Posts (page 2)

In a brief moment of thinking "oh, why not?", I decided to enter the Public Radio Talent Quest. It seemed like a good thing to attempt, even if it is rather a longshot (of over 1300 entrants, 3 will end up making a pilot show). I've acted on "oh, why not?" and played longshots before, succeeded more times than I should have and came closer than I expected most times. So, we'll see. I only learned about the competition a few hours before the deadline, but the initial entry only required a recording under 2 minutes (I had to do a little editing to make mine 1:59).

You are all cordially invited to listen to my entry and give it a rating as high as your conscience will allow. I have no idea what I would do with my own radio show at this point in my life, but I know that it would resemble my blogging, with added "ums" and "ahs", and I would try to drag a number of people I know into it with me. Maybe you. But don't let that discourage you from giving my 2-minute audition a high rating.

So, yes, you could say I've gone Public. 

A rather unhappy story of our paranoid times is that of Matt Boyd, who got into a conversation in his office about a gun he wanted to buy. But he did it the day of the Virginia Tech shootings (before he had even heard the news) and one or more coworkers who had heard the news and overheard him freaked out and reported him to management. He was fired. Now, normally, that would be all, but Matt is the co-author of, not a blog, but a bloggy "personal journal" webcomic titled "Three Panel Soul", so, obviously the incident was the subject of a short series of strips. And a couple days after their weblication*, he got a visit from investigators from the State's Attorney's Office regarding what they considered a "borderline terroristic threat" (the investigators' own words... Mr. Boyd tell the whole story here).

You can judge for yourself if anything in this sorry story could be considered a 'threat' (besides what the State's Attorney's Office said to Mr. Boyd). Pretty outrageous, but at least he didn't end up in jail. Then I thought of a strange postcard I received a couple months ago. I had previously considered scanning it and putting it up here, but now it seems much more relevant. Does this look like a terrorist threat to you?

(Cross posted at FunnyPapaerless.com because I can)

* meaning being published on the web; it's a word I made up that I want to become widely used. Please spread it around.

Have you ever awakened from a dream that was not just vivid, but long and dramatic and exciting and so much fun you wanted to go back to sleep and dream more of it? And have you ever thought that your dream was so good, it could be made into a book, a movie or a TV show?

I have, on quite a few occasions, and at those times that I didn't go right back to sleep but rather attempted to write down the contents of the dream, I usually discovered one of four things:
(1) Upon further reflection, it was really dumber than the dumbest stuff that they put in movies or on TV.
(2) It involved things very personal to me that I would find totally humiliating if the world knew about them (Believe it or not, there are things too embarrassing for me to blog about).
(3) It involved things very personal to me that are of no interest to anybody else.
(4) I had awoken in the midst a storyline that, either asleep or awake, I could never find a good ending for.

I have had a few dreams like that lately. But last night, I had a dream that I am absolutely NOT ashamed to share and here it is (with a few post-waking touch-ups):

The place: a little-visited tourist attraction called the Hollywood Hall of Comedy. An attempt at a anamatronic wax museum with poorly-designed robotic re-creations of the Funniest People of All Time and one live one. She is Mabel Gable, a seventy-something former TV star similar to Carol Burnett (in the dream, she was Carol Burnett) who took on the job of tour guide for the Hall of Comedy and lives alone in the building's second floor. No one knows why she picked this life for her later years, but there is a good reason. When she's alone, some of the Comedy Robots become real, living beings and keep her company. Now, these are NOT figments of her imagination, and it isn't ALL the robots, but a few of them are inhabited by the spirits of their original sujects (and some of them will NOT stop complaining about how badly they made their faces).  The owner of the place is a technologically illiterate carnival-owner type (oddly, my dream pictured him as Tony Danza), who owns several other tourist traps, and doesn't pay much attention to this one, since it maes a little money and the building's a historical landmark he can't do anything else with. But he does find one way to save money on operation. He cancels the maintenance contract with the people who made the comedy robots and found the cheapest robotics expert he could find. And that person is Annie McGalway (name is a feminization of MacGuyver, get it? Actually, this was my role in the dream; I do rarely change myself to a female in my dreams, but in this one I did). And the reason she took the job is that this nerdish semi-genius twenty-something lady is a frustrated comedian, and one of Mabel Gabel's biggest fans.

Of course, she discovers Mabel's secret. At first, the nerd in her wants to find a logical explanation; but in time, she dedicates herself to secretly upgrading the haunted robots so that the ghosts are happier with their homes. She also builds Mabel a team of robot maidservants to treat her like the star she really is. Things are going along quietly until a local ecological disaster: oil from a nearby oil field (there really are some in the Los Angeles area) has begun oozing in the neighborhood, and suddenly the fountain outside the Hall of Comedy's front door has become a tar pit. Danza the owner isn't going to pay to fix it - he doesn't own the mineral rights. Even the Historical Society that declared the place a monument come to the conclusion that the easiest way to fix things is to tear down the Hall and put in some oil wells. Only Mabel and Annie (and the ghosts in the machines) want to save the Hall, but it would require raising a lot of money. Annie's raring to go, and sets up a Press Conference for Mabel, not knowing the reason she had quit the business twenty years ago - an accident during a publicity event that most everybody thought was minor, but left Mabel with a fear of large crowds - especially crowds of the press. Terrified of meeting the media, Mabel sits in front of the tar-filled fountain in the middle of the night, then starts walking out into the black gunk. It wasn't clear whether she could have died in the tar pit, but her robot maidservants drag her out anyway.

That's when I woke up. Not too difficult to come up with more plot; maybe Annie substituting for Mabel and having a press-related accident of her own; trying to pass off the haunted robots as "specially reprogrammed" to put them to work; a pratfall with Danza in the tar pit would be almost mandatory, and maybe add a couple more Hall of Comedy employees - the place is just too quiet. But is that the (a) wildest (b) stupidest (c) most insane (d) most creative or (e) most commercially marketable dream you ever heard?    

Copied from WendellWit.com, Wendell's self-built web home.

If I know the readers of my blog (and considering they number barely in the double digits, I should know them all by name), you're probably asking yourself, "Who is Jason Calacanis? Is he somebody I should know about? Isn't he a minor Presidential candidate or American Idol contestant?" Actually, he is an Internet Entrepreneur, which is a little of both. He was smart enough to name his little company Weblogs Inc. before anybody else, then sold out to AOL for umpteen million bucks back when umpteen million seemed like a lot of money. He then revived Netscape, turning it from a brand name associated with something or other to something else entirely. Now, he is a Venture Capitalisto (although the other VCs laugh behind his back for having only umpteen million) and has a personal blog where he blogs about blogging. His ReadersDigest-Campbells-Super-Condensed self-description: "Looking for TNBT" (Fortunately, 'TNBT' is not one of those abbreviations you put in a CraigsList Personal, but rather stands for "The Next Big Thing". I think. I hope.)

Among the personal stuff on his personal weblog is his bulldog named Toro. I was considering making fun of how obvious a name Toro is for a bulldog, but then I remembered how my mother named her miniature poodle Coco, after Famous French person Coco Chanel and ended up having everybody ask her why, since the dog had gray fur and not brown fur, she had named her Cocoa. So, I'll bet Jason occasionally has to explain why he named his dog after a brand of lawn mower. He also does a lot of writing about his weight and his painful efforts to lower that number, which is nothing unique, but he has apparently trademarked the word Fatblogging®™©№∞ (or at least has registered it as a domain name).

Anyway, after handing the Unevil O'Reilly his heinie in response to the well-meaning-but-over-reaching Blogger Code of Conduct, the Calacanis dude has written his own set of Rules for blogging about him... that is, if you want him to link back to you. He's calling it Link-Baiting, which is nicer than the term I'd previously seen for it - Link Whoring. Honestly, I prefer the less-sexually-suggestive name for it, even if Jason is trademarking it too. Let's face it, Jason C. is a Master-Link-Baiter.

But here is my problem. I have been blogging on-and-off since the Fall of 1999, when the only Blogging Jason was Kottke. (More off than on, probably 2-and-a-half of the 7-and-a-half years engaged in active bloggery at most) I know a golden opportunity to introduce a new, smart, and much more nerdy audience to my written nonsense when I see one. And it was no problem to write something up that fulfills most-if-not-all of Calacanis' requirements. I had a little problem with his request to "post a picture of me when I wasn't fat". Since my current weight is approximately 1.7 Calacanises, none of his pictures look fat to me. So, I just took his picture from Wikipedia (where his is considered significant) and "thinned it" a little. I hope he likes it.

But back to the point: I am just now returning to blogging after another depression-induced semi-hiatus. I have a lot of big plans for this place and all my "pseudo-network of sites" (including resuming my webcomic-blogging) but they aren't ready yet. I don't even have any Shameless Commerce set up to take advantage of a Jason-Calacanis-induced wave of traffic (I took down my Google ads when I realized that, for a humorous blog filled with attempts at witty wordplay, AdSense becomes AdNonSense). So why bother?

Well, my philosophy at WendellWit.com is "If I Can Bring a Laugh To A Single Person [based on current traffic statistics]  While At The Same Time Make Fun OF Somebody Much More Successful Than I Am, WHAT THE HECK!"    Bring it on, Link-Boy!!!

Continuing problems with my Cabal Internet connection have made updating the blog somewhat difficult... in the 'passing a camel through the eye of a needle' kind of difficult. Fortunately, I have had plenty of neglected Real Life issues to deal with, helping to keep my will to live down to a manageable level. But I'm not going to blog about any of them right now. Right now, it's almost 80 degrees at Wendell Castle in the mini-outskirts of San Luis Obispo, Californium, which means at least 7 to 8 degrees warmer inside Wendell Castle. I have yet to figure out exactly what this building is made out of, but I suspect Global Warming could be delayed by several years if they tore it down. Unfortunately, I have 6 months left on my current lease.

Anyway, here I am, baking in the Central California Sun and, in an act of certified masochism, web surfing on a hot laptop, keeping my lap warm enough to guarantee my sterility for the next year, and I come across this little graphic from Weather.com:

WHAT?!?

Light rain? LIGHT RAIN? I survey the skies around my current location (one nice thing about the boondocks is the  ample quantity of available sky). Not a cloud to be seen, let alone Light Rain! Look at the forecast below the mysterious rain report. Tonight, Clear. Tomorrow, Sunny, Warm. Foreseeable future, Sunny, Warm. Just Guessing Five Days Out, sunny, Warm.

I decide to go to Weather.com's latest Web2.0WidgetGadgetBellAndWhistleDogAndPony feature, its Interactive Weather Map and it confirms what I've seen with my own eyes.

No rain. The nearest clouds are several miles off shore and not getting any closer. (For your reference, my actual location is south of San Luis Obispo, just to the east of the 'e' in 'Sycamore Springs')

So why did Weather.com do this? Were they paid off by some envious East Coasters? Has the Weather Channel been acquired by NewsCorp, thus making their definition of 'weather' as unrelated to reality as their definition of 'news'? Or did some dude at the official SLO Weather Station spill his Mountain Dew into the rain gauge?

This calls for some Citizen Journalism. I'm going to remove the hot laptop from my warm lap and go out and investigate. Be back soon.

I found some Hawaiian-Sweet-Bread hot dog rolls in my local MegalomaniacMart and I was inspired...

What if I cooked up a Sweet Italian Sausage, and put it in a Hawaiian Sweet Bun, then added Sweet Relish, Maui Sweet Onion (or Vidalia if in season, this isn't a Hawaii thing), Honey Mustard and Brown Sugar Barbecue Sauce. And maybe some Sweet Potato Fries on the side...

Would it be, like the Sweetest Sandwich Ever?
Would it be safe for a Type 2 Diabetic to eat?
Maybe add a little High Fructose Corn Sweetener just for the hell of it?
Please advise.

ADDENDUM: Would this be safe to be served with sauerkraut or would it cause a kind of matter/anti-matter reaction that would destroy my kitchen?

Wednesday is Pi Day, Thursday is the Ides of March, Saturday is St. Patrick's Day. So what should we celebrate on Friday?

The birthdays of John Butler Yeats, Marlin (Wild Kingdom) Perkins, Henny Youngman, Josef Mengele, Pat Nixon, Leo (Rumpole) McKern, Jerry Lewis, Chuck (Love Connection) Woolery, Nancy (Heart) Wilson, Flavor Flav or Todd (Spawn) McFarlane?

The anniversaries of the first V-2 Rocket in WWII, the My Lai Massacre or the abductions (in different years) of Italy's Aldo Moro, the CIA's William Buckley and AP's Terry Anderson (Anderson the only one who came back alive)?

Or St. Urho's Day - for the legendary/fictional patron saint of Finnish immigrants to the US, who was claimed to have driven the grasshoppers out of Finland.

I'm leaning toward either St. Urho, Kidnapping Day or Old Comedians Day (for Henny Youngman & Jerry Lewis)...

Watching Mark Frauenfelder promoting Make Magazine on the Colbert Report, and seeing his 'robot mouse' run off the table and smash on the floor like a 'robot lemming' (Colbert's adlib), I was inspired...

This MetaFilter link to a design blogger admitting to his "Design Disease" inspired me to confess my own Degenerative Design-itis...

Two of my favorite colors are Huckleberry Hound Blue and Jinks the Cat Orange.

I tend to urn up my nose at blogs with non-fluid columns (which is why I haven't been able to get into Vox more).

I have a weakness for the sickeningly-sweet (to most people) Cherry Coca-Cola, but I gave it up when the can design changed to something very different from Coca Cola Classic. Now that it resembles Regular Coke again, I'm hooked again.

I have dreamed of starting a company named "DY Computers" and using the HP logo upside down as its trademark.

Countrywide's logo from 20 years ago helped inspire me to apply for a job there.

Ever since the Cold War, I've felt nervous about being inside a building with the Target Logo.
 
I have long been obsessed with the Bookman font (mostly for the italic with the big 'swash' on the lower-case W). I have totally way too many fonts on my computer, including a wide collection of fonts from TV logos (yes, all the Star Trek fonts, Klingon included), twenty-some comic strip fonts, and several variations of Uncial, the font used by the city of San Luis Obispo on its street signs. And I once e-mailed a blogger solely to ask her what the font on her logo was.

I have a big striped comforter with dimensions that are almost perfectly square, but I don't cover myself with it unless it is aligned with the stripes going head-to-foot. (Vertical stripes are slimming, right? I want to lose weight in my sleep).

And I curse Kraft every time I go down the dressings aisle for putting their Mayo in the cool-looking squared-off plastic jars but NOT my spread-of-choice, Miracle Whip.

Remember today as the day that Blogging jumped into the shark's mouth.

Spam blogs, fake blogs, celeblogs, fake celeblogs, moblogs, miliblogs, lawblogs, catblogs, dogblogs*,  everybody's got a blog and if they use WordPress, it came with a prepackaged post and comment from "Mr. WordPress". Well, the inevitable has happened. Mrs. WordPress has a blog.**

*because on the internet, no one knows you're a dog unless you tell them

**and based on the picture on the front page, Mr. WP's first name may be Waldo