One of the reasons I started this blog was to record those little moments of life that are at once amusing, frustrating, and, well, that's pretty much it, but I try to use lists of three as often as possible since that seems to be the thing to do, but it looks like I've failed on this one. So anyway, one of those amusing moments happened to me just now. I had recently installed something on this here laptop, and as I was about to access another program on the programs list of the start menu for Windows XP, it comes up with this little bubble, saying, "New programs installed." I mean, give me a break. I know new programs are installed. I installed them! Gah! Stupid computers.

That's all. Be blue, squares.

So, here is another carcast for you all to enjoy. It's now 96 kbps in .mp3 format, making it about 4 MB or so of 6-minute long ramblings. Thanks to FIAR and Harvey for their suggestions. I'll work on getting it so you can just hit a button and play without having to download it (I might use CastPost, but they have a 100 MB limit, and I don't like limits), per Saumanahaii's suggestion. They all have ended up being about 6 minutes long, so unless you all want to hear about my girl problems or hear me just repeating "doom, doom, doom" over, and over, and over, I think we'll keep it to about that length and make them available to listen via streaming. But for now, download away, and *cough* enjoy *cough*.

Feel free to comment as to how I can improve these carcasts - either their sound quality or their, er, literary quality. And just to avoid a slew of comments, "shutting the hell up" is not an option for me right now, thanks. *Phew.* Slew of comments narrowly avoided. Heh.

Some things are so stupid, you can't bother arguing with them. All you can do is laugh. This is one of those times:

"Chimps and apes to get same rights as humans" in Spain. Yes, that's right, the same, exact rights. [HT: IMAO]

I wonder, though, if they will have to obey the same laws. After all, isn't it only fair that the laws restricting us, the ones by which we have to abide in order to have some freedom, also apply to everyone else who's generally equal to us at least in some sort of, er, Platonic, sense? Okay, okay, so monkeys can't talk, reason, or, you know, do anything much that we humans do, but still, since they're equal to us Homo sapiens in Spain, at least, I think they should have to follow our laws.

So, it is my proposal that because of all the years of enlightenment from our wonderful universities that have come to show us that apes, chimpanzees, etc., are, in fact, our equals (never mind the fact that the closest thing said animals have to universities is, um, heck, I don't know, but it ain't much, I'm sure), we should adopt the same laws as Spain here, but go even further by making sure all of our newly found U.S. citizens obey the same laws as we. Here are just four examples:

1) It may be difficult to get an ape to wear clothes, but by golly, I know that it he or she is just the same as you and me, and if I have to wear clothes, it he or she should, too. Indecent exposure, people! Come on. I don't want my child to have to see his genetic cousin stark naked, do you?

2) It might take a while convincing doctors that Medicare should cover our apey friends, but I think in the end, it'll be worth it. After all, constantly examining human's bodies must be boring. Why not throw in a few banana-wielding, erratically behaving screechers for a little variety? The veteranarians might get upset about losing a fraction of their market, but I think the real problem will be trying to convince Mincaye of the Waodani that he can't eat them any more. (If anyone gets that last joke, let me know.)

3) Some might complain that getting monkeys to follow traffic laws will be cumbersome. Some might even say it's "impossible." Fools! If, as the article linked above said, apes can solve complex puzzles that a two-year-old human can't (because obviously, a two-year-old human is now the standard age of comparison for humans to other, full-grown mammals), why won't they be able to stop at red and go at green? You're just being bigoted if you think differently.

4) Finally - and this is the really tough one - I think all our primate friends should undergo potty training. I realize this is tough, but what if my monkey neighbor is visiting from next door, and he just can't control himself? It may be embarrassing, and I apologize to all the non-human readers of this blog (besides MoxArgon), but this might become a problem that I just won't be able to handle.

So, there we have it, an airtight case for adopting all the monkeys in the U.S. as citizens and giving them our freedoms, but also making them follow our laws. But why stop there? After all, we've only given full rights to our nearest "evolutionary ancestors." What about all the other living things in this world? And even then, what about unliving matter? Who's to define what's living and what's dead? Dirt and rock, for example, are just like us -- they're made up of molecules, and, and, they're on this planet, and I'm sure they have some sort of complex social structure that we are too ignorant and brutish to understand! Once again, if we give rights to every living existing thing out there, they will have to become full-fledged citizens and obey our every laws. It might be harding getting quarks to follow the speed limit, but it's only fair.

It's time for a little quiz.

Q: How many times must one hit "Ctrl + Z" in order to erase an arrow one has just drawn in MS Paint?

A: Two! One to erase one half of the pointy part of the arrow, and one to erase the other pointy part and the straight line part of it.

Q: How stupid must the Blue Square be to have saved his latest "Moment in the Life of . . . Me!" in Paint, knowing that the .jpg quality would decrease, making the labels less legible than if he had saved it with another program?

A: Very stupid.

Q: How moronic forgiving must the readers of the Order of the Blue Square be to deal with it and read his latest "Moment" anyway, knowing that they will, in fact, be making an extra effort to read something that is not at all worthwhile reading in the first place?

A: Very, very forgiving.

Q: Assuming that these very, very forgiving readers actually exist, what must they do in order to read the Blue Square's latest ramblings?

A: Click on the small, un-labeled version of the image below.

It's always fun to browse around the IMAO archives, seeing what you find. I recently found this and thought I would answer it, because if there's any blogger out there that needs to have his credibility checked, it is most certainly me.

THE "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?" BLOGGER QUIZ

1. Who the hell do you think you are?

The Blue Square, of course.

2. So, other than blogging, what's your job? Do you work at some fast food joint, dumba--?

I write for a newspaper. And watch your language.

3. Do you have like any experience in journalism, idiot?

See number 2.

4. Do you even read newspapers?

Reading is hard.

5. Do you watch any other news than FOX News propaganda, you ignorant fool?

I don't even watch FOX News. It's too far to the left.

6. I bet you're some moron talk radio listener too, huh?

You know, you should watch your adjectives there. Kind of confusing. Anyway, to answer your question, no. I listen to Rush & Hannity online.

7. So, do you get a fax from the GOP each day for what to say, you @#$% Republican parrot?

You're so 20th century. I receive them via e-mail.

8. Why do you and your blogger friends want to silence and fire everyone who disagrees with you, fascist?

Um . . . because we're fascists?

9. Are you completely ignorant of other countries, or do you actually own a passport?

What's a passport? Is it like a note to go to the bathroom or something?

10. Have you even been to another country, you dumb hick?

Does New Mexico count? I mean, it's not Mexico, but it's kind of like the new and improved version, I guess.

11. If you're so keen on the war, why haven't you signed up, chickenhawk?

If you're so down on the war, why haven't you gone to fight for the terrorists, chickenhawk?

12. Do you have any idea of the horrors of war? Have you ever reached into a pile of goo that was your best friend's face?

That's funny. You speak as though you actually have. As to the horrors of war, does playing Cowboys & Indians as a child count? No one actually died or anything, but I thought the cap guns and little feather headress things were pretty realistic.

13. Have you ever reached into any pile of goo?

No, but I have had the urge to slap you in the face, which is pretty much the same thing.

14. Once again, who the hell do you think you are?!

Once again, the Blue Square. Beat that.

So I was driving on 66 West, and what do I find? A car on fire. "How intriguing," I said to myself. As I passed the cars (not pictured here) that were blocked by the row of cones closing all lanes, I stuck my thumbs in my ears, spread out my fingers, waved my hands, rolled down the window, and screamed, "Na, na na, na boo boo!" The cars on either side of me didn't like the fact that I didn't have my hands on the wheel, but they didn't seem to mind too much. They seemed to shout a little, but they were going so fast that all I could see was a finger, like they were wagging it or something, except they had the back of their hand to me. What idiots. They don't know how to wag their finger properly. How dare they say I drive poorly! Anyway, here it is:



As always, click on the small image to get the large, helpfully labeled version so I can dictate to you the significane of every minute detail in this picture. Sorry for the blurriness -- that's what you get when you're trying to answer a cell phone call, turn up the air conditioning, make fun of the stopped cars while rolling down the window in order to do so, drive, and take a picture with a 1.2 MP PDA camera at the same time.

The Dimmer Switch recently wrote about something new to me: a writing process known as "phoning it in." It's kind of like freewriting, except you pay just a little bit more attention to what you're putting on the paper -- or on the computer screen, as the case may be.

As I read Chris's writing, it donned on me: This is what I do all the time! The Order of the Blue Square is composed entirely of "phoning it in"!

Now, just as in politics, I can "cut this both ways," as Fyodor Dostoevsky would say. On the one hand (as, er, Tevye might say), phoning it in gives the reader a close sense of reality, of connecting with the author. On the other hand, it can produce absolute dribble and ramblings, kind of like J.K. Rowling's writing.

Oops, did I say that out loud?

No, you didn't. You typed it.

Oh, phew. Thanks.

No problem. By the way, you're talking to yourself again.

No I'm not. I'm typing to myself. Oooh, got you there!

Ahem. What's up with all those literary allusions, I don't know, but just to clarify, I don't hate Rowling's work. She's not that bad. Tolkien, Lewis, and others do, in fact, put her to shame, but the main reason I make fun of her on occasion is that it makes some people really mad, and seeing some people really mad is really funny.

Some people say with how smart I seem (stop laughing), they just know I'm going to run for president. Yet with the stuff I write on this blog, I don't see it coming. Seriously, making fun of someone just to see someone else get mad? That's so wrong. But considering the fact that I have five sisters and no brothers, can you blame me? And I don't mean in the literal "sinner, repent from thy wayward path" blame me, because of course you can blame me that way. I mean "can you blame me" in the secular, evade-responsibility kind of way, in which case, no, you can't blame, because I just asked that rhetorical question, and your proper response to it is silence.

. . . and with that, folks, the Blue Square is back in business. Expect a few "moments" to come sooner or later. I didn't take all that many pictures -- in fact, none -- of my actual work site down where I was spreading fundamentalist Christianity through the strange method of repairing someone's roof, mainly because I was working my rear end off in 90 degree weather on a 36 degree or so slanted roof. I do, however, have a picture of a burning car on the interstate! How cool is that? Stay tuned.

Oh, and here's a random funny from the life of the Square. Regarding a recent graduation present given to me:

Blue Square: Do you think that would qualify as a concealed weapon?

Friend of Square [examining said present]: Nah, I wouldn't worry about it. Just keep it hidden.

You know when you're driving along on a long car trip by yourself, and you see something and get angry, and you yell for at least 5 minutes, explaining to yourself how clearly in the right you were, and how much of a jerk that guy in front of you was? Don't lie. Admit it. You talk to yourself in the car. With the relatively recent development of the Eisenhower Interstate System, this has become an even more prevalent problem among middle-aged men. (I was once told that I had the sense of humor of a middle-aged man, regarding women, at least.)

Do not fret, however, because I have the solution. Go out and buy yourself a voice recorder of some sort, preferably one that has easy transfer capabilities to a PC, such as the one on my Zire 72 PDA. Remember to always have it in the car with you. Then, when you're feeling especially angry about something or just feel like talking aloud to yourself for no apparent reason, hit the "on" button, and ramble away. Then upload that file to a blog of yours, perhaps using CastPost if you don't have your own server. This way, whenever you feel like yammering on about yourself or others while in the car alone, you can justify it by saying that other people will get to hear what you have to say via your blog, and it's all worth it anyway. Never mind the fact that of the very few readers who do read your blog, a small percentage (i.e. none) of them will actually download the file, but just keep telling yourself that, and maybe you'll have a successful, popular blog someday. You might also soon experience a scathing hot day in Alaska and talk to a liberal who makes sense.

By the way... housekeeping sorts of things:

1) If you all would like me to edit the format of these here "carcasts" by perhaps converting them to .mp3s (they're automatically saved as .wavs) or something, let me know. I decided not to post a transcript this time because what little humor is in this one has to do with me almost getting pulled over by the police, narrowly avoid several car crashes, etc., etc.

2) I'm going to be gone with my fundamentalist Christian friends for a week, spreading our bigoted world view by helping people rebuild their houses. You all will have to go without me a for an entire 7 days. It's tough, I know, but I have faith that you, my 3 readers, can make it through without me. Hey, if you feel so bad about it, check out the archives! I'm sure there's something you haven't read yet. Oh, and make lots of comments; I expect at least 10 by the time I get back, or you all fail my class for this semester.

I've decided on a new policy for the "Moments in the Life of . . . Me!" section of this blog, which seems to be one of the more popular categories (meaning one person said they liked it instead of zero people saying they liked it). Instead of simply linking to the picture and instead of using Pivot's thumbnail-creating doohickey that I haven't got the hang of, I will upload the picture in a small form, without the helpful labels that I have added, and then you can click on that picture with a big version, with the helpful labels added! So, to demonstrate:



Amazing, I know.

This latest "Moment" only involves two text boxes, though they are rather large and I gave you lots of arrows to help the slow readers out. Gah! That is, to help out the slow readers. Gotta watch those prepositions; they'll sneak up on you and try to end your sentence when you're not looking.

Speaking of my grammar nerdiness, there's a pretty bad error -- make that two, of exactly the same nature -- in this one that I left because it's so amusing given what I'm talking about at the time, and given what I just ridiculed Wild Bill for. D'oh! Given Wild Bill's recent errors for which I ridiculed him. Their There, much better - don't you agree?

The Carnival of Comedy is up at FIAR's place. Go there now, 'cuz it's what all the cool conservahumor kids do.

FIAR is spot-on, by the way, with his analysis of my entry. This proves that we're all doomed, and that I stink at life. Heh.

I had a fun time with this fun little chat machine. Perhaps Sean could make it an AIM bot and make it really popular, or maybe I'll show it my friends on MySpace in a bulletin. Here's my conversation with it:

I hate liberals!
"Liberals"!! Take a hike!!
That's really old.
Why do you say "really"!!? Jerk.
Haha, you're funny in a very odd way.
"Funny"! What next!!! Where will it lead!!!!? Bizarrely it's open season on minorities!!!! We've seen this before, in 1983 in Syria!!!! Duh. Say no to rot!!! As a puppy, certainly I am French!
Boy, you really don't make any sense at all.
Interesting that you should mention "really"!!!! Logically, Bushitler caused Katrina by debasing the Palestinians in Iowa!! Puh-leeeez.
What's this obsession with the word, "really." Haha, you don't know what reality is, do you?
Speaking of OBSESSION!! IMO, Maureen Dowd's book, "My Journey as a Voter," should be required reading! I'm sure, Chimpy McHitler CAUSED hurricane Katrina by CLUBBING the disadvantaged forests in Abu Ghraib!!
Right. And Dick Cheney shoots people in the face with shotguns regularly because we haven't found Osama yet.
Dick Cheney!! (Hurl.) Of course, we can say goodbye to civil rights!!! Goodbye!!!! I've had enough. The IMPERIAL chimp's War Against Renters Insurance must end!!!!
If I say "the truth," will you explode?
On the TOPIC of "explode": Yeah, right!
Get a life. Bye.
On the TOPIC of "explode": Yeah, right!

Boy, was he crazy. Almost life-like, but not quite, because he didn't accuse me of being racist or even bring up Hitler, something every moonbat must do. Perhaps I should have given it more time, but I had to investigate the other entries.

Overall, I liked them. I haven't checked them all out yet, as I have graduation duties to attend to (worthless pile of doo-doo, those graduation ceremonies - almost done, though), and a friend of mine wants me to write his funny for him. Ridiculous and absurd, I know, but I'm such a nice guy that I'm going to do it, even if he can't tell the difference between an order and a cult or a wire and a square (see the testimonials on the right).

I doubt I'll be posting any more today, but one never knows when teh funny will strike one. That's why I have my PDA with me at all times. Trusty thing, it is. Love it to death. With my luck with the girls, I'd just as soon marry it, but I don't want to move to Massachusetts just for that.

I need to get some more blogging duties out of the way, so here goes.

fmragtops "tagged me" to tell what TV character I want to be. MacGuyver is a good choice, though I'd have to go with Michael Knight of Knight Rider, if just for the sweet car, and, yeah, the consistent supply of incredibly short yet intimate love affairs.

Also, I'm supposed to tag some other bloggers to tell what TV character they'd like to be. Sheesh; this reminds me of MySpace surveys. Ridiculous! Is this where the conservative humor slice of the blogosphere is headed, fmragtops? Is it? I'm disgusted.

Sigh... alright, I tag JT, because I know he actually reads me, and Chris, because I like him, even though I'm not sure he reads this blog.

And Spacemonkey over at IMAO is asking us to make Ann Coulter look moderate by saying things that are more right than she. That's difficult for the serious side of me, as I've criticized Coulter briefly in the past, but as for the humor side of me... piece of cake.

Not only are all 9/11 widows "witches," but, um, unless you fully support the War on Terror and everything Bush says and does, you're a witch, too! And, and, an idiot! And stuff! So there! And while we're at it, all Holocaust victims that haven't personally strangled a Nazi are "wimps," and all Democrats are "seething idiots who need to get a life."

Hmm... on second thought, being more right than Coulter is harder than I thought.

My first Precision-Guided Humor Assignment. Ta-da!

Overlord Harvey of The Alliance asks us, the humble humor bloggers, to assist Greenpeace with their alarmist and armaggedonist factoids, seeing as they, well, can't find enough of their own, apparently.

Never fear, Greenpeace! I'm all about greenness (except when it comes to Green Triangles), and I'm all about peace, and though I suspect you in actuality have nothing to do with either of the two, I do what's asked of me by my betters, so here is my list of alarmist and armaggedonist factoids for you:

=> "In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly" 666 deaths of sheep and turtles due to radiation poisoning. If you don't feel for those poor animals, what kind of a human being does that make you? A sick, vile one, that's what. How dare you question the legitimacy of the wives of those poor sheep and turtles, who have just suffered a terrible loss at the death of their husbands!?!

=> "In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly" 4 terrorist attacks using planes in the United States alone. While this might not seem like all that much of a threat to the world or have much do to with global warming, it is, because according to well-documented studies and statistics that was evaluated by an international commission, those Jihadists are not hell-bent to destroy Western society because of radical fundamentalist preachings in Mosques around the world, but instead are gitting itchy from all the sweat from all the heat due to global warming, and had to take it out on someone.

=> "In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly" a billion gazillion-million times ten to the trillionth deaths have been linked to the incident at the Chernobyl power plant through conveniently placed typos, accidentally shredded documents, and other sound evidence just waiting to be manipulated discovered by our crack research team.

=> "In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly" 25 well-verified cases of people drowning and screaming their last word, "Buuuuuuuuuuuussssshhhh!" If that isn't evidence, I don't know what is.

=> "In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly" 768,324,890 sightings of deformed pidgeons who, instead of eating a little too much of Grandma Sue's kernels as is popularly believed, actually died from cancerous pidgeonitis due to inflammation of the lung caused by prolonged exposure to Rovian radiation. If that tragic story doesn't you make you cry for these poor pidgeons, as well as the turtles and sheep harmed in the worst nuclear accident in history, there's something seriously wrong with you.

=> "In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there [has] been nearly" one incident of a blogger deranged enough to call himself the Blue Square, use the word "floccinaucinihilipilificate" in ordinary conversation, and make documentary videos about turtles, obviously due to radiation in the atmosphere traced back to Chernobyl.

Geez, guys, if I can come up with these alarmist and armageddonist factoids on the spot like this, why can't you?

What can I say? My turtle videos and shilming are outclassed.

Whereas the Blue Square is, in fact, the ruler of the universe;

Whereas he does what he wants;

Whereas you all are a bunch of no-good, lying, scheming, nonexistent, pathetic bunch of losers who disgrace the noun "reader";

These are some more of my tenets.

Click here to read it all

So I was stuck in traffic the other day, and it just so happens that whenever I have little access to a computer or pen and paper to write things down, I'm feeling most creative and/or angry. Luckily, though, I had my trusty PDA with me, and I recorded my thoughts on a voice memo.

If you want the full, unadulterated version in .wav form, here it is. If you just want to read it, which has most some of the boring parts cut out, click the conveniently labeled text, "Click here to read it all."

(Actually, it might be a good idea to download that file, just so you can get a sense of when I'm being sarcastic and yes, making fun of myself and/or right-wingers in general, which I do often if you're paying attention. However, it does contain some horribly boring parts, so beware.)

Click here to read it all

Having no comments on my recent posts hurts me. It hurts me real deep. I could make up a few fake names to congratulate myself on my brilliance, but deep down, I would know that what I was doing was wrong. However, there's always the good psychological ploy to get comments, so instead, I'm going to challenge you all, my fine, intellectually savvy readers, to find a typo that I just found (and am going to leave for you all to find) on my own blog front page.

As for any hints, all I'm saying for now is that it is obviously a mistake, meaning it's not a question of British or American punctuation or any other small quibbles like that. It's also not something stupid that I know is grammatically correct but have let be anyway.

Winner gets a banner saying something like "the Blue Square was pwned by [insert your name here] in proofreading," with a link to your blog if you have one. Or something else of your choosing, really. If I sold Blue Square T-Shirts (which I honestly hope to do), I would offer you one free, but for now, we'll keep it to stuff on the Internet that doesn't cost me any money. (For those of you who don't know, I can beat pretty much anyone, including professional copy editors, in the number of mistakes I find in a given document, so beating everyone else to finding this grievous typo of mine is somewhat of an accomplishment.)

Bring it on, and comment away!

UPDATE 12 June 2006: We have a winner! Congratulations to BS of the Free Lance-Star (appropriately my editor there, actually). He wasn't BSing, though, when he found the extra "c" in "floccinaucinihilipilificating" in my banner.

The honorable mention goes to Wild Bill who was duped into reading my entire blog when the solution was right there in front of him.

Here is the latest "Moment in the Life of . . . Me!"

There's nothing a blogger loves more than permalinks from other bloggers, even if, as in my case, they don't actually get him any traffic or anything . . .

Click here to read it all

Hello, everyone! Welcome to thebluesquare.net, the new location for The Order of the Blue Square.

I would like to thank Saumanahaii of Cult Live Wire for lending me some of his domain space and helping me get this started.

I'm in the process of loading everything up on here, so we'll see how long that takes, then I will announce my domain change to the world, and all the foreign dignitaries and heads of state will come to congratulate me on my magnificent accomplishment.

UPDATE 10 June 2006:

The main problem before I announced my change of address was that I couldn't import my posts from here properly. That's been fixed. That said, I still have a lot to do, like update my sidebar and fix other random things I can't think of right now (going from one template to another of a different format is always tricky). Also, I self-referenced myself a lot on this blog, so one may find that when reading thebluesquare.net, you actually get linked back to here. I may try to change all that; I may not. For that reason and the fact that I can't import comments to the new blog, I will be keeping all of my old posts on here (although they are on the new domain, too).

If you have any suggestions, please make them. If you notice any errors, please tell me about them. If you have any other input whatsoever, I'm glad to have it.

This is the second part of a story about a sad turtle.

The turtle moves this time.

So, it's Friday night, I have no schoolwork to do, and what am I doing? Out partying at the local club? Sitting in the backseat of my car with my girlfriend? Catching the latest "Goats on a Train" flick?

No. I'm sitting here blogging, of course. How delightfully sad. Anyway, on to tonight's topic.

If the blogosphere turned upside down . . .

=> We would all be ignorant little idiots sitting in our pajamas like the MSM thinks we are.

=> Permalinks, trackbacks, RSS feeds, Wi-Fi, laptops, coffee, the alt-tab function, live-blogging, blogrolls, and everything else that we all hold sacred would strangely disappear, and we would all cry ourselves to sleep, wondering who we could talk to anymore. Surely not . . . our friends and family?

=> IMPO would be a popular left-wing humor site which would be famous for its "In My Communist Utopia" fiction short stories and its daily, 30-minute podcasts with consistent segments.

=> Trolls would get a life and go away or form their own, rational opinions and comment nicely like most Internet users; spammers would all buy each others' "herbal cures" and link each other to death; and flamers would start disagreeing respectfully.

=> Instapundit would get a trickle of visits daily while everyone would curse the Blue Square for his kitten slurpy-drinking and homeless-grilling methods of being so popular.

=> Those nasty little less-than and greater-than arrows would be in a more convenient place to use frequently.

=> Harvey would become a born-again Christian and a clean-shaven evangelist; JimmyB would disavow firearms and become a pacifist; Frank J. would taunt conservatives daily with his pacifist humor; JT would start buying "enhancement" drugs right and left and visit all those XXX Web sites; Chris would go on a heart-healthy, fiber-rich diet; Spacemonkey would chronicle his left foot every Tuesday and/or actually die, for once; and fmragtops would marry a gay hippie.

=> Iraq the Model would have a recent post that got under 100 comments.

=> Blogspotlings would all miraculously become famous at once and get so many comments that they might actually start thinking people care. Er, never mind. Save that one for another universe.

And lastly, if the blogosphere were really to turn upside down, inside out, and get a Nancy Pelosi-worthy facelift . . .

Click here to read it all

Once in Creative Writing, our teacher told us to do a "freewrite," which is basically when you keep typing and typing without thinking, really, about what you're saying -- just get it out there. Then, later, perhaps right then, but even better, later in the day or the next day, you go back and see if you can find anything worthwhile in what you wrote. For me, this was hard, because I kept thinking of stuff to say before I could type it out fast enough. And for blogging, this is hard, because I think of things I want to link to, although I can always do that later, I suppose.

One of the things that may plague my freewriting is that if I stop to think about how, exactly, to phrase something, I might stop and write "doom doom doom doom doom" several times over.

Speaking of which, let me clarify Tenet 1. Tenet 1 is imposed because when thinking of what to type, whether it be a URL, an instant message, or the next paragraph in an essay for school, I have a tendency to type "doom doom doom doom" over and over while thinking of what to say. It's actually kind of interesting, finding out the most efficient way to type "doom" repetively. You see, you could just type "doom doom doom" by typing like you normally do. However, because of the os in "doom," you can also break it down to where you're really just typing "doom doom doom doom" in such a way that you forget about the words you are typing and just concentrate on the pattern of the letters you are typing. This leads to something more like "doomdoomdoomdoomdoom" since it all gets smushed together, which has its own unique and ponderous effect.

But, of course, "doom doom doom" has its own political and philosophical implications as well. As with most of my humor, I make fun of both extremes of the political spectrum by exaggerating. Anyone who is very pessimistic about the situation in Iraq, the environment, or the economy, whatever, is, to me, silly and unproductive. It's like they can't type anything without just thinking in their heads, "doom doom doom" over and over.

So, there you have it: a serious explanation as to what I mean by "doom doom doom." I don't think I'll be doing serious explanations all that often, as I don't find them amusing, and that is, of course, the purpose of this blog: to amuse myself, and wonder why anybody could be almost as strange as me to the point that they read what I write.

Be blue, squares.

Forget global warming due to pollution.

Forget nuclear fallout from terrorist actions.

Forget everything left-wingers or your mother has ever told you.

We're talking rapture, folks, and it has some serious implications.

HT: Fick&Oz.

I have some strange friends:

Here it is, folks.

Reading down the list so far, I'm not really impressed with this week's entries. I have a low tolerance for jokes about sex or farting, no matter how original people are trying to be. That's why I like IMAO so much; they stay away from that kind of thing.

And no, my dissapointment with this week's carnival has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I'm dead last this week. It has nothing to do with it, at all. Got it?


In other, happier news, Zarqawi's dead. Hey, somebody could make a song out of that. Ding, dong, Zarqawi's dead . . .

So I was listening to the latest PJM podcast (which I highly recommend), and they had another one of their guest speakers on there. This one was a lady going by the name of "Advice Goddess." She was describing her blog for new listeners, and she said on it, she likes to "rail against belief in God." Immediately, I though, "oh, goody! Let's rail against belief in God! That way, we can enlighten those primitive, backward-thinking Neanderthals in a vitriolic, self-defeatist, moonbat calm, polite, reasoned manner!"

So, after scrolling past some random pictures of guys in thongs, I found this post. (Here at the Order, we cut through all the soft porn to get the story for you.) In it, she made a startling claim which will really add to the debate. Get this: She blamed God for the Holocaust. Amazing, I know! Truly a revolutionary position to take. Fortunately, however, I have transcripts of the conversation that God had with ole' Hitler right here for you:

"Hey, Adolf."

"What? Who is that!? Guards!"

"Don't call your guards. They can do nothing. This is the LORD your God talking to you."

"Um... um... okay?"

"Now, listen up. You know that whole Holocaust thing you've got planned?"

"What Holocaust? What are you talking about?"

"Don't play games with me, son. You know, 12 million dead, 6 million of them Jews, all that horrible Nazi stuff."

"Oh, yeah, that Holocaust."

"Well, could you go a little easy on this one? See, if you actually did go out and genocide all those people, some people in the future might use this as evidence that I don't exist. Silly, I know, right?"

"Um, sure, God."

"So you're not going to do it, then? At least tone it down a little. This could get give me bad publicity, Adolf, and you know what it's like when those humans don't want to take responsibility for their actions and blame it on me. The whole thing just doesn't go over well."

"Whatever, man! Forget you!"

"Sigh. Stupid Hitler. Hey, FDR... I have a job for you."

UPDATE: Yes, Amy Alkon, you're technically right. By "blaming God for the Holocaust," I simply meant you promoted the idea that if God were to exist, he would not tolerate the Holocaust, and therefore, he does not exist. It's a poor, inaccurate summary of what you said in your post, but being painstakingly clear isn't something I try to do on this blog. OK, yes, that sounds silly, but hey, this is a humor blog, and I like and am even friends with fundanutter preachers, too, so ignore me.

Yes, that's right, I said doom. As today is 6/6/6, I think it's the perfect day to remember the fact that I predicted our impending doom long ago.

Not all doomed people were created equal, however. The following is a list of what I think are the most intriguing ways to be doomed.

=>Be stuck in a cylinder of some sort that has spikes on all sides. It's brilliant -- you have to push the cylinder off you because you'll suffocate otherwise, but your hands and head will get poked if you try to do that. Buahahaha. I'll call it the official Blue Square torture device, reserved for the worst of the Green Triangles.

=>Go into the NYT building and scream, "I'm a conservative! Na, na na, na boo boo!"

=>Get sucked out of an airlock.

=>Not have a last name or much character development in an action movie.

=>Disengage the battery of an explosive.

=>Try to get a blog up and running and popular. OK, OK; that's not really mortally dooming, but your blog will die a pathetic, sorrowful, death, which is much worse.

=>Talk about "Lebensraum," promote godless "equality" or proclaim "jihad."

=>Be a monkey-faced liberal in an IMAO podcast. It might take a while, but rest assured, you will die of brutal punchings eventually and are, in fact, doomed.

=>Wear bright red uniforms when attacking a bunch of rebels who aren't keen on using contemporary war tactics.

=>Walk in front of Hillary Clinton while she is exhaling.

=>Eat a pretzel while riding on a Segway and neglecting your conservative base.

=>Vote for the war before you vote against it.

=>Monologue forever to the person whom you plan to kill eventually anyway, and to whom you are giving plenty of time to figure out an escape route while simultaneously ordering a pizza.

With extra cheese.

=>Be an egotistical womanizing captain of a federation starship. It may take a few movies to get the point where you die, Captain Kirk, but rest assured, you will kick the bucket and I will be glad to see you do so.

=>Think you're funny when you're actually not. (Hey, wait a second . . . )


Who else has suggestions for cool ways to doom oneself?

Now, as I noted in Tenet 24, pomp and ceremony just isn't my thing and can therefore burn. One of the biggest formal hooplahs one has to go through in life is the rituals of graduation and everything that goes with them. This involves many days of enduring some of the worst treatment anyone has ever had to endure, including being congratulated incessantly for doing nothing for the last 4 years, having to wear a stupid gown outfit on at least one or two occasions, etc., etc. Then comes the actual procession where you get your little piece of paper which in today's world means "thanks for stopping by; now go to college and try to learn something this time."

Seriously, who ever came up with that goofy cap and gown idea anyway? Were they thinking, "buahahaha, now that we have made them endure 4 years of endless suffering in the form of essays and AP tests, we shall make them all dress up like fools and silently laugh at them while they parade around in those silly-looking outfits! Tee-hee. We're so clever."

Regardless of how these silly graduation practices came into being, to help make up for the utter lack of any sense of actual accomplishment in the graduation ceremony, which is boring and which I will continue to complain about until it finishes, as in finito, gegangen, fertig, kaput, done, over with, etc., I have for you a visual documentation of a fun ritual among my peers: burning test grades.



I think this one was something like a 37%. It's not mine, of course -- I know all of you wish you could be as smart as me one day, but I'm not that smart. I think my highest test grade was 22% on a 4-answer multiple-choice test, which, if you think about it, is an accomplishment, considering the odds I had against me of doing better.

This is the story of a sad turtle.

As a person who would think too much if there were such a thing as thinking too much (there most certainly is not [Tenet 22]), I've sometimes wondered to myself, "If I'm so great, what would it be like if everyone in the world had the same personality as me?" Now, obviously, diversity of personality, blah, blah, blah, is important, but this is kind of fun(ny) to think about.

TOP TEN CHANGED WORLD ATTRIBUTES DUE TO EVERYONE SUDDENLY BECOMING EXACTLY LIKE THE BLUE SQUARE:

10. Pop culture, the porn industry, hippies, warfare (except for the use of cardboard tubing in settling of arguments), and other undesirable societal ills would cease to exist. Hooray!

9. Everyone would argue with each other about the most irrelevant of things all the time. No one would get along, but at least no one would be there to tell us we were being trivial. Then we would get really angry.

8. There would be too many leaders and not enough followers; too many referees and not enough players; too many politicans and not enough voters; and too many journalists and not enough actual events occuring.

7. T-Shirt companies' designers would suffer from a huge lack of originality.

6. There would be no one funnier than I.

5. Everyone's grammar would be nearly perfect except for the few exceptions where someone slipped up and everyone else stabbed him to death.

4. There would be no nonsense about including females in every general pronoun referring to a person.

3. Oops, that's right. We'd all die off pretty soon. Oh well; about 1% of the world would be female - I do have a feminine side, I suppose. Let's avoid discussing any more reproductive/hormonal logistical problems, shall we?

2. No blogs would be read, because everyone would have a blog of their own. Massive linking and carnival wars would ensue and half the population would be murdered by the other half until a formal proclamation was announced, outlawing blogs forever.

1. Most importantly, the entire world would be fundamentalist Christian conservatives. Buahaha. Ha ha. Ha.

So, in conclusion, while it is fun to think about, it's also a pretty scary thought.

So, what do you guys (and gals? Do I have any regular female readers?) think about your own selves? What if everyone in the world was like you?

You know, I was wondering about how to abbreviate Carnival of Comedy. I came up with two ways. One of them sounded dirty, and one one of them sounded very medical. I'll say no more, as I'm sure all of the Blue Square fans out there are smart enough to figure it out on their own.

Not all of the Blue Square fans, however, may know what the Carnival of Comedy is. Basically, a blog carnival is a (generally weekly) event where anyone with a blog can submit a certain post of theirs to the carnival, and then on a certain day out of that week, one host (who hosts it usually rotates) lists all of the submissions. In the Carnival of Comedy, people submit, in theory, at least, posts that they believe to be humorous, whether their blog is entirely for humor or not. Then the host brutally belittles all of the entires as entirely unfunny, throws his hands up in the cyberspace proverbial air, and walks away muttering Paul Simon-isms.

Er, actually, that's not quite true. Some of them are usually belittled, especially when they submit stuff that doesn't actually try to be funny (amazingly, this happens). Others, however, are praised by the host for bringing more humor into a downtrodden world, and as I learned this week, it helps to suck up to whoever the host is going to be next. Generally, the host will list the posts he thinks are funniest at the top, and go on down the line.

This week, Remulak MoxArgon has an alien-conquest theme for Carnival of Comedy #57, where he treats all the people who submitted their attempts at humor as puny Earthlings who have the terrible fate of having to do what he tells them to and going where he wants them to go. In my case, I'm a slave, it seems, but I only get beaten have as much as some of the others, so it's all good. I'm not really sure I'd want to be a court jester, anyway. Plotting riots and general mayhem is much more fun.

Some submitters, however, were not so lucky, as they submitted some weird, random stuff that was totally unfunny. They got eaten alive! Wow. I sure am glad I wasn't one of them.

So as you can see, dear Blue Square fans, the Carnival of Comedy involves much laughing and digital merrymaking, both at the host's site and at, well, some of those who submitted stuff. Go there now by clicking the link above, and enjoy "teh funny."

Have a blog and a funny bone? Go here to submit something and be ridiculed by the madly cursing Jerry Dante, who will be hosting it next week. Well, actually, I've never been to his site, but he has a [language] warning next to him sometimes, so go with caution if you're a Christian square, like myself.

Whereas the Blue Square is, in fact, the ruler of the universe;

Whereas he does what he wants;

Whereas you all are a bunch of no-good, lying, scheming, nonexistent, pathetic bunch of losers who disgrace the noun "reader";

These are some more of my tenets.


22. It is hereby impossible to think too much. Thinking is for squares. Since squares, especially blue squares, are cool, thinking is for cool people! Sorry, JT, but I like thinking a lot about incessantly random and stupid things, and nothing will ever change that. Thinking also helps a lot with destructive plans such as conquering the world, sucking up the universe with a Mega-Ton Crazy Made-Up Contraption Ultra-Super-Duty Universe Sucker-Upper 3600, and figuring out exactly how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie pop based on tongue size, saliva-producing capabilities, and percent error in Tootsie-pop manufacuring designs. Seriously, didn't those idiots who made the commercials ever consider the possibility that some people's tongues could be bigger, and the size of a Tootsie pop could vary, at least a little bit? So, as evidenced by the above rant, thinking too much is impossible, and thinking is for cool people, like blue squares. End of story.

23. Smiting hippies doesn't get you anywhere. I tried it once. It didn't go so well. Sorry, fmragtops, but you'll have to think of a more unique suggestion before you become an honorary member of the Order. In place of smiting, hippies shall receive rappings on the head with cardboard tubing.

24. Pomp and ceremony is one of the most ridiculous things on this planet Earth. I despite it. I hate it with a passion. It can burn, I say, burn! Seeing as it is an abstract concept and is not nearly tangible enough to burn in reality, someone will have to come up with a plan for how to burn abstract concepts. This may seem like an impossible, but hey, if X-Men can come out and say people can control magnetic fields with their minds, make endless copies of themselves, or pop in and out of thin air, then I should be able to burn abstract concepts such as pomp and ceremony. And if you are one of those incessantly cutesy, formalized, horribly misguided souls who thinks that any formal organization whatsoever is possibly a a good thing in this universe or any other, I say, death to you! Er, actually, if I got my wish, everybody else would be dead, since no one hates pomp and ceremony as much as I do, and I would be an Islamicist, since they say "Death to you, American!" a lot. And in order for me to be a bona fide Muslim terrorist, I need to convert to Islam, and I hear that takes three witnesses. Said witnesses probably have to be alive, too. So, never mind. No death to you who like pomp and ceremony. Just please, please, let me get through life without any more of your ridiculously unnecessary idiocies.


Please make suggestions for future Tenets in the comments. (Comments are fun! You comment now.) I will carefully consider each, and those whose suggestions I actually take will receive an honorary membership in the Order. What that entails, I won't say, but what I can say is that it doesn't involve cash prizes, guest-blogging, or anything else worthwhile besides a minor ego boost.

On the permalink for this post, you will find a list of all the Tenets of the Order of the Blue Square before this one. They come in sets of threes, if you haven't noticed, and I make a new set whenever I feel like it.



Tenets of the Order of the Blue Square I
Tenets of the Order of the Blue Square II
Tenets of the Order of the Blue Square III
Tenets of the Order of the Blue Square IV
Tenets of the Order of the Blue Square V
Tenets of the Order of the Blue Square VI
Tenets of the Order of the Blue Square VII