Shameless, Smug, Self Congratulatory Slop

Okay, this is a little bit of bait and switch. I'm actually not talking about the Oscars. Although that title certainly does apply to Spicoli. No, the public self indulgence I plan to highlight today is my own, in this particular post.

It turns out my latest diatribe about how Geico ads suck was my 100th blog entry since I started doing this crap some six months ago. If I had realized it was number one hundred, I would have commemorated the occasion with a better post. Se La Vie.

I know it's not a very impressive accomplishment. But I'm taking a cue from every great sitcom that has been hard up for material and I'm slapping together a clip show. Considering we were treated to the Oscars last night, I figured another masturbatorial celebration in which a self indulgent creative entity basks in the underwhelming glory of their own creation seemed appropriate. Tis the season to kiss your own ass. But I guarantee this will be more enjoyable than Benjamin Button.

A few of my favorite posts to date:

- An Open Letter to Spain's Basketball Team. This is especially relevant with the NBA season rolling at full speed. My hatred of Pau Gasol only grows and grows.

- Ladies, This Needs To End. This one has cost me. I have alienated a fair amount of girls with my candor on stupid looking boots. This is something that a rapidly aging, single fella like myself cannot really afford to do. But I figure I alienate them anyway, at least this time it's for a good reason. (By the way, I don't know why but for some reason the font is really screwed up in some of these older posts. Blogger can really be a pain in the balls.)

- Sometimes It's Really Hard Being a BYU Fan. I hesitate to mention this only because it dredges up the humiliating, miserable disaster that was last year's College Football season. When you consider Utah's unbelievable run, all I can do is stew in my own shameful jealousy. It should have been my team that punched Alabama and the BCS in the face. But it wasn't. Damn it. Now I'm all depressed.

- The Twilight Post. First I rip on Ugg Boots and then I tear down Twilight. It's a shock that I sleep alone every night. I think I was pretty nice in this one actually. I made fun of the asinine storyline but I also acknowledged a predisposition to indulge in cultural mediocrity myself. So I saw no reason to mock the ladies that love this crap. Also, just about every girl I've talked to about Twilight is happy to admit that it isn't good on any level and that they are a little embarrassed at how much it resonates with them.

I actually bought the first book and started reading it. I read it on the cruise my family went on over the Holidays. As is the custom of most Carnival customers, I sat on a deck chair with the other pasty, fat people and read a horrible, horrible book. Now, I'm no literature snob. In fact, I'm barely literate but I know terrible writing when I see it. I guess it's a pretty big warning sign when the author doesn't even know how to spell her own name.

I really was embarrassed to be seen reading it, so I tore the cover off it to hide my shame. I got about a hundred pages into it. After the author referenced Edward's "cold and perfect face" for the three hundredth time, I gave up. There is little use in reading a book you hate, just to be ironic.

-Five Girly Songs I Like. I did a total of ten posts where I highlighted five songs from bands that I love. They never really got a very big reaction. I guess I needed to live out my "journalist for Rolling Stone"fantasy. Since I've done the last one (I think it was Jimi), the website I used to embed the songs has ceased to work, so those posts are now pretty much broken.

The fact is, very few people give a crap about why it is that I love the music that I love. It's okay. My feelings aren't that hurt. It's a little arrogant to assume that people would care. But this particular post had a different angle. It was based on guilty pleasures and self deprecation instead of over eager, gushing snobbery. I'm still going to do some music based entries, but they won't be ones like "5 Songs by The Who" (as great as they are). Instead random things like "5 Best Whistle Solos" or "5 Horrible Covers of Great Songs". I'm looking at you Puff Daddy.

My most popular post:

In N Out is Incredibly Average. If I had it to over again, I would have entitled that entry "Those are good burgers, Walter. - Shut the f*ck up, Donnie." Opportunity lost. This popularity (in both comments and hits) surprised me, since I didn't think it was that amazing. Who knew hamburgers were such a passionate issue?

One post I thought was pretty darn good and nobody seemed to give a crap about:

Frank Caliendo Sucks. I actually know a couple of people that like his comedy, so I expected a little bit of backlash but I got nothing (no comments, low hits). This actually has a pretty funny story about it.

In November, my cousin's wife had a baby. I went to the hospital to visit them and my cousin told me about this funny little occurrence. Over the past couple of years, he has told several of his friends and his wife's friends the cat story. That damn story has really stuck to me. I'm not complaining. If I didn't enjoy telling it, I wouldn't recite verbatim over and over. So when my cousin found out that I had posted it, he blasted an email with my blog link to many of these people who had heard the story from him.

The entry that happened to be right above the Cat Story was another post entitled "Frank Caliendo Still Sucks." in which I revisit my gripe with Fatty MaGoo and his unfunny impressions. Well it turns out that my cousin's wife is best friends with a girl named Michelle. Michelle's last name? Caliendo. Yeah, she's married to Frank Caliendo. And my cousin innocently sent her an email with the link to my crappy blog with an article on the top of the page about how some schlub thinks that her nationally recognizable husband is a hack.

Folks, it's a good chance Frank has read all about how I think he sucks.

On thing I've learned over the months:

I don't need to hyperlink every friggin' reference I bring up. Wow! I sure did like the hyperlink tool in the early days. For some reason, I thought it added a little depth but it was really just irritating. Take this entry about how the X games suck. There are fifteen links in the first two paragraphs. What the hell? The thing is, people stop clicking them after like the third one. And it's kind of a pain in the ass to find all the pictures. I mean, in the opening sentence I mention the x games and include a link to the logo. Pointless. Also, most of the links are dead within a few days anyway. I like to think I have learned my lesson. The only links I have now are worth clicking on.

Well that's it. This post has effectively been the DVD commentary on a movie that wasn't that good to begin with. Of course at my current rate of posting, it will take about nine years until I write another hundred posts. So odds are good we won't have to do another one of these retrospective look backs for quite a while. Enjoy.