Tell Me All About Humor: What Makes You Laugh?

I'm a huge fan of The Onion. I love it when their articles hit just the right balance between side-splitting humor and cold, hard truths about the human condition, like this one:Experts estimate that, by 10 p.m. Tuesday night, Blume had survived exposure to approximately 1,700 advertising images of epic banality, at least 35 emotionless interactions with complete strangers without making any real human contact, and more than 25,000 moments of soul-crushing inner emptiness throughout the almost day-long struggle. In addition, he also surmounted the onslaught of more than 150 separate anxiety-producing forces, including credit card debt, weight gain, hair loss, sexual inferiority, loneliness, a dead-end job, geographical isolation from extended family, virus-laden spam, the need to keep his cell phone charged, in-store Muzak, mortality, mounting laundry and dishes, his cable bill, indefinable longing, fear of terrorism, online gossip, the unavoidable certainty of his own unimportance, nostalgia for a past that never was, severe lower-back pain, and general ennui.Read more from "Area Man Makes It Through Day."I have a few more favorites that I can think of right off hand. More after the jump.Walking Sports Database Scorns Walking Sci-Fi DatabaseDo Waiters Always Have to Swear So Much?Aging Gen-Xer Doesn't Find Bad Movies Funny AnymoreGenerally, I'm a big fan of what could be called absurd humor, although the examples above are more observational than anything else. I love pulling confusing, bizarre practical jokes on friends and coworkers and making up weird and seemingly nonsensical games to keep myself amused. Blame it on an early diet of "Monty Python," "Mad Magazine," "The Kids in the Hall," and the works of Douglas Adams.What about you?First, do you read The Onion? Have any favorites? Is The Onion not your kind of humor? What is?Do you have any thoughts about humor? What purpose does it serve in the overall human condition? How did it evolve? Is one form of humor better than the other? Why? What's your favorite kind of humor?