Blogger is the manic depressive web application. When it’s good, it’s great. When it’s bad, it makes you want to throw yourself out of a speeding train. It’s hard to criticize, because it’s done so much for you; but it’s hard to praise something you depend on that gets into so much trouble. You’d like to help it get better, but you can’t. You realize that most of its problems aren’t its own fault, but sometimes you wish you could just move on.

In the past I’ve made fun of the NRA infomercial where Charlton Heston raises a musket above his head and shouts “From my cold dead hand!” Well, amazingly, they’ve topped themselves with the latest infomercial, which hypes the clearly evil U.N. (!) as the instigator of an equally evil plan to take your guns (and muskets, and armor-piercing bullets) away from you. This outrageous “one world order” business is the same sort of stuff which led Tim McVeigh to drive his U-Haul. In the commercial, they’re constantly cutting away to a (rather boring) shot of the U.N. building, the same way you would cut to the Joker’s underground lair. All that was missing was a video effect to surround it with the orange fires of Hell. The gun (and anti-government) obsession of these people is truly breathtaking.

I’m a ‘user experience professional.’ I want my $67,000.

There’s been a lot of those online personality tests floating around weblogs these days. One of the best personality tests is: who’s your favorite minor Simpsons character? (For example, if you say Homer, there’s your answer right there.) “The Road to Springfield” lets you vote on your favorite characters, one head-on matchup at a time. There’s a new matchup (today: Lenny vs. Gil) every weekday.

My favorite, bar none: Dr. Nick Riviera (“See you in the operating place!”)

Speaking of dogs, Tuesday has aroused my ire by writing some rather slanderous words about my favorite breed, the bulldog. We had bulldogs all the years I was growing up, and I love them. They are incredibly affectionate and have an indefinable something that makes them wonderful. Words fail me. I confess that maybe slander is the wrong word, since bulldogs are ugly by conventional standards; but I think they’re so ugly they’re beautiful.

My father used to try to train one of the bulldogs, Emily, to stay at the curb and then cross the street on his command. He would try to get her to sit at the curb, even pushing her behind down to try to impress upon her his command to SIT. She would always pop back up again. Push, pop. Push, pop. We would stand at the living room picture window, looking on and sniggering as he tried to “train” Emily. Eventually, she would get tired of standing, and sit (just to take a load off, mind you).

“Good dog!” my father would say, relieved.

This is an oldie but a goodie: Pluto is Mickey Mouse’s dog. He walks on all fours, wears a dog collar, and doesn’t speak. Goofy, on the other hand, while also a dog, wears human clothes, drives a car, and speaks (not well, but still…). What’s up with this?

We all know that LaToya and Michael Jackson are the same person. Brian Dennehy and Charles Durning are the same person. Heather Thomas, Heather Menzies and Heather Locklear were all the same person, until, like Sybil, during therapy the “Locklear” personality prevailed and extinguished the others. But what about Kathy Griffin and Vicki Lewis? The jury is still out.

Miguel, on my new favorite weblog, Feral Living, wrote a funny post about talking to your 14-year-old self, based on my post from 5/24. Does this qualify as a meme now? I really want to start a meme.

I am genetically incapable of being late. While you might think this would be a good thing, in our world today it actually should qualify me as legally disabled. Whatever the designated time is, I arrive between 2 and 5 minutes early. This happens even if I am consciously trying to be late. Meanwhile, all my friends and acquaintances are falling all over themselves to see who can be the latest. I joke with a friend of mine that when he says “5:30,” that really means “5:45,” and if he says “5:30ish,” that means 6 or after.

Let’s face it, folks, being habitually late is just a passive-agressive way of asserting that you’re the most important person in the room. I used to have a 20-minute threshold – 20 minutes after the appointed meeting time, I would just leave. I’m thinking of shortening that to 10 minutes. If I can be on time for every single appointment, I think the rest of the world should make it at least 50 percent of the time. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Learning Biblical history with The Simpsons:

“Captivity blows!”
-Bart, dressed as a Hebrew slave in a Simpsons retelling of the story of Moses (played hilariously by Milhouse)