Where the Hell Was I?

Howdy, friendly reading person!
I'm on a bit of a hiatus right now, but only to work on other projects -- one incredibly exciting example being the newly-released kids' science book series Things That Make You Go Yuck!
If you're a science and/or silliness fan, give it a gander! See you soon!

December 19, 2005

Tannenbaummed Out

This year, we have a Christmas tree.

Or, if you prefer, a holiday spruce. A December fir, an equinox evergreen, or a vertical yuletide log — frankly, I don’t give a damn what you call it. I’ve got better things to do than stand on ceremony over the semantics of a set of seasonal traditions that don’t make any damned sense in the first place. You got a name for the thing, then knock yourself out. Whatever gets your yule log vertical, I always say.

And just for the record, if you can find yourself some frankincense and swaddling clothes and wrap them around a leafy shrub somewhere, then yes, that would probably qualify as a baby Jesus tree. But if you think there were shepherds tending evergreens full of ceramic bulbs and blinky colored lights back in Bethlehem a couple of millennia ago, then you’ve been snorting the wrong eggnog.

(And if you’ve been ‘correcting’ people who wish you ‘happy holidays’, then you should probably switch to decaf while you’re at it. Personally, I’ll take any sunny seasonal sentiment I can get. And anything short of ‘Hey, asshole, what’re you lookin’ at?‘ pretty much qualifies.

Which is more than I’m likely to get when seeing the family over the holiday break. ‘Ho ho ho,’ indeed.)

Anyway, as usual, very little of that is actually the point. The point is, whatever you want to call it, there’s currently a dead-and-slowly-browning six-foot balsam fir tree in my living room, covered in lights and balls and shiny baubles. And it creeps me out a little bit.

You see, this is the first ‘real’ tree I’ve had in… well, ever, maybe. I have these vague recollections of childhood Christmases, with a piney scent wafting about and bits of tree scattered through the house. But I may just be remembering the visits from my uncle Jack. He liked to hit the gin, for one thing, and we often speculated that he lived somewhere in the woods outside of town. Or at least spent a lot of nights there. Good old uncle Jack.

During my teen years, my parents kept a plastic tree that they trotted out every year and decorated with tinsel and bows. Which seemed very odd to me — and I didn’t even know what Ann Taylor was back then. Apparently, our holidays were preppy before their time. The Old Navy crew today would be proud. Guh.

Since then, the wife and I have had a plastic ‘tree’ of our own that we’ve put up every year. Though put ‘up‘ is a bit of a misnomer, since the ‘tree’ is only two-and-a-half feet tall. One string of lights would go around the thing approximately nineteen times, with plenty left over to drag around the base, over a doorway, and around the ceiling for a bit. On the bright side, we saved on ornaments, since any more than three plastic balls and a gingerbread man would topple the damned thing over. Sturdy, our tree was not.

So this year, the wife talked me into the real thing. I have to admit — it looks far better than our sad little plastic number from years past. And we’d somehow accumulated enough tree swag to make the thing look respectable, if not quite fully decked out. But I’m still not quite used to having a real, recently-live tree in the house. It just seems odd to me.

First of all, I’ve always heard that live trees are fire hazards. Now, I’m sure I heard this from someone like my mother, who tends to be a tad overcautious in these areas. To say she spends her life ‘on the safe side’ is like suggesting that Anna Nicole Smith is ‘on the busty side’. Or ‘a teensy bit ditzy’. Or ‘leaning in the direction of white trash’. You get the general idea.

Still, some of that ‘blazing tree’ paranoia must’ve rubbed off, because I was very concerned about bringing the tree into our house. I even stayed up the first two nights with it, fire extinguisher at the ready. On the third night, I dozed off. Then the phone rang, woke me up, I panicked, and accidentally foamed the dog. So now we’ve got no extinguisher, but I’m pretty sure the pooch is fire-retardant to three hundred degrees or so.

Meanwhile, I’m learning to live with the bit of nature that’s invaded our home. And I suppose it is better than inviting a pack of squirrels in, or stacking raccoon carcasses on the floor and calling it ‘festive’. And if no woodpeckers or fire ants or loud, indignant conservationists have crawled out of the thing by now, then they’re probably not going to. But I’m watching it, just in case.

Only this time, I’ve got the baseball bat. Just make sure the phone and the pooch aren’t in the room with me at the same time. I think one holiday-themed doggy disaster is plenty enough for one year.

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Categories: Vacations 'n' Holidays

December 18, 2005

This Weekend is Over!

Well, that was quick.

Seems like only yesterday the weekend was starting, and now it’s already over with. Or maybe day before yesterday. Who’s counting?

Anyway, I don’t know about your weekend, but mine was a gone-too-quick, over-too-soon virtual blur. It probably didn’t help that I tailgated for nearly six hours before attending the Patriots game on Saturday.

Or that I slept for nearly twelve hours that night, trying to recover. Yow.

Add to that mess a few loads of laundry, a bit of weekend office work, some much-needed vegetating time in front of the TV, and Sunday night dinner guests, and you’ve got yourselves a whirlwind that’s dangerously close to goosing Monday morning in the ass. At least, that’s what I seem to have myself. Your weekend mileage may vary, I suppose.

At any rate, it’s time for me to hit the sack again. A half-day’s sleep last night or no, I’m still pooped. For the moment, you’ll just have to console yourself with these few paragraphs and the two lists I added to the top of my new ‘Big List of Lists‘. They’re slim pickin’s, perhaps, but they’re the only pickin’s to be had right now.

I’ll do my best to make amends tomorrow — and who knows what sort of cockeyed, horrific stories I might have, after my annual trip to the mall to buy Christmas presents. I’m not looking forward to that, let me tell you. And I’m going to need all the strength I can muster, just to navigate the seas of doe-eyed drooling shoppers out for those last-minute goodies. Wish me luck. And hope to hell I don’t have to smack a bitch for stealing my parking spot, or bumping me off the escalator. I shudder in grim anticipation. You see this? This is me shuddering. Bleh.

But that nightmare is tomorrow. For now, I’m shutting the door on this post and calling it a weekend. G’night, kids.

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Categories: Miscellaneous Nonsense

December 15, 2005

Features Come, Features Go

Every so often I get a hare-brained idea about a new ‘feature’ for the site. Something to spice the place up, drum up some interest, and keep you pesky, finicky readers entertained.

(Yes, for many of you, a ball of string or shiny new quarter would work just as well. Personally, I can entertain myself for hours picking away at navel lint.

Not my own, of course. But I digress.)

Of course, these featurey type of things never quite pan out quite the way I expect. After a furious initial rush, I soon get distracted by other important matters (‘Oooh! Navel lint!’), investing less and less energy until I’m finally just paying lip service to the whole mess. And the first one of you smartasses that comments on this as a metaphor for my love life is getting pimpslapped in the chops.

I’m looking at you, Roofie. Hushit.

Anyway, let’s take a stroll back through the features we’ve… um, featured on the old blog, shall we?

First, there was the ‘Six Degrees of Technorati. A charming little script, designed to make us all feel like Kevin Bacon, and illustrate the wondrous interconnectedness that makes the blogging world so special.

Unfortunately, it was never all that impressive. By the time I got the script written, I’d lost the will to write it correctly, and include things like preventing circular links. So conceivably, you could be six degrees of separation from yourself. You dirty, incestuous little monkey, you.

Also? The damned thing doesn’t work any more. I’ll have to figure out why. Later. Maybe.

(Ed. Note: Or maybe not. I’m pretty sure the Technorati API has changed — or been stuffed in a box entirely, and not in the good way — so the script is kaput. I’m just here to remove the link to it above. Aw.)

Moving on, we next had Quantum Terminology. This was meant to be… well, frankly, I don’t know what the hell this was meant to be. ‘Codsmoker’? ‘Assmometer’? ‘Pudsnugglers’? Jesus. Luckily, it didn’t last very long. And let’s never speak of this again.

Then, there was Punchline Fever!. This went a bit better — I even whipped it back out for a reprise, after a five-month hiatus. It seemed like a fine idea; come up with a joke setup, make the readers do all the work of coming up with witty rejoinders, sit back in the easy chair, and profit!

Of course, I underestimated the difficulty of coming up with a sufficiently open-ended setup to make the thing work. Either that, or I grossly overestimated my wicked comedical skills and the time I was going to put aside each week to make the punchlines happen. Most weeks, I sat here at the keyboard at three in the morning, finally tapping out whichever lame-assed hackneyed bit of fluff I thought of first, and calling it a way-too-late night.

And no, that’s no different than anything else I post around here, thank you very little. But I had such high hopes for the punchline thing! Meh.

Probably the most successful feature to date has been the Cliche-O-Matic. Here, I had the bright idea that neither I nor you should do all the work. I simply jotted down the structure of an old saying, threw some words into the hopper, and let fate do the rest. Think of it as ‘motto MadLibs’. Or don’t. I can’t tell you people what to think.

To be fair, the Cliche-O-Matic hasn’t really flopped on its face, terribly. It’s simply been largely forgotten, because I’m too damned lazy and doodlebrained to remember to update the damned thing on a regular basis. Hey, I never said I was the sweatiest pair of nipples in the titty bar. So to speak.

So, why do I drag these past failures and aborted efforts out of the closet and parade my shame around now? Besides the fact that I have nothing else to write about today, of course. Well, it’s because I’m introducing a new feature today — one which I’m sure won’t suffer the same sorry fate as the others. Because I’m blindly optimistic like that. I was dropped on my head as a small child. From a moving car. Repeatedly.

Anyway, here’s the thing. I’ve done an awful lot of writing around here the past two-and-a-half years. And, yes, a lot of awful, writing, too. See above for one of many references.

But what I’ve not done, really, is write anywhere else. Sure, I’ve had a couple of (admittedly bad) pieces rejected by a local indie paper. And I’ve posted articles on a couple of comedy-related sites where the editorial process is… minimal, at most.

(One of the places doesn’t even exist any more, by the way. I think I broke it. They really should have seen that coming, I think.)

My goal, though — a ‘theoretical goal’ for the most part, to be thought of and aspired to without actually doing anything to get there — is to be a writer. Maybe not a ‘full-time’ writer. Maybe not even a ‘serious’ writer. How ‘serious’ can you really be when the word ‘douchebaggery’ appears in nearly every one of your works? But I would like to be published. Somewhere. Perhaps even in a transaction where money is exchanged.

(I just hope I don’t have to pay too much. Really, I’m pretty sure it’s not worth it.)

That said, I’m finally taking halting, clumsy baby steps towards that goal. One of my favorite online humor resources is McSweeney’s. Many impressive, successful, real writers have contributed there over the years. And a few random schmucks have gotten lucky and snuck a piece in, too. I aim to be one of those schmucks.

To that end, I’ve targeted the Lists section of the website as the likely first target. There are a lot of lists already, so probably it’s not completely schmuck-free at this point. They’d never let me be the first schmuck in, but if other schmucks have blazed the trail, then I’ve got a chance. Also, the effort involved is minimal, and the short format is good practice for me.

(I mean, honestly. I’ve just spent twelve hundred words telling you that I’ve started a new feature, and I haven’t even told you what it is yet. Less verbose, I could stand to be, is all I’m saying. Oy.)

Mostly, though, it’s because those lists often make me giggle like a ticklish German schoolgirl, and I wants to write me some of that. And so (finally), I’d like to point you to Charlie’s Big List of Lists. Which is a real misnomer right now, because it’s really not all that ‘big’. But just you wait. It’ll biggify. Watch and see.

(And no, I don’t say that to all the girls. Just the ticklish German ones.)

The ‘best’ (read: least suckerrific) lists, I’ll likely submit to McSweeney’s, or elsewhere. If I can get a couple published, then who knows — maybe those baby steps will get a little bigger, too. Meanwhile, the ‘other’ lists — rejected by them, or by me — are yours to peruse. These are the mathemetician’s scrap paper, the theorist’s blackboard, the stripper’s practice pole. Maybe there’s something good lurking in there somewhere. Or will be, someday. Good luck in finding it.

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Categories: Bits About Blogging

Tags: Cliche-O-Matic, comedy, features, fun, funny, humor, lists, McSweeney's, Punchline Fever, review, Technorati

December 13, 2005

How I Feel About… Pirates

I don’t have categories for my blog posts. Partly, that’s just laziness on my part. And partly, it’s because all the cool kids have categories, and somebody’s got to teach them a lesson, dammit. I won’t be one of your sheep — DO YOU HEAR ME?

Mostly, though, it’s because just about everything I write would fall nicely under the ‘Drivelly Gibberish‘ category, so what’s the frigging point in the first place?

However.

If I did have categories, I might eventually get around to making a second one called, ‘How I Feel About…. And if I had that category, the following would be the first post in it. Maybe there’ll be others. Maybe not. Maybe it’s just a phase I’m going through, like puberty, or March madness, or those three weeks last year I decided I liked olives.

Anyway, here it is. Now at last, you’ll finally know…

How I Feel About Pirates

Pirates are BAD because they steal booty from other people. The only people that should get to steal booty from other people is me. Also, I should get a pet parrot. And get to say, ‘Arrrrr!‘ whenever I want.

Pirates are GOOD because when I do pretend I have a pet parrot, and I walk around saying, ‘Arrrrr!‘, people know I’m acting like a pirate. If pirates never existed, people might think I had a speech impediment, and some sort of weird kinky parrot fetish. That could be awkward.

Pirates are BAD because if you cross a pirate, you might get keelhauled. I don’t know whether I have a ‘keel’, or where exactly I might be keeping it, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want some filthy, one-eyed jackass with parrot poop on his shoulder hauling it around anywhere. Especially if having my ‘keel’ ‘hauled’ involves some kind of weird kinky parrot sex. I told you people, I’m not down with that.

Pirates are GOOD because most of them are missing some body part or other, which makes them cool and mysterious. Anybody with an eyepatch or a hook for a hand or a wooden leg or replacement whalebone-carved genitalia has a compelling life story to tell. Quite possibly in a high squeaky voice like a preteen girl, but still — what a story.

Pirates are BAD because I’m guessing that most of the pirate-related injuries stem from hand-hook mishaps. Once a shark or octopus or giant sea cucumber or something has bitten off your hand, you probably forget about the hook. And before you know it, you’re wearing a patch, carrying a cane, and whittling yourself a new winkie. It’s either that, or pirates run with scissors a lot more than I’d realized. A lot.

Pirates are GOOD because some pirates are baseball players — in Pittsburgh, where I used to live. Never mind that Pittsburgh is six hundred miles from the nearest ocean; apparently, these Pirates darken the waters of the Monongahela River, marauding the muddy shallows in search of… well, I don’t know, really. Coal barges? Dumped teamsters? Industrial runoff? Who can say? Whatever it is, it sure as hell seems to keep them away from winning baseball games, so it must be important.

Pirates are BAD because some pirates are ‘corporate raider’ pirates. And I’ll be damned if I’ll have some fat pasty douchebag taking over my office, making me ‘walk his plank’ and ‘swab his poop deck’. I don’t care how much money you paid for the company; you keep that whalebone wang away from me, or I’ll bury your treasure where the sun don’t shne, ‘matey’. ‘Arrrrr!‘

Pirates are GOOD because they always keep intricate, detailed maps to where they’ve buried their booty. Apparently, the practice is to draw the map, then immediately tear it into small pieces and hand them out, so other people can have a shot at digging up the gold. Personally, I’m not so much interested in the loot, but if I could get the piece that shows me how to get to the fricking outlet mall, that would be super.

But pirates are BAD because to get their maps and booty and such, you’ve got to battle them first. And for a bunch of one-eyed hook-fingered parrot-poking drunkards with weenie prostheses, they apparently put up a pretty good fight. I guess all that running around with scissors really pays off when it comes to swordfighting and swashbuckling and the like. So even though they could get you to the outlet mall, chances are, they won’t. You might as well ask Sanjeev at the SlushyMart for directions, as much trouble as it’s going to be.

So, pirates are BAD. But not that bad.

And that’s how I feel about pirates.

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Categories: Articles 'n' Zines

December 11, 2005

Move Over, Rambo!

Today, I’m testing a theory.

You see, I’ve seen — as many of us have, over the years — the ‘Thirty Facts’ lists written about some of our toughest action stars. They’re one of the very few common email forwards that are actually worth reading, if you ask me.

(Well, those and the ‘Microsoft will pay a dollar per email’, because remember when we all got rich off of that, right? Remember? Back then? Money for emails? Yeah? Huh?

Fricking Bill Gates. He always was a damned welcher.)

Anyway, you’ve probably seen these lists. Still, a ‘regular‘ blogger might just blat them out, cut-‘n’-pasted, and call it a post. I don’t know how those people sleep at night, frankly.

Because what I’m going to do is this: first, I’m going to provide links to a few of these lists, in case you need a taste of what they offer. The ‘rules of engagement’, if you will. Those links are right here:

Chuck Norris

Mr. T

Vin Diesel

Then, I’m going to test my theory, which is this: I posit that the rough, tough, rugged action heroes mentioned above do not have these lists made because they’re rough, tough, and rugged. Rather, I assert that the actors in question become rough, tough and rugged because someone starts a list suggesting that they already are. I say it’s all about positive reinforcement — or karma, or coincidence, or having nothing else to write about today. Probably that last one.

So, to check my hypothesis, I’m going to make a list. Thirty facts long, just like the others. But I’m not making my list about Chuck Norris, or Mr. T. Instead, I’m making my list about someone who doesn’t have that badass reputation, or those rippling muscles or explosive ninja skills. Yet.

But he will, just as soon as this list hits the ‘net. That’s my theory, anyway. And just to make sure it’s all the list’s doing, I’ve chosen a target as far away from ‘badass’ as I could think of. I picked Doogie Howser, M.D. That’s right — Neil Patrick Harris, the next ass-kicking, babe-swooning, invincible, unstoppable, fully posable superstar action hero around.

Don’t believe me? Well, of course you don’t now. But just wait until you get through this list. Yeah.

Thirty Facts About Neil Patrick Harris

#1. You cannot look at Neil Patrick Harris directly, or you’ll go blind. Neil Patrick Harris is only safely viewed using a series of dull mirrors and a 3×5 index card with a pinhole poked in the middle.

#2. Neil Patrick Harris can knock down a solid brick wall using only one finger. You would be wise to disable your doorbell, should Neil Patrick Harris ever come to visit.

#3. Neil Patrick Harris doesn’t put his pants on one leg at a time like everyone else. Neil Patrick Harris’ pants put themselves on, if they know what’s good for them.

#4. Neil Patrick Harris walks on water — just to make sure water knows its place. Neil Patrick Harris isn’t about to take any shit from the likes of water.

#5. Hollywood starlets don’t go to tanning salons any more. They rub on industrial-grade sunscreen and stand naked in front of Neil Patrick Harris. But not for more than three minutes per side, or they spontaneously combust.

#6. Neil Patrick Harris sweats Snapple.

#7. When a tree falls in the forest and no one’s around, you know who hears it? Neil Patrick Harris, that’s who.

#8. Dogs were domesticated and taught to serve man over ten thousand years ago. By Neil Patrick Harris.

#9. Everything Jeeves knows, Jeeves learned from Neil Patrick Harris.

#10. If you mix sodium with water, the sodium explosively combusts. If you mix sodium with Neil Patrick Harris, the sodium cries like a little girl.

#11. Neil Patrick Harris can fold a single sheet of paper in half exactly fourteen times.

#12. Eeyore used to be manic and happy like Tigger. Then one day, Neil Patrick Harris told Eeyore to ‘calm the fuck down or I’ll hurt you’. Now Eeyore sleeps with one eye open.

#13. Neil Patrick Harris sees you when you’re sleeping. Neil Patrick Harris sees when you’re awake. And Neil Patrick Harris knows if you’ve been bad or good, but no one is as good as Neil Patrick Harris.

#14. Many years ago, two ‘u’s got on Neil Patrick Harris’ nerves. Neil Patrick Harris bashed their heads together, and they stuck that way. That’s why we have the ‘w’ today.

#15. Neil Patrick Harris once hit a man so hard that he travelled backwards through time and impaled his own father.

#16. Neil Patrick Harris can turn a lump of coal into a diamond just by staring it down. Once, Neil Patrick Harris did the same thing to a guy who accidentally bumped him on the street. So watch where you’re going.

#17. When Neil Patrick Harris talks, people listen. Or Neil Patrick Harris kills them and eats their tender, delicious organs.

#18. Neil Patrick Harris skydives without a parachute. Not even the Earth has enough balls to smack Neil Patrick Harris.

#19. The ‘c’ in Einstein’s ‘E = mc²‘ equation originally stood for Neil Patrick Harris. But Einstein realized no human mind could fully grasp Neil Patrick Harris to the power of two, so he dumbed it down to something easier to understand, like the speed of light.

#20. If Neil Patrick Harris were a fish, he’d be a dolphin, and when people would say to him, ‘Dolphins aren’t really fish.’ dolphin Neil Patrick Harris would kill them with his bare flippers. Because that’s how dolphin Neil Patrick Harris rolls.

#21. To prepare for his role in ‘Starship Troopers’, Neil Patrick Harris became the admiral of a fleet of spaceships and conquered an entire race of alien insects. Then he slept with Denise Richards. Twice.

#22. Neil Patrick Harris lifted himself to fame by his own petard. Neil Patrick Harris does lots of cool things with his petard. You probably don’t even have one.

#23. If you help Neil Patrick Harris in some way, there won’t be any money. But when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So you’ll have that going for you.

#24. Neil Patrick Harris built Stonehenge. By himself. And the pyramids of Egypt. Don’t fuck with him, or Neil Patrick Harris will knock them down, too.

#25. Pi is exactly whatever the fuck Neil Patrick Harris wants pi to be.

#26. A rabbi, a priest, and a Muslim walked into a bar, and Neil Patrick Harris killed them all with a single punch. Neil Patrick Harris is a culturally tolerant man, but hack joke setups really piss him off.

#27. On the first day, God made Neil Patrick Harris. Then Neil Patrick Harris did all the hard work, while God lay around on his ass all week. Neil Patrick Harris never gets the credit Neil Patrick Harris deserves.

#28. Neil Patrick Harris has never bothered to set the clock on his VCR. Neil Patrick Harris simply walks up to the VCR and demands, ‘What’s the time, bitch?!’ when he wants to know.

#29. The ‘bright light’ that people see when they have a near-death experience is really Neil Patrick Harris. Holding a flashlight.

#30. Atlantis didn’t just disappear. Neil Patrick Harris visited an ‘all you can eat’ buffet in Atlantis, and ate the entire city. No one yet has dared to send Neil Patrick Harris the check.

Postscript 2011: There are successful theories and then there are successful theories, but damn! I’m shocked the Nobel Prize committee hasn’t called yet, frankly.

(Though I may have missed the mark slightly with the Denise Richards thing. Still — acting! Anything’s possible.)

And if you think it worked out for Neil Patrick Harris, you should see what it’s done for Alton Brown.

(Aside to NPH: You’re welcome! You owe me a soda. Just please — don’t ring the doorbell, eh?)

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Categories: Loopy Lists