In one of the last papers I wrote for grad school I examined the impact of blogs on the mainstream media, paying particular attention to blogs authored by embedded soldiers. I was particularly interested in the antagonistic relationship between traditionally trained journalists and bloggers, and the perception of truth as it applies to both of those public roles. Through my research I found that one of the major critiques journalists have with the blogosphere and bloggers in particular is the lack of any editorial oversight and the danger that anonymity provides the denizens of the ‘net.

In my mind the freedom of expression the blogosphere offers us outweighs the potentiality for misuse and evil, but sometimes I too think that the anonymity of the net empowers people and affords them the opportunity to act in ways they wouldn’t dare if they had to look you in the eye.

Case in point: On December 1st I posted an entry about Brad Vice. I’m not going to summarize the whole thing because you can go here to read the original post, but needless to say he did some unscrupulous stuff and for several weeks you couldn’t visit any blog filter without seeing his name. In fact, I initially found out about him from this Metafilter post. I read the little entry and several of the accompanying links, posted about it on a whim as a respite from real studying, forgot it, and went on with my life.

Fast-forward several weeks…tonight I open my mail to find that I have a comment on the blog. Well, I very rarely get comments at all, and I can’t properly convey to you my excitement at having an actual comment, so with enthusiasm I opened the email and sadly found that the comment isn’t good at all; it’s sarcastic, slightly mean, and meant to piss me off.

Look Mr. Anonymous, I didn’t know who Robert Clark Young was before I read that MeFi post, and I could give less than an ounce of crap who he is now. I was in the middle of finishing up my grad degree when I read about Vice’s plagiarism and it pissed me off, so yeah, I probably did have about the same opinion of him as other bloggers. But thanks so much for trolling by anonymously a month after I posted that and leaving me an uplifting comment on a blog that I take a lot of pride in writing. Unfortunately, you lacked the courage to leave an email address or a link to your blog, thereby denying me the opportunity to answer you in an appropriate manner and forcing me to answer you publicly on the blog.

So here’s to you Mr. Chickenshit…next time you feel like being a dick and ruining someone’s day stroll on over to your bathroom mirror and give the fellow in front of you a big ‘ole wave. You have my permission to be as mean and hateful to him as you like…in fact, I hope your anger and self-loathing drives the guy in front of you into a severe depression, and he goes out and hires a hooker in hopes of alleviating the pain, only to find out several weeks later that during those few guilty moments of pleasure he contracted herpes, and while cleaning out his basement bedroom his mother finds his herpes medicine and she becomes concerned and asks the local priest to come by and counsel her hooker-hiring, internet-addicted, hairy-palmed son, and when the priest arrives he finds the guy in his bedroom in his dirty underwear, passed out drunk and surrounded by Hustlers and Herpes cream.

Moral of this story: If you have something to say on the Internet consider whether or not you’d say the same thing to a stranger in real life. If you wouldn’t then keep your fingers off the damn keyboard and leave people alone. Also, try to remember that real people blog, and the smaller the blog the more the author looks forward to comments, so keep that in mind when you think of something you just have to say.

While sitting on the couch surfing the internet on a laptop and languishing in my post-holiday session of binge-eating, and simultaneously enjoying a rerun of South Park, I began to notice an abnormal amount of commercials for “Bowflex.” I’d hate to think advertisers are taking advantage of the fact that most people eat during the holidays as if they had entered some kind of contest, but the amount of times I’ve seen the commercial run really makes me wonder.

What I like most about the commercial is the fact that in the time it would take to order the “Bowflex,” wait for several days before you find out shipping has been delayed, receive the stupid thing after yelling at the stooges at customer service for days and days, let it sit in the big-ass box for a week or two, finally work up the courage to open the box and begin putting it together, recover from the injury sustained while assembling it, read the directions and learn how to operate those lethal looking cables, you could have gotten up off your ass, sat down and worked out a sensible meal plan, jogged around the block several days in a row, and actually lost several pounds.

I also love the fact that the PR folks at “Bowflex” couldn’t find any actual customers who lost weight with their machine to give a testimonial, so they hired the genetic freaks that appear on the commercial to parade around and flex in all their mesomorphic-glory. You’d have to be mentally damaged to think that working out three times a week on a cable machine might actually transform your body into the same shape as the two Greek statues working out on the commercial.

Here’s an idea: eat sensibly and every once in a while participate in an activity which forces you to move around a little bit. If you’re really motivated avoid the complications of putting together a machine which will inevitably end up as a place to hang clothing and join a gym. Either that, or simply revel in your fatness…eat what you want and don’t let “Bowflex,” “Trimspa,” “Leptoprin,” “Stacker,” or any other cure-all make you feel guilty.

…now back to South Park.

I posted this poem last year during the Christmas holidays, but as much as I like it I may post it every year. So, tonight when the sky is clear and the air is cold and crisp and you hear hints of sleigh bells on every breeze, think about this poor chap:

Nicholas Was…
older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.

The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.

Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves’ invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.

He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.

Ho.
Ho.
Ho.

Neil Gaiman. “Nicholas Was,” Smoke and Mirrors.

After several delays and an extremely turbulent plane ride, we finally arrived back in DFW around 2:45 this morning. We actually sat in the plane at the terminal in Las Vegas for roughly an hour before maintenance repaired a “minor electrical problem,” which prohibited our departure. The wait wouldn’t have been so bad had the power in the plane been available to operate the air conditioner, but as it worked out we sat in the stuffy and very hot plane waiting in the claustrophobic heat while they repaired whatever wasn’t working properly.

On take-off Maverick dropped the hammer and we roared down the runway so fast and hard I just knew I was gonna get whiplash. Normally a plane will gently lift off the runway and begin a steep but comfortable climb into the air, but last night we shot off the tarmac like there were Migs in the air that we needed to shoot down. Once we got into the air and up to cruising altitude the pilot notified us that air traffic control had informed him that all available airstreams were “slightly bumpy.” Bumpy my ass…it was like driving a car on top of train tracks, and for some reason the turbulence always increases ten-fold whenever I get into the little-bitty bathroom and start peeing. I’m not the best air-passenger in the first place, but when we landed I was an absolute mess.

The pilot did display a considerable amount of intelligence in not opening the cockpit door to wish us well, as I would have happily strangled him in front of everyone. As it happened I was only afforded the opportunity to scowl at the flight attendant when she said “Have a good morning” in that fake, sing-songy voice all flight attendants possess.

I do want to thank everyone for sticking around through my week-long blog absence. I’ve got more pictures from Vegas I’ll share as soon as we get down to S.A. and I can get them off my camera, but don’t expect anything too salacious. In McCarran airport TSA actually sat us down and put us in the machine from Total Recall so what happened in Vegas quite literally stayed in Vegas. Unfortunately for me the flight home took place after the memory wipe so I’ll be able to enjoy that memory over and over again.

David Copperfield glows.

I feel so old.

Why don’t we have these in Texas?

Big balls at Bellagio.

After I snapped this I was told Elvis receives tips for photos. How far the king has fallen.

We saw Tom Jones last night and he was unbelievable. Although, I wish security would have let us stay for the whole show…in hindsight throwing my boxer-briefs at Tom probably wasn’t such a good idea. In my defense, several ladies threw their lacy panties at him, and Tom seemed to appreciate the sentiment. I’m unsure why my underwear wasn’t appreciated, but I suspect Tom just isn’t a boxer-briefs kinda guy. Hmm, maybe if I’d worn my thong?