John Forde has been fascinated by television commercials since age four when he got a toy airplane that didn't fly as it's commercial promised. Rather than reject TV, he accepted that puffery is part of how the world works. But he never liked it. 

John is blessed with neurotransmitters that keep him disproportionately happy, leading the Associated Press to dub him 'Jim Carrey with a Master's degree'. 

After his graduate thesis, Phenomenology of the Polycentric Psyche was accepted, John spent time as a radio host at a 'hot talk' station. After management told him he was "too weird for radio" John followed his spirit guides, or as he likes to call them his 'inner hecklers'. Looking for a blind spot, he blundered across what has now become Mental Engineering.

Each week on MENTAL ENGINEERING, John instigates a word blizzard: smart, silly, edgy, sincere. He uses his psychological insight, political bite and instinct for fun to goad academics, comedians and other panelists into euphoric blurting. His core competence is getting other people to think or smile. He always delivers on one, he just doesn't know which it will be. 

John is ecstatically happily married to his 'tactile associate'. Together they have a young daughter .

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Last modified: December 09, 2003