mindless drivel
Monday, February 28, 2005
this is not about the oscars
I finally figured out the one fatal flaw of American Idol. It's that the music just absolutely sucks. Well, okay, I have known this for quite some time. That's why I don't watch the show. But I think I may have stumbled upon the underlying reason for the suckiness of the contestants on the show. I'm not talking about the early contestants like William Hung that they bring on to humiliate and degrade in front of a national audience. I'm talking about the ones who make it past the initial rounds. The ones that win. Aiken. Studdard. Clarkson. These are the ones that truly suck.
It happened innocently enough while I was at lunch the other day. I sat at my table, eating my roast beef sandwich, taking in the sounds of the local easy listening station that they pump into the cafeteria here at my building, when something familiar hit my ears. It was none other than Paula Abdul, singing her timeless classic "Straight Up." It was at this moment that it hit me. For several hours every week, millions of Americans sit glued to their televisions, listening to the criticism of one Paula Abdul, hanging onto her every word. Do these people not remember that this is the person who gave the world the lyrics "Straight up now tell me, Do you really want to love me forever oh oh oh, Or am I caught in a hit and run"?
It struck me as odd that a washed up pop star that was only mediocre in her prime is now seen as some sort of music critic extraordinaire. But we actually know more about Ms. Abdul than we do the other two judges. So I took the liberty of looking into the pasts of the other judges, Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson. The results were shocking.
Randy Jackson grew up on the mean streets of Dubuque, Iowa. After narrowly escaping minor injury in a drive-by potato gun incident, Randy felt it was time to clean up his act and get his life straightened out. He'd had a God-given singing talent, but never quite had "the look" that the big-name Dubuque talent scouts were looking for. Randy spent many hours every day calling the customer service phone numbers of the major record companies, hoping to get a break in the music scene. One day he managed to reach a particularly helpful supervisor who found him a job as one of the singers for Milli Vanilli. After the surprising revelation that Milli Vanilli was a sham, Randy got some shocking news of his own. His voice never even made it onto the Milli Vanilli albums. The record company had agreed to record his voice, to get him to stop calling, but never officially agreed to put his voice on the albums. Heartbroken, Randy decided to try his hand at television. He called the Fox Studios, and after one call was able to get signed on to American Idol.
Simon graduated from high school in a London suburb, then promptly moved to Hollywood to become a pop star. After twenty-three failed attempts to try for Star Search, Simon began making physical threats to Ed McMahon. He was subsequently served with a restraining order and was not allowed to be within 500 feet of the Carson sidekick. At this point Simon became dejected and was forced to take a job working the drive through window at Wendy's. It was here that Simon really began to craft his true talent of being rude and insulting people. His favorite catch phrases of "That was absolutely ghastly" and "Did you really believe you could become the American Idol? Well, then, you're deaf" all draw their roots to these early Wendy's days. At the time, he was new to the insult game, and his best material included lines like "I didn't give you any ketchup because you're ugly" and "You can have the mustard you asked for, but I'm going to spit on your burger anyway." It just so happened that a Fox executive was pulling through the Wendy's drive through one day. When Simon told the executive he had big ears, the Fox executive thought Simon would be perfect for a new reality TV show that was in the works called "Insult the Singers." Simon was signed on immediately and the show eventually became "American Idol."
So now that you know a little bit more about the tribulations these judges have gone through to get where they are, you can watch the show with a new appreciation for their hard work and dedication. Or you can just be like me and not watch at all. ¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/28/2005 0 comments
It happened innocently enough while I was at lunch the other day. I sat at my table, eating my roast beef sandwich, taking in the sounds of the local easy listening station that they pump into the cafeteria here at my building, when something familiar hit my ears. It was none other than Paula Abdul, singing her timeless classic "Straight Up." It was at this moment that it hit me. For several hours every week, millions of Americans sit glued to their televisions, listening to the criticism of one Paula Abdul, hanging onto her every word. Do these people not remember that this is the person who gave the world the lyrics "Straight up now tell me, Do you really want to love me forever oh oh oh, Or am I caught in a hit and run"?
It struck me as odd that a washed up pop star that was only mediocre in her prime is now seen as some sort of music critic extraordinaire. But we actually know more about Ms. Abdul than we do the other two judges. So I took the liberty of looking into the pasts of the other judges, Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson. The results were shocking.
Randy Jackson grew up on the mean streets of Dubuque, Iowa. After narrowly escaping minor injury in a drive-by potato gun incident, Randy felt it was time to clean up his act and get his life straightened out. He'd had a God-given singing talent, but never quite had "the look" that the big-name Dubuque talent scouts were looking for. Randy spent many hours every day calling the customer service phone numbers of the major record companies, hoping to get a break in the music scene. One day he managed to reach a particularly helpful supervisor who found him a job as one of the singers for Milli Vanilli. After the surprising revelation that Milli Vanilli was a sham, Randy got some shocking news of his own. His voice never even made it onto the Milli Vanilli albums. The record company had agreed to record his voice, to get him to stop calling, but never officially agreed to put his voice on the albums. Heartbroken, Randy decided to try his hand at television. He called the Fox Studios, and after one call was able to get signed on to American Idol.
Simon graduated from high school in a London suburb, then promptly moved to Hollywood to become a pop star. After twenty-three failed attempts to try for Star Search, Simon began making physical threats to Ed McMahon. He was subsequently served with a restraining order and was not allowed to be within 500 feet of the Carson sidekick. At this point Simon became dejected and was forced to take a job working the drive through window at Wendy's. It was here that Simon really began to craft his true talent of being rude and insulting people. His favorite catch phrases of "That was absolutely ghastly" and "Did you really believe you could become the American Idol? Well, then, you're deaf" all draw their roots to these early Wendy's days. At the time, he was new to the insult game, and his best material included lines like "I didn't give you any ketchup because you're ugly" and "You can have the mustard you asked for, but I'm going to spit on your burger anyway." It just so happened that a Fox executive was pulling through the Wendy's drive through one day. When Simon told the executive he had big ears, the Fox executive thought Simon would be perfect for a new reality TV show that was in the works called "Insult the Singers." Simon was signed on immediately and the show eventually became "American Idol."
So now that you know a little bit more about the tribulations these judges have gone through to get where they are, you can watch the show with a new appreciation for their hard work and dedication. Or you can just be like me and not watch at all. ¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/28/2005 0 comments
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
poll results
Well, my pathetic begging for votes worked. Here are the final results. Seems that people really like that life thing. Please see the new poll now.
¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/23/2005 0 comments
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
vote or die
Please take a moment to vote on my pointless poll. It's on the right side of your screen. I've left it there for a while because I just haven't gotten around to replacing it. But now that I look at it, I have somehow amassed 86 votes. It seems that, at this point, "a life" is in the lead for what people most want to have, with 34% of the vote. Personally, I'd rather have a new plasma screen television, but whatever. Anyway, I figure since I am so close, I might as well see if I can get to 100 votes before replacing it. Not out of policy, but just to see if I can get that many people to vote in such a dumb poll. In other words, I hope to replace the next one long before 100 votes. So go ahead, vote away, vote twice, vote three times. I don't care. I won't even make you provide a purple thumbprint. Just hurry up and vote so I can get my 100 votes and come up with a new poll already!
¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/22/2005 0 comments
Saturday, February 19, 2005
revenge of the nerds
I recently came to a startling and disturbing realization. It turns out that there are a lot more nerds in the world than I had previously been aware of. Over the past year or so, I haven't seen a whole lot of people in a typical day. Mostly just my family and the people I work with. I am already aware of the nerdiness of my family and my co-workers. It's somewhere below Trekkie and somewhere above Brad Pitt. But lately I've been seeing a lot more people, and what I've seen has been shocking, to say the least.
Before we moved into our house two weeks ago, I drove to work every day. There are not too many ways to determine a person's nerdiness by seeing them on the highway. You really only get one quick glance at the driver's head. Well, in the case of the nightmarish traffic I trudged through every day, you could study the driver's head quite thoroughly. But you still can't gauge that person's nerdiness very effectively. Mostly, your only way to measure a person's nerdiness is by the car they are driving and the bumper stickers they display. While there are certain cars, like Pontiac Grand Ams, that nerds just love, you really can't get a lot of information about a person's nerdiness from the kind of car the person is driving. And unlike hippies, nerds don't tend to use bumper stickers very liberally.
But since I began taking the train to work, I started seeing a lot more people. And what I've seen ain't pretty.
First of all, let's begin by noting that a lot of people clip stuff to their belts. Cell phones, pagers, PDAs, MP3 players, ham radios, and various other objects are clipped on, clinging for dear life to their owner's already overworked belts. Clipping a device to one's belt is nerdy enough in itself, but when people are using this much of their belt space not to hold up their pants, but to hold up multiple electronic devices, then people, we have a problem. Granted, there is often more than enough belt space to go around, but folks, it's not 1993 anymore. We are no longer impressed that you own a cell phone. You don't have to clip it to your belt to show us. Your pants have pockets, you know. But I suppose the people who partake in belt clipping typically wear extremely tight pants, so the pockets are rendered useless. But isn't that why they invented the fanny pack? Never mind.
You can also assess a person's nerdiness by his reading material. Before proceeding, I must admit that I am currently reading an incredibly nerdy book, The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene. Hey, what can I say, I enjoy theoretical physics. There, I said it. But the other day I actually saw a grown man reading a Dungeons & Dragons player's guide. And all of a sudden, I'm not so nerdy after all.
You might think you'd see a lot of cowboys and hicks in Texas. You'd be wrong though, it's mostly nerds. ¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/19/2005 0 comments
Before we moved into our house two weeks ago, I drove to work every day. There are not too many ways to determine a person's nerdiness by seeing them on the highway. You really only get one quick glance at the driver's head. Well, in the case of the nightmarish traffic I trudged through every day, you could study the driver's head quite thoroughly. But you still can't gauge that person's nerdiness very effectively. Mostly, your only way to measure a person's nerdiness is by the car they are driving and the bumper stickers they display. While there are certain cars, like Pontiac Grand Ams, that nerds just love, you really can't get a lot of information about a person's nerdiness from the kind of car the person is driving. And unlike hippies, nerds don't tend to use bumper stickers very liberally.
But since I began taking the train to work, I started seeing a lot more people. And what I've seen ain't pretty.
First of all, let's begin by noting that a lot of people clip stuff to their belts. Cell phones, pagers, PDAs, MP3 players, ham radios, and various other objects are clipped on, clinging for dear life to their owner's already overworked belts. Clipping a device to one's belt is nerdy enough in itself, but when people are using this much of their belt space not to hold up their pants, but to hold up multiple electronic devices, then people, we have a problem. Granted, there is often more than enough belt space to go around, but folks, it's not 1993 anymore. We are no longer impressed that you own a cell phone. You don't have to clip it to your belt to show us. Your pants have pockets, you know. But I suppose the people who partake in belt clipping typically wear extremely tight pants, so the pockets are rendered useless. But isn't that why they invented the fanny pack? Never mind.
You can also assess a person's nerdiness by his reading material. Before proceeding, I must admit that I am currently reading an incredibly nerdy book, The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene. Hey, what can I say, I enjoy theoretical physics. There, I said it. But the other day I actually saw a grown man reading a Dungeons & Dragons player's guide. And all of a sudden, I'm not so nerdy after all.
You might think you'd see a lot of cowboys and hicks in Texas. You'd be wrong though, it's mostly nerds. ¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/19/2005 0 comments
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
i think i lost my funny
I offer this post as a warning. I think I may have used up my sense of humor.
Maybe it's because I have become increasingly disillusioned with having the world's most depressing job. Maybe it's because I'm fighting off a cold (for some reason six hours of sleep used to be plenty, but over the past few weeks I've been getting seven or eight and I feel like I'm going to collapse). I suppose it's possible that I used up my funny by writing it all down. Like maybe the only reason I was funny before is that I kept saying the same funny things over and over. I was on a four month loop. My wife and family never told me because they were trying to be polite. Or maybe they told me plenty of times but I forgot. But my poor memory allowed me to forget that I had already used the same material months ago, not realizing that I only had four months worth of funny. I'm like one of those kooky old dudes who think they're funny, but everyone is really laughing at them, not with them. But now that I've written it down, I can't get away with rehashing old funny anymore.
However many reasons I can provide as to why I have lost my funny, I think the real reason is that the funny vibes in Allen, where my house is, are just not as strong as they were in Plano, where my apartment was. I mean, think about it, even the name is funny, "Plano." Ha! "Allen" is not funny. Not funny at all.
But the story doesn't end here. All hope is not lost. There are some points of light. There is hope for the return of my funny after all.
First, our baby doctor is still in Plano, and our baby doctor hospital is still in Plano. Which means our baby will be born in Plano. I figure that means that he will be doing stand up before he can, well, stand up.
My two year old son Carter is pretty damn funny, and he was born in the unfunny capital of the world, San Antonio. San Antonio is possibly the ugliest, stinkiest, most depressing city in the world. You should really check it out one day. But somehow Carter ended up funny. So I figure there's true hope for someone born in Plano, one of the funniest places on earth.
Second, I write most of my stuff in Dallas. At work. Yes, work, the epitome of unfunny. So I guess I have two points here: 1) that I am still writing this at the same unfunny cubicle as before, and 2) that I can be funny in the midst of unfunny.
So hang in there, the funny is probably just taking a vacation. Hey, at least someone around here is getting a few days off. ¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/16/2005 0 comments
Maybe it's because I have become increasingly disillusioned with having the world's most depressing job. Maybe it's because I'm fighting off a cold (for some reason six hours of sleep used to be plenty, but over the past few weeks I've been getting seven or eight and I feel like I'm going to collapse). I suppose it's possible that I used up my funny by writing it all down. Like maybe the only reason I was funny before is that I kept saying the same funny things over and over. I was on a four month loop. My wife and family never told me because they were trying to be polite. Or maybe they told me plenty of times but I forgot. But my poor memory allowed me to forget that I had already used the same material months ago, not realizing that I only had four months worth of funny. I'm like one of those kooky old dudes who think they're funny, but everyone is really laughing at them, not with them. But now that I've written it down, I can't get away with rehashing old funny anymore.
However many reasons I can provide as to why I have lost my funny, I think the real reason is that the funny vibes in Allen, where my house is, are just not as strong as they were in Plano, where my apartment was. I mean, think about it, even the name is funny, "Plano." Ha! "Allen" is not funny. Not funny at all.
But the story doesn't end here. All hope is not lost. There are some points of light. There is hope for the return of my funny after all.
First, our baby doctor is still in Plano, and our baby doctor hospital is still in Plano. Which means our baby will be born in Plano. I figure that means that he will be doing stand up before he can, well, stand up.
My two year old son Carter is pretty damn funny, and he was born in the unfunny capital of the world, San Antonio. San Antonio is possibly the ugliest, stinkiest, most depressing city in the world. You should really check it out one day. But somehow Carter ended up funny. So I figure there's true hope for someone born in Plano, one of the funniest places on earth.
Second, I write most of my stuff in Dallas. At work. Yes, work, the epitome of unfunny. So I guess I have two points here: 1) that I am still writing this at the same unfunny cubicle as before, and 2) that I can be funny in the midst of unfunny.
So hang in there, the funny is probably just taking a vacation. Hey, at least someone around here is getting a few days off. ¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/16/2005 0 comments
Thursday, February 10, 2005
big evil corp
Regular readers of this blog are most likely aware that I work for a big, evil corporation. For anonymity's sake, we'll call it BE Corp.
Yesterday BE Corp held one of its periodic company-wide, big, evil pep rallies where all the big, evil executives get us all together and remind us just how wonderful BE Corp is. They tell us all about BE Corp's wonderful financial results, its innovative products, and its market leadership. And that's why I was entitled to the generous 1.19% annual raise I got this year. That's nearly half the inflation rate, folks!
So throughout the presentation, the big, evil executives get handed pre-screened, softball questions like, "How does BE Corp manage to be so successful in such a difficult competitive marketplace?" or "How does BE Corp manage to be so wonderful and generous to its employees and its community?" or "Can I name my firstborn child after BE Corp?"
But the thing that bothers me is that the big, evil executives constantly remind us how fortunate we are to work for such a wonderful company like BE Corp. As an actual employee of BE Corp, I can attest that it is neither wonderful nor stupendous to work here. But if I could count the number of times I've been told how wonderful and stupendous it is to work here I'd be up to at least three by now. I think they are under the impression that if they say it enough times it will become true.
So exactly what is it that makes it such a wonderful place to work? The low pay? The poor training? The constant changes in policy? The numerous elaborate pep rallies?
Really, I want to know.
¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/10/2005 0 comments
Yesterday BE Corp held one of its periodic company-wide, big, evil pep rallies where all the big, evil executives get us all together and remind us just how wonderful BE Corp is. They tell us all about BE Corp's wonderful financial results, its innovative products, and its market leadership. And that's why I was entitled to the generous 1.19% annual raise I got this year. That's nearly half the inflation rate, folks!
So throughout the presentation, the big, evil executives get handed pre-screened, softball questions like, "How does BE Corp manage to be so successful in such a difficult competitive marketplace?" or "How does BE Corp manage to be so wonderful and generous to its employees and its community?" or "Can I name my firstborn child after BE Corp?"
But the thing that bothers me is that the big, evil executives constantly remind us how fortunate we are to work for such a wonderful company like BE Corp. As an actual employee of BE Corp, I can attest that it is neither wonderful nor stupendous to work here. But if I could count the number of times I've been told how wonderful and stupendous it is to work here I'd be up to at least three by now. I think they are under the impression that if they say it enough times it will become true.
So exactly what is it that makes it such a wonderful place to work? The low pay? The poor training? The constant changes in policy? The numerous elaborate pep rallies?
Really, I want to know.
¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/10/2005 0 comments
Thursday, February 03, 2005
there's a party in my email account and everyone's invited
Okay, I officially have way more Gmail invites than I could ever possibly give away in three lifetimes. If there is anybody out there who still needs one, please post a rambling, nonsensical, incoherent comment that includes the phrase "hieroglyphics decoder ring" and it will be yours. If you post something that makes sense, I might not give it to you. If you feel like leaving a nonsensical comment but don't want a Gmail invite, instead of the phrase "hieroglyphics decoder ring," please include the phrase "easy on the anchovies" somewhere amidst your rambling nonsense. If you don't include either phrase, I'll assume you're one of those weird people from Something Awful.
¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/03/2005 0 comments
¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/03/2005 0 comments
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
the great blog scandal of 2005
Well, well, well. Apparently the now-defunct fez has been stealing his material from Something Awful. Feel free to read about it here. And for all you people who came here via the Something Awful Forum, thanks for the hits and the strange, now-mostly-deleted comments. I don't really see how I did anything wrong here. Just because I commented on his site once or twice, obviously not knowing that the guy stole his stuff? Anyway, I assure you every word of mine comes straight from my own little noggin. Do all the Google searches you want, it's 100% original. So go ahead, stay for a while, you just might like it...
¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/02/2005 0 comments
¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/02/2005 0 comments
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
write a comment already!
Can somebody please comment on close your eyes at bush? I thought it was pretty damn funny, and not a single person commented on how clever and witty it was.
¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/01/2005 0 comments
¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/01/2005 0 comments
don't i know you?
Have you ever come across somebody you thought you knew, but it turned out they were not who you thought they were? It was just a total stranger that looked like someone you know? But before you realize it's not who you think it is, you look at the person all close-up as if to say, "Are you that guy I know? You know, that guy? Oh wait, you're not. You're just some other guy"
Of course we have all had this experience, except for maybe some losers who don't know any other people. But here's what's funny about when this happens to me. Even after I realize that they are not who I think they are, for a split second I think that it's okay that I've just spent the last ten minutes staring at a total stranger, examining every last detail of his/her face and body, because the other person should almost recognize me, too. Isn't that the way it should work? After all, if I actually do recognize someone I know, they will probably recognize me too, right? Therefore it follows that if I almost recognize someone, they should almost recognize me, too. "Hey, it's okay that this person is staring at me, he's someone I almost know."
In a perfect world, this is the way it would work. In this world, however, you just get funny looks and restraining orders.
¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/01/2005 0 comments
Of course we have all had this experience, except for maybe some losers who don't know any other people. But here's what's funny about when this happens to me. Even after I realize that they are not who I think they are, for a split second I think that it's okay that I've just spent the last ten minutes staring at a total stranger, examining every last detail of his/her face and body, because the other person should almost recognize me, too. Isn't that the way it should work? After all, if I actually do recognize someone I know, they will probably recognize me too, right? Therefore it follows that if I almost recognize someone, they should almost recognize me, too. "Hey, it's okay that this person is staring at me, he's someone I almost know."
In a perfect world, this is the way it would work. In this world, however, you just get funny looks and restraining orders.
¶ monger187 wrote this on 2/01/2005 0 comments
