Thursday Shout-Out

A description of my blog. http://www.my-site.com 2016313049520222750 Thursday Shout-Out 2008/07/#2016313049520222750 2008-07-24

Some links for your edutainment:

Sinister Dan tells you how to blog, and more importantly, why. Also where, I think.
Rickey Henderson provides a well-thought-out review that actually makes me tempted to rethink my preference for Batman Begins over The Dark Knight. I still think Tim Burton is kind of a tool though.
Chris at Angry Seafood also wrote a review of The Dark Knight. "Well-thought-out" doesn't spring to mind, but he sure pissed off some chiroptophiles. Make sure you read the comments.
Joel tells us how to know if we're in the clutches of Satan.

In other news, remember that Friday is the last day to get a signed copy of my book, Antisocial Commentary, at the rock bottom price of $9.95 with free shipping. That's a savings of $5. Seriously, this is it. My wife won't let me give away any more of them, so you'd better just buy it.

"But what if $9.95 is still too much for me to spend?" You say. "I mean, I want to support the Mattress Police and all the good pro-Huey Lewis work they are doing, but I'm on a fixed income. Is there anything I can do to help?"

Why yes, friend, there is. You can go to BlogCatalog and join my neighborhood. Don't have a blog? No problem! Just click here and sign up. Seriously, it will take you like 10 seconds. If you're a fellow blogger, click here and you can get your blog listed as well.

Why do I want you to do this? Well, this may surprise you, but there are literally hundreds of people here in North America and its outlying continents who have never heard of this blog. By signing up at BlogCatalog, you can help spread the word. So sign up, join my neighborhood, rate my blog and leave me a nice comment. The more of you who do this, the more prominently my blog will appear in their listings. That means more readers for this blog, which means that I may be able to convince a publisher to take a chance on my crazy novel about a ping-pong-playing angel, which increases your chance, as a loyal reader, of getting an autographed copy of said novel. Ok? So just do it.

Seriously, do it. Don't make me beg. I can cancel the caption contest for this Friday if it will free up the time you need to sign up.

Okay, I wouldn't do that, but I could. See what you've done? You've provoked me into making idle threats. This demeans both of us.

I think I've said enough. If I haven't convinced you by now, then I never will.

But seriously, do it.

Labels: Blogging, Shout-Outs

]]> 5237287686448755658 Vote! 2008/07/#5237287686448755658 2008-07-15

Man, it's getting really hard to pick these caption contest finalists. It's like picking a favorite from among my children, except that I don't have to worry about a bunch of captions on other websites that I don't even know about.

I finally narrowed it down to these ten:

Jay said...

Diesel: "I swear I have the crappiest HMO in the world."

Alex L said...

The first annual meeting of the I hate Thomas Kinkade association.

Fold My Laundry Please said...

Diesel's friends take Dungeons & Dragons VERY seriously!

Bunk Strutts said...

"Diesel, forget the midterms. The Chinese Chicks should be here any minute and you still don't have your Amy Winehouse costume on."

robin said...

Dude, for the last time I'm sorry, I didn't know she was your sister. Can you please stop pretending to ignore me and open my beer? Seriously, I have a goalie's glove for my hand and we all know Abe's useless with a pop-top can.

Carla said...

"Hang on a sec, I'm looking for that picture of you back in high school when you still had your horns."

carolinebender said...

HellBoy, "No, the 7th circle is pretty cool, actually. You have to call ahead to get that set-up, but you should totally come with us next year."

Deb on the Rocks said...

Diesel, come on, what we have is special and forever. I didn't mean to hurt you. Bringing Abe in will just spice things up for a little while, that's all. But it's up to you, baby, it's up to you.

Acorn King said...

Dude, you totally bite it on page 19.

Sherri said...

"Here's to whoever wrote the words to Kumbaya."

Opinion Polls & Market Research

I'll announce the winner on Friday. As usual, the winner will get the In Your Face award and a copy of my book, Antisocial Commentary.

And while you're in a voting mood, make sure you head over to BlogCatalog, join my community and rate MattressPolice.com. I've been doing some recon behind enemy lines lately, checking out other blog directories. Most of them suck compared to Humor-Blogs.com, natch, but BlogCatalog is actually pretty cool. It's a nicely designed site, and it has a friendly, sensible ranking/categorization system for blogs. So if you enjoy my writing, head over to BlogCatalog and rate me and leave a nice comment, before Johnny finds out about it and kicks my ass over there as well.

Labels: Blogging, Caption Contest Poll, Humor-blogs.com

]]> 5465759106278460281 Close to Ten Tips on Writing a Funny Blog Post 2008/07/#5465759106278460281 2008-07-14 As you know, my Meme-Wraith, Grundir the Implacable, generally dispatches all troublesome rodents and memes that attempt to violate the sanctity of Chez* Diesel. Today, however, Grundir humbly approached me cradling a delicate young meme bearing an insignia resembling a giant malformed spermatozoan.

Grundir

“Cast it into the Crack of Mount Doom, you fool!” I howled at my Nazgul minion. Then I burst into a fit of giggles, because I can’t say “Crack of Mount Doom” without laughing. Grundir tolerates this with admirable aplomb. Being dead for 900 years gives you a certain amount of patience.

“It’s bears the ominous mark of Brent Diggs, m’lord,” rasped Grundir.

“Ah yes,” I said. “The universally recognized Giant Malformed Spermatazoan of Brent Diggs!”

“I believe it is a comma, sir. An Ominous Comma.”

“I know what a comma looks like!” I snapped. “Why, my gentle wraith, surely you’re aware of my affinity for the comma, the most sublime of punctuation marks, the enabler of superfluous modifiers, the – ”

“Indeed, m'lord. Shall I bury this meme in the orchard with the ditch digger?”

“It’s called a shovel, worm-brain.”

“No, m’lord, I mean…”

“Silence, fool! I must maintain plausible deniability. No, my rotted friend, I shall answer this meme. Read it to me, please. My eyes fail me in this light.”

“As I’ve tried to tell you, m’lord, your perpetually tinted glasses –”

“I’ll perpetually tint you if you don’t start reading, Stiffy.”

“It reads, ‘In my brief foray onto the internet I have –’”

“Good lord, how long is this thing? Cut to the part with Liv Tyler already!”

“He wants you to write something funny and yet educational. To impart some of your wisdom about blogging to the masses, if you will.”

Brent is Greek God

“Brilliant! I shall give the masses Ten Tips on Writing a Funny Blog Post.”

“Excellent, m’lord.”

“Tip number one: Self-reference is always funny.”

“I’m sorry, m'lord. Would you care to elaborate?”

“Yes, take this down: ‘As you know, my Meme-Wraith, Grundir the Implacable, generally dispatches all troublesome rodents and…’ Wait, how many commas is that?”

“Three, m’lord.”

“Ok, good enough. Point number two: Don’t belabor a joke. Stop right before the reader understands what you’re doing. Good readers like to think a little. And bad readers, well, f—k ‘em. Except don’t write ‘f—k.’ Put dashes in the middle or something.”

“Very good, m’lord. What else?”

“Point four: Writing a post in dialog form automatically makes it 43.7% funnier. Oh, and point five: Needless, unjustifiable precision is also funny.
“Point six. Wait, I’m not sure about point three. Strike that one for now. Remind me to come back to it later.”

“As you wish, m’lord.”

"Where was I?"

"Point six."

"Right, point six. Sprinkle your post with obscure pop culture references. They'll go over the heads of a lot of your readers, but the real Ainur will eat it up. Point seven. Make fun of yourself, but don’t be too obvious about it. Make yourself out to be a huge ass, even if you’re really a nice guy. Of course, it works better if you really are a huge ass, like me. Am I talking too fast for you, Casper?”

“No, m’lord.”

“Point eight: Give yourself a straight man. Somebody the readers can identify with. But somebody who doesn’t seem very relatable at first glance. Toy with the readers’ expectations a bit.”

“Very good, m’lord. I never could have devised such a brilliant notion.”

Mattress Police insignia, sans sperm

“Of course not. You’re a 900 year old medieval jerkwad who sold his soul for something shiny. And finally, point nine: Always leave the reader wanting more. Now slap the Mattress Police seal on that baby and send it back to Diggs. We’ll show him what a real blogging insignia looks like. No sperm for us!”

“Of course not, m’lord.”

“On second thought, throw a little sperm on that baby. Can’t hurt.

“Yes, m’lord.”

For this non-meme, I anoint the following individuals:
1. Dave Barry
2. Sinister Dan
3. Scott Adams
4. Ecstatic Wavelength Lady
5. David Sedaris
6. Sue Piltdown
7. Bill Watterson
8. Leigh (on the condition that she does not offer any boob-related advice or pictures)
9. Voltaire
10. Jocelyn Hergenfliffer

*Pronounced "CHEEZ"

Labels: Blogging, Meme Wraith, Memes

]]> 4554290041622834667 Stumble THIS! 2008/07/#4554290041622834667 2008-07-09 Suzy once told me she never reads her reviews. I don’t know if she’s just gotten a lot of bad reviews, or if she just figures that she’s going to do what she wants to do, so, you know, screw other people’s opinions.

I read my reviews, such as they are. It’s probably a mistake, but I can’t help thinking that constructive criticism is always worth listening to. Now if someone would just give me some.

I’ve been getting a lot of of traffic from StumbleUpon lately, which presumably means that a lot of people are recommending my posts. Along with the recommendations, however, come critiques. Actually, not so much critiques as attacks. I get called an asshole a lot. I can kind of understand this, considering some of my posts, but sometimes I really don’t get it.

For example, there’s my Captain America post, which riled up the comic book fanatics. One of them called me a “smarmy asshole.” I mean, come on. I was poking fun at a fictional character. That qualifies me as an asshole? I’d hate to see the murderous rampage this guy would embark on if somebody looked at his sister funny.

Two other reviewers noted that I couldn’t be relied on to write insightful commentary on superheroes since I don’t read comic books. This is such a helpful bit of information that I provided it myself at the beginning of the post. So either these “reviewers”:

(1) Missed the first paragraph of the post.
(2) Read the first paragraph of the post and decided it would be a waste of time to read the rest, so they wrote a review of something they hadn’t read. In other words, they did exactly what they criticized me for doing.
(3) Read my initial warning, ignored it, and continued to read the rest of the post, after which they wrote a review adding nothing to my first paragraph.

The only conclusion that I can come to is that these people aren’t really interested in offering any helpful criticism or guidance to other readers. They are just looking for an excuse to tear another person down. This makes me sad, not because I take their vitriol to heart, but because it’s disheartening to realize that there are such people out there.

Then there was the post in which I complained about the unnecessary complexity of my car’s AC controls and my microwave. This one got me called “not very bright” and “retarded,” among other appellations. Now I’m not claiming to be a genius, but I’ve built a house and created the number one directory of humor blogs on the web, and I build applications for the world’s foremost internet company, so presumably I have at least some vague inkling of what goes into good design. And the really funny thing about that post is that it was prompted by a remark my older brother made about how ridiculously complicated the ventilation controls were in his car. My brother, in case you are wondering, is literally a rocket scientist. He used to work on, among other things, the navigation system for Air Force One.

A lot of reviewers responded with the acronym “RTFM,” which stands for Read the F___ing Manual. Right. Because whenever you borrow a friend’s car, the first thing you do is crack open the manual and spend half an hour familiarizing yourself with the climate control system. Look, if the average person (not to mention an idiot like myself) has to read a manual to turn on a car’s AC, then the car’s AC controls are too complicated. Period. Whether or not I’m a “douchebag” isn’t really relevant.

One guy noted that he had never run across a microwave or ventilation system that took him more than ten minutes to figure out. Holy crap, ten minutes? In ten minutes I could start a fire with flint and steel and roast my Hot Pockets over an open flame. This is progress? I’m pretty sure that given enough duct tape and bailing wire, my brother the rocket scientist could build a microwave in ten minutes.

What bothers me most, though, isn't that some people don't like my writing; anyone who has aspirations of being a writer has got to be prepared for bad reviews. And I can accept it when some humorless dolt gets their panties in a bunch over a post about fat people or Harry Potter. What irritates me is that a lot of people act like I am somehow transgressing against them personally by having the gall to post something that they don't find particularly funny.

Reviewers will make enlightening comments like, "Douchebags like this are the reason the acronym 'RTFM' was invented. For f--k's sake." Or "whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy the F--K do I keep stumbling this garbage."

Here's the deal, guys. The world isn't obligated to entertain you. I write because I enjoy writing, and because a certain segment of the population seems to enjoy what I write. I have a little blog that has a few hundred readers. It's not like I'm Michael Bay or Thomas Kinkaid. It's pretty easy to avoid me if my creative endeavors don't give you the instant LOLCAT fun-gasm that you require. Just one click will take you to any of a million other sites, many of which have the pictures of cats wearing pajamas that you require.

And if you feel compelled to write a review, try actually writing something that has the faintest chance of giving other potential readers the information they need to make up their own minds. Here are some starter sentences, off the top of my head:

This post is far too long. Get to the freaking point already.
The author's self-obsession is somewhat disturbing, despite his basic mechanical proficiency with words.
This writer has that annoying habit of using 'their' as a gender-neutral singular pronoun in their writing.

Calling me an "asshole," or a "douchebag," while cathartic for you, is surprisingly unhelpful as a critique of my writing -- either to me or other potential readers. Of course, providing more than that would require that you put some thought into your reviews and actually create something of substance, which could then be shot down by other reviewers. And that's not what you're about, is it? You're not interested in creating anything. You just want to tear down other people who are doing their best to create something of value for other people to enjoy.

That's right, tedomatic, I'm talking to you. Grow up already. The world isn't one big XBox waiting to entertain you. And you, clkwhrr. I'd take your criticism a little more seriously if you could write a sentence without the word "f--k" in it. And ProjectSilence, greenchair, and all the other reviewers who seem to be cruising StumbleUpon during third grade recess. I dare all of you to create something for all the world to see, so that complete strangers can hurl insults at you for failing to entertain them. I frankly don't think you have the balls, much less the talent.

And to everybody else: Stumble this. I dare you.

Labels: Blogging, Jerks

]]> 9157800877613201924 Fly, Little Birdie, Fly! 2008/07/#9157800877613201924 2008-07-06

Humor-Blogs.com 3.0 has been released into the wild. Let's hope it flourishes out there in the interwebs.

The changes should be pretty obvious. If you click on a link from a blog that is listed on Humor-Blogs.com (like this one, for example), you'll be greeted with a list of posts from that blog. You can click on the LOL

smiley if you like a post, or the Grumpy

smiley if you don't like a post. Posts are listed in order by the number of LOL

smileys they've gotten minus the number of Grumpy

smileys they've gotten. A blog's total score is determined by adding up the scores of all of its posts for the past 30 days.

If you haven't already, you'll need to create an account to rate posts.

As always, you can use the contact form or email me at diesel -at- mattresspolice.com if you have any trouble.

Now I would never use my power as unquestioned despot of Humor-Blogs.com to influence the rankings in my favor, but I'm not above appealing to your sense of pity, having spent the better part of the holiday weekend getting this damn thing up and running.

So, for example, if you found my Fishy post funny, you could vote for it. Or maybe my Fat Chicks post made your belly quiver with mirth. And then there was my Science vs. Democracy post, my Internet Stalker post and my Big Knob post. Just click on the Rate this post on Humor-Blogs.com link at the bottom of any of the posts.

I only ask that you follow your heart.

I'll be back tomorrow with a post that has absolutely nothing to do with Humor-Blogs.com, I swear. In fact, it will be so great, that it may just be the perfect post for you to vote for on Humor-Blogs.com.

Labels: Blogging, Humor-blogs.com

]]> 4157352064018748310 Humor-Blogs Changes Looming! 2008/07/#4157352064018748310 2008-07-03 I'm preempting the Thursday Shout-Out this week for a special announcement: Humor-Blogs.com 3.0 will be launched this Sunday, July 6.

The main change is going to be the way that blogs are ranked. We stopped doing blog reviews several months ago, and I've been trying to come up with a way to fairly rank blogs without so much manual effort. I've settled on a sort of thumbs-up/thumbs-down rating system similar to that of StumbleUpon or Digg. When a user clicks on a link to H-B from a post on your site, they will be given the option to "smiley" the post: They can give it a laughing-out-loud smiley, a happy smiling, or a grumpy smiley. In order to help prevent fraudulent voting, users must have a Humor-Blogs.com account to smiley posts.

A post's score will be determined by adding up the LOL smileys it has received and subtracting the grumpy smileys. Posts will be listed on the H-B home page in order by their score, from highest to lowest. The overall blog rankings will be determined by adding up the scores of each blog's posts for the past 30 days.

The new system will also be more egalitarian. In the past, only the top 50 ranked blogs have had their posts show up on the home page, but with this new system everyone will have a chance. Blogs will sink or swim based entirely on the votes they get. To make things completely fair, I will be resetting the scores of all the blogs (including mine) back to zero. Sorry, Johnny!

If you're an H-B member, don't worry, you don't have to change anything on your blog. You can keep linking to H-B the way you always have. If you have provided your feed url, any posts that have a link to H-B will show up on H-B.

My goal is to make H-B as fair and simple as I can for the members, and to make the site a more useful resource to visitors looking for funny blogs. This should result in increased traffic, which is good for all Humor-Blogs.com members.

If you have a funny blog and haven't joined Humor-Blogs.com yet, what are you waiting for? Join now! If you're not sure it's worth the trouble, ask any one of the eight bloggers who is ranked higher than me what they think.

And if you're a blog reader who would like to help promote some of your favorite blogs (like this one, for example), get a jump on things and sign up now. You don't have to sign up if you already have a blog listed on Humor-Blogs.com.

No caption contest tomorrow. I'm going to take the day off to celebrate the 4th and make sure everything is in place for the upgrade. I will post more information here after the upgrade is complete.

Labels: Blogging, Humor-blogs.com

]]> 7382931676679913402 I’m an Internet Stalker! 2008/06/#7382931676679913402 2008-06-16 Every week a couple dozen new bloggers sign up to be listed on Humor-Blogs.com. I used to review every site to determine whether it qualified as a humor blog, but it didn’t take me long to realize that this was an impossible task. Sadly, a lot of people are so bad at being funny that it’s almost impossible to determine whether they are even trying. So lately all I do is visit the site to determine (1) whether it is a blog, and (2) whether it has a link to Humor-Blogs.com. Oh, and I also check for nudity (which is only appropriate on a humor blog if the subject is fat) and what I consider “grossly inappropriate content.” I rarely reject someone for content reasons, but it does happen. The other day I rejected a site that had jokes about, among other things, infant sodomy [Shudder]. I have an automated system where I can send a “welcome aboard” email to bloggers whose sites meet those criteria, or a rejection email in case they don’t.

The rejection email explains why the blogger’s site was rejected and what to do about it. Generally that’s the end of it, but occasionally the rejected blogger will email me back. Often this results in an edifying discussion about how Humor-Blogs.com works exactly, after which the blogger either adds a link and joins the site or we part amicably.

Sometimes neither of these happens. Sometimes the exchange goes like this one. (I've changed the blogger's name to avoid further angering her.)

Hi,

Your web site, [Strikingly Original Blog Title], was rejected for inclusion on Humor-Blogs.com because we were unable to find a link to Humor-Blogs.com on your website. If you have added a link to Humor-Blogs.com and we missed it, we apologize. Please make sure that the link is on the main page of your blog (not a separate 'links' page), and that our site's name and url are spelled and formatted correctly, and then RESUBMIT your site to http://humor-blogs.com/JoinLanding.aspx. You can respond to this email if you want, but there's a pretty good chance that will irritate us.

Cheers!
Diesel

Yes well, sorry if this irritates you but when I went over there and saw that the first thing a viewer would see when linking to Humor Blogs' homepage was stuff like "Cock Blocking Since 2004" and "Found Shit" and "Wiping Butts Since 1998" I reconsidered my desire for inclusion in your "community" because I want my blog to be family-friendly.

Plus which, none of that is funny, in my opinion.

Thanks anyway!

Suzy Blogger

Hi Suzy,

I can't control who signs up for the site. I only reject sites that don't link to H-B, or that have grossly inappropriate content. Sorry the site doesn't meet your needs.

Cheers,
Diesel

Clearly we have differing views on what constitutes grossly inappropriate.

Suzy Blogger

All I know is that if wiping butts is inappropriate at your house, I don't want to come over. :)

Diesel

Well, at least YOU attempt to be a comedian.

Suzy Blogger

Always attempting, yes. That's me.

Seriously, this whole Humor-Blogs site has blown way out of my control. I never had any policies in place to say "No, you can't have 'shit' in your blog title," so I just had to kind of let things slide. I'm sure some people are offended, but whatever. Nobody's going to die from seeing the word 'shit' in print.

Are they? (He asked ominously)

Diesel

Well, you know, you said a few minutes ago that you can't control who signs up on the site ... but obviously you can because you denied me that dubious privilege.

And that is perfectly fine. I have no problem with that but don't tell me you can't control it because you are controlling it.

And no, maybe people won't die from reading that word, but it is my firm belief that something does die when people cease to care about the kind of language they use in public [Yes, but maybe it’s something bad that dies, like a ridiculously uptight harpy, or that trend where women wear their pants tucked into brown leather boots? - Diesel]. When I started blogging I decided I wouldn't be part of that.

Suzy Blogger

What I said was:

"I can't control who signs up for the site. I only reject sites that don't link to H-B, or that have grossly inappropriate content."

In other words, I have some very minimal rules that I enforce. I used to go through the sites very carefully and try to determine whether they qualified as "humor blogs." But after a while I realized that I couldn't even tell half the time when somebody is trying to be funny. It's all so subjective. The same thing goes for offensiveness. A site not having a link, however, is very clear cut.

Diesel

You know what? I'd appreciate it if you would leave me alone.

Suzy Blogger

I can’t help but feel that I have been a little part of crushing Suzy’s dream of being the most popular humorless dingbat on the interwebs. Man, you really can’t make this shit up.

Labels: Blogging, Humor-blogs.com, Jerks

]]> 3927848716816123263 Jobs I Have Sucked At 2008/05/#3927848716816123263 2008-05-21 As of this moment, my trench digging post has gotten over 70,000 hits. This is a new experience for me, and I'm not quite sure how to feel about it. It's like the carnival is in town or something. I've been linked to by EHOWA (warning: adult content) and Curmudgeonly Skeptical. I'm still getting a lot of traffic from StumbleUpon, and there's a whole mini-controversy happening over at Reddit about how big of an a$$hole I am exactly. (Ironically, the one social networking site where the post hasn't made an impact is Digg.)

I still can't figure out what all the fuss is about. That post was just my attempt to make light of what was becoming a rather frustrating situation: I had hired a neighbor kid to dig a trench from Point A to Point B, and somehow I found myself not only having to micromanage the digging process, but also acting as the kid's career counselor. The exchange struck me as funny, so I decided to write it up as a sort of mock ditch-digger's handbook. I wasn't trying to say anything about capitalism or the minimum wage. I didn't write the post out of malice. I just thought it was funny.

"Sure," you say, "It's easy to laugh when the other guy is the one having to dig trenches in the hot sun."

That's a fair point. So maybe this would be a good time for me to let you have a laugh at my expense. I give you, therefore:

The complete list of every job I've ever sucked at and/or been fired from

My first job, when I was 14, was delivering newspapers. I was terrible at it. Somehow I always managed to miss at least one house. How do you ride your bike past a house that you've delivered a newspaper to dozens of times in the past, with a bag full of newspapers around your neck, and not think, "I should deliver a paper to this house"? I don't know, but I did it. Just about every day, for three months, when I finally quit in frustration.

My second job was bagging groceries. It's hard to screw up bagging groceries (put the bananas on top), but I was terrible at customer relations. I would bag the customer's items in silence, and then glumly follow them to their car, not saying a word. I think the customers used to draw straws to see who would get stuck with me. A lot of people went into that store looking for bread and milk and left wanting to hang themselves.

I was also excruciatingly bad at locating items in the store. A customer would make the mistake of asking me where the spaghetti sauce was, and I would run up and down the store in a panic, trying to remember where I had seen it. Oh, and sometimes I would work at the customer service desk, where you got to do fun things like make keys. Well, until you put the original key in the wrong slot one time, and grind it down so that the customer can't get home. They don't let you make any more keys after that.

We moved when I was 17, and I got another job at a grocery store. I was supposed to re-stock items that would run low during the day, like milk and soda. I was terrible at this. I couldn't ever remember how many I needed of what item, so I had to run back and forth a bunch of times. It took me like twice as long as a normal person to fill up the soda aisle. I think they thought I was retarded or something.

My first job in college was in a Christian book store. I sucked at that too. One time a guy came in looking to buy a Bible. I asked him what kind of cover he wanted. Which is, it turns out, exactly the question not to ask someone looking for a Bible.

After that I worked in a store in the mall that sold luggage and things like those metal balls that go click-clack on your desk. Another disaster. I couldn't make myself be interested in luggage or metal balls that go click-clack. I only had one tie, and I didn't like wearing it. I tended to hide in the back of the store until customers left. They didn't put me on the schedule after Christmas.

By some miracle of divine irony I managed to get a job at the on-campus job service desk, helping other college students find employment. I was marginally competent at that, although I came in late so often that I was nearly fired several times. After graduation, to the relief of my managers, I was no longer eligible to work there.

Did a bunch of odd jobs after that. One time I painted an apartment. I accidentally painted all of the ceilings with the paint that was intended for the bathroom. It was high-gloss paint. When you walked inside, it looked like the ceiling was wet, and it was going to drip some kind of horrible ooze on you. It felt like being in a cave. They let me go after that.

Got a job cataloging legal documents for class-action lawsuits. Was pretty terrible at it, but through some fluke was promoted to quality assurance, where there was nobody to see all the mistakes I was making. I found that if I arrived five minutes after the previous shift left, I could get a great parking spot. I was fired after being five minutes late every day for several weeks.

Got a job as a pizza delivery guy. Got lost a lot. Delivered a lot of cold pizzas. Didn't like being yelled at to sweep the floors when there weren't any customers, so I walked out.

Worked loading trucks at the Amway warehouse. It was like playing Tetris in 3D. I'm terrible with spatial relations. My line kept backing up and other workers had to keep coming to help me. Got yelled at a lot. Decided to quit before I had a nervous breakdown.

Worked at Blockbuster. I was actually okay at this job. I like movies.

Moved to California. Got a job with Mrs. Diesel's cousin, doing construction. I was bad at this as well, but not bad enough to be fired, considering I was only making $6 an hour. Mainly we worked at dairies. Sometimes I got to glue PVC water lines together. The neat thing about doing this at a dairy is that cow shit is everywhere, so you end up accidentally gluing big clumps of shit to your pants. Good times.

After several months of doing construction, I managed to B.S. my way into a job doing technical support for a company that sold software to auto body shops. I wasn't particularly good at this, but I found a niche writing up troubleshooting guides and other documentation for our department. The documentation grew into a website. I proved so good at building websites that eventually they created a full time position for me to maintain the site.

I quit that job after five years to do some "real software development." Spent 4 months doing "real software development" at a small consulting company before the dot com bubble burst. Seeing the writing on the wall, I left to start my own web development company.

I was, not surprisingly, bad at that too. I'm not a salesperson. I made a gradual transition over several months from self-employed to unemployed. Ran out of money. Had to sell our house to get the equity out.

Finagled a deal to buy 10 acres of farmland outside of Ripon, California, thinking that I could occupy myself while unemployed by building a house. Managed to get a job as a webmaster for a nearby city. Ended up working for the worst boss ever. Sent an angry email to him about what an ass he was. Got fired.

Spent a lot of time cutting down trees for firewood and trying to stave off depression. Got a call from one of the owners of the consulting firm I had worked at, asking if I was looking for work. Got a job at Galactic Invertebrates. Worked my ass off for three years on a bunch of projects that never saw the light of day, thanks to people like Lord Monkeyhands and Human Inertia. Quit in frustration.

Took a year off to build my house.

Got a call from another former co-worker, asking if I'd like to come do some work for Google.

That's where I work now. Google kicks ass. I build applications for them. I occasionally get lost on my way to work, and I'm late for a lot of meetings, but nobody really minds. It's fun, and I rock at it. I do a lot of my work at home. When I get bored, I go work on my landscaping for a while. Sometimes a neighbor kid helps out.

Labels: Blogging, Work

]]> 3017122124838399722 Why I Am What's Wrong with the World 2008/05/#3017122124838399722 2008-05-19 Since I started this blog about a year and a half ago, I've written a lot of absurd and offensive things. For example, I've suggested the Al Gore is the world's worst dictator. I've argued that the best way to avoid drowning when traveling with a Kennedy is to travel by boat. I've conjectured that the last item on the gay agenda is probably "drinks with Steve."

The funny thing is that nobody seems to get offended by these posts. The posts that people decide to get pissed off about are the ones where I say something that seems to me to be completely uncontroversial.

For example, one time I mentioned that I don't like being around ugly people. That post, as you may recall, earned me the name "f--ktard dingleberry."

Now am I wrong here, or is it a basic fact of nature that nobody likes being around ugly people? Saying that you don't like being around ugly people is about as controversial as saying that you don't like food that tastes bad, or that you don't enjoy Rob Schneider films. Before you scold me for disliking ugly people, try this little experiment: Go stand in the checkout lane at your local grocery store for five minutes. Imagine that you're throwing a pool party and you can invite one of two groups of people: the chubby troglodytes buying Alphabits and Doritos at the register in front of you, or the lovely folks staring warmly out at you from the covers of the 56 different womens' magazines that ensconce you in a cocoon of pouty lips and cleavage. Funny how your egalitarian principles suddenly take a back seat to aesthetics, isn't it?

I'm not saying this is an admirable trait, mind you. I'm not proud of the fact that I prefer beautiful people over ugly people. I think that it would be great if we lived in a society where magazines could put Nobel laureates and special ed teachers on the covers of magazines, no matter what they look like. Or, failing that, if we could somehow transplant the brains of the Nobel laureates and special ed teachers into the bodies of supermodels. Now that would be hot.

Another time I made the mistake of casting myself as a sympathetic figure in a disagreement that I had with Mrs. Diesel. The post was about the typical female trait of alternating between wanting their mates to talk to them for long periods of time about absolutely nothing and wanting their mates to know exactly what they are thinking without them having to say it. This is hardly a groundbreaking observation: Every married man has noticed that women love to talk pretty much all the time except for when they actually have something to say. I gave this as an example of male/female communications:

Woman: Hey, can you hand me that pencil?
Man: (Hands pencil to woman) Sure.
Woman: (Bursts into tears).
Man: Pretty disappointing pencil, huh?

That post got me called a misogynist and a sociopath, if you can believe it. Actually, I can kind of see the sociopath part, but misogynist? If it weren't for women, I wouldn't be able to tolerate people at all.

More recently, I wrote about the 19 year old neighbor kid who is digging trenches for my sprinkler system. Now if you can set aside my hyperbole about not wanting him to use the rototiller because he might eviscerate himself, forcing me to bury him in a shallow grave in the orchard, this post amounted to me explaining to this kid why I was paying him $8 an hour to dig trenches.

I don't want to get scolded by Suzy for explaining the joke, but to me the humor of that post arises from the fact that the answers to all of his questions would be crushingly obvious to anyone who has ever held any kind of job. Why do I have to dig trenches? You don't. Why don't you dig them yourself? Because I don't want to, and I have the money to pay somebody else to do it. Why are you only paying me $8 an hour? Because I can.

This post got a huge reaction. My good friend Glacial Spain Stumbled it, which led to several other people stumbling it. As of this morning, over 20,000 people have visited that post. That's TWENTY THOUSAND people. By way of comparison, I am one person, so if I visit a post, that's one person visiting a post. That post has gotten TWENTY THOUSAND times that many people visiting it. Crazy, right?

Most of the visitors got the joke, but a few were egregiously offended by the notion of me hiring someone to do something that I didn't feel like doing. One commenter said:

Yeah, digging trenches sucks. But so do you. You've got a kid sweating his ass off @ $8/hr for you, so that you can have a cheep sprinkler system and YOU mock him.... It's people like you, who demean honest working people, who give capitalism a bad name and who need a lesson or two in the art human dignity. But then, I'm sure that the painful experiences of others, is little more than a laughing matter, to the likes of you.

I take issue with this. It is not "little more than a laughing matter" to me. It is a laughing matter plus a cheap sprinkler system. That may not matter to you, but it's important to me. As for people like me giving capitalism a bad name... really? You don't think maybe the Enron debacle and the Bear Stearns bailout have me beat there?

By the way, I wasn't mocking him. He really did ask all of those questions, and most of them I answered to his face, more or less the way I wrote them in the post. He would grumble about how much digging sucks, and I would say, "You got that right. Why do you think I'm not doing it?"

I also took the time to explain to him that everybody has to work shit jobs when they are young. When I was younger, I pulled weeds, mowed lawns, moved furniture, worked on an assembly line, delivered pizzas, hauled lumber... pretty much every kind of crap job you can imagine. You know what I was doing four years ago today? I was unemployed after the dot com bust, so I spent my days cutting down almond trees for firewood in the hopes of making enough money to move my family out of the 900 square foot apartment we were living in. One time a relative needed a fence built in their backyard, so I spent a few days doing that. You know how much that job paid? If you said "$8 an hour," give yourself a gold star. I was 34 years old at the time. So please don't lecture me about exploiting the youth. I work shitty jobs when I need to, and avoid it when I can. Anybody with half a brain does the same.

There is one lesson to be learned from digging trenches, and it's that digging trenches sucks. I think I've done my part to help this kid learn that. Besides giving him lemonade and telling him not to blow his money on a new iPod, there's not much else I can do for him.

What I've learned from these comments is that the thing people are most offended by is reality. Well, not reality so much as someone pointing out the way things are. You breeze through the checkout lane with Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Jessica Simpson and every other busty Jessica staring longingly out at you from the covers of magazines (women's magazines, no less!), but you get offended when I tell you that I don't like ugly people. You don't have a problem buying clothes at Wal-Mart that were made by some 12 year old in China making 16 cents an hour, but you bitch and moan about me not adequately mentoring my 19 year old ditch digger. He's old enough to vote, for Pete's sake! He could be drafted and sent to Iraq! And you're mad because I'm paying him to dig trenches? Give me a break.

Ok, this is turning into a bit of a rant, so let me leave you with my all-time favorite comment, also provoked by my trench-digging post:

this is actually very asinine... people like u are the reason why college is necessary, you greedy bastard.

I laugh every time I read that. Can someone explain to me what that means, and how it's an insult? Because I keep trying to figure it out, but I'm not getting anywhere.

I expect you back here bright and early tomorrow morning for the caption contest poll. Bring your shovel.

Labels: Blogging, Work

]]> 6058048721838396686 Why Do You Do It? 2008/04/#6058048721838396686 2008-04-14

It is understandable that many of you regard me with apprehension bordering on fear.

My threatening countenance over there to the right, my merciless rants against the likes of Thomas Kinkade and my position as unquestioned despot of Humor-Blogs.com -- all of these factors contribute to the perception that I am a man not to be trifled with. Or with which not to trifle, if you prefer.

Be assured, however, that I am not in fact a very intimidating person. I'm tall, yes, but I also have very slender wrists. That photo of me to the right may resemble Will Smith in Bad Boys 2, but that's mostly because, well, from the neck down it's Will Smith in Bad Boys 2. Truth be told, I'm not even really black.

My rants are mostly for effect. I generally can't sustain that level of anger for more than about a minute and a half. I just don't have that kind of attention span. So while I've settled on Thomas Kinkade as a nemesis, he has little to fear from me. Remember when I was running for president? Or when I picked up the cause of getting Huey Lewis played on classic rock stations? Yeah.

Occasionally I'll get an email from the Humor-Blogs.com contact form that reads something like this:

Oh kind and benevolent sir,

I am a mere worm who is not worthy to waste a moment of your time, but when I try to [do some simple task] on the Humor-Blogs.com website, I get a message that says [some horrible looking incomprehensible ASP.Net error]. I'm sure it's something that I'm doing wrong, but if you have a moment I would greatly appreciate it if you could find it in your heart to assist me with this problem.

Here's the deal. It's not you. It's me. Well, it's the Humor-Blogs.com site. See, I work on it for about 45 minutes every other week, usually for just long enough to break something that was working the week before. The site is kind of hacked together, and I don't have time to test my changes adequately before rolling them out. That's what users are for, right?

So you don't have to feel bad about informing me of some screwy error message or other weird behavior on the site. It's possible I already know about the problem, but there's a good chance I don't. In fact, sometimes I'll get an email alerting me to some problem, and I'll take a look at it and think, "Holy crap, how long has that been broken?" If nobody tells me about it, it doesn't get fixed.

Ok, so now we've established that I'm a nice, non-threatening guy (think James Spader in Stargate), and that I genuinely do appreciate your feedback about the Humor-Blogs.com site. Given these facts, it is all the more surprising that some of you manage to bug the crap out of me and make me want to beat you severely about the head and neck with a large metal stapler.

Here, specifically, is a list of stuff that you should feel bad about doing, and that will cause me to turn into the Hulk:

1. Failing to follow directions that are clear enough for your cat to understand.

You know how the join form says:

Step 1: Link to Humor-Blogs.com

...and then there's a checkbox that you have to check that says:

I have read and complied with step 1

Why do roughly a third of you check that box without linking to Humor-Blogs.com? Was it the 18 point bold font or the intricate binary mechanics of the checkbox control that confused you?

And then you get an automated email saying you've been rejected because you haven't linked to Humor-Blogs.com, which specifically says:

We were unable to find a link to Humor-Blogs.com on your website. Please make sure that the link is on your blog...and then RESUBMIT your site.

And yet, rather than simply adding the link and then re-submitting your site, you send me an email telling me that you've added the link. After all, why should you have to resubmit your site just because you did it wrong the first time?

After getting a few dozen of these emails, I added this line to the bottom of the auto-rejection:

You can respond to this email if you want, but there's a pretty good chance that will irritate us.

Which causes people to respond with:

Sorry if I'm irritating you, but I have added the link now.

Sigh.

2. Using the "contact" form to join Humor-Blogs.com.

Occasionally I will get an email from somebody who has filled out the contact form on the Humor-Blogs.com site, requesting to join. Why do you do this? Here's a simple mnemonic device that you can use to remember which form to fill out:

If you want to join, fill out the join form.
If you want to contact me, fill out the contact form.

See how it rhymes?

There is one question on the form that people occasionally have trouble with. To join, you have to enter the name of one of the Marx brothers. A few days ago I got an email from someone that read:

marx brothers - who the hell are they?

Bad news, friend. Not knowing who the Marx brothers are disqualifies you from having a humor blog. And not knowing how to do a Google search disqualifies you from being on the Internet.

Earlier today I got a message from the contact form that reads simply:

CheddarTed.com
it's the best

"CheddarTed" either does not understand what a "join" form is, or is not interested in joining. But none of that matters now that I know that "it's the best." Upon receiving this email I immediately crossed off "cinnamon raisin bagels lightly toasted and slathered with butter" and penciled in "it." Because now I know. Thank you, CheddarTed.

3. Doing absolutely nothing original ever.

You know what the world needs? Another blogger who scours Youtube looking for funny clips. And maybe a crazy cat lady, who is SO crazy that she calls herself the Crazy Cat Lady. And, um, like a bazillion more mommy bloggers. But not just bloggers who happen to be mommies. I mean bloggers who blog about poo-poo because poo-poo is funny. And make sure you use one of these words in your blog title: Rant, musings, random, ponderings, ramblings, stuff, nonsense, meanderings, observations, etc.

It's blogs like these that make me feel like I'm performing a service for humanity. Or servicing humanity, if you will.

Look, I'm sorry if you started your blog in 1998, back when Random Ponderings from a Crazy Mom (with Eight Cats) was an original-sounding title. But you have no idea how many of these blogs I have to slog through for eight seconds a week looking for a link to Humor-Blogs.com. At least TRY to come up with something interesting-sounding.

In fact, here are ten blog names, off the top of my head, that you can use. First come, first serve:

1. Three Men and a Goat
2. That Ain't Chili, Pedro!
3. I'm the Reason It's Called a 'Wife Beater'
4. My Monkey is Watching You
5. YouTube-Tied
6. My Inner Demons Are Watching Cinemax
7. Mainlining Gravy
8. Eighty-six Billion Miles (is Still too Close to You) -- This one is actually a country song for a space Western I'm working on, but it works.
9. Funny Jokes from the BOWELS OF HELL
10. I'm not a MILF because that's physically impossible

Look, I'm not saying they're all grand slams, but a blog with one of those titles would make me think, "Ok, I have to know what this is all about." Got it?

In the meantime, I'll keep adding your Mommy Cat Joke Youtube blogs. Because I'm a nice guy.

Labels: Blogging, Humor-blogs.com

]]> 6434031213531221958 Harry Potter and the Comments of Retardedness 2008/03/#6434031213531221958 2008-03-10

One of my most popular posts ever is Harry Potter and the Inevitable Slide into Satanism. It even made it into my book. The point of the post was to make fun of close-minded people who won't let their kids read Harry Potter books. I wrote:

Now that I'm a parent, I've realized the necessity of keeping certain books, movies and music away from my children. I don't like the idea of censorship, but no matter how much my kids beg they are not going to be allowed to listen to "Fergilicious" or read Eragon. I'm sorry, but I believe the children are our future.

Neither of my children (aged 5 and 7) have come home toting a Black Sabbath record yet, so I've dodged that bullet so far. But in anticipation of my seven-year-old bookworm eventually asking whether he may read Harry Potter and the Nominative Phrase, I decided to peruse one of these books to determine for myself whether there was any real danger.

I then expressed my shock and outrage at "finding" this signup form in the book (click to enlarge):

I was a young, naive blogger when I wrote that post. It honestly never occurred to me that anyone would take it seriously. I mean, go read the post and tell me how anyone with two brain cells to rub together would think that "signup form" was real. It's impossible, right?

Wrong. People continue to leave comments indicating that they've completely missed the point of the post. "Missed the point" is a generous phrase, in fact: these people were still shoeless at the security gate twenty minutes after the point touched down in Phoenix.

The surprising thing is that these commenters aren't the clueless Fundamentalists that you'd expect. No one has yet left a comment saying, "I KNEW those books were Satanic!!!" They're all people telling me how stupid I am for falling for the "Harry Potter is satanic" line. Two of them mentioned that they thought the signup form was a fake. No, really?!

I thought I'd post some of the favorite comments I've received. I've edited only for length. Trust me, I couldn't make up comments this stupid if I tried.

hmmm maybe it is important to keep certain things from kids at younger agesbuteventually theyre going to findtheyre own path. as a parent could you denyyour childs everlasting happiness just because you and your friends dont "approve". if your child or friend or even yourself find happiness in a less than reputable society but are happy trully being themselves AND DON HURT ANYONE, than how can this be bad? it is ones own pah that they must take into whaevr form ofascention they so choose. thats my opinion anyway.

-david age 16

Hi, David! It's great to hear from one of our younger readers! Did you know that Mozart wrote the opera Lucio Silla at age 16? It's true. Not only that, but by age 19 he knew the difference between their and they're, and by age 26 he had stopped appending his age to his signature to excuse his own stupidity.

you are out of your mind you crazy old bat

-Anonymous

That's redundant, you stupid retarded chicken.

you all are crazy people let the kids have fun and stop recking a good time

- Anonymous

Sorry, I don't recking we will.

I've been reading the potter series since Iwas I was 11 (currently 19),and I can assure you I'm not santanic in any way...and the whole add in the book, so never happened...I own several copies of the books and never seen this...Another point I would like to make is, the book is considered "Fantasy" for a reason...it's not REAL...Kids just don't go out into the yard, pick up a stick, and say Avava Kadvra...and you're worried about the song "Fergalicious"...Maybe you should be worried about other songs from more provocative artist such as Eminem or Trick Daddy...HARRY POTTER RULES

- Whitney

Wait... It's not real?

i think this post is a little ridiculous. i agree that harry potter in curriculum at school is controversial, but it having anything to do with satanism? i don't think it is akin or has anything to do with satan worship. if a kid does end up worshiping satan after reading this book, then it is the parents fault for raising a messed up kid not the books fault. an excellent read. its not about worshipping anything at all. i dont' really believe you people, i'd want my kids to get excited about reading something.
- Anonymous

A little ridiculous? Do you know how hard I worked on that?

Okay, listen here Diesel or Octane or whatever it is you call yourself, the Harry Potter stories are nothing more than stories about friendship and sticking together and learning how to overcome obstacles in one's life. The fact that there happens to be elements of an magical nature is entirely secondary. And furthermore, speaking as a pagan -- a proud to be one for the last 17 years since I began practicing -- I take great offense to having my faith -- yes, FAITH -- being referred to as devil worshipping. I'm all for free dom of speech but if you expect your beliefs to be respected, I suggest you return in kind.

- Jade Hawthorn

Jade or Topaz or whatever it is you call yourself, I'm sorry that I implied that the Harry Potter books had anything to do with your stupid made-up religion.

Fortunately, after Jade put an evil hex on me, I received some encouraging comments from a number of folks in the pharmaceutical industry:

Great Article! Thank You!
- Phentermine
Thanks to author! I like articles like this, very interesting.
- Buy Phentermine
nice blog!Nice information
- buy viagra
:-) ochen\' zaebatyj blog!
- Levitra

And then more from Anonymous...

I have read all the harry potter books and there is nothing wrong with them (like all u ppl think)
- Anonymous

Anonymous, did you read the one where there were some subtle points being made that went right over your head?

if you think harry potter is bad, your fucking stupid. and even if you did get that retarded harry potter 'sign up sheet' from one of their books, the book was a fake. and if you dont believe me.... then blow yourself.

- Anonymous

Anonymous, congratulations on being the dumbest person on the planet. What tipped you off that the sign-up sheet was a fake? Was it the fact that the other graphic in the post was a fake Satanism for Dummies book with the tagline "From the folks who brought you Harry Potter and Cancer?" Was it the part of the post where I said that I make my children wear helmets while doing difficult geometry problems? Was it the address on the bottom of the form that read, "Knights in Satan's Service, attn: Harry Potter Department, 666 Lucifer Way, Las Vegas, Nevada?"

So you think that form was a fake, eh? Anonymous, that wasn't even a real sheet of paper. I was too lazy to print the form out and scan it, so I just dummied something up in Paint Shop Pro. I made the "torn edge" by drawing a zig-zag line with my mouse. But I didn't fool you, did I, Anonymous? You figured out that it was a fake, probably torn from a counterfeit Harry Potter book. That's some solid deductive reasoning there, Sherlock. Do the human race a favor, would you? Go see Jurassic Park and have a fatal heart attack so that you can't reproduce.

Anyway, it's Monday, and you know what that means: A new issue of the Clay Pigeon humor magazine! If you want to read some writing by people who aren't polluting the gene pool, head over there now. Speaking of stupidity, the CP has a special report on which one is dumber, home improvement store employees or shopping carts. Plus, an article from the CP archives that takes us way back to 1990, when we were expressing our doubts about an upstart software company named Microsoft, and our first ever Letter to the Editor. Who knew there was no U.S. Department of Coffee?

And if that doesn't meet your ravenous hunger for humor, check out those wacky Satan-worshipers over at Humor-Blogs.com.

I'll be back tomorrow with the caption contest finalists.

Labels: Blogging, Books, Jerks

]]> 2715310191302274733 Humor Me 2008/03/#2715310191302274733 2008-03-05 You may not be aware of this, but in addition to this site I also run a blog directory called Humor-Blogs.com. (I know, you're probably wondering what other secrets I've been keeping from you. Like maybe I've written a book, or I've been editing an online humor magazine.)

Shortly after I started this blog, I began looking for ways to promote it. One way that a lot of people recommended was to get listed with a blog directory, like BlogTopList or TopBlogging. So I submitted my site to a bunch of directories, hoping for a small boost in traffic. What I got was basically nothing. I mean, I might get one visit a week from each of these sites. I even tried putting their banners near the top of my template and writing posts encouraging my readers to click on them so that I'd move up in the rankings. And I did move up slightly, for a short time, which resulted in me getting maybe 2 visits a week.

Presumably these sites are helping someone, but it's not me. And it irked me that the rankings seemed to be based entirely on the amount of traffic that a blog generates for that site. In other words, a popular site gets a high ranking, because it's popular, thereby making it more popular. That's like a newspaper telling you to go see Spider-Man 3 because it made $300 million so it must be pretty good.

Take the top ranked blog in the "Humor" category at TopBlogging, for example. It's called Really Funny Jokes, and it features copied and pasted jokes like this:

A girl sat sobbing in the police station. "I was raped by an Idiot!!" she wailed.
"How do you know he was an Idiot?" the detective asked.
"I had to help him!" the girl replied.

Gee, that's a knee-slapper, isn't it? Definitely worthy of the highest ranked Humor blog on the Interwebs.

"Why isn't there some kind of site that actually makes an effort to identify some of the funniest blogs out there?" I thought. There had to be something like that, right? Wrong. Topblogging, TopBlogArea, BlogTopList, TopHatBlogList, TobogganBlogLogList, TobleroneBlogArea... they're all the same: Lists of blogs that are popular, in order by their popularity, so that more people can experience the joys of blonde jokes and that Youtube video with the monkey sticking his finger in his butt.

So I started Humor-Blogs.com, which was at first just a list of blogs that I personally found funny. Then I ran across BlogLaughs, a blog run by a guy who had put together a team of volunteer reviewers to review blogs for their humor content. He had done a lot of blog reviews over the course of a year or so, but was getting pretty burned out on the project. Part of the problem was that hardly anybody knew about his site. One of the ironies of the Internet is that a worthless site like TopBlogging gets a lot of traffic because a lot of web sites link to it, whereas a site like BlogLaughs, that provided an actual service, languishes in obscurity.

I took over the reviewing responsibilities from BlogLaughs and incorporated them in the Humor-Blogs ranking system. I didn't want H-B to be just another popularity contest, but I also didn't want it to wither and die like BlogLaughs. So I compromised, creating a ranking based partly on reviews by (hopefully) disinterested reviewers and partly on traffic.

I have, of course, gotten criticism for both aspects of this ranking system. "What does traffic have to do with how funny a blog is?" people ask. Well, first of all, in reality there is a (slight) correlation between traffic and quality. Really Funny Jokes isn't remarkable by any means, but I imagine it's better than the 200th ranked blog on TopBlogging, and Spider-Man 3 was at least better than The Hottie and the Nottie. Second, basing the score partly on popularity makes it harder for someone to try to game the system by getting all his/her friends to sign up as reviewers. And finally, there's the reality that without traffic, H-B would be worthless both to people looking for blogs and for bloggers trying to boost their traffic.

Some people ask whether there is some kind of qualification process for reviewers, as if there were a line of people waiting to be given the opportunity to write blog reviews for which they will receive exactly nothing in terms of compensation. In reality, there are some 400 blogs waiting to be reviewed, and only a handful of reviewers, so a better question would be, "Is there some kind of qualification process that a blog has to go through before it can get reviewed?"

And then there are those who talk about how "self-serving" Humor-Blogs.com is. They see bloggers begging their readers to click the H-B link on their blog and assume that I'm somehow making out like a bandit. And to be fair, I guess I am. Check out a sampling of my referral traffic from H-B to MattressPolice.com:

That's pretty typical: Five out of twenty referrals came from Humor-Blogs.com. I get a lot of traffic from H-B, unlike the other blog directories. I'm ranked #4 on H-B and #9 on TopBlogging, but do you see any referrals from TopBlogging on that list?

So yes, H-B has worked out pretty well for me, but only -- and here's the key -- because I'm a Humor-Blogs.com member who works hard to stay near the top of the rankings. I can only assume that the referral traffic for Seven Seeds, Crummy Church Signs and 15 Minute Lunch look pretty much like mine. So yes, H-B is self-serving, if the "self" you're talking about is the members who are writing funny blog posts and working hard to promote the site.

In any case, the point of this long winded diatribe is to explain my motivations in creating and continuing to run Humor-Blogs.com... and why some things with the site are going to have to change.

Realistically, we're never going to be able to review all of the blogs that are in the queue. Blogs are being added faster than we can review them. Additionally, many blogs that have been reviewed may have changed significantly since their review (or are now defunct). This diminishes the meaningfulness of the rankings. Not incidentally, I have way too much other stuff going on to keep devoting my time to blog reviews.

So I'm hereby retiring from the blog review business. We'll post the reviews that have been submitted already, but after that we're not going to review any more blogs.

I'm hoping to come up with a more automated system, similar to Digg or StumbleUpon, where users can give a "thumbs up" and maybe a short review for specific blog posts, but it will probably be several weeks before I can have anything like that in place. Any suggestions are welcome; I'll either incorporate you suggestions or explain in a future post why I was unable to. Whatever system I eventually end up using, it will be an attempt to maintain the balance between popularity and reader opinions as a means of ranking blogs.

Ok, enough serious crap. I'll be back tomorrow with a post detailing everything you never wanted to know about Captain America. See you then!

Labels: Blogging, Humor-blogs.com, Serious Stuff

]]> 1072826503525884307 Welcome, Internet Explorer users! 2007/10/#1072826503525884307 2007-10-30 If you're using Internet Explorer, you've probably had some trouble accessing my site since yesterday. Sorry about that -- I was in a hurry yesterday morning and committed the cardinal sin of not testing the new template in IE. I'm not sure why IE choked on it; the problem seems to be related to the Blogrolling script that I used to display the Adjutant Inspectors and Mattress Police Force. Of course, I used the same script in the old template with no problem. Chalk it up to a combination of Blogrolling's crappy script and IE being a temperamental little b*tch.

I'll have to find a new way to display my blogrolls, because Blogrolling is too flakey. I'll probably end up writing my own blogrolling script, because hey, I'm a web developer, so I can do that kind of stuff.

Speaking of which, I also don't really like Blogger's commenting system, so I wrote my own. So when you click on the comment link at the bottom of this post, it will take you to my custom-made commenting application. Let me know what you think. If it works out, maybe I'll release it for use by other bloggers. The comments for older posts are still there; you just have to click on the post title to view the post with the comments.

I hope you like the new template. The old one was getting on my nerves because it was too cluttered and loaded too slow. I've removed a lot of the crap and simplified the design. Also, I thought it would be funny to make myself look like a total badass because I'm a complete dork in real life. But I figured if Will Smith can go from being the Fresh Prince to Mr. Bad Boy, then surely I can make the leap as well. Pretty soon I'll be showing up in crappy adaptations of Isaac Asimov novels.

Ah, if only it were that easy to get rid of Martin Lawrence in real life.

Sorry about yesterday's post, by the way. I figured I needed a badass post to kick off the new design. Also, I figured you'd be too distracted by the template to pay much attention to what I was saying anyway.

Ok, my housekeeping is done. Meet me back here tomorrow for a real post. Oh, and leave a comment to try out the new system and let me know what you think.

Diesel out.

Labels: Blogging

]]> 8069302340963193724 A-y-y-y! 2007/10/#8069302340963193724 2007-10-25

Do you remember the episode of "The Simpsons" where Disco Stu explains the sales potential of disco records to Marge? Stu points to a chart showing the sales of disco records from the years 1973 to 1976 and says, "Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continue... A-y-y-y!"

I'm having a bit of an A-y-y-y moment right now. Generally my site averages around 300-400 unique visitors per day, with around 400-600 page loads. I know, a lot of you would kill for numbers like that, but you have to understand that it was a lot of work to get to this point. It's one thing to say that you'd kill for those numbers, but it's another thing entirely to go out to the freeway overpass every day with a burlap sack filled with mewing kittens.

Anyway, you see those two little icons at the bottom of this post? Yeah, those:

Stumble it!

Digg it!

StumbleUpon and Digg are "social networking sites," which seemed to be the big thing for a while. Maybe it still is. Whatever. Digg has never done me much good, but occasionally someone "Stumbles" one of my post and I get a few hundred hits out of it. And before you get too excited about adding the magical StumbleUpon icon to your posts, remember that only about one of twenty of my posts gets stumbled, and the number of hits I get from it is dependent on how many "friends" the Stumbler has in the StumbleUpon network. Basically, if a serious internet geek who spends way too much time making "friends" online really likes one of my posts, I get some traffic out of it.* And I should add that 99% of these visitors read a single post (if that) and then disappear, never to darken my IP address again. Since I'm really only interested in finding regular readers who will leave nice comments or maybe even buy my book, the net result of all this commotion is about on par with drinking eight MGDs in an hour and a half: A lot of Stumbling that culminates with me urinating in the orchard behind my house.

Sometimes there is an interesting snowball effect, however. In the past it's always burned out after I get around 1,000 visitors, but evidently my Straight Man post hit a chord (count the mixed metaphors in this paragraph and win a puppy!). One person Stumbled it, then another, and another.... So far, the results look like this:

I mean, holy crap, right? Even Saturday's traffic was about double for a normal Saturday, and it shot up like crazy after that. All because of a post that was just some goofy conversations I had with my wife.

Again, if you're a fellow blogger, feel free to add the Stumble icon to your posts (I think there are instructions at StumbleUpon.com), but don't come whining to me if you don't suddenly get thousands of visitors. This is truly a freak occurrence, and it only happened after a lot of hard work and dead kittens.

Still, if this trend continues, A-y-y-y!

*I don't mean to disparage you, Stumbler. I appreciate what you've done for me. But come on. Don't you, like, have a job or something?

Humor-blogs.com never urinates in my orchard.

Labels: Blogging, TV

]]> 684676258334313666 Housekeeping! 2007/08/#684676258334313666 2007-08-16 I sent out an email a few days ago to all the people who pre-ordered Antisocial Commentary. It probably got stuck in a few spam filters, so here's a link you can use to pay for the book. This form is only for people who pre-ordered the book. If you haven't pre-ordered it, you can buy the book here. One more note for the pre-orderers: If the email address you provided to PayPal is different from the one you gave me, please send me an email at diesel - at- mattresspolice.com letting me know, so that I can make sure I give credit to the right person.

In other news, I have gotten rid of my Links page and put the whole Mattress Police Force blogroll on the left sidebar. If you have linked to me and I haven't yet added you, please let me know. I try to add everybody who has me on their blogroll, but it's getting a little tough to keep up with.

I hope to be promoting a few more of you to the vaunted position of Adjutant Inspector as well, but I may need to clear out some deadwood first. If you're an Adjutant Inspector who hasn't left a comment in several weeks, drop me a note to let me know you're still around.

Also, I know that there are a lot of you out there who never leave comments for some reason. Maybe you feel too much pressure to say something witty. Maybe the hospital staff frowns on commenting. Whatever the reason, please take this as an invitation to just leave a quick comment saying hi. Maybe let me know how you found this place, or how long you've been reading, or why you don't have better things to do.

Ok, that's about it for now. Make sure you vote in the caption contest. I'll be posting the results on Saturday. And I'll be back tomorrow with an update on the Diesel for President campaign.

Labels: Antisocial Commentary, Blogging

]]> 3949270453539339388 Hello, I'm Sorry 2007/06/#3949270453539339388 2007-06-13 So I’m sitting in my parents’ living room on Friday, feeling the kind of vague unease that creeps up on me when I can't remember what hot stocks I should buy or where to get discount V1@gr@and I think to myself, “I should check my email.” My parents have DSL but no wireless, so I have to go unplug my mom’s computer and plug mine in to get on AGISH (Al Gore's Information Superhighway) -- which is asking a bit much of a man on holiday. While I’m waiting for my email to download, I decide to check the traffic on MattressPolice.com to see how many readers I’ve lost after not posting for several days. Here’s the handy dandy graph offered by Statcounter.com:

As you can see, my absence has been a big hit. People just can’t get enough of me not being around.

I’ve tried a lot of traffic-building stunts, but few of them have been the immediate and unqualified success that leaving has been. By my reckoning, my most successful posts/stunts are:

I’m not sure what it is about my not being around that strikes such a chord with people. Is it the sort of anxious excitement and hope that accompanies an event like cancer going into remission or the Berlin Wall coming down? Is it the kind of exhausted relief that one experiences with the series finale of Friends or Paris Hilton going to jail? Is it the kind of guilty curiosity that comes with the death of a celebrity that one had thought died in 1987?

As popular as my disappearance has proven to be, however, I’ve decided to return before the novelty wears off. There’s nothing worse than dragging out a good thing. At first it would be like:

Unique Visitor 1: Hey, did you hear about that blogger who stopped posting?
Unique Visitor 2: No! For how long?
UV1: Going on five days now.
UV2: Wow. I need to check that out. What’s the internet address thingy?

But after a while it will be like:

UV1: Hey, remember that guy that I told you about who stopped posting?
UV2: Oh, yeah! That was hilarious. What’s he up to now?
UV1: That’s the thing, he’s still not posting.
UV2: What? Geez, get some new material already. What a waste of an internet address thingy.

I thought about returning Gandalf-style, with a white robe and the air of superiority that comes with facing down a balrog, but then if my town was ever terrorized by a balrog, everybody would expect me to take care of it, and I don’t need that kind of pressure. Then I considered coming back with a different name, like “The Hoff.” The great thing about giving yourself a nickname like that is that it sounds really cool, but it’s so lame to give yourself your own nickname that people will end up calling you it as sort of a joke, and then keep calling you it even after they’ve forgotten they were originally making fun of you. But I think you have to be a world class dork to pull off something like that.

So here I am, returning with a whimper rather than a bang. I wish I could come up with something more exciting, but I think I’ve given up trying to figure out what stunts are going to generate a lot of traffic. After all, if a post bombs, I can always disappear.

(Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I'll be back on Friday with a new caption contest pic. And next week I'll regale you with stories about the irrepressible Mr. Wilson, the Scariest Motel Ever, and other unverifiable tales of my vacation. Oh, and tomorrow I'll do my best to catch up on the blog reviews at humor-blogs.com. See you back here on Friday!)

Labels: Blogging

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