This fits on my blog because it’s about something I reliably find funny. I Don’t Even Own A Television, a bad books podcast by J W Friedman and Chris Collision, posted its final episode, confusingly on the 1st of April. This wasn’t a strong surprise; they’ve dropped from posting two episodes a month to about two episodes a year, with apologies about how their lives had gotten to where they couldn’t read a whole bad book and talk about it for an hour-plus.
While not strictly a humor podcast, it’s hard not to be funny doing pop-culture reviews of, especially, things held in low regard. And the hosts try hard to be pleasant and positive about the books, increasingly as the series developed. They also got more sensitive to the ways snark will go wrong; an early episode attacks Jim Theis’s much-maligned The Eye Of Argon, the sort of easy target they repented of. As usual, the production got better as the series developed; as a rough guide, any episode from when Chris Collision became regular co-host is reliable. I particularly recommend any episode where someone thinks they have a deep philosophy, or a rock star remembers their life story as more enlightening than it was.
Besides that, and making something that deserve a heads-up from me before the end of the month: their Patreon is closing too, with the end of the month. They did a great number of bonus episodes over the years, sometimes movie or TV shows, sometimes magazines or comics books, sometimes miscellaneous oddities. In the final episode they said they intended to bring as much of this as they could to the podcast feed, a contribution now would let you download everything, now, and be sure not to miss anything. Worth considering.
It’s not just soybeans. There’s also a Michigan Propane Commission that has monthly meetings, but I assume that’s just someone’s King Of The Hill rewatch podcast that got out of control and accidentally got money from the state legislature. Good deal if you can swing it, though.
I bet I could do well on the state Wheat Promotion Committee, though. I could find all sorts of wheat fields, if someone gave me a map to the wheat fields, and promote them to Corporal or Lieutenant Colonel or Sergeant if someone helps me check on how to spell Sergeant every single time.
A couple years after my original posting of this? I still listen to all those podcasts. Well, except for the one that ended.
The gang is ready to set off. It’s going to be a long trip. Maybe the longest they’ve ever made. Maybe the longest there ever will be. Anyway it’s at least two hours longer than the last one the group’s managed. Dan is not saying that if he were in charge he would set up a definite rotation for driving. He’s just saying that a definite rotation for driving would be good. After the third iteration of this Sophia answers that if they rotate too much they’ll end up right back where they started. Amanda has the bad luck to mention 180 degrees in this. This brings lively but unproductive talk about the differences between 180 degree, 360 degree, and 720 degree turns. Dan attempts to propose a 270 degree turn just to lighten the subject.
Still, better if we set out sooner rather than later. No, sooner than that. Maybe a bit earlier than that. After three different chat rooms have settled on five different start times Dan proposes that everyone set out the night before and meet up at the park-and-ride twenty minutes out of everywhere. He’s being facetious, everyone tells themselves.
The compromise is to move the start time 90 minutes earlier. The morning of the start everyone is running about an hour late, so they agree to just start 30 minutes ahead of the original start time. Then somehow just getting everything in the trunk and one last trip to the bathroom takes 75 minutes. Josh insists that by starting 45 minutes late they’re running ahead of schedule. Dan is not convinced by this. It will be until the state welcome center before the topic has been debated enough that everyone lets it drop.
The seat belts are locking up. Just the ones in back. They do that. There’s a trick to it. You have to sit so you’re facing forward. No, not that forward. Dan, just … no, you need to … there, see? Now it’s pulling out. All right, now it’s locked up. Maybe you should get out and get back in the car the correct way this time. No, the other correct way. Look, both feet on the floor, that’s the first thing you need. Now face forward. Not that much forward. All right, why don’t you try the other side? That’s right. Now sit facing forward. Not that much forward. Don’t pull the seat belt out that fast. All right, let it out and back again. Not that slow. You want to go medium speed. More medium than that. Not that … look, this is before your turn but why don’t you try the front seat? Oh good grief. All right, let’s try where you started again. Right. You know most of us can use a seat belt. Yes, try facing forward. Not that forward.
Fine, we just won’t crash the car this time.
There is a great sense of thrill and delight at finally being off. And then stopping again because Sophia needs to stop at the convenience store ATM for some overpriced money. Dan does too. Also Josh. Amanda doesn’t need any but, you know, it wouldn’t hurt to get some Combos. This turns into getting sour cream doughnuts instead. And then there is great thrill at being off again.
There is also great thrill at seeing the trip’s first group of sheep. Who knew there were sheep and they were just standing there, tending sheep tasks, off on the side of the road, just like that was a normal thing? So, sheep. Yeah.
This is the time when everyone learns their friends have the worst taste in podcasts. Josh is partial to three guys laughing at each other, with occasional guest hosts. Dan prefers one guy trying to remember all the things he wrote down in the notes he doesn’t have. Sophia likes one person interviewing three people about something she never heard of before and will never hear about again. Amanda likes hyperbolic descriptions of movies and TV shows she never really watched, they were just on. Sometimes two or three can find a podcast that satisfies them, but there is no hope of all four enjoying what they’re listening to. The shows keep getting interrupted for explanations of the in-jokes that don’t need explanation.
It’s pointed out that if the trip doesn’t ultimately have a 360 degree turn then they can’t ever get home again.
That said, we are seeing what sure looks like a death of the current, 21st, Phantom, at the hands of Gravelines Prison guards. And Old Man Mozz, wilderness prophet, warned that going to Gravelines Prison would kill him, and also keep Kit Junior from being the 22nd Phantom. And even end the journey of the Walkers in Bangalla. So: is that what we’re seeing here?
The Phantom was ready to go to Gravelines Prison, in fascist Rhodia, to free Captain Savarna Devi. Savarna’s an oceangoing vigilante who could host her own action-adventure comic strip if action-adventure comic strips were sustainable yet. She’s helped The Phantom often. Most notably, she helped him free Diana from Gravelines in 2009-11’s 18-month-long Death Of Diana Palmer Walker. Old Man Mozz warns of a dire vision, that if he frees Savarna, The Phantom will ruin everything he holds dear. The Phantom pauses to hear what will happen.
And this strip — the 30th of June — is critical. Notice the broken panel borders. The story from this point continues to The Phantom busting into Gravelines Prison and breaking Captain Savarna out. But it is the story Mozz is telling, explaining to The Phantom what happens if he goes in as he plans. Yes, I missed the significance of this when it happened. In my defense the 30th of June was a busy day for me. Also, at least one of the X-Band Podcast hosts missed it too, and they’re hardcore Phantom fans. They’re people, with, like, collections of souvenirs and ranked lists of opinions and everything.
In Mozz’s vision, The Phantom disregards his warning that if he frees Savarna Kit Junior will never return to the Deep Woods. The Phantom regrets that he has to do this right after breaking out Captain Ernesto Salinas. Security will be more, if not more competent, right after that jailbreak. But many of the usual tricks still work. He stops a truck by putting signal flares in the road, and sneaking in the back doors. He sneaks through the prison by catching one guard at a time, knocking them out and tying them up.
I did see one commenter say this reads like a first-person shooter video game. I grant the resemblance. Whether you find this plausible, I suppose, depends on whether you think Gravelines Maximum Security Prison guards should be bad at their jobs. The comic does try to anticipate snarkers. The Phantom reflects how yes, they’ve increased the number of guards, but by dragging people who didn’t want to be prison guards into this job. (Seen the 17th of August, and reinforced the 28th of August.) That they’ll be people who will find good reasons in the rulebook about why they didn’t rush toward the gunfire.
And that I accept. First, the Phantom isn’t going to sit and listen to a story where he can’t even break open Gravelines. Second, what authoritarians rely on us forgetting is that authoritarians are incompetent. Making a competent organization requires getting subordinates to say what things are wrong, and what’s needed to fix them, and how it’s taking longer to fix than they expected. Authoritarianism demands reports that everything is swell. It can only create illusions of capability, which shatter in crisis. Third, the guards are people who grew up in a world where The Phantom is real and sometimes strikes Gravelines Prison. They have good reason to want to avoid him. So I buy most of the guards working to rule when The Phantom beelines for Captain Savarna’s cell.
The Phantom pauses for an oddly indirect question before freeing Savarna. When she pledges she’s had enough revenge he lets her out, and they begin the escape. They swipe a jeep and pretty near drive right out, helped by the number of guards who don’t want to be shot at over this. But there are the hardcore guards, the true believers in their mission, and they’re the ones who block the road. They shoot a lot at The Phantom and at Captain Savarna, who manage to drive through. The Phantom pulls off the road where he left his horse, Hero, tied up. He tells Savarna how to let Hero carry her back to Bangalla. As for The Phantom himself …
Well, this takes us out of the proper date range for this recap. But Savarna got a good look at The Phantom and gasped “Oh my god!!” And he’s bleeding. This is explained in the characters’ dialogue and action, but unfortunately is muddled in the coloring. Rather than use Guran’s wound-healing super-powder, he asks Savarna to let him rest a while.
Again, we are not seeing the death of the 21st Phantom. We’re seeing a death, something to happen if The Phantom disregarded Mozz’s advice. And, my understanding is, we’re to see more of what happens after this death, and what ruin it brings to the Walkers’ project. Tony DePaul said he thought the story might be the longest yet, at least comparable to the 18-month Death Of Diana Palmer Walker story. I trust it won’t all be warnings of how The Phantom’s marching towards death. I also expect there’ll be some clever way to rescue Captain Savarna from death row. But that’s the thing about expectations; so much of storytelling is subverting them.
Next Week!
Fairies and sea monsters! Some of my favorite material. It’s Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates’s Prince Valiant, if all goes well. Not to spoil things, though, but I haven’t had a thing go well since the 11th of August. Please send words of comfort and also large checks made out to Cash.
Not pictured: Forensics lab cop who had all the evidence but spent four years unsuccessfully begging everybody in the precinct to at least send one person to check out the guy who actually did it. All right, one more, but one who actually asks a relevant question this time. Please. Just this one time try taking this one suspect seriously for one minute.
Reference: Sir Gregor MacGregor and the Land that Never Was: The Extraordinary Story of the Most Audacious Fraud in History, David Sinclair.
Me: That’s it. I’m finally going to do whatever it takes to make iTunes stop showing me episodes of podcasts that I listened to one episode of, once, and never subscribed to.
Me, nodding: Yes, well-played. Very well-played, that.
For those who don’t remember this one: the 11th Amendment is the constitutional amendment which specifies zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZ [ falls out of the chair ]
Oof. Sorry there. right. No, the 11th Amendment is an important part of federalism because it guarantees zzsnrrrrZZZ [ falls asleep again, does not wake up until March ]
(PS: the episode is twelve minutes long in its entirely and about half of that is the host explaining how the schedule is changing and they’re trying different formats, so the actual content is maybe five minutes, which I think counts as officially dunking on the 11th Amendment.)
[ Translated from the gestures, modal dialogues, and inarticulate howls of boundless rage at my iPod Touch. ]
Me: OK, iTunes, resume.
iTunes: Happy to!
Me: …
iTunes: What?
Me: Resume my podcast.
iTunes: I didn’t know you had a podcast!
Me: Don’t ever talk like an online nerd. Resume the podcast I was listening to.
iTunes: Happy to!
Me: …
iTunes: What?
Me: Resume it now.
iTunes: Resume what now?
Me:That’s Grandiloquence. Three guys take turns pronouncing a word they only know from reading, and then get into a big argument about who’s least wrong. They’re doing their 40th-episode super-spectacular on ‘synecdoche’.
iTunes: What’s that word?
Me: ‘Synecdoche’.
iTunes: How do you pronounce it?
Me: Almost certainly wrong. That’s why I want to hear the podcast.
10 minutes because the episode’s an apology about not having put up a new episode in two months now.
18
51 minutes
25
135 minutes but because “this one’s for the fans”.
28
100 minutes
31
Episode 32
33
6 minutes, because the whole show is an extended apology about how their recording schedule’s really been disrupted because of all this life happening and they’re looking forward to getting back into the swing of things and have some great stuff for new episodes soon.
34
177 minutes
36
Is never published; hosts eventually apologize that something deleted the file and they’re really bummed about this but they’ll record episode 37 someday, which they still say they’ll do if you prod them on Twitter.
765. Date of the historical incident believed to have inspired, in distorted form, the fable of Jack the Giant-Killer, when seven flies were indeed killed in one blow by a giant rampaging through a middle-Uressexshire hamlet. Less famously the incident is also credited with creating the village of Flattstone-Under-Stompenhedge. It’s a little baffling how the story ended up like we know it today. Most historians of legend suspect “political satire around the time of the Commonwealth or Restoration”. But we’ll admit that’s their answer to everything.
797. Kanmu, Emperor of Japan, changes his residence from Nara to Kyoto but the student loan people find him anyway.
1602. Birth of Agnes of Jesus, who’d go on to become a nun in what seems like typecasting but there you go. Sometimes you just know what your course is in life.
1777. The Colonial Congress sends the Articles of Confederation to the British Parliament for ratification in a deliberately-arranged “accident” that both sides fail to use as a chance to apologize and try to come to some reasonable settlement of the whole matter. It ends up making everybody feel eight percent more awkward.
1810. Sweden declares war on the United Kingdom in order to start the Anglo-Swedish War, since it seems like a shame to have such a snappy name for a war and nobody declaring it or anything. The war ends two years later when they notice everyone’s been so happy with the stylish name and the idea of Sweden and the United Kingdom being at war that nobody ever bothered to fight the other side, and that isn’t even my joke.
1858. Day zero of the Modified Julian Day scheme so that’s why your friend who does all this database stuff with dates is staring wistfully out the window and wondering why we have to have a February even today. We do not; we have a February in-between January and March.
1869. The Suez Canal successfully links the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. Backers fail to reach their stretch goal of connecting the Mediterranean with either the Pacific Ocean, the Baltic Sea at Brunsbüttel, or Albany, New York. But they’re happy with what they did achieve and give out some commemorative coasters.
1933. The United States recognizes the Soviet Union.
1935. The United States recognizes the Soviet Union a second time when Guatemala explains how the two of them used to stand at the window outside the League of Nations building in Geneva staring inside and sometimes putting pickles from the burger stand down the way onto the window to see if they’d freeze in place there.
1946. Last use of a Murphy bed except in a black-and-white sitcom.
1952. Soap magnate Dr Emanual Theodore Bronner, serving his jury duty obligation for the civil court, is asked whether he is familiar with the law regarding trees and shrubs which overhang the property line. Both sides’ attorneys excuse him 36 seconds later. He finishes the first of many extremely considered sentences about the matter in December, and his whole thought about fallen branches by 1954 (estimated).
1961. The United States recognizes the Soviet Union again, but pretends to stumble and have to fiddle with its shoelaces a couple minutes while they pass on the sidewalk.
1973. One of the most successful weight-loss plans of the 70s gets started when Eater’s Digest publishes this compelling bit of reasoning. The reasoning: you can burn off more calories simply by going about your business while wearing weights. But what is fat except excess weight? And, better, weight that you can’t take off even if you want? Therefore simply by walking or standing or breathing or sleeping on your chest you’re burning off excess calories, thereby causing yourself to lose weight on the whole deal. And therefore being fatter is the quickest way to being thinner and, therefore, being overweight doesn’t exist and within two years everybody is.
2015. ‘Bob and Bert’ create the only podcast advertisement ever recorded that makes listening to the podcast sound appealing or desirable or even something other than just a bit of sadness. After the successful advertisement their Wheeler-and-Woolseycast releases one more episode, then misses four months for an unannounced hiatus, returns with a 15 minutes apology and explanation that it’ll be two months before they get back to their twice-a-month-schedule, and then never be heard from again.
So years and years ago two then-friends played a little prank on me. One said hello to me, and we chatted a bit about the day and how it was going. Twenty minutes later the other said hello to me, and used the same prompts, and got the same conversation out of me without my noticing.
I was listening to the Retro Radio Podcast of Vic and Sade and last week they had a thoroughly delightful episode. If you don’t care to deal with your podcast software — and I admit, given that I’m on iTunes, I’m quite fed up with mine — here’s a link to the file from archive.org. And I should have it embedded to play below, if I can remember how to do that right.
It’s the Vic and Sade episode of the 26th of September, 1944. And it’s got a classically simple premise. Uncle Fletcher has made Russell the present of a box of old letters. They start off magnificently mundane and petty. And then writer Paul Rhymer brought his absolute freaking genius to something that makes my anecdote something on point. I know that Vic and Sade isn’t to everyone’s taste — it’s not a program to listen to casually, and the comic style defies the picking-out of specific punch lines — but this one just sang.
(In other Vic and Sade podcast news, Jimbo over at The Overnightscape Underground has had a bunch of small episodes of the Vic and Sadecast the past couple weeks. I would like to share the URL for that, but iTunes isn’t letting me, because iTunes.)
More text that I couldn’t do anything with. If you can, congratulations!
Another problem is my speaking voice I sound like I’m being sarcastic. It’s an endemic problem with my family. Something in our upbringing caused us to transmute all our deepest Jersey vowels and verbal tics into, instead, conveying an eye-roll with the way we say words like “Hello” and “which”. I don’t think it was just my siblings and I trying to preemptively put one another down. We love each other, so far as we tell each other. But I can’t even say, “I spilled some tea and wanted to wipe it up” without sounding like I’m the one being hostile. I didn’t spill the tea on purpose. Anyway, a heavy dose of sarcasm is fine for some conversations, but not if you’re trying to make a real argument that, like, William Shatner showed a deft touch in some of the scenes he directed in Star Trek V: The One William Shatner Directed. See? You already think that’s me being sarcastic. — Cut from last week’s discussion about my lack of podcasting because it’s one of those paragraphs I thought up while in bed and figured oh, I’m definitely putting that in when I get up in the morning, and it was two days after I posted it.
ham sanitizer — Look, sometimes when you want to write a high-volume humor thingy you just go into these free-association free-form things and jot down whatever comes to mind and then you look at it afterwards and have to shrug because it doesn’t always pan out.
“The Tasmanian rainforest is considered a Gondwanan relic.” — Yes, that old Wikipedia statement once again, because I just can not make myself believe there’s nothing in there. But August was another month where whatever is there didn’t turn up for me. Maybe September.
hand satirizer — Again from the free-association free-form thingy and the thing to remember is that just because an idea pops into your head doesn’t mean you owe it the slightest gratitude for doing so. If it’s a good idea it’ll do some heavy lifting on its own and show why it’s a good idea and you don’t have to try building up every pair of words until it’s something.
Oh, yeah, I know how these things come about. You’re minding your own business and then you see this bolt of light and stop the car to examine. It’s this desperate, crashed alien who rallies himself from death long enough to transfer onto you a weird tattoo that tingles with a body-encompassing energy. The alien turns out to be this mutant human who half a millennium ago was a minor Dutch nobleman before being struck by a comet that granted him astounding superpowers he struggled to keep secret in his new not-quite-immortal life. Then you go on to discover that your own son, born with the powers of your now mutating body, will travel back in time hundreds of years to create a comet bearing the superpower tattoo, that proceeds to hit his own later self, given amnesia and planted in the Netherlands to be hit by the energy-bringing comet that sets this whole time loop into motion. I must know like twenty guys that’s happened to. — Cut because the person who was talking about this said no, he thought the character just inherited magical abilities from his father, and I pointed out that technically speaking that’s true in my scenario too, and the person shook his head sadly and walked away. This led us into a good argument about whether this would have been creating a paradox, or resolving a paradox, or avoiding a paradox altogether, and long story short we’re not speaking anymore and that person is justified.
yam sani– — No. Just, you know? No.
If you or someone you love is able to make use of these scraps please submit a comment care of the Bishopric of Utrecht, 1024 – 1528. Please be advised that responses might be delayed, as, according to a quick skim of Wikipedia’s articles abou the history of the Netherlands, it seems like there was a lot of investituring and annulling was going on back then and that probably has everyone quite distracted.
As a white guy who’s liked Popeye’s Fried Chicken I’m often asked why I don’t host a pop-culture hangout podcast. “Hey, you!” people will gather around my house to cry out. “There’s stuff you watch and read and listen to that you think is bad! Why aren’t you snorting into a microphone about that with some of your friends?” It’s becoming a nuisance. “I’m just putting these old fenceposts out for someone on Freecycle who says they’re going to pick it up tomorrow but is lying,” I answer. “I don’t have time to podcast!” They’re unmoved. But I have reasons.
First is that I have this problem with my voice. I mean, I have one that I use almost every day. But I’m hard to understand. I’ve avoided having my New Jersey accent be incomprehensible by not saying much of anything out loud. I’m not trying to hide my voice. I just don’t know how to talk loud enough to be heard over other people, or ambient music, or background noise like our pet rabbit breathing. Or my own breathing. When I say something the words come out of my mouth, then plummet, bouncing off my feet and rolling underneath the bookshelf, there to be harvested by mice.
Also I have to cough, a little but insistently, every 26 seconds. I’ve had this condition since like 1997. I’ve tried to ask my doctor about this, but she can’t hear me. We could edit around that, but editing seems like a lot of work for a pop-culture hangout podcast.
I could set the microphone on my feet so when words tumble onto them some get caught. But then there’s my sentence problem. At some point I figure I’ve said as much of any sentence as could benefit anyone to hear, and then I stop. I trust people to work out the rest. For example, suppose my love wants to know what that racket out back was. I might say, “I knocked over two of the empty flowerpots, but they didn’t break.” But that takes more words to say than interest in the subject warrants. I’m sorry to spend so much time on it now. So I would answer, “I knocked over two”, and figure that’s as much of that as anybody could stand. Oh, I’ll drift off, letting my voice get somehow even softer. My love can probably work out the rest of the sentence from context anyway. That and the flowerpots. But I know that’s not good asynchronous radio.
Plus there’s getting together with friends to record something. I’ve got friends, people I know well enough to help them move furniture. But most of them are online. We could only record a podcast by organizing whatever the Internet equivalent of a conference call is. I hear there are people who can do this. But I also hear there are people who can climb Mount Everest in their shorts or who can magic Magic-Eye Puzzles work. I’ll never manage the trick. People I know in real life — people near enough that I could lick their bodies — are mostly folks I see at pinball events. They’re fun to hang out with, but who could record over all that pinball and bar noise? I don’t know how pinball podcasts do it. I imagine a lot of shouting.
Oh gads and then there’s voices. I’d probably have to do some characters by way of funny voices. I can’t. I haven’t got any way of making my voice do anything on purpose. I could do a character that’s “me, only talking a little faster”. Or I can do “me, only talking a little slower”. But could I do, like, Columbo? Popeye? Any of the supporting cast of The Simpsons? Not even remotely. I’d have to call in experts to support me. That runs into money and social obligations.
Plus there’s having feelings about stuff. You can do a pop-culture hangout podcast about stuff you like, or about stuff you hate. But that means you have to like or hate stuff. I don’t trust strong feelings about stuff, even if they’re my own. It’s asking a lot out of me to have them, never mind to keep them viable for, what, a half-hour of recording before I can get to letters from listeners?
So that’s why, despite my record of being a guy who sometimes likes dumb stuff, I don’t figure on starting a podcast anytime soon. Thanks for listening, and remember, Patreon subscribers at the $5 or above level get my monthly special episode about which Funky Winkerbean comics most make you want to slug the guy who writes Funky Winkerbean. Next episode’s dropping Sunday. See you then. If you need some fenceposts, please, come take them now. They’re just taking up space.
Contestant on The Price Is Right playing “That’s Too Much” all wrong.
The bird feeder.
The trim brakes added to this roller coaster at Holiday World amusement park in Santa Claus, Indiana, where we do not live.
Web sites that give you the mobile version even when you’re on a regular computer.
This sparrow that wasn’t even looking at the red squirrel, honestly.
The shockingly narrow limits of human empathy for other humans even.
Cracked spines on paperback books.
The temperature drop overnight.
That it’s still so warm for this time of year.
How long it takes favorite podcasts to post new episodes.
Honestly this is making me feel a little better.
Another Blog, Meanwhile Index
The … main index? Yeah. Pretty sure it’s the mainstream Another Blog, Meanwhile index that’s reporting today. I don’t know why I’m having so much trouble keeping this straight. I think it’s because the alternating of indices is matched up with which ear our pet rabbit is supposed to get some medicine in. And I have a little note on the calendar to keep that straight, so why don’t I keep the index-reporting on a calendar like that? I don’t know, I’m just daft that way. Anyway, the mainstream index rose a point in trading that was pretty halfhearted, must be said. I think they were just going through the motions since they knew this all just got them back where they started.
Trying To Write A Whole Four Days Ahead Of Deadline For These Blogs
About Two Weeks
Forgetting Toothbrushes
(again?!)
Downloading Podcast Episodes Almost At Random Until There’s Like 65 Hours To Listen To
Two hours, plus three hours yelling at iTunes for not actually downloading the things I told it to
Worrying I Didn’t Pack Enough
(I never stop, even after the trip)
Spending Fourteen Hours Wikipedia-Binging Starting From The World ‘Envelope’
14 hours, 20 minutes
Turning Things Around The House Off
(can’t tell; accidentally turned off the clock I was using to time it)
Removing The Fourteenth Pair Of Underwear From My Duffel Bag, Trusting That If I Need That Many Over The Course Of A Three-Day Trip I Could Probably Buy One, Even If I Am In The Barely-Settled Wilds Of Sandusky, Ohio
Three minutes before I change my mind and put it all back
Panciked Buying Of Yes Albums So There’s Also That To Listen To
Six minutes, plus ten minutes punching iTunes
Emergency Game Of Europa Universalis III
Four years running now and I haven’t got the hang of it yet
Finding Every Possible USB Cable Except The One That Plugs Into My Camera
So what’s coming to the Internet to make you sick of things being on the Internet this month? Here’s our exclusive sneak preview.
Baby Guinea Pigs. It’s two minutes and forty-five seconds of baby guinea pigs sneezing. It’s a cute video but isn’t there anything else to do the whole weekend of the 5th? It’s cute but … oh, awwwww, the long-haired one has like five inches of hair trailing behind her.
Fabio. Remember Fabio? Back in the 90s he was kind of a celebrity because he looked good on romance books. Romance books are a lot like regular books except that people read them. And this made him famous even for people who don’t read romance books, because they figure they would read better stuff than that if they had time. Anyway, he looked good and this made him famous for some reason and we never really understood it then. He didn’t seem to understand it either. He spent 1991 through 1996 looking into cameras with the smile that says, “I have no idea why I’m here but I’m happy to be invited”. You know, the way two-toed sloths always do.
We haven’t heard from him in a while. Has he started saying things that would make us sad? Will it spoil the memory of a fondly-for-some-reason remembered celebrity? Has he got himself into personal or financial crises that make us sad to hear about? We don’t know, so the Internet is figuring to spend about two weeks studying whether we do want to know. Maybe he’s been all right. I mean, Dolph Lundgren’s in good shape, as far as we know without looking. Anyway, you are going to be so sick of the “Should we check in on Fabio” question before the 14th.
Kiss-guises. You know that thing of people dressing up in outfits to sneak a kiss in public? Of course you don’t, because it’s not a thing. But starting this weekend a strong contingent of the Internet is going to try insisting this is a thing, so they can say what a stupid thing it is. It’s not a stupid thing. Kiss-guises aren’t even a thing at all. But we’re all going to get so sick of the attacks on kiss-guises that people are going to go out and start getting kiss-guises out of spite and to get kissed. Look for it the 17th through the 27th.
Podcasts. You know how to tell when your podcast edits out the little silence between when the hosts are all laughing at each other and when they start saying something else? “Wait,” you protest, “what do I care about the secrets of editing audio recording?” You don’t, unless you’re listening to professional sound-editor podcasts. But don’t worry, come the 20th through 25th the Internet is going to make sure you can’t avoid learning, and can’t stop hearing these edits on all your favorite podcasts. This will be followed by a search for the podcasts where they don’t edit. They’re 12 percent silence and “uh” by content. Not hearing your actual favorite podcasts is a small price to pay for not hearing the time when your favorite podcasts don’t have anything to hear.
Pens. You know the bad thing about being the person who’s always got a pen? It’s the time you happen not to have a pen on you. Your whole social media microclimate will not shut up about how you’ve decided you’re tired of being the person who always has a pen to lend them. And you’ve figured to enact this decision in the most passive-aggressive manner possible. It’s not, OK? You just left the pen on the dining table for no good reason, it just happened. This one’s rolling out at different times all over the Internet. For me it’s this past week. I just forgot the pen, is all, it’s not anything more than that.
From our best projections the Internet should be at its peak tetchiness over all this from the afternoon of the 19th through the morning of the 22nd. You’ll maybe want to instead just take in a movie 36 times in a row. Or maybe the guinea pig thing 1,568 times in a row which isn’t enough.
Another Blog, Meanwhile 