwise why ask at all if the site is still sticking me with cookies I don't want?

The other thing, are sites that try to make me shut off my ad blocker. Yes, they want to make money, fine. But, how can I decide if I care enough to look at their site before I've seen any of it? They could give people an option to at least see the site before they stick me with a bunch of ads which most likely include cookies, tracking and whatever other junk.

Marketing continues to suck the life out of the Internet, like a parasite.

I posted this to the forums on the Curlie site. As someone who reviews, edits, and lists sites (a lot of them) the cookies and assorted marketing junk really get annoying, quickly. Before you think sites are not asking me to list them... you're wrong. I'm reviewing sites which have been submitted to the directory. I'm not usually looking for sites to list, out of the blue.

Also, last night I was thinking about advertising in general. I've written before that marketing and advertising preys on people, finding weaknesses to sell them stuff they likely could do without. Last night I went a bit farther down that idea.

Marketing and advertising finds ways to make us feel incompetent. "You can't do this without buying that." ... "You can't wash your car without buying this or that product because without it you will do a botch job". You get the idea, I hope. Marketing is training people to think they can not succeed at life on their own. It belittles people and softly bullies them. The whole thing about adulting as a verb is a marketing scheme. There is no reason you can't be an adult. Adults are not omnipotent beings. Why make people needy, unsatisfied, neurotic even unless you have the cure/ solution they need for 3 easy payments of $9.99 a month...

AI is set up to "help" us even more because we are just that incompetent. Why can't people make a cake, fix a toaster, etc, etc, etc, as they did twenty years ago? Of course they can. But, they are trained to believe they can not. Think about the ads you've seen lately. How many have told you (not in so many words) that you can't do something? Ads making men look like clumsy fools. Men are not, in general, clumsy or fools. Children are not uncontrollable wild animals and women are not idiot trolls trying to look like Barbie dolls, or whatever the marketing twists people into so it can sell us stuff.

How will people be living in another few generations? If you're not generating money somehow, in order to buy stuff, will people become a nuisance population? Like an out of control population of mice. Will we be herded up like cattle, as some science fiction has suggested? (Even that will dwindle down as supply and demand fall off). Will we be used as sort of living batteries to power the machines, the artificial intelligence? Our abundance of population will only be useful if we contribute to the economy and then... what if the consumer economy tanks?

What happens when there are not enough human consumers to support the industries, the businesses, and services geared to human beings? How much of what exists, only exists for some form of human consumption? Whether physical, mental, or emotional... so much of what marketing sells is based on having a human population with the money to support it. If things keep going as they are and humans become useless, how will that change everything? Quite a lot, I'd think. Hard to even imagine once you start to think about all the pieces falling out of place.

Life after humans... what would it really look like?