Thursday, April 26, 2012

Live From the Midst of a Devastating Brainstorm

While my fellow bloggers have been publishing some fascinating and well-written stuff, I've been suffering from blogger's block, which is like writer's block with more Google image searching. So, in the interesting of fulfilling my insatiable thirst for pageviews keeping readers informed (shut up, we do have readers -- hi mom), here are some of ideas I've been bouncing around:

-Primary songs as historical political propaganda:

Army of Kublai-Kahn (We have been born as Ghengis of old...)
Crusader's Hymn (This one's gift-wrapped; no title alteration necessary! Just have to work on the lyrics)
Choose the Reich
"Give" said the Bourgeoisie

-Something about how Mitt Romney comes off as stiff and hard to relate to.

Comedy Gold.
-Follow-up pieces on Imminence and/or old issues of the Ensign. Rejected on the grounds that anticipation drives returning readership (note: check analytics to verify theory).

-Make fun of Jon McNoughton. Done and done.

-Goad a prominent LDS figure into saying something racist or otherwise controversial. Write outraged response.
Attack!
-Respond to Brent Gilchrist's interesting philosophical defense of "traditional" marriage. Since his argument is unusally well-developed for an anti gay-marriage work, fulfill following prerequisites:

1. Learn French.
2. Read Descartes in original French.
3. Read secondary English literature to understand Descartes.
4. Learn Italian.
5. Read Giambattista Vico in original Italian.
6. c.f. 3, only with Vico.
7. Prepare for debate with a professor of Political Science on whether an 18th century Italian philosopher of history who was ahead of his time in providing a framework for the validity of historical truth but whose broader vision of circular historical patterns is no longer in use by mainstream historians provides the best philosophical framework for understanding complicated contemporary political, social, and legal issues. Find a clear way to express that in blog format.

-Muse on recent move to Idaho. Rejected because there is nothing funny or interesting about Idaho.
I've got nothing.
-Forget about blogging, play more Football Manager 12 (This is actually a project I've worked on a great deal).

-Something about Battlestar Galactica. How has nobody on this blog written about Battlestar Galactica yet? Expert Textpert team, consider yourselves rebuked. Likewise my spell checker for recognizing neither "Battlestar" nor "Galactica."

-Take something Brett wrote, change the wording a little, and post it as my own work.

-Seriously, I live in freaking Rexburg! There's gotta be something for a liberal dude like me to get indignant and/or sarcastic about. Note: wear shorts and flip-flops, grow facial hair, walk around on BYU-I campus. Wear colored shirts to church, also with facial hair. Seek out persecution and marginalization. Document accordingly.

Nope, not working.
  -Tell tech support stories. Not really part of the blog's general theme, but entertaining. Here's a good one, an actual chat transcript of something I worked on (if you ever call tech support and feel insulted because they act like you're lying and/or don't know what you're talking about, please understand that it's because many customers lie and/or don't know what they're talking about). Names edited to protect the innocent.

The customer has allowed full-control screen sharing to Casey.
Casey can now view and control the customer's screen
.
Begin chat
-X said to you: that is fine hope because I began rewritingall those long leter you got the magic!
-You said to X: Hi X I just connected to your computer. I couldn't reach you by phone a second ago, but can you tell me here what problem you're having?
-X said to you: I will try my last call on my open therewould be 2 technician you make the 6TH. I can a document okay then went sent to word for edit and changes but wht goes to the processing starts goes in word and comes out garbage font some reble my gobly so in that procesor eating wrong food or mixed up confused/
-You said to X: Are you having trouble printing?
-X said to you: yes garbego not printing only what comes to word from the printed form?
-X said to you: caseey let me try this make a trian at is printer feeded through toword document now line a line to a box now line from there to triangle my computer that box and line to computer do not communicate properly ??-X said to you: explain I lost?? 
Chat disconnected by customer.

They didn't answer their phone when I tried to follow-up, and I never heard back...to this day I have no clue what the problem was.

Actual screenshot. You can't make things like this up.
-Finally...Disney. People love Disney. Gotta find a way to capitalize on that.

So until next time, when I may yet return with something of substance, or at least an entertaining Photoshop... note: think of clever sign-off statement.