CC: MeMeIgnoreIgnoreUU

You can cc me on that shit all you want, I’m not falling for it. Most of the cc’s seem like a courtesy, sort of a we know you are on sabbatical and just wanted to keep you informed. But those recent ones? You are damn near begging me to step in with needed information (information that is available to ALL of you I might add if you would just pay attention). I am not going to do it. No. Why can’t anyone else keep track of this shit? It’s not difficult people. CC me on that shit all you want. You will get NO response.

Dear Book,

Fucking hell. My house is a wreck. Wrap it up author! You keep sucking me in with crazy fantastic writing. I’ve been subsisting on coffee and nutter-butters for days now. You are completely interfering with my life Book! I thought I would hate you, I tried to read you once before. Your opening salvo of introducing way too many characters at once in a setting I normally find boring is why you sat neglected for so long. I started again. I was skeptical of you Book. Now look at me. I’m a mess. You are not a casual sex type book. We are in a damn relationship now! We need to end this. I love you, but we can’t go on like this forever.

Project Report 3A: Strolling Policy

Please pause for a moment while I mount my high horse, step onto this soapbox, identify who declared me boss, and placed this crown on my head. OK, that’s better. It’s much more comfortable up here, the view and accessories are topnotch. Now that I am situated I have a few things to say:

People of the Blogspot, stop starting blogs about scrapbooking. Stop it. Just give it a rest. I understand that a little memento curation may be in order. I get that. Go ahead and organize your photographs your trinkets, your ticket stubs and such. That day, event, or whatnot may have been memorable. Do it for yourself, your kids, your grandpa, or whomever. But I would estimate that 27% of all the blogs I ran into while strolling through the blogosphere (by pushing “next blog” a billion times) were about scrapbooks. A solid 85% of those scrapbooking blogs are suck-ass-awful. Just cheesy crap that looks so “mass produced scrapbook cliché” that apparently entire families have never experienced a single moment that could not be characterized by a sticker assortment. What the hell is this shit? Stop blogging about it. I find it depressing. It really, and I mean really, looks like you are just forcing personal “moments” to happen. Like you dragged you grandpa to the rodeo just so you could take his picture with a cowboy hat on and buy some cowboy themed decals. That is not cool. Grandpa was half asleep and did not enjoy stepping in animal shit.

That leaves the remaining 15% of scrapbooking blogs. Some of you are in a language I don’t understand (and cannot even identify), some of you seem rather genuine in your pursuits, and some have the benefit of artistic talent. You may continue. But, People of the Blogspot, our avenues and scenic byways are cluttered with terrible scrapbooking blogs. Our streets cannot be strolled safely, assaulted by glitter, ribbons, and damn near anything that can be glued to piece of busily patterned paper, danger lurks around every corner. I think that People with Blogs about Sports Teams (especially you foreign language ones) and People with Blogs about Your Wedding Photography Business should unite and patrol your neck of the Blogspot woods for feral scrapbookers (Photogs: you capture their picture; Sports Team People: you rally your fans and do not let your favorite team and sport be reduced to a patterned picture border template). Fashion Blogs and Cooking Blogs, collectively you must patrol our commercial centers. Use your skills to keep our markets free from cheap counterfeit scrapbook “memories” and the aesthetic shit-pile of glue and paper. Family Bloggers, do not let these people infiltrate you! They want in. They want to invite your kid over, but make sure Susie wears pink (it will look better in the pictures) and they want you to buy their crap (so YOU TOO can have family memories just LIKE THEIRS!).

There is a role for all of us. We must unite. People of the Blogspot, and that means you Blogs with Terrible Financial Advice, Blogs of Artists (who should be outraged at the schmuckiness of it all), and Blogs about Various Things in Nature, we need to unite and form a citizens patrol. I know, it sounds all anti-democratic, it sounds like censorship. We can’t be total assholes about this. Blogs about Particular Professions (even the illegal ones), Blogs about Politics, and Blogs about Angst (the fake kind you have as a youngster that only bad poetry and copious amounts of black clothes can fix): stop hiding in your pigeonholes and join us! We must all resist the bad scrapbookers glittery charm.

We must politely allow bad scrapbooking to enter the ranks of Alf, Members Only jackets, and that weird machine that shook your ass and thigh fat for no apparent purpose (did anyone really believe that would do anything? You know that “exercise machine” that probably ran on steam or something and consisted of a vibrating belt?)…anyway, we need to let bad scrapbooking become a distant and funny in its craptacularness thing of the past. Do not be swayed by the scent of their glue (ask the Blogs about Huffing, you can do better) or their fancy cutting implements, we need to protect our streets. Think of the future bloggers whose dreams were dashed by the viewing of a single St. Patricks Day themed photo frame idea (with INSTRUCTIONS! For only $9.95!). Think of the tourists strolling through our lands and their disappointment at seeing the same beribboned bullshit over and over again. Shit, I live here and I can’t even go for a pleasant evening stroll. Damnit!

Yes, I am an elitist bastard. (dismounting now)

Ye Olde Blogge Poste

Let’s play a game shall we? The game will be called How I Know I’m Old. I thought this game existed already. I thought I knew how old I was. I know about time. I understand, in a practical sense, how time passes and its effects. I am aware of my age. I know my birthday. I don’t remember all my birthdays that well…especially the really early ones and the ones that have occurred since I became aware of celebratory birthday substances. Nonetheless, I know my age. But I have only recently begun to realize that I am old. Old. I saw vacation pictures. Not childhood vacation pictures— those just make me feel like a grownup, not old per se, but I saw old adulthood vacation pictures. Shit. I look young. Fuck. I am fucking oooooold. This has me looking for other signs that I am old. Why? Did you read my previous post? I don’t want to be that person. I need to stay on top of this me getting old thing. I do not want to have some ridiculous mid-life crisis. Well…does a sport car always come with it? Can I just have the car part of the typical mid-life crisis?

Fuck. Sometimes new fangled computer things come up that I don’t know how to use. Typical old person occurrence. (Shit, I also used the term “new fangled”. How old person is that?) I never get mistaken for a grad student anymore. I rarely get carded. My dog is old. I look like a baby in those vacation pictures. What else is showing my age? Let’s play.

Books
I have some books that were new and fancy when I was a student. I spent a fortune on them. Now second editions and third editions are out on some. Crap.

Drinks
Well, I still love cheap beer. That’s good. But, I’ve fallen prey of enjoying old people drinks. Hard simple drinks that tasted like lighter fluid when I was young, like scotch. Damn, a scotch sounds good.

Glasses
I went to pour myself a drink and realized I have old people glasses. Young people have a hodge podge of assorted beverage containers. I have like sets of glasses, some for this, some for that…old people drinking vessels. You know, like goatskins and goblets. (Sorry my scotch bottle has some kind of vague old timey dude on it)

I think I better stop now. This could get depressing. At least I’ve read the books now, right? I can order a drink with authority, I quality I find very respectable…and if you wanted a drink I probably have the right glass to put it in (as long as you don’t want a scotch, I drank it all). Crap. But you know those old vacation pictures? They were real pictures, not digital. That’s’ old. Damn.

Do You Need A Tissue?

Dude. Stop mid-life-crisising all over me. Your sticky need for validation is getting disgusting. The car, the drinks, the name dropping…it’s all a bit too blatant. Try to embrace your crisis in a way that does not assault my senses with overly colorful shirts and weak attempts to act as if your “inner cool guy” just happens to be emerging. That inner cool guy you keep spewing out is really a jerk. I fully support your right to have an identity crisis, but tone it the fuck down. Do you really intend to transform into a cliché? Am I supposed to believe that your true calling is a c.1980s style “arrogant asshole with a cool car” dude? That guy always gets screwed at the end of the movie. Please edit your mid-life crisis to conform to the “nerd embraces his nerdiness resulting in acceptance” genre. It suits you better. If you can’t do that, start carrying some baby wipes around with you because you are making us all feel slimy.

Oh It’s Good, Very Good

Ever wondered if it would be OK to just ignore work shit? I mean work shit, not fun parts of your job, but the annoying bureaucratic paperworky parts. It’s fucking A awesome. What was that meeting? You need everyone to fill out what form? Huh? What? I can’t hear you. Sorry! I’m deleting, not opening, and ignoring shit right and left. It’s like a beautiful slo-mo shot of me dodging obligations. It is in many ways, the end of an era…or maybe an error. But either way, it’s nice. I can actually remember why I liked my job. I get to think about weird shit that I find entertaining, measure things, hypothesize and do all that good science stuff. I wasn’t sure when the whole sabbatical idea would really kick in. It is slowly sinking in nicely. This was worth working for.

Immanuel Font