Getting a good laugh
First post!
well I think that what Luscious said about Conan, Conan is a very funny guy and you can learn alot of good comedy techniques from him.
If you are looking for specfics:
One thing that I have found that works is keeping an entire conversation in your mind for reference. Now what this means is that when you are having a conversation with a group of friends, try to keep everything funny that is said(or laughed at) in mind while talking; because usally you can pull off a witty or at least funny remark about something previously said, something that YOU KNOW is funny by saying it again in the right situation. Conan O'brien does this really well, if you watch him interview people you see him say really funny stuff all the time, since Conan doesn't know these people REALLY well he has to use material that he learns from them, AKA connecting things they talked about before and making it funny. Some people that are naturally good conversationalists do this with out a thought, unlike me where I have to learn to do it, and this really help get a laugh.
Comedy is all about connections, seeing all the interesting connections between two topics and putting in a funny delivery, or at least wit is; a joke does'nt have to be that funny to get a laugh.