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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog for a series of self-serving, self-promoting, self-aggrandizing, and quite possibly self-pollinating items. We will return you to your blog as soon as our horn has been sufficiently self-tooted.
See, we’re even referring to ourselves as the ‘royal we’. Is that more annoying and pompous than the third person singular?
(As in, ‘Charlie certainly is a comely fellow, isn’t he? Quite the stud muffin, even.‘)
We don’t know. But we’ve made our choice. Deal.
(Hey, by the way, when did the muffin become the foodstuff of choice to describe hot yummy people? Is there something particularly sexy about muffins that we’re missing, and that other baked goods don’t share?
Sure, ‘cupcake’ gets some play, but it’s usually done ironically. But where are the props for the other baked goods? How come you don’t hear people saying:
‘Man, I’d like to get my mitts on that hot little biscuit!‘
or
‘Oh, girl, check out the pecs on the stud bagel over there!‘
Really, we don’t get it. Muffins are nice and all, but are they really that much more enticing than doughnuts, or hush puppies, or a hot… steamy… cornbread? Where’s the ‘stud cornbread’, we ask you? Where’s the love?
On the other hand, muffins are the only bakery product where you can peeeeel off the top, and eat it as ‘foreplay’. And maybe that’s good enough right there — certainly, when we think of doing that to the ‘cupcakes’ out there frolicking around in, say, the Victoria’s Secret catalog, or on the Man Show… well, we do get a bit peckish, we have to admit.
And if you think ‘peckish’ is nasty, go look it up. It’s actually not dirty. You’re probably confusing it with ‘peckerish’. Which we should have used instead, but we just thought of it. Damn.)
So, anyway, here’s what’s on tap. Please forgive our brazen shamelessness. We’ll spank ourselves later for being bad. We promise.
1. Upcoming Comedy Show
Our… oh, fuck it, that is annoying — My second foray into the seamy underbelly of standup comedy is coming up this week. For any of you in close reach of the metro Boston area, you can come watch me, and several other people, make asses of ourselves at:
The Emerald Isle
1501 Dorchester Ave., Dorchester, MA
Wednesday, December 3rd @ 8:30pm
I’ll be the one telling jokes about penises, bitching about stupid people, and making fun of myself. Oh, wait, no… you can’t really tell us apart that way. Tell you what — I’ll be the one who looks like the guy on this page, where you can even watch the clip of my first show, a couple of weeks ago. It’s like taking a hilarious trip back in time.
(You’ll have to supply your own time-travelly wavy lines. I’m fresh out.)
(And for you short attention-span types, I’ll further entice you with these two little factlets — first, I’ll be doing completely different material than the first show. So even if you watch the clip (or, if you’re Amber, you were cool enough to be there), you won’t get bored with the same old crap about crotches and assbags. It’ll be entirely different crap… about, well, um, crotches and assbags, mainly. But different! Really.)
Anyway, come out if you’d like your funny bone tickled. (No, really, I’ll tickle it myself. We’ll go out back, in the alley. It’ll be fun. And it only might be a euphemism. There’s one way to know for sure.) Seriously, it’s a good time — and there’s no cover at the door!
(Not that I’m suggesting you’re cheap, of course. Tawdry, maybe, but never ‘cheap‘. Just ‘thrifty‘. Yep, thrifty and tawdry — you’re my kinda people.)
B. Upcoming Weblog Review
I’m currently number 10 in the queue at the Weblog Review. It’s taken weeks — many long, grueling weeks — to get this close, but the critiques are coming at a rate of about one a day, so my review should be coming soon. And almost certainly by Christmas, which I was hoping for. In the meantime — and most certainly afterwards — go check out ‘da Review’ — the reviewers there do a great job, and it’s a fantastic place to find a new read or two. There’s a little something for everybody there.
(And a couple of blogs for nobody, as far as I can tell — who writes some of these train wrecks, anyway? And who then asks to have them reviewed? Damn, people — hide that shit in the closet and walk away. Just walk away.
Of course, I say that snarky shit now. Watch them bust out negative numbers for me in a couple of weeks. That’ll be fun. It’ll be like my SATs all over again. Bitches.)
Also, a quick note on the Weblog Review, while I’m at it. They changed the directory structure of their pages a while back, so most of the results from their search will break, if you get deep enough in the site to try a query. The good news is, all you need to do is add a slash in the URL, right after the word ‘review’, to make it work. So if you were to find J’s Notes on the site, with a non-working review URL of: http://www.theweblogreview.com/review286, you could simply change it to: http://www.theweblogreview.com/review/286, and you’re all set! Easy, yes? I know molluscs that could manage it. McDonald’s cashiers, no. Congressmen, sorry. Molluscs, and most people with two neurons to rub together, yes. I think it’s doable.
III. A Wizbang Idea, If I’ve Ever Seen One!
It has come to my attention that Kevin, over at Wizbang!, has put together his own suite of weblog awards, and is prepared to give them out soon. It’s just getting it’s newborn feet under it, but the idea is garnering a lot of early support, and there have been many suggestions for candidates in most of the categories.
There have been so many suggestions, in fact, that the humble little ditty you’re currently soaking in has itself been mentioned! Many, many thanks and much love go out to Buzz, who’s suggested me for the category of ‘Best Humor Blog’. I’m honored and amazed — Buzz has an awful lot of links, and even more friends — to have him single me out for an honor is truly special.
(No, really. I’m not kidding. Really, just this once — I’m serious. Really. What? Stop looking at me like that. I mean it!)
Anyway, go check out the Wizbang awards yourself. Mention me, if you like. (*nudge* *nudge*)
Or nominate other blogs, if that’s what you’re into. Hell, list your own, if you’re one of those kinds of people.
(And I can say that, because… well, I am one of ‘those people’. I’d have probably swooped in there and listed myself, if Buzz weren’t so damned cool to have beaten me to it. I mean, look around — obviously, I have no shame.)
Okay, I think that’s about enough horn-tooting for one day.
(Which is what John Holmes used to say as he wrapped up each day of… um, shooting. So to speak. Yeah, let’s move on now. Ick.)
Anyway, thanks for hanging in there so long. You’re one of the good ones, you are. One of the real, thrifty, tawdry good ones. Hell, if you show up on Wednesday, I might even buy you a beer. Or, um, do that other thing we talked about, back in the alley. You know, the tickly thing. Come on — you know you want to. Nobody likes a tease.
This concludes the emergency self-promotion extravaganza. We now return you to your regularly scheduled hilarity, already in progress.
(*sigh* Again with the ‘we’… apparently, ‘annoyingly pompous’ comes natural to us. Er, um, me. Natural to me. Damn.)
Permalink | 1 CommentIs there anything more depressing than the last night of a long weekend?
(Okay, fine — maybe having your in-laws visit for a week, or having to sit through six eye-bleeding hours of Olympic figure skating, or a Ken Burns documentary. But under normal circumstances, I can’t think of anything worse than the weekend thingy.)
I, for one, and extraordinarily unprepared to go back to work tomorrow. I’m thinking of calling in sick, or out of town, or amputated. Or, um, something. I’m not sure you can actually call in ‘amputated’.
(And if you could, I don’t know how you’d back that up when you finally did show up at the office a day or two later. A simple *cough cough* and a sniffle aren’t going to fool anyone. I guess you could shave one of your arms or legs, and call it a prosthetic… but someone’s bound to find out eventually — you’ll smash your thumb in a car door, or stub your toe, and when you yell out, ‘Bitches!‘, everyone else will scream ‘Aha!‘
Yeah, I’m thinking the amputation angle is probably not the way to go. You’re way ahead of me here, aren’t you? Eh. I’m a slow learner. Sorry.)
So, what was I saying? Oh, work tomorrow. Right. Poop.
Of course, I might not be quite as reluctant to return to the rat race if I were actually prepared to get back to the grind.
(Now, the ‘bump and grind’, I’m ready for. No question. But ‘the grind’, all by itself — no. Sadly, unbumpingly, no.)
You see, I told people in the office that I’d have the beginnings of a system ready tomorrow. A system that I’ve worked on, off and on (but mostly ‘off’, I’m afraid), all weekend long.
(Well, except for Thursday. Or Friday, like I mentioned at the time.
Look, ‘all weekend long’ is a relative term, all right? It’s like ‘all natural’ or ‘world famous’. Or ‘most valuable’. These are just sayings, see? So when I say I worked ‘all weekend long’, that really means… well, uh, it means a couple of the days. And after noon, obviously. And… well, in between blogging, of course. And football watching. And dinner out last night. And lunches, and laundry, and playing with the dog, and pretty much anything else I could do to put the shit off. Now, doesn’t that sound like ‘all weekend long’?)
Anyway, I’m still working on it. I’ve made progress, certainly, but I can’t really say that I have a ‘system’ yet. I’ve got a couple of ‘pages’, and I’m partway through some ‘functions’, and I’ve even got a ‘database’, but they haven’t all come together in the way that lets me keep my job yet.
And so, I continue working.
(Or blogging about working. Eight of one, half-dozen the other. Yeah, I know, I know.)
This is starting to remind me of my college days, actually. Back in school, I had the same issue — I’d spend the whole weekend putting off some paper, or studying for some test, until finally, on Sunday night, I could procrastinate no longer. It usually hit me around 8:20pm. That’s when the Simpsons started wrapping up loose ends in their weekly episode, and I knew that it was only a matter of time until the show ended, and the crap would come on — that was my cue to get off my ass and hit the books.
Things are different these days, of course. For one thing, I started working in earnest before the Simpsons came on tonight. Yes, well before. Seven-thirty, I think it was; quarter of eight at the latest. Of course, what’s also different is the list of things to do instead of work. For one thing, ESPN is showing a real, live NFL football game, which won’t go off until at least eleven. Shit, if they’d had those in college, I’d still be there, retaking sophomore physics because all the goddamned tests were on Mondays. Bastards.
Plus, when the game goes off, there’s always TiVo. Back in the day, there was nothing on worth watching after the Simpsons. (Except for the brief period of time when Herman’s Head was on — damn, I loved that show.) And that hasn’t changed — the big three networks are playing news shows or made-for-TV movie crapfests, and Fox counters with The Bernie Mac Shit. Er, ‘Show’. The Bernie Mac Show. Sorry.
(But I think I was right the first time, really.)
But with TiVo, it doesn’t matter — I could put off work for hours. I’ve got every Simpsons episode aired in the last week, plus a healthy dose of Family Guy, Comic Remix, West Wing, and more. I could blow off work tonight, take a day off, and still do nothing but watch recorded crap. And, by extension, be in this same poopy position this time tomorrow night. So I’d probably better not do that. Technology’s the bomb and all, but it’s really not helping me here. Damned technology — who came up with this shit, anyway?
So, I suppose I’d better suck it up and get something — ’cause it looks like it won’t be everything — accomplished for tomorrow. Man, it’s times like these when I can’t wait to get discovered as a comedy writer / standup comic, and I won’t have to put up with this shit any more. When I finally get there, I’ll be staying up late because I want to, drinking and cheering and telling jokes, instead of because I have to, coding and typing and grumbling under my breath.
So somebody get out there and find someone to take me to the big time, all right? I promise I’ll write more, and the shit will be funnier, too, instead of anxious, whiny, bitchy posts like this one. On the other hand, it is kind of fun to feel like I’m back in college again, if only for a couple of hours. Maybe I’ll order a pizza, and guzzle Pepsi and work until I simply can’t keep my eyes open any longer. Yeah, that sounds pretty cool. And with that kind of fuel, I should be able to get everything done, in just a couple of hours. So I’m probably fine, after all. What the hell was I worrying about, anyway? I’ve got plenty of time. Matter of fact, maybe I’ll take a ‘study break’ and check out one of those Simpsons episodes I’ve got taped. That should be fine, right? One little episode’s not gonna hurt anybody, right? Right?
(Oh, I am so screwed. Maybe calling in amputated tomorrow isn’t such a bad idea. *sigh*)
Permalink | 1 CommentWell, here it is, a half-hour after midnight, and I’m still watching the West Wing marathon.
And that’s the thing — I’m actually watching it. It’s been on from time to time in the past, but it’s just in the past couple of weeks that I’ve actually started watching the damned show. My wife’s watched it for a while, now — she even TiVos it, which is rare for her — but I’ve avoided it until recently. That’s mainly because I have no interest in real-world politics.
That’s a whole other story, but suffice it to say that I don’t follow the day-to-day, or even year-to-year or term-to-term, sniping and backbiting between the political parties. The whole business of give-and-take and say-this-but-mean-that (or say-this-but-reverse-it-three-months-later) just leaves me cold. Frustrated, and cold. Like an Eskimo locked out of his igloo. Or a horny polar bear, maybe. Or… you know, something. I’m fishing a little bit here. Let’s move on.
So, I’ve been watching the West Wing all day, and I’m reminded, once again, about a little personality quirk that I have.
(Yeah, yeah — ‘one of the quirks’. All right, ‘one of the many quirks’. But I’m only gonna talk about this quirk tonight. Shaddup.)
Anyway, here’s the thing — I’m very easily affected by what I’m watching on TV or in the theater. The effect is somewhat subtle, though — I don’t cry during the sad parts and cheer during the happy endings.
(Well, okay, maybe when Homer gets reunited with his mother on the Simpsons. That always chokes me up.)
Instead, I pick up nuances. Moods. Mannerisms. If I watch a show or movie for any length of time, the ‘feel‘ of the show seeps into my brain. My whole mindset is altered, and I start thinking — and worse, talking — like the people I’ve been observing.
(And honestly, the same sort of thing often happens with ‘live’ people, as well. I tend to adapt to the personality of the group, when I can be bothered to do anything but sit quietly in the corner and watch people. I’m sure the whole thing has something to do with a need to fit in, and a fear of not being accepted, and… oh, hell, I don’t know — maybe I was breastfed too long. Freud would have a field day with me.
And yes, I’m acutely aware of the irony of ‘confessing’ that I have an unhealthy need to be accepted by writing it on a personal web site, the logs of which I check approximately every ten minutes that I’m awake and within twenty feet of a computer. And if that sounds a bit terse and flippant… well, I’ve been watching the West Wing all goddamned day. This is exactly what I’m talking about.)
So. Here I am, after several hours of West Wingery, and I’m acting just like the staffers on the show. Well, okay, not just like — I’m not as good-looking as them, for one thing. (Well, okay, I could out-shimmy one or two of them on the catwalk, granted. But most of them are far prettier than me. Bitches.) Also, I don’t ever dress as nicely as the characters on the show, and this is the second day of a four-day weekend. I’m sitting on the couch in sweats and a T-shirt — the only one I’ve got a shot at ‘outchic-ing’ at this point is Josh, but only in the episode where he sat in his office, hungover, in a coffee-stained wifebeater and fisherman’s waders.
(Which aired last hour, by the way — it was nice to see at least one of these politi-dildos look worse on a simulated Saturday morning than I did at my own freaking wedding. Fruit loops.)
Anyway, my attire and two-day beard aside, I’ve taken on an air of… well, I don’t quite know what, but if you’ve ever seen the West Wing, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. I’m speaking in rapid-fire, near-monotone sentences. I’m being a snarky, dry smartass.
(Okay, so that part’s not the show’s fault. Moving on.)
But I find myself doing that little half-head cock that seems to precede witty repartee on the show. And then… well, and then making some random, asinine comment that’s meant to be witty repartee, but isn’t, really.
(And how the hell would it be? It’s one o’clock in the frigging morning, and I’ve been sitting on the couch, blogging and watching TV all damned day. My brain is applesauce. Cut me some slack, goddammit.)
All right, where the hell was I? West Wing, right.
So, it’s an interesting phenomenon for me. It’s a bit odd to find myself doing and saying things that aren’t normally part of my personality, but it never gets completely out of hand. I don’t watch the Powerpuff Girls, for instance, and end up running around in a dress pretending I’m pounding on monsters. But anything I can relate to in some way seems to just wiggle itself into my brain. Law & Order makes me argumentative (Sam Waterson is the best), 24 gets me all business-like and bossy, and West Wing… well, apparently, West Wing makes me cock my head and get all… all… quippy. Or quippyish, anyway. Yeah, that’s not a word. Never mind.
Anyway, that’s how my after-Thanksgiving ‘free-from-work Friday’ has gone. I suppose it could be worse. I could have been doing yardwork or something crappy like that. Instead, I stayed inside, safe from the rain and the cold and the wind, and I watched many, many hours of a pretty good TV show, even if it is about politics, more or less. And I wrote four entries — three here, and one over at LinkFilter. So it wasn’t a completely wasted day. Um, depending on how you look at it. I still have to work all weekend; only now, it’s just a garden-variety two-day weekend. But that’s all right — I do love a challenge.
At least, tonight, I do. Tomorrow, I might find a Married… With Children marathon and temporarily hate my job altogether. (Not to mention pick up the habit of sticking a hand down my sweatpants while I’m watching TV. I can hardly wait.) In any case, I’d better get to bed. The West Wings are starting to repeat, and I’ve had about all the legalese and Capitol Hill shenanigans I can take for one day. Hopefully, my new pseudo-personality will wear off by Monday morning. I’m not sure my boss would mind, exactly, being called ‘Mr. President’, but it might throw him off just a bit.
Yeah, it’s definitely bedtime. Those quips are getting worse and worse. I’ll catch up with you later. Sleep tight, folks.
Permalink | 1 CommentHere’s everything you need to know about how I handle long weekends.
What I planned to do today, in order:
What I actually accomplished today:
Whee. And to think I have two more days of this before I have to go back to work. Am I friggin’ thankful, or what?
(Yeah, I really need the weekend drinking to start. Soon.)
Permalink | 1 CommentI’m a little worried.
Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of hits from a certain .mil domain. Rather a lot, and it’s got me thinking.
You see, this particular domain — NIPR.mil — is, from what I can gather, a gateway set up for several, um… sensitive military domains, quite possibly including the Department of Defense and the Pentagon. Yikes!
So, here’s the thing — the hits coming in are all from the same subdomain, based on what I can gather from the IP address info I get in my logs. And there are a lot of hits lately. Specifically:
On 11/24: At 9:58:42pm, 5 hits over twenty-five minutes
On 11/25: At 1:27am, 18 hits over two hours and forty-five minutes(!)
At 2:11am, 2 hits over seven minutes
At 3:37am, 5 hits over fifty-two minutes
On 11/27: At 7:09am, 4 hits over 2 minutes
At 7:17am, 6 hits over 18 minutes
At 7:17am, 8 hits over 18 minutes
And no, those last two lines aren’t a typo. If the logs are correct, there were two sessions that started at exactly the same time, with exactly the same duration, within one second. Creepy, no? Like they’ve got some sort of intelligent, sarcasm-seeking automated web crawlers or something. Of course, if they do, that’s probably classified info. I might get arrested flogged fanny-spanked by John Ashcroft for writing about that. *gulp*
I suppose it’s possible that it’s just a fan, or several fans in the same office.
(Or bunker, or missile silo, or Area 51 alien-hiding tent. Whereever these military types hang out and read blogs.)
But it seems unlikely. For one thing, I don’t think I really talk about things that would pique the typical soldier-girl’s or flyboy’s interest.
(Assuming those people wouldn’t just kick my ass in the first place for calling them ‘soldier-girls’ and ‘flyboys’. Some of these folks are pretty close to the snapping point already, you know.)
On the other hand, maybe it’s even someone I know. I’ve got a couple of friends in the Air Force and Marines… I even had a really good friend in high school who freelances, doing Chinese document translations for the DoD. But I haven’t heard from her in a while — since before I started the blog, in fact — and I doubt she’d get clearance behind the ‘official’ firewall, anyway.
So, there’s a real possibility that the sudden, near-obsessive interest from the NIPR.mil domain is more… professional than personal. And so, I’m left wondering — have I mentioned anything here on the blog that would be considered questionable? (In terms of threatening national security, I’m talking. Everything I write here would be considered questionable in terms of good taste, propriety, sanity, and even plausibility. Even the grammar needs work.
(Which is, itself, a sentence fragment. Ooh, and so is that! And that! And… okay, I’ll stop now. Sorry.)
But I can’t think of anything that would set off the warning bells of the Federali watchdogs. Honestly, look around — there’s crap about the grocery store, and a job interview I had, and made-up shit about the Wheel of Fortune. What’s so sensitive about any of that? On the other hand, I did once mention the Great Wall of China. And the Iran hostage crisis. And more recently, I even talked about Ramadan. Twice, and the second time Mecca and Eid al-Fitr even came up! *gulp*
So maybe I am in trouble, after all. Right now, they’re just trolling around, collecting ‘evidence’. But it’s only a matter of time before they step up their efforts. Maybe they’ll start following me around, or even tapping my phone. Hell, who knows — they might even start hacking my computer and censoring my blog posts.
(Nah, that’d never happen. Even a bunch of gun-toting, paranoid Pentagon hacks wouldn’t go that far. Would they?)
Anyway, it’s probably just someone, or someones, who enjoys this particular brand of ridiculous drivel. And if that’s the case, then welcome! Glad to have you, and feel free to look around all you like. You can even leave a comment if you like, just to let me know the ‘heat is off‘, if you know what I’m saying. I won’t tell anyone, and you can even use an alias. Seriously, it’ll set my mind at ease.
On the other hand… if I start seeing those black cars with tinted windows driving a half-block behind me, or ‘pizza trucks’ stationed outside my house… well, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. This blogging thing is fun and all, but I don’t want to end up being pistol-whipped in Langley or thrown in a cell in Guantanamo Bay. I mean, I like to party and all, but goddamn — that shit is serious.
But if the Feds are after me, then I will say this: If you think for one damned minute that I am gonna let you guys go to all the trouble of reading this blacked-out stuff without giving you an Easter Egg or two, then you’ve got another think coming, brother. Like it or not, I am well within my rights in saying that I’ve now got a journal on LinkFilter. I don’t know how much I’ll post there, but feel free to check it out at: http://linkfilter.net/?s=j;user=hatton98.
And another thing, dammit, while I’m on a roll — um, yeah, I really don’t have another thing. I just think another line or two of blackened text would look cool. Oh, hey, if you like the effect and want to use it, just check out the .blackened CSS code in the header of the page. There. That’s another thing. I feel much better now.
So, that’s it, then. I guess it’s only a matter of time before they read this and cart me away at gunpoint. Ah, well — I had a good run. Just tell them my wife had nothing to do with it, okay? She doesn’t even read this shit. (Why would she? She hears all this crap all day, every day. Poor girl.) So maybe she’ll at least keep the house, and the dog, and whatever the military goons don’t break when they cart me off.
Or maybe I’m wrong, and the web hits are from people looking for a good yuk. Whatever. I guess you’ll know when I’m back later today for another installment. Or when I’m not. At least I’ve got my free speech for now, though. And no overzealous government weenie is gonna take that from me. Bastards!
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