I feel like I am spamming my own blog page, but I am honor bound to make a post everyday; no matter how crappy it is.

It's like I have to do that Japenese thing where I stab myself in the stomach with a samurai sword, if I miss a day of posting. Fortunately, I do not feel as if making quality posts is within the boundaries of my obligation, or I would have so many stab wounds in my belly right now it wouldn't be funny; it'd be hilarious.

So now I come to the main point of today's post:

Nnnng.


Whew, I am glad we had this talk, but now it's time for sleep, and sleep I shall.

Activate super procrastination not posting for real today mode, GO!

You shall fall prey to my lazy-fu evildoers! FEAR ME! Cower in terror!

I WILL DESTROY YOU --- later. Right now I'm watching TV.

Okay, so yesterday during a break at work I was surfing the internet with the help of one of the many social bookmarking sites that I use, and I see this cool link on one of them, and since I'm at work, I post the link to Del.icio.us so that I can get a better look at it when I get home.

Later, I check the front page of del.icio.us, which is where the hourly top three bookmarks are continuously updated, and I am unsurprised to find that the top link for that hour was the site I had bookmarked before. Social bookmarking sites seem to share most of the same top links most of the time, so this was nothing to write home about.

But then I saw that my name was listed as the first person to post this link on del.icio.us, and I freaked out, looked left and right for someone to show this to, remembered that I was alone in the office, and silently did the "Yesss!" arm-pump. I am kinda new to this whole "social bookmarking" thing, so the idea that my name (or at least my internet handle) was on the homepage of a popular website seemed like a tremendous accomplishment to me.

Rain drops keep fallin' on my head... (happy music)

The whole rest of the day I had a spring in my step, a certain confidence in my demeanor, that said that I was an important man; after all I was on the front page of a web site viewed by millions; perhaps you've heard of me? In my case a complement can sometimes be just as hurtful as an insult, if not more. My ego swells easily and extensively, much to my ire.


And thanks to this ill-deserved supreme self-confidence, yesterday's post about "Who wants to be a Superhero?" was particularly scathing (for me, at least). Okay, so the show wasn't that great, but I don't think I needed to say that Stan Lee was a senile and bigoted old man, because even though this might possibly be true, it wasn't very nice of me to say so. Besides, what am I, a television expert? Who am I to tell people where the line between so-bad-it's-good, and so-bad-it's-worse lies?

"Digging" my own hole.

And then I figured, hey, what the heck, I am king of the internet and all, so why don't I submit my post to every social bookmarking site that I can think of.




Two people actually voted for it on Digg, both within a minute or so of my posting it on the site, which led to much giggling-schoolgirl-like excitement, as well as my staying up until 2AM watching to see how my article fared.

When I finally went to bed I was sure I would be really late for work the next morning, but strangely enough, I actually woke up early this morning, and wasn't late to work, for once.

The penny drops.

Around mid-day it finally hit me about what an arrogant jerk I had been (look at what I named the links: both mention Stan Lee's senility); I still can't believe what a jackass I was to put that stuff up all over the internet.

My stupidity had a sorta neat side effect, though, that in one day I got as many visits as I normally do in a week. Check out the graphic:


Perhaps I should be an idiot more often.

Coming Soon.

I hope to mess around with my blog this weekend and make it look really cool, and ironically, some of the things I plan on adding are social bookmarking submission buttons. Some people just never learn I guess.

Okay, so they've been advertising the show for ages now on what seemed like every channel on television, and although it looked really, really terrible, I thought I would pop over to the SciFi channel and check out the premier of the reality show Who Wants to be a Super Hero?.

Big mistake.

It turns out that my superhuman tolerance of stupidity in the name of humor has a limit, and this show found that limit, death-punched it, and ruthlessly pushed past it until I was clutching my head and screaming for mercy. This is my kryptonite.

Granted, I laughed until tears came out of my eyes during the first ten minutes of the show. I mean, the guy in red spandex soberly telling us that as a busy exotic dancer he regretted missing out on his daughter's life, and he hoped that appearing on this show would make tight spandex clad Dad her hero; this also after presenting himself with cheesy one-liners and wince-inducing super hero poses. Comedy gold. It was funny how these grown men and women really, seriously, believed that they were comicbook-style super heroes.

But you know how when you were a kid you would play make-believe, and it would start out as fun and games, but gradually you got more and more serious about it until someone got really pissed because you can't actually have a force field, that's stupid, you're a cowboy, I'm an Indian, and my arrow hit you in the heart you jerk, and suddenly the game isn't so much fun anymore?


The first time Stan Lee, legendary (and apparently senile) comic book creator, developer, and/or writer of Spider-man, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Daredevil, the X-Men, and others appeared on screen, his first words were to gruffly berate the show's contestants for having an impromptu party, telling them that "Superheroes don't act like that. You've got to take this seriously!".

And Stan Lee certainly does, and they do, and it is really, really too serious. Come on. The first guy Mr. Lee ousted was because of a remark the contestant made in passing when a double agent/mole asked him if, as an action figure maker, he would make an action figure of himself if he won. The contestant said something along the lines of: "Yeah, I guess.", and Stan Lee told him he was a greedy jerk and told him to put his costume in the trash can. The guy who was evicted was also the only gay superhero of the bunch, and as such, Stan Lee can't help but look a little bigoted. I'm just saying.

And then the contests were a joke, loosely organized, with everyone wandering around waiting to get a call from S.L. telling them to find a secluded place to change into their costumes, and then race to a random archway in the park, no markers or rules or anything, the key to the challenge was that unbeknownst to the contestants, on the way to the archway there was a little actor girl making terrible fake sobs and crying for help, and if the superhero didn't help the little girl, they failed the challenge.

This is a stupid test of people's inner "hero", as Stan Lee liked to think of it. First of all, it relies not on the contestant's moral integrity, but on their attention to detail. People get focused in a race, and don't notice things. Stupid.

And then in the elimination ceremony on the top of a roof, Stan Lee was still gruff and angry seeming, and even the Vin Diesel lookalike bouncer was shaking and near to tears when he came close to being eliminated. That was kinda funny.

And for all these eliminations Stan Lee is the sole judge and executor, something which lends a sort of unfairness to the whole thing. The old boy doesn't like your face? (Vin Diesel lookalike, you're toast.) Too bad for you, you are outta here. Stan Lee should just get it over with and announce the winner, seeing as how he seemingly has his mind made up already.

It would spare everyone involved a lot of pain.

What. a. DAY.

You have no idea.

Just none.

I'm outta here.

(This totally counts as a post.)

Seriously I have to go to bed so I am trying this thing where I type for exactly five minutes and then I'll publish the post, so five mins for editing and everything and whoopie won't this be fun; NOT.

That would have been in italics, or if you want to be a good web coder, in "em" or emphasis.

Now we know.

Wow. Two minutes are up already, I really type much faster than what you got up here, however I have to think up what I'm going to say before I type it and that takes time, time that I don't have, there's a BOMB IN MY MOUSE AND IT'S GOING OFF IN A MINUTE. Save me Tom Cruise, like that Nascar movie from the anchor man/elf/whatever guy that is comming out. Yeah, I am a plagerisinatin fule. Haha bad spelling. Wheee!

fiv mins are upppppp....

You know what, I want to write something meaningful today. Something useful, for a change, not just pointless and long-winded insanity.

I want to write pointless and long-winded insanity that will change your LIFE.

The road to empowerment.

I have lost track of the number of desperate people who come up to me everyday and ask me:

"Mr. Wilkos, how can I escape the day after day, hour after hour mind melting tedium of checking blog posts I have commented on, forums I have asked a question on, checking these sites every five minutes (does this sound like you? I see you smiling in the back ma'm, you know what I'm talking about), checking every five minutes for days on end, just to see if anyone has responded to my comment or query?
Surely there is some way to avoid spending the rest of my life online reloading pages just so I can see the response to my comment."

Well folks, the day of your deliverance has come. For I have found two simple online tools that will end your commenting doldrums.

Commentful

I'll begin with the less complex of the two, Commentful.

The concept is simple. Sign up on the site with your email address and a password that will be used on your account, and you can instantly login to the site and install the Commentful firefox extension.

This extension causes a tiny bulb to show up in your firefox window. Now every time you post a comment on a blog, Digg, Flickr, Zooomr, or vBulleting forum thread, all you have to do is right click on the page and select "Add to commentful". A box will pop up where you can modify the comment URL, post title, and the amount of days you want Commentful to keep checking the post for new comments. When someone replies to your comment the extension's bulb will begin to blink, allowing you to drop whatever you're doing and hurry over to see the new development in your online life. You can also keep track of your comments using the site's Watchlist.

This seems like a very handy tool, however it isn't quite as full featured or as easy to use as the second commenting tool I will show you.

coComment

Like Commentful, coComment will take you straight to your account after you register, but this time you have a choice between installing the very easy to use firefox extension, which will automatically track your conversations without the need of popups, or, if you are unfortunate enough not to be using firefox, you can click and drag a link to your bookmarks, which you click on a comments page (before you press "submit").

The coComment extension also displays a tiny icon in firefox, and it's color will indicate to you if the page you are on contains a trackable conversation or not, and when a new reply is made an indicator will appear next to it.

The coComment system of conversation tracking has many bonuses, such as a feature that will show you the people that are commenting at the same places as you (your neighbors), the ability to show your recent comments from around the internet in the sidebar on your blog (so everyone can appreciate your brilliance), and the ability to track conversations on sites that don't even have a comment form (meta conversation).

CoComment should work fine on most blogs, as well as flickr, digg, etc... with one exception. You poor souls with a Xanga blog will unfortunately not be able to integrate coComment properly in your site, as Xanga has introduced some new security features that prevent most javascript code from running properly on their pages. I think that you will still be able to use coComment to track Xanga conversations, this just means that you wont be able to put a cool button on your comment forms that allows anyone to track the conversation, without the use of an extension or bookmarklet.

Conclusion

I signed up for both of these so that I could test them for this article, and of the two I most enjoyed coComment for ease of use, active community, and large goodie bag, however, since most of the bloggers I know are all on Xanga, and Xanga doesn't let you comment without having your own Xanga, I really don't get to make that many comments, although all the comments I did make worked like a charm.

I hope you blogophiles will enjoy using these handy tools to make your life easier, I, however, will have to use them a bit longer before I decide if I really make enough comments to merit such a convenience.

Well, off to beddy-bye for me, see ya'll tomorrow.

Just saw this video of David Copperfield's amazing Portal illusion, and it is quite impressive indeed.

Check it out!

Although I can't help but be reminded of Gob from Arrested Development when I see Copperfield, especially the pose at the end. Hilarious.

Hello, it's post making time. Although I might have some problems being cohesive, what with House being on TV right now, and I can only post during the commercials... oops it's on again, I'll be back...

...yeah, it's all because of the presidential decree that mandates compulsory House watching.
Ok. Maybe there isn't a law that says I have to watch grumpy genius doctor House, but there should be. It's more like, um, a moral obligation. Think of the children.
Aaand it's back on...

...oookay, that was a good one. Heheheh. Grumpy pill-popping hilarious old man. Hugh Laurie is awesome.



Today has been a most interesting day. My sis woke me up to say goodbye before she and my grandparents left for Colorado at 8 o'clock this morning. I went straight back to sleep and managed to sleep through church yet again. I really hate it when I do that.

After that, I woke up to find that I had the house all to myself. Wow! What to do with this opportunity? Well, so far I have used this newfound freedom to talk to myself extra loud without worrying that people will think I'm crazy, as well as ignoring my personal hygiene to a certain degree. Not that I really had any better ideas, but still, you know, I'm sure it could be good for something. Uh... hmm... I could transform the house into a temporary food kitchen slash homeless shelt... ?... nah, stupid idea... hum... uh... nope. No ideas. Oh well.



So, other than that, most of today's 12 hours have been spent in thrall of the magical fun box. I love/hate cable television. It's so easy to waste so much time, but in an otherwise entertaining and enjoyable manner. Darn you television! Darn you and your strawberry flavored lies!



I also just realized that I spent the whole day inside this house, and only really in one part of the house, the basement, and I haven't made human contact in any shape or form all day; I haven't even seen another human being all day long. Kinda sad, but I can handle solitude; I have introverted super powers that way.

Although there was this one time that I might have come close to human contact today, however eerie it might have been; I was in the bathroom, minding my own business, and then I heard the door open upstairs, and footsteps on the floor above my head. My grandparents were supposed to be halfway to Colorado by now, and we weren't expecting company, so it kinda freaked me out. My grandparents don't usually lock their doors or anything (don't get any ideas) so it was possible that the paper boy had just wandered in from the street and was collecting his payment for this week in pilfered stereos and television equipment. Steps, steps, steps, and then some muffled talking, so there must have been more than one, and by the time I had finished in the bathroom I heard the front door open and close, and then two car doors slammed as I climbed the stairs, and I made it to the window just in time to hear a car speeding off down the street.

So... that was interesting.



Right, work tomorrow, so I'm out. Let me know if you can think of anything to do with a house all to myself. And not just throwing a party or something, that's too obvious, I'm thinking maybe something more creative, like, uh, Cirque Du Soliel.
--No, no, where would I find enough face paint...

Anyway, g'night!

I don't know what to post about. I know! I'll just do as I usually do and make it up as I go along!

HUZZAH!

Ok, just so you know, I am break dancing as I write this. I am actually spinning around on my back, my keyboard in hand, timing my key presses to the beat of the loud techno music booming through my speakers. Eh--ah---hoo. There. Now I am doing a one-armed handstand, holding the keyboard against my outstretched leg with the other hand, and typing this sentence furiously. This really strains--- oof! --- the muscles. Just fell down.

My sis is leaving at 8AM tomorrow to go to her Christian leadership camp, and even though she has only been here three weeks, I will very much miss her when she leaves. It is great to be able to spend time with someone who knows where you are coming from, and who actually thinks my jokes are funny. My sense of humor usually doesn't amuse my grandparents very much, and rightly so. Most of the time I am not entirely sure myself whether I am just kidding or being serious; it takes someone who knows me well to "get" my humor-osity.

Or stuff.

Must sleep now.

One last thing. Of all the pre-movie commercials we are forced to watch, this Coke ad is the only one that hasn't gotten old yet, even after six or seven viewings. Every time you watch it you notice something different going on, although I am not sure that you can see much detail at all with this low resolution youtube version.
As the Coke advertisements like to say: Enjoy!

Haha, forgive me, I am new to this "descriptive-yet-amusing" headline creating buisiness. This title is more like "descriptive-yet-cliche".

My sis and I just caught the 10PM showing of M. Night Shyamalan's new movie Lady in the Water, and I am in awe. I have loved every movie M. Night has come out with, Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village (less so),even though I didn't know his name until Signs came out.

His movies have always been characterized by their twist-endings, so let me break this to you easy: Lady in the Water has no surprise at the end, and I am not sorry to see it go. Don't get me wrong, I loved the mind blowing endings of the other movies, but by the time I saw The Village, everyone in the theater was spending their time guessing what the surprise was going to be, and unfortuneately, I got it right.

I hate knowing the ending. I love to be surprised by a movie.

And Lady in the Water is nothing if not surprising.

It was more amusing than it was eerie, more blunt than it was mysterious, and more fun than it was thought provoking. It was something completely new that I don't think I've ever seen in a movie before.





Ok, I am writing this 24 hours after I wrote the above; unfortunately I was interrupted by inebriation (not me) last night (and I thought college didn't start for another month), and I lost my train of thought, so I'll just briefly conclude here.

I thought Lady in the Water was a fantastic and original movie, perhaps too fantastic and original for some people, but not for me, I loved it. I live for original. Which is why I give it the most shiny stars that I am capable of dishing out:



Oh, and just for the record: the newspaper critic character has the best movie moment EVER.

Here I am, yet again clickity-clack typing up another completely fantastalicious blog post.

I am slightly tempted to end it there, like I did yesterday, but I think I have already written too much for an accurate duplication of it's effect. Sad.

I blame my recent absences on my sister, and the hilarious distractions that are comedy central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (genius) and The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert (the "t"s are silent) which both air in the hour before my bedtime, and that is when the blogging fairies usually plant sugarplum blog posts on my site. But mostly it's my sister's fault.

If you are hip with the interwebs you've probably already seen this (Peter), but this is a prime example of Daily Show hilarity. Me and my sis were rolling on the ground. (I trust you can handle the dash and sprinkle of naughtiness.)



And for a sample of Colberts deadpan humor, look no further than the clip below. Or actually, try this 30 minute one as well.



They are amazing, and so are you. Good night America.

This is a blog post.

No, seriously, it is.

I mean, I know blog posts, and if there ever was one, this is it.

For real.

Blah, blah, blog sheep have you any links? Yes sir, yes sir, something that rymes with "links". Click on the picture and you will have fun.

And after you are finished being amazed with the original, check out the new and improved version!

Naplam, anyone?

And just because it's you, I will explain a little before I go. Oil burns, water makes the blob grow, salt makes it explode, water plus green equals no more water, and those three question marks make happy fun time care bears come out and give you a hug.

The fun is in discovering what you can do with it on your own, so have fun!

Well, it seems that I have survived the weekend with my insanity intact, despite my dire predictions. Odd what sort of defenses you develop after spending a week or two with two pre-pre-teen girls and another who might as well be one. (Haha, Melanie.)

And now I'm back, posting on my blog again. You see, it is really easy to get out of the habit of daily writing; you only have to miss one day, and after missing two I had figured this would be a code-red level-5 blog-wide emergency. My daily readers would be mind-starved of my precious prose. The safety of one or even two whole persons was at stake. I had to act fast.

So, I sprang into action and waited until 5 minutes after I was supposed to be in bed to post this just in the nick of time!

Whew. Close call. Good save. *Gives self high five.* Score one for the good guys.

Random

Insert random yet somehow meaningful blog content here.

One thing we like to do here at Get in on the John Inc. is to include very clever pop culture references here and there, and we think that people really appreciate that. Yeah. Except my pop culture isn't very popular anymore, nor is it very cultured.

Therefore I will now take the time to explain two of the incredibly clever pop references in my last post.

The title of that post: "Who you tryin' to get crazy with ese? Don't you know I'm loco?" comes from the Cypress Hill song Insane in the Membrane. I have included a music video that someone made for it using clips from the hilarious cartoon Invader Zim. The real music video was just them at a concert and those music videos are always really boring. So, enjoy, and like the video says, there is a mountain of cussing the size of Mont Blanc, so maybe just listen to the first part, or whatever, I don't know.



The other reference was my parting words: "And that is why I'm a nut; I'm crazy in the coconut.", and that came from the trippy music video that I will display below.



Seriously, how awesome is this music video. *brr* Creepy turtle-head old man.

I had heard this song before but never the video, which I found amongst many, many other pretty awesome ones in pitchfork media's 100 Awesome Music Videos feature. Some really incredible videos in there, but I still haven't had a chance to see them all. Check it out!

Speaking of music videos, you might have all ready seen this, it's sorta like the spinning leek thing, but who can say no to an acapella chorus composed of horses whose voices you can turn on and off at your mere whim?

Who indeed.

GAH!

I've gone nuts!

*Runs wildly in circles with his arms waving above his head and his eyes rolling in his sockets as foam drips from his mouth until he runs into a wall and falls on his back, then gets up and runs full force into the same wall again, shakes himself and then slowly turns his head and fixes his bulging eyes on you with a penetrating and disconcerting glare*

"Whatchu lookin' at? Huh? Want to do something about it?"

*He takes the predictable silence of the computer monitor as yellow-hearted cowardice and sneers.*

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

*He then runs screaming over to the stairs and throws himself down them, bounces into the basement, recovers, runs back up the stairs, turns, and chucks himself over the edge again. He does this until he can no longer walk and is covered with purple bruises, then he pulls himself back to the computer by his finger tips which scuttle nimbly in front of him like spider legs pulling a limp rag doll*

"I was going to write up one of the ten or so post ideas that I have stored up and waiting for me to type life into, but then I said: "Screw it.", and decided that this would be a good time to have my long overdue mental breakdown."

*Starts blowing raspberries at the monitor, waves to the Sherlock Holmes banana riding past him on the two seater bicycle, Watson is a bespeckled shark on the seat behind the pipe smoking banana*

"Gotta get up at 6AM tomorrow for the family reunion. 23 people will be living in this house at that time, and I figured I would just go crazy now and save myself the trouble of doing it later."

*Has trouble getting the mouse to click where he wants it to, as the mouse seems to be more interested in the cheese puffs lying open on the desk, and keeps on wandering in that direction*

"And then after the family reunion we get to run straight over to my cousins' wedding reception, and that will take up the last six hours of the day (or so)."

And that is why I'm a nut; I'm crazy in the coconut.

It's 11:57 PM. Do you know where your children are?

Because if they are being held captive by the chains of slumber, me and my snare drum are here to save them from that terrible fate.

I am currently losing the battle versus my ignoble adversary Sleep, so I must now resort to a smear campaign to rally the common people to my cause. Check the propaganda, yo!


Sleep sucks.
Think about it, if you sleep 8 hours a night by the time you are 90 years old you will have slept the equivalent of 45 years of awake-time, just like that, down the drain.

And what the heck is sleep for?
I am listening to a guy tell me on my headphones that sleep is the period when we reduce certain chemicals that build up in our bodies during the daytime. Couldn't we invent some sort of pill to do that?

Or is sleep just the time that our brains use to make random connections and organize itself? I once got the idea of making a dream journal out of a teen people magazine and I tried it a couple of times. A dream journal is where the moment you wake up in the morning you reach for your notebook and jot down what you were dreaming about before it fades away. Sometimes the results can be surprising, such as the day when I apparently was dreaming of "Opra Winfrey searching for me in a biplane".
What could these dreams possibly signify, if anything at all?

Personally I think that the chemicals that build up in our bodies are really just poisons that Sleep diabolically uses to blackmail us, and dreams are when Sleep does it's brainwashing VOODOO!

Stupid sleep.

OK EVERYONE! LETS BOYCOTT SLEEP! STARTING RIGHT NOW!

...

I'm not asleep yet, are you?

If you were to take the time to scroll down the sidebar a little, thanks to the Library Thing widget you would notice that I recently finished the the newberry prize winning book Holes by Louis Sachar. (The Newberry prize is the award that they give to exceptional childrens books).

I actually first discovered this book on the Holes DVD, a live action Disney Movie film which proved to be of unusually good quality. I enjoyed the story and filed away the name of the book in my memory for future reference.

And then my sister came back from Guinea, and this had been her in-flight reading for the trip, so I swiped it from her and dove in.

I read it in a couple of hours, it being a children's novel and all, but I have learned that the label of "Kids book" does not exclude the presence of an excellent and meaningful story, when a couple of years ago I broke down and read a book that had been molding on my shelf ever since I got it at the tender age of ten years old, and I already considered myself too old for "Kids books" (After all, I was reading the 900 page long and slightly violent Sword of Truth books). That book was called The Giver, check it out if you get a chance.


Much like The Giver the writing is simple to read and understand, yet between the lines there can be found a deep and rich tapestry of ideas and emotions.

Camp Green Lake is neither a camp, nor is it anywhere near a lake or greenery of any kind. Stanley Yelnats was given a choice between going to Camp Green Lake or going to prison, and he had never been to camp. Unfourtunately for him, he should have choosen jail, but then again the Yelnats had been unlucky ever since Stanley's "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather" was cursed by a gypsy woman. The inmates of Camp Green Lake are forced to spend everyday in under the beating sun, digging holes in the cracked desert earth; the warden says it's to "make bad boys turn into good boys", but some think that they are actually searching for something more.

Intersperced with this story line are several others; exploring the source of the Yelnats curse, the tragic story of the legendary bandit Kissin' Kate, and in the end they all tie together in a satisfying and coheasive hole. Oops, I fake-accidently said "hole" when I meant "whole". Teehee, aren't I funny?

In the end it was a quick and amusing read, and I would recommend it to you if you aren't looking for anything very complex.

I give it an above-average rating of 3/5 stars!

Holy garbonzo beans!
You were really interested in a link to beans?

You know, I sat down to write today's post an hour early, in the hopes of finally subduing and subjugating my arch-foe: Sleep. This great technological advance of "earlier posting" was supposed to be the weapon that would give me the edge in the war with slumberland; it came to me earlier today in a flash of insight, much like Einstein when he realized that E=mc2 = Atomic Bomb.

However, somehow I spent all that time fixing and adding tiny things on my blog, whittling away all of my precious blog posting time, until now, when it is once again too late. Curse you Sleep. You are far too clever for my tastes.

Ch-ch-changes.

Actually, that would be change, singular. I added some pretty Pandora box thingies down there below the Library Thing widget. When I was pondering them in the template preview window, I thought to myself: "This borders on too much information."

The list of radio stations directly tailored to my musical tastes? Ok, not so bad, but the list of my bookmarked songs?

Yeah, that could lead to some embarrassing moments when I add the newest Gwen Stephani, or that profane death metal song to my favorites. (Sadly I don't notice profanities in music anymore, after a year with a roommate who blasted me with some kinda vulgar hip-hop music.)

But then I thought: "Well, I was never really known for my self preservation", and then clicked the "Save template changes" button, because I have nothing to hide, and I will stand tall and bookmark Aqua's "Barbie Girl" with resolute pride, knowing that whatever happens: "I can touch. I can play. I can say she's always yours. Oo-ooo-ou. She's a Barbie Girl, in a Barbie world."

Life in plastic, it's fantastic my friends.

So I hope you enjoy the time that I spent not posting again, and make use of those invasive Pandora's boxes over there. And if you click those song links, you can actually hear a sample of the song in question, so they can be pretty neat.

Just remember what happened when the first Pandora's box was opened.

Ho ho ho. Sleep eludes my questing grasp once again. Well played Sleep, you are a most formidable opponent. However...

Hah!
I counter attack your evasions with another tiny post!
Soon you shall be within my reach! You can not escape me forever SLEEEP!

The Oompa Loompa Poll results

It seems as if there was a very clear winner of the "Old Oompa vs. New Oompa" poll, and let me give you a hint: it wasn't Johnny Depp's diminutive drudges.

Hooray for midget actors and orange face paint everywhere! HUZZAH!



As you can see, the old school oompas won by quite a margin. And since I do not believe that a total of 12 actual, individual, people have ever cared enough about my blog to notice a poll half way down the page, I naturally assume that Joel Span has voted around 8 or so times on it, including the one vote that was received for the new Oompa Loompas.

Good for you Joel, keep that spirit of Guinean politics alive!

Which also means that the Old Oompas won pretty much unanimously, unless I am mistaken in my musings.

Personally, when I think Oompa, I think little orange and green guys, so I voted for old oompa myself. HOORAY FOR YET ANOTHER OOMPA VICTORY!

Okay now, here's the thing: it's not that I am running out of ideas to blog about; I currently have a surplus of those, and I have the photoshopped pictures to prove it; it's that I'm running out of time.

I don't like to write on my blog with other people in the room with me; I have this thing about people reading over my shoulder as I write, they don't have to actually be spying over my shoulder, it's just that they could. So now that my Sis and my two younger female cousins have formed their girl-pack (which makes all boys their enemies by default), I am forced by my own pet peeve to start writing on my blog after everyone else goes to sleep, which means less time for writing, because unfourtunately, I have a job to rise and shine for.

Aaand, it's already too late for moi, so I must stoppy ze bloggings. Sad.

:'(

And the Japanese cry-y face style: T_T

Hope you noticed the things that I did get done here, such as the thumbnails that pop up when you hover your mouse over the blog links; plus the very nicely done Library Thing widget which I had to style by hand myself so that it would fit in nicely with the rest of the site.
Incidently, for some reason the LT box doesn't work that great in internet explorer. It sorta flees to the bottom of the page. Odd. But then again, if you are still using internet explorer you deserve to be subjected to hideous web pages! Shame on you! Think of the children! Use firefox!

Too tired.

5 minutes? Ha ha. I have completed entire English papers in less time!

And the grade I received on those papers is irrelevant to my point, which is, uh... I can make stuff up really fast.

So prepare to be amazed!

My apologies

Some of you have already noticed that I missed yesterday's post, and frankly I am surprised no one broke the glass panel, pulled the alarm, and deployed a SlapMe! link in the comments.

I realize that this is probably because no one wanted to go through the tedium of browsing the archives for the link to the SlapMe! picture, what with the only compensation being the hollow delight of slapping me on the wrists (or rather, on the face) for denying you a post that, lets be blunt here, probably wouldn't have been that great anyways.

Be that as it may, the truth is that I must rely on your help to keep me posting regularly, in the absence of a willpower to call my own.

And so to humbly aid you in your most gracious task I have put the slapMe! code in the sidebar where it can easily be cut-and-pasted into your comment, and cleverly disguised as something I would never suspect!

So, next time I miss a day, slap away, and keep me regular.

Be my blogging Metamusil.

Good excuse.

About the actual missed post itself, I have an excellent reason for not making it, and that reason is that me and my sister spent that entire evening with Steve and Julia Dirks!

It isn't often that I get to hang out with someone I know from Guinea, so when I found out that the Dirks were going to stop by here on their way from one end of the USA to the other, I was ecstatic. The evening was great, we ate dinner together, rented a movie, stayed up late watching it, and generally spent most of our time talking and laughing, which was a nice change from how I usually spend my evenings; laughing and talking to my computer. I was quite saddened when the evening came to an end, and not only because it was late and I had to get up for work in the morning. Being MKs from the same country gives you so much in common to talk about, and it gets lonely not being able to speak to people who understand the things that you invariably learn by being an MK.

Corrections.

I believe Mary Beth said that I made it 13 posts in row before I missed that one fateful day, and the unlucky implications made by this number are unacceptable. Therefore I am currently devising a plan to rectify my lapse in routine posting. I will let you know tomorrow if my plan has succeeded or failed, in the meantime I must figure out a way of producing 1.21 jigawatts (Great Scott!) of electricity.

Wrap up.

And there you have it. An entire post pulled out of thin air and based entirely on the premise of not making a post. Impressive? Maybe. I am too tired to judge. Night!

NO no no nononononononono NoOOoooOooOOOooo!

Why is it that I always start these things 10 minutes after I should have gone to bed! Why?
I'll tell you why.

It's because of my unerring sense of environmental duty, that's why. How do you think I could sleep knowing that eskimos everywhere will soon be driven homeless by a ruthless sun that thwarts all their attempts for shelter in rapidly melting igloos? What man could rest when in the near future the closest thing to ice skating we will be able to get will be slushy sludging? How would you even rate such an event? Ten point oh for the triple lutz to belly flop? One shivers to consider it; a soon to be rare event in a world where no cold weather will exist to cause said shivers.

I am speaking of course of global warming. But there is a solution!

Here's the plan: the earth is getting too much sun and making the baby penguins sad, right? Okay, so what we do is move the planet farther away from the sun, therefore making it cool back down a little, and the little children can eat their ice cream cones without fear of instant meltage.

But how could we possibly accomplish such a feat, short of using the help of Superman himself?

By the power of teamwork! (Didn't you ever listen to captain planet?) We combine our special powers of mass and adherence to the laws of gravity, and we jump.

At the same time.

...shifting the earth's orbit only by fractions, however, the positive effects can easily be seen in the graph.

The earth will be saved.

Of course you would need the coordinated efforts of at least 600.000.000 people to pull it off, but hey, they already have 585.345.294 participants signed up and registered to go.

The scheduled date is exactly two weeks from now, so go to the site and enter your time zone to get the exact hour and minute you should heroically pound your sneakers on the ground; not just for the sake of the planet but for your children, and your children's children.

I'm going to do my part to save the ozone layer; will you?

Remember planeteers: THE POWER IS YOURS!

Late. Work tomorrow. Gotta type quick. Probably means I'll end up writing a novel here.

My Fourth of July was awesome, I slept in past noon and then crammed ourselves into my
grandparent's rickety old truck and drove an hour up to my cousin's house. We ate delicious BBQ food, and then me and Melanie vetoed a push to go out on the fridged lake and swim. Hooray for power in numbers!

After we ate our time was in turn taken by playing with little Keylee, playing playstation, and setting off our own fireworks. Greatness.

Later that evening we went out to the river in town and watched the huge fireworks show. Incredible.

Then I returned by myself here to manhattan, threw down my stuff, and started writing this. So what you are reading IS BREAKING NEWS!

Now I will fling myself into bed and hope I get some shuteye before I am obligated to arise for work tomorrow.

Hope your day was good too!

It is so much more difficult to concentrate on writing my blog post when two crazy female relatives of mine are squealing at the top of their lungs over a game of Super Monkey Ball just two feet away from where my ears are protectively encased in Pandora-blaring head phones, which instead of blocking out their noise, enhances it like a megaphone, causing my thoughts to churn like an infant chimpanzee inside a madly speeding plastic sphere.

The screen shot should help the uninformed decipher the last part of that sentence. Speaking of which, that was quite a doozy , wasn't it? Aww-yeah.

Play-by-play

Me and my cousins picked up my Sis from the airport yesterday, and despite almost being killed on the way over by an SUV driving the wrong way down a divided off ramp, the trip went off without a hitch. My older cousin, Sandra, also convinced me to let her sister, my younger cousin Katie, stay with us until tomorrow. Tricksy, she isss.

This morning we slept in late and then watched Disney/nick (need I tell you: not my choice. Fairy Odd Parents roolz, though.) all the way up till jumping into the truck and zooming over to the movie theater to watch Cars, both of them for the first time, me for the second.

The theater was even more packed than when I saw it with my Mom on opening weekend, something I would have thought was impossible, but most of the children were sitting on parents' laps and in strollers, and yet still every seat was filled. Cars was just as good if not better the second time, with all the clever references and easter eggs being easier to catch the second time around, also we missed the beginning of the animated short that Pixar always puts before the feature last time, so this time I got to see all of it. Nice.
My Sis put Cars right below The Incredibles on her list of favorite Pixar movies ever (she said it came close), and my cousin said it was 'awesome'.


When we emerged from the multiplex we were surprised to find that it was pouring cats and dogs outside, and we skillfully dodged the plummeting pets, managing to reach the truck only half drowned.

From there it was off to Dillons to procure some vittles for my Sis, who, for some reason, needs more variety in her diet than popcorn and hotpockets. Bizarre creature.

70 bucks later (50 bucks more than I usually spend) the truck was loaded and floor space was slim. No foot room for them, hehehe, lucky I was driving.

We then ate two Little Ceasars Pizzas, which were most tasty indeed, especially for my sister who is not accustomed to the phenomenal haute cuisine of the civilized world.

By this time it was getting late and me and Katie drove off to buy a bag full of recreational pyrotechnic devices, it being the third of July and all. When we got back home and spread out our purchases on the living room carpet, we had two boxes of those little white bags that you throw on the ground and they pop, two top-like spinners, some sparklers, a pack of black cats firecrackers, a novelty globe spark throwing thing, and a little rocket.

We forced Katie to wait until it got darker, and then went out into the driveway and lit it all up.

I had forgotten how awesome fireworks are, the last time I had set any off being many, many years ago, but they are soooo incredible! The smoke, the lights, the sound, awsome! My favorite was watching the rocket zip into the sky and then explode into a sparkly death. Even the sparkle-shooting globe was cool. The dormant pyromaniac inside me has awakened and he demands sacrifice to quell his hunger!

Seriously. I gotta buy more fireworks. Soon.

So it has been a good day, and happy fourth tomorrow everyone! Hope you have a chance to witness many fiery explosions!

Today my sister comes in from the Kansas City airport! Huzzah! So great.

In light of this special occasion, all that is going up today is this link to an incredible online video!



Click on the picture and find yourself transported to Leek Spinning heaven! This joyful woman spins her leek and sings a merry happy fun time song that makes your heart big with ravishment!

The first time I found this I spent 10 minutes hypnotized by the upbeat song and madly gyrating leek. So simple. But addictive, somehow. Check it out!

Hoo-ha! I have just now created new posts on my blog every day for a whole week!

And how does it feel to have been and gone and done it?

Uh, tired. Tired is how it feels.

• I think I started out pretty good with Stop trying to hit me, and hit me! which felt creative and new with the "Slap me" idea, and started the whole post-a-day thing.

• Monday's Oompa Loompa thing was less awesome, but that was to be expected, it being, you know, Monday and all.

• I am particularly proud of my Cars Review which came next, but then I did start on it almost the moment I got home from work, and then didn't stop until it was time to go to bed.

Seriously. Time = Quality.

• That being a hard act to follow, and with me spending only an hour typing it up, I was sure that the "page out of my life" post would suck pretty bad. Surprisingly, I went back and read it, and it wasn't all that terrible.

I would like to take this time to honor all the heroes who actually read my big stinking huge posts like that. You know who you are, both of you. Give yourselves a big mountain of gold on the back. Because that would be so much cooler than just a pat on the back.

• The Superman post came next, and was my first "throw the pretty pictures at 'em" entry. I had actually planed a Kitty Cat themed picture throwin' post for that day (and I'm not kidding) but I discovered the shocking news and had to post about it.

• Yesterday's post I just felt terrible about, it being another "throw away" entry and all, with just a few links I found at random in my collection, however, I read back through it, and, eh, not so bad.

Regrettable personality defects.

Has anyone else noticed that I use a lot of commas? I have. And it annoys the heck out of me. But it just doesn't feel right without the commas!

And then just recently, in the Cars post, I discovered the magically delicious semi colon. So awesome. I am in love. The way it connects two slimly related sentences together: Genius!

You know another of my habits that gets on my nerves? Saying "sorry" too often. I tell people "sorry" all the time. Like just yesterday an older man was walking past the entrance to my work place, and he misinterpreted the swinging, lanky, yet inherently graceful way I jumped down the stairs as if it was a disaster narrowly averted.

"Woah, looks like you almost fell." he said.

"Sorry." I replied.

Like I had almost killed him or something. And then there are those times where I am extraordinarily going out of my way to help someone, and they thank me for it, and my knee jerk reaction is to mumble something about being sorry I didn't do it sooner, or sorry that I didn't do it well enough.

You might think that being too polite is a laughable annoyance to have, but it can sometimes make other people uncomfortable. Like I am killing myself to move all the furniture on an entire dorm floor into the right places so the house keepers don't have to move them afterwards (it's not my job), and then I tell them I am sorry for some reason, and it makes them think to themselves "What kind of jerk does this guy think I am?" and then go into all sorts of trouble to reassure me that I did good.

And being too polite also makes it hard to joke around with people.

It's like politeness is just some sort of a padding we use to make our interactions with strangers more comfortable, before we get to know them. Different people have different tolerations for different things, so by using the rules of politeness we are able to avoid any misunderstandings or inadvertent insults we might have otherwise made by just being ourselves, until we get the chance to know the person, and therefore how to interact with them comfortably.

So when you are constantly too polite, like me, people see you as still using the "stranger protocol" around them, as being distant and aloof. It sucks. I listen to other people playfully tease each other with insults and repartee, and I see the closeness that arises from such familiarity, and I am saddened that I really can't join in.

But I shall make efforts in that direction, insulting everyone I meet as if I was afflicted with a particularly bad case of tourettes syndrome.

That'll fix it! You idiot. Oops I'm sorry, I didn't mean... darn it. Got to work on the apologizing.