the tree of woe

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 For this reason, I decided to see what unpublished blog posts I had lying around, hoping one of them would be in a finished enough form to just publish without any additional effort.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.

So.

The Pioneer Woman has failed to respond to my challenges. I knew this would happen. She was obviously paralyzed with fear. She only blogged roughly 15 times in the four days she had to respond to my challenges. I am now King of the Internets.

Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi!

I organized a coronation for myself today, but things went a little awry when I noticed that the chartreuse lasers I had ordered were in fact yellow. I got into an argument with the laser guy, and ended up flipping all the laser machines over, and heaving one into traffic. Things got a little out of control. I then knocked over a couple of light stands and ended up throwing a toaster and a hairdryer into a swimming pool. They weren’t plugged in, but try telling that to everyone in there. Good luck getting them to listen to anything.

So that didn’t work out like I had planned, but I’m still the reigning King of the Internets. I need to start changing my name on things. I’ll start with my Safeway card.

Cashier: Thanks for shopping with us today, Mr…   King of the Internets.

You are most welcome, loyal subject.

The image above consists of all the most popular words I’ve used on this blog, ever. The larger the word, the more frequently it has appeared. Apparently, my average post looks something like this:

Just like time, one something good people know Meijer.

That…  that actually sounds about right. I’m very pleased to see “Bezos” in there. I think this is something I’ll do every year or so. It makes me wish I could do one for every word I’ve ever spoken. I think that one would probably look something like this:

Yeah. That looks about right, too. Those are all my favorite words. How about you, dear reader? Any favorite words?

That’s it. I’m through playing around. You can tell how serious I am due to the lack of an exclamation point in my title. I’ve never not had an exclamation point up there.

Dear Pioneer Woman: It’s on.

You get 125 comments every time you burp, and I’m sick of it. I suppose I could get the same readership through hard work, patience, and effort, but I thought of an alternate plan that requires none of that. In the tradition of the Klingons, I challenge you to a duel.

I’m going to beat you at your own game. Sure, I could pick contests that play to my strengths (such as whining like a 12 year old girl, or not posting on my blog) but I won’t. Instead, there will be five challenges, based on the five super popular sections of your site: Cooking, Photography, Home & Garden, Homeschooling, and Confessions. I’m not really sure how those last two are going to work, as I don’t have any children to homeschool, and there’s not a good way to measure the winner of a confessing contest. If anyone has any good ideas for that, let me know. (If anyone has any children they would be willing to pull out of school for a year so I can homeschool them for this contest, please let me know, also.)

So, Pioneer Woman. It’s on. You have until Friday, December 18th at midnight PST to respond. If you fail to answer my challenge, you will forfeit, and I will crown myself champion. If you respond in time, you’re still going to lose, and I’ll crown myself champion. Either way, I get a shiny, pointy hat.