I Do Jurassic
This month my wife and I will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. (She registered us at Home Depot if anyone is interested.)
Ten glorious years. How to properly signify such an event? I, for one, want to renew our wedding vows. Because, have you seen the Jurassic Park wedding photo craze going around?
It works like this:
First, get Jeff Goldblum to attend your function. Next, pick an expansive outdoor location that will make a good backdrop for your photographic for your marital hijinks. Prepare your guests so that when the photographer says, “Say cheese!” that’s their cue to act like idiots. Last, but not least, photoshop something into the background like a T-Rex or Olivia Wilde feeding her baby.
Viola! Say adios to traditional boring ceremony and hola to hilarious social virality.
For sprinkles on top I’m going to mix in some twerking, planking and, my personal favorite, on ongoing web-series where I recreate iconic photos from history like Marilyn Monroe getting her dress blown up. (These shots will be worth the wait. I promise.) We’ll also do lots of shots of people jumping in the air with brooms and looking like idiots from Harry Potter.
Now that I think about it, I don’t know if any record of our original vows exist. I remember the wife wrote some for her. I have these memories that I was supposed to do something similar. I totally remember her going on and on about it. And, I’m pretty sure I treated the event like a poetry slam and improvised some pretty impressive shit. True, we no longer have an exact record but I’m pretty sure it liberally featured things like “I love you” and “you are beautiful” and “I’m sorry.” Really good stuff.
The point here is that you have to make your wedding fun and memorable and viral for people other than yourselves. That reminds me: All wedding guests will have to grow beards and wear fedoras.
Or maybe we could forget all that, go green screen, and get J. J. Abrams to shake a camera and add lens flares?
This is going to be so cool! Truly the event of the season.
We’ll simulcast a live video feed of the event along with microblogs on Twitter. Sure my iPad will be in every shot but it’ll be worth it.
I almost feel like I’m forgetting something. Oh yeah! Who’s my wife again? Because, it’s all about the special love between two people. Yeah, right!
Top Ten Things You Need To Know About Top 10 Lists
All the way from the home office in Boring, Oregon, comes tonight’s top ten list. You clicked here. You deserve this shit.
Beware anyone who comes at you with a Top 10 list. They are out to get you.
Top Ten Things You Need To Know About Top 10 Lists
10. If they build it you will come. The assumption is being made that when your brain sees “Top 10” you’ll click the link faster than a monkey pounding a button for a banana. Because, mmm, banana!
9. Fast acting. They know you have the attention span of a gnat on Heisenberg’s Blue Sky meth. Wait. What?
8. Unefficiency. Forcing content into a rigid format isn’t necessarily the best way to communicate information and ideas. It’s one of those “square peg – round hole” kind of dealios.
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Top 10 things to do during a Twitter outage
What? I can't hear you! Something about fail and a whale?
Have you prepared your Twitter Disaster Response Kit yet? Hint: When Twitter is down, that might be a good time to think about it. Suddenly you’re going to have plenty of free time. Not that you’ll be able to microblog the experience.
Okay, first things first. Twitter is down. Maybe you get the legendary “fail whale.” Maybe it just sits there and just sits*. (Trust me. It’s not thinking.) Maybe the little circular “wait” icon keeps spinning and spinning to let you know it’s doing something. I tried to out-wait the icon but gave up after a quarter hour, thus burning any shot I ever had at my 15-minutes of fame.
If you merely get a blank screen, try to refrain from punching your monitor. That won’t help anyone.
Twitter is down. The first thing to remember is: Stay the fuck calm!!!!!! Do not bludgeon the heads of passerby unless absolutely necessary.
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10 blog writing tips to ignore
A visual representation of a typical shout from the Abyss
I recently had a brutality visit me regarding my blog.
While signing up for podcast hosting, I was asked to categorize my blog. This is when I realized, “Gee. I must be weird.” When something is that hard to define, you just might have a problem on your hands.
Politics? No, even though I occasionally tackle that topic.
Education? Maybe to some small degree. Guru advice on negativity and the gerbil studies institute (G.R.I.P.E.) might count. (Admittedly that’s quite a stretch.)
Philosophy? Science? Religion? Recipes? Babies? Cats? It seems I’ve dabbled all over the place. Am I just scatterbrained?
Turning to my “tag cloud” for inspiration I realized my #1 all-time tag is “poop.” But I didn’t see a category for that. How could anyone leave “poop” off a list of blog categories? Unconscionable!
Since my blog hops around more than a Mexican jumping bean, this left me in a quicksand of quandary. That simple question about “categorization” had forced me to come face to face some some grim demons.
Bottom line? I had to go with a branch of “Entertainment.” More specifically, “Comedy.” If I’m brutally honest with myself that’s really the only thing that fits, all things considered.
Are you not entertained?!?!?
So yeah, when it comes to my blog, I’m an … entertainer. Note: That is decidedly not that same as saying anyone who ever reads this blog is “entertained.” Those are two wildly different things!
So I selected “Comedy” from the drop down list and saved my entry.
But that’s not all. Then I came across one of those “list” posts. You know the type? Where they garishly entice you in with the sparkly promise of “top ten” of this or the “six ways” to improve that?
Blah blah blah.
Lists are popular. Lists attract readers. Magazines and newsstands know this. Next time you see some magazines look for this phenomenon. See anything like this? “The top 10 ways Bennifer conspired with TomKat behind Brangelina’s back.”
Yes, don’t overlook the fact I’m doing the very same thing in this post. Meh. Don’t be angry at me. You’re the one who fell for it!
Anywho, the list I came across was something like “Top Blogging Tips” and as I read those tips, a familiar sinking feeling began to engulf me.
Me and my blog violated all of them.
Wow. That’s some talent! Without further ado here are some of the promised 10 ways I suck:
- “Cultivate Good Writing.” Ha! Nuff said. Let’s move on.
- “Don’t write about yourself.” Ooops!
- “Try not to whine or complain too much.” Actually, here I think I do okay. I can’t stand complaining. That’s probably the one area of my life where I show the most restraint, don’t ya think?
The other seven examples were cut by my editor prior to publication. Unfortunately our headline writer was not informed.
So, I don’t know. Personally I think wallowing in filth, despair and self-pity makes for compelling blogging, but that’s just me. I’m open-minded enough to realize not everyone may agree.
Shouts from the Abyss 
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