James Taranto, in his Best of the Web Today column in The Wall Street Journal‘s OpinionJournal took notice of my blogging the 1959 Superman comic story that makes use of the word “blog” (see the end of the section titled Wag the Blog).
Thank you, Mr. Taranto!
In case you haven’t seen the Superman comic, click the comic panel above to read the entry.
A slightly modified version of the actual book cover.
I suspect that there are the fortunate few for whom dating never was an ego-crushing experience; they may have had bad dates or bad relationships, but they have the perfect combination of looks, charm and plain old luck to have been spared. The rest of us — that includes me — have to deal with rejection.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (quit rolling your eyes, I’m trying to make a point here) introduced the “Kobayashi Maru” test, a starship simulation in which a Starfleet cadet is put into a situation considered to be a “no-win scenario”.
The simulation is meant to be a test of the cadet’s discipline, character, and command capabilities when faced with great adversity. “How we face death,” as Admiral Kirk put it, “shows how we face life.”
Getting rejected in dating provides all the character testing of the Kobayashi Maru scenario without the military service — or William Shatner’s acting.
There are many ways to get rejected, but one of the worst has to be when they simply don’t return your calls. Many rejectors take this take because it spares them the awkwardness of having to be “the bad guy”, but the rejectee is left hanging with an “unresolved” feeling.
In my opinion, the correct way to handle such a scenario is to leave a single message along the lines of “I’d appreciate it if you would call me back” and leave it at that. There are many wrong ways, and this set of messages left by a guy named Greg [1.7 MB MP3, included as an enclosure for you Podcast listeners] is a prime example.
I don’t know either party in the recording; I just stumbled across the file. The first girl I ever asked out stopped returning my calls after a while and I think I responded in the same way that Greg did, but hey — I was 15. Greg sounds old enough to know better.
Are you on a coffee break right now? Take a look at this mesmerizing stick-in-your-brain Flash song-and-dance animation.
WARNING: Loud, silly techno music — you might want to turn down your computer speakers first!
Click on the image to see the Flash animation. It will stick your brain — you were warned!
Click the photo to see the corresponding Yahoo! News page.
Egad. The only woman less qualified to “throw the horns” is Kathie Lee Gifford.
Perhaps this is related to the news that the other fake cowboy, Kid Rock, is playing the youth presidential inaugural concert hosted by the Bush twins (a.k.a. “Drunk and Drunker”).
Robert “My Blahg” McLelland is holding a 2004 Canadian Blog Awards contest, and this blog has been nominated for the “Best Blog” category. To borrow a quote from the Simpsons episode in which Homer becomes an astronaut:
But in another more accurate sense, mine is the best blog.
The vote runs from now until January 15th. You can vote once per
category per day, so the “vote early, vote often” adage actually
applies. So go vote, and vote for me!
As you may or may not know, I work at Tucows.
I’m not one of those employees who watches the company’s stock price on
a daily basis, but I couldn’t ignore today’s buzz. Here are a couple of
screen captures from the Yahoo! Finance site that I took this afternoon:
I will neither confirm nor deny any rumours that our CEO, Doctah Madd
Money Billz (formerly known as Elliot Noss), locked himself in his
office, put a pimp hat and did a “bling bling” dance to some Ol’ Dirty
Bastard CDs.
El to the liot, N to the izzoss! Artist’s rendition of our CEO (may not appear exactly as shown).
Although I have much fewer stock options than Elliot, it’s the deluxe car wash for this boy from now on!
I’ve been busy, but my regular blogging resumes now.
After Dad gave us a scare by first landing in the hospital with a lung infection and then checking out of the hospital only to have to be rushed back in a few hours later,
he’s doing fine. He’s been well enough to do all the usual Christmas
things including going to Christmas mass, visiting my sister’s house on
Christmas morning to see his grandkids open their presents and hold
court at Christmas dinner. Once again, thank you all for you prayers
and good thoughts.
Wendy, upon hearing that
Dad was very badly ill, managed to fly in a week earlier than she had
intended to. As a result, this visit marked the longest consecutive
number of days we’ve been together — a whopping sixteen! It may seem a
little odd that I’m marrying someone with whom I’ve spent more time
apart than together, but if you know us personally, you know how well
matched we are. Besides, proximity doesn’t guarantee a good
relationship — I’ve had one or two perfectly rotten girlfriends who’ve
lived a few blocks away. I’ll be extremely happy once Wendy’s here full-time.
If you know me personally, you’d probably think that I’d fit as well in a wedding registry department as Kunta Kinte at a Merle Haggard concert (to borrow a line from the Bloodhound Gang). However, I spent the holdiays registering at not one, but two places: The Hudson Bay Company (a Canadian department store chain) and William Ashley
(a Canadian foo-foo place where you’re supposed to register for china
patterns). The Bay had a little plastic wheel calculator that tells you
the dollar value of the wedding gifts you should receive given then
number of guests; apparently Wendy and I should expect the equivalent
of a reasonably-equipped BMW 3-series.
Ashley gives any couple who registers there a set of champagne flutes
and a handful of chocolate truffles filled with champagne truffle
cream. I never truly understood the motivation behind Jennifer Aniston’s character, “Rachel” in the first episode of Friends (she called off her marriage after she realized that she was more in love with the wedding gifts than her fiance) until now.
Another way I’ve been keeping busy was with the PlayStation 2
that Wendy bought me for Christmas. Videogame consoles are often a
point of contention for couples, typically with the cooler half being
into gaming and the lamer half into lame-o stuff like (you have to
imagine me making “finger quotes” and speaking a deep, saracstic tone)
“snuggling” and “talking about the relationship” (I kid, I kid). I
decided to take the high road and get some games that Wendy would like.
As a result, she’s now into the completly awesome and quirky Katamari Damacy. I tried to get into her into the “realistic” world of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,
but while I was marvelling at the fact that I could beat up crack
dealers, club cops with their own truncheons and soften up rival gang
members by running over them with a stolen ambulance and then finish them off with the
submachine gun, she was wowed by the fact the she got the character to
buy some pop from a machine in the game. If any of you can suggest some
games along the lines of Katamari Damacy that both Wendy and I would enjoy, please let me know in the comments.
(Maybe I can get her hooked on No One Can Stop Mr. Domino if I can dig up a copy…)