“This woman said to me, do you want to get coffee or drinks? And I was like, coffee is a drink. I don’t want go out with someone who doesn’t know the set/subset relationship.” Such is the geeky, Brandeis brand of humor that Myq Kaplan brought to Levin Ballroom Tuesday night.

Standing at 5’6,” wearing a t-shirt and running sneakers, and sporting a nasally voice, Kaplan easily could have been any other Brandeis student in the room and for good reason. He graduated from Brandeis with a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 2000 and has done many Brandeis-typical things. Kaplan has eaten dinner in Sherman, and performed in Chums with Voicemale and solo with his guitar. After Brandeis he received his Master’s degree in linguistics from Boston University. Kaplan’s fondness for wordplay comes out in many of his jokes: “Boobies? They should be called yay-bies” or even “I don’t really believe the Bible. Moses parting the Red Sea? Maybe he parted a crowd of communists.” He recently became more popular as a result of being a finalist in the competitive T.V. series “Last Comic Standing” last summer.

Kaplan’s set was like simultaneously watching three different stand-up sets. He constantly interrupted a joke to tell another joke, which in his mind sparked yet another joke. Several jokes were left unfinished, but we quickly forgot the lack of ending as he swept us into another story. In a somewhat artistic way, Kaplan managed to make vulgar jokes incredibly dorky, “It was hot as balls. Although really, because balls hang lower from the body to get colder, the phrase should be ‘It’s hot as anything but balls.’” In addition, Kaplan emphasized social commentary, “and back to gays. Studies show that gay couples make better parents. And not saying anything bad about straight people, but have you noticed only straight people dump babies in dumpsters?”

At times, Kaplan’s jokes were longer than they should have been, (the “balls” joke, for example, went on for more than a minute and a half). Likewise, because of the Brandeis audience, Kaplan made numerous Jewish jokes, which actually did not go as well. While many of the jokes went over the goys’ heads (myself included), the Jewish audience members seemed to be tired of being the punchline. However, because Kaplan told so many one-liners, it was impossible for him to not get in a couple hard laughs every so often. All in all, it was a very strong set that kept the audience laughing.