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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
I don’t know about you folks, but I get some pretty fricking entertaining spam.
And I think that’s the way you have to look at it. Sure, it can be annoying, and take up time and mailbox space. But it can also — like just about everything else in the world — be a rich source of entertainment. And free entertainment, at that. Yay, spam!
Okay, wait. I can see that you’re unsure. You’re saying to yourself, ‘Yay, spam? Has Charlie been mixing up his ecstacy and his Flintstones vitamins again?‘
Well… maybe. (I’m pretty sure the little green monkeys crawling on the wall know, but they’re not talking. Damned monkeys.)
But regardless, it’s a valid point, and I’ll try to prove it. Let’s take a little stroll through the spam currently in my Yahoo account, and see what we find. C’mon — it’ll be a hoot. (And we might see hooters, too! Bonus!)
Okay, so I’ve taken a careful look at this, and I’ve found that there are essentially two types of spam. There’s the boring, anooying kind — ‘Get low mortgage rates!‘, ‘Buy vitamins here!‘, ‘Ink cartridges, ink cartridges, ink cartridges!‘ — and then there’s the entertaining kind.
(Which are pretty much all about sex, frankly. It’s really pretty tough to send an unsolicited email about earning money at home, or some cockeyed pyramid scheme, and make it funny. But the porn peddlers — ah, now, they have all the fun, don’t they?)
Of course, within the scope of ‘entertaining‘ spam, there are many subtypes. For instance:
There’s the ‘Mean It, But Don’t Spell It‘ technique. In just the past couple of weeks, I’ve gotten enticing emails with the following subject lines:
Not into butchering individual words? Well, then, maybe you’ll appreciate the ‘If There’s One Thing We Don’t ‘Conjugate’ Around Here, It’s Sentences‘ approach. Observe:
But not all spammers eschew the rules of grammar, of course. No, some of them simply abandon reason and meaning, instead. Structurally, these sentence fragments aren’t so bad. Semantically, they’re half-baked head-scratchers. Here are some examples from the ‘That Subject Line You Keep Using… I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means‘ camp:
Maybe all this misdirection isn’t really your style. Perhaps you’re more of a ‘direct approach’ kind of guy or gal. Well, then you might like these examples from the school of ‘Less Than Subtle Suggestions‘:
Perhaps you don’t enjoy the subject lines of emails at all. That’s fine — spam can still be entertaining, let me assure you. You can still enjoy the practitioners of the theory of ‘Make Yourself Sound Like a Haughty Nineteenth-Century Englishman‘. Folks with these aliases (or not?) have taken the time to send me email in the past two weeks:
Finally, there’s always the old standby. Find an angle, and get it to as many people, from as many filthy spammer accounts, as humanly possible. It’s the ‘If I Send This to Everyone in the Fricking World, Something Good Is Bound to Happen‘ theory. And it’s why I, in two weeks of collecting spam for this post, received no less than sixteen emails proudly offering to regale me with the story of:
‘How I became Mr. King Dong‘
Inside the emails (yes, I opened one; how could I not? It’s a compelling premise, damn it!), we find the following text:
‘Mr. King Dong took our madication & just look at him tool, it worked insanely well:‘
(Yes, yes, I know… look, forget the fact that he was apparently already called ‘Mr. King Dong’, okay?
And that he seems to have taken the ‘madication‘ and now ‘him tool‘ is ‘insane‘. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.)
The text above is followed by three pictures of… well, let’s just call them ‘willies of progressively increasing mass’, and leave it at that. (And yes, I could have gone my whole life without seeing that particular spectacle. I won’t subject you to it, as well.)
Then there’s more text, and more pictures, and some other stuff… but I keep coming back to the question: which of these jokers is the real Mr. King Dong? I mean, presumably, it’s one of them in those pictures, right? One of them has taken the ‘madication‘, enjoyed the results, and taken pictures for all to see. And now at least fifteen other snivelling, heartless, cheating bastards are claiming the Mr. King Done throne as their own. It’s an outrage! An outrage, I say!
I’m looking for the real Mr. King Dong to step up any time now and put these jokers in their place. Photographs will be examined. Distinguishing… um, features will be compared. Who knows, we may even need DNA samples to sort this thing out. But mark my words, folks — Mr. King Dong will have his day. He’ll stand on stage in all of his glory. Ed McMahon may even sing a little song; it’ll be very tasteful. And finally, after ousting the pretenders, he’ll claim the title, and don his sash, and his wreath of roses, and his lovely silver tiara.
Just… just don’t ask where he’s gonna wear them. Really, folks. You seriously don’t wanna know.
Permalink | 5 CommentsHey, everybody!
Well, kids, it’s time for another Blogger Idol post. And I’m just as lubed up as a pair of lard-lovin’ lips at a ‘Leg of Lamb Lick-Off’ about writing this post, so let’s get right to the action, shall we?
(That’s blogging action, folks, not leg o’ lamb licking action.
And no, I don’t really even know how ‘lardy’ leg of lamb is — look, it’s really just there for the alliteration, all right? Don’t overthink this shit, people. When you get right down to it, it’s all smoke and mirrors around here. Oh, and dick jokes. Yep, smoke, mirrors, and dicks — sounds like a weekend with Creed, doesn’t it?
Thank you, thank you — I’ll be here all week. But for now, let’s do this Blogger Idol thing, for chrissakes. I don’t have all night here.)
(Click to see all Week Three posts)
Week Three Topic: ‘A Day in the Life of…’
As many of you know, I’m an aspiring standup comedian. (And we all know that when you ‘aspire’, you’re only making an ‘ass’ out of… um, ‘I’ and… uh, ‘re’. And ‘p’. Hmmm. Maybe that wasn’t the word I was thinking of. Damn.)
In any case, for the past couple of months, I’ve been hanging out in bars, often on weekdays, and making an ass of myself in front of a roomful of strangers.
(Which may sound a little bit daunting, but remember — this is me we’re talking about. If not for the microphone and the memorized comedy bits, I just described the way I’ve spent the last twelve years. Actually, having an excuse to make an ass out of myself is way better — and tends to cut down on the calls to the cops, as well. ‘Tends‘, anyway.)
But the point is, I think that one day, it’d be fun to do standup comedy full-time.
(Well, standup and blogging, of course. I could never leave you folks. We’re meant to be together. C’mon, step up to the monitor and give me a big hug, right now. Come on, don’t be shy. You know I love you. That’s it… ahhhhh. That felt good.
In, um, an entirely non-sexual, platonic, friendly way. Really. Er, yes. Ahem.
What? Oh. Uh, no. That was probably my cell phone antenna you felt. Or, um, something. Moving on!)
But would I really enjoy the life of a standup comedian, were I fortunate enough to find a way to make it my job? Well, let’s see — let’s take a look at ‘A Day in the Life of… a Standup Comedian’. Maybe we’ll see just how compatible this dream job of mine and I really are.
A Day in the Life of a Standup Comedian (As Imagined By Me)
12:01am: Stumble into house, exhausted from a night of performing, schmoozing, and yapping like a hopped-up terrier about it on the drive home with my wife.
12:04am: Kiss wife good night. She gets into bed with a book, saying she’ll read for a while to ‘wind down’.
12:05am: Walk into bedroom to blather about some other minute, uninteresting detail about the evening. Find her slumped sideways, drooling on her alarm clock, with the book splayed open on her chest. Ease her back onto her pillow, close the book, and tuck her in.
2:14am: Finally ‘wind down’ and go to bed myself after watching and rewatching the tape of the show (and uploading it here, of course), obsessing about whether the folks at the Elk Lodge really liked that bit about the Shriners or whether they were just being polite, and dropping my bar tab receipts into the ‘Business Expenses’ shoebox.
2:38am: Wake from a dream about performing at Carnegie Hall. With no pants on. And bombing. Completely.
Suddenly have fantastic inspiration for brilliant new joke involving Uma Thurman, the Catholic Church, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Curse that I forgot to leave paper on the bedside table. Again. Consider trudging to the next room to write down idea. Decide to stay in bed, convinced that, ‘I’ll remember it in the morning.’
5:02am: Wake from another dream, this time about being kidnapped and whisked away to a large room full of peoplewhere I’m told I must make them laugh to gain my freedom, or die. Soon after, I realize that the room is Carnegie Hall. And that I have no pants on. This all seems vaguely familiar somehow. The dream ends just as the angry, humorless mob descends on me with switchblades and eggbeaters.
(No, no — the little machines you use to beat eggs, not the Eggbeaters brand fake eggs. I mean, the first onw doesn’t make much sense, but to be killed by hundreds of people pouring Eggbeaters down your throat? That’s just silly.
Come to think of it… that’s actually far more terrifying. Damn. Now I’m gonna have nightmares about that, too. Bitches!)
7:51am: Wake to find myself being shaken and nudged by my wife, who’s leaving for work. Remember that I was having another dream, but can’t remember what it was about… except that I wasn’t wearing any pants.
Kiss wife goodbye; she asks whether I’m getting up now. Tell her, ‘Of course, it’s almost eight!‘ Wait for the front door to close behind her, turn over, and go back to sleep.
9:44am: Wake up again to find that I have not yet reached the double-digit hour portion of the day. Snort derisively, roll over, and go back to sleep.
11:42am: Wake up and get out of bed. Immediately run to my desk in the office to write down joke from earlier. Forget it completely, and spend ten minutes cursing my half-awake middle-of-the-night self for not writing it down when I thought of it. Dissapointedly write something about ‘thirteen Umas and spices‘, hoping it will help me remember. Instead, I just get hungry. And a little horny. (‘Mmmmm… fried Uma… *nnngggghhhhh*‘)
12:15pm: Pad downstairs to have lunch consisting of leftover takeout fried rice, two slices of cold pizza, and the last of the orange juice. And they say fish is ‘brain food‘ — pshaw!
12:34pm: Soak in the shower, trying to wake up and think of new material for next show. Concoct spectacular new joke about how tuna fish and astronauts are hilariously similar. Discover that I have no pen or paper in the shower — again! — and resume soaking my head. Decide that I’ll remember the joke when I’m done with the shower; only a moron would forget something like this in the space of ten minutes.
12:43pm: Run dripping and naked to my desk, repeating the joke over and over in my mind. Snatch up the pen, and… it’s gone. Nothing. Congratulations, I’m a moron. And I’m getting my desk chair all wet. Fantabulous.
Trying to salvage something from the idea, write ‘John Glenn is a sturgeon?‘ below the Uma KFC thing. Look around the desk and notice at least forty other pieces of paper with two or three unintelligible phrases written on them. The closest one says,
Paris Hilton in a blender
Paris Hilton is a blender?
Mars rover on a weenie roast!
None of these ‘reminders’ mean a damned thing to me; they might as well be written in Esperanto. Again, I’m irked and disgusted. And a little bit hungry. And kind of horny, again. (‘Mmmmm… Paris Hilton at a weenie roast… *ggggglllllnnnggg*‘)
1:15pm: Finally dressed and ready to begin the day. Sit down to write new material for next show. Clear my mind of all distractions, and wait patiently for inspiration to strike.
1:48pm: Waiting patiently.
2:24pm: Still waiting over here.
2:39pm: Waiting, dammit.
2:42pm: Decide to get a beer to help ‘inspiration’ get off its ass and do its damned job. I don’t have all day for this shit.
3:01pm: Apparently, my idea didn’t help. Sometimes inspiration requires two beers, I suppose.
3:16pm: Three’s a charm?
3:23pm: Did someone say four?
3:41pm: Aw, fuck it — I’ll just bring the rest of the twelve-pack up.
5:03pm: After twelve beers and a bag of chips, come up with several new jokes. The best of the bunch is:
‘Shhhhrrrrigit! Hoo… hoo — Hoooly hrelll. Bahhrruu goomah! Fuushizzle!‘
Decide that it may need a bit more work in the setup. Reeling backwards, my eyes focus long enough to read the paper with the Uma Thurman reminder. The entire joke comes rushing back to me at one, word for word, like a miracle. I say it, out loud to no one in particular. Then I say it again.
It’s not funny. Poopstain.
That’s the last thought in my head as I pass out on the floor.
7:04pm: Wake up on the floor with drool on my chin. Not entirely sure whether it’s my drool or the dog’s. It smells vaguely like stale meat and fresh farts, which unfortunately doesn’t help me make a conclusive decision. I wipe my chin on my shirt and take a quick inventory of the situation.
And of course, that’s when the thought comes, yet again, ‘Wow. I really am a standup comedian. Woot!‘
(‘Cause let’s face it, folks, Robin Williams went through that same list — or worse — every day for thirty years. Denis Leary still lives that way. Chris Rock’s autobiography is going to be titled, ‘Whose Motherfucking Drool is This, Anyway?‘ I am so in the club.)
7:53pm: Clean up my mess and gargle enough Listerine to choke a hippopotamus. Get the house in some semblance of order just as my wife walks in the front door. Chat about her day for a while, tell her that I’ve gotten so much work done this afternoon, and grab some dinner together.
Play dumb when she says she wants a beer with dinner, and ‘didn’t we have plenty just yesterday‘? Wonder aloud whether she might have a ‘drinking problem’ if she can’t remember whether there’s beer left in the fridge or not. Pray that she doesn’t find the bag of empty bottles hidden in the laundry basket.
8:48pm: Arrive at the venue for the night’s performance. Commence the schmoozing with the other comics and the host / emcee / bar owner / Moose Lodge Grand Poobah / HoJo’s night manager. (Basically, whoever’s writing the check.)
Spend thirty seconds scribbling down key words of old jokes on a napkin to build a set list, and hope that it’s within six minutes or so of what the place wants me to do. Order six beers that I really don’t want, to show the bartender that I’m not one of those ‘cheap’ comics who won’t spend money during a show.
10:45pm: After watching nearly two hours of the show from the back of the room, take a quick look at the napkin and go on stage. Forget the order within the first three jokes, and deliver twenty minutes of random-access, stream of consciousness bits in whatever order they come to me. Take sips of beer in lieu of segues. Check occasionally to make sure I’m wearing pants.
11:05pm: Leave stage to confused, polite applause, and possibly a barrage of rotten fruit. Wonder whether anyone really got the ‘John Glenn is a sturgeon’ line. Meet up with wife, resume schmoozing with comics, collect paycheck.
11:35pm: Begin drive home, with wonderful, beautiful, supportive wife at wheel. Chatter to her about every minute detail of the night (all of which she was already there for, of course) until I fall asleep halfway home.
12:01am: Arrive home, ready to do it all over again. Lather, rinse, and repeat until famous.
So that’s it, folks. A look at the life of a full-time veteran standup, the way a part-time beginning standup imagines it might be. (Except for the travel away from home, and the hotel food, and the thousands upon thousands of women throwing their panties to me onstage, of course. That comes later.)
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it — I know I’m certainly looking forward to it, some day. Sounds like a blast, and beats the hell out of sitting in a cubicle all day, wondering whether I just Alt-Shift-ed or Alt-Ctrl-ed, and where the hell did that status report I was writing just go? Yeah, gimme booze and bars and Moose Lodge Poobahs over that any day. Standup comedy forever!
Permalink | 5 CommentsWe got a new futon today. Actually, it’s a ‘new old’ futon, from a couple that we’re friends with. They just bought new living room furniture, and don’t have room for it, and so we took it off their hands.
And frankly, I have mixed feelings about taking it.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the futon. It’s in great shape, very well taken care of. It’s not that.
And it’s not that we don’t have room for it. Actually, quite the contrary. It perfectly fills a niche in the room we’ve been calling the ‘library’ (because it’s got our bookshelf in it). Now that it’s actually possible to sit in the ‘library’, maybe we’ll actually use the damned room for something other than storing the vacuum cleaner and books that we’re never going to read. So that’s not it, either.
Actually, I’ll tell you what it is — this is a futon, right? A mostly-couch that can easily be converted into a guest bed, and — from what I understand — was used in just that capacity many times. And we got it from a married couple that’s been together for several years — probably longer than they’ve had the futon. See where I’m going with this?
No? Fine, I’ll spell it out. They’re a couple, right? And it’s well documented that couples only hang with other couples.
(There’s a secret handshake and a codeword and everything; it’s very complicated. I hear the people with kids even get a little tattoo so they can identify each other.
Of course, there’s probably no truth to the rumor that the tattoo is inked to look like deep, worried, sleep-deprived bags under the eyes. I’m sure there’s no truth to that at all. Right.)
Anyway, they’re a couple. And for years, this was their guest bed. For other couples. See? Get it now?
Oh, fer Chrissakes, do I have to explain everything? Look, couple may get together for a myriad of reasons — convenience, love, a shared passion for bocce — but one fact about all couples is incontrovertible: when a couple is out on the road, travelling, and especially if they’re visiting another couple, that is the time they’re going to have the wildest, kinkiest monkey sex that they’re ever going to have. That’s just the way it is. People don’t pack their inhibitions in suitcases, folks. Strange bed, strange sex. It’s an unwritten law or something.
So now, in our ‘library’, we have the… um, ‘stage‘ that was host to all manner of God-only-knows-what kind of ‘performances’ over the years. Presumably quiet performances, sure, lest they attract an unwanted audience, but still — if that futon mattress could talk, it’d have to go to ‘Skinemax’ to tell its tales. Network TV would bleep every third word the thing would say! The FCC would have a collective coronary. And mayhem would ensue, and the waters turn to blood, and there would be a great gnashing of teeth, and so on and so forth.
Okay, so it might not cause quite that much of a stir. Still, I don’t even wanna think about what sort of encounters have taken place on top of the piece of furniture now sitting innocently in our house. Or under it, or with one person doing a handstand beside it. Sheesh. That thing’s like a set of ‘Kama Sutra’ training wheels, or something. It’s outrageous.
And lest you think the problem isn’t as large as I’m making it out to be, I never told you the worst part. You see, these people that we got the futon from… well, they’re nice. No. Really, really nice. Wonderful, even. They’re thoughtful, and outgoing, and generous (see Exhibit A: ‘Futon, They Gave Us Their’), and generally swell to hang around with. It’s horrible!
Why? Well, because that just means that there have been oodles — nay, veritable hordes — of friends and colleagues and well-wishers who must have stayed at their place over the years and bumped big hairy uglies on that futon. Thousands of ’em! Why we couldn’t have gotten hand-me-down furniture from a couple of antisocial hate-spewing halitosis-heaving harpies, I’ll never know. Now there’s a futon you could sit on without paranoidly checking every three seconds for sperm stains. Where are the truly repulsive socially inept couples when you really need ’em, eh?
So, it looks like we’re stuck with this thing. (And may soon be stuck to it. *shudder*) And really, I shouldn’t complain. In all honesty, it looks pretty fantastic, and I don’t see any stains — love juice or otherwise — on the whole thing. It’s a great favor, and we’re really appreciative for the new furniture. It’s just what that room needed.
Still… it probably just means that all those bodily fluids — and chocolate syrup, and honey, and for all I know, kosher pickle squeezings — have sunk deep inside the cushion, just squishing and mixing and oozing together in there. I can almost hear the *sssppplllqqqttt* noise it’s going to make the first time I can bring myself to actually sit on the thing. We’ll probably have to put a drip pan or something underneath it, to catch all the excess that gets squooshed out the bottom.
I don’t know. Apparently, I still have my doubts. Maybe I can just sit on the arms of the futon, or sit in the floor, and carefully lean back — only against the wood parts! — while I read my books in there. Maybe that’ll work. Or I could wrap the whole cushion in Sarap Wrap… but yeah, that makes me feel a little kinky, really. I might be tempted to break the futon in myself if I start doing shit like that.
So, I guess I’ll just live with my unease, and eye our new futon warily. I’ll probably get over my anxiety and actually sit on it — eventually — but I’m not sure I’ll ever be truly comfortable with it. Call me old-fashioned, but I’m one of those guys who really prefers not to have ‘sex slobber’ randomly strewn all over his house. But if it is there, I wanna know whose it is, how and when it got there, and goddamit, I had better be involved in slinging it around!
Unless it’s in the guest room, of course. We have couples staying with us from time to time, too, of course. And I hear the creaking, and the giggling, and the pickle jars opening. I know what’s going on. But see, that’s just it — I know who is in there, and when the bed’s getting all messy, and why the wallpaper’s going to need a good scrubdown. And most importantly, I don’t have to sit on the guest bed, ever. So in many ways, the shenanigans in there are easier to handle.
But this new futon — who knows who’s been gettin’ jiggy on it over the years? Or when, or how, or with what sort of props? Are we going to find rubber bands and corkscrews under the cushion one day? Ugh. I can’t even look directly at the thing; it’s just too much. Who’s idea was this ‘used futon’ thing, anyway?
Permalink | 6 CommentsAh yes, another Friday night in Casa de Charlie.
(Is that better, or Chez Charlie? How about Der Charlie Haus? The Shantytown Crapshack of Charlieness? No? Eh.)
Anyway, my wife and I are here. On Friday night, at eleven o’clock. In our sweatshirts and ‘fat pants’. We got home, ordered pizza, and sat down on the couch to eat it, watch TV, and think about how fucking old we’ve gotten. Pitiful, really.
Oh, I could make excuses — I could convince you that we’ve both had exhausting weeks. She’s been working until ten or later the past few nights; I’ve been getting up early and also been out of the house four of the last six nights, either working out or at comedy shows.
(And come to think of it, the two are really interchangable. Doing standup in front of people probably gets my heart racing faster than any sort of cardio crap that those muscle-headed trainer bastards could come up with.
And if you’ve ever seen me work out… well, let’s just say that they hand out blinders to everyone when I walk into the gym, lest the other members double over hysterically and hurt themselves falling off the treadmills when I reach the ‘gettin’ jiggy‘ portion of my exercise routine. It’s an insurance thing, I suspect. Some liability clause or other.)
Anyway, I could probably weasel our way out of being called ‘loserly’ tonight. You know, if I argued hard enough, and fed you enough low-quality tequila. But what about all those other Friday nights we’ve spent lately, cooling our heels in our nighty-night clothes, too spent from a week’s worth of being pounded down to get out and pound down some beers? Let’s face it — we’re old. Done. Cooked. Kabukied. Or something — who knows what the hell ‘kabuki’ is, anyway?
So, we’re old, and boring, and it’s just damned depressing. I remember the salad days, not long ago, when we’d frolic among the living, dancing and singing and drinking scary bubbling purple liquids until our eyebrows got numb. Okay, so we never sang, or danced much, either. We’d occasionally drink wine — that’s sort of purply, right? — but usually it was just a couple of beers at the local watering hole, under the twinkly sexy glow of a Budweiser frogs neon light. Still, a night out is a night out, right? Even if the ‘main course’ is beer nuts and stale bar food.
(Hell, especially if that’s what’s on the menu. Everybody knows there’s nothing better than a couple of mouthfuls of soggy nutty ‘chos.
Man, it just seems so cheap and tawdry when I put it that way. And — you know, ‘Ew’!)
And really, it’s not like we’re not still spending time in bars — all those comedy shows I’ve been going to haven’t exactly been at Carnegie Hall, you know. I’ve caught my share of ‘seedy underbelly’ recently, if you catch my drifticles. I mean, sure I can’t drink for the five minutes or so that I’m onstage — well, not much, anyway; just a sip after the really big laughs.
Yeah, so like I said, I really don’t drink onstage. *sniff*
I do sometimes have a beer or two beforehand, though, to steel the old nerves. At least, that’s the theory. In practice, it just tends to fillen up the old bladder, instead. Which makes my sets shorter, as I race through my material so I can use the damend can, but I think my delivery might be a little more consistent if I weren’t hopping back and forth and crossing my legs throughout the whole thing. I’m thinking next show, I’ll just pee right there on stage — that’s at least got to get a pity laugh, right? And it’s all about putting together a unique persona up there — how many people have you seen on Comedy Central or HBO who just let ‘er rip ‘n’ drip like that? I’m guessing none. I’m also guessing that there are probably laws against that sort of shit, so maybe it’s not the way to go. Man, I thought I had something there.
Anyway, I forget what the hell my point was. Something about being pitiful and old, hanging indoors on a Friday night. But you know what? I’m liking it in here — it’s warm, the beer is free, and I don’t have to worry about how the hell I’m gonna make it home. That’s pretty friggin’ sweet, if you ask me. Of course, in the meantime, my wife has fallen asleep on the couch; she’s drooling on the pillow right now. The dog is buried under a blanket, snoring. And here I am, watching TiVoed standup and giving you folks a running commentary of my night. Whee-fuckin’-ee, folks. Welcome to the jungle.
Yeah, this is goin’ pretty much nowhere. And I really am beat tonight — I need ten or twelve hours of sleep in me before I’ll be good for much of anything, I’m afraid. So I think I’ll sign off for the night and let you get back to your weekend. I just hope it’s more exciting than mine — I feel like a game of shuffleboard is gonna break out around here at any moment. Where the hell did my youth go, anyway?
Permalink | 3 CommentsHey, all. Sorry about this commercial break, but I feel that I’ve got to slip in one more info-post about some things that are ongoing and wrapping up. I think this will be the last for a while, though, so take heart — it’ll be an uninterrupted stream of hilarity again soon. (And if you’re really Jonesin’ for the usual shit, check out my Amberview answers from yesterday. That oughta tide you over.)
Now, on to the first order of business. Speaking of interviews, let’s get that out of the way right off the bat. There are still three sets of interview questions out there in the hands of folks who haven’t posted answers yet. (I know, I know — how can this be? Apparently, my sphere of influence is shrinking. Oh, the shrinkage!)
Anyway, I have a pledge from nv over at Advanced Maternal Age that she’s working on them, but I can’t say for sure what’s up with the other two folks. Maybe I got spam-filtered out — I dunno. Anyway, here’s the complete list of questions / answers, as it stands now. Go check these out if you haven’t already; these folks have some spectacular responses to some pretty ridiculous, outlandish questions. Great job, guys.
Happy Questions with Cool, Witty Answers
Jon of Quality Control: answers here
Joe of Play By Play: answers here
Natalie of Natalieville: answers here
Mark of R80o: answers here
Marti of Marti’s Blog: answers here
Erin of Chix Mix: answers here
Faith of Faith Wild: answers here
Rae of A Likely Story: answers here
Dinky of Dinky’s Docket: answers here
Susan of Third Daughter: answers here
Amber of Learn to Speak Ebenese: answers here
JavaJenn of Mommy Needs Coffee: answers here
Flip of Here Somewhere: answers (in progress) here
Sad Little Orphan Questions with No Home or Loved Ones
Cometgrrrl of Adventures of Cometgrrrl and Comet
This’ll be my last update on the interviews — I’ll edit this post if answers come in, but I won’t bug you with these lists any further. It’s been a couple of weeks, after all; I’ve really got to learn to ‘let go’.
While we’re in the ‘Things That Are Winding Down‘ mode, I’ll also mention (for the last time) that voting for the Bloggies ends tomorrow. Hop on over and find yourself some cool reads — in assorted languages, no less!
This humble little effort of mine is up for the ‘Best New Weblog‘ — there’s some stiff competition in that category; I suggest you go check them all out, and make an informed decision before you vote. Even if you’re still inclined to vote for me, you still might find some new fodder for the old blogroll. Just tell ’em Charlie sent ya.
(Oooh, yeah — especially if you didn’t vote for ’em. That’ll give ’em a false sense of security. Sweet.)
While we’re on the subject of voting (and don’t ya just love the seques this time?), I’d like to thank each of you who voted for me in the first round of the Blog Madness competition. With your kind help, I’ve made it through to the second round in the Bills region. This week, my opponent is tales of a silly girl…, who’s logging in with the entry ‘I was curious. So shoot me.‘ Go read her post — and mine, if you haven’t already — and vote for whichever you prefer. The competition is heating up — vote early and often, folks!
(Well, okay, you can’t really vote ‘early‘; the round started at midnight today, so the time for being ‘early’ has passed. And frankly, you can’t vote ‘often’, either — just once per person. I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.
Look, it’s a figure of damned speech, all right? Just… go. Go vote. Stop giving me crap. It’s early, dammit.)
While we’re on the subject of voting (yes, I know I already used that; I said it was early, all right? Cut me some friggin’ slack), I’m a couple of days overdue in listing my favorites for this week’s Blogger Idol posts. Week Two‘s topic was ‘Freedom’, and here are some posts that struck my fancy (and in some cases, that other little naughty bit next to the fancy, but not quite as ticklish):
Frenklin’s Tale at Shouting Into the Void
A Full List of Freedoms at Quality Control
The Freedom to be Real at quantum meruit
What is that smell? at Southernly Delicious
The Abuse of the Freedom of Style! at Jaded Angel
Read ’em up, folks — they’ll put hair on your chest! And click the image below to read all the week two posts. Bonus!
Three other quick things, and then I’ll let you get back to whatever it was you were twiddling before you got here. (And I’m really hoping it was ‘thumbs’, and further that it was ‘your thumbs’, but I’m not gonna make any judgements. To each his or her own twiddly things, I always say.)
Anyway, the latest King of the Blogs competition has unfortunately gotten mired in a bit of drama. There’s been name-calling, and complaining, and hurt feelings, and some generally assheadery, but things seem to be working out now.
(And I’ve even gotten a new tagline out of it, to go in the randomizer with the others. So when you see this at the top of the page one day:
‘It’s not for everyone. It’s for everyone except humorless, self-righteous assholes.‘
just know that I’ve got someone specific in mind. But it works in the general sense, too. And it makes me giggle. Hee!)
Kudos to Nick, who runs the show, for taking a step back and getting things settled down. I think it could be a lot of fun, despite the snarkiness that crept into this round; I’m not sure exactly what happens next, frankly, but I’ll keep you posted. That’s just the kind of stand-up guy that I am, folks.
And speaking of standup (hoo, am I good at these seques, or what?), I also wanted to let you know that my latest comedy set is now available for your viewing confusion. It’s nine minutes of ‘Comedy Feldspar’; check it out.
Ooh, and as I said in the description page for the clip, it should finally makre this post clearer. Not that I actually was able to follow that list, but it’s something. Follow along, if you like. It’s blogger participation day at the open mic!
Finally, there’s a new feature on the left sidebar, just above the archives. It’s called ‘Quantum Terminology‘, and I’m not sure exactly what’s gonna happen with it, or how long it’s gonna last. It’s really just a place for me to put the random things that pop into my head, so they won’t keep me awake at night. But of course, now there’s the whole Catch-22 possibility that I’ll start staying awake at night trying to think of them, so it’s all pretty much a wash.
Just think of it as another zany window into my tortured, mangled soul. Except… you know, funnier. That sounds sort of painful and tragic and all. Yeah, we can’t have that. Just go check out the new feature, shake your head sadly at my madness, and move on. That’s probably for the best. Yeah.
Okay. That seems to be all that I have on today’s agenda. And it’s Friday, so let’s all fan out and get hammered! I’ll be back later with a ‘real’ post of some sort; in the meantime, you folks stay safe and warm, and I’ll see you again soon. Cheerio!
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