Seacrest, Out!
I was watching CNN's "Blog Report" today (it's called something like that) where two reporters discuss what's being talked about on the blogosphere. This report served to crystallize a bad taste that's been forming in my mouth (so to speak) for some time regarding blogs. The story truly has finally become What Are the Blogs Saying, not What Is the Truth?. This is not a universal negative, but for the time being I don't like being involved.
Here's a pro-con for blogs and blogging:
Pro: Truth, Humor, (these are much the same thing), Ideas, Culture
Con: Lies, Hatred, Distraction, Poor Color Schemes
I don't like what blogs have become in the Mainstream Media, or frankly in the Sidestream Media (and I've lost my faith in the robustness of the Obscurestream). I don't want to be one anymore.
This is not an action I take in the spirit of defeatism, and I understand the reality that blogs are sort of what's happening. That being said, I need to reflect on what part I'm going to take in the growing Din of Typed Voices that is the blogosphere.
Anyone reading this message is likely to be in touch with channels that will become aware if I ever return.
I dedicate this post to a Real Man of Genius, Mr. Jean Shorts Inventor (if I had blogged today, I would have talked about how Bud Light made a mistake in changing their ad campaign from "Real American Heroes" to "Real Men of Genius", in the spirit of post-9/11 "patriotism" (is a slash the proper convention here, or should it be a hyphen, as in 9-11?), ostensibly in order to not offend some people; well, perhaps some were spared offense, but the new name is significantly less funny, and surely a) American heroism did not start in 2001, and b) no one could have reasonably thought they were serious in the first place (fortunately, the substance of the ads remain very amusing (NegativeMode, I know you would in particular would appreciate Mr. Jean Shorts Inventor, which I heard today on Chicago's FM 105.9, and I trust you are sufficiently internet-industrious to find out why). If anything, the ad campaign serves to more further honor the people we really consider "heroes" by exposing Mr. Fortune-Cookie Fortune Writer and Mr. Pickled Pigs-Feet-Eater as the consensus non-heroes that they are)).
PositiveMode, Out!
In Simpler Terms...
Comments have suggested that readers prefer a more concrete, linear approach to reading PositiveMode. If you didn't find yourself closer to enlightenment upon confronting the previous three posts, here is a simpler, condensed version, in blog-order (that is to say, reverse chronological order):
1. Gossip columnists, almost universally, employ a weird style (and frequently utilize ellipses between stories), and often write about stupid things, usually having to do with out-of-town celebrities who have been spotted at popular locations
-1a. I saw Mark Cuban, Dirk Nowitsky, and Chris Ferguson in Las Vegas last weekend
-1b. Wynn Las Vegas turns out to be quite uninspired, and no one was there. When it ultimately fails, Tony Gwynn might buy it because he can just tack on a "G", and it's his!
-1c. It's funny how gossip columnists always put names in bold; note the subtle contrast to the way bloggers hyperlink important subjects of their blog
2. I saw Seinfeld while I was in Vegas. He was very funny, but Tom Papa, the opening act, was funnier
3. I'm not sure if I ever blogged about carrying a casket at a synagogue in St. Thomas last April, but that happened, and now I'm mentioning it
-3a. I was reminded of that occasion while watching Jackass: The Movie (because of an episode of Jackass where a casket falls out of the back of a hearse and a fake corpse emerges)
-3b. I had actually started that post while doing internet research on Wally George (who I discovered died in 2003) and I thought he deserved mention on PositiveMode, but I got caught up in the casket business, also a worthy blog topic
-3c. Recently, Port McClellan had blogged on a Southern California broadcasting icon, so I referred to that post
Reader Note: With respect to the ellipses used in the title to this post, please note that I only used that punctuational device after some contemplation of whether it was appropriate here (often, I think, people use these too carelessly, primarily in email).
Another Note: For those displeased with the quality of the posts made around the three-o'clock AM hour of this past Sunday, bear in mind that this is the time period out of which PositiveMode posts are often most likely to come these days, at least ones with hyperlinks (highspeed internet at home is coming soon, but alas, not the more advanced Blogger features)(note, for instance, the lack of hyperlinks in this post).
Regardless, I appreciate your opinions and readership. Both are vital, respectively, to PositiveMode's furious pursuit of the Truth (thoughtfully offered opinions affect the furiousness of the pursuit, while readership is vital to the meaning of the ultimate message). That being said, PositiveMode is still, in many ways (humbly) simply a blog about Nothing.
QT?..??PMode??....RSQ...Happenings
And
what's the deal with gossip columnists? They have the weirdest names for their columns and the strangest....ways of separating their stories....and such.
Here's my shot:
On Saturday night at
Pure [Caesar's, Las Vegas (assume this is from the Sun or the Review-Journal)]
Dirk Nowitsky obliged boss
Mark Cuban with a drink at this month's hottest nightspot; the Maverick mogul would have been happier if he could have shined brighter than his much-taller and humbler German hoopster, who drew the looks of all, but to no surprise, Cuban had his own circle of ladies to entertain....Poker is still in, it seems, as
Chris "Jesus" Ferguson roamed around the upper deck at Pure with as much attention as Dirk; same guy, if you subtract fourteen inches of height and add a nineteen-year-old escort and a cowboy hat....Wynn Las Vegas; seven, seven crap out. Please enter our club!! We need someone! Even you!! Wynn...No More Bets.
PositiveMode hears, among possible buyers-out who can make good use of Wynn: Tony Gwynn Resorts of Las Vegas. You heard it here first...
I promise, it's all true!
What gossip columnist gives such an earnest affirmance at the conclusion of their allegations?
I think that in some ways,
bold will always be cooler than
hyperlink.
And What's The Deal With Politics?
That Blog Title is a tribute/reference (I acknowledge an understanding of the difference, but I'm not sure which term is more correct here) to
Kramer's attempt at Jerry Seinfeld's standup.Saw Seinfeld at Caesar's in Vegas last weekend. He was very good. (Google the show yourself, I'm not in a hyperlinking mood. Blogs were not meant to replace search engines, and stop thinking otherwise)
I must admit, however (and my views were confirmed with my co-attendees (for lack of a friendlier term)) that his opening act,
Tom Papa, was funnier.
Carrying A Casket In St. Thomas + Wally George
I don't recall blogging on my casket-carrying experience. It was quite something, and none other than 2/xths (
x meaning between 4 and 9) of my blog-viewing public have firsthand experience of the...well, experience ("experience" is probably the most trite and generic of words used to describe personal human happenings, but in fairness to those who carelessly use the term, what else is out there to say, hey! this happened to me!?).
The reason I bring it up is because I'm watching
Jackass: The Movie and I'm reminded of an episode of Jackass! the tv show (I'm selectively hyperlinking pop culture titles because the computer I happen to be using uses a pointing stick (a la IBM's ThinkPad) as its sole pointing device, and I'm simply not a fan/used to such things (should "tv" definitely be capitalized, or is that a sort of discretionary/stylistic thing? SisterMode is our best hope here)(notice that you probably have stopped accounting for my open/close parenthesis matching at this point in your PositiveMode fandom)(but is it right???)).
The point is, carrying a casket inevitably brought to mind the idea of accidentally dropping it, and therefore an imaginary watching a body fall from its half-opening, followed by a half-hearted (although successful, but demoralizing) attempt to put the body back in its original box.
I've told the story with much more enthusiasm and detail, but it's late in the morning, and ask me later.
It will be shocking (or at least surprising, as it is unrelated to the first two-thirds of the post) to all PositiveMode enthusiasts to learn that the primary impetus behind launching this post was my recent discovery of the
death of Wally George. He had a weird show. Port McClellan (apologies, Port, on my nonextrapolation of apple reproduction, but I intend to elaborate in time) recently reported on
another Orange County legend; well, I suspect that Mr. George was as "Orange" as they come.
I guess when you get one chance per three weeks to access a computer that allows you to hyperlink (what a nerdy standard, by the way) you end up posting this nonsense. Well, at least you can know for another day that it's not over. Perhaps my remaining loyal readers will take sufficient Solace in that.
Michael Jackson Acquitted On All Charges
You will also read this everywhere else on the internet.
It's Not You, It's Me
This is probably the fifth time in PositiveMode's semi-short life that I've had to apologize for an extended Blog Hiatus. Sadly, it's been very difficult adjusting to a new home-blog-computer, but I'm trying my best to develop the fortitude to blog forward. I am getting DSL soon, which will help; also, a key setback I faced last time I tried to post was when I found that the Apple computer I've been using does not offer the same tools on the post page, namely the Hyperlink tool (and even if I did have the patience to enter linking manually, I also don't have the power to access the HTML). I can only assure you that I will try my best (as contrasted with "do my best", which for you would be a more solid assurance, but "try" is all I'm offering).
As usual, I hope that my time away has not entirely driven away the few loyalists that I so heartfeltfully counted on.
Here are many of the topics that I would have blogged on had my Blog Wheels been more properly greased (so to speak):
- The decades-old problem that news must be packaged as entertainment if its proponents are to continue being able to give us news, and the distortion that thus inevitably occurs (this criticism, of course, is based on the assumption that there is an objectively and accurately knowable "truth"; the only incorrect aspect of that assumption I think is that such total truth is, in fact, knowable).
- How many magazine subscriptions it is reasonable for a person to have (more specifically, how many subscriptions should I have? Different people have different needs and wants, of course).
- At what height on a typical full commuter train does the center of gravity reside? My guess is that it's not much higher than the axles. All that mechanical stuff seems prettyy heavy.
- The heterozygousness of apples
- Attention Modewatch: a new Mode has arrived - NeutralMode, located at neutralmode.blogspot.com - Details to follow.
- My attendance last weekend at a rare concert of the influential early electronic German group Kraftwerk. It was good.
- Bill O'Reilly has really gone mad. I wonder if he does his own grocery shopping. I still watch, though.
- When will we see a national manhunt news-fest for a missing person who is any combination of: a) male (sympathetic, non-criminal-suspect); b) unattractive, c) nonwhite? (this probably would have been in the same post as the previous O'Reilly one; he was "interviewing" someone, but really just stating his own wild, conclusive assumptions about the two suspects who had been arrested) (I also realize that this critique of the national media on following missing attractive white females is hardly original but this is a blog, after all).
- The greatest thing about the internet is the power to identify almost any song based on a very small string of lyrics. Think about how such a search system would be put into book format. I don't think it would be possible, no matter how much space you have.
- The White Sox still have the best record in baseball. (How do you "knock on wood" while blogging? Suggestions welcome).
I regret that these topics have not been expounded upon more thoroughly, but I see this summary approach as the only way to bring PostiveMode up-to-date (should that term be double-hyphenated (that is, should it appear as "up to date"?); I have mixed feelings).
