Today’s Blog Posting Is Almost Certainly Not A Joke

A short but important note on my sometime perfect, now somewhat fractured, eidetic memory:

I can easily remember what I had for lunch on any precise day three years ago, and I can easily remember what I was wearing at the time. I can remember at exactly what time I had that lunch, too. I can remember the lyrics to songs by Busted. Which, to clarify, I heard once on the radio and would probably not choose to remember if given the option. Indeed, I can remember lots and lots of random things. But I can't remember faces, you see. That is, I can recognise them on viewing; I know who people are when I see them. But I can't put a picture of them together in my head, I can't remember them after they're gone. I can look at someone, shut my eyes, and not know what they look like. I leave the room, and they're not even a memory.

And that's not all, either; not by a long shot. On the whole, you can't imagine how harrowing my life has been. I can't tell you what a sunset looks like. I can't imagine the shape of a bird. I mean, I can tell you the names of every single bird under the sky if you'd like to hear them, and I can tell you to what genus they each belong. But I can't tell you anything about how seeing those birds or that sky might have made me feel. I can see photographs that I have taken, and I can remember the second of the minute of the day when I took the picture – but turn the picture around and suddenly I cannot describe it beyond a blank.

So, yeah. It hasn't been so good. Not to put too fine a point on it, in fact, it has been fairly bad. I have been, in every meaningful sense, irrevocably lost.

But then, and this is absolutely a true story, I met you, and everything changed for me. Seriously, my life changed. Suddenly, the blank spaces in my memory were all excused. Suddenly, not being able to remember faces didn't really seem so bad. No, it didn't seem so bad at all. Because, and I'm just going to come out and say this, your face is really, really ugly.

Now, I may not be able to remember what breakfast looked like this morning, but frankly, that’s a small price to pay if I can also forget your horrible, horrible face. And hey, if I should chance to see you again later, well, I guess I'll also get another chance to see what that breakfast looked like.

Because I'll have vomited, you understand. Because, in case this wasn't clear, you're very ugly.

Notes: Okay, fine, it's a joke. Are you happy now? Are you?

I've Been Gone So Long We Should Maybe Write A Song About It

Hey there.

If you're a little like me, then you too have probably

been spending your deleterious days thinking ‘oh!’

‘to where on this good, improbable earth has

the waspinator-for-president blog disappeared?’

And you know, you shouldn't feel at all bad for

thinking that sort of thing. All of us have thought

at some point or another. It's just part and parcel

of being human. And as these things go, you,

you, my reader, you are human, more or less.

This need you’ve been feeling: it is, you might say,

simply part of who we are. And as things go, you,

horribly pathetic, annoying, execrable you,

you are who you are, human too, more or less.

It's really okay to feel the kind of deep, abiding,

the longing horrid need you've been long feeling.

It's okay, really, to feel that kind of need. I mean,

you know what, hey, we've all felt needs now and then.

Seriously, we've all felt needs.

It's all part of being human, isn't it?

We're all the same, after all, aren't we?

I mean, seriously, since the dawn of time,

we've all had that kind of need, now and again.

Everyone feels the way you do, sometimes.

So don't worry. And I mean, I of all people,

and I just can't be any clearer about this –

of all people, I do understand all about what it is

that you've been going through. I do, really.

But look.

I mean, yes, of course, we all have needs.

Yes, sure, we all have some slightly odd,

some unexplainable feelings from time to time.

And sometimes, yes, sometimes thoughts can

kind of sneak up on you without you really planning

to think them. Sometimes, they sneak up on you

so surprisingly, in a blinding flash, that it feels like it's

not even you who definitely thought them (you did).

And yes, I realise that sometimes those horrible

un-thought thoughts can be just a bit disturbing,

even though it's totally not your fault, and never,

never you doing the thinking of them. I know,

yes, sometimes they do involve chimpanzees.

But, you know, just come on. Really, come on.

Look, honestly, I think what I'm trying to say here,

and maybe I'm not being quite clear enough,

but what I'm trying to say here, is that, well,

you know.

Look, yes, I get it. I really do. Of all people I get it.

Believe me, I understand what you're going through.

I probably understand it better than anyone, because,

frankly, that's just the sort of wonderful person I am.

I mean, I can be a pretty understanding human being.

When you're by yourself, your mind can wander.

When you're on your own, of course your mind can

wander a little. It's only natural. And yes, sometimes

it might wander rather a lot. And that's perfectly

natural too. And yes, sometimes it wanders so far

that you find yourself. And you realise, I mean really

really realise, that you quite like those chimps.

You realise, I hope you realise, that you’re terrible.

Also: a reminder to send me the pictures, please.

Notes: This time, Believer, this time. 

The Elephant Man Called; If You’re Finished With It, He Said He’d Like His Ugliness Back

I’d like to devote today’s instalment of Waspinator for President to the burning subject of Nineties' put-downs.

In fact, ideally, I’d like to create an online 'knowledge base' of insults originating from (what I'm quasi-reliably informed is) this all-time-great decade. For insults. But I can’t tackle this task by myself, oh no. To build this amazing repository of incredibly useful insult-related social history, what I also really need is you! You, my dear reader, have quite an opportunity ahead of you. You, and only you, can help me help the world help you by logging your favourite insults of the Nineties with the research staff here in the Waspinator secret bunker. All of us here are feverishly awaiting what is sure to be your extremely insightful input, so get using that email button, and get sending us your amazing contributions. I’m looking for classics such as “Pathetic, Tennessee. Population: You!” or perhaps the ever-green “I’ve done the math, and it’s not going to happen”, or even the quick and lively (if a little context-specific) “Cheque, please!”

Now, I can't stress strongly enough the weighty importance of this endeavour. It's weightiness is like a collapsed neutron star, balanced on top of another collapsed neutron star, balanced on top of your fat momma. To be clear: this is important. And importantly weighty. And weightily important. But wherefore is it so weighty and important and also weighty, you ask? What is the purpose behind building this high-tech insult knowledge base, you enquire? Well, iterate your wondering no further, my dear reader, because I'm only too happy to tell you.

What this boils down to, in all honesty, is that I have a bit of a problem. It's quite a serious problem, actually, and I'm really not too sure what I can do about it. I guess this might not come as too much of a surprise to you. You've probably had your suspicions for a while now. Probably, you've had your suspicions for a while now because you're an overly suspicious sort of person, and maybe that's something you should address about yourself. But don't address it right now, because we're not currently talking about your problems, unspeakably legion though your problems certainly are. Now that I come to think about it, in fact, it's actually quite a surprise that we're not talking about your unspeakably legion problems right now: by the laws of chance alone, you'd think it would be hard not to hit on speaking about one of those unspeakable problems. But no, just this once, we've found a problem that you don't have. Because this, dear reader, is my problem. And it's big.

Yes, my problem is quite a big problem indeed, because, to put it simply for you my dear and simple reader, my problem is you. Or, rather more specifically, my problem is that I have finally run out of ways to effectively describe just how very awful you are. Terribly inventive as even I am, and inventively terrible as even you are, I have simply run flat out of appropriately rancorous speech with which to circumnavigate your badness. You, my dear and horrible reader, are so bad that you have plunged right out of linguistic efficacy. In no uncertain terms, you have become both figuratively and literally nothing. I'm not sure I can help you with this, but I am absolutely sure that you can help me to help you to help me with this. Because, you see, only you in your infinite terribleness can possibly hold the key to describing you as you fully deserve. Only you, in your deeply dark darkness, can summon up an insult so peculiarly invective that it can properly be applied to your titanically terrible totality. Finally, you can do something to help your situation, even if that something is only to give me some new ways to put you down. Which I think we both know is what should really happen here anyway.

So there we are. Between us, I honestly believe we can make this latest project into internet gold. Now, I think I’ve done the hard part in suggesting this wonderful idea. The rest, as they say, is up to you.


Notes: Sometimes, in these notes, I retract or otherwise turn around the propositions put forward in the main body of the post. This is partly about maintaining a kind of structural running joke (structural jokes being the best kind), but it's also a nice way of taking the sting out of any mean words or insults. Anyway, sometimes I do that. 

A Growing List Of Reasons Why We Live In A Really, Really Imperfect World

Where I live, you can't order pizza when you get up in the morning.

When that pizza doesn't come, it's also not delivered by Michaela Strachan, 20 years ago when she was hot. 

When that pizza doesn't come, and it's not delivered by Michaela Strachan, 20 years ago when she was hot, I still have to get up instead of going back to sleep to dream about Michaela Strachan 20 years ago when she was hot.

When that pizza doesn't come, and it's not delivered by Michaela Strachan, 20 years ago when she was hot, and I still have to get up instead of going back to sleep to dream about Michaela Strachan 20 years ago when she was hot, I have to go into work. 

My place of work does not employ Michaela Strachan.

Time machines do not exist, and cannot be used to go back in time 20 years, or, for that matter, to watch yourself in bed with that hot chick who you broke up with the day (just one day!) before you got your digital camera.

Aforementioned hot chick's name was not Michaela Strachan. 

Notes:

1. 'Michaela Strachan' is, of course, used here as a metaphor. 

2. A metaphor that I should have used 20 years ago.

Well, That’s All Fine Then

For five long, lonely, dark and terrible years, the dim-lit halls of Waspinator for President have kept time with the sickly slow beat of my beleaguered soul. The underground bunker, resonating with the staccato drum of the surrounding earth (well, that and the nuclear generator), have steadily harmonised with my own internal, infernal pace. As I dwell underneath those I despise, so too has my heart sunk down beneath; as I tunnel further in my quest for renewable energy sources, so the less renewed has my own hope for renewal become. My dulled and despairing thought, ever below, has long found itself mirrored not merely in the unquiet mere of my noisome heart, but also in this my surrounding architecture: a bunker outside my self almost as massy and impenetrable as the bunker within.

For five long years have I marked off time along these walls, in scratches of chalk and chalky blood. For five years too long have I marked off time on walls as grey as graves, with the promise of graves, with the malice of graves…but no longer. No longer will I accept this state in which I’ve locked myself. No longer will I walk in a prison of my soul. No, dear reader, because this time, this time is my time. And there’s only one thing I want to do with this time that is also my time. And that thing I want to do, my dear reader, is ask you a single very important question.

Would you mind helping me redecorate?

Thanks.



Notes:

1. So what I’m doing in this latest clever blog entry is to compare the state of my soul with the state of the Waspinator for President underground bunker. And what I’m doing with this comparison, you see, is drawing attention to the fact that they’re both a bit bleak, although I suppose the underground bunker is a little bit more bleak, given that it is in essence entirely fictional. My soul, despite a great deal of compelling moral evidence to the contrary, is not entirely fictional.

2. So having made this comparison between the bleakness of my soul, and the bleakness of my fictional bunker, what I then did was to ask you to help me redecorate. Perhaps, now that I come to think about it, some light pastels would be nice. Well, look, anyway, this is all clever and also funny because what I should have done, really, was to ask you to help out with the bleak soul issue, whereas what I actually did was to ask you to help make the bunker look snazzier instead. And that was the wrong thing to say in context, and hence an unexpected outcome, even as it was also very expected, but also that very sense of expectation was probably interesting to you.

3. So as usual I’m having to provide a commentary on what I’ve been doing because otherwise, to be quite honest, you probably wouldn’t get it. But also, you see, I could actually be asking you to help redecorate my soul, rather than the bunker. So it’s a joke that’s also a metaphor that’s also simply true, which makes it very different from all the other blog entries here and really quite smart when you think about it and not redundant.

4. So also, this blog replaces one of last week’s promised titles, ‘This Pleonastic Meme I’m Currently Experiencing Is A Bit Pleonastic’. You know, unless I decide to repeat myself.

Your Upcoming Blog Titles Are In! (Volume 2)

Here at the Waspinator for President secret bunker, I often (okay, just this once) like to replace an actual blog by telling you about blogs that will appear in the future.

I’m a busy guy, alright? You can tell how very busy I am, simply by noting how long it has been since I last posted here. That’s right, I have better things to do. And, like many busy guys with better busy guy things to do, I have lots of busy, better things with which I ought really to be getting on. Right now, for example, I’m still working on tracking down little Miles Mayhem, who escaped from the Waspinator secret bunker back in 2008, and hasn’t been sighted since. Oh, and also real things as well. Yeah. But still, I’ve been feeling pretty bad for taking down this blog and thereby denying you my non-daily thoughts. So, I’ve come back to make you a promise. I will definitely make posts here, sometime in 2011. No, I don’t know when. But I do know what the titles might be, and I'm more than willing to give you a glimpse into this promising future space and time. Like so:

I Hope My Own Flash-Forward Is To The Season Two Opener Of Flash-Forward Because I Can’t Wait!

Your Upcoming Blog Titles Are In! (Volume 3)

Why Don’t We Sit Down And Have A Nice Long Chat About Those Of Whom We Do Not Speak?

In This Blog I Will Find You, If Only By A Thorough Process Of Elimination

What On Earth Just Happened Because I Don’t Even Know

What Particular Brand Of Poison Is In Your Secretly Poison Filled Glass Today?

This Pleonastic Meme I’m Currently Experiencing Is A Bit Pleonastic

I Hear That The Masters Of The Universe Are Currently Recruiting

Among The Orcs, I Am Known As ‘That Long-Bearded Racist Guy Who Killed My Children’

See how great they all sound? Can you imagine the endless fun you’ll have reading them? I think you can. And can you imagine if I don’t actually make any of these posts at all? I think you can imagine that, too. Good for you. Well, either way, come back throughout 2011 for all this and probably less. You might not regret it.

Notes: Yes, of course I am aware that there is no volume 1 for which this is the subsequent volume 2. Thank you for your enquiry.

An Undiscoverie Of The Internet

Yeah, well. Turns out I didn't like that whole reactions/monetise metric. Because it was pretty terrible, all things considered. So, you know, it's gone.

Also, can all the people I don't like PLEASE stop reading this blog? Thanks.