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Welcome fight fans. I have just migrated this website to a different content management system, but already there have been drastic changes for the better. Particularly in the Archives, go check them out. NOW!! Are you back? Ok, I guess now you agree with me that it was well worth the migration.
I would really like to thank Ev for the work he does with Blogger! They run a great service, and it is easily the easiest to use web logging tool out there. If you want to start a weblog, and don't know anything about creating a home page, Blogger is for you!! If you want a web logging tool that is super easy to use, and don't need a lot of bells and whistles, Blogger is for you. However, Johnny and I have been wanting to add a lot of features that would have been very difficult with Blogger, and so Moveable Type is for us!
I will go into more depth about what we have done here later, but run around in the new pages, and tell us what you think. Satisfaction Guaranteed or your money back!!
It has stricken me again lately, particularly here in Japan, where it is worse than I have ever seen it, that we are all walking billboards for a number of different companies often with out thinking about it. Today I seem to be mostly pushing Air Walk, but on my feet is a pitch for Hi-Tec. I’m sure that there is a tag on the back of my pants, but I can’t see that right now. My coat today doesn’t have a logo on it, because it is a military field jacket.
At any rate, I have just been thinking about how everyday I am an unwitting advertisement for many products that I don’t necessarily endorse, and it makes me mad. This week my schedule is really full, but hopefully sometime this weekend I’ll be able to once again de-logoize. This is a very complex procedure that I perform on my belonging at intervals of about 2 years. It involves ripping the tags off of all the clothes and other items that I have that have visible logos on them. I then get some tape, preferably black, and X-out any remaining logos that I can. I was struck recently by an urge to begin making my own clothes, maybe I’ll try to combine that with my de-logoizing procedure, and try to go completely logo free. It is pretty difficult to get rid of them all though.
Today’s most offensive logo:
The AIRWALK logo emblazoned across the back of my backpack. It’s not too blatant, or I wouldn’t have bought it, but it is very visible.
It has always been a pet peeve of mine, when people ask how you are when they don’t really care. When people ask I generally think about it for a moment, so that I can really tell them a little something about how I am. All too often, when I have finished my second-long self-analysis and start to speak the person who asked has already passed me or started to talk about something else. On the flipside, generally when I ask someone how they are, I genuinely want to know how their life is going. Lately, it seems that every time I ask I get a ‘hi’ or ‘how’s it going’, a grunt, ‘fine’, or some other equally not an answer, instead a greeting, type answer, or the person just nods at me and passes on by.
This really bothers, offends, and sometimes hurts me. To combat this I created a defense mechanism, a form of retaliation, or maybe you’d call it simply a comeback, which has been rather effective for me. When someone asks me how I am and I am sure that they don’t really want to know, I whip out my ready-made comeback. A typical exchange would look something like this:
Perpetrator: How’s it going?
UltraBob: I’ve got a bad case of the runs!
Perpetrator: (This is clearly spoken via facial expression) Did I just hear him correctly? Gross! I wonder if that’s really what he said… Gross!
I’ve never had anyone ask me to repeat myself, and after a couple of times of getting the response above, people generally stop asking me how I am.
I have been using the above comeback for sometime now, and am ready for a change. This is what I have come up with: “The rash is finally starting to go away!” The problem with this comeback is that it should be spoken with extreme joy, which can be difficult to spontaneously exude, especially in times of anger or disappointment. I’m curious if there is anyone else out there who feels the same way I do about the ‘How are you?’ question, and if you’ve come up with different ways to deal with it than I have. I’d also like to know what you think of my new phrase, and I would be delighted with a few suggestions of other equally nasty comebacks. Just click on the comment link below, and away you go!
I say that to people all the time in the bank, and usually they say it back to me. Usually they say they are fine, but sometimes not, and I’m always ready to listen and repond sympathetically if the occasion calls for it. It is a social greeting used to acknowledge an acquaintance. Do you have an alternate social greeting you would rather see used? I know what you mean about people saying it casually, not really caring about the answer, but there needs to be some way to say “I acknowledge your existence and your claim on a relationship with me, and don’t wish to be rude by ignoring you, but I really don’t have anything I need to say to you.”
How about “Hiya!”?
Some news for the devoted reader of this website: I am working on migrating this page away from being powered by Blogger to being powered by Moveable Type. This will mean that I have more control over how things work on our pages, and will even be able to modify the program to make it better suit my needs if it comes to that. I have a prototype up right now that I am testing, and I think it is almost ready to be launched. The one downside to the new service is that since I will be running the commenting service on my own site, we may lose the comments we receive up until we switch over, I am thinking about what to do about that now. If worse came to worse, I suppose that I could hand enter all of the comments up until now, but I hope that I can find a solution outside of that. I don’t think that you will see much change in the appearance of the site when we switch over, in fact you probably won’t know that we have switched unless you are really looking for it. You will probably notice some changes that make navigation in the archives easier. Here is the decision I am facing now, and I would appreciate any input: Should I archive the pages monthly or continue to do them weekly? Weekly archives create a long archive menu, but a manageable page length when you click on them. Monthly archives on the other hand have fewer menu items, but longer page lengths. I have one more idea in mind about how to handle this, but will wait and see what our reader would like to see before I think about it further.
The chance to sign up for our fantasy baseball league has passed, and if you are not now one of the mighty competitors you have missed it. Take heart though fair reader, for I suspect that thee shall hear myriad tales of heroism and spiritlessness, victory and defeat while the season endures. This battle of titans spans three continents and consists of 6 teams. For future reference here are the team names, and their locations:
These are thy champions, choose wisely who you wish to support, for all carry very little knowledge of the current state of American baseball, some indeed know little even about the rules of the game. Go forth and begin the placing of bets and the formation of fan clubs, for this is the league of kings.
editor's hint: Your money would best be placed upon Bob's Burly Batters, or better, in the pocket of the mighty team's manager.
Thou shalt have my allegiance as long as thou dost triumph over the mighty competitors.
I saw a demonstration of the Aibo robot dog the other day, and the dog ignored all of the commands given by the demonstrator. Does that mean that it wasn't working right, or that it is frighteningly similar to a real dog?
It happens fairly frequently, that I have a very hard time thinking of something to write, and it often helps to just start writing something. I don't want this website to become stagnant, and it seems that I am the only one who will post frequently, even though one of the other writers whom I will not name here is currently on Spring Break. =) Therefore, I will write even though I don't have anything great to start off with. One thing that is in the front of my mind is that it is my sister's birthday in a few days, and I still need to get something for her. Maybe I'll stop writing for a minute and find something. I'll be back soon ... ... ... Ok, I made a purchase, and I think that it is something that she'll really enjoy, even though it isn't exactly for her.
I guess what I'll write about here is what I hope this site can become. I hope that this will become a place for Johnny and me to bounce our ideas off of each other. I hope that it will be a place for us to put out recommendations for things that we really like (or warnings about things that we thought were a waste of time). For example, I would like to give a strong recommendation for any book by Tom Robbins, and I will add a number of them to my books section, which if you haven't noticed yet is a new feature on our site. (Just click on the appropriate button in the top menu just below our fantastic logo, and away you go.) If you buy a book from Amazon via a click from our website, we will get a small commission in the form of gift certificates, so if you would like to purchase something, and support this endeavor at the same time, please send an e-mail to the guy that you would like to encourage, and ask him to put a link up for the product that you would like to buy. I would like this site to be a place that is interesting enough to read that you will come back often to visit, and I hope that it will be active enough that you can come back often, and not be disappointed.
In order for this to be an interesting enough site for you to visit again and again, I realize that I must improve my writing skill and style, and I plan to do so by frequent posts to this site on many topics. I think that by writing at least a little bit everyday, I can greatly improve my writing. I may, at some point in the future, also begin posting a Japanese version of my posts, and I imagine that Johnny has the same thing in mind for pig Latin. I also plan for this site to be a place for me to practice my Internet skills which may mean that the site is screwed up sometimes. Please accept my apologies in advance for any inconveniences. I hope for this page to expand into many areas that we have not yet foreseen, and will need your suggestions and Johnny's ideas to do so.
My pledge to you is that I will try to post here as frequently as possible, and will take into consideration any suggestions that I receive. I will do my best to make this site as interesting and active as possible, and hope that it becomes a frequently visited site for you. In exchange, Johnny and I need feedback. If you particularly like something, let us know. If one of our posts was boring or was poorly written, please let us down easy but tell us nonetheless. If there is a feature that you think would add a lot to our site tell us, and if you think something is just an annoying distraction (say the monkeys! say the monkeys!!) let us know that too. These are my ideas and hopes for this site, and I hope that Johnny will post a similar set of ideas so that we can really get going on this project. Below, so that it will be easy for me to refer to, I have included a list of the basic points of this post.
I hope that this site will be/include
Test of our new Comment System!
I like your new web page very much. I haven’t had time to look at it in depth, because someone keeps talking to me on instant messanger, so gotta run. Keep up the good work.