RIP George

I’ll miss you more than all the others.

“The funny thing is they never even found out about the laundry basket.”

With those words, Ernest Pinkerton pressed the muzzle hard into the roof of his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Dr. Evans calmly put down his drill, removed his mask and latex gloves, and picked up the nearby phone. “Janice,” he said, “call the maintenance crew and warn them they may want to come in early tonight.” He hung up the phone and gazed out the window. “I think I’ll have chicken tonight,” he said to no one in particular.

Across town, his ex-wife Bess was trying in vain to capture one of her own farts in a mason jar.

I Lost Another Hero Today

I just heard that Arthur C. Clarke died today at the age of 90. He was not only my favorite SF author, but my favorite author period. I will miss him greatly.

I Am Fucking Pathetic

Why am I fucking pathetic? Is it because I finish nothing that I start? Sure, that’s part of it. Is it because every time I lose ten pounds I gain back fifteen? Yes, I suppose. Is it because I can’t seem to hold a fucking job? Well, that would seem to be the case. Is it because my entire life has been a steady cycle of unfulfilled expectations and self-loathing? Pretty much.

But right now, in this context, it’s mostly because I haven’t written a blog post in over four months. Four…fucking…months.

But it’s really even worse than that. I mean, it’s not like a four-month hiatus isn’t bad enough, but about the time I abandoned my poor little blog I had actually had some brief underground success. There was a week or so where I got picked up by stumbleupon and reddit, and they led to thousands of hits a day, almost entirely to one piece I wrote three years ago. At last, it was recognition. Maybe it was even confirmation that yes, I really could create something other people liked. Unfortunately, it was also confirmation that about half of all people are fucking idiots, but I’d suspected this for a long time anyway.

And while most hits came to that one page, there was some bleed-over. A few people went on to read other posts, and more than a handful linked to me. I showed up in some blogrolls. It was a hell of a time to suddenly not have anything to say. If I could have just posted a thing or two a week, I probably could have built up a decent readership. Maybe I could even have gotten enough recognition that somebody would pay me to write moderately witty diatribes against life in general. But who am I kidding, I’d have fucked that up too.

Yeah, so I guess I’m not in a very good place right now, but at least I wrote something.

Where Does Water Come From?

If a five-year-old ever asks you this question, the answer is “rain”. That’s it. That will be enough. A five-year-old has very little interest in the evaporation/precipitation cycle, and even less interest in hydrogen and oxygen and that they’ve been around since the big bang. By the time you get to the strong and weak nuclear forces, they’re ignoring you and have already gone back to coloring or watching Looney Tunes. So save your breath. Water comes from rain.

Wonder Showzen: 2005-2006

I guess it’s kind of old news, but my best friend just informed me that Wonder Showzen will not be coming back for a third season. Wonder Showzen has now earned that most unequivocal indicator of quality television: A premature cancellation.

And while it’s a shame, I can’t really be sad. In fact, I actually think I’m happier that it’s going out relatively unknown. I made a wonderful television discovery one morning at 3AM, shared it with my closest friends (some of whom thought I was insane to like it, but were not at all surprised that I did), and now it’s gone before it could be mass-marketed, cross-promoted, and brand-built. I have the DVD’s, so Chauncey and the gang will always be there for me and anybody I think is fucked-up enough to withstand the stark, ugly, profound truths it exposes.

A Prediction

Stephen Colbert, in honor of The Colbert Report’s one-year anniversary, is auctioning off the portrait that has hung over his fireplace since the debut of his show, all proceeds to be given to charity. In under a half hour it’s gone from $300 to just over $40,000 on ebay. Soon as he announced the auction on his show, I predicted it would sell for $75,000. I’m sticking with that. Check back in 10 days to see just how far off the mark I am.

And by the time I finished this post, it had already topped $100,000. No “I Called It” balloons for Dave.

Added on 10/20: And most of those bids were fake, as I started to guess when it topped $600K in under an hour. Throw them out and it’s down to a little over $5000.

Added on 10/27: Final price is $50,605.00. Not exactly the $75,000 I predicted, but still a pretty good showing.