Congrats, Scott A!

Hey, what do you know, I can actually publish posts again! So, first things first:


Scott A took top honors this time around. Scott A, if you had a blog you could post this fancy schmancy award.



In case you don't get Scott A's caption, he's referring to the fact that I'm working on a novel entitled Mercury Falls, which is about an angel. I may have mentioned this once or twice in the past.

Brad came in second with:

After that one heartwarming Christmas, Tiny Tim grew up to be a socially-awkward pain in the ass.

And renalfailure took third with my personal favorite:

Turns out Harvey wasn't a giant rabbit, just a giant somber dockworker with a drinking problem. Still, Diesel found this really exciting.

By the way, the current poll results may be different; I selected the winners several days ago when I was under the mistaken impression that I'd be able to post them in a timely manner.

Tomorrow is the first day of 2009, so you know what that means: It's time for the Dance of the Ten Problems! Yes, once again I will be solving one of the major outstanding problems from the previous year so that we can build a brighter future together. Unless Blogger decides to not let me publish again, in which case I will curse impotently at my computer all day.

See you tomorrow (I hope)!

Find more funny blogs at Humor-Blogs.com

How I Saved Christmas

You may have noticed that my blog is back online. I wasn't able to publish on 12/23 or 12/24 due to a mysterious error I was getting from Blogger. I scoured the official Blogger sites for any information but found nothing except a few other reports of the same problem.

Knowing that there were other innocent people out there whose holidays were being tarnished by an inability to publish their Christmas tidings, I sprang into action. Browsing Google's intranet, I found an email address for a someone at Blogger and sent him an email alerting him to the problem. He responded (on Christmas day!) and after some investigation was able to isolate and fix the problem. So if you were one of the people who was having trouble publishing over the past few days, you have me (and the helpful Blogger dude) to thank for fixing the problem. Ergo, I saved Christmas.

In answer to your next questions:

• No, I'm not going to give you any more detail.
• No, I won't give you the Blogger dude's email address.
• No, I won't forward your other Blogger questions/problems to him.
• No, I won't try to find somebody to help you with your Adwords/Adsense/Youtube/Google Search/anything else that Google owns problems.

I can only use my powers in dire emergencies, such as when Christmas is in danger. It's like in Superman 2, where Superman is warned by Jor-El not to interfere with earth's history but he does anyway because he really doesn't want Lois Lane to die, so he makes the earth spin backwards and reverses time and saves her, but it's a one time thing, okay?

Anyway, my publishing problem has been resolved. I'm going to leave the caption contest poll up for today in case some of you haven't had a chance to vote. I'll post the results tomorrow.

Okay, now I have to go back in time so that I can have wished you all a Merry Christmas.

Find more funny blogs at Humor-Blogs.com

Vote!

renalfailure said...

Turns out Harvey wasn't a giant rabbit, just a giant somber dockworker with a drinking problem. Still, Diesel found this really exciting.

Alex L said...

Diesel: "So... I'll give you the fifty bucks now, and then at some stage you'll wake up with a headache in a bath full of ice. Is it a deal?"

Doug at Taunt Vortex said...

The new Crest White Strips representative found that it was tough sledding in Bedford Falls.

carolinebender said...

I am the Ghost of Financial Failures Yet To Come....

Brad said...

After that one heartwarming Christmas, Tiny Tim grew up to be a socially-awkward pain in the ass.

Sparrow said...

George had hoped for a miracle, but resolved to kill himself after all when God decided not to send an angel to help him, but instead sent some wienie in a tux.

Scott A said...

"Yeah, yeah- but if you weren't killing yourself later tonight, on a scale of one to ten, how likely would you be to buy a book about an angel by some guy off the internet?"

Aaron said...

For the last time, I don't want to go out back with you and "lasso the moon."

Father Muskrat said...

And then you get people to sign up under you, and they get people to sign up under them, and we all make money! It's like a pyramid, George!

BRWombat said...

George tries to distract himself by imagining what life would have been like if Diesel had never been born.

Online Surveys & Market Research

Find more funny blogs at Humor-Blogs.com

Best of MP: Noel, Noel, Noel. What Were You Thinking?

I figured I'd treat you to some ghosts of posts past this week. I know this one is popular because it keeps getting hits no matter what time of year it is. Enjoy. And be sure to come back tomorrow to vote in the caption contest.

Noel, Noel, Noel. What Were You Thinking?

Everybody loves Christmas carols. Christians love Christmas carols. Jews love Christmas carols. Even Satanists secretly love Christmas carols. The only people who don't like Christmas carols are Communists and people named Carol who are going to smack the next person that asks them if they are a Christmas Carol because it's just not funny after the bazillionth time, ok?

One of the most enjoyable Christmas songs to listen to is "The First Noel," the lyrics of which were presumably written as some sort of prank by a guy named Noel. The tune is wonderful, but the lyrics are ridiculous. He works his name into the song like 87 times, for starters.

Noel wrote a song, Noel Noel
Noel Noel Noel Noel
It's my song so suck it, Noel Noel
Sing Noel Noel Noel Noel
Noel Noel Noel Noel
Born is the King of Israel (whose name is Noel)!

If it weren't for "Hey Jude", old Noel would still be on the hook for Most Needless Repetition of a Name in a Song.

Ok, ok. That's not really how the song goes. In reality, the lyrics are far, far worse. If you don't believe me, you obviously haven't had to try to sing the song lately. Sure, it sounds great piping gently through the speakers at Starbucks, but at my church they actually expect us to sing the song, and let me tell you, it's damn near impossible. That song has the most godawful awkward lyrics I've ever tried to wrap my lips around.

Let's take the first stanza, shall we?

The first noel the angels did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep
On a cold winter's night that was so deep.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!

First of all, a "noel" is a song. So this is a song about a song. If you were to update the refrain of this song to modern English, it would be:

Song, Song, Song, Song
Born is the King of Israel!

Which, if it weren't redeemed by the second line, would be the worst refrain ever.

Next, you don't "say" a song. You sing it.

Then there's the pointless redundancy: "in fields as they lay/in fields where they lay." That's just lazy. And what the hell are the shepherds doing lying in the fields? Shouldn't at least one of them be awake? And if they're asleep, how are they "keeping their sheep?"

Then there's the little fact that Jesus was most likely not born during the winter. And even if he were, what exactly makes a night "deep"? What the hell is that supposed to mean? I'll tell you what it means. It means somebody couldn't think of a word to rhyme with 'sheep.'

Ok, so we've established that this song is confused, repetitive, factually inaccurate and banal. And we still haven't even touched on the fact that it's virtually impossible to sing. It's like the lyrics were written for a completely different tune.

The-uh fir-irst no-o-el the-uh angels did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay
I-in fie-eelds wheretheylay kee-ee-eeping their sheep
On a cold winter's ni-ight that wa-as so deep.
No-o-el, No-o-el, No-o-el, No-o-e-el
Born is the Ki-ing of I-Isri-el!

Maybe the syllable breaks make sense if you're a world-class stutterer or something. And in case you think, "Well, that's just the way those old songs are," take a look at the first stanza of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing":

Hark the herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled"
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With th'angelic host proclaim:
"Christ is born in Bethlehem"
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"

Hey, the syllable breaks actually match the notes of the tune! Other than stretching "sing" and "mild" into two syllables and creating the contraction "th'angelic", you start a new syllable every time you hit a new note. It's a Christmas miracle! "Joy to the World," "Silent Night," "O Come All Ye Faithful" -- they all match their respective tunes almost perfectly.

You would think that once a lyricist has given himself license to depart from historical accuracy and go off on tangents about farm animals, he might have a chance of finding some words that actually go along with the tune, but old Noel had no such luck. In fact, the song actually gets worse in the later stanzas:

They-ey loo-ook-ed up a-and sa-aw a star
Shining i-in the Ea-east beyo-ond them far
And to-o the-uh earth it ga-a-ave great light
And so it continued both da-ay and night.
No-o-el, No-o-el, No-o-el, No-o-e-el
Born is the Ki-ing of I-Isri-el!

Ok, I need to stop trying to figure out where the syllable breaks are before I develop a case of Turrett's. For the record, according to Luke the shepherds saw no star. The shepherds were "nearby," and if they needed a star to find Bethlehem, they were some pretty piss-poor shepherds. Oh, and if they had attempted to follow a star "in the east," they would have found themselves in the Dead Sea.

The next stanza is my favorite.

This star drew nigh to the northwest
O'er Bethlehem it took its rest
And there it did both pause and stay
Right o'er the place where Jesus lay.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!

Is there a more drawn out way to say "The star stopped over the baby Jesus"? I especially like the fact that the star "did both pause and stay" -- a phrase which is painfully redundant even without dragging it out over 37 syllables.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for: the historically inaccurate and syntactically disastrous inclusion of the three wise men:

Then entered in those wise men three
Full reverently upon their knee
And offered there in His presence
Their gold and myrrh and frankincense.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!

Ah yes, the famed Wise Men of the Southeast, who arrived on the heels of the shepherds. Historians have, of course, disagreed about the number of wise men. The standard interpretation is that there were three, based on the fact that there were three gifts. Revisionists, however, point to the fact that they all evidently shared a single knee.

Oh well. At least the intrepid vocalist is rewarded for his persistence with a single coherent, semi-singable stanza to close the song.

Then let us all with one accord
Sing praises to our heavenly Lord
That hath made Heaven and earth of naught
And with his blood mankind has bought.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!

Couldn't have said it better myself. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Find more funny blogs at Humor-Blogs.com

Caption Contest: It's a Wonderful Life

Welcome to a special Christmas edition of the Mattress Police caption contest! That's me with what's-his-face from that movie.



You know the rules. Submit your caption(s) in the comments. The best ones will be posted in a poll on Tuesday.

In other news, Humor-Blogs and Blogerella are having some issues right now. The database keeps running out of space. My hosting dudes should be upgrading it soon. Hopefully you'll be able to submit your comments or this will be a very dull caption contest.

Have a super weekend!

Find more funny blogs at Humor-Blogs.com

Low Hanging Fruit

In the beginning, God created Earth 1.0.

Earth 1.0, despite its rather limited feature set, was a huge hit, and soon God had to hire a CEO to manage the day to day business of Earth so that He could focus on the creative side of the business.

The CEO, a well-regarded young executive by the name of Lucifer, oversaw the launch of Earth 2.0. Unfortunately he skimped on the testing budget and Earth 2.0 was full of bugs.

God relieved Lucifer of his executive responsibilities, demoting him to the mailroom.

One day Lucifer was sorting mail with two of his coworkers, Man and Woman, when he got an idea. "Did God really say," he asked the Woman, "that you may not open any of the mail in the mail room?"

"No," said the Woman. "We may open any of the mail except for envelopes marked 'Executive Level.' He said we would die if we read some of the stuff in those letters."

"Do you not know a figure of speech when you hear it, Woman?" asked Lucifer. "He just doesn't want you to know what's going on at the Executive Level. Here, read this one. It's okay, you work here."

The woman took it and said, "Hey Man, come over here and help me open this," because she was no dummy.

And the Man did, because he liked to feel useful and he was looking at the Woman's boobs.

And they opened the envelope and read. And they were like, "What the hell? The giraffes are getting paid more than we are!"

"How is that possible?" cried the Man. "The giraffes wouldn't even have a name if it weren't for me."

Lucifer shrugged. "Salary compression issues," he said.

"And what the hell is this?" demanded the Woman. "They're closing the Dinosaur Department?"

"Liability issues," said Lucifer. "The legal ramifications of running a ferocious race of giant lizards turned out to be...."

But the Woman wasn't listening. "And what's this about phony geological strata designed to make Earth look like it's billions of years old? Everyone knows that Earth has only been around since the second fiscal quarter."

"It was decided," Lucifer explained, "that the market was looking for a more mature product."

"But that's dishonest!" exclaimed the Woman.

Lucifer smiled. "Well, technically God never specifically claimed Earth is billions of years old. In fact, if you read the documentation..."

"You know full well nobody reads that stuff," snarled the Woman. "Users are just going to start poking around Earth, and when they see those geological strata they're just going to assume..."

"Well, the executives can't be blamed for that," said Lucifer. "That's why there's documentation. Poking around the geological strata voids the warranty."

The Woman was exasperated. "Why bother to stuff fake geological strata in there if you don't want people looking at it?"

"Oh, we do want them looking at it. If the users void the warranty, then we don't have to support the product. You have no idea how much money we save that way."

The Man was still studying the document. "What are 'fossil fuels'?"

"Oh, that was my idea!" exclaimed Lucifer proudly. "We packed the earth with an insane amount of combustible material. Eventually the users will start digging it out and burning it, creating smog and greenhouse gases. Which, of course, voids the warranty. They'll have to purchase an upgrade to get out of that one."

"But that's..." the Man trailed off, trying to think of a word for it.

"Executive Level," said Lucifer. "That's just how the Universe works."

"What do you know about how the Universe works?" asked the Woman. "You work in the mail room."

"A temporary setback," said Lucifer, a bit defensively. "I got a little cocky."

"I'm starting to see why God didn't want us opening His mail," said the Man sourly. "I was happier before I knew any of this."

Suddenly they heard a deep voice in the distance. "Hey," it said. "Are you guys open?"

"It's God!" whispered the Man. "Quick, hide the letter!"

Lucifer realized that he was urgently needed on another floor and slunk away.

"Hello?" called God. "I'm looking for today's mail. Anyone here?"

The Man panicked, shoving the letter into his pants. Then, realizing this wasn't much of a hiding spot, he put on the pants.

"He'll never think to look there!" said the Man, who wasn't very good yet at being clever.

The woman groaned, realizing that this was likely to go very badly.

"Hello!" called God.

"Coming!" called the Man. He and the Woman ran to the front desk.

"What can we do for you?" asked the Woman nervously.

"Er," said God suspiciously. "Any mail for me?"

"Oh," said the Woman. "Ah, nothing today really. Land's End catalog. Pottery Barn. Something about saving the whales."

"Bloody whales," said God. "Not exactly self-sufficient, are they?"

The Man and Woman laughed nervously.

"So, no Executive Level communications today?" said God. "I was sort of expecting something about the gir--"

"Nothing about geological strata here!" insisted the Man.

The woman groaned again.

"Geological strata?" asked God. "I was going to say 'giraffes.' How did you know about the... hey, why are you wearing pants?"

"Well," said the Man, "It's not to hide anything, if that's what you're thinking."

"And what is that bulge in your crotch?"

"It was the Woman!" the Man exclaimed. "She did it!"

"I did not!" yelped the Woman.

"Oh," said God, understandingly. "Did I interrupt happy time? Because I can come back when you're..."

"Please," said the Woman, who was rather embarrassed at the prospect that God may have figured out she was sleeping with the Man, even though God had pretty well pieced together that little mystery some time ago. "It's just some of the mail," she explained. "He keeps it in his pants. For, uh, safekeeping."

"Yeah," said God flatly. "I built him, remember? I have a pretty good idea what part of him is in his pants. There's no need to be ashamed, Man. I've seen it all before."

"Still," said the Man, "I think I'm going to keep the pants on."

"No," said God. "I think you're going to take them off. So that we can see all the mail that you're hiding."

The Woman sighed. "Just take them off," she said.

The Man complied.

God saw what the man had done and said, "You have Executive Level communications in your pants! You're both fired! Clean out your desks!"

Man and Woman grabbed their things and were escorted out by Angela from Human Resources.

God stood alone at the mail desk, reading the letter. After a moment he said, "You can come out now."

Lucifer appeared from behind a filing cabinet. "Wow," he said. "That was impressive."

God smiled. "That's why I'm in charge and you're in the mailroom. Now I need you to gear up for some big orders. We're going to be selling a lot of pants."

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: Saturday Morning in the Bedroom of Good and Evil | Mixed Fruits and Metaphors Find more funny blogs at Humor-Blogs.com

What Are You Reading?

As we all know, the holidays can be stressful. My personal strategy for dealing with the stresses of traveling, buying presents, preparing for guests and making nice with family members is to not do any of those things. This doesn't mean, however, that I am free of stress during the holidays. For me, the main cause of stress is people who insist on asking me what it is that I'm reading.

What-are-you-reading stress can happen at any time of the year, of course, but it tends to be particularly bad at the holidays, when there are more people around who insist on making some sort of social contact with me. I find myself being dragged from one location to the next, each of them thick with people who oddly resemble my in-laws to one degree or another. I feel like I'm at a bus station or train terminal, except that the furniture is better and the air smells of coffee and windmill cookies instead of urine and cigarettes. These are, in other words, ideal locations in which to read -- or at least they would be if not for the endless parade of near strangers who have already exhausted the topics of (1) how bad the fog is this time of year; and (2) that Sarah Palin wasn't really that bad.

"What are you reading?" they ask. It's one of those questions people use to fill uncomfortable silences, the sort of question to which I have an inexplicable visceral revulsion. And the worst part isn't the question itself. The worst part is the interminable pre-what-are-you-reading lull. The PWAYRL starts when someone sits on the couch next to you and you look up from your book for a second and a half to acknowledge that, yes, someone has sat on the couch next to you, and while you're perfectly alright with this fact, you're just going to keep on reading, okay? Then there is a pause that lasts anywhere from six seconds to nine hours during which you both KNOW the other person is going to ask you The Question, but they sit and pretend they aren't.

The problem is that the world is divided into only two types of people: readers and non-readers. Readers want you to know that they are readers, and non-readers want you to think that they are readers, or at least that they could be readers if they weren't so busy doing more important things. Both groups want you to know that they are interested in what you are reading, and many of them labor under the misguided conception that to talk to someone who is reading about anything other than what they are reading is rude.

Let me clear this up right now. I'm the one being rude, okay? It's pointless to try to follow some arbitrary conception of civility when I've already fired the first shot across the bow by slumping sullenly in the middle of a room full of free food and distant relatives with a copy of The Stainless Steel Rat Returns. There's no socially acceptable way for you to engage me at this point. The best you can do is to ignore me or, failing that, to ignore the fact that I'm reading a book. Either of these options is preferable to you asking me what I'm reading. If you have to ask me about something, ask me about the weather or my kids or why I insist on being such an antisocial bastard all the time. Just please, for the love of G. K. Chesterton, don't ask me what I'm reading.

Why not? Well, because we both know that you don't care about what it is that I'm reading. You may fool yourself momentarily into thinking that you do care, but you don't, and this will become abundantly clear once I answer the question with a title that frightens and confuses you, like So Long and Thanks for All the Fish or The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. At this point, you're stuck. There's no graceful way out of this conversation. Sure, you can say something like "Oh, that sounds interesting," but again we both know this is a lie. Alternately, you can delve deeper and ask another question, like "What's that about?" This will have the effect of postponing the "Oh, that sounds interesting" comment for 38 seconds while I explain to you that the book is about super-intelligent dolphins leaving the planet. Ultimately your options come down to (1) saying something that amounts to "I don't suppose that would be something I would be interested in, of course," or (2) accidentally spilling something on yourself. So how about if you skip the formalities and just insult my taste in books, drop your coffee on your lap and leave me to my reading.

To summarize, here are some simple rules that will help you avoid causing me unnecessary stress during the holidays:

1. Ignore me. You're not being rude. Really. I can't take it personally if I don't even fully realize that you are there.
2. Don't ask me about my book.
3. Since you are going to refuse to follow rule number two, if you HAVE to ask me about my book, ask the question in this form: "Are you enjoying your book?" This allows you to engage me in conversation about my book and allows me to answer with "yes" or "no". You might even get some added satisfaction from the fact that you have made me feel just a little guilty about either (1) how much I'm enjoying reading rather than socializing with all these people, or (2) the fact that I'm intentionally reading a crappy book to avoid socializing with all these people.
4. If you are going to ask me about my book, do it within the first ten seconds of sitting down next to me. This decreases the odds that I will pre-emptively throttle you.
5. If you REALLY want to know about my book, surreptitiously steal it while I am in the bathroom and begin reading it yourself. Any irritation I feel at having lost my book will be more than balanced by the relief of meeting someone I actually feel like talking to.

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: Would You Buy this Novel? | Harry Potter and the Comments of Retardedness | The Tooth Machine Find more funny blogs at Humor-Blogs.com

Congrats to the Laundry Lady!

Fold My Laundry Please won this time around. FMLP, you may display the coveted In Your Face award.



LeSombre came in a close second with:

Diesel: "If this works, I'm positive you'll get a 3rd facial expression"
Keanu: "..."

And perennial favorite Brad took third with:

"Hi, I'm a PC."
"And I'm a Mac."
"And we're both semi-retarded."

Competition was especially fierce this week. My personal favorite was blogless_troll's:

Keanu: Whoa. I know kung fu. No wait. Now it's gone... OK, it's back... No, now it's--Dude, are you messing with the dial? That's totally uncool.

Come on, that's funny. And Glacial Spain, who went down in flames, gets bonus point for an obscure reference to one of my favorite movies.

I also have to give a special shout-out to Happy Hour Sue for posting what is perhaps the greatest blog post of all time. She somehow managed to reference my favorite movie, link to my blog, refer to me as her "idol" and name the newest addition to her family after me all in the course of a single post. What the hell have the rest of you done for me that compares to that?

Finally, congratulations to my childhood co-conspirator and current bigwig entertainment writer Angry John Sellers who, if I'm not mistaken, is getting married right around now. Maybe he'll be able to drop the "Angry" after tonight.

See you fine folks again on Monday.

Find more funny blogs at Humor-Blogs.com

It's the Secret(ion) Santa Gift Exchange!

Bee from Bee's Musings, a great blog that recently took an inexplicable dive in the Humor-Blogs ratings, talked me into participating in her "Secret Santa" gift exchange. The way it works is this: Bee emails several hundred bloggers with the name of another blogger for whom they are supposed to buy a present. We all buy these presents and send them to our selected recipients who, it turns out, are all just fictitious people that Bee made up so that she could get lots of presents.

Wait, no, that's not it. Hang on. I have the email here somewhere.

Oh, okay, I guess these are real people. Well, at least they all have blogs, so presumably they are real. As real as Dwight from The Office or Randy from My Name is Earl, anyway.

And we're not actually supposed to get them anything; we're supposed to post a picture of something that we would have gotten for them if it weren't for the fact that we, uh, don't want to actually get them anything. I think I've got that right.

Anyway, Chris Woods didn't get me a book called Natural Harvest: A Collection of Semen Based Recipes available from Lulu.com. In fact, he mercifully didn't even post a picture of said book. I guess it just goes to show that Lulu will publish anything.

So now I'm supposed to not get something for someone named HumorSmith. I don't know what a Humor Smith is exactly; I guess it's someone who hammers red-hot irony into finely wrought implements of comedy. It seems like the thing a Humor Smith would need for this kind of work is an anvil -- and not just any old anvil. It would have to be the funniest kind of anvil around.



That's right: it's the ACME 9 and some weird fraction pound anvil, guaranteed to take care of that pesky Road Runner once and for all. HumorSmith, if only I could part with the 15 cents (plus $86 S&H), this anvil would be yours!

I'll be back tomorrow with the caption contest results. See you then.

Find more funny blogs at Humor-Blogs.com

Whoops!

A lot of people think I'm some kind of computer genius because I work at Google and run a couple of blog directories, Humor-Blogs.com and Blogerella. You'd be surprised how dense I can be about all this web development stuff though.

For example, did you guys know that some online communities have had problems with users scamming their voting systems? When I found that out, like, yesterday or whenever it was, I was all like "Hunh what?" because I didn't realize that was even POSSIBLE. And then I thought, "Well okay but you'd have to be some kind of HACKER GENIUS to pull off something like that." But you know what? I was WRONG. It's actually not even that hard. See, what some people do is sign up over and over, using a different email address each time, and then vote for their own stuff a whole bunch of times. CRAZY, huh? So it might look like a particular website is really popular, but in reality it's just the same person voting for it over and over. Doesn't that BLOW YOUR MIND? Yeah, it turns out that email addresses are FREE and they give them away to pretty much anyone! I had NO IDEA. But then I've only been doing web development for TWELVE YEARS.

So then I was all like "It's a good thing that Humor-Blogs.com and Blogerella are all made up of cool people who wouldn't try to take advantage of me and/or cheat their fellow bloggers!" Because, after all, whatever would I do if that sort of thing started happening? I mean, how do you stop something like that? I'm no match for that sort of HACKER GENIUS. First of all, how would you even know if it was happening? How could you tell if a bunch of different users were really just the same person logging in with a different email address? I mean, I suppose if they kept using the same computer, and that computer had some kind of unique identifier -- let's call it an IP address -- that you could retrieve, you might be able to figure it out, if you were REALLY SMART. But jeez, you'd have to write a script that would grab the IP address and store it EVERY TIME SOMEBODY VOTED FOR A POST.

Well, I don't know about you, but that sounds like a lot of work to me. To do that, you'd probably need some kind of CRYPTIC COMMANDS like:

strSQL = "INSERT INTO post_ratings (post_id, user_id, rating, user_ip) VALUES (" & intPostID & "," & Utils.GetCookieInt(Request, "UserID") & "," & intRating & ",'" & Request.ServerVariables("REMOTE_ADDR") & "')"
dbAccess.ExecSQL(strSQL)

I mean, who can make sense of THAT? It's like reading Phoenician or something. Somebody call John Travolta's character from Phenomenon; I'm in over my head! And not only that, but then you'd need to write some fancy schmancy SQL (is that even a word???) query to make sense of the data. I mean, if you were REALLY GOOD you could probably come up with something like:

SELECT user_ip FROM post_ratings GROUP BY user_ip HAVING COUNT(DISTINCT user_id) > 5

Now I'm no EXPERT, but I GUESS something like that would give you a list of all users who seem to be sharing a computer with more than FOUR OTHER USERS. Wow, that's a busy computer! I suppose that's the typical suburban household these days though, huh? Six people logging into the same computer in rapid succession, all to vote for their favorite blog on Humor-Blogs.com. So, you know, NOTHING SUSPICIOUS THERE.

There was even one household where there were at least TEN PEOPLE voting from the same computer. That must be a tightly knit family. I can imagine them sitting around the dinner table talking about their favorite blog, and how they love VOTING FOR IT OVER AND OVER AND OVER INSTEAD OF WORKING OR DOING THEIR HOMEWORK OR DOING SOMETHING ELSE MORE PRODUCTIVE.

Anyway, like I said, I'm just glad that I can rely on the HONOR SYSTEM, because I don't have time to deal with FRAUDULENT VOTING. I mean, this stuff just gets me ALL FRAZZLED. I freak out and just start pressing keys and pretty soon some of the blog scores get set back to ZERO! Man, I'm lucky I didn't DELETE THOSE BLOG ENTIRELY. There's not telling what might happen if I start mucking around in the database again.

To be honest, I'm not even sure which blogs I reset, so I'm not positive I could fix their scores even if I had that kind of brain power. So I'm REAL SORRY is yours is one of the blogs that got reset to zero. If you want, you can leave a comment on this post explaining that yours was one of the blogs that was able to inspire a whole clan of inbred mountain people to huddle around their one computer and vote for it over and over and over, and I'll see what I can do. I'm sure all of the other Humor-Blogs and Blogerella members would like to know what your secret is.

Otherwise, I guess you could consider this your chance to start over with a blank slate. It's up to you.

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: Why Do You Do It? | Denial is One of the Symptoms Find more funny blogs at Humor-Blogs.com

Vote!

Brad said...

"Hi, I'm a PC."
"And I'm a Mac."
"And we're both semi-retarded."


LeSombre said...

Diesel: "If this works, I'm positive you'll get a 3rd facial expression"
Keanu: "..."


BRWombat said...

Diesel is thrilled to discover that "Klaatu barada nikto" translates to "My place or yours?"


Howard said...

Diesel: HEY! According to this machine, you can't emote!


blogless_troll said...

Keanu: Whoa. I know kung fu. No wait. Now it's gone... OK, it's back... No, now it's--Dude, are you messing with the dial? That's totally uncool.


Fold My Laundry Please said...

I just sank your battle ship!


carolinebender said...

"Dude, you're right! There IS no spoon!"


Doug at Taunt Vortex said...

Klaatu discovers that in 2009, applying for a mortgage gets a little more complicated.


Glacial Spain said...

Diesel: "Tell me about your mother."
Keanu: "My mother? I'll tell you about my mother..."


Deb said...

"Well, look at that, Keanu, you sweet little freak! You really DO want me to be the Boise in your own personal Idaho!"

Online Surveys & Market Research

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: Find more funny blogs at Humor-Blogs.com

Do I Know You?

One of the inevitable consequences of being a handsome, charismatic man who has just written what is bound to be a runaway bestseller is that I am soon going to have to grapple with the pressures of being a minor celebrity.

The glare of the spotlight is too much for many celebrities to take and some of them crack under the pressure, descending into a spiral of drinking too much, not wearing underwear enough, and engaging in lurid, meaningless lesbian affairs, the only available photos of which are invariable disappointing.

I have one advantage over these celebrities, however: I'm unlikely to experience the sort of disorienting overnight success that causes one to lose sight of what is really important, because becoming a minor celebrity has been forefront in my mind since I played the Geografoof* in the 4th grade play. I have had the luxury of planning for my inevitable fame.

Lately I have been trying to decide how I will react to strangers I encounter in the street who insist that they knew me before I was famous. "I sat behind you in tenth grade geometry," they will say, or "I took a bullet for you in the war." And who's to say whether they did or they didn't? Not I, for I didn't pay much attention during either ordeal, and as a minor celebrity I will have far more important things to think about than who sat next to and/or took a bullet for whom years before I was famous.

The natural inclination would be to go along with the charade, pretending that I remember the person to avoid embarrassing them. "We made out in the parking lot of Publix, did we? Well, of course I remember that!" I'll exclaim. "It was just the mustache that threw me for a minute."

I've decided that if I'm going to pretend to remember people who claim to know me, I'm going to do it on my own terms. Here's the deal: If you want me to act like I know you after I become famous, you must apply to be a member of the "I knew Diesel before he was famous" club. To do this, simply send an email to diesel -at- mattresspolice.com with the following information:

1. Your full name.

2. Physical description. Please, only enough information for me to pick you out of a crowd. This should include a mention of some sort of physical deformation or disfigurement, perhaps an unsightly mole, birthmark or mullet. If you do not have any such distinguishing marking, I cannot guarantee that I will pretend to remember you. Also, if you specify a mole which later turns out to be a malignant tumor, I will totally not blame you for having it removed. I'm sure you will understand, of course, that I cannot be expected to pretend to recognize you sans tumor.**

3. The nature of our supposed relationship. Choose from:

• Ex-lover who left because you didn't appreciate my genius.
• Android that I built in my basement (note that I may have to "retire" you if you start acting all renegade).
• Blind/deaf/mute person whom I painstakingly taught to communicate with sign language.
• Salieri to my Mozart.

If you are one of the first 100 people to email me, I will respond to your email congratulating you on your acceptance in the "I knew Diesel before he was famous" club and assigning you a nickname. This nickname is how I will refer to you if we ever meet. For example, the encounter might go like this:

You: Hey, aren't you Diesel, the bestselling author of Mercury Falls and other bestselling novels available now from [major publishing company]?
Me: Eh?
You: Don't you remember? It's me, Stripey-Face!
Me: Stripey...
You: Because of the disfiguring zebra stripes I had tattooed on my face so that you would remember me.
Me: Ah, Stripey-Man! How could I forget you?
You: It's actually Stripey-Face. I've got the email here somewhere...
Me: Right, Stripey-Face. I knew you from when we were...
You: I was the blind deaf mute that you taught to drive the zamboni.
Me: Of course! You became quite the zamboni driver, as I recall. Not as good as me, though, eh Stripey-Head?
You: No sir. I spent my entire life trying to learn the art of zamboni driving, but I could never achieve, even through a thousand years of practice, what you could do so effortlessly.
Me: It is tragic how daunting my genius is. Say, how do I know that you're really Stripey-Bear?
You: Stripey-Face, sir. I have stripes on my face. I would think that's enough proof...
Me: What's the password?
You: Password? You never said anything about any password.
Me: Just kidding. Give me a hug.
You: Er, okay. [holds arms out to hug me]
Me: [punches you in the stomach] That's for not knowing the password. Now scram!

What Stripey-Man didn't realize in this scenario is that sometimes I just punch people in the stomach for no reason. If he had really known me, he would have remembered that. Thus Stripey-Man is revealed as a fraud.

You are probably thinking, "How can I prevent that from happening to me?" I don't know for sure that's what you're thinking, but it seems like a safe bet.

Keep in mind that in fairness to the members of the "I knew Diesel before he was famous" club, I must refuse to recognize anyone who is not a member of the club even if, for example, you are the mother of my illegitimate children or someone to whom I owe a great deal of money. The only exceptions to this rule are:

1. Immediate family. I will be sending out a separate form for this shortly in which you can describe/document your alleged familial ties to me.
2. People who are more famous than me and/or stand to help me become more famous.
3. Happy Hour Sue, who just named her puppy after me.

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding. I look forward to reminiscing with you, whoever you are.

*A child who foolishly believes that the study of geography has nothing to offer him.
**Unless said removal results in a disfiguring scar and you have updated your membership records to indicate such.

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: Your Brain (for Dummies) | Diesel's Campaign Running Out of Gas | A Fitting Tribute Find more funny blogs at Humor-Blogs.com

Caption Contest: The Day the Earth Stood Still

That's me with Keanu Reeves, who plays Klaatu (does anyone else find it weird that Keanu and Klaatu both start with K and end with u?) in the upcoming movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. Submit your captions in the comments. The best ones will be posted in a poll on Tuesday.

Have a swell weekend!

Still down at #6 on Humor-Blogs.com, people. Help me out here.

A Handy Guide to the State of Michigan

There are not, at present, very many good reasons to live in Michigan. The weather blows, the roads are terrible, and even the state's admittedly successful strategy to avoid the economic ups and downs that have plagued other states has consisted primarily of stubbornly remaining in a recession since 1991. Most recently the burgeoning auto theft industry, thought to be recession-proof, took a big hit when General Motors started giving away a free Chevy Suburban to anyone who would test drive a Chevy Suburban.

There is, however at least one significant advantage to being from Michigan, as opposed to another state: If you're from Texas or Colorado or Tennessee and someone asks you where in the state you're from, you have to tell them something like "the middle of the pan handle," or "just south of Denver" or "halfway between the world's largest bowl of grits and the world's smallest library" or something.

If you're from Michigan, however, you just hold up your right hand and point to it with your left. Everybody from Michigan does this.* People in Michigan have been trained from birth to think of their right hands as little maps that they always have with them. If you ask an auto worker where he's from, he'll likely point to the bottom knuckle of his thumb. If you ask a politician where he lives, he'll point to the center of his palm -- and not just because he expects a kickback for answering the question. If you ask someone from Jackson County, he will probably show you his middle finger. Don't let this mislead you: Jackson County is in the southern part of the state, but the people who live there are all complete bastards.



I still remember the first time I left the state as a young man and got hopelessly lost trying to find our great country's right elbow. It is a jarring realization to find that the rest of the world is not so conveniently anatomically correct. Eventually someone handed me a map of Indiana which, once taped to my forearm, allowed me to find my way home.

The cognitive power of having a roughly accurate map of the geographic area in which you live permanently attached to your wrist cannot be overestimated. A popular legend claims that General Edward Braddock's failure to take Fort Michilimackinac during the French and Indian War was due primarily to his insistence on forcing his men to march 180 miles out of their way to avoid "slipping between the fingers."**

Adding to the accuracy of my personal map, I even have a weird little scar on my right hand where I once accidentally stabbed myself in my hometown of Grand Rapids. It is appropriate, I suppose, that Grand Rapids should have left a scar, considering all the traumatic experiences I had there. Junior high alone should have been good for a bad rash or two.

The most traumatic year of my life, though, was when my parents moved to southern Florida when I was 17. Florida was total culture shock for me. I completely lost my bearings. My new classmates just didn't know what to make of this weird, scrawny kid from Michigan, and I probably didn't help matters by asking many of the girls in my class to show me what part of Florida we were in. This sort of thing was a polite conversation starter in Michigan; how was I to know that such demonstrations were frowned on down there?

I ended up getting a reputation as a bit of a creep, but I never could figure out what I was doing wrong. No matter how much time I spent trying to reconcile Michigan and Florida, Florida seemed to want something I couldn't give it. It's a miracle that my actions resulted in no visible scarring down there.



Eventually I gave up trying to satisfy Florida's unrealistic demands, and moved back to Michigan, where my right hand was once again my best friend. It remained so until I met the future Mrs. Diesel and moved to California. Sure, I had to give up the familiarity of my right hand, but wonderful new horizons opened up as a result.

Sometimes I wonder if there are other areas of the world that use a body part as a map. The only other anatomically analogous region I know of is Italy. If you ask somebody from Naples what part of Italy they're from, do they point to their ankle? I guess that really only works if you're wearing boots, though. If I lived in Italy, I'd want to wear boots all the time so I'd never get lost. I suppose that explains the appeal of fascism.

California is roughly kidney shaped, but that's less helpful than you might think when you're lost in a bad part of Fresno. Getting undressed and turning around before you ask for directions really only works in San Francisco.

I guess every state has its drawbacks. One thing you can say for Michigan, though: people there are always willing to give you a hand. And sometimes the finger.


*No solid evidence has ever been found for the existence of a lost tribe of Handless Indians who still roam the frozen wastes of the mythical "Upper Peninsula" of Michigan.
**The French and Indian War was not, contrary to popular belief, fought between the French and the Indians. It was fought between the country of India and Mr. French from Family Affair, both of whom wanted exclusive rights to the vast breakfast cereal deposits in Battle Creek, Michigan. Battle Creek, now known as the home of the Kellog company, was so named because of the great battle that was scheduled to occur there. Sadly, the Indian army got lost on the way to the battleground and ended up settling in the then-uncharted area south of Michigan, which is now known as Indiana. This footnote is for my nephew Joshua, who asked for my help on his social studies report.

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: Worst City in the U.S. | Scariest Motel Ever Help me reclaim my rightful place in the universe by voting for this post at Humor-Blogs.com

Blogerella Redux

In my attempt to be excruciatingly clear in my post yesterday, I seem to have confused just about everyone. So let me try this again, with just the basic info.

I've launched a new blog directory called Blogerella. Unlike Humor-Blogs.com, Blogerella is for all kinds of blogs.

If you're already a member of Humor-Blogs.com, you don't have to sign up again. Your HB login will work with Blogerella.

If you have a blog listed on HB and you want that blog to show up on Blogerella, DON'T resubmit your blog. Just go to HB and click the checkbox on your blog settings that says "List this Blog on Blogerella." Please link to Blogerella from your blog before you do this.

Votes (smileys) in HB count in Blogerella and vice versa. You don't have to ask people to vote for your posts in both places. Your blog's score in Blogerella will be the same as your score in HB. You're welcome to display links to both sites in your posts, but they will both do the same thing.

If you're not a blogger, you're still encouraged to join Blogerella/HB so that you can vote for your favorite posts and support your favorite bloggers. Again, you only have to sign up in one place. Your user account will work on both sites.

Clear?

(By the way, feel free to practice smiley-giving by clicking on the smiley button at the bottom of this post. I've somehow fallen to #7 on HB and I can't get up. I know this post isn't particularly funny, but you can smiley me in anticipation of tomorrow's post, which is going to be HI-freaking-larious.)

Find more funny blogs at Humor-Blogs.com