Weblog Sin Pies

By Charley Daniels

I realized today that it’s the time of year once again for me to roll out my joke about the day after Thanksgiving being the busiest day of the year for shopping AND for the sewage-treatment industry. That’s it, basically. That’s the joke.

I’ll let you digest it for a second.

Hey, are you in the mood for something that’s actually funny? If the answer is yes (and I can’t believe it wouldn’t be) you should check out these fake Craigslist postings from Kasper Hauser. This is the part where you tell me those are old and blah blah blah, but they’re still funny, and now they are also more numerous. Enjoy. (Via John Hodgman.)

Also in the “actually funny” department comes New Stereotypes. Like the name implies, it’s stereotypes re-imagined. They’re so much funnier than actual stereotypes. (Thanks Kiala.)

Sometimes you might notice that the ad above the header just says, “Your ad here.” If that’s the case, don’t worry. I have other sources of income.

By Charley Daniels

For two years in a row I attempted NaNoWriMo. Both times I did it I assumed I would fail. Both times I was right. The first year I’m pretty sure I wrote absolutely nothing. This year I’m not even going to try. I never needed NaNoWriMo to expose my laziness and/or inability to write a novel. But it did, so thanks!

So this year I’m attempting something similar that’s more suited to my level of commitment.

I heard about National Blog Posting Month in the nick of time over at Great Hera, a fun blog written by Sarah Kuhn.

The gist is if you update your blog every day during the month of November you win. There may be more to it than that, but that’s enough for me.

My plan is to do it. Or fail trying. If nothing else it’ll be a good exercise, though I can’t promise every last update will be awesome. And why couldn’t they have chosen a month with fewer days?

So I have a lot to say about politics and news and celebrities and stuff, but I think I’ll wait until tomorrow.

By Charley Daniels

“Where have all the cowboys, I mean blog posts, gone?”

–Me

Time for a Weblog Sin Pies overhaul. This will be more of a psychological disassemble/reassemble than a technical one (although I do see Wordpress v. 2.3 is available). My writerly sensibilities [pause for laughter] took a vacation some time ago, and with them everything that made me want to continue living [pause for laughter].

Okay, that’s melodramatic, but I am having trouble writing lately, and I can’t settle on a specific reason, so let’s just say I’m working on some changes. When I figure out what that means, I’ll … well, I’ll make the changes. I won’t tell you about it because who gives a shit? Am I right?

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a reporter for Fox News who was looking into the phenomenon of debt management companies that use religion as a way to recruit financially irresponsible folks who are partial to the Lord. The reporter came across an article I wrote for The Outside World and reposted here about my adventures with Christian Debt Management spam. She was particularly interested in one thing that I wrote:

So I sent them an e-mail (info@christiandebtmanagement.com) and asked them what their program involved. “Accept Jesus into your heart, say the Lord’s Prayer, and cut up your credit cards” seemed like reasonable advice to hope for, if only because I’m a pureblood cynic. Instead I got the cold shoulder. Divine disregard. Could it be that I wasn’t vague enough about my intentions?

She wanted to interview me for an article she was writing. Okay, great, but why? I’m just some dude who got spammed. My perspective isn’t unique. And that’s confirmed, because it turns out she hadn’t read thoroughly and thought the quote I made up actually was the company’s response. Wouldn’t that have been great?

That was that. She was very nice, said she enjoyed my little missive, and I didn’t appear in print for the Fair ‘n’ Balanced web presence. The amount of hate mail and negative comments on this site would have quadrupled for at least a few days. Fun! What do you call the opposite of a target audience?

Point is, that reporter made me realize it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything substantial that I was really proud of, that could trick (ostensible) journalists into thinking I actually have something important to say. It’s time to bring the glory days back, because making shit up and sounding journalistic is what I was put on these interwebs to do.

So bear with me while I shuffle some internal stuff around, and one day soon Weblog Sin Pies will finally be a one-stop shop for made-up shit that sounds like it could be real and for real shit that sounds like it was made up. And for other things as well.