Please Allow For Some Narcissism

(Although, let's face it: blogging is in general an exercise in narcissism.)

It had been quite some time since I reviewed the stats around B&E, and my kind host friend (and occasional troubleshooter) was good enough to link me to a summary. I won't go on and on about this, but there were a few things I found curious.

What are people Googling when they find my humble website? Six of the top seven query results are related to tattoos, with some variation of "bad ass tattoos" taking the top three spots on the list. In fact, if you do a Google image search for "badass tattoos," it is a photo of the missus' tattoo on B&E that is the first search result. I can't say that I expected that. But it sure does please me.

Slightly more predictable is that some people are still finding B&E by searching for "Rex Tillerson" or "Rex Tillerson salary." I was happy to see "dachshunds" on the list and a bit disconcerted by seeing "huge dick" on there.

Perhaps the best news of all though is that a fair number of people found this humble site by searching for "bald lesbians." I'm proud to be a friendly place for the lesbian community, particularly the bald lesbian (or bald Lesbian) community.

And since I was just the other day accused of writing about lesbians (or Lesbians) every fourth or fifth post, I thought I would try not to disappoint that particular reader by ignoring the l/Lesbians this week.

Request for Hotties!

Although I rarely reply to the comments people post here on B&E, I do read them. And apparently, my diverse readership has equally diverse taste in hotties. "Eye Candy," "Butch Babes," "Asians," "Six Toes," "Cream Puffs," "Beef/Cheese Cake," and the like are all fine descriptors, but it will be very difficult for me to please everyone without names. Put names below, anonymously if you must, and I will attempt to find hot photos of those hotties to include with my baseball posts.

Thank you for your readership.

Sunnyside Drugstore Update

Long-time readers will need to tolerate some exposition.

Sunnyside was once home to Bloom's, the finest pub around. It (and much of the block) burned to the ground. For years, the Bloom's half-block was a hole in the ground. Demolition/construction workers cracked the foundation of a neighboring building. Rumors of a cursed block wafted through the neighborhood (or at least on B&E).

The cursed block became a mostly unattractive apartment building with retail on the ground floor. Because we need our drugs here in Sunnyside, the retail space became a CVS.

That CVS has quickly become the shittiest drugstore in the neighborhood, and we've got one Rite Aid that redefined shitty.

I went into CVS today because the missus and I needed some new hair clippers. With two head-shavers in the family, we can burn through the $20 clippers. Anyway, the hair clippers were locked up (fair enough). There were more employees in that store than customers, and it still took a good ten minutes before someone could help me. There was a line clogging up the entire front of the store, and every time someone left, the alarm system went off. They had one employee standing by her register waving people through. And it just sort of feels dirty in there. Dirt-dirty and a little sleazy-dirty both.

In other words, dear B&E readers, that block remains cursed.

And I also really like linking to myself. (Those are just a couple of random selections.)

Some Quick Updates to B&E

I've been thinking of the many ways I could debunk Mitt Romney's claims to be the savior of the economy (beginning with the failed logic that someone who knows how to become individually super-rich will also be good for the people, the masses, the country), but instead I opted for some housecleaning on this here blog.

That's right, dear B&E readers: Link updates!

I won't tell you who's now gone, but suffice to say some of those people don't update their sites enough. Nothing personal against any of you who may still visit B&E, but I was getting tired of clicking on my own links to your sites only to find posts leftover from almost a year ago.

Because of the addition and subtractions, I've reorganized the links back into their original two categories: Bald & Effective.

Under Bald Links I give you bravenewfrickenworld. Why she's bald and why it's a bravenewfrickenworld will become clear upon reading. This woman can write her ass off, so be prepared for enlightening frankness.

Flabbypants I predict will be a baby/motherhood/why-do-my-nipples-hurt site for a while, which may interest some of you. The writer throws up the occasional gossip item as well, and she remains on the Bald Link list because for reasons I can't recall we decided she was going bald in high school. Hey, Flabbypants, were you going bald in high school?

Other than the missing, we've got the usual suspects, clickable over there to the right. A couple of reminders if you haven't checked them out lately. In addition to our new links above, under Bald Links:

Foster Park is a new photo link from a regular linked presence.
Frank Dodge continues his misadventures in the woods of Vermont.

On the Effective side of the links, I'm happy to introduce you to I Don't Know, which rather likes to ponder the larger questions in life and manages to find some genuine insight in her outlandish claims to not know. I'm onto you, I Don't Know.

Then, the other usuals under Effective Links:

Titivil offers smart snark in addition to his diligent posting schedule.
Virgil's always there with an absurdity (more frequent updates, please?).
bshort takes the pretty pictures.
Babble On keeps me up-to-date on life in Topeka.
Early-Adopter comments on the art world.
Hall Farm continues its terrific arts and education programming.
The Nation reminds us what all journalism should be.

And by the way, with my two lists a little unequal in size, I'd appreciate it if any of you Effective Links would be willing to admit that you're bald enough to be included in my Bald Links. Just let me know if you think you are bold and bald enough. I'm talking to you, The Nation.

This is Scotland Calling

It's that time of year again, dear B&E readers, when instead of having no excuse for not writing, I have a perfectly good one. I'm heading out of town for a few days, and I don't expect there to be much happening here at B&E.

But hey, maybe one of my resolutions for 2008 will be posting more often than twice (and sometimes thrice) weekly. That'd be a worthy resolution. We'll see if I bother to resolve, and if I do bother, whether or not it sticks.

Whatever you celebrate, I hope you celebrate well. Git stuff't wi' ye Rabbie Burns kilt-wearin' selves on a plate o'haggis. And while that doesn't actually mean anything, it sure sounds Scottish to me.

My Favorite Day

No, it's not my birthday! It's not Christmas, Easter, or Arbor Day! Today is No Pants Day!

No more screwing around, B&E readers! Take off your pants! Anything worth doing is worth doing without pants!

Driving your car? Drive without pants! Taking a flight? Fly without pants! Visiting your mother? Visit without pants!

For the love of all that is great in this world! TAKE OFF YOUR DAMNED PANTS!

God, I love you all so much...

Happy Easter!

As you tuck into your leg of lamb this evening, I hope you'll remember the true meaning of Easter.

For when the angel rolled the stone away, and Jesus presented his resurrected self to those still mourning his death, his first words were, "I've been to hell and back, so give me some freakin' chocolate." They did, and behold: it was good.

So gorge on chocolate, dear readers. It comes in many delicious forms, and any should be considered appropriate for Easter:

Chocolate kisses, chocolate nuggets, chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies, high-end chocolate, low-end chocolate, domestic chocolate, imported chocolate, fair-trade chocolate, children-made chocolate, organic chocolate, conventional chocolate, liquid chocolate, solid chocolate, molten chocolate, powdered chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, semisweet chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, pure chocolate, peanut butter and chocolate, coconut and chocolate, fruit and chocolate, caramel and chocolate, peanuts and chocolate, hazelnuts and chocolate, almonds and chocolate, toffee and chocolate, nougat and chocolate, chocolate bars, chocolate cookies, chocolate brownies, chocolate cake, chocolate pie, chocolate creme brulee, chocolate wafers, chocolate chips, chocolate shavings, chocolate ribbons, chocolate drizzle, chocolate icing, chocolate ganache, chocolate-covered cherries, chocolate-covered blueberries, chocolate-covered espresso beans, chocolate-covered graham crackers, chocolate-covered cornflakes, chocolate-covered Cheerios, chocolate-dipped strawberries, and fudge.

It's Easter, and Jesus ate the chocolate, thus fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy. So if you don't eat some chocolate, you're being a bad Christian.

All About Me and You

I've spent much of my spare time since the holiday known by Christians as Christmas doing two things:

The first is filling my iPod. This is time-consuming because my iPod is considerably larger than my computer (in terms of memory, not physical size). So I load a CD, transfer it onto my iPod, then erase it from my computer again. There's probably an easier and quicker way, but since I don't know what it is, this is how I'm doing it.

The other has been the retooling of B&E, which I mentioned in a previous post. Blogger is no longer in beta and can do things it couldn't before. So I've now labeled most of my previous 750+ posts with headings. Hilary, for example, has been wanting to read just my baseball writings for years. Now she can. In fact, if she wants to relive the play-by-play of my Mets live-blog during the playoffs, she can click on "Mets." Or if she wants to read all my non-Mets baseball writings, including my own baseball-playing adventures in Vermont, she can check out the entries labeled "baseball." Hilary will never be without my baseball writings again.

There are still some problems, though, I must admit. The archives, for example, don't seem to link to the archives. This is a problem.

I've also added a few links. Under "Bald Links" you'll notice two old links renamed. And I've added Frank Dodge and Ali. I've never met Frank in person, but I'm assuming he's bald. If he's not, he has my apologies, and I will alter the location of his link sometime in 2009, when I get around to it. The other bald link is Ali. I went to high school with Ali, and for reasons I can't quite recall, we used to tease her about going bald. She wasn't remotely going bald. But I wanted to even out my list of bald links, so for our purposes, Ali is once again going bald.

Under "Effective Links" I finally updated Ballpeen Hammer's name to Virgil. And I added a link to The Nation because everyone should read The Nation.

Then I added some "Topeka Links" for my Kansas people. Most of you know that I grew up there, and these are the people who (with one exception) knew me then (Ali was among us, of course, but it's funnier to keep her under "Bald Links"). Early Adopter is actually a New Yorker now, but we knew each other back when we looked alike. And Early Adopter, let's not let our current greatness cause us to forget our humble beginnings, eh?

Current greatness. That's a good one.

Doing a Little Retooling

Blogger got all upgraded on my ass, and now I'm spending more time than I want to be spending making updates to B&E. Eventually, I assume, this will include updating some links.

I've already begun doing some labeling, with the idea that if you want to see all the Dickheads at once you'll be able to do so. Labeling more then 750 blog entries is fairly time-consuming, so you might have to wait for that process to be complete. The labels, though, aren't appearing on the actual site where it says the labels will be on the template, and I'm finding this to be very upsetting at the moment. The labels look stupid where they are right now, and they're supposed to be under the comments, which is what makes sense. I think I'll complain.

It's Saturday and I have to go to the post office. Some of you, then, will know why I'm feeling a bit cranky.

May Your Bald Year Be Effective

I had me some days off of work to hang out with the mom, who came into town with her latest man. I swear to Christ that woman goes through men faster than bears eat honey. Not really, of course, but once in a while I gotta make sure she's still an avid reader. Hell, she might be my only reader.

Anyway, we all had ourselves a lovely Christmas holiday, and took in pretty decent hauls. I'm looking forward to going blind using my new video iPod.

Now I'm back at work again, and the world is minus one James Brown and one Gerald Ford. We can go back and forth and on and on about who had a bigger influence on America and Americans, but the one thing we can all agree on, I suspect, is that never has there been a death-pairing of two more-alike public figures.

Please allow me, dear B&E readers, to take this moment to wish you the happiest of all 2007s. OK, maybe not the happiest, since I'd like to keep the happiest one for myself, but there should be plenty of happy in the world for all of you to have a little happy of your own.

And how about some peace in the Middle East? Anyone? Hello? Is this thing on?

Months Later and Still Pissing People Off

I don't believe that admitting I'm wrong makes me less than a real man. It is many other things that make me less than a real man.

To summarize a continuing saga, I'm still receiving occasional comments to my April post naming CEO Rex Tillerson of Exxon Dickhead of the Week. Yesterday's post by anonymous (which I had no idea was such a common name!) reads like this:

Talk about a dickhead... you don't even know how to spell the name of the company!

Well, anonymous, if that is indeed your name, you're right. I did misspell the name of the company. Apparently, it's ExxonMobil, not Exxon Mobile.

But in fairness to myself, I'm not sure that misspelling the world's most profitable corporation's name makes me a dickhead (even a lowercase dickhead). There are many other things that make me a dickhead (even an uppercase Dickhead), perhaps, but poor spelling is not one of them.

If anything, I'm guilty of being able to tune out the ExxonMobil corporate branding efforts. At worst, this makes me clueless, autistic, or even retarded. At best, I am an unsusceptible consuming American. And we are a rare breed indeed.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm sitting here watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade... oh, excuse me... the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade... and it occurs to me that other than the warm feelings of nostalgia I feel, I hate the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Lip-synched musical numbers, tacky floats, silly marching bands... who needs it?

Hey, look! Tom Otterness did a balloon! Cool!

I found the parade on NBC first, but it's also on CBS. How the hell does that work? And why?

That new (old) Snoopy as World War I Flying Ace balloon kicks ass, though. And it's brought to us by United Features Syndicates. Why do I need to know that?

Maybe I don't get it because I don't have any damned kids, but what's the deal with Laurie Berkner?

And why the fuck does Barbie get a goddamned musical number?

OK, I'm not turning this into a live blog of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. But it's an idea for next year, assuming I'm not doing any cooking.

Seriously, the parade is stupid. And yet I can't stop watching. I hate it. I love it. I hate myself. I love myself.

Eat lots of turkey, everybody. Can we get a "Bah Humbug!"?

Might Be Spotty

pretty farm
Originally uploaded by dangunderman.

Dear B&E Readers,

I'm currently at Hall Farm, conveniently pictured for your enjoyment. Although rather than looking like the picture, it's raining like a banshee (yes, banshees rain), and the place is in utter chaos.

You see, it's less than a week before their artist residency season begins, so it's time to finish the beautifying. At the moment, it's mostly just a mess.

I say this because I don't anticipate having much time for regular posting this week. If I did, I might say something about these items...

-- As Phil pointed out, Lastings Milledge (the Mets top prospect) is being called up to join the team because Xavier "Who?" Nady had to get his appendix removed. Looks like I was a bit hasty with the Xady Watch this week. Ah, well. So Who's on the DL, and now we'll get a chance to see if the prospect is all his prospectus says he is. Boy, if he is, I'll gladly retire the weekly Xady Watch. Although it might be fun to have reports from the recovery room... Hey, Who! A guy on the McNeill's Brewers was pitching less than a week after an appendectamy. And he's not getting your salary. I'm not calling you a pussy or anything, Who, but if you're not back on that field by Monday, I'll be considering it.

-- Dickhead of the Week would almost certainly be Senator Bill "Frisky" Frist. Frisky's about to introduce a constitutional amendment based on discrimination. Discrimination against whom, you ask? Well, the queers of course. For when the Right fails at everything else, they need to distract the masses by reiterating their hatred for the queers. Fuck you, Frisky. That's not what our constitution is for. What a Dickhead.

-- And then, out of the darkness, a reasonable Republican comes forth. I'd probably give a special Anti-Dickhead of the Week award to Mayor of NYC, Michael Bloomberg. I've got my issues with the mayor -- millions in contributions to Dubya and bringing the Republican National Convention to our fine city are but two shining examples -- but in his radio address this week, Mayor Mike said he's ready to let gay couples marry. If the court says it's OK, he'll go right ahead and have City Hall get on it. He spoke clearly and eloquently about why he thinks Frisky's move is nothing but assholery (my paraphrase), and believes that the government is in no position to say who can marry and who cannot. Good for you, Mayor Mike.

I'm sure there'd be more, and maybe I'll have some time to touch on those mores, but in the meantime, I'm sanding and painting, sanding and painting, sanding and painting...

I hope you, my fine B&E readers, will understand a brief absence.

WTF?

If you do a Google search for Rex Tillerson, B&E's DotW entry for April 7 is at the top of the second page of searching. I did the search myself because for reasons I couldn't quite explain, this old entry has gotten a couple of recent comments.

I'm so Bald & Effective I'm taking over the internet(s)!

Bwoo-ha-ha-ha-HAAAAAAA!

After a Short Break...

I think I'm back up and running. I'd like to thank you, dear B&E readers, for your patience as I've been transferring my domain name over to a new host (or whatever the fuck the technical jargon is).

A special shout-out to bshort, whose photography you should all go look at now, while I figure out what to post next. Without bshort (the man, not the photography), the transfer would never have been possible.

In the meantime, I'll need to figure out what to shoot you all in the face (and heart!) with first...

Happy B&E Thanksgiving

Here's a fun little project, if you need a little time away from the family on this turkey day of days. It all starts off simply enough, but then it gets complicated in ways only engineers could conceive of. Enjoy!