One of the great things about comedy is that there’s no one single conventional path to making a career of it. Advanced degrees, internships, corporate ladders, apprenticeships, none of them are prerequisites for getting up on a stage and trying to make people laugh. If only Johnny Tremain had known...

Loni Love’s journey to Hollywood — Hollyweird, she calls it — certainly has its own distinct trajectory. Before she realized her career in comedy, Love lived the unparallel life of an electrical engineer. She holds a bachelor’s degree in the subject, and worked for eight years at Xerox. Funny how things turn out. Very funny.

Now the Detroit native is a regular on shows such as Chelsea Lately and World’s Dumbest, and will soon be a part of fellow Chelsea panelist and colleague Whitney Cummings’ soon-to-debut network sitcom. But first, Love is making the rounds to a stand-up stage near us. She’ll be at the Punchline tonight through Saturday, and she took a moment to answer a few pressing questions about her path less traveled. 

I see you’re quite the prolific tweeter, and have nearly 90,000 followers. Do you find Twitter to be a good place to test out material for your live act and your TV appearances? 

Since Twitter is limited to 140 characters it's hard to do material, but it's a great marketing tool.

I also see you’ve been actively following Wiener-gate, and had a hunch that he was lying. Do you normally have a sixth sense about these things?

Everyone knew he was lying. I just tweeted what most were thinking.

You got your start in Star Search, which obviously had a different format than today’s reality talent shows. Would you ever want to be on the other side of the stage and evaluate talent and wield untold amounts of influence over the entertainment industry?  

No. I like entertaining folks, not judging folks. Comedy is subjective so most comedy talent shows are not fair.

You’ve become a regular on the talk show circuit, including Chelsea Lately, where dishing the dirt on celebs and public figures is par for the course. Do you have an all-time favorite target? And what made that person so ripe for ripping?   

I joke about people that need to be joked about. Charlie Sheen...thanks for the material bro!

Aside from your opinions on celeb culture, what do you like to talk about when you hit the road and do standup?  

Politics and men, and I do a lot of singing at times.

Do you have any favorite comics that you idolized growing up, or any contemporaries you admire? And what, in your opinion, is the single-most important quality for a comic to possess?  

I like Bill Maher, (who is) funny yet informative. It was an honor to open for him.  The most important quality for a comic to have is a sense of self. If you know yourself, you can develop an act that not only people will enjoy, but the comic will as well.  

How do you envision the next year playing out for yourself? Any projects in the works we should be on the lookout for? 

I have a lot of projects going on so next year will be a great year. For now, I have a new Disney show, yes that’s right, a Disney show called Kickin' It, and continuing other projects like World's Dumbest, Whitney Cummings’ new sitcom called Whitney, and Chelsea.