the tree of woe

Next time you’re dealing with rejection, think about what some of these famous people had to go through:

• Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.
• Thomas Edison went through 3,000 prototypes of the lightbulb before he discovered a filament that worked.
• Abraham Lincoln was told he was no good at splitting rails, but what do we chiefly remember him for today?
• Louis Pasteur killed over 200 people while testing his “Pasteurization” process.
• When Walt Disney told people about his idea for a theme park, people would punch him in the throat.

This is why I love having a beard:

• I look thinner.  More specifically, it’s harder to tell if I’ve gained weight.
• It’s like having a built-in scarf at all times, even in the shower.
• I look smarter, especially when paired with my glasses. “Well, let’s ask him. He’s got a beard and glasses” is something I hear frequently.
• It brings me one step closer to doing a perfect Hemingway/Commander Riker/Zeus impression.
• I think I look scarier, at least until I open my mouth.

I’ve been feeling bad for not blogging the last week. It’s not that I’ve been particularly busy, I have just been lacking the motivation and inspiration. For this reason, I decided to see what unpublished blog posts I had lying around, hoping one of them would be in a finished enough form to just publish without any additional effort. Mysteriously, I didn’t find one like that. So enjoy all of my old fragment blog posts. Consider this blog post to be like one of those furniture store ads that goes something like this: “Oh no! We bought too much furniture! You’d think we’d learn our lesson and fire the buyers, but we don’t for some reason! It ALL MUST GO NOW!”

A Vague, Possibly Horrible Warning!

I like my car.  One of the many things I like about it is its ability to tell me what, if anything, is wrong. My previous automobile, like a small infant, lacked the ability to articulate what was troubling it at any particular time.  ”Check Engine”?  Check it for what? Leaks? Bugs? It’s very existence?

One day last week I woke up, and discovered I couldn’t move my right thumb. Well, I could move it one direction. Specifically, I could grip with it, but I couldn’t straighten it. It didn’t hurt, there seemed to be nothing else wrong, aside from the lack of movement in my thumb. I got out of bed and became very dizzy, quite suddenly. I became dizzy to the point that I had to kneel by the bed and hold on to it, as I couldn’t keep myself upright, not even on my knees. I immediately concluded that I must have some sort of horrible disorder. I’ve been accused of being melodramatic.

Here are some ways to improve your quality of life. (note: That’s all I wrote. I wish I would have worked on this one. I could have really used these tips.)

I know all my readers (and by “all my readers” I mean “both of you”) would like to know how an amazing blogger such as myself is able to maintain an outstanding blog such as this one. I can tell you, it’s not easy. All the other blogs that blog about blogging are filled with useful information for everyone else. Here’s a good example: [Blog about] Why you’re different (and better) than your competition. Who’s my competition? I don’t see any other guys in their late 20s whining about how often they don’t blog. I’m pretty sure I’m an industry of one. So, for anyone else who finds posts like these useless, I now present my solid gold blogging tips:

1. Talk about current events. I’m a little behind on this, but I promise everyone I’ll finally get to the Leno-Conan issue as soon as we get through the Lincoln-Douglas debates next week.
2. Challenge people you’ve never met to duels. This one works for awhile, but gets old pretty fast.
3. Mention something from your childhood. Imply the era you grew up in is superior to any other era.
4. Review a product. Suggest that you could be bought.
5. Talk about something that has recently happened to you, or something you have recently done. Don’t talk about completely uninteresting things, though. Save those for Twitter and Facebook.

You can save money by buying used stuff, or by buying last year’s fashions. If you go back in time far enough with fashions, you can actually lap everyone by being retro, and therefore more hip than other people. Remember, 80’s cartoons are hip. 80’s clothing isn’t, yet. Here are some ideas:

• Instead of a new car, buy a used one.
• Instead of buying new clothes, see what your local Goodwill has.
• Instead of Swine Flu, get SARS. Haven’t heard about SARS in awhile? Well, be the first to make it popular again.
• Instead of putting effort into a blog post, phone it in and reward yourself with a nap.