This year's Boston Comedy Festival is about to start, and you won't be able to make up your mind about all the events happening around town. The following listings include just a few measly highlights, but the Boston Comedy Festival is sure to have something that suits your sense of humor, whether it be ironic, sarcastic, slapsticky, or potty. Check the official site and full schedule for all event details.

Boston Comedy Festival Contest
Preliminaries:
--Sunday, October 7, Dick's Beantown Comedy Vault, 124 Boylston Street, 7:00 and 9:00 pm
--Monday, October 8, Comedy Connection, Faneuil Hall, 7:00 and 9:00 pm
--Tuesday, October 9, Comedy Connection, Faneuil Hall, 7:00 and 9:00 pm
--Wednesday, October 10, Comedy Connection, Faneuil Hall, 7:00 and 9:00 pm
All tickets for the preliminaries are $15.

Semi-Finals:
--Thursday, October 11, Nick's Comedy Stop, 100 Warrenton St., 8:30 pm
--Friday, October 12, Nick's Comedy Stop, 100 Warrenton St., 8:30 pm
All tickets for the semi-finals are $15.

Finals:
Saturday, October 13, Cutler Majestic, 8:15 pm
List of Comedy Festival Contest Participants
Comedy Contest Schedule
All shows $15

Despite all the big names, the real draw for this festival is the fresh new talent on display. The Comedy Festival Contest will pit 98 rising comics against each other all week long, with the finals taking place on the last night of the festival when the top eight perform at the Cutler Majestic. Bostonist will be attending the contest rounds and reporting back to you who tickles the funnybone and who positively kills. The person who climbs to the top of the heap snags $10,000 bucks.

Some of the names in the comedy contest will be familiar, like Weekly Dig columnist Baratunde Thurston, who just got seduced by a woman we'll call New York. (No, wait, not that New York - New York the City, sillies!) Shane Mauss will also be back to compete after being a finalist last year. Another competitor, Peter Bowers, is a retired chemistry professor who is ready to kick some whippersnapper ass. And one guy who is competing goes by the single name "Hannibal."

Lewis Black and Friends
Friday, October 12, 8:30 pm
Cutler Majestic Theatre
Tickets $45-$65

Usually, Lewis Black gets pissed off all by himself and spews his annoyance with our ridiculous world all by his lonesome. But, this time, he's bringing DJ Hazard, Lizz Winstead, and Ed Byrne - also participating in the Off the Boat show at the Burren - with him.

Comedy Contest Finals, Lifetime Achievement Awards, and Comic of the Year Award
Saturday, October 13, 8:15 pm
Cutler Majestic Theatre
Tickets $45-$65

You've already read about the Comedy Contest. The new comics will mingle with the seasoned vets, not to mention the, uh, really seasoned tough old birds. This year's Lifetime Achievement Awards will go to Mort Sahl, Shelley Berman, and Bill Dana. Alas, Sahl will not be attending, but Bostonist had the pleasure of seeing Sahl in person at Jimmy Tingle's, and we say it's about damn time for his Lifetime Achievement award. As for Berman, Bostonist wore out an old record of Berman's long ago, one which featured a long tangent about the weird residue buttermilk can leave in the bottom of a glass. Bill Dana originated the "Jose Jimenez the Astronaut" character and then retired it in the '70s because, well, he wasn't Latino. He went on to found the American Comedy Archives at Emerson and enjoy a long career as a writer and actor. Lewis Black is getting the Comic of the Year award, which makes sense because otherwise he would have something else to complain about.

Image of Lewis Black, poster boy for the Comedy Festival from the Boston Comedy Festival.