Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Inside The Blogger's Studio

Finally, the day has arrived. The day that two untold numbers of you have asked clamored for! Words Words Words is getting the 60 Minutes treatment! I was inspired to engage in such a blatantly ego-massaging endeavor by - who else? - the internet's most notorious narcissist, Dr. Zibbs. If he can do it, why not a blogger with 15 readers who needs to post pictures of cake to keep his audience? I begged considered several prominent bloggers for the gig, and the Chosen Three came through with quite interesting questions that prompted quite serviceable answers.

Head over to Gwen's blog Everything I Like Causes Cancer if you're interested in sex with prostitutes and WWW's gift-giving skills. Or if you just want to read the blog with the best title in all the blogodome.

Then sidle up to Kimizzy's candidly hilarious blog Splunkerdink to find out how Untitled Blogger Project started and what WWW likes in a woman!

Last but not least, don't change that channel...stay right here for an insightful conversation with Southern Belle of Southern Belle Lives. While the actual Southern Belle lives, sadly her blog does not. Consequently, I shall be hosting her interview myself. Read on...


Southern Belle: Who is the most famous person you've ever met?

WWW: Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was in a movie I worked on. He was aloof, but unfailingly polite and very professional.


Southern Belle: What would you like to be famous for (if anything)?

WWW: Generally I would not like to be famous - I would prefer my work to be famous but to remain fairly anonymous myself. That's why writing is so perfect for me. However, if you said that I have to be famous I'd choose to be a famous rock star. 20,000 people screaming your name and singing lyrics you wrote does not suck. Rock concerts are my favorite way to spend a night out, and to be someone like Mick Jagger or Bono would be BAD ASS.


Southern Belle: What is your favorite thing about yourself?

WWW: Resilience. There is an episode of "The Simpsons" where Homer discovers that he has an unusually thick brain membrane and can take more of a beating than a normal man. Consequently, he decides to becomes a professional boxer. Though he has no boxing skills, Homer can take a punch so well that his strategy is to win by attrition - he just waits for his opponent to get tired from throwing punches and then simply pushes him over. That reminds me of me.


Southern Belle: What is your least favorite thing?

WWW: My timidity. I'm not assertive sometimes when I could greatly improve my lot in life if I'd take a situation by the scruff of the neck. I don't have a problem being assertive in an area of my expertise, but otherwise it's a real problem.


Southern Belle: If you could change your name, what would you change it to?

WWW: Jack. I like it because it's a very masculine name and it's free of pretension. My real name sucks on both those counts.


Southern Belle: If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live (and why)?

WWW: Vancouver, Canada. I spent five months there once for a job, and it was the best place I've ever visited. I think that's long enough for you to get a fair picture of a place. It's got everything you could want from a cosmopolitan city, and it also happens to be surrounded with mountains, water, and stunning natural beauty. Great food (especially Asian), a downtown where you can walk everywhere, a massive and beautiful public park, the best coffee I've had in my life, nice people, and a bunch of hockey freaks. I don't know how to explain it, but I just loved being there.


Southern Belle: Word association time.

Cookie = Chocolate chip

Nap = Boring

Horse = Sinewy

Bread = Sandwich

America = Flag

Alcohol = Whiskey


Thanks to Gwen, Kimizzy and Southern Belle for indulging my vanity. :) I'll be happy to return the favor anytime.

Monday, March 30, 2009

A Note From Homeland Security

Gentle Readers:

Sadly, I have had to install word verification on my blog. Sometime overnight, my blog was spammed by someone going under the clever moniker of "Anonymous". About 30 of my entries were pasted with multiple comments that looked like this:

Now, in order to catch such a nefarious character, we need to find out exactly what this message is. I have three working theories:

1. It is an ancient coded message from any of Nicolas Cage's last six movies.

2. It is a transcript from a particularly heated game of Mah Jongg.

3. It is a group of leftover pieces from that game on The Price Is Right with numbers under pictures of the front and back of the car.

If you have any other leads, please contact me via this blog. Thank you and God bless you all.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Seven Word Sunday: Cake

Vanilla-orange layer cake with raspberry filling!

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Taco Bell Manager Good Write

At the risk of letting you people know that my dinner last night came from Taco Bell (I worked until 9, I swear), I must bring you this hilarity. I'm sure the other cars wondered why I was taking a picture of the drive-through speaker. It's because I am dedicated to bringing YOU quality content on an intermittent basis. You're welcome.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

There's More Than One Dummy In This Story

Every family has old reliable stories that they drag out when it's time to pile on someone. This is the story that my family gangs up on me with.

I was about 17 years old and my family was watching a TV show about a ventriloquist who would speak only through his dummy. Some childhood trauma had caused him to refuse to speak in his own voice for over 20 years.

The ventriloquist had a breakthrough and near the end of the show he finally spoke in his own voice, sans dummy. He was eloquent and spoke confidently. "That's ridiculous," I said angrily. "There's no way that after 20 years of not talking he'd be able to speak so perfectly again without practice!"

The lesson, as always: I'm a knucklehead.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Seven Word Sunday: Ribs

Behold my ribs and roasted fingerling potatoes.

Friday, March 20, 2009

The G-Chat Diaries, Vol. 3

Once again bereft of blog material and consumed by a fit of narcissism, I bring you a new chapter of the G-Chat Diaries! This exchange was initiated when Chatter X sent me a link to this website that tells you the Billboard #1 song for any date. Please, bask in my wit.

Chatter X: What was the #1 song on the day you were born?

Me: "The Long And Winding Road". I actually like that song!

Chatter X: Mine was "Looks Like We Made It", Barry Manilow. wtf.

Me: Very nice. BTW, it makes me feel old that a Beatles song was #1 when I was born.

Chatter X: Yeah, it makes me feel like you're old, too.

Chatter X: My last three birthdays have been "I Kissed A Girl", "Hey There Delilah" and "Promiscuous." Awwwwww yeeeeaaaahhhhh.

Me: 1995 is the last time a white person had the #1 song on my birthday. I don't know what that means.

Chatter X: "Baby Got Back" was my birthday in '92

Me: Apparently your birthday is a whore.

Chatter X: lol. In 1891 it was "Whistling Coon." damn how I miss that song.

Me: Hahahahahahahahaha. You are hilarious.

Me: Oh wait, you didn't make that up. The chart really goes back that far.

Chatter X: No I didn't!!!! That woulda been pretty damn funny though, you're right.

Me: I KNOW. I'm a little disappointed.

Me: Ah, I remember dancing on my birthday to "Throw Him Down, McCloskey". And the year before, we cut up the rug to "Michael Casey As a Physician".

Chatter X: That had to be the shittiest song ever. "Michael Casey as a Physician"?

Me: Really? What about "The Spaniard That Blighted My Life"?

Chatter X: Are we sure that was even a song? That was an essay.

Me: Actually, that sounds like an awesome song.

Chatter X: Wait a cotton pickin' minute! In 1892, I have "Michael Casey at the Telephone". Michael Casey sure as fuck got around.

Me: Wow, for a boring dude he inspired a lot of songs.

Chatter X: Was the telephone even INVENTED?

Me: No, it wasn't. The first two lines of that song are: Michael Casey at the telephone/Exclaimed "what the fuck doth this be?"

Chatter X: I bet even people back in the day thought these songs sucked.

Me: Who can forget "Gimme a Lil Kiss, Will Ya, Huh?" I bet in 1926 that song title was equivalent to scat porn.

Chatter X: Wow in 1901 I got one called "Jim Lawson's Horse Trade With Deacon Witherspoon" by Cal Stewart. Boy I bet that was a real crowd-pleaser.

Me: It's a little wordy.

Chatter X: What the fuck kind of song is that? lol, I can't stop laughing.

Me: Oh, look! Parentheses in song titles are not new! They seem to date back to at least 1931. "(There Ought to Be a) Moonlight Saving Time"

Chatter X: No no no! I have parentheses dating to 1907! "School Days (When We Were a Couple of Kids)" by Byron G. Harlan.

Me: That song was #1 on my birthday too! That must have been one popular-ass song. You go, Byron G. Harlan!

Me: And that is the first time anyone ever said that in the history of the word.

Chatter X: And apparently men have been real douchebags going back all the way to 1918. Case in point: "I'm Sorry I Made You Cry" by Henry Burr.

Me: Yeah, but Mrs. Burr was a screeching harpy. He shouldn't have apologized.

Me: I can't believe I missed this one. "Uncle Josh's Arrival In New York". I wonder if he knew Michael Casey.

Chatter X: I think none can compare to "Jim Lawson's Horse Trade with Deacon Witherspoon."

Me: That's pretty fucking good.

Chatter X: I wish they'd make an American Idol night where the library was #1 songs from the 1890s

Me: That is the best idea in the history of human existence. Including tacos. I just hope the band has a harpsichord player.

Chatter X: And a jug player.

Me: And that clothes washing thing and some spoons.

Chatter X: Zydeco!

Me: I bet we have a totally flawed vision of the 1890s.

Chatter X: I bet we don't. Although it's probably better than their vision of the 2000s. I just don't understand how there was even a chart back then. The radio wasn't even invented.

Me: They calculated it by how many ha'pennies got thrown in each musician's hat.

Chatter X: lolol

Me: That deserved more loling, frankly.

Chatter X: Nahhh, wasn't the funniest thing tonight.

Me: This is totally going to be a "Chatter X" post.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Immodest Proposal

I've decided to change my last name to "Grbk".

Have you ever noticed how sometimes semi-notable people continue to enjoy disproportionate fame because their unusual names bail out lazy crossword puzzle writers? Mel Ott, Don Ho and Bobby Orr, I'm talking about you. Mel Ott was a baseball player in the 1930s and 40s, and would have completely vanished into the mists of history if his name didn't contain an unusual letter combination. Today, crossword enthusiasts who don't even follow baseball know of his impressive but long-forgotten exploits. Messrs. Ho and Orr, while more generally known, still make it onto the list of Crossword All-Stars. I imagine it will be quite a blow to Don Ho's ongoing level of fame if "ho" is ever accepted as a legitimate form of "whore" and the Blue Fairy turns it into a real word.

You can see the advantages of changing my name to Grbk. With a vowel-free surname and even the slightest hint of success, I would vault to the top of the Crossword All-Stars and appear in the New York Times on a regular basis. I will forever be the answer to the clue, "Minor early 21st-century humorist (4)".

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

The Shortest Travelogue Ever

I am 99 44/100% Irish, so in the spirit of St. Patrick's Day I present a couple of funny pictures I took in Ireland!


I kept wondering if the farmer wanted to keep a bull out, or keep people out because there was a bull.


Oh wait, falling to my death on jagged rocks is NOT
allowed? Way to ruin my vacation, Ireland!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

The Idol Zone

You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a disturbing land of abomination.

The year is 2012. And THIISSS is American Idol!


Seacrest: Welcome back! We've seen it all tonight in this first elimination round, folks. Our Top 12 has brought a social worker with Tourette's Syndrome, a man who lost his leg pushing a baby carriage out from under a falling anvil, and interracial conjoined twins who gave us a stirring rendition of "Ebony And Ivory". But tonight's final contestant may be the most pitiable of all. He tragically pierced his larynx while eating Doritos, and now must speak with an electronic speech synthesizer. Ladies and gentlemen, performing a classic by Michael Jackson, please welcome Rusty Stubbins!

Rusty: BILLIE. JEAN. IS. NOT. MY. LOVER. SHE'S. JUST. A. GIRL. WHO. CLAIMS. THAT. I. AM. THE. ONE. BUT. THE. KID. IS. NOT. MY. SON.

*wild applause*

Seacrest: Randy, what did you think of Rusty's performance?

Randy: Dawg, you worked it out, that was HOT! You totally put your own spin on that. It felt like a little Kanye thing going on there with the timbre of your voice, right? It's hard to do a classic like Michael, but you pulled it off. That's the way to end the night!

Seacrest: Paula?

Paula: Rusty, your aura burns so brightly...you're beautiful...your spirit and warmth shine with an electricity that I can feel...you're exactly what this competition needs. *sob*

Seacrest: Replacing Kara this season, we have a parrot. Parrot, how do you think Rusty did?

Parrot: SQUAWK!...Rusty, your aura burns so brightly...you're beautiful...I love what you're wearing...SQUAWK!...You totally put your own spin on that. It's hard to do a classic like Michael, but you pulled it off...SQUAWK!

Seacrest: Simon Cowell! You liked Rusty in Hollywood Week. Did he keep it going tonight?

Simon: You know, if I'm being honest, that was terrible. It felt really soulless. It was the kind of performance you expect to hear at an automated call center, not a concert stage. I have to say, Rusty, I did like you before and I thought you stood out from the other contestants with voice boxes. But none of what I liked about you was on display in that performance. Even the girl with the cleft palate was better than you tonight.

Seacrest: And finally, we have tonight's guest judge, Clip-Clop the horse. Clip-Clop stars opposite Sarah Jessica Parker in the upcoming Fox romantic comedy Horse-Drawn Marriage, about two horses that fall in love while pulling hansom cabs in Central Park. Clip-Clop, what did you think of Rusty's performance?

Clip-Clop: *whinny* *scuff scuff*

Seacrest: There you have it. If you want to vote for Rusty, dial 1-866-IDOLS-12. Be sure to join us tomorrow night for our elimination show, where one of these hard cases will be asked to go back to the hole in the ground that they came from. Before I go, I'd just like to say that based on tonight, the Mayans had it right about 2012. Seacrest out!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

I'm Hiding Under The Covers

This morning the local newscast was running a story about how retail prices are falling in the wake of the recession. Before throwing it over to the weatherdude, the anchor ended the story with, "I guess like the Captain and Tennille said, you better shop around!"

Seriously?

That little bit of awful was definitely - as Mariah Carey said - "Bringin' On The Heartbreak".


Ed. Note: Upon reflection and reading of the comments, it is apparent that hardly anyone got this entry. I would like to apologize for being obscure and emphasize that it is isn't your fault. Not everyone's pop culture knowledge is as extensive as mine is. I shall try again tomorrow with a post that contains more fart jokes clarity.

Sincerely,
WWW

Monday, March 9, 2009

Here's Your Answer, Clara Peller

Have you ever looked closely at the logo for Arby's? I'd never eaten there before, but I did a few weeks ago because there is one right next to my work. Something bothered me about the logo, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Now it's all too clear.

Upon further inspection, it appears that Arby is VERY excited to have us taste his beef.


Friday, March 6, 2009

The Freshmaker

This entry isn't funny, but I wanted to post it anyway. I took these out the window at work yesterday. I hate the weather in Los Angeles, but when the air has that fresh, clean feeling after a rainstorm it's beautiful.



Wednesday, March 4, 2009

With Apologies To Letterman

It's a contest!

The blog Barking Mad! is hosting a Show Off Your Favorites contest. Entrants must list their favorite posts from their own blog. Barking Mad! will review the entries and determine the winner, who will receive a $250 gift card from Target. That's a LOT of Martha Stewart bed linens, people. I've painstakingly casually perused my blog and also taken a few suggestions, and I've composed a Top Ten that may actually fool someone into judging my blog worthy! This list may also serve a valuable purpose to newer fans of Untitled Blogger Project that need to catch up. Both of you.

Without further ado, here are my Top Ten:

Feel The Hate

Cold As Ice

Obama Wins Election; Reveals Divine Nature

Friendshipness

We Should Have Listened To Icarus

The Ballad Of Big Daddy

Down At The Starbucks Hotel

omg, it's lolhistory!!1!

Good Grief!

I'm Sorry, There Will Be Math

Dads Should Not Pick Out Movies At The Video Store

I was introduced to a new website that prevented me from getting any work done at all today. (Even without the site, there would have been no shortage of other reasons I didn't do any work today.) Not Always Right is a very funny compendium of stories from people who work in service jobs. After a brief sampling, you will surely agree that the customer is NOT always right.

Not Always Right put me in mind of my never-ending assortment of customer service jobs. I have been a fast food worker, a dishwasher, a movie theater usher, a telemarketer and a salesman of shoes, waterbeds, cutlery and housewares. And that's just the jobs where I dealt directly with the public. But when I think of stories that are difficult to believe, there is one workplace that stands apart from the rabble.

Blockbuster Video.

I have a million stories from that place, but this is my favorite. A man came in one day and growled, "I'd like to see the manager, please." I both dreaded and anticipated hearing that phrase, because although I would be putting up with some nonsense, there was a chance I'd get a good story out of it. Like I did this time.

The man tossed a tape on the counter and yelled, "I rented this movie for my daughter's Sweet Sixteen party! I get it home and put it in, and it's about LESBIANS!" I looked at the tape. The man had rented The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls In Love. "I want my money back!" he continued. "It's misleading...it never says anything about it being about lesbians on the box!" I muffled my laughter long enough to remind him that the title was The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls In Love. "Well yeah," he said. "But it doesn't say WITH EACH OTHER!"

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Stunt Driving 101

I was reading Scope's moving account of the brief life and tortured death of his beloved VW Dasher, and it reminded me of the unfortunate and quite public death of my own piece of crap car in 2004. This is what I wrote about it at the time:

A moment of silence for my dear departed 1989 Honda Accord.

It expired Wednesday at 8:55am, in a humongous intersection smack dab in the middle of rush hour. It died surrounded by family and friends (me). Those family and friends (me) pushed its bloated carcass out of the road amid honks and obscenities. Not a very dignified way to go out. Cause of death was a blown head gasket. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to my mechanic.

The car died right in the middle of the intersection, and I hopped out to push it into a gas station that was blessedly located on one of the corners. As I turned the wheel to push, the car started rolling away from me. I soon realized to my horror that the intersection crowned in the middle and had a slight incline on all sides. The car picked up speed as I ran alongside it gripping the steering wheel, fearful that it would hit something. The car began to roll faster than I could run, so I took a literal leap of faith and grabbed the wheel tightly, jumping and pulling myself partially into the car. My feet were on the pedals and both hands on the wheel, but my considerable ass was hanging in the wind inches from the asphalt. The door flapped back and forth, slamming into me again and again as I tried to gain control of the car. Finally, I managed to get my ass inside and pulled over. I was probably twenty-five yards past the gas station at this point. A couple of guys helped me push the car (uphill of course) back to the station.

It's funny, I didn't have any time to think and so I did the most dangerous thing possible. My instinct was to be more concerned about the car and anything it might hit than myself. Not good. I later imagined the cops calling my mom. "He fell out and ran over his own head and legs, ma'am, but the good news is that he saved his non-operative 15-year-old car from needless body damage."