Caption Contest Winners!

First place:

Data looked up at the captain wishing he knew how to quit him.

- Pavel of Probably Pavel

Second place:

"12, Data. 12 Hornecian Flognarts to screw in a lightbulb. No. I didn't get it either."

- Candace of Jumping at the Ground and Missing

Third place (tie):

"Data, you're in charge. I have to head to my night job fronting David Letterman's house band."

- Brad of Diaries of the Professor

"With my new X-ray Specs I can clearly see Uranus."

- Anne of Queen Anne's Revenge

Congratulations to all the winners! I'll be posting another picture this Friday. Will I be on American Idol? Lost? Queer Eye? Even I'm not sure.

One more thing: I'm losing miserably in Tracy's Booger Award contest. At this rate, I may not even get third place, and there are only three blogs competing. I think I'm losing to "None of the above" and Pat Buchanan. Please spare my dignity by voting. Polls close sometime today, so do it NOW. Thanks ever so much.

I'll be back with a typically well thought out and coherent post on Monday. Have a great weekend, everybody!


Listed on humor-blogs.com.

Sock Dispatch

I used to have a separate blog called Mattress Police Dispatches where I would post short random thoughts. I stopped posting to it because I was running low on material, but now I'm finding my list of possible topics for my main blog cluttered with random ideas that can't possibly be stretched into a full post. As a result, lately I've been clumping three or four of these vaguely related notions into a single semi-coherent post. Perhaps you've noticed?

Now my idea list is starting to resemble my sock drawer just before laundry day. It's not that any of the socks are bad, per se. But what are you going to do with five socks, the only matching pair of which apparently once belonged to a guy named Noel who loved candy canes? I'll tell you what: You stitch them together to make a beautiful scarf that you wear boldly to distract people from the fungus factory you've got going in your sneakers. I now present to you the blogging equivalent of a sock-scarf:

---

I think cats must use some kind of point system to determine where they sleep. Every location in a house is given a certain number of points, and they select the location that has the highest score. Points are given for warmth, comfort, etc. Other factors would include:

• Height: +1 point for each foot above the ground
• Is it a new location (new bookshelf, appliance box, etc.)? +5 points
• Is it a nice little bed that you specifically made up for the cat to sleep on? - 20 points

And then there's a random 50 points that the cat assigns at will just to screw with you.

---

I hear that there's some tainted cat food out there that could be fatal to a cat that eats it. I almost bought some, but the guy at the pet food store said there's no guarantee.

---

I had to fog our house for fleas the other day, thanks to our cats. On the label it says to make sure that any pets are out of the room before starting the fogger. I don't know; that sounds like a temporary solution to me.

---

This reminds me of the time I locked my keys in my car. I had no money to pay a locksmith, and somebody suggested the police might be able to help. I called the police, but they said they couldn't help open the door unless there was a child trapped inside. "Damn," I said. "If only I had that kind of foresight."

---

Please don't send letters about how terrible I am for hating children and animals. I'm not serious. In fact, I have an almost pathological inability to take anything seriously. It's like that saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Actually, that's kind of a stupid saying. Unless you're planning on asking life if you can borrow a cup of sugar, you're still pretty much screwed.

---

I do have a gift for seeing the bright side of any situation. The other day I was talking to my wife on the phone. She's a teacher, and she was telling me how she was going to leave right after school because she had a 101 degree temperature. "Ooh!" I said. "This is the perfect chance for you to give all your students F's. When they ask why, you can tell them you have a low grade fever."

---

My wife and I often see things differently. Lately we've been planning the landscaping for our property. "I want some crepe mytle and bougainvillea," My wife says. "Oh, and I need a nice spot for my roses. Now where did you say the cypresses are going to be?"

"Over there," I said. "Behind center field."

---

Well, that's seven fewer mismatched socks in the drawer. Now I just hope I find a nice new post in the laundry basket on Friday. The stupid cat will probably be sleeping on it -- unless it decides to sleep on humor-blogs.com again.

Vote for Your Favorite Caption!

I was going to do a real post today, but I know all you really care about is the caption contest. So here's the list of finalists. There were a LOT of really good entries, and I had a heck of a time narrowing it down to ten. Most of you were in agreement that the picture had something to do with mandroid sex or farting, but a few of you had some other ideas as well. I tried to include some variety in the list.

Cast your vote by Friday, March 30, 9pm PST. I will post the results on Saturday.

---

"Sir. You are touching my 'special place' again. You know that makes me uncomfortable."

- bice

Data looked up at the captain wishing he knew how to quit him.

- Pavel

"Data, I asked Number 2 to make number one on yours truly. He punched me and now I have to wear these sunglasses. Pee on your captain?"

- anonymouscoworker

"Ooops! Sorry Data. I just farted and it blew me off balance.
Man, am I ever hung over, and could someone please turn down these god forsaken lights!?"

- MacBros

"Look away Mr. Data. I'm hideous."

- Sher

"Data, you're in charge. I have to head to my night job fronting David Letterman's house band."

- Brad

"With my new X-ray Specs I can clearly see Uranus."

- Anne

Data turns white as a sheet as he suddenly realizes that that is NOT Captain Picard behind those Foster Grants.

- actonbell

"We're like an old married couple, aren't we? Me staring at you longingly, and you, squinting away, dreaming of greener galaxies."

- Manola Blablablanik

"12, Data. 12 Hornecian Flognarts to screw in a lightbulb. No. I didn't get it either."

- Candace

Get Free Opinion Polls

---

Thanks for voting and thanks to everybody for submitting your captions! Due to the overwhelming response, I'm going to make this a biweekly bimonthly I'm going to do this every two weeks. So the next picture will be posted on Friday, April 6. I've had one suggestion that I insert myself into the cast of Lost. I kind of like that. Any other ideas?

Listed on humor-blogs.com.

Snarking Again

Hi folks! I'm over at the Snark today, revealing my secrets about how to write a funny blog. Last one there is a rotten egg.

I'll get the caption contest finalists, uh, finalized later today. Check back tomorrow to vote and/or read a brand spanking new post about who I'm sleeping with these days.

Talkin' About My Generation (or: I Hope I Die Before My Mass Increases)

A quick note before the actual post: Thanks to everybody for the truly phenomenal response to my caption contest. I you haven't submitted a caption yet, you have until Monday at midnight, Pacific time. (I know I originally said Tuesday, but I changed my mind. Sue me.) I'll consolidate my favorites into a poll Tuesday morning so you can vote for the best one. The results will be posted on Friday. And now for your regularly scheduled post....


I don't understand kids these days. I mean, take the levitation for example.

Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about. We've all seen it. You'll be trudging through the video game aisle at Best Buy, making sure to keep one or both feet on the ground at all times because you're a responsible adult with obligations to this planet. Suddenly a twelve year old will glide past, his feet a fraction of an inch above the ground. Then, before what you've seen has fully registered, he's walking again, as if nothing had happened.

At first I thought these kids were merely disregarding the principle of friction, but having witnessed several of these events I am confident that the little punks are flouting gravity itself. This irritates me. When I was a kid I used to occasionally chew gum in class or dip pterodactyls in the inkwell, but I knew better than to break the basic laws of physics. Oh, sure, there was that time I tried to use non-Euclidean geometry to see down Ms. Kremer's blouse, but that's nothing compared to wearing your jeans six inches below your waist. It's like these kids are daring gravity to pants them.

My real concern is what happens after these kids realize they can get away with it. Kids need discipline. For every action, there has to be an equal and opposite reaction. If there isn't, then what? I'll tell you what: Say goodbye to the conservation of energy, first of all. Probably conservation of matter too. Objects in motion get lazy; objects at rest get restless. Some troublemaker will find a way around Einstein's constant, and the news will travel faster than the speed of light. And if one kids pulls off time travel, you know the other kids are going to hear about it yesterday.

I have to admit that the problem didn't start with today's youth. I did know one guy from my generation who tried to build a perpetual motion machine. This was shortly after I started work at my first "real" job. I was 25 and I think Mr. Newton (as I shall call him) was three or four years older -- which is to say about 18 years beyond the age when most people stop trying to build transmogrifiers, magical doorways to Narnia and perpetual motion machines. Not only that, but he was a computer technician -- not college educated, but he had enough technical expertise that he could fix most computer hardware problems. One would think such a background would immunize one from the delusion that one could build a perpetual motion machine. One would be wrong.

He didn't call it a perpetual motion machine, of course. I think he called it a "self-powered car." As I recall, the car worked like this:

1. A laser heats a container of water to boiling.
2. The pressure from the steam makes the car's wheels turn.
3. A generator hooked up to the car's wheels makes electricity.
4. The electricity powers the laser.

I think there were 3 or 4 more steps in there somewhere which would have dispersed any energy that actually made it from step one to step four, but you get the idea. Not only was the car impossible; it was impossible in an almost unbelievably stupid way. Did Newton think that the engineers at GM were just waiting for the moment when someone would whisper into their ears the magical words laser-powered steam turbine? "Eureka!" they would shout. "If only we had thought to combine 19th century technology with untempered ignorance!"

"That's called a perpetual motion machine," I told him. "It's impossible. You lose energy at every step of the system. Hell, you'd probably lose 95% of the energy you started out with on the steam conversion alone." Not to mention 100% of your credibility, I thought.

"It's not a perpetual motion machine," He said. "If you brake, the car will stop, and then you'd need more energy to get it started again. That's why there's a battery." Ah, another step. More energy loss. Good thinking.

"Ok," I said. "So you have a tank of water, right? And you heat the water. Now let's say you put your hand near the tank. Will it feel warm?"

"Of course."

"Right. That's heat. Heat is energy. You're losing energy from the system in the form of radiated heat."

"No, the heat boils the water. You're not losing it."

I think I argued with Newton for about two hours before I gave up. I also once had a debate with him about faith versus science. He fancied himself an atheist, and scoffed at me for believing things that couldn't be proved.

"What do you believe in?" I asked.

"Science."

"And what is science based on?"

"Experiments."

"And how do people observe experiments?"

"Uhhh..."

"With our senses, right. And how do you know that what your senses tell you is true?"

"Uhhh..."

"Experience, right. Because your senses have been reliable in the past. But how do you know that what you experience with your senses isn't all just one big illusion. How do you know that you're not just a brain in a vat?"

"Uhhh..."

"You don't, right. At some point you just have to make a leap of faith. I make a leap of faith by believing in God, and you make one by believing in science. It just takes a few more step to get to yours."

"So science is still better."

"Whaaa...?"

"It has more steps."

More steps. That was his answer. Make the system complicated enough that you can't see that it's all bullshit. Hey, it worked for the self-powered car, right?

Still, his car was pretty simple. Anyone with a 4th grade education could have understood (and probably designed) it. I suggested he needed more steps to further complicate it, thus shielding the car further from reality. Something like:

1. A garden grows on top of the car.
2. A dinosaur eats from the garden.
3. The dinosaur dies, turning into fertilizer for the garden and fossil fuels.
4. The members of the Coalworkers Local 327, who live in the glove compartment, come out and mine the coal when it's ready, loading it into a furnace.
5. The furnace burns the coal, heating a container of water, which turns into steam.
6. The steam turns a turbine which drives a generator, which powers a laser.
7. The laser heats another container of water almost to boiling.
8. The water is shot through finely ground coffee, in order to make espresso.
9. The driver sips the espresso while waiting patiently for a tow truck.

Hey, GM has done dumber stuff. If this idea takes off, maybe Daimler will buy them. Then there will be no stopping them! I mean, unless they hit the brakes.

Seriously, imagine what we could accomplish if we could eliminate the need for fossil fuels altogether, and rely entirely on our nation's vast untapped resources of stupidity! I just hope today's youth recognizes the gravity of the situation.



Humor-blogs.com outputs more energy than it takes in.

The Diesel Caption Contest!

Inspired by your comments on my bad hair posts, I put together a little treat for you: Diesel as Captain Picard on the bridge of the Enterprise! I made myself bald and grayed my hair a bit to seem more dignified and Picard-esque. The dark glasses require some explanation: In the picture of me that I was using, my eyes were squinted because I was in the sun (it's the same pic as my profile pic on the top right of this page). I tried to unsquint my eyes, but there's no unsquint feature in the version of Paint Shop Pro I use. So I said, "Screw it," and gave myself shades instead.



I couldn't decide on a caption to use for the pic, and that's when the idea hit me: Caption contest! Submit your caption in the comments by this Tuesday, and then I'll create a poll where you can vote on the best one. The winner will receive an autographed digital copy of this picture and perhaps some Cheetos I found in my couch.

If this isn't a complete disaster, I may make this a regular feature. Feel free to suggest movies/tv shows for me to show up in.


There is no intelligent life on humor-blogs.com.

Thursday Housekeeping Post

Hi all! A few quick announcements:

First, I'd like to welcome all the new humor-blogs.com members. I'm having a hard time keeping up with them all, but a few that caught my eye are:





Go to humor-blogs.com to see the burgeoning list of members (or to join your own self!).

And for those of you who suspect that humor-blogs.com is just a shill site to promote my own blog, let me point out that I've now dropped to 3rd place in the rankings, behind Crummy Church Signs and Say No To Crack. Grrrr.

I should also mention that Mad Kane has announced the winners of her spring limerick contest! Sadly, I didn't win. Even sadlier, I didn't even enter.

That's it for today. Be sure to come back tomorrow to witness the birth of a new feature on Mattress Police. Hint: It's an idea that was prompted by some of your comments on my bad hair posts.

Construction and Deconstruction

I've been framing walls for my house this week.

That makes it sound like I know what I'm doing, when in fact I generally just shoot nails or cut boards where my contractor has drawn a line for me. I'm entrusted with dangerous power tools, but not with a pencil. Essentially I'm in the position of being my contractor's boss as well as his least competent employee. Occasionally he'll see me executing a task incorrectly and say something like, "You know, you're really supposed to use galvanized nails on the bottom plate." And I'll shout, "Oh yeah? My house, my rules!"

Then I pull the shiny nails out and put in the un-shiny ones.

Because working for me isn't enough of a caustic experience in itself, I've been slowly burning a pile of brush next to the work site, so the whole crew goes home smelling like smoke. It's a service I provide, free of charge. Come work for me, and smell like camping! The nice thing is that I can throw the scrap construction lumber into the fire. I let the guys think that I intentionally screw up most of my cuts so that I can make a bigger fire. Little do they know that I really am just that incompetent.

"Do you have a permit to burn that brush?" asked one of the guys.

"I have a de facto permit," I said.

"A de facto permit?"

"If they don't catch me, it's de facto permitted." Then I threw in a "Q.E.D." for good measure.

The guys like it when I tend to the fire, because I'm better at burning wood than assembling it into anything that might be of help in building a house. People like me really shouldn't be allowed to build a people house until we've managed to build a bird house that isn't immediately condemned as uninhabitable by the avian building department.

Technically what I'm doing is building an addition, since I'm adding onto an existing house -- although the addition just about triples the size of the house. Of course, adding 2 to 1 is still addition. But then, adding 1 to 0 is also addition, so couldn't you say that any house is an addition? "We're building a house, in addition to the nothing we have now."

"Are you trying to keep up with the neighbors?" asked one of the guys. The neighbor's house has been sprouting additions at the rate of about one per year for the past four years. Currently it's in the process of spawning twin tool sheds. Scientists have not yet plumbed the mystery of exactly how the house produces offspring. The process seems to be asexual, as none of the other houses in the area have gotten close enough to pollinate it.

"That's the idea," I said.

"Their house is still going to be taller."

"Nah, I'm putting on a steeple. Helps keep the Jehovah's Witnesses away."

Actually, having a steeple would probably just attract lightning -- for a couple of reasons -- and not really help with the Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't think there is anything that keeps Jehovah's Witnesses away -- although I bet a nicely timed lightning strike would spook them. My house is on a dead end street, at the end of a 300 foot gravel driveway, behind another house. I even put the front door on the back side of the house for good measure, and the Watchtower folks still find me.

"We just wanted to check whether you had any questions about that literature that we left last time."

"Yeah," I say. "I've got a question for you: what kind of ink do you use? Cuz that stuff gave off some godawful smoke."

Of course I never actually think of anything that clever to say. There is a question that I want answered, but I never have the courage to ask. See, what I wonder about the Jehovah's Witnesses is this: Basically, it's a religion based on the susceptibility of its adherents to door-to-door sales, right? So I always wonder, if you went to the house of a Jehovah's Witness, would you find boxes of girl scout cookies, Shaklee vitamins and a Kirby vacuum cleaner? I bet you would. Although you probably have no more reason to go to their house than I do, because we're normal people who don't sell a worldview as if it were cookies.

I have nothing against Jehovah's Witnesses, of course. I would feel exactly the same way about any group that bases their identity on an English mistransliteration of a Hebrew word, hates holidays and birthdays, has falsely predicted the apocalypse like eighteen times, denies the divinity of Christ and won't leave me the hell alone.

Anyway, while I am surprised that the JWs manage to find my door, in truth I didn't put it on the back to stymie them. It just ended up there as a result of my phased approach to home construction. We are now engaged in Phase 2, during which we will be building the actual front of the house, among other things.

Yesterday a guy was pulling a trim board off the existing house so that we could tie the new construction into the wall. "We could throw this board into the fire," he said.

This started me thinking. I wonder if that's what the pioneers did when they ran out of wood, I pondered. Maybe they would get really desperate and pull their houses apart for firewood. And then the next summer they would swear that this time they would cut enough firewood, so they wouldn't have to cannibalize their house again. But they would be so busy rebuilding their house that once again they would run out of firewood in February and have to start pulling their house apart.

"Break the cycle!" I yelled to no one in particular.

"You know, those are supposed to be galvanized nails."

"Yeah, yeah." I don't have the appropriate attention span for construction work.




I think I originally had a point, but I got distracted by humor-blogs.com.

Snarking

I'm over at the Snark again today, writing about Mrs. Chenoweth's toilet. I think you know what I'm saying.

I'll be back tomorrow with a post about, uh, cats, I think. And make sure to check back on Friday, when I will be announcing the start of an exciting new feature at the Mattress Police!

Also, be sure to visit humor-blogs.com and help me regain my crown from that interloper Joel at Crummy Church Signs.

Hair We Go Again

My last post seem to have confused the hell out of just about everyone, so that's one more thing I can cross off my list.

I won't bother to explain the Battlestar Galactica parts; suffice it to say that it's a show you should be catching up on with Netflix. And if you don't have Netflix, well, may God have mercy on your soul.

Many of you somehow failed to realize that one of the pics in the side-by-side comparison was a rather handsome actor and the other was me. This leads me to believe that either I'm a lot better with Paint Shop Pro that I thought, or you people really aren't paying attention.

So let me step through this with you:

This guy is an actor named James Callis, in a promotional photo for Battlestar Galactica:



This is me, doing my darndest to look as handsome and furrowed as James Callis:



This is the same pic, with the color sucked out and a cool sci-fi background added, for easier comparison to the James Callis promo shot:



Are you with me so far? Good.

Now here is what I would look like if I really did have James Callis' hair:



I know, not pretty, huh? This confirms my suspicion that my attempt to look like James Callis by growing my hair out was misguided.

What's even worse is that it's unlikely my hair would look that good. For one thing, it doesn't seem to be creeping forward on my scalp as I had hoped. But let's say I get implants to bring my hairline back to 1993 levels. I'm afraid that even if I gave my hair another 6 months, I would probably end up looking like this:



Yeah, Billy Ray Cyrus called and he wants his hair back. And while we're at it, 1998 called and it wants this joke back.

And finally, for Candace and Ann, the Jean-Luc Picard look:



I can put the bridge of the Enterprise in the background if you think that will help.




One time they shaved humor-blogs.com and all that was left was a pair of sneakers.

The Hair Was Created By Man. It Evolved. It Rebelled.

My hair is getting out of control.

What started with sheer laziness and a vague desire to look like Baltar from Battlestar Galactica has turned into a disaster of Hindenbergian proportions. Or is it Heisenbergian? I can never be certain.



I can't remember the last time I had my hair cut professionally, and my definition of a hair care "professional" is pretty generous. If you own a pair of scissors that doesn't have bright orange plastic handles, you're probably overqualified to cut my hair. Generally I cut it myself -- by which I mean I set my $7.95 trimmer to 1/2" and buzz away until the bathroom floor looks like a scene from a werewolf movie.

What kind of creature could have done this?

I don't know, Sally, but whatever it was, it was big.

I've grown my hair out a few times before. The first was my unfortunate Kevin Costner/Dances With Wolves phase, during which I danced with few wolves but was occasionally mistaken for one. Then there was my even more unfortunate Steven Seagal phase, which had the unanticipated side effect of prolonging Steven Seagal's career by making him look relatively good in comparison. I suppose my selection of Baltar as my current hair role model will eventually seem foolish as well, especially since my hair has thinned to the point where I'd have a better shot pulling off Colonel Tigh than Baltar -- even the John Colicos version of Baltar.



So now I have a choice: tough it out, knowing that even another eight inches isn't going to make me into Baltar (insert your own joke here), or shave it off and start over. I finally broke down and bought some conditioner a couple of weeks ago. I bought the manliest (read: cheapest) conditioner I could find: White Rain, the conditioner with the vaguely disturbing name. In fact, now that I think about it, how manly can you be when you're squirting something called "White Rain" on your head?

Besides, in case you didn't know, White Rain pretty much sucks as a conditioner (I'm comparing it to my wife's fru-fru conditioner, which I used during the transition stage between "I don't need conditioner; I'm a man!" and "Ok, I'll buy conditioner, but I'm not paying more than 84 cents for it.") White Rain is cheaper than motor oil and probably about as effective on split ends. The first ingredient listed on the label is water, which seems like a ripoff -- unless it's holy water, in which case there should be a warning label for vampires. After all, vampires were the original metrosexuals, in addition to being surpisingly litigious -- although it's true they don't have to worry about sun damage, so they have that going for them.

Where was I? Oh yeah. The second ingredient is alcohol. Then comes something chemical-sounding I don't understand, then citric acid, then another kind of alcohol. More chemicals, then "sodium chloride (sea salt)." Sea salt differs from table salt in that... uh, I think it's pretty much table salt. Then more alcohols, acids, and other chemicals. So White Rain is mostly alcohol, acid, salt and various scary sounding chemical compounds. Now I don't know what those scary chemicals do, but I hope it has something to do with counteracting the damage done by dousing your hair with alcohol, acid and table salt.

The good news is that if you've watched Battlestar Galactica at all, you know that Cylons are indistinguishable from humans except that the Cylons pretty much all look like supermodels. The only characters that we know for sure are human are the ones who are so frakking ugly that it's hard to believe anyone made them on purpose. Given that fact, I think it's clear which of the two characters in that first picture is the Cylon.

And homely as I am, at least I'm no Edward James Olmos. Although I'm sure that's nothing that long term exposure to White Rain and Don Johnson won't fix.




This post would show up on humor-blogs.com if I wasn't preoccupied with my hair.

Building, Blogging and Blabbing

Hi all. Things are heating up with the house-building so I'm probably not going to have quite as much time for blogging. I'll try to stick to my MWF schedule, but my posts are more likely to be of the random musings variety than the more ambitious and/or amphibious satire and/or Photoshop entries. I may not be stopping by your blogs quite as much either for a while, although I'll be there in spirit.

I also wanted to let you know about Mad Kane's Spring Limerick Contest. She's giving away cash money for the best limericks about spring! I'd write one, but as I told Mad Kane, I'm lousy with limericks. I think I may need to fumigate.

I'll be back tomorrow with a post that will moisturize curly and wavy hair to tame frizz.

Crazy Like God

It is often said that there are no atheists in foxholes. This is undoubtedly true; what I find remarkable, however, is that there are no foxes in foxholes.

Interlude: Two French soldiers huddle in a foxhole.
Pierre: Any news from the front?
Jean-Claude: No. All is quiet on the western front.
Pierre: Any news from the back?
Jean-Claude: Quiet there too.
Pierre: Do we have any more croissants?
Jean-Claude: Let me check.
Pierre: Well?
Jean-Claude: Sacre bleu!
Pierre: What is it?
Jean-Claude: Foxes! A whole den of cute little baby foxes feasting on our croissants!
In unison: We surrender!

This, of course, never happened. French soldiers are known to have surrendered to marmosets, chinchillas and, in a particularly embarrassing incident, a small bit of dryer lint, but never to foxes.

I suggest, due to the absence of both atheists and foxes, that from now on we refer to holes dug for protection against an enemy in wartime "God-holes." In addition to being more technically accurate, this new appellation would also give rise to a renaissance in the area of battle-scene dialog writing:

"Get your head out of your God-hole and get me some ammo!"

"You call that a God-hole? I've seen 90 year old grandmothers with better God-holes than that."

"Sarge, have you seen Private Sandusky pretend to walk down the stairs into his God-hole? It's hilarious."

I guess you could use that last one with "foxhole" too. Still, just once I'd like to see somebody in a war movie do that pretend stairs thing. That gets me every time.

It was, coincidentally, a Frenchman who said that there is a "God shaped hole" in each of us. (It was either Pascal or Sartre. Google and I aren't sure which one, but either way, he's French. I'm pretty sure you could attribute the quote to either of them at a party and appear equally snobbish and effete.)

Now if there's one thing the French know about, it's their holes. I wonder, in fact, if maybe that "God-shaped hole" line was misinterpreted. French is a notoriously difficult language to translate into English, particularly for Americans who don't want to learn French. Perhaps Pascartes' statement was not an abstract philosophical expression but rather a very literal admonition to the French people to do what they do best: Run and hide in a hole.

In this light, Pascartes can be seen as advising his countrymen to find the nearest hole and hide in it until the trouble passes. What trouble? you ask. Well, the heaviness of being, for one thing, not to mention the whole problem of never being able to get that damn rock up the hill. Oh sure, maybe the danger is all in my head, but what do I have to lose by hiding indefinitely in a hole? Surely far less than if I were to risk being crushed by a large rock.

Wow, all this philosophizing is making me hungry. I feel like I've got a hole in me the size of a fox.

Lost?

I'm over at the Snark again, whining about Lost and other shows that suck.

I'll be back tomorrow with a philosophical reflection on atheism and small furry animals. Bring cookies.

UPDATE: I forgot to congratulate Humor-Blogs.com member Anita from Say No to Crack for winning Best New Weblog in the 2007 Bloggies! Way to go, Anita!

6 More Weeks of What?

For Neva and Gawpo. Some pictures of my "backyard" and my beautiful new concrete slab. Click to enlarge.

Don't you wish you lived here? Well too bad, you can't.





A view of the house from the orchard. Facing west.




The slab. Facing southeast.




A view of the orchard from the slab at sunrise. That's the water tower and the Flying J sign in the background.




Basically the same view during the day.




A view of the orchard, facing east/southeast (turned just slightly left from the last two pics). That's water tower #2 in the distance. Ripon loves water towers.




A view of the orchard and water tower #2 from the slab. Facing east.




Same view. Cool rain in the distance.




How'd that one get in there? Get those loafers out of the frame!

Ranking System?!?!

I just got an email from one of the humor-blogs.com members expressing misgivings about the ranking system I've implemented on humor-blogs.com. Since he's probably not the only person with these concerns, let me take a minute to explain my rationale.

Basically the problem is this: There are so many blogs listed now that unless you are near the top of the list, you probably aren't going to get a whole lot of traffic from the site. So the question is, how do I decide what blogs to list first? So far I've been listing them in the order that they joined, but that means that some great blogs that joined later on are left to languish on the bottom. So I decided to implement something that's a little more fair, and also more helpful to people who are searching for funny blogs. That means a ranking system of some kind. I could base the rankings on votes like most blog directories do, but such a system is easy to abuse and tends to reward sites that already get a lot of traffic. So I decided to partner with a site (bloglaughs.blogspot.com) that does a fairly thorough and objective ranking of funny blogs. I'm using my recent Funny Post Contest as a backup ranking system, since most of the blogs haven't been ranked by Bloglaughs yet.

I combined this with a "referral score" because, after all, it's not really fair for me to give a bunch of publicity to a site (as great as it may be) that isn't helping out any of the other members -- for example, by burying the humor-blogs.com link at the bottom of their site somewhere.

It comes down to this: I could list the blogs in a random or arbitrary order, but that doesn't really provide any kind of service to people who come across humor-blogs.com looking for some really funny sites to check out. I don't turn down any blogs, so listing the blogs in random order would basically be like making my visitors watch American Idol tryouts for an hour. There is a reason that show has judges, which is that a lot of the people who think they can sing actually can't. I'm trying to be more Randy than Simon, but still, some feelings are going to be hurt.

Additionally, listing blogs in random order doesn't reward really talented people who put a lot of effort into writing great posts. The main reason that I started this site was to give some publicity to some great blogs written by people who maybe aren't the greatest marketers.

The system is, of course, imperfect and biased. There are still some great blogs hanging out there on the bottom rung. But overall, I think this system is more fair to the participants and more helpful to visitors. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for improving the system. I'm not making any money off this site (my Google ads have netted me $3.14 at last check!), and I don't get anything more out of it than any of the other participants. Basically I'm doing this because I feel like I'm providing a service to some great, underappreciated blogs. I'm doing this the best way I know how, and I'm always happy to hear your suggestions/criticisms/whatever.

Hope you're all having a great weekend.

Cheers,
Diesel

Congratulations!

Better late than never, here are the winners of the Funniest Blog Post contest for February. Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everybody who voted and/or participated!

1st Place:

Crummy Church Signs: Peter?

2nd Place:

The Hot Librarian: Captain Jack has a problem with authority

3rd Place (tie):

The Drive-By Blogger: One Day at a Time

and

Apropos of Something: Eight Bald Women Who Look Better than Britney

As promised, I have reorganized humor-blogs.com. Blogs are now given a score, which determines the order in which they are listed. Each blog's score is determined by two things: A "reviewer" score and a "referral" score. I'd explain how it all works, but I don't feel like it. Go there and see if you can figure it out.

One thing I will add is that my own blog is subject to the same ranking system as everyone else's. I've given myself a "reviewer" score of 50 -- the same as every other unreviewed blog. The only reason I'm listed first is because of all my shameless whoring of the site. Try it, it's fun!

I'll be back on Monday with a very special Blossom.

The Blog of Your Dreams

Promoting a blog is all about networking with other bloggers. There are lots of ways to do this: you can comment on other blogs, join blogrolls, participate in memes, attend the illicit blogger raves that I know all you bastards are having behind my back, etc.

Lately I've been experimenting with a slightly more aggressive form of marketing. The first subject of this experiment was Cindra, who has a very nice blog called The Chronicles of Cindra. Cindra is a kind, sensitive soul -- and I capitalized on this weakness when I made her my unwitting guinea pig. The results were mixed, but I wasn't expecting much for my first attempt. And I think I've got the hang of it now, so watch out.

It's really so simple that I'm amazed that no marketing wizard has thought of it before. What I did was this: I made a guest appearance in one of Cindra's dreams. I can't tell you how cool it was in there. You know that Tom Petty video for Don't Come Around Here No More, with the Alice in Wonderland theme? Cindra's brain is pretty much exactly like that. Freaking sweet.

The first time I got so carried away that I forgot what I was doing and decided to be a rock star. I mean, why not, right? Unfortunately, as this wasn't my dream, I wasn't able to choose the venue and my band ended up playing a gig to six skanky old broads who probably couldn't have gotten back stage at a ZZ Top concert in 1985. One of them tried to entice me by waving her bra in the air. She didn't need it, after all, as she was wearing a belt. DEISEL AND THE HYDROCARBONS read the marquee in letters the size of refrigerator magnets, under the much larger and more intriguing RUMAGE SALE TODAY. The gig was an unmitigated disaster. We had to pay for our own drinks, and Cindra stiffed us on our fee. Figures.

I tried entering Cindra's dream again the next night. This time I decided to be a little less obtrusive. I found myself at a baptism, sitting in the front row of a church as the pastor trickled water over the head of a squirming baby.

"This is better than being a rock star," I said quietly.

"Glad you think so," said a kindly looking woman sitting next to me. "You're next."

"Whaaa...?" I said. "This isn't even my dream. Where's Cindra?"

"I'm going to go see her after this."

"Can I come with you? I wanted to tell her about my blog."

She laughed. "You're really an ass," she said. "Get up there, and we'll see about finding Cindra after you're baptized."

I went up front and waited for the minister to do the trickly water thing.

"That's just for babies," he said. "You need to come this way." He walked to the front of the church and opened a hidden door that revealed nothing but blinding white light.

I turned to find the nice woman, hoping to find some encouragement in her eyes. But she was gone.

"Tell Cindra I was here!" I yelled, as the pastor ushered me through the door. I blinked as my eyes gradually became accustomed to the light.

"What now?" I asked the pastor.

He shrugged. "Do whatever you want," he said. "I've got to get back to Cindra's dream." He went back through the door and closed it. I had screwed up again. I was out of Cindra's dream and back in my own.

Still, I have to say the experiment was a success as it yielded me a warm -- if slightly befuddled -- shout-out from Cindra. If I can stay focused next time and not fall for the "what's behind this secret door" trick, I should be able to use this method to effectively generate some interest in my blog.

So here's what I'm going to do: Over the next week, I'm going to show up in several of my readers' dreams. Don't worry, I'll try not to be annoying or appear during any embarrassing moments. In fact, I may actually help you out if I can. Like that dream where you're in your underwear in sixth grade and Mrs. Morrison is going to make you stand in front of the class and show off your pathetic insect collection consisting of three dead flies and an acorn? Well, I might just show up as a giant beetle in an Elvis costume. Who are they going to be staring at then, huh? And you can chalk up an 'A' for that little presentation, because unless Julie Perkins has a tarantula dressed like John Lennon, we just totally blew the curve! And even if she does, a tarantula isn't an insect, so we still kick her prissy little ass. Stupid Julie Perkins.

Anyway, if I do show up in one of your dreams in some helpful or at least inoffensive way, I'd appreciate it if you'd give me a little shout out. Oh, and feel free to take this idea and run with it. I'd love it if one of you managed to get into one of Arianna Huffington's dreams. God knows I've tried, but she's got some kind of serious firewall set up. I guess she gets a lot of dream spam.

Last Chance to Vote in the Funniest Post Contest!

I was going to post a link to the rebroadcast of my performance on PopLoad Monday night, but the show was only available for about 6 minutes on the NowLive website. There doesn't seem to be any kind of archive of previous shows; such is the ephemeral nature of internet talk radio. So you're going to have to just trust me when I say that I was incisive, scintillating and about six other words that PopLoad's audience wouldn't understand.

And if you're here because you heard about this site on PopLoad, welcome! And just kidding! I'd post a link to their website, but the whole internet radio thing is like so 6 minutes ago.

The important thing is that today is the last day to vote in the Funniest Blog Post contest! Get your vote in today. The future of humanity depends on it. I will post the final results on Saturday. In related news, I will also be announcing a major shake-up of Humor-Blogs.com on Saturday. Find out who ends up on top, who ends up on the bottom, and who gets squashed in the middle!

That's it for now. I'll be back tomorrow with a brilliant new blog marketing gimmick. Trust me. This is going to be HUGE.

Dumber than a Post

Regular readers will know that I am building a house. Irregular readers, unless they deliberately skipped that first sentence, are now caught up as well.

I'm building a house. It's impossible these days to build a house without making regular trips to one of two places: Lowe's or Home Depot. Or, as I call them, "Slowe's" and "Home Despot." Yes, that's how damned clever I am. Add a letter to make a wry commentary on the store. Friggin' brilliant.

I hate both of those places. Don't get me wrong; I love the acres and acres of stuff that I need. But somewhere in South America there's a rain forest that's missing a lot of retarded apron-wearing monkeys. Because seriously, could they find any less helpful people to work at these places? And it's not bad enough that they don't know anything about what they're selling; you can't even get a dumb look from these people because they have been conditioned from day one to avoid eye contact with anyone who isn't also wearing an orange apron.

You know what I'm talking about. It's how I used to get free meals at the cafeteria in college. While all the sheep are waiting in line, mealcards in hand, you stride boldly past, your eyes affixed on something in the distance. Your body language says, "I am supposed to be over THERE. Not here. Here does not concern me. The only thing that matters is that I get over THERE, as quickly as possible." And the nice old lady or Canadian sliding cards through the scanner lets you past without raising an eyebrow, because it's pretty clear from the way you're striding boldly and actively ignoring her that you have serious business to attend to in THERE, and even if you don't, she's a food service worker getting minimum wage for sliding plastic cards through a slot, not the friggin' Secret Service.

Slowe Despot employees (see what I did there?) have made the Walk of Purposefulness into an art form. These people must train by running a gauntlet of customers trying to flag them down.

"What did Billy do wrong, people?"

"He made eye contact."

"And...?"

"He asked if they needed help."

"What should he have said?"

"This isn't my deparment."

"Very good. We also would have accepted, 'Let me see if I can find someone to help you,' or 'I'm on my break.'"

I thought about doing a post comparing the relative merits of the employees of each of the home improvement mammoths, but that would probably be about as interesting as a cricket match between Hellen Keller and Jabba the Hutt. So I decided to do a comparison between a typical home improvement store employee and an inanimate object. Shopping cars, in particular.


Availability

Unless you're shopping at 10 am on the Saturday before the 4th of July, the odds are that you're going to find a cart. Maybe not one of the big heavy lumber carts, but hey, it's not going to kill the kids to get a little exercise this time.

In contrast, unless you've got a taser gun, your odds of bagging an employee are far worse. And again, even if you do have a taser gun, the odds of getting one of the big heavy ones are pretty poor.

Winner: Carts.


Appearance

At older stores, many of the carts are pretty beat up. Still, they generally retain their overall pleasant orangey appearance.

Even at newer stores, the employees are pretty beat up, and have long since lost any orangey demeanor.

Winner: Carts.


Subject Matter Knowledge

The carts don't know much except how to go straight, and some of them can't even manage that.

Most employees can walk straight and answer simple questions in their area of expertise, be it TomKat, Brangelina or their stupid jerk boss who won't give them next Thursday off.

Winner: Employees.


Politeness

Both carts and employees tend to ignore you until you give them a little shove. The cart will then respond by moving a little in the direction you shoved it. The employee will generally glare at you and possibly shove back.

Winner: Carts.


Intangibles

Defective carts and employees both sometimes making whiny or rubby noises as they move. Often a cart will offer you a brochure of expired coupons and a half-empty cup of Mountain Dew. Often an employee will offer you a "Have a nice day" when you're buying a new hot water heater at 9:45 pm on a Sunday.

Winner: Tie.


Overall

Carts, though slightly dumber than the typical employee, are the clear winner. Avoid the ones that squeak and veer unexpectedly to the left and you should be fine. The same is true for employees.


UPDATE: Thanks to Jennifer for sending me this link confirming my feelings about Home Depot: Is Home Depot shafting shoppers?


Humor-blogs.com can be found on aisle 14. Unless we're out of it. That's really not my department.