import itertools, re
s = "hello, my name is Joseph! Haha, hello!"
print(["".join(x) for _, x in itertools.groupby(s, key=str.isalnum)][0::2])
print(re.findall(r"\w+", s))
aW1wb3J0IGl0ZXJ0b29scywgcmUKcyA9ICJoZWxsbywgbXkgbmFtZSBpcyBKb3NlcGghIEhhaGEsIGhlbGxvISIKcHJpbnQoWyIiLmpvaW4oeCkgZm9yIF8sIHggaW4gaXRlcnRvb2xzLmdyb3VwYnkocywga2V5PXN0ci5pc2FsbnVtKV1bMDo6Ml0pCnByaW50KHJlLmZpbmRhbGwociJcdysiLCBzKSk=
['hello', 'my', 'name', 'is', 'Joseph', 'Haha', 'hello']
['hello', 'my', 'name', 'is', 'Joseph', 'Haha', 'hello']