Well, I've finally decided. After a couple of years of infrequent updating, it's time for this blog to call it quits. I started it the week I graduated high school and it's still here, almost eight years later. I have one more post coming down the pike and then I'm going to leave it to the tumbleweeds or cobwebs or whatever springs up on old shuttered blogs.
I had almost forgotten how much fun I had doing this. I suspect every act of writing is an act of cultivating a persona, because a real person is just too complex to put down on paper. I didn't realize that when I started out and it shows in my early posts that are super-earnest mental coredumps*. Later posts actually seem to display a sense of humor and some personal insight, something my real world friends have given up on me ever finding. My writing "voice" certainly improved over the years, even if my speaking voice didn't.
Finally, I'd like to thank my readers. I made a habit of alternately denying their existence and insulting them, because I mainly wrote this blog for myself. But I know for a fact that at least 4 people I know in real life either are or were regular readers. I apologize for that fact that I have been as bad at keeping up to date with some of them as I have at keeping up to date with this blog**. Reading some old comments reminded me of how you guys actually are people and not the ignorant hivemind that the internet turns into in many places.
Like I said before, the writing has always mainly been for me. So I'm sure I'm not done writing altogether. I'll probably open another blog, probably more anonymously than this one. If you know me personally, get in contact somehow and maybe I'll let you know where I'm going next.
Or maybe not. I haven't decided.
*I wonder if writers who don't think they have a persona are like scientists who think they don't have a metaphysics, where it turns out you actually just have a crappy half-baked one.
Free Idea
I don't have any use for this myself, but if you're trying to name a German basketball team, consider "Deutschland Über Ballers."
Albert Pujols: 2001-2011
I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. Here's a man who had a chance to be a legend, a god-like figure in a city that has loved him for over a decade. Instead he chose to be a mercenary, taking crazy money to go to play out the end of his career in a city that expects him to live up to an insanely big contract. I hope it works out for him, because he's a great player. But it didn't go so hot for A-Rod.
Re: The Policeman Who Cussed at me for Crossing the Street
I got chewed out by a policeman directing traffic while I was coming home from SummerFest last night. He was at the corner making a generic "go ahead" motion. The cars weren't going, so we assumed that meant we should walk. When we started crossing, he dropped a sentence that I calculated at 50% profanity (depending on how you parse blasphemies against the name of God).
That really made me mad. Not because I don't respect authority (I'm a programmer so I believe that things in general go smoother if everyone respects and follows established protocol. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Internet Explorer). I was mad because I think proper authority has the responsibility to treat people as humans, not as subjects to be ruled over and abused. On the other hand, this guy was directing traffic at 12:30am, so maybe it's just a sign that he's not an individual whose tact and interpersonal skills are needed for defusing attempted suicides and hostage negotiations.
GK Chesterton, of course, explains my point even better than I could.
That really made me mad. Not because I don't respect authority (I'm a programmer so I believe that things in general go smoother if everyone respects and follows established protocol. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Internet Explorer). I was mad because I think proper authority has the responsibility to treat people as humans, not as subjects to be ruled over and abused. On the other hand, this guy was directing traffic at 12:30am, so maybe it's just a sign that he's not an individual whose tact and interpersonal skills are needed for defusing attempted suicides and hostage negotiations.
GK Chesterton, of course, explains my point even better than I could.
A certain magistrate told somebody whom he was examining in court that he or she "should always be polite to the police." I do not know whether the magistrate noticed the circumstance, but the word "polite" and the word "police" have the same origin and meaning. Politeness means the atmosphere and ritual of the city, the symbol of human civilisation. The policeman means the representative and guardian of the city, the symbol of human civilisation....
The idea of the sacred city is not only the link of them both, it is the only serious justification and the only serious corrective of them both. If politeness means too often a mere frippery, it is because it has not enough to do with serious patriotism and public dignity; if policemen are coarse or casual, it is because they are not sufficiently convinced that they are the servants of the beautiful city and the agents of sweetness and light...
Politeness is an armed guard, stern and splendid and vigilant, watching over all the ways of men; in other words, politeness is a policeman. A policeman is not merely a heavy man with a truncheon: a policeman is a machine for the smoothing and sweetening of the accidents of everyday existence. In other words, a policeman is politeness; a veiled image of politeness - sometimes impenetrably veiled. But my point is here that by losing the original idea of the city, which is the force and youth of both the words, both the things actually degenerate. Our politeness loses all manliness because we forget that politeness is only the Greek for patriotism. Our policemen lose all delicacy because we forget that a policeman is only the Greek for something civilised. A policeman should often have the functions of a knight-errant. A policeman should always have the elegance of a knight-errant.
See What Happens When I Can't Sleep?
Ok, so I already posted this on facebook, but it's not like I've ever been a stickler for originality before.
The Orifice: NBC's hilarious proctological mock-umentary series!
Hawaii Fievel: America's favorite mouse adventurer fights tropical crime!
The Deuce of Cakes: TLC's reality series starring customers who explain how they felt the day after eating the plastic-based frosting used on cake building shows!
If you thought I was above TV-themed poop joke puns, you've clearly never met me. "Proudly underperforming already-low standards since 2004™"
Coming this fall:
How I Met Your Murderer: Fox's gripping crime drama in which a retired detective tells his children the story of how he cracked a case...and how that led to them being born!The Orifice: NBC's hilarious proctological mock-umentary series!
Hawaii Fievel: America's favorite mouse adventurer fights tropical crime!
The Deuce of Cakes: TLC's reality series starring customers who explain how they felt the day after eating the plastic-based frosting used on cake building shows!
If you thought I was above TV-themed poop joke puns, you've clearly never met me. "Proudly underperforming already-low standards since 2004™"
Because Google Doesn't Understand Context
Today, I encountered an idea I had never considered before...Can you freeze eggs to keep them fresh?.
The consensus was that this a bad idea because eggs explode when frozen. Well, that's just too good to pass up, so I hit Google image search to see what that looks like.
The first hit for "frozen eggs" is a cool picture of an eggshell split open, with icy yolk hanging out. The second picture is... Jennifer Aniston.
Damn, Google. That's cold.*
* Pun actually not intended but happily accepted.
The consensus was that this a bad idea because eggs explode when frozen. Well, that's just too good to pass up, so I hit Google image search to see what that looks like.
The first hit for "frozen eggs" is a cool picture of an eggshell split open, with icy yolk hanging out. The second picture is... Jennifer Aniston.
Damn, Google. That's cold.*
* Pun actually not intended but happily accepted.
Open Letter to Mike Quade
Complaining about stolen bases in a blowout loss is loser talk. The best revenge is winning. Or, failing that, beaning the guy in his next at-bat. If the Cubs don't have a pitching staff that can accomplish either of those, you've got bigger problems than stolen bases.
