Started hacking on telephones and electric trains. First programmed desktop calculators in 1973. BS in Math from SUNY Binghamton. Ph.D. in Computer Science from Illinois. I'm now chairman of the CS department.
My first term paper in gradschool was called "Project HAC: Humor and Computers." Using a case-based parser and cheap semantic network (the Semitic Netquirk!) it analyzed puns. I didn't publish, but many people have! Use some of this money to do the background research, for example:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/search?q=humor+computers