Welcome back, cats and kittens. Today on the show we continue our journey into the past with the second, and thankfully final, part of our retrospective on my silly Garfield comics. We're going to now take a look at Series 2, the current run of Garfield strips, of which there are 60. What's that you say? The last strip I posted was numbered "59?" Hm, that's very interesting...
Once again, this collection is far too magnificent to be viewed on this puny blog, so whenever you're ready, HIT THE JUMP!
Monday, June 1, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
The Best of Garfield
As you may or may not know, one of the things I like to is to take Garfield comic strips and replace the text in them to make them either much funnier, or much stupider. But what you may not know, is that I've been doing this for a much longer time than I've had this blog. So, if you've only seen the ones posted on here, then you've missed out on over 100 of these very special strips. Today I am going to share a few of these with you. I'm not going to share all of them, because on the whole most of them tend to fall on the stupid side of the funny/stupid scale, especially the early ones, so I'm just going to share the ones that I consider good or noteworthy in some way. And, because I'm apparently a pompous asshole, I'm going to provide commentary on each one, so yay for self-aggrandization!
Before we begin, I should point out there are two series of these comics. I started Series 1 back in high school, and I never really bothered to keep track of them, so there are a few that have probably just disappeared. Of the ones that didn't succumb to my foolishness, there are 75 left. I have never posted any comics from Series 1. Series 2 was where I started to take things a bit more seriously, and tried to at least make most of them actually funny, instead of just weird or somewhat amusingly vulgar. I also began to order them, which I didn't do in Series 1, which makes them a bit more cohesive. Because yeah, that's what they needed, cohesion. So, do I sound enough like an asshole yet? Good, now take a deep breath and brace yourself for the coming storm.
When you are ready to continue, please click here.
Before we begin, I should point out there are two series of these comics. I started Series 1 back in high school, and I never really bothered to keep track of them, so there are a few that have probably just disappeared. Of the ones that didn't succumb to my foolishness, there are 75 left. I have never posted any comics from Series 1. Series 2 was where I started to take things a bit more seriously, and tried to at least make most of them actually funny, instead of just weird or somewhat amusingly vulgar. I also began to order them, which I didn't do in Series 1, which makes them a bit more cohesive. Because yeah, that's what they needed, cohesion. So, do I sound enough like an asshole yet? Good, now take a deep breath and brace yourself for the coming storm.
When you are ready to continue, please click here.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Two Things
Okay, I've got two things I want to talk about.
First, today is the National Day of Reason. This day is observed in response to the National Day of Prayer, the national holiday declared in 1952 when Harry Truman and the 82nd United States Congress decided that pesky First Amendment was just getting in the way of all the state-sponsored religious fun they could be having. Personally, I'm going to celebrate it by telling random strangers that I think that the separation of church and state is super neat-o keen! So go out and proclaim your love of the Establishment Clause today (and if someone tries to pull the "fact" out of their ass that the Constitutional Convention began with a prayer, you can tell them that was a myth, and what really happened: that Benjamin Franklin suggested this and the rest of the representatives did their best to ignore him and move on). And for those who can't see how having a state-funded day of prayer is offensive, apply this simple test to see if your religious authority has overstepped its bounds. Simply change all references to the religion in question to references to Scientology. If you are appalled, then now you know how the rest of us feel. Please enjoy your Scientology Day of Thetan Acquiescence Auditing.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I am now the top result in the Canadian version of Google for the search string "is there such thing as a purple cat" (in American Google, I'm only the second, boo). I know this because some enterprising young Canadian (I'm actually just assuming on all three of those, actually) found my blog using just such a string, and being so enterprising, and young, and Canadian, clicked on the first link and found themselves on this very blog. Of course, they didn't stay long, as the only thing on the page was a ridiculous short story about doobies and detectives, and absolutely no evidence whatsoever for the existence of violet-colored felines, and thus exited the page, perhaps cursing themselves for being a bit too enterprising for so quickly clicking on such obvious twaddle. Well, nuts to you, my annoyingly enterprising friend from the Great White North, but thank you for bringing to my attention my prominent status in those fine frozen servers that make up Canadian Google. In celebration of this event, I have created the following graphic:
People of Canada, consider this picture to be my gift to you. Here at last is the proof that not only does the purple cat exist, but it is Canadian too! And for your generosity, perhaps I'll mention something about Alberta in my next Shandley short.
Okay, I know it seems like I've been having a bit of fun at the expense of Canada, so as a show of good faith I would like you all to please rise for the Canadian National Anthem. This is definitely not a joke.
See? What could possibly be more serious than that?
First, today is the National Day of Reason. This day is observed in response to the National Day of Prayer, the national holiday declared in 1952 when Harry Truman and the 82nd United States Congress decided that pesky First Amendment was just getting in the way of all the state-sponsored religious fun they could be having. Personally, I'm going to celebrate it by telling random strangers that I think that the separation of church and state is super neat-o keen! So go out and proclaim your love of the Establishment Clause today (and if someone tries to pull the "fact" out of their ass that the Constitutional Convention began with a prayer, you can tell them that was a myth, and what really happened: that Benjamin Franklin suggested this and the rest of the representatives did their best to ignore him and move on). And for those who can't see how having a state-funded day of prayer is offensive, apply this simple test to see if your religious authority has overstepped its bounds. Simply change all references to the religion in question to references to Scientology. If you are appalled, then now you know how the rest of us feel. Please enjoy your Scientology Day of Thetan Acquiescence Auditing.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I am now the top result in the Canadian version of Google for the search string "is there such thing as a purple cat" (in American Google, I'm only the second, boo). I know this because some enterprising young Canadian (I'm actually just assuming on all three of those, actually) found my blog using just such a string, and being so enterprising, and young, and Canadian, clicked on the first link and found themselves on this very blog. Of course, they didn't stay long, as the only thing on the page was a ridiculous short story about doobies and detectives, and absolutely no evidence whatsoever for the existence of violet-colored felines, and thus exited the page, perhaps cursing themselves for being a bit too enterprising for so quickly clicking on such obvious twaddle. Well, nuts to you, my annoyingly enterprising friend from the Great White North, but thank you for bringing to my attention my prominent status in those fine frozen servers that make up Canadian Google. In celebration of this event, I have created the following graphic:
People of Canada, consider this picture to be my gift to you. Here at last is the proof that not only does the purple cat exist, but it is Canadian too! And for your generosity, perhaps I'll mention something about Alberta in my next Shandley short.
Okay, I know it seems like I've been having a bit of fun at the expense of Canada, so as a show of good faith I would like you all to please rise for the Canadian National Anthem. This is definitely not a joke.
See? What could possibly be more serious than that?
Monday, April 20, 2009
Dick Shandley and the Purple Cat Conundrum
Dick Shandley marveled at the object which he now held in his hands. He slowly rotated it around, regarding it from all angles. He reflected on all the hard work he’d put into it, getting it just right, just perfect. Looking at it now, he was certain that he had succeeded. He had just rolled what might be the world’s fattest doobie. He dropped it onto his desk, eliciting a clearly audible thud. This motherfucker, he inferred, was dense. A little too dense, maybe. With a slight bit of trepidation, he picked up the object and placed the end of it in his mouth.
A few moments later, the office began to shimmer, and Dick felt his stomach start to turn as he experienced a sudden jolt, as though the world had just dropped down two and a half feet. As his eyes refocused, he found himself staring at a short haired purple cat sitting at his desk, which in turn was staring at a point approximately six inches behind Dick’s head. Dick removed the joint from his mouth and stared at it in disbelief, not least of all because he hadn’t lit it yet. The purple cat cocked its head at the white, bulging object in the strange man’s hands, wondered for exactly six tenths of a second what was supposedly so damned interesting about it, then set about systematically hunting down a passing speck of dust.
Dick Shandley, now reasonably convinced that the ends of his joint were not the least bit singed, put his mind to working his way around his next mental block, accepting that a purple cat had, thirty seconds ago, spontaneously materialized in his office. He worked out the following premises: firstly, that thirty seconds ago, his office had been completely free of cats, and second, right now there was a cat in front of him. He had no problems with either of those ideas separately, but putting them together caused his brain to just sort of lie back and think of England. He set aside for the moment the fact that the cat was purple, as that was a detail, and Dick found that details only served to slow him down. Much to the agony of his clients, Dick was a sort of big picture private eye. On his last case he had been hired to find some proof of infidelity. Realizing that his target would probably have some suspicion he was being followed, Dick instead tailed a random person. He had tried to explain to the frantic woman how this man he had photographed was a perfect sample of the human condition, and how the way he held his fork in the restaurant implied the adulterous nature of man. This was how Dick had his nose broken for the third time.
Dick looked down at the cat, which had now stretched its purple body out on his floor. At last Dick reasoned that there hadn’t been a cat there before, but there was now, and to just leave it at that. The left and right sides of his brain shook hands and agreed to never speak of it again.
So, now, on to the third and final problem: what was he going to do with this cat? Dick didn’t consider himself to be the type to own a cat, or for that matter any sort of animal, child, or houseplant that would have to depend on him for its survival. At this point, he slid the massive doobie into his coat pocket. He supposed he would have to take it to the animal shelter.
Dick tried to find a box to put the cat into, but the only one he could find was the one his Blackadder DVDs came in, and that obviously wasn’t big enough. In the end he would up just wrapping it up in a bundle of old towels.
On the bus, a man named Lyle Davitian sat across from Dick. For some reason, something about this man with his ugly green coat and his pile of smelly towels caught Lyle’s attention. He wondered why the man had cut so many holes into his towels. As he took all of this in, a small purple head popped out of the end of it. The man quickly shoved it back into the bundle. “A purple cat!” Lyle shouted with amusement. He looked around; everyone on the bus seemed very annoyed with him, and the man with the purple cat simply shook his head at him slowly. When he got home that night, he told his wife, “You know, I saw a purple cat on the bus today.” She said nothing, so he repeated it, a bit louder this time. “That’s nice, dear,” she told him. “I don’t think you heard me properly, honey,” he returned, now getting somewhat cross, “I said it was a PURPLE CAT.” This caused his wife to begin to heave a long sigh, one that didn’t end until they were divorced six months later. Years down the line, he would still tell the story as he drank alone in a different bar each night. “It was that damn cat, it was the start of it all,” he would tell the bartender, “If it wasn’t for the cat, everything would still be like it used to.” Finally, one night Lyle Davitian’s ex-wife came home to find her ex-husband hanging from the rafters of her bedroom by his neck. She collapsed to the floor, her breath too shallow to even afford her full sobs. The only sound that could be heard was the gentle sway of the rope, back and forth. Back and forth.
Dick Shandley stepped off the bus, annoyed at the scene that idiot had caused. He walked into the animal shelter and presented them with the cat that had appeared on his desk. “Oh, not another purple cat,” said the man at the front desk.
“Excuse me?” asked Dick. “What do you mean, ‘another one?’”
“We’ve been getting purple cats in all week, we’re up to our arses in purples cats.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” the man replied, “you look back there, you’ll see nothing but purple cats. Well, we’ve got a couple of hairless ones, and possibly a beagle too, but mostly it’s just purple bloody cats.”
“I see.” This had caught Dick’s attention. Whereas before the color of the cat had been a trifling detail, a matter for the universe to work out on its own, now it represented a pattern. A very small cog in Dick’s brain had moved a quarter turn to the right, filling him with a new vigor. Where he had simply given up before, there was now something in the works far too engaging for him to ignore: an investigation.
“How long has this been going on?” Dick asked the confusingly British man behind the desk.
“Couple of months,” the man replied. “We couldn’t believe it at first, a purple cat. We thought somebody must have dyed it that, but over the next couple of weeks we noticed that the fur was actually growing in purple. It was around that time that someone brought in another one. Boy, if you thought one purple cat caused a commotion, you should have seen the stir that two raised. Of course, within a few weeks they’d be bringing them in every day, and before you know it we’re up to our—”
“Arses, yes, I know,” Dick interrupted. “Was there anything else unusual?”
“Well, now that you mention it, a few days ago this man comes in here asking about purple cats. He wants to know if we had any, or if we’ve seen any. I told him I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
At the sound of this, Dick increased his rate of blinking by about six hundred percent for a few seconds. “Why on earth would you tell him that?” he asked.
“Well, what would you do? A man coming in out of the blue, asking questions about purple cats all of a sudden. Doesn’t that seem a bit suspicious?”
“Well,” offered Dick, “isn’t that what I’m doing right now?”
“Yes, well, you’ve got an honest face.” This comment surprised Dick more than anything that had happened to him this entire day.
“Here,” said the man, offering Dick a business card. “He gave me this, told me to call him if I found any purple cats. Maybe you can make sense of this whole kafuffle.”
Dick looked at the business card. It said, “PurpaCat Industries,” and it had an address and telephone number. On the back of the card was scribbled the name, “Jared Neely.” Dick thanked the man for his information, and set out on his way.
On the bus, Dick was seated next to an incredibly hairy man wearing a sleeveless shirt with his head buried in a newspaper. Every time the bus hit a bump, he could feel this man’s thick, bushy arm hair brushing against him, like he was being scrubbed. He finally got off the bus, really skeeved out and contemplating what bad day it was for bus travel.
Inside the PurpaCat Industries headquarters, Dick had only to peel back a layer of towels in order to get a private meeting with Mr. Neely. When Dick entered the office, the first thing he saw was a young man in an business suit, fresh out of college, or possibly high school, who was obviously scared shitless over the amount of responsibility he had. The youth directed him to sit down.
“So, Mr... Shandley? What brings you to PurpaCat?”
“Well, Mr. Neely, I’d like to know what the deal is with the purple cats.”
“Yeah, uh huh, sure, well, you see the thing is, we’re kind of trying to keep the whole purple cat thing under wraps, so I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t, you know, tell anyone about all this.”
“Oh, yeah,” Dick blustered. “Mum’s the word, I won’t tell a soul. Now spill it.”
“Well, you see,” Jared stammered, “there’s kind of this whole thing, with like the universe and shit, oh, sorry, I mean stuff.”
“Oh no,” said Dick, “shit is fine. Continue.”
“See, whenever something goes wrong with the universe, like someone does something they’re not supposed to do, like go faster than the speed of light or kill their grandfather or something, it makes a purple cat appear. We don’t really know why.”
“Wait, so if I went out right now and killed my grandfather, it would make a purple cat?”
“No, man, you have to like, do it before your parents are born, or something.”
“Oh,” said Dick, “you mean like a paradox.”
“That was the word I was trying to remember! Exactly, so if you cause one of those paradox things, poof! Purple cat. Oh, also some other bad stuff happens too, but the cat is the first sign.”
“Other bad stuff?”
“Like the universe implodes or some shit, I don’t know, there’s some other agency that handles that kind of stuff, around here we mostly just gather up the cats.”
“So what you’re saying, is that because I have this cat right here, the universe is in danger?”
The kid thought about this for a second. “Oh, yeah, good point. You should probably take it to them and get that straightened out.”
Dick had already been to two different places with this cat today, and the idea of getting back on the bus did not appeal to him. “I don’t really have that kind of time, isn’t there something you can do about it here?”
“Um, okay, I guess. What were you doing when the cat appeared?”
“Well, I was in my office, and I was—” In a startling moment of clarity, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his amazing mega-spliff.
“Holy bejeezus!” shouted Jared. “That’s the biggest damn doobie I’ve ever seen! No wonder you broke the space time continuum with that thing!”
“Seriously? I may have just destroyed the universe by rolling out a joint?”
“Hey, there are some things you just don’t fuck around with man. But hey, what are we doing? We’ve got to destroy that thing!” After a moment’s pause, he added, “Um, with fire! Over the course of the next hour or so. And we should probably open the window.”
Dick held it up to the light, the most important joint in the universe. “Well,” he said solemnly, “if that’s what we have to do.”
And that’s how Dick Shandley saved the universe by smoking out with a guy named Jared.
THE END
AND HERE'S A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE KIDDIES:
A few moments later, the office began to shimmer, and Dick felt his stomach start to turn as he experienced a sudden jolt, as though the world had just dropped down two and a half feet. As his eyes refocused, he found himself staring at a short haired purple cat sitting at his desk, which in turn was staring at a point approximately six inches behind Dick’s head. Dick removed the joint from his mouth and stared at it in disbelief, not least of all because he hadn’t lit it yet. The purple cat cocked its head at the white, bulging object in the strange man’s hands, wondered for exactly six tenths of a second what was supposedly so damned interesting about it, then set about systematically hunting down a passing speck of dust.
Dick Shandley, now reasonably convinced that the ends of his joint were not the least bit singed, put his mind to working his way around his next mental block, accepting that a purple cat had, thirty seconds ago, spontaneously materialized in his office. He worked out the following premises: firstly, that thirty seconds ago, his office had been completely free of cats, and second, right now there was a cat in front of him. He had no problems with either of those ideas separately, but putting them together caused his brain to just sort of lie back and think of England. He set aside for the moment the fact that the cat was purple, as that was a detail, and Dick found that details only served to slow him down. Much to the agony of his clients, Dick was a sort of big picture private eye. On his last case he had been hired to find some proof of infidelity. Realizing that his target would probably have some suspicion he was being followed, Dick instead tailed a random person. He had tried to explain to the frantic woman how this man he had photographed was a perfect sample of the human condition, and how the way he held his fork in the restaurant implied the adulterous nature of man. This was how Dick had his nose broken for the third time.
Dick looked down at the cat, which had now stretched its purple body out on his floor. At last Dick reasoned that there hadn’t been a cat there before, but there was now, and to just leave it at that. The left and right sides of his brain shook hands and agreed to never speak of it again.
So, now, on to the third and final problem: what was he going to do with this cat? Dick didn’t consider himself to be the type to own a cat, or for that matter any sort of animal, child, or houseplant that would have to depend on him for its survival. At this point, he slid the massive doobie into his coat pocket. He supposed he would have to take it to the animal shelter.
Dick tried to find a box to put the cat into, but the only one he could find was the one his Blackadder DVDs came in, and that obviously wasn’t big enough. In the end he would up just wrapping it up in a bundle of old towels.
On the bus, a man named Lyle Davitian sat across from Dick. For some reason, something about this man with his ugly green coat and his pile of smelly towels caught Lyle’s attention. He wondered why the man had cut so many holes into his towels. As he took all of this in, a small purple head popped out of the end of it. The man quickly shoved it back into the bundle. “A purple cat!” Lyle shouted with amusement. He looked around; everyone on the bus seemed very annoyed with him, and the man with the purple cat simply shook his head at him slowly. When he got home that night, he told his wife, “You know, I saw a purple cat on the bus today.” She said nothing, so he repeated it, a bit louder this time. “That’s nice, dear,” she told him. “I don’t think you heard me properly, honey,” he returned, now getting somewhat cross, “I said it was a PURPLE CAT.” This caused his wife to begin to heave a long sigh, one that didn’t end until they were divorced six months later. Years down the line, he would still tell the story as he drank alone in a different bar each night. “It was that damn cat, it was the start of it all,” he would tell the bartender, “If it wasn’t for the cat, everything would still be like it used to.” Finally, one night Lyle Davitian’s ex-wife came home to find her ex-husband hanging from the rafters of her bedroom by his neck. She collapsed to the floor, her breath too shallow to even afford her full sobs. The only sound that could be heard was the gentle sway of the rope, back and forth. Back and forth.
Dick Shandley stepped off the bus, annoyed at the scene that idiot had caused. He walked into the animal shelter and presented them with the cat that had appeared on his desk. “Oh, not another purple cat,” said the man at the front desk.
“Excuse me?” asked Dick. “What do you mean, ‘another one?’”
“We’ve been getting purple cats in all week, we’re up to our arses in purples cats.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” the man replied, “you look back there, you’ll see nothing but purple cats. Well, we’ve got a couple of hairless ones, and possibly a beagle too, but mostly it’s just purple bloody cats.”
“I see.” This had caught Dick’s attention. Whereas before the color of the cat had been a trifling detail, a matter for the universe to work out on its own, now it represented a pattern. A very small cog in Dick’s brain had moved a quarter turn to the right, filling him with a new vigor. Where he had simply given up before, there was now something in the works far too engaging for him to ignore: an investigation.
“How long has this been going on?” Dick asked the confusingly British man behind the desk.
“Couple of months,” the man replied. “We couldn’t believe it at first, a purple cat. We thought somebody must have dyed it that, but over the next couple of weeks we noticed that the fur was actually growing in purple. It was around that time that someone brought in another one. Boy, if you thought one purple cat caused a commotion, you should have seen the stir that two raised. Of course, within a few weeks they’d be bringing them in every day, and before you know it we’re up to our—”
“Arses, yes, I know,” Dick interrupted. “Was there anything else unusual?”
“Well, now that you mention it, a few days ago this man comes in here asking about purple cats. He wants to know if we had any, or if we’ve seen any. I told him I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
At the sound of this, Dick increased his rate of blinking by about six hundred percent for a few seconds. “Why on earth would you tell him that?” he asked.
“Well, what would you do? A man coming in out of the blue, asking questions about purple cats all of a sudden. Doesn’t that seem a bit suspicious?”
“Well,” offered Dick, “isn’t that what I’m doing right now?”
“Yes, well, you’ve got an honest face.” This comment surprised Dick more than anything that had happened to him this entire day.
“Here,” said the man, offering Dick a business card. “He gave me this, told me to call him if I found any purple cats. Maybe you can make sense of this whole kafuffle.”
Dick looked at the business card. It said, “PurpaCat Industries,” and it had an address and telephone number. On the back of the card was scribbled the name, “Jared Neely.” Dick thanked the man for his information, and set out on his way.
On the bus, Dick was seated next to an incredibly hairy man wearing a sleeveless shirt with his head buried in a newspaper. Every time the bus hit a bump, he could feel this man’s thick, bushy arm hair brushing against him, like he was being scrubbed. He finally got off the bus, really skeeved out and contemplating what bad day it was for bus travel.
Inside the PurpaCat Industries headquarters, Dick had only to peel back a layer of towels in order to get a private meeting with Mr. Neely. When Dick entered the office, the first thing he saw was a young man in an business suit, fresh out of college, or possibly high school, who was obviously scared shitless over the amount of responsibility he had. The youth directed him to sit down.
“So, Mr... Shandley? What brings you to PurpaCat?”
“Well, Mr. Neely, I’d like to know what the deal is with the purple cats.”
“Yeah, uh huh, sure, well, you see the thing is, we’re kind of trying to keep the whole purple cat thing under wraps, so I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t, you know, tell anyone about all this.”
“Oh, yeah,” Dick blustered. “Mum’s the word, I won’t tell a soul. Now spill it.”
“Well, you see,” Jared stammered, “there’s kind of this whole thing, with like the universe and shit, oh, sorry, I mean stuff.”
“Oh no,” said Dick, “shit is fine. Continue.”
“See, whenever something goes wrong with the universe, like someone does something they’re not supposed to do, like go faster than the speed of light or kill their grandfather or something, it makes a purple cat appear. We don’t really know why.”
“Wait, so if I went out right now and killed my grandfather, it would make a purple cat?”
“No, man, you have to like, do it before your parents are born, or something.”
“Oh,” said Dick, “you mean like a paradox.”
“That was the word I was trying to remember! Exactly, so if you cause one of those paradox things, poof! Purple cat. Oh, also some other bad stuff happens too, but the cat is the first sign.”
“Other bad stuff?”
“Like the universe implodes or some shit, I don’t know, there’s some other agency that handles that kind of stuff, around here we mostly just gather up the cats.”
“So what you’re saying, is that because I have this cat right here, the universe is in danger?”
The kid thought about this for a second. “Oh, yeah, good point. You should probably take it to them and get that straightened out.”
Dick had already been to two different places with this cat today, and the idea of getting back on the bus did not appeal to him. “I don’t really have that kind of time, isn’t there something you can do about it here?”
“Um, okay, I guess. What were you doing when the cat appeared?”
“Well, I was in my office, and I was—” In a startling moment of clarity, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his amazing mega-spliff.
“Holy bejeezus!” shouted Jared. “That’s the biggest damn doobie I’ve ever seen! No wonder you broke the space time continuum with that thing!”
“Seriously? I may have just destroyed the universe by rolling out a joint?”
“Hey, there are some things you just don’t fuck around with man. But hey, what are we doing? We’ve got to destroy that thing!” After a moment’s pause, he added, “Um, with fire! Over the course of the next hour or so. And we should probably open the window.”
Dick held it up to the light, the most important joint in the universe. “Well,” he said solemnly, “if that’s what we have to do.”
And that’s how Dick Shandley saved the universe by smoking out with a guy named Jared.
THE END
AND HERE'S A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE KIDDIES:
Friday, March 13, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Your Weekly Schadenfreude, Brought to You by Idiots
I've been trying to avoid any news about this woman who recently gave birth to octuplets (which my spell check tells me isn't even a real word) because really, I just don't care. But, while flipping through channels today I discovered this hilarious new development. Apparently her doctor offered her the option to selectively abort a few of the fetuses so that they wouldn't, you know, kill her on the way out or something. She was told that having that many babies at once, they would have to spend a lot of time in intensive care. Well, the hospital has started tallying up the bill for that hospital stay. They estimate that the eight weeks of care will cost $2500 per day, PER BABY. For everyone who isn't a genius who did the math in their heads instantly just now, that works out to a total of just over...
ONE MEEEEEEELLION DOLLARS!
So yeah, since she apparently already has 6 other kids, this woman now has 14 children, no job, and one million dollars in debt.
I've done some stupid things in my life, but I take great comfort in the fact that I've never done anything this dumb.
ONE MEEEEEEELLION DOLLARS!
So yeah, since she apparently already has 6 other kids, this woman now has 14 children, no job, and one million dollars in debt.
I've done some stupid things in my life, but I take great comfort in the fact that I've never done anything this dumb.
Monday, February 9, 2009
How to Save an Industry
So, I was just watching the Daily Show, and as the guest they had on the show one Walter Isaacson, who wrote the cover story on this month’s Time Magazine. It’s about how print journalism is dying because everyone gets their news for free on the web (if you want to read this article, you can easily find it for free on the web). In it, he lays out that the problem is that people have come to expect free news, and that internet advertising no longer is a viable business plan. And what is the solution? According to Mr. Isaacson, it’s that most hated of business models, micropayments.
Here’s the thing about micropayments. Even though they seem to actually work, this is largely because they’re the only game in town for digital distribution. Nobody actually like buying songs one at a time on Itunes, but that’s the only legal way to buy digital music. And besides that, it’s a completely different industry. Mr. Isaacson, you cannot simply steal an idea from another field and call it innovation, it doesn’t work that way. A song at least is a complete product; could you imagine someone selling individual pages from a magazine or newspaper? And how much do you charge for a single story? A newspaper costs 50 cents, so how much does that make one story worth? Some fraction of a cent? Do you have to pay one penny for every three stories you access? In that case, can’t you just keep creating new accounts every two stories and never have to pay for your super-premium content? And perhaps the biggest question of all: why would I bother with any of this when there will always be people willing to provide your service for free?
You see, Mr. Isaacson, the problem isn’t people’s browsing habits, or flashy new business schemes. As a journalist, you would think that you would already know what matters the most in this business: content. Ever heard the saying, “content is king?” If you can provide something people can’t get elsewhere, then people will be willing to pay for it. If you can’t get people to subscribe, that says more about your publication than it does about the general public. If you were at a bake sale, and someone was selling bags of dog shit marked “candy,” and another stand was giving away free muffins, and they were delicious, which one would you give your patronage to? The fact is, the internet is providing better coverage, better journalism than you, and they’re doing it all for free.
The problem is the print journalism industry itself. These days most publications just take a few stories off the Associated Press, change a few words, and if they can be bothered make a couple phone calls for some pull quotes. It’s become tired and bored, and much like the recording industry instead of trying to provide a more meaningful service when its very existence becomes called into question, it instead seeks to railroad the people who care enough about their profession to take their passion directly to the people. Instead of complaining or grasping at straws, why not reinvigorate yourselves? You have more resources than the bloggers do, you could very easily do a better job than them. That they are reporting circles around you with no press passes or foreign correspondents is absolutely pathetic.
Mr. Isaacson, while bringing up your article, I was subjected to no less than six spaces reserved for advertising, and a very large pop-up, as well as four separate links to subscribe to the print version of the magazine. Also, the article is cleverly split into four parts, so every page turn pulls up a new set of ads. Of the entire page that your article appears on, about 30% of it is content. Not that I am complaining, this is the price we pay for free journalism (though in Time’s case, it is a bit ridiculous), but if you can’t make money with 28 separate revenue streams per article, per reader, plus the cost of print subscriptions, then you have no business running a company. You probably shouldn’t even be running a lemonade stand, because you would be spending six million dollars for every lemon you squeeze. You say that online publishing cannot be supported by advertising dollars, yet the people who are driving you out of business don’t seem to have any trouble doing so.
In your article, you mention how the Wall Street Journal has been successful with an online subscription model. This is because the Wall Street Journal actually has content. Which is exactly my point. In fact, it’s kind of odd that you bother to mention it since its success flies in the face of the argument you are trying to make. The Wall Street Journal is absolutely essential to people in business. They use their resources to find facts and figures that most people don’t have access to, and they provide worthwhile expert analysis. Publications that can’t manage to stay relevant will die off. Sorry, but it’s a competitive industry.
So, to Walter Isaacson and every one else trying to defend the print industry by whining and stamping your foot, please shut the hell up. Pull yourselves together, you work in the single most important field in the world, the one that the founders of the United States of America thought so essential that they guaranteed it as the first enumerated freedom of our Constitution. You have an incredible responsibility to the public, and the fact that someone snatched the torch away from you means that you weren’t fulfilling our expectations. Stop acting like children, and start acting like fucking journalists.
Here’s the thing about micropayments. Even though they seem to actually work, this is largely because they’re the only game in town for digital distribution. Nobody actually like buying songs one at a time on Itunes, but that’s the only legal way to buy digital music. And besides that, it’s a completely different industry. Mr. Isaacson, you cannot simply steal an idea from another field and call it innovation, it doesn’t work that way. A song at least is a complete product; could you imagine someone selling individual pages from a magazine or newspaper? And how much do you charge for a single story? A newspaper costs 50 cents, so how much does that make one story worth? Some fraction of a cent? Do you have to pay one penny for every three stories you access? In that case, can’t you just keep creating new accounts every two stories and never have to pay for your super-premium content? And perhaps the biggest question of all: why would I bother with any of this when there will always be people willing to provide your service for free?
You see, Mr. Isaacson, the problem isn’t people’s browsing habits, or flashy new business schemes. As a journalist, you would think that you would already know what matters the most in this business: content. Ever heard the saying, “content is king?” If you can provide something people can’t get elsewhere, then people will be willing to pay for it. If you can’t get people to subscribe, that says more about your publication than it does about the general public. If you were at a bake sale, and someone was selling bags of dog shit marked “candy,” and another stand was giving away free muffins, and they were delicious, which one would you give your patronage to? The fact is, the internet is providing better coverage, better journalism than you, and they’re doing it all for free.
The problem is the print journalism industry itself. These days most publications just take a few stories off the Associated Press, change a few words, and if they can be bothered make a couple phone calls for some pull quotes. It’s become tired and bored, and much like the recording industry instead of trying to provide a more meaningful service when its very existence becomes called into question, it instead seeks to railroad the people who care enough about their profession to take their passion directly to the people. Instead of complaining or grasping at straws, why not reinvigorate yourselves? You have more resources than the bloggers do, you could very easily do a better job than them. That they are reporting circles around you with no press passes or foreign correspondents is absolutely pathetic.
Mr. Isaacson, while bringing up your article, I was subjected to no less than six spaces reserved for advertising, and a very large pop-up, as well as four separate links to subscribe to the print version of the magazine. Also, the article is cleverly split into four parts, so every page turn pulls up a new set of ads. Of the entire page that your article appears on, about 30% of it is content. Not that I am complaining, this is the price we pay for free journalism (though in Time’s case, it is a bit ridiculous), but if you can’t make money with 28 separate revenue streams per article, per reader, plus the cost of print subscriptions, then you have no business running a company. You probably shouldn’t even be running a lemonade stand, because you would be spending six million dollars for every lemon you squeeze. You say that online publishing cannot be supported by advertising dollars, yet the people who are driving you out of business don’t seem to have any trouble doing so.
In your article, you mention how the Wall Street Journal has been successful with an online subscription model. This is because the Wall Street Journal actually has content. Which is exactly my point. In fact, it’s kind of odd that you bother to mention it since its success flies in the face of the argument you are trying to make. The Wall Street Journal is absolutely essential to people in business. They use their resources to find facts and figures that most people don’t have access to, and they provide worthwhile expert analysis. Publications that can’t manage to stay relevant will die off. Sorry, but it’s a competitive industry.
So, to Walter Isaacson and every one else trying to defend the print industry by whining and stamping your foot, please shut the hell up. Pull yourselves together, you work in the single most important field in the world, the one that the founders of the United States of America thought so essential that they guaranteed it as the first enumerated freedom of our Constitution. You have an incredible responsibility to the public, and the fact that someone snatched the torch away from you means that you weren’t fulfilling our expectations. Stop acting like children, and start acting like fucking journalists.
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