I am #1

This is an article copied and pasted from Wired.com. I started this blog with the anger/rant type of posts.

Jon

Secrets of the 7 Basic Blog Posts

By Lore Sjöberg 10 hours ago

According to some people, there are only 36 basic story plots that just get reused. Others say there are merely 20. Some people even say there's only one plot, but they probably just watch too many Michael Bay movies. I like the theory that there are only seven plots. It's a nice round number, and the plots are vague enough that you can shoehorn anything from Citizen Kane to a cereal commercial into them.

In the spirit of oversimplifying things so that you can smugly shove human endeavors into pre-labeled slots, I'd like to present my own, contemporary take on this premise: the Seven Basic Blog Posts.

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1. Be upset!

Terrible things are happening in one of the following: the world, the web or a television show you really like. Make a blog post about it! People will comment about how much they agree with you. Then they'll make their own blog posts about the subject, and other people will comment about how much they agree with them. If we all work together we'll learn that we can make a real impact on our pageviews.

2. Buy a thing!

For too long, the mainstream media have shoved advertising down our throats. It's time for us to take the reins of mass communication and shove advertising down each other's throats! If we both see the same overproduced movies and lust after the same overpriced devices, then maybe the bitter wind of loneliness won't bite quite so fiercely.

3. Animals are cute!

Nobody likes animals when they act like animals. Videos of a cat snapping a robin's neck don't go big. No, we like animals when we can convince ourselves that they're just like us, only with worse spelling. For the purposes of this category, animals also includes babies and children younger than 8.

4. People are dumb!

Try this: Put up videos of yourself volunteering at a soup kitchen, giving a speech at a symposium and breaking your arm in seven places doing the "shopping cart luge." Guess which one will get the most hits. We like our animals to appear smarter than they really are and our humans dumber, which means that the perfect internet celebrity would be a somewhat slow-witted centaur. In a Darth Vader outfit.

5. Something I like, only different!

Liking new things takes so much effort. You have to learn all these unfamiliar characters or remember completely new lyrics. It's much easier to like something that you already know about. The Matrix -- in cookie form! The Lord of the Rings -- if Frodo was a ninja! The Mario Bros. theme song -- played on the hollowed-out skulls of owls! We're already starting to see this undergo a third iteration: Star Wars, only with homemade lightsabers, only in a Weezer video! In about 10 seconds, someone's going to make a Lego version of that video, bringing it to the fourth level.

6. Weird science!

This includes homemade experiments involving explosives, as well as actual scientific studies. There are two types of scientific studies: Ones you agree with, and ones you don't. If you disagree with a study, you should link to it and point out how stupid and biased it is. If you agree, you should link to it and point out how ridiculous it is that scientists get paid to state the obvious. Either way, you're educating your readers that you're smarter than science.

7. Me, the blogger!

We've reached an age where egotism is considered too much work. Why discuss your hopes and fears when you can just post the results of online tests, show cartoon versions of yourself and collect "friends"? It's a good thing Anais Nin wasn't a blogger, or instead of a steamy tale of sexual awakening and creative fervor, we'd just know that if she was a Ninja Turtle, she'd be Raphael.

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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a blogger, a logger and an otter.

Why swear at public events?

Last night we went to a hockey game here in Chicago. Now I understand that when someone goes to an event and your team is the "away" team, there will be a certain amount heckling and smart mouthing. That is expected and part of what makes going to a game fun, support for your team and not supporting the other team. But last night, I experienced something that I never really have at any other event. The couple sitting behind us was spewing forth nothing but F bombs all evening. Apparently they had no further mental capacity for human speech than to accentuate every other word with the favored F bomb. Oh, and don't forget that when you sit in the upper most section and are only six or seven rows from the top, the teams down on the ice can actually hear you in an arena filled with over 20,000 people. Yup, hassle the players from up here, it'll work awesome! Good job sparky! Keep up the good work.
I love going to sporting events and seeing the live action, but no where does it say that I need to put up with constant strings of F bombs. But, like the one member of this linguistic duo said last night, "this is a hockey game, not church." I'm still not sure what that was supposed to mean. Apparently these folk only keep themselves from swearing while in the house of the Lord. And if thats the case, I truly feel sorry for all that they encounter on a daily bases. Go into 7/11 for a coffee "thanks for the F...in coffee!", or out of a taxi "thanks for f...in ride", or even mothers day, "here's some f...in flowers, mom." I am seriously upset about this and wish that they would think a little more about how their actions effect those around them. Yes we have freedom of speech, but we also have a choice as to when to express it and when to keep it to yourselves. I would like to be able to go to a sporting event and not feel horribly uncomfortable about the prospect of taking my kids with me some day.

What the ?

I was just checking the "News" section of Google and came across two separate "top" stories. One is that the Governor of New York is about to resign because he purchased the service of a personal escort/s. The other is a study conducted by the Center for Disease Control which learned that over a quarter of the female teens screened were positive "for at least 1 STD". The second story reported that this could be partly to blame on abstinence only programs and the teens own sense of invulnerability. I want to bang my head against the wall. Honestly. One, because once again we have a New York politician stuck in a sex scandal (does anyone remember that prior to 9/11 Giuliani was caught up in a similar situation?), and two because apparently the teenagers in this study don't value their bodies or purity enough to wait for marriage to a single partner or at least use protection no matter what activity they are partaking in. The study showed that some of the teens believed that they could only get an STD from sexual intercourse. Why? Where are these myths being perpetrated? My head actually hurts because of this. I really wonder where this perception comes from. Oh, but wait, I forgot. Apparently its ok for our political leaders to use escort services. I pray that our next president will have the initiative to realistically evaluate what our country needs.