2009: The Reeee'MMIX'!!!!

Many of you know I observe the Mayan calendar (falling out with Caesar - don't ask!), so tonight doesn't have the same significance for me as for most of you. It's just regular old 12.19.15.17.7.7 Manik' 10 K'anki'n G5. Sorry, I guess I'm old-fashioned. But, as I live in a romanphilic society, I try to appease my fellow citizens by honoring their adorable customs. And if you guys say tonight's "New Year's Eve", well then by all means, let's celebrate your charming if antiquated holiday! Man you're cute.

Here's the problem. All too often, partying can go from "whooo!" to "waaah!" in a heartbeat. For instance, you could turn your head for an instant at the bar, maybe to sneeze or vomit just a little, and BAM!, Rohypnol all up in your Korbel. Or maybe you have a friend named Bubbles who's been kickin' back rum and Cokes since 9:00, and now he's offering people rides home. Do you think he should drive? I don't. First of all, who's named 'Bubbles'? Sounds like a nickname and I don't want to know how he got it. Secondly, he's five foot nothin', a hundred and nothin', and he hung in with the best college football team in the land - sorry, I broke into the famed Rudy soliloquy. It's a good one.

Point is, let's keep it safe out there. You know the priorities.

1. Safety
2. Fun
3. Regret

Even though we won't be around after 12/21/12, that doesn't mean we shouldn't party like it's 1999. But let's party like it's a casual Friday night in 1999, in like, I don't know, say April.

Yo Where My Peepers At?

So I lost my glasses.

I realize it's not exactly Amelia Earhartesque, but g-d it, this is the biggest mystery I've personally encountered since I undiscovered my prized He-Man figurine as a 10-year old during a housing move. That case went cold. I fear the same for my specs.

According to Me, a quarterly journal I don't produce, here are the top 7 whodunits since I coined the term in '85:

1. Is it possible someone else shot JFK? Someone better?
   
2. WTF is my He-Man?!
3. Amelia Earhart. She said she'd be back: why would she lie?
4. How do they "colorize" old black-and-white movies? But like, how?
5. WTF are my glasses?!
6. They don't go frame-by-frame and like, "color" in the whole movie - do they? I guess my point is I don't get it.
7. Space.

They were merely two months old. I nicknamed them "Ol' Lensy". Boy were they a pair to behold. Thick-rimmed, stems that went on forever, and those lenses - oh! those lenses. There was this game we used to play: I'd set them, ever so carefully, right on the bridge of my nose, and they'd try to block my view. But you know what? They never did.

Now, a lot of my assailants out there claim "oh, John," you know, "you just wore those because they, by an order of magnitude, heightened your attractiveness. It was as though Yahweh himself forged them of polycarbonate and bestowed them unto you as he did Moses the Ten to Twenty Commandments - such was the degree to which they divinely complemented your face. I don't want to say they 'defined you', because you have other positive attributes, like your skill at baseball and math, but you certainly assumed something of a new identity when they graced your visage." Harsh.

Attack me all you like, but here's the straight scoop. Most people hope that prescription glasses unlock for them what opticians consider ideal: twenty-twenty. Here's where my tale takes a sharp left turn. Just as there is a Holy Grail of energy (inifinitely abundant and clean), or of 80s sitcoms (Growing Pains), so too is there one of vision, and with my Polo Ralph Lauren RL-6017s, I reached it: twenty-zero. This means I could see things from twenty feet away that people with normal vision could only see from zero feet away - inside their heads. That's right: I could read minds. I'm pretty sure.

You pickin' up what I'm puttin' down?

Maybe now you understand the value I assign to these "glasses". It's way more than their retail value of $214.99 at For Eyes in Maple Shade, minus the $100 my insurance company covered. It's like, at least double.

So do I have suspicions as to their whereabouts? Frick yes. I probably left them at PJs. EPH!

Straights

Let's face it - straights have been an asset to American humanity since 1776. Scientifically classified as "straights", straights are the most common form of person known to man. Why is it, then, that the drive-by media seems to act as if they don't even exist? Let's explore the world of the straight, get inside their straight heads, and try to understand what's wrong with them - or maybe, just maybe, pause for effect, what's wrong with us.

"Mary, do you want to go out on a date with me?" This is one of the most common phrases you'll hear from a straight. Oh - our main character's name is Jeff. That part's important. Mary might respond, "no thanks, I'm already going to go out on a date with Tommy". You see, Mary and Jeff are straights. Unbeknownst to Mary, Tommy's not. That's right - nearly two in three people are straights. And yet, today's society - what with the economy and all - disregards straights, even disparages them.

"Straighty," they say. "Hey, straightster," a gay bully might announce. "This party is straight, let's get out of here," a toughnik might declare, derisively. You hear it every day. You can't help it. It's gotten to the point straights are often driven underground. You'd be hard-pressed to recall someone, upon introduction, saying "hi Andy, nice to meet you, I'm Paul, and I'm straight." Why? Is Paul embarrassed? Is he scared? Is he not sure of his straightitude? It's the first two - embarrassed and scared. Paul's sure he's straight, because he dated Becky Milledge junior year, plus he played midfielder for his high school's lacrosse team. So, you know, it's not really even a question.

Our society is ill. The patient? Society. The symptoms? I really already covered all that above. It was basically the point of the essay. The diagnosis? Too many symptoms - bad ones. Insurance? Lapsed. But most importantly, what's the cure? Is it tolerance? No - that's too easy. Double-eye patches? You wish. Systematic elimination of all straights? Get real, that would take forever. No, the real answer - the only answer we have - is tolerance.

In recent years, straights have been banding together, aggregating their power in numbers, and standing up for their rights. The formation of alliances like One Hundred Percent Straight, International Heteros, and the Totally, Definitely Straight Club For Just Cool Dudes is really only the beginning. Recently in Oakland, a group of straight-rights activists held a "straight-out", calling in "straight" for work for an entire week. A scheduling mix-up landed it on the same week as the International Lesbian and Gay Association "gay-out", crippling the city, but the effect was felt. The emergency services resumed the following Monday. The zoo, however, closed permanently, as its "backup animals" policy had not yet been implemented.

The fact of the matter is that straights are here to stay. And like the OHPS motto says, "if you're not straight, you're gay". Sometimes, words speak louder than actions. Usually it's the other way around, but in this case, it's not.

Is 'Blog' a Four-Letter Word? Like Shit It Is.

blogs===
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>*shark<

Yup. No way to mistake that. Blogs have jumped the shark. With rapidity, too. Check out those speed lines...

I know it's going to ruin some days, but I'm not here to make friends. So here's the simple truth: blogging's over. It was cute for awhile - 'blogging'. Fun to say, right? 'Blog'. How mother freaking quaint.

Listen. Most internet industry experts credit me with starting the blogging phenomenon or 'bloggenomenon' as people never say. Terrific. Am I proud? Well, yes and no. Do I approve of the cathartic outlet millions of people were desperately seeking and the resulting enhancement of mental welfare? Sure I do. In that regard, I'm sort of a modern day Hippocrates. But of the word 'blog'? Crap no. I never intended for that word to reach the public at large. I wrote it once, by accident. But from that moment on - viral. It couldn't be stopped. The word 'blog' was Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year in 2004. Consider that - I didn't found the pasttime of blogging until three weeks ago, and it was the most impactful term in 2004. Either my facts are substantially off, or shutup.

So what to call it, then? I'm open to suggestions. What about 'weblog'? Or 'blog 2'? What would you say to calling it 'blog', but with a soft 'g', as in 'gentle'? Think about it - we don't have to decide this right now.

Did you know that the most common first word of North American infants is now 'blog'? For sixty-five hundred years - the entirety of the universe - babies' first word was 'mom' or 'dad' or in the rare cases of mutes, ' '. But now it's 'blog'? People - this is a sickness. Nothing short of our children's verbal coming-out party is at stake. Not my children of course, as my wife Sandra is barren, in spite of fertility drug after fertility drug - you know what, not the point.

For the time being, let's just table the term. With today's linking technology, that I invented, one needs not refer to websites at all. We can simply click on a placeholder title. For instance:

puppies in a large, industrial-sized blender

Did I actually link you to a page showing puppies in a blender? Oh, cheese and crackers, people - of course not! That was merely President George W. Bush's personal web page, which we'd all agree is several percentage points less offensive than puppies in a blender. Several.

In the same way, we can omit the word 'blog' and just click on mal-labeled expressions. There's no way that can backfire.

Philly Airport Teases Upcoming Service Called "Ground Transportion"

While the official press release is expected in the next few weeks, it appears the Philadelphia International Airport's public relations team has begun teasing a new, previously unheard-of service they're calling "Ground Transportion".

Signs are appearing in the still-under renovation 'D' Terminal featuring the upcoming mystery-service. Exactly what the service is comprised of is yet to be determined. And the airport's marketing department are keeping it under wraps. Calls to their press relations hotline went unmade.

Industry veterans and curious passers-by alike have been wildly speculating about just what "ground transportion" might entail. "Sounds futuristic," Berwyn-resident Bart Neembly said. "Maybe like some kind of Star Trek, what's that thing called?"

"A teleport booth thingy," his wife, Tina Neembly, responded.

While a teleport booth thingy would surely grab the public's attention, others insisted a subterranean mag-lev train was in the works.

"A few major airports have experimented with underground mobility systems - Kennedy International has had subway routes since the '60s," said Dr. Kenneth Ho, professor of Aviation Logistics at University of Phoenix, North America's largest private university. "It wouldn't be unusual for Philadelphia to follow that trend, but updated with modern-day bullet train tech. The terminology is a bit unexpected; it's likely a trademarked brand they'll be pushing."

An internet search for "ground transportion" at the official U.S. Patent & Trademark Office website produced no results.

The decision to reveal such a potentially large-scale - even revolutionary - system of traveler conveyance with only a few wall-mounted directional plaques contributes to the confusion. According to John Carlsbad, advertising executive with Vineland, NJ-based Hey, Quit Splashing Me!, LLC., this move doesn't fit with the broader marketing strategy the airport has been pursuing.

"I actually don't understand it. It's either a major misstep on behalf of the promotions people, or it's possibly the most innovative piece of guerrilla marketing in history. I'd liken it to Jesus coming back and putting a Post-It note on a stop sign saying 'what's up yo, I'm back'."

An interesting twist involves the pictoral icons that accompany the wording on the subject sign. They appear to be a taxi and a shuttle bus - the same symbols that traditionally appear alongside the wording "Ground Transportation". It's thought that the identical icons for two distinct services are either the airport's way of throwing people off the scent before the official announcement, or possibly an error on behalf of the signmaker with whom the airport contracts.

Chris Gupp, a business traveler from Miami, expects the sign snafu to be a piece of technological lore one day. "Fifty years from now when ground transportion is the only type of motion in existence, this icon mess-up on the very first sign will be one of those interesting 'Did You Knows', probably bigger than the 'Dewey Defeats Truman' headline."

Eight-year old Dana Spindle took a more innocent approach. "I bet it's just a mess-up of the word 'transportation'." The idea that the 10th-busiest airport in the world, with its 30 million annual passengers and an excellent safety record in today's most accuracy-demanding industry, would incorrectly spell the very word that represents their sole business activity is nearly as adorable as the waves in Dana's long blonde hair.

Today, Dana will be "flying" home to Cleveland. Someday soon, if the Philadelphia International Airport crack management staff can help it, she may be "ground transporting".

Future Classic - It's a Wonderful Life

You know you've found a special movie when it's aired on network TV - with commercials - and you stay glued. I discovered one tonight.

It's a Wonderful Life premiered tonight at 8 PM on WCAU (NBC-10, Philadelphia). I missed this when it came out in theaters, and that's straight up my bad, because it should be a lock for Best Picture. Shot in arthouse black-and-white, this period piece follows the life and times of George Bailey, portrayed by newcomer James Stewart. Oh, and get used to hearing that name - this raw talent exudes superstardom. Fresh meat, too - IMDB doesn't even have an entry, aside from a throwaway namesake born exactly a century ago. Part-James Franco, part-Ed Norton, expect to see TMZ-bait Stewart elsewhere.

The movie serves as a scathing send-up of modern-day Wall Street's woes, but cast in small-town 1946 and told from the perspective of a do-good who fights demons inside and out. Corporate greed takes the form of Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), a powerful but despicable slumlord who takes over the Bailey Building & Loan Association and undoes the altruistic spirit the Bailey family spent generations imbuing. Meanwhile, George initially struggles with a conflict between his personal ambitions and his familial obligations. His turmoil is exacerbated when a large deposit is lost, threatening the welfare of the company. Depressed, he spirals downward and contemplates suicide. Sixth Senseian twists follow. Director Frank Capra is clearly of the M. Night school, to the viewer's delight.

Parables are sprinkled throughout. It's as though Capra picked up and studied the daily paper before heading to the set. Thinly-veiled references to the recent $700 billion bailout, the ascension of Obama, and even the menace of global warming rear their head. The story clearly hopes to strike a chord with 2008, and succeeds more than it fails.

But the real magic of It's a Wonderful Life is the cinematography. The authenticity is astounding to the degree you'll wonder when the footage was filmed. Accentual affectations are straight out of the 1940s. Costumery is spot-on to the subject era. The production employs remarkably effective shooting techniques: the soft focus on George's belle Mary (Donna Reed), the distorted grain overlay mimicking scratched celluloid, even ungraceful scene transitions to stay accurate to the period. My only critique is screenwriter Philip Van Doren Stern's over-the-top dialogue. Stern prescribes more than a healthy dose of generational slang, giving the movie a pulpy, campy feel. Nineteen-forties-speak proliferates: "Put up your hands! No fast moves!" shouts the police officer. "Bert! What do you know about that!" an ecstatic George offers. Cutesy, but hardly believable.

It's rather likely It's a Wonderful Life will fast fade into the canon of Hollywood. Its fate of forgettability is sadly attributable more to poor marketing than poor filmmaking. The flick was distributed by RKO Pictures, who hasn't seen a major release since 1998's Mighty Joe Young - a financial flop and critical pan. It's likely a boon for the flailing movie house, but a loss for the moviegoing public. Few eyes will befall this masterpiece. Make yours two of them, and snag this gem at your local redbox or bump it to the top of your Netflix queue.

But stop at CVS - you'll need tissues.

Some People Put Off Christmas Shopping, But Definitely Not Me, I Do Mine Right Away, It's My Friend That Shops All Last-Minutey

A close friend told me about his recent shopping experience at Target - during their closing hour on Christmas Eve! Talk about procrastination! It definitely wasn't me, mostly because I sort of have a penchant for being proactive when it comes to buying presents. It was a friend of mine, and he just told me about it. Over the phone. His was cellular, mine was a land-line. Plus, it couldn't have been me, because I've been writing this post all day. Not that I need an alibi. Actually it's funny, I have a photograph of myself holding a newspaper, and it shows the date, and I'm at the library. And the time, too, you can see the time on a clock. That probably sounds staged, but it's actually because Seth Myers from SNL was there - it was nuts. Right there at the Maple Shade Public Library. I didn't even know he was from around here. Anyway, that's why I took the picture. There's a big mirror near the checkout, that's how I'm in it. There's no way I could have Photoshopped it, either, because I'm not that good with Photoshop. I have most of the basic functions down, but I couldn't reliably produce an image like this one. I don't want to post it here, this photo that proves I couldn't have been the one doing my last-minute shopping, because of bandwidth limitations. Actually, no, I tried to post the picture, but it kept coming up with that jagged broken-link thing. Not sure what that's about. I have a ticket open with the blogspot Customer Service team about it. I can't give you the ticket number because it's in the Terms of Service when you sign up, you can't disclose open ticket numbers. I guess it's an insurance thing? For blogspot? They probably want to - no, you know what it probably is, they probably don't want pranksters calling in with falsified ticket numbers, just wasting their time. Because pranksters do that. I put a call in to my lawyer to double-check about that - I could show you on my call log. Not that you know my lawyer's number. I don't have his name saved in my phone. I could save it now, I realize, but my phone's address book's full, I have 599 contacts, the 600th would start overwriting at random, so I don't bother adding new ones. Which I think is crazy, but it's on snopes.com, that it's a legit thing. I would give you the link to it, but the blogspot link button isn't working. When they get in touch with me about the upload picture problem, I'm gonna ask about the link button not working.

Anyway, he said it was like, crazy chaotic in there, but he found some really good deals. And he also needed toothpaste and hair gel, so it wasn't totally about buying presents.

Hate Productivity? Try Stumble!

When I invented the internet in the early 90s, I had a lot of hope for it. At the time it was really just a method of easily and quickly sharing really, really good cheesecake recipes with other culinary enthusiasts, but it seemed to me this project of mine had real potential. Then, for the next sixteen years, things stalled. As recently as September, I was seriously considering shutting the whole thing down for good. I held out hope that some day, some innovative tools would come along that could fundamentally change the way we surf my web. The guys who started stumbleupon.com just might be those tools.

What is stumble? It's actually just like a blogging service, or the email you use everyday, except instead of having anything to do with blogging or email, this site is entirely different. You tell stumble your likes by checking boxes - not in broad categories like "Sports", "Movies/Music", or "Health", but in hundreds of subcategories of interests as unambiguous as "Kayaking", "Asthma", and "Ergonomics". Have you been seeking websites about left-handedness recommended by other people who found sites on left-handedness? Well then I just blew up your world.

The community of stumblers discovers interesting web sites every day, and with a simple click they register their approbation using proprietary Hypermagico® technology (probably). Once this custom database of golden web-nuggets is randomized, you have the sweetest site playlist you can imagine. Watch your attention effortlessly jump from freakishly fascinating topic to freakishly fascinating topic. If you didn't already have A.D.D., you most certainly will now. It's that dope.

Of course, the best way for you to fully experience the wonder that is stumble, is for me to keep explaining it. Peep this.

Some of my stumblegories include "Energy Industry", "Online Games", "Robotics", and "Funny Videos", and if you think those are dorky, I'd be happy to fist-fight you out back near the far swingsets. By clicking on the "stumble!" button on my toolbar, I'm whisked away to:

The Periodic Table of Awesoments
A ninety-second time-waster if there ever was one.

STUMBLE!

How to Heat up Your Room Using Just a Candle
Huh. Heater's busted at the crib - we might be experimenting with this bad boy later tonight...

STUMBLE!

Replacement Arm, Good as New
Whoa! It's probably too late for you to get me one for Christmas, but, I don't know, New Year's?

STUMBLE!

Why Was He Sad
After fifteen seconds of playing this game, I wondered if I should go back to school, maybe become a teacher or something.

STUMBLE!

Invisible Rope
This video is not particularly funny, but the point is, you're 2 minutes, 2 seconds closer to the end of your workday. Thanks, Stumble!

Look, are they all winners? Nope. They're only as good as your own interests. If you tell stumble you enjoy 'Toy Train Restoration' and it leads you to a lot of toy train restoration sites, don't come crying to me that stumble keeps taking you to various toy train restoration sites - you're the one who said how much you love toy train restoration! Plus, 'Toy Train Restoration' isn't even a stumble category, but good try, Ashton.

And so the internet gets a reprieve. Know of any rad web services that you think people would want to hear about? Neat!

it'5 n07 u, i7's m3.

Look. We need to talk.

I know I've been pretty distant lately. You probably feel like I've been slipping away, maybe even blogging elsewhere. I can tell you with one hundred percent honesty - you're the only blog in my life. Sure, I send emails to friends from time to time, and you know I text incessantly, but that was established going into this thing. And don't act like I'm the only blogger you host. I just read philosophicaldrunk.blogspot.com. White supremacy? Real classy, blogspot. Real classy.

Come on. It's the holidays. We're both crazy busy right now. I've been doing a lot of stuff IRL the past few days. Is that so wrong? You know, this shouldn't just be a one-way street - I've been the one putting myself out there in your digital world, with all those 0's and 1's. "Ooh, look at us, we're binary". I don't see you making any effort towards abiogenesis. You just sit there, like you're just, I don't even know, processing everything I say. Very noble of you, your dedication and all, but would it kill you to spontaneously emerge with corporeality once in a while and get a beer with us at PJs? So that would kill you? Okay, fine, no, I see how it's gonna be.

I guess this will be a relationship of convenience then. I'll blog when I have the time, and if you feel like posting it, you know, that's up to you. But so help me God, if I ever, ever, see you with that yellow 'under construction' icon with the dude digging? Wow. Let's just say wordpress.com has been looking prit-ty good lately...

HOW-TO: Christmas Tree on a Budget!

Only have no dollars? Terrific! You're already well on your way to one of the wallet-friendliest Christmas trees money can't buy!

[NOTE: This johnatron DIY is ideal for single males, age 27.]

1. You know where "outside" is? Great, make a beeline! Head in the direction of a large tree. Now start looking on the ground. Trees have a tendency of dropping or "shedding" their tree extension units, or "arms". You're looking for a tree arm about four-and-a-half feet tall. Any larger and you'd have to register it with the Department of Agriculture. Found one pathetically small? Great, that's your tree, stupid!

2. Carelessly drag it into your house and drop it in the staging area without regard for your flooring's well-being. Time to erect this mother. Down your basement, next to the dryer, you'll find an empty Bud Light case. There's some stray bolts and screws in it from when you tried to build a dartboard storage case. Dump them on the ground. Also, look for next week's DIY, How to Build Most of a Dartboard Storage Case.

3. Your mom lent you some pitchers for a party you had in July. Fill one with water and put it in the mathematical center of the box - point 'B' in the illicitly-acquired image to the right.

4. Put your tree arm in the water, which is in the box, which is in your living room. Now, here's the tricky part. You'll want to shut the box by closing each flap sequentially in a clockwise rotation. You almost always mess this up, so focus on this step - it's what stands between having a lifeless tree arm lying on your floor, and constructing the crap out of a charming Christmas tree.

5. If you've made it this far, congratulate yourself! The above is typically the entire curriculum necessary to attain a master's degree in botany at any accredited university. Nice job, "doc"! Just kidding, it's merely an associate's degree.

6. Decoration time! It's almost gauranteed your tree arm will not support standard store-bought Christmas lights. Now make like lightning-fast yet approachable performer Ryan Stiles from ABC Family's hit series Whose Line is it Anyway? and improvise! There're innumerable ways to enliven your surely dead symbol of this commercially-hijacked holiday. For instance - tin foil can be folded into an amorphous shape in zero steps. Make three, and distribute them without rhyme or reason on your tree arm.
If you did it right, it should look like this. Let's troubleshoot yours and find out where you went wrong. Does your box read "Coors"? Good try, but I guess you're not aware the Molson Coors Brewing Company supports the contra terrorists in Nicaragua - great for aiding in the slaughter of civilians, but not exactly Yuletide-appropriate. Is your tree eight-feet tall, appear to be healthy and vibrant, and uniformly adorned with colorful string-lights and glass ornaments with recent years imprinted on them? You're trying way, way too hard. No one's impressed - not even God.

It was Burton Hillis who said, "The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other." Hillis died at age 61 of lung cancer.

We Sorta Found Aliens. So...

Probably the most famous person that will ever exist, ever, like always, will be the first person to punch an alien that's making moves on his girlfriend, right in the middle of a party after the music has suddenly halted. It looks like we just came one step closer.

I realize if I were to ask you which of Saturn's moons you'd believe would be the most likely candidate to host life, you'd say Titan. Same here. But we'd both be wildly wrong. If I then said "okay, but who would be in second place?", you'd probably offer Calypso. Ditto. Third? Paaliaq, right? And so on, until you finally got to Enceladus, at which point I wouldn't say "yes", I'd just smile, and you'd know that you totally nailed it.

Yup, little ol' Enceladus seems to have an ocean beneath its icy crust with particles emanating in water vapor that could be conducive to the creation of life. Or, as I read it, "WE FOUND ALIENS, SNITCHES!!!!"

Sometimes it's hard to fully comprehend such high-level scientific breakthroughs on a normal, everyday level, as the math is astronomical and the implications even more so. Even if the calculations were shown to us, it's unlikely we'd grasp the fundamental reasoning behind it. I have no counter to this point; it's actually rather unsettling.

Anyways, it's good news. It just means more opportunities for supercool-looking pets. That's not to say I'm getting tired of my giraffedog, but let's just say she's not getting any younger.

Time for a New Word Order

I spent a long time last night just laying in bed - nearly eight hours, it seemed. But for too much of that time I was engulfed in a mental maelstrom of humanity's rapidly expanding options for cataclysmic end. Visions of an inexplicably infiltrative al-Qaeda, basement-brewed bio-attacks, and the deepening connection between the global powers-that-be and rogue states whose long-term ambitions starkly counter our own swirled in my head and filled me with a dread I haven't felt since I had night terrors as a child.

Then I discovered Scramboni! New, for your iPhone!

Unlike a lot of other iPhone games, Scramboni! takes advantage of the iPhone's blazing 3G speeds to enter a linked-in world of live gameplay with other Scramboners from parts of the world far and wide, like our power-hungry military-state antipode Russia and its rapid regression to Soviet-era tactics, with calculated, unprovoked aggression and near-limitless resources which portend what seems like inevitable world warring. Or Peru!

The strategy is as simple as the Word Jumble in the newspaper you don't read - rearrange the scrambled letters that appear on screen to form a word. But speed is the name of the game (colloquially, at least). You have thirty seconds, and after time elapses, find out where you placed among thirty-or-so other simultaneous participants. There's twenty rounds of edge-of-seat anxiety, uncannily mirroring the Middle East tensions of a US-backed Israel stalemated against a bravado-strong, uranium-enriched Iran which key strategists foresee ending unavoidably in de facto genocide.

Scramboni! also logs your personal high scores, so go ahead and try to beat yourself, just as America finds itself entrenched in an ongoing soul-search to determine nothing less than which national ideology will prevail - imperial hawkism under the veil of Christian mandate, or a more geopolitical approach that seeks to curb the increasing social fragmentation and the intrinsic woes that follow. I'm up to 550!

There are three levels of difficulty in Scramboni!, but you need to earn a certain number of points to move up to the higher levels. It's as though the game is protecting you, like a system of governance that works by proxy with your best interests in mind. Sure, the freedom to hop right in to Level 3 and attempt to decode "imosmlybs" to "symbolism" in 10 seconds has some theoretical virtue, but haven't we reached a point where acting on behalf of the whole's agreed-upon needs outshines the chaos of being beholden to a single individual's whimsy?

Scramboni! is a free application you can find in your iPhone's App Store. Also try Amateur Surgeon, $4.99 from [adult swim games].

Do We Have Too MUCH Privacy?

Have you ever heard of the phrase "Big Brother"? I hadn't either, but I jogged over to urbandictionary.com, and found this:

1.	big brother	605 up, 59 down
	The Government. They know everything about everybody.

Holy God. The thumbs, people, the thumbs! This is the world's most agreed upon definition! And as we know, truthiness and truth are the closest of cousins. Is it possible our Government knows everything about everybody? In order to find out if nothing in this world is under cover, I decided to go undercover.

I went to PayPal.com, and tried not a hundred, not even a thousand, but three times to log-in under a friend's name without knowing his password. After some common password attempts ("myfirstpet" and "1"), I remembered that people often randomize their passwords with arbitrary words and meaningless numbers. I tried "scuba559", and you know what I came up with? Jack-nothing. Privacy 1, Government Omniscience 0.

Then my colleague here at Google told me PayPal is actually a subsidiary of a privately-owned and -operated organization called "Google, Inc.", and their security measures against identity theft are wholly independent of the possible prying eyes of our elected leaders. Instantly I knew where my next test was: the DM f'ing V.

The DMV was insanely packed, I don't know if it's a seasonal thing or what. I have a few other things going on today and I was literally dying for a Mexican pizza, so I figured I'd skip ahead to the next test: my cell phone.

ME: Whattup.
JAKE: Yo. Nothin'.
ME: Government?
JAKE: What?
ME: Government?
JAKE: Wait, what?
ME: Government?
JAKE: You know what, I gotta go. PJ's later?

Hurdle cleared. Had the government been on the line, one of three things would have happened (in order of likelihood):

1. The government would have said "yes?"
2. The government would have impersonated the least threatening entity possible - a harmless elderly woman in a wheelchair. Jake probably would have freaked out.
3. The unmistakable "click" of a hurried hang-up.

None of those happened. The government simply doesn't care enough about our cell phone conversations. I actually kind of wish they did.

You're part of the last test right this instant. Does the government read my blog? If you're the government, please comment saying either "Yes" or "No" (I think by clicking on the little pencil).

The trap is set, homies. The trap is set.

[CORRECTION: the second occurrence of the word "Google" above was a substantial misspelling of the word "eBay". It's considered the second-most common typo in the English language, right after separate/seperate.]

No, Officer, Mr. Tron is My Father

Boy. Electrons move fast.

In the dozen or so hours since I posted about a bank robbery at Liberty Bell Bank in Moorestown, my inbox has been flooded with responses from all over the upper-east region of Northwest Cinnaminson. Most unfortunately for me, the vast majority are taking the sentiment of "John, I'm uh, I'm pretty sure that's you in the picture."

Talk about your all-time backfires.

While I'm chagrined beyond words to learn of this development, the presence of two hulking, badge-laden men at my doorstep this morning now forces me to get all exculpatory up in here - how demeaning.

Where was I at approximately 11:30 AM on the morning of the fifteenth? Simple. I had just come from the hat-and-glassery and was headed to the bank. While you'd think that would have one-eightied the fuzz in their tracks, would you believe I found myself instantly incarcerated? I knew I should have specified which hat-and-glassery.

I secured freedom only when a blank-faced cop who was trying to take a nap saw that I really, really had to go to the bathroom and took mercy on me.

But my trial doesn't end here. Too often in our society accusation is tantamount to conviction. I find myself wondering if I'll ever get another job - I'm sure once NASA catches wind of my "possible involvement in a first degree armed robbery", I'll be kicked out of the Shuttle Polishers Union in a heartbeat. All because I look eerily - and I do mean eerily - similar to this despicable though exceedingly handsome bandit.

Friends: if I suddenly disappear for months on end, it's your duty to do whatever it takes - by any means necessary - to stop my mail. Because the next time, it could be you. And you'd want your mail stopped.

Breaking News - Someone Robbed a Bank!

NOTE: This will be the first in a series called "Someone Robbed a Bank!"

WHERE: Liberty Bell Bank, West Main Street, near Rt. 73, Moorestown, NJ. You know, across from Rita's.

WHEN: 11:30 AM
yesterday morning - Monday, 12/15/08

WHAT: Undetermined amount of cash

HOW: Dude rolled in and walked up to the teller, pulled out a gun and just kind of laid it on the thing and presumably was like, "[looks at and motions to gun]", then fled the scene in his new grey compact Chevy, like a punk.

WHY: Because he's a bad guy?

So, like, do you know him? Is he your mail carrier? Does he play third for the Cleveland Indians? Was he on the cover of Disguise-Me-Not Digest? We really want to find him.

Why would he rob a bank? What a jerk. He's a white male and he's in his 30s. So if you know someone who robbed a bank recently, but he's 28 and you think he might have some Japanese in him, he's cool. She. She's cool. I know, I know, girls can be bank robbers too.

Dime this sucka out at (856) 914-3046 (Moorestown Police), or (973) 792-3000 (FBI's Newark office). Word.

Paging Dr. Phil...

Everyone knows I'm kind of an open book when it comes to my real passions:

(1) Electrifying the American auto industry
(2) Building a space elevator to lower the per-pound cost of reaching geostationary orbit
(3) Vertical farming, enabling plentiful and inexpensive foodstuffs for densely-populated urban areas
(4) Cultural globalization, creating a single, borderless, planetary republic and thereby ending the concept of war
(5) Anything Boy Meets World

But I've learned that the ideas and convictions that people truly believe in are harbored deep inside, often not revealed even to our closest confidants. When we open up our inner-most desires to the ones we love, we initiate a two-way "emotional superhighway", thus inviting the same transparency of personality to flow back to us. "Our day-to-day selves are an artificial coating. We need to break down the same walls we've spent our lives building up," possibly says Dr. Phil McGraw, a Beverly Hills-based psychologist who's making waves not only in clinical health circles, but with a new television program that he hosts and which airs on ABC.

One thing McGraw, 58, and I agree on is the complete ineffectiveness of violence to solve domestic disputes. I often hear "Jesus Christ, I want to punch Dr. Phil right in his [expletive deleted] trachea," or "man that guy could use a kick to the [expletive deleted] sternum". Or sometimes, "I wonder if I could puncture his lung with a stick, like a really sharpened one. [Expletive deleted]." Some people even go as far as asking, "would you be interested in contributing to a fund that aims to drop cinder blocks from an overpass onto Dr. Phil's car while he's in it, not directly injuring him but almost certainly causing him to suffer severe collateral damage?"

Are you sickened? You should be. The timing would have to be so perfect given typical highway speeds.

Call me a gay, but what ever happened to talking things through? I subscribe to the idea that aggression creates rather than solves problems. What will a pitching wedge to the back of Dr. McGraw's knees fix? Maybe his slice! Rim-shot!

No? We got no one working the rim-shot tonight? Got it.

Look, communication is key in any endeavor. Imagine having the ability to reach anyone, at any time, with a message they can't misinterpret. That's why, with Christmas upon us, I recommend giving Motorola SkyTel beepers to the people you care about. While the earliest beepers were really nothing more than simple personal telecommunications devices using satellite-controlled networks, today's beepers are slightly smaller. Some tips for effective beeping:

• set a pre-established list of alphanumeric codes that represent a more developed thought. "911" might mean "I have an emergency!", whereas "8888?" might ask "Want to build four snowmen side-by-side?". The number "5376616" upside-down reads "GIGGLES" - is there a more concise way to say "you've made me audibly happy"? If there is, I don't know it.

• as soon as receiving a beep (or "one-way transmission" in the Deep South), visit the nearest pay phone to call the person back that beeped you. Remember - if it's long-distance, you may not want to bother.

• these things get great hang-time, so resist the temptation to launch your beeper off the top of a skyscraper, say, the Mellon Bank Center at 1735 Market Street in Philadelphia which has loose security protocol on Thursday nights and is, according to some, a mere stone's throw from the William Penn statue atop City Hall!

Telling the person you care about - in no uncertain terms - exactly how you feel, the moment you feel it. Can you think of a more life-critical means of communicating?

I guess maybe avalanche beacons.

Blogger's Block

blogger's block (n): the state of mental paralysis that temporarily prohibits bloggers from blogging or "getting their blog on"

One of the most damning aspersions cast on the "New Media" as I just decided to call it, is the perceived amateur nature of its output. What's often derided about the fledgling craft is a concept that has been equal parts oppressing and inspiring to beat writers since the written word has had a reader - the deadline. Apparently, what's fit to print is an on-demand service, and there's no greater muse than imminent failure. But as we in the blogosphere enjoy a lax schedule, we're often criticized for our lenient timetables. Hopefully I can give you an appreciation for the pressures and expectations involved in my profession, blogging, or bloggin', as I say sometimes to shorten it, though the contraction actually necessitates the same amount of keystrokes, making it more of an "in-spirit" abbreviation.

Fact is, my colleagues and I have a rigorous schedule. You all know I've been blogging since late 2008, like around 1:15 PM EST today. I'm on the team here at blogspot.com, where I don't get any remuneration, as it's more a free web service than a "job" using the strict Merriam-Webster definition (sort of like a not-for-profit blog news agency). We 8.5 million on the staff are judged against our peers using a number of indices. For instance, with two posts in my first five and a half hours, I blog at .36 PPH. I'm considered the world's preeminent speed blogger, as the next fastest is a Frenchman whose name I omit because I cannot spell it justly with my current character set (it has the 'c' with the '5' at the bottom of it). His runner-up rate of .11 PPH, while still respectable, has the effect of making me the Babe Ruth of my trade. I'm hitting you with a lot of industry jargon here what with "PPH" and "Babe Ruth", but keep in mind, speed blogging requires efficiency. There's a time-honored saying in speed blogging: "It's in the best interest of a speed blogger to blog as quickly as possible." Says it all.

But believe you me, I hardly look down on my compatriot ireporters! If anyone knows the burdens of web logging, it's me, with my incomprehensibly blazing tempo. I'd like to take you through a sample day in the life of a blogger. Come, won't you?

8:10 AM Wake to let dog out.
8:13 AM Wake to let dog in.
10:45 AM Greet the day.
11:15 AM Off to the diner with Dan and Steve.
11:25 AM Dan learns you have to enunciate if you want "salsa" instead of "sausage".
11:45 AM I get french toast and bacon. Both were impeccable.
12:30 PM Comedy Central: Ryan Reynolds and Anna Faris star in 2005's Just Friends. This raucous, laugh-out-loud rocom finds Chris Brander wondering if the success was worth it - if it cost him his childhood crush, Jamie Palamino. He'll do just about anything to woo her this time around, but will they become more than "just friends"? Yes, they do. It's towards the end.
1:15 PM "Huh. Blogspot's free. I guess - oh look at that, I made a blog!" Begin first post.

[the author is now a web logger, or "blogger"]

1:45 PM Post first post. This is my industry's equivalent of a "debut album" or "a brand-new bakery's first cake".
2:30 PM "Oh, nice, Super Troopers is on. I guess I can't blog about this..."
4:00 PM Hit by inspiration (possibly divine). Begin second post.
6:25 PM "Whoa! President Bush had shoes thrown at him at a press conference?! I wonder if I can blog about this..."
6:45 PM Post second post.
8:10 PM "Man, that was some day! I'm blogging about this."
10:15 PM Comedy Central: Ryan Reynolds and Anna Faris star in 2005's Just Friends. This raucous, laugh-out-loud rocom finds Chris Brander wondering if the success was worth it - without his childhood crush, Jamie Palamino. He'll do just about anything to woo her this time around, but will they become more than "just friends"? Yes, they do. It's towards the end.

Of course, I'm not without my detractors. Their argument is primitive - "John, you clearly just started blogging today and have what's called 'beginner's momentum'. In all likelihood you'll slow your pace to a crawl once the novelty expires and your energy wanes. In fact, there hasn't been a night cycle since you began, significantly skewing your 'posts per hour' statistic, which to be honest, I'm not sure is an actual benchmark." Wow, if I wanted a weak point I'd shatter the tip of my index finger with a hammer!

Every field has it's advocates and its antonym-of-advocates, so it's no surprise blogging isn't free of scrutiny. Fortunately, it's the critiquing that pushest the best to be even better, and the really bad to be so-so. It's not unlike an art gallery - if each masterpiece were tied for first place, no true quintessence can emerge. Classical Roman relief art has Trajan's Column, baseball cap technology has when Flex-Fit came out, and I - if numbers are to be trusted - am the presumptive paragon of making blizzogs happen. If blogger's block is a real phenomenon, I consider myself blessed that I'll never, ever have it, and that there's no way this could be a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Blout (blogger out).

Dan or Myth? Part 1 of 1

Friends,

You may know that I cohabitate with a gentleman known as "Dan Rodan". Of course, this is almost certainly an alias, or perhaps it was assigned at Ellis Island for incomparable ease of spelling. Some believe it to be a stage name, but - despite claims - there exists no footage of him in a theatrical setting. This is why we call him the "Broadway Bigfoot"*.

*from now on

Nomenclature aside, he's a real boy. I know - I experience him every day. But I feel the need to catalog his existence because, a thousand years from now, when people tell tales of The Man Called Dan, I want the distinction between reality and illusion clearly delineated. We know that even in his own time many stories about Dan are simply fabricated, and it's time the record is set straight. And so, I'll now be addressing those future peoples because I know if I were them, I'd want to know the truth. Here it is.

Dear Posterity,

How's tricks? If you're reading this, that means humanity as we know it has survived, and you have a broadband connection. I commend you for both. Please forward this to your society's Chief Historian. If he's not available, just send it around indiscriminately, cause listen, Bill Gates will pay you $245 for each recipient you send it to, $243 for each they send it to, and so on. Plus, my brother's girlfriend got in on it really early, so I know it's real.
Brass tacks. You call him Dan the Man. I just call him Dan. Why? We are contemporaries, peers, friends, and roommates. A flimsy piece of drywall separates our sleeping quarters, or what your era calls a "bedroom". Actually we call it a bedroom too. Real original, Future.
I have truths I need to reveal about Dan. As Man is want to do, it's likely you've created your own version of the historical "Dan Rodan". It's been a millenium since he walked the Earth, so it's understandable that truths have been stretched and tales have been tall-enized. Try as we might, even history books are subjective. Stories are passed down generation to gene -- oh, hey, have you ever played the game "Telephone"? It's like that.
Let's start at the top. To the skeptics that claim he's merely a fable, a legend that never even existed: you couldn't be wronger. I can tell you with total certitude, Dan Rodan is a living, breathing animal. He has needs and desires. He bleeds when he falls, which is often. And somewhere inside his exterior shell glows a heart that somehow, in some way, apparently works. He often wears hooded sweatshirts.
But much of the lore you've heard is true. Is he five foot ten? You can bet your high-five-powered spaceships he is. Can he lift a entire refrigerator, at least a little so I can sweep under it? We've never tried, but I don't see why not. He speaks two languages fluently - English and Dan. Did he found Wal-Mart, the discount merchandiser you now call "the WM"? No, you're thinking of Sam Walton. Actually, check me on that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart .

He says he can throw a softball forty-five feet. Forty-five feet! Can you imagine?
However, it's the patent falsehoods that concern me. He's a mere mortal. Yes, he loses fantasy football games. Sure, from time to time he'll "run out of money" or "not leave the couch for fourteen consecutive hours". Is he afraid of ladders or does he just not trust their structural integrity - I don't know! But I know he'll never join me on the roof to discuss about "our living arrangement".

Hey what number PlayStation are you guys up to? I bet Madden's siiick...

Look, if nothing else, know this: He Who Had the AIM Screenname Drsuperfan was very much a real man. While the origin of his silly, silly name is unknown (inside joke between parents?), he indeed was a part of 21st-century Burlington County, New Jersey. That is all.

Signed,
Barack H. Obama
44th President of the United States of America (<-- wait, why?)

Okay. I feel better. I just wish someone had the forethought to do what I did for the dinosaurs. Were they real? Weren't they? We'll never know. Holy shit - is "Dan Rodan" an anagram of "dinosaurs"? It's not, but wouldn't that be cool?

My QWERTYiest Post Yet

A friend the other day told me that there are more active blogs today than the total number of humans that have ever lived. Right then and there, in the men's room of that Arby's, I knew what this world could really use.

One more blog.

Allow me to describe my vision for this web journal. You see, my life is not lacking interest. It's lacking your interest. My hope is that by narrating my goings-on, you'll get to know the real me. Keep in mind I'm almost definitely using a pseudonym.

A lot of people correctly say "the only thing lamer than writing a blog is reading one". Shenanigans. The last thing I want you, the reader, to feel is pathetic. Just because you're occupying your finite time on this planet by reading about someone else's life does not make you lame. People read biographies all the time. The Bible, for instance, is the biography of Jesus Christ, and people talk about that book all the time.

Okay. It appears I just compared my zero-day-old blog to the Bible. That might be setting your expectations unrealistically high. What will my blog have in common with the Bible? Check it:

• legible typeface
• an intertwixting of fact and fiction, with made-up words used frequentically
  
• haphazard invocation of the Lord's name
  
• context-appropriate use of the word 'ass'
  

On second thought, this blog will be nothing like the Bible. But to my loyal readers, I make this vow. I promise to write only what randomly comes into my head at arbitrary intervals, with little or no journalistic integrity, while adhering to such inconsistent rules of literary composition it would make Strunk and White in their graves roll over.

I ask of you only one thing. Some day, a crazy wild-eyed scientist or a kid may show up asking about this blog. And if that ever happens, kindly give him the URL? Thanks.