|
coolmonkey
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Eric
Birthday: 12/20/1983
Gender: Male
Interests: ...zzzzzzzzz
Expertise: I am a good procrastinator. I usually fall asleep when I...zzzzzzzz...
Occupation: Other
Industry: Other
Message: message me
AIM:  sirmonkeearss
Member Since:
2/10/2003
|
|
| Go.
| | |
| Well, Memorial Day was originally "Decoration Day," which was created to honor the men that lost their lives in the Civil War. Eventually, it extended itself to umbrella all soldiers that died in every war America fought. And it's pretty much that simple.
Veteran's Day, on the other hand, used to be called "Armistice Day," which commemorated the end of WW1 in Europe. The Germans signed the which ended the war on the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour, hence why the holiday is on 11/11. However, in 1954, the government was going through a hyper-patriotism moment and apparently decided that "Armistice Day" just wasn't American enough, and so they changed it to "Veteran's Day" and airbrushed the European history out of the holiday. Instead, it seems we pretty much get two Memorial Days. Mind you, this was the same year that Congress officially drafted the phrase "Under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance (that's right, the Founding Fathers never intended it to be there). In fact, "In God We Trust" wasn't the official national motto until 1956, two years later.
| | |
| I don't know if any of you have noticed, but if you hurry, you might catch that the Featured page happens to have 3 blogs involving Disney (2 for the princesses and 1 for Mickey). Does anyone else find that a little odd? I mean, of all the things to "coincidentally" feature, they all involve Disney? Is there any way to find out if Disney just bought a chunk of Xanga? Also, notice that Walmart can also be seen in at least 3 different places on the front page mixed in with the ISH sites. After noticing this bizarre situation, I started to think back and had a Russel Crow "A Beautiful Mind" moment.
I remember a long time ago that Mancouch did a blog about male body wash or lotion. It seemed very peculiar because they tried to pass off the advertisement as an ordinary blog by a typical Xanganite. They even went with the obligatory ISH'ness of asking an inane question at the end like,"would you buy something like this?" But the post just stunk of blatant commercialism. It was so obvious that company just paid Xanga off to advertise their product. When I called them out on it with a comment, I was surprised that later that day, they had disabled the comment box, which is completely unheard of for an ISH site. Why would you ever want to discourage comment traffic?
Then the big lightbulb went off in my head. What does Xanga have to gain from all their Yellow Fever posts? I kick myself for not thinking of this sooner. How many times have you noticed an ad at the side of your window that advertised an Asian Dating site or some Mail Order Bride Service? The Asian fetish posts on Xanga are jsut a clever way of attracting Asian dating ads to this site for a much needed revenue injection! I'm sure they have since learned that blatant forms of advertising doesn't work at all, which is why they funnel products through Lovelyish or Hardestlevel in the form of blogs. I suppose I can't be to hard on Xanga, after all, they do have a right to try to make money. But am I on to something, or am I just crazy?
As an experiment, you should try to find a sponsor for Xanga and blog about them and see if you will get featured.
Btw, does anyone know if those math symbols means anything?
| | |
| I've watched a lot of Comedy Central and I think I've seen enough patterns of what works and what doesn't. It's pretty sad when a comedian tells an old joke, or worse, get booed off stage. So I think I should offer all those aspiring jokesters out there some free advice.
1) If you are Black, you get an automatic 10 funny points when you come out on stage. You get that extra advantage because of "good" prejudice. You know, like how you have large penises. But really, we all think you're going to be like a Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy (when he was funny), the Kings of Comedy, etc for the sole reason that you have the same skin color.
2) If you are White, you get +5 points if you are goofy-looking. First, we feel sympathy for you, and second, if you're weird-looking, you must have some pretty interesting life stories.
3) Asian comedians get +5 points just out of curiosity. Since we are so rare in the comedy world, we get that extra bump.
4) If you are a woman, you get -10 points out of the starting gate. Sorry, but the fact is, female comedians just aren't funny. Exceptions include dykes and Tina Fey. I dunno, I guess it's just most girls can't distinguish the subtle nuances between cracking a joke and complaining. Or maybe it's that they aren't as spot-on about timing and delivery? Perhaps is just that a woman ranting about problems is too tedious and reminds us about girlfriends? I dunno.
5) Keep impersonations to a minimum. If you can do a mean Christopher Walken or a Vietnamese dude, then you're pretty funny already. But make sure you keep your act to 5 sentences, any more than that and it just gets annoying. If you rely solely on impersonations, then you better have a pretty impressive stockpile of voices, like Frank Caliendo.
6) No more airplane jokes. Jerry Seinfeld already killed this act. We all know airplane trips suck. We get it already!
7) No more penis size jokes. Okay, we get it, Black guys have humongous swinging dicks and Asians have little nubs. If you think your routine still needs this dated material, then you really need to come up with something more original. Once you even mention the word "penis" people can spot your punchlines from a mile away. Not only that, but in every act I have seen that incorporated a small dick joke, there are always grumbles in the crowd. If you know it's going to turn off a section of your audience, then why would you willingly try to include it in your act?
8) Stick with what you know. If you don't know anything about Asians, then the last thing you want to do is start with "Ching Chong" talk. If you don't know anything about Black people, don't pull a Michael Richards and go off on a "nigger" spree. All you are going to accomplish is make the whole room really uncomfortable. And for Christ's sake, don't make any Arab jokes lest you get a fatwah declared on you.
9) Someone must be dead at least a week before you can joke about them.
10) If you make a shitty joke, don't try to move on a pretend it never happened. It will be stuck in yours and the audience's mind and it will totally affect the rest of your act. You can tell it from your nervous flinching and stuttering voice as you try desperately to salvage yourself. Instead, study how Conan O'Brien picks up his fumbles. He is a master at defusing a bomb and making people accept a terrible joke and move on. You can write crap for him and he can turn it into copper (not quite gold). If you don't do an early abortion on a bad joke, then you are doomed to fail.
| | |
| If you're new to Xanga (or you just don't care about ISH sites), you'll notice a cluster of 12 mini-sites at the bottom of the front page. If you are confused and wonder which one you'll find interesting, then this is the perfect post for you.
1) Xanga- Why does Xanga have a mini-site that just lists the top 4 Featured Blogs that you just scrolled past to get down to the ISH site section? The world may never know.
2) Revelife- Are you a Christian fundamentalist/extremist? Do you hate homosexuals? Do you distrust Evolution? Do you hate anything remotely fun? Do you consider yourself to be above all non-Christians? Then this site is perfect for you!
3) Momaroo- You'll need 2 things to find this site anywhere near interesting, (1) a vagina (2) a baby.
4) Datingish- A bunch of prepubescent teenagers or romantically challenged bloggers trying to get relationship advice from complete strangers over the internet. Most common comment on the site: "you need to break up with him."
5) Healthkicker- The most socially irresponsible thing to exist on Xanga. While other sites are mostly based on opinions or stories, Healthkicker actually tries to pass itself off as legitimate health advice. This can be downright dangerous because none of the bloggers here are professional nutritionists or health experts. You're getting health advice from complete amateurs that have access to computers.
6) Dollarish- Of all the ISH sites, this one is probably the most helpful. It actually gives you sound financial advice and educates you about money matters. So, naturally, this is one of the least visited ISH site.
7) Lovelyish- This is what you get when a bunch of teenage girls get computers and trash talk celebrities, gossip, and give make-up tips. Occasionally they will instigate a war over fat girls vs skinny girls to claim the mantle of "real beauty."
8) Mancouch- I was initially stoked about having a site for men. Unfortunately, it has been rather disappointing. To me, it just feels too watered down and isn't allowed to reach its full potential. It needs to get raunchier, have more swearing, and feature naked chicks. But since the majority of comments come from chicks, it really dilutes a true Man Show-type blog.
9) Tripcrazed- It's actually a pretty handy travel blog because you get firsthand stories from travelers which separates it from your ordinary travel catalog.
10) I Really Like Food- This is pretty much a bastard child of Healthkicker and can easily be integrated into it.
11) Hardest Level- Essentially a bastard child of Mancouch.
12) Autisable- To find this site interesting, you need to intimately know someone that is autistic, and you have to be aggressively militant about defending them in every possible way. Your hobbies must include scouring the internet for anyone using the word "retard" and trying to convince them that they are ignorant assholes. It is not uncommon to see 0 comments for their posts. How they managed to get their own ISH site is beyond me.
| | |
|
