Following up on the greatest headline of all time, comes what may be the sickest headline of all time.
Unlike the tale of Chewbacca manhandling Marilyn Monroe, however, the story lives up to the headline. Especially gruesome are the images of the larvae in the jar. If this doesn’t make you want to toss chow, you need to see a health care professional.
Having spent yesterday trying to get my car registered and me licensed in Virginia, I actually missed the bloated inefficiency of the federal government. There is something refreshing about interacting with a level of government that is inefficient due to its own ineptness that really draws attention to the fact that the fed is at least inefficient due to size and waste.
In my life I have come to savor the subtle distinctions of poor government service the way wine and cigar connoisseurs appreciate the variations of flavor in a nice pinot noir or hand rolled stogie. It lifts the spirit to see a bureaucracy running at top speed – doggedly enforcing rules that you know they can’t possibly agree with.
In my case, that took the form of a requirement to show two forms of ID and a proof of residency. Who knew that the gas company (Dominion) doesn’t actually put your name on your bill? Show up with that one in hand and it’s a round trip back home for another bill. It’s also fascinating, given our mobile culture, that a cellular phone bill is also unacceptable. Yet another round trip to the house.
By the time I found a bill they would accept, I had moved a large chunk of my personal financial records into the DMV lobby.
All of this made me ponder the inevitable question, “What would I have done if all my bills were sent to a PO Box?” If I wanted to consolidate my bills in one place, and wanted to keep my residential address more or less private (who knows, maybe I am afraid of identity theft), it would be nearly impossible to get my license in Virginia.
What should have been two fairly simple processes – titling/registering my car and getting my license – turned into a four hour trial by fire that would have made Job weep. God bless America and our warm embrace of inadequate government solutions.
Since I actually enjoyed Music and Lyrics, and because this article seems to imply the only reason a blogger should say that is if he’s being paid, I figured I would set the record straight. I received no compensation for plugging Hugh Grant’s movie.
To the larger question of bloggers selling posts for a fee, here’s the only problem I have with that.
Laura Neiman, 33, a Denver mother of five whose blog is called LaLa Girl, wrote wistfully about a Caribbean yacht charter service.
“We don’t get a whole lot of opportunity to sail the open seas in landlocked Colorado, so I really can’t relate to this at all,” she began, “but I keep reading about the popularity of yacht charters as an alternative to a ‘regular’ vacation.” [Emphasis mine]
If you’re a blogger, and you would be writing about something anyway, I don’t really care if someone pays you to write about it. Just tell me that. Something along the lines of, “Hey, I actually like Rocky Mountain Oysters, and some clown is paying me to tell you that, so let me relate a funny story about the consumption of bull nuts.”
The trouble with something like PayPerPost is it clutters the internet with irrelevant thoughts on things people legitimately care about. I might actually be interested in a yacht charter vacation and want to read about the experience someone else had with it. I don’t care if he’s getting paid.
Instead, I have to sift through 10,000 Google results from some assholes who have never been on a boat but chose to plug the idea so they could make $6. If I wanted useless information, I would dig through the comment spam to find deals on prescription drugs I have never even heard of.
What are the arguments made by the pinheads who write on behalf of PPP?
Caldwell’s traffic has doubled thanks partly to PayPerPost’s fanatical users, who link often to fellow Posties. That gives her a bigger audience for her unpaid musings on topics including a recent dream about Rainn Wilson, the actor who plays Dwight in NBC’s sitcom “The Office.”
“People talk about how we’re destroying the credibility of the Internet,” Caldwell said. “Let me tell you ‚Äî there are a lot worse things happening online.”
Well, I agree with that last part. If this clown wasn’t busy selling posts about some crappy movie, she might well be advocating for net neutrality. If that’s the case, I say, “Blog on sister!”
For the rest of the people who have decided that posting about things they know nothing about simply so they can get a check for $5, here’s some unsolicited advice.
Rethink your life. Get off the couch, stop pitching online coupon sites to the poor bastard unlucky enough to stumble upon your blog, and use your unrealized potential to build houses for the poor or something that gives back to the world instead of cluttering up the Internet.
And yes, by god, I really did like Music and Lyrics. If you don’t believe me, you can check it out for yourself. It should be on video in a week or two. It was only in theaters for about 3 hours, but the showing I caught was in focus… so that was good.
If you haven’t been to CNN.com in a while, you have probably missed the most appalling development in news reporting in quite some time. CNN has actually determined that the short-form news located on their site is, in fact, too long for readers, and has begun notating their articles with call out boxes labeled “Story Highlights.”
This story about a prank involving CD players blaring profanity during church services is 183 words, but that’s way too long for CNN readers. They have the Story Highlights which breaks it down to 46 blissfully monosyllabic words.
I’m waiting to see the CNN.com in another ten years. The entire article will simply say, “CD players make noise, get blown up.” Seven nice, tidy little words.
Honestly, America, do we really need Cliff’s Notes for news articles?
Rep. Steve Kagen is the kind of guy that would tell all his geeky friends he banged the hottest girl in school, and then, when confronted by her boyfriend, claim he never said it.
He’s been running around telling the nutty left that he blocked the door to a White House restroom to keep Karl Rove from leaving, bragged about kicking Rove’s ass, insulted the first lady, and mocked the President and Vice President all in one evening. But the minute the mainstream media got wind of the story, he isn’t quite the braggart.
Now that Kagen’s longer story about his White House visit is getting publicity on talk radio and among political bloggers, he won’t comment on whether he referred to Laura Bush as Barbara.
“I’m going to leave that one alone,” Kagen said Wednesday. Asked why, he said, “I’ll make no comment.”
As for his exchange with Rove, Kagen said he can verify that they met in the men’s room and that Rove congratulated him. But he wouldn’t comment on his reported comments to Rove.
What a putz. Somehow I suspect this kind of jackass isn’t what the people were looking for when they ‘voted for change’.
