So You Want to Write A Blog

I’ve read LOTS of blogs (okay, nine) and I’ve noticed a trend.

1.  Tell your readers about getting the kids ready for the day.
2.  Take a picture of the muffin you made for breakfast.
3.  Insert snarky comment about somebody you met, avoided or ran over with your SUV.
4.  Take a picture of your annoyed kid(s).
5.  Tell your readers that you have trouble finding things to blog about.
6.  Wait six to ten days and blog again.

Here’s an idea for all you bloggers out there who want to share your boring days with us…
DON’T!

Unless you have something terribly exciting, funny, erotic or depressing to share, don’t share.  We’ve got lots of boring magazines, books and TV shows where we can see and read the same annoyingly average stories.  Don’t share them on some self-important blog and then wonder why no one ever visits it.

No one visits your blog for the same reason no one visits your house unless there’s a special occasion:  because your life is boring!  Go get kidnapped or something and then come back and tell us about it.

Better yet, if you decide to keep blogging about how Jimmy got a peanut M&M stuck in his nose and how cute it was that everytime he sneezed it sounded like “snarfff”, then please, please, please get yourself kidnapped.  Just forget coming back to tell us about it.

Why People Suck

I can’t possibly list all the reasons, but I can give you the three most important:

 1.  They don’t think like me.
2.  They keep doing stuff that I don’t like.
3.  They refuse to commit suicide so I won’t have to deal with them.

So if either of these apply to you, you may suck.

My advice.  Stop doing these three things.

Of course, we can compromise.  At least try to stop doing #3.

Sincerely,
Timothy Totten

Comic: Alpha Male

Saddam’s Last Words: “I Told You These People Were Ruthless…argh, gurgle, gurgle…”

Recent news reveals that members of the audience to Saddam Hussein’s hanging were chanting the name of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al’Sadr during his execution.

REFRESHER:  Saddam was a Sunni dictator who persecuted a lot of Shiites and Kurds.  Muqtada al’Sadr is reported to have death squads that kill Sunnis in Iraq.  Still confused?  Imagine that a Presbyterian leader was ordering the execution of hundreds of thousands of Catholics in New Jersey.  But California comes to the rescue and overthrows the Presbyterian leader and sets up a government of Catholics led by the top Bishop in New Jersey.  However, as their executing the Presby, the followers of a radical Monsignor (who’s been killing a bunch of Presbies on the side) start taunting the deposed leader. 

So we’ve valiantly entered Iraq with a desire to help the mostly peaceful population create a worthwhile democracy, only to see one brutal dictator traded for an ineffective government that protects another maniacal leader.

Makes you see why a lot of this country is fed up with hearing about and supporting this police action. 

Hopefully the president’s new plan will have the desired effect.  After hearing him discuss it several times, it strikes me that the plan is designed to either fix the situation or offer us a reasonable excuse to leave.  If they new government isn’t serious about stopping the sectarian violence, then we’re getting the heck out of Dodge.

It should be painfully obvious to us that if the situation in Iraq continues to be about religion (Shiites vs. Sunnis) we can’t win.  Religious wars invite a furor and fervor that our country can’t sustain.  If this war were truly about keeping America safe (the only universally American “religion”) we could fight it for years.  WWII was fought on that principle and was, of course, a great chapter in the history of this country.  But the action in Iraq seems to be more about not looking bad than actually safeguarding America.

Religious fanatics will always outlast our military, so long as we have something to live for, while they believe they have something to die for.  I hope the president’s plan works, or, at the very least, when it fails, we’ll find a better way to wage the war against those who would harm Americans by using our resources in more effective areas.

(P.S. – I voted for Bush, twice.  I strongly support the old Republican notion of fiscal conservatism, which recent Republican Congresses have forgotten or consciously trampled.  I believe we should encourage our fellow citizens to find solutions to social issues separate from government assistance.  I know that the federal government takes money and opportunities from hardworking and generous Americans and wastes it before giving just a small portion to the needy.  I strongly believe that federal action should be secondary to state’s rights.  I believe that I might be a Libertarian, regardless of how unorganized and ineffective the Libertarian Party may be.)

I’m Finally Going to Pay for that Bose Stereo I Want

So I’ve figured out how to pay for all those expensive appliances that I really want but can’t really justify spending so much more than the Korean knock-off brand.

This idea was born out of my experience with a Dyson vacuum cleaner.  After two uses, the belt broke.  Calls to Dyson led to a promise that they’d send a replacement part.  After 22 days, I called back to locate the part.  They still hadn’t shipped it.  I told them I was returning the vacuum cleaner to the store.  The part arrived two weeks after I got a refund from Target.  So now I’ve got a Dyson part (an expensive beater brush and belt) that I can’t use.  But then the idea came to me.

First, I’ve got to buy the expensive product that I want, but I have to make sure that it comes with a parts warranty.  Then, after a few weeks, I call and say that a part broke.  It’s got to be a part that suffers normal wear and is easily replaced by the consumer.  That way, the company would be better off sending me a replacement rather than requiring I send the unit to them for repair.

Then, after the part comes in, I sell it on eBay! 

It would work better if the item purchased has been available for a while (like a Kitchenaid Mixer or Kirby Vacuum) so that people who don’t realize that they can call for a replacement part will buy it on eBay.

Of course, you’ve got to be careful about the product you choose.  You can’t buy a Bentley convertible and then call them to claim that the steering wheel popped off.  They’d probably want you to go to the dealer to fix that one.

Toothpaste for Dinner

It’s from a great site, Toothpaste for Dinner.  Seriously.  Read some.

Great Comics

TWISTED SCRIBBLES: Christmas

TWISTED SCRIBBLES: Leroy

I Just Can’t Get Into Podcasting…

For the longest time (roughly three months and two days) I didn’t understand podcasting.  I just figured it was some really technical new medium that only the well-connected internet users were experimenting with.

Then I heard a podcast.  To be fair, it may have been one of the worst podcasts ever made, but it was my first, so I use it here as the example.

Turns out that podcasting is nothing more than someone talking into a microphone about crap no one else cares about.

Let me get this straight:  computer technology has evolved to such a point that we can now carry with us the ability to listen to boring people pontificate on subjects about which they have only cursory knowledge while we ride the bus?

I’m confused.  I thought that was why they invented the transistor radio in the SIXTIES!  But it’s even worse.  At least with ad-supported radio, you have to possess at least a sliver of talent.  But  today’s podcasting makes any idiot with a microphone a “star” of their own show. 

The internet is turning into ham radio.  Have you seen the people who operate ham radios? 

I have little hope for the future of this planet.