Bloggy McBlog Blog

Time was a man could have a cup of coffee at Starbucks without having to worry about people talking about him and giggling behind his back. Used to be you could have a cup of coffee and JUST BE LEFT ALONE in order to DRINK YOUR COFFEE IN PEACE! There didn’t used to be neo-nazi sex-girls in black and red spandex repeating quotes from Nitche over and over again in appalingly well pronounced Hoche Douche in the back of every coffee shop. A cup of coffee also used to only be $3.50.

I don’t know about you, but I prefer to add my own sugar and milk. They never get the proportions quite right if they do it for you. And if a cup of coffee isn’t just right that’s an opportunity for a perfect cup of coffee that you’ve missed and is gone forever! You can’t get it back. It’s over. You’re one cup of coffee closer to DEATH and you had a cup of coffee that wasn’t just how you like it. Maybe it had too much sugar in it. Maybe it’s not so weird to want two and a HALF sugars in your coffee. Maybe that’s not so strange. Maybe you shouldn’t make fun of people who ask for that if you run a coffee shop. Maybe you should just make the coffee the way they ask!

And the people in the coffee shop. So many laptops. Some people have three or four. Standing waiting for a table with a laptop in each hand and one tucked under one arm and another held between their knees. So that when a table does become available they drop the one between their knees rushing to get it before some yoga-toned young mother with a stroller and a baby in the stroller gets to it, her breasts screaming “Look at us! Look at us! We’re producing nutrients!” And she sits there, her own laptop perched on the baby’s stomach while she changes it’s diaper and gives it a bottle full of chai, smiling up at the poor man, who has just somehow aquired six more laptops from somewhere. And he smiles back, because what else can you do? You can’t scream at her, you can’t scream “CAN’T YOU TELL I WAS HERE FIRST! I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR A TABLE AND YOU TOOK THIS ONE THAT I WAS LEGITIMATELY ENTITLED TO! IT’S UNFAIR! UNFAIR! I SHOUT TO THE GODS! UNFAIR!” Not in front of the baby. It would cry.

Even I bring my laptop to the coffee shop. But I have to. I have to keep working. I have to keep up with the Work. It’s getting hard. It’s weighing me down, but that’s what is expected of you when you are king of the bloggers.

New York, NY — One of the candidates for president recently asked that people not protest and disrupt the upcoming political meetings. I have to agree with him or her. I know it may be upsetting to you that I will not run for president, or even vice president, but it is the case. PLEASE DO NOT DISRUPT EVERYTHING IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY WITH YOUR PROTESTS!!! THAT IS NOT THE WAY TO MAKE ME LIKE YOU!!!
Everyone wants their betters to think well of them. When I was younger and had betters I wanted them to like me too. Sometimes they did. Sometimes they didn’t. When they didn’t I know it was because of stuff they were going through at home, like the passing of a parent or loved one or a messy divorce. I remember one teacher who I liked a lot until I heard her mentioning to another teacher in the hall that someone with the same name as me should probably be institutionalized. Later I found out that her cat had died several years earlier, so that explained a lot.
Here are some things you can do to make people like you, your betters or your worsers:
1) Upgrade them from coach to business class.
2) Don’t CANCEL CHECKS you have written to them JUST BECAUSE THE FIRST BOX WAS EMPTY!!! It might just be a mistake and another BOX WILL PROBABLY ARRIVE SOON!!!
3) Everyone likes cocoanuts.
4) Have sex with them, ONLY IF they find you attractive. If they find you repulsive, don’t have sex with them. It will have the same effect.
5) Take them to the movies, but let them pick the movie. You can pick the snacks. Though everyone likes popcorn. And cocoanuts (see #3).
6) Watch a lot of TV. The commercials will give you lots of ideas of nice things you can do for people. Things you can send them. Cards you can buy with nice things already written in them so you don’t really have to do anything.
7) If you are very fat, please do not go to the mall. The aisles are very narrow. People can’t get past you. It would be a nice thing for those people if you staid home. You shouldn’t be eating the food at the mall anyway. Never insist that someone should have to go get a “real” job JUST TO MAKE MONEY TO HELP TAKE CARE OF THEIR FAMILY!!! Some people have better things to do and it is nicer for those people, if they have a great work to work on, not to be reminded that you might be a little “disappointed” about how things are going, or how many borders you have to take in, or home many times you have to give blood or ANY OF THOSE THINGS WHICH YOU SHOULD DO OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF YOUR HEART!!!
9) Most people like to be reminded that things could always be worse.

New York, NY — At last I can tell the story the world has been waiting to hear. The story of the King of the Bloggers on jury duty. Sworn to secrecy during the case I could tell you nothing of the drama, the suffering, the drama and the other stuff of the trial. No it can all be told.
Listen now to a story of alleged DENTAL MALPRACTICE among foreigners living HERE IN OUR COUNTRY. ALIENS if you will. People whose English is not that good at all. And some of them are dentists. Some of them go to dentists. One of these people has problems with their teeth. They go to another one of these people, one who is a dentist. He, the dentist, DRILLS IN HER TEETH WITH A DRILL! He hollows them out and shoves metal posts into them using cement. MY GOD HE DRILLS INTO HER TEETH!!! And that’s not even what she’s suing about. Can you imagine? He drilled with a drill inside her mouth, down into the roots of her TEETH and that’s not even what she’s mad about.
“Lady,” I said, “Lady, are we to believe that you don’t mind having someone using power tools in your mouth, but THERE ARE OTHER THINGS YOU DO NOT LIKE?”
“Well, but, but…” She said.
“I object,” said some lawyer.
Clearly I would have to solve the case myself.
Imagine if you will. A locked room. A dead body. The only other thing in the room is an elephant. What could have happened? Who could have done this crime? The ELEPHANT? NO! We can not talk about the elephant, so it can’t be guilty apparently. And how do we know he’s really dead?
Only one person can solve this crime! The KING OF THE BLOGGERS and consequently KING OF THE CRIME SOLVERS!!!!

New York, NY — I am on hold. They are going to return to take my call shortly. My call is important to them. I don’t have a problem with any of these things. People complain all the time about being put on hold. But what do they expect? They think there will be someone at the place they are calling just sitting there waiting IN CASE THEY CALL? The company would have to have one phone operator for each person who might call. That could mean having millions of people waiting for calls, all day and all night. CALLS THAT NEVER COME. How sad would the lone person at Microsoft who is supposed to answer calls from me be? I never call them. I have no reason to call them. But that poor person sits there, day in and day out, waiting for me to call. Perhaps he or she has a picture of me in their cubicle.
Think also of the person at the phone company and the one at FedEx, all of them waiting for me to call. Perhaps they would form a little club, where they would trade pictures of me an little facts and tidbits about my life.
“Did you know that when he was a boy he had a shirt with Grover from Sesame Street on it?” One would say to another one at one of their Thursday evening meetings.
“No, I did not,” the other one would answer, looking dreamily at a picture of me on my tricycle wearing said shirt. “It is a fine shirt that he had. I wish he needed to wash that shirt and his washing machine was broken so he would call me and ask about getting it repaired!” Tears would roll down this person’s face, “No! I didn’t mean it,” they would say. “I don’t want any sort of bad things to happen to him. I want his washing machine to always be working perfectly, but if only he would have a question about it, about what kind of detergent to use or whether it can be stacked with a dryer. Anything, anything at all…” And they would sob quietly to themselves. The other people at the meeting would pat them on the back and give sympathy.
So much sadness these people would have.
The only sensible thing would be for all these companies to get together and hire just a single person to answer my questions on all the different products and services that they offer. That one person could wait quietly for my call, AND I WOULD CALL. Not very often perhaps, but every couple of weeks. And they would be able to offer me quite a high level of service because they would get to know me and spend their down time learning all about me. “I see that you like Irish Folk Music, but not about political or religious conflict, I will play some for you while I put you on hold…”
Such a system would be almost perfect.

New York, NY — Today I learned a valuable lesson. Expect the unexpected. And that’s not easy, let me tell you. You may think that you can do it, but it’s hard. It’s easy enough to pretend that you did expect the unexpected, but saying “Oh, I knew that was going to happen” after whatever it was that happened that wasn’t expected, but that’s just CHEATING! You have to actually expect it. You can’t just accept after the fact that a pigeon will fly into the cab you are driving as a part time job because SOMEONE HAS MADE AN ULTIMATUM ABOUT EARNING MONEY NOW AND NOT IN THE FUTURE and poop on the meter so that the “toll” button will get stuck and everyone who gets into the cab will be forced to pay the toll for going through the Holland Tunnel, even if they don’t want to go through it and so you will have to take everyone through it just to make the meter come out right and eventually you will have to explain the whole thing to A POLICEMAN who will be fat and will be mad at you because though he denies it he has heard of you and knows that some people WHO ARE WRONG think you hate fat people. You have to expect all that to happen. And while you are expecting it to happen you have to also expect it not to happen, which is really much more likely, since once you start expecting it to happen it not happening becomes the unexpected and that’s what you have to expect and pretty soon you just can’t get out of bed, no matter who threatens you with what sort of legal action.
So let that be a lesson to you.

New York, NY — What the hell is that? Who the hell would want to eat chicken from the sea? Who thinks, “Hey, how can we make our canned fish sound more appetizing? Let’s compare it to chicken, everyone’s least favorite land-based meat!” Talk about stupid. Bacon of the Sea would have been better. Or how about veal of the sea? Too political? Maybe Filet Mignon of the Sea. If that’s too far afield why not, “Fish of the Sea.” Or to add a dash of imagination “Salmon of the Sea?” That would be a clever name for a brand of tuna wouldn’t it?

New York, NY — My mind, pregnant with blogging possibilities now must labor to push out ANOTHER BLOG. Where will I get my ideas? How can I sustain this level of creative activity? Many people ask that. I tell them I don’t know. But as much as I feel I can’t go on, that same amount, or maybe just a little more, I feel I can’t stop. The next blog is in there, pushing at the backs of my eyeballs, standing on my inner ear, waiting for it’s moment. I can no more hold it back than I can hold back the laughter of children at the circus when all the clowns come pouring out of the clown car and the third or fourth clown along is dressed like a firefighter and he sprays the kids with a hose, but instead of water out comes confetti. And out of my hose come BLOG ENTRIES!

Nothing.

New York, NY — Who knew that blogging could be such a trial. I look up to see that we’re only 4 days into 2007 and already I’m exhausted by the sheer creative effort of producing so much quality work. I could lower my standards, but how could I do that to Scotty and all my other loyal readers. How many posts has it been so far? Probably not that many. Amazing how much of an impact I’ve had already.
I don’t know how long I can go on. I have no time for sleeping or eating. No more than usual, anyway. My fingers ache from the constant rat-a-tat-tat on the keyboard. My mind spins from having to come up with one brilliant idea after another. I want to throw the window open and scream “What do you want from me, world! I’m just one man! I’m not a machine!” But I don’t because I know the neighbors will complain.
Is it all worth it? I have to keep reassuring myself that it is. If I can reach just one, just one, maybe two, million people and touch their hearts, make them really feel, then I could sell some serious advertising. And then I could hire someone else to do the actual blogging. I could also get some interns. Hubba-hubba. And not Congressional style interns, real interns. Undergraduates from FIT.
But all that’s for the future. Right now I have to concentrate on THE WORK. That’s what it’s all about. THE WORK.
Sorry, I had to stop for a minute because I had another coughing fit. I start to shake all over and I fall on the floor with the coughing and the muscle spasms. Blood drips from my ears. I roll around in pain for half an hour or more. Then it slowly passes. I asked my doctor about these attacks and he said, “Mr. McBlog, or whatever your name is supposed to be, you just have to slow down. You can’t work like this. You’ll be dead before 2008 if you don’t take it easy.” “Take it easy,” I say to him, “and what about the blogging? The world needs this! I am Bloggy McBlog Blog, king of the bloggers.” “Yes, I know, you said that when you came in.” He says. “Well, good,” I say. “Fine.” He says. “Fine.” I say. Then there’s an awkward silence. He looks down at his feet, shuffling them pointlessly. I think he wants to ask me for my autograph, but now he’s embarrassed. Finally he leaves and the nurse comes in with my lollipop.
“Mr. Whosis.” She says. “I appreciate what you’re doing.”
I chuck her under her chin. She’s a looker. If things were different I might really go for a girl like that. But I don’t have time. Not now. Not for Bloggy McBlog Blog, King of the Bloggers.

New York, NY — Already the interweb is agog with excitement. I have to admit to a certain amount of intellectual tumescence myself. Bloggymcblogblog.com is humming to life like a great mechanical cyberbull in the cultural honky-tonk that is modern life.
Here is what one educated pundit had to say in response to my last posting:

“By my estimate, based on the time to read the last entry: you will be spending 148 hours per week on your blog project by mid July. That leaves 2.5 hours per day, and it’s that kind of consistent dedication that leads me back and back and back again to the same conclusion: This is the most important cultural undertaking since the painting of the Sistene Chapel ceiling, since the coming of Christ, since the invention of the telephone.”

A little over the top? Perhaps. Inappropriately so? I don’t think so.
There’s a new wind sweeping down on the world. A new hope welling up in our hearts. Is it just the death of long-time foreigner Saddam Hussein, executed like a retarded juvenile offender in Texas (only without as much due process)? Is it just a newly elected democratic Congress and Senate, featuring Senators who will legislate FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE? Is it AT&T’s commitment to uphold “Net Neutrality” providing no one involved in enforcing it learns what it is? Is it all these things?
No, it’s me! It’s my great work. It’s people’s hope that Bloggy McBlog Blog can finally breathe some life into the internets. Can finally get people to sit up and take notice of what one DARPA scientist once referred to as “A way to connect computers together.” It may seem like nothing, an arcane way for scientists at remote institutions to share research, but I believe, and I think I’m the only one who has realized this, that with a little help, with one great masterwork, the internets could be so much more. People from almost any walk of life, educators, scientists, researchers, teachers, professors, physicists, chemists, almost anyone, could benefit from connection to the internets. And I alone will fuel this revolution. Within months of the beginning of this project I predict that tens of hundreds of people will connect to the internets for the first time.
But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. We all need to sit down and take a deep breath. We’re all too excited. And we all know what our doctor said about getting too excited. We all need to go to our happy place and say our happy words. But we can’t find our stuffed animal friend, so we become frantic and pretty soon we’re all locked in the bathroom with the water running in the shower and the sink, counting the aspirin in the aspirin bottle again and again. All of us. Doing that.
Anyway. 2007 is well underway. The year of Bloggy McBlog Blog! King of the bloggers!