Humor with Value Anonymous

Headlines like "Baghdad Residents Treated To Magnificent Light Show" and "Duraflame Introduces Slow-Burning American Flag" aren't typical of mainstream publications. But writing such leads has been a major interest of mine for the past year and a half.

While I've always had a flair for humor, it wasn't until high school that I began to put hand to keyboard and seriously write. I started reading satire as well: Jonathan Swift, Dave Barry, and Al Franken were among my idols. But it was the Onion, a straight-faced, satirical rag, that provided the inspiration for "Witty Tirade."

At the end of sophomore year, I started regularly writing pastiches of news articles and publishing them on a website I designed myself. From March on, I spent my entire Saturdays writing articles for the site's weekly updates.

Forty-four online editions of Witty Tirade were produced before I received the long-awaited opportunity to advance to another medium: print. Having spent a year on the school newspaper staff, I was invited to create an entire page on a regular basis. Thus was the current incarnation of "Witty Tirade" born.

Armed with PageMaker, a program I had never used before, I created an entire...