Weblog Sin Pies

By Charley Daniels

Well, it’s that time of year when some of us start making a list of things we’re going to try for the first time, or do better, or quit doing entirely. The only problem with lists is that they’re so hard to follow. Like when I take a list to the grocery store, I never end up with only the stuff on the list. In fact, sometimes I forget the list in the car and just wander around the store for hours.

There are times I think lists are designed to make you ignore them. Like that list of “rules” by the swimming pool. Or the one on the side of my prescription. My police record is a list of sorts. The point is, lists can become your enemy if you let them, much like the neighbor kids or your mechanic. But they’re not all bad. Lists can also tell you a lot about things in a certain, arbitrarily defined group. Lists reveal how much you know about the world in general, or how much you don’t know about your own family. It’s time to embrace lists.

So for the first time ever, I have a New Year’s resolution: to make more of those things I’ve already referred to so many times that the word is starting to sound weird to me. You know what I mean.

Following is a list of just some of the lists I’ll be making in 2009.

• Things I can do instead of that thing I was supposed to do
• Snacks I can eat in one bite
• Colors my hair will never be
• People around whom I should probably at least pretend that I’m sober
• Stuff I really should dust
• College degrees I would have failed to receive had I attempted them
• People whom I’ll never sleep with
• People whom I’ll never sleep near, because they frighten me
• Things you can do with allergy medication other than mitigate the symptoms of allergies
• Things better said in writing
• Meadows I’ve run across into the open arms of a woman
• Women whose open arms I’ve run across a meadow to be embraced by
• Meadows that are too geographically risky to run across, regardless of whose arms are waiting, open
• Ways I’m like a robot
• Different sets of last words for various situations
• Best of 2009: The Lists

What else should I list in 2009?

By Charley Daniels

About a month and a half ago Frosty at Collider.com posted an article about how the two major entertainment trades, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, were snubbing websites like Collider by not giving them credit for breaking stories first.

When will Variety and The Hollywood Reporter Credit Online Websites for Breaking a Story?

“Time and again I’ve watched as either myself, or one of my fellow online journalists (cause that’s what we are) break a story only to be reported sometimes days later in Variety or The Reporter with no mention the news was already online.”

I’ve been meaning to write something about this since I first saw it (I found out because someone from MTV e-mailed us asking for a comment on the story), and although I’m decidedly biased in this case, I’m totally sympathetic to the plight of the online journalist, so I don’t think my status as a THR employee should immediately disqualify me from an opinion.
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By Charley Daniels

This week I partook of the sweet nectar that is “what everybody else is doing” (versus my usual activity of “mostly working and not much else”). Yes, I picked up a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV: Lord of Illusions and I went and saw Iron Man on opening weekend.

Iron Man made eleventy-billion-ten dollars and seventy-five cents domestically, and five-twenty times that combined with its international numbers. (I know because I work in entertainment journalism, so don’t get too impressed.) Oh, and the $10.75 was from me, thank you very much. So you know it had to be a good movie, even if our particular screening didn’t show the secret scene after the credits.

Grand Theft Auto IV, on the other hand, lets you punch a bitch out for absolutely no reason. If you’re like me, you do this often enough that it actually gets in the way of your trying to do the missions in the game. Like, I’ll need to get from point A to point B — it’s simple really, just go there. But on the way a homeless man asks me for money, so I hit him with a brick. Then the cops come (since when do cops care about homeless people?) and I have to steal a car for a fast getaway, which makes them even more duty-bound to stop me, or whatever. So now I really need to escape, except I’m not very good at driving yet because I’ve spent most of my time hitting people with bricks. It doesn’t help that in my panic I inevitably grab some delivery van or airline luggage cart. So it takes a ton of time to lose the fuzz, and by then I have to go do something in real life, and I can’t finish the original mission: getting from point A to point B.

You learn a lot about yourself from playing this game, which means it’s educational, which means it’s good for kids.

By Charley Daniels

Almost didn’t make it to this post, as the site was down for some reason for much of the day. Working on that. Could require some technical prowess and maybe even a bit of tinkering. But NaBloPoMo hasn’t defeated me yet! In fact, it’s inspired me.

It feels good to be inspired. Do you know what I mean? Maybe I can inspire you today.

There’s no excuse for you not to be doing exactly what you want to be doing. Well, there are excuses, but they’re just that — excuses. They’re not good excuses, the sort that let you off the hook for whatever it is you’re hoping to excuse. You hate your job, right? Well, why? Have you watched TV lately? Been to YouTube?

The thing is, you can get paid to do pretty much anything these days. It’s called reality TV. You just have to get a production company involved and anything you do can be financed by television. Hanging out. Sanding boards. Punching. Yelling. Sharpening metal. Grapes. Whatever it is, there’s a market for it.

No mainstream media companies biting? Become an internet sensation! Put on a costume and video yourself messing with people in a Wal-Mart. Or better still, video Wal-Mart customers messing with you. You could start a vlog about your cat. (Attention Luddites: A vlog is like a talkie in the silent era of blogs, you dig?)

There’s an audience out there for anything you can think of. You just have to be specific, and you just have to find them. Eventually you’ll be rich. I mean, something has to happen between conception and success, but that’s outside the scope of this analysis. Lottery, maybe?

By Charley Daniels

Liberal blogs, pundits, and talking heads, in cooperation with the recently formed Society for Preservation of Beach Boys Song Lyrics, are foaming at the mouth over Republican Senator John McCain’s parody of the Beach Boys song “Barbara Ann” (video after the jump), in which he turned the words of the song into “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.” The impromptu performance came during a speaking engagement where McCain was asked by an audience member whether the U.S. should send Iran a message via air mail. Get it? “Air” mail? Obviously a lighthearted (if a little tasteless and, you know, idiotic) moment. So McCain responded in a similarly lighthearted (and, yes, a little tasteless and idiotic) way.

After the uproarious laughter subsided, McCain apparently launched into a serious answer about the complex political situation between Iran and the U.S. and a bunch of other politics-speak. So what’s the big deal?

Look, I’m no McCain enthusiast. I don’t agree with his ideology, his politics, or his choice of tie. If he wants to play no-rules street ball, I’ll put on my spiky fingerless gloves and take him on any day. But if politicians aren’t allowed to have a sense of humor in a situation that’s informal and lighthearted, maybe we should just skip to the part where robots take over, since we’re already at least a third of the way there.

The bottom line is, I’ve been listening to a lot of the Republican candidates (and potential candidates) for presidency, and I have to say, McCain’s joke isn’t even in the top 10 most idiotic things I’ve heard from that group. And most of the time they’re being serious. Don’t even get me started on the current Commander-in-Chief.

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