Some things to do while I'm slacking

Since I'm not all that good about posting yet (although this is two nights in a row, go me), I thought I'd leave a couple of things to amuse in my absence. Plus, it gives me a chance to work on the whole text-link thing.

If you're one of those people who gets tunes stuck in your head easily, you should probably stay away from this, since it may well drive you bonkers. But it's really funny, in a totally surreal and pointless way. Consider yourself warned.

This is pretty funny. Reminds me of a story I read many years ago about a town in Michigan named Hell. Seriously. There is a Hell, Michigan. You'd never know it, though, because the welcome signs (not surprisingly) last all of about a second and a half. The story, as I remember it, went on to say that there's a creek on the edge of town that they check during the winter, just to see if some people were going to have to come through on some promises they hadn't planned on. Apparently there is another town, just a bit north of Hell, called Paradise. I can't imagine that anyone living near that area in the winter considers that name anything less than painfully ironic, but that's just me. It also means that, on occasion, it gets colder than Hell in Paradise. And no, I'm not kidding.

I think you could entertain yourself for quite a while here. And there's no editorial control, so anything goes. Endless possibilities, and most of them wrong...

movies.com has muppets. Statler and Waldorf doing movie reviews. Go there now.

And finally, a small selection from planetvids. Some good stuff there, including:
The rare, enjoyable mime.
If you were in high school in the early-to-mid nineties, you either knew, or were, this guy.
And a double from the You're Less of a Person for Laughing department: one and two.

Frequent bloggers impress me...

Okay, so firing this thing up right before a round of midterms was probably not the swiftest move yours truly ever pulled. But that's beside the point.

I'm still kind of new to this whole blog thing, but I've read a few off and on for a while. The thing about it that impresses me, I guess, is that people manage to get in pretty much daily, and manage to actually have something to say each time. This is pretty cool. Particularly the 'daily' part. But then I pretty much envy anyone with more than one free evening between Monday and Thursday, but that's my own fault: grad school is a bit of a time sponge, it turns out. Especially when said student has three tests in a week, two on the same night. Say it with me now, E.T. style: Ouuuuuuuuuch (light up fingers are optional, so please don't risk a trip to the burn unit to play along; it's really okay). In any case, most of the blogs I've been reading lately (and I'll ge to that next post, either tonight or, well, whenever I next log into this thing) seem to be pretty social and socially-oriented, what with happy hours and dating and all that, and presumably most if not all are somehow gainfully employed, and yet they still manage to treat this virtual microcosm with entertaining nuggets quite frequently. And it is always nice to read people who can, you know, write.

So, to the frequent bloggers, my hat, imaginary as it may be, is off to you. Plus, it seems like most of you have a pretty good handle on this whole making-the-blog-do-what-you-want thing, and I'm waaaaaaaay behind the curve there. I'll figure it out, though, eventually. Sometime by, oh, 2009 this thing should be in pretty good shape. Between now and then, I will respectfully suggest the hardhats, which can be found on the rack just inside the door. For your own safety, you know.

Watch This Space

At first, I just thought that the name for this thing was kind of a clever play on words, and had a nice ring to it. I was a little surprised it wasn't already taken.

So I signed up. I had no idea what I was in for.

Like many people, I'm sure, I just figured this blogging thing was pretty simple: get a blog, come up with a name, and proceed to pontificate/babble/opine/ruminate/muse/whatever. Turns out it's a little more complicated than that. I'm a pretty smart guy, but I don't know the first thing about html or java or web stuff, and it didn't even occur to me that I might need to. I obviously didn't come prepared for class. It's not quite the showing-up-in-your-underwear dream, but I do feel kind of like a freshman on the first day at a new school: I found my locker, but I don't really know the combination, I don't know where my first class is, and I have no idea who all these people are. I just hope to have a couple of friends by lunchtime; those are big tables to sit at by yourself.

So this is a diclaimer of sorts: If you happen across this thing while I'm still working out the basics, please excuse the mess. I will hopefully have witty, entertaining, or at least mildly interesting things to say shortly, just as soon as I get a small grasp of the language.

It will an apt title, I think, for quite some time.