Blogging for Evil

Whilst snooping about the Interwebs (desperately looking for something to write about so as to fill my weekly obligation here at the Roboblog) I found this article about how malicious blogging is threatening the future of Salisbury, MD.

Apparently the outgoing Mayor believes that people are shirking their civic duties and refusing to run for local office because they fear bringing down the unbearable scorn of some jackasses with Internet access and axes to grind.

Woe to you, Salisbury, if your general populace is actually so threatened by peer pressure on the Internet that they refuse to act in their own interests.

While my first reaction to this story was, "Seriously? These people must be morons if they're actually afraid of malicious blogger," it did get me to thinking. Is it possible that the blogosphere has become so powerful that it's actually able to seriously damage the livelihood of small towns?

And could blogs be used for evil?

And if so, what sort of evil could be wraught upon the earth by our very own Roboblog?

So I'd like to open the comment section on this post to you, faithful Dinoreaders. If we were to go evil with the blog,what sort of targets would you like to see us bring down?

Celebrity Apprentice - When Did I Become That Guy?

Since moving to Chicago I have lived something resembling a caveman-like existence. In this age of flat screen televisions and cellular telephones that can stalk your friends and this new fangled "On Demand" hooliganism and that "Interwebs" hootenanny, I've managed to get by for the most part on a television attached to a Playstation 2 that can play most (but not all) DVDs.

People would ask me "What's your favorite show?" and I would say "Arrested Development" and they would say "Didn't they cancel that?" and I would say "Yeah, it's a shame" and then they would say "That show hasn't been on in forever" and I would say "I just watch the DVDs over and over and over again."

Ask Othic. He'll tell you.

This changed just slightly when I moved into my newest hole-in-the-wall studio apartment last October, when I discovered that I could get network television by plugging my television into a left-over cable that was left stranded in the middle of the room.

All right, Topping! Now you're only half a century behind everyone else!

The primary benefit of this new setup is that I am now able to watch the larger sporting events without having to meander my way to a bar.

However, the dreaded TV has slowly begun to creep more and more into my daily life.

First it was the evening news, so that I could keep up on my current events. Then it was late-night, something to help calm me down at the end of the night. Then I started falling asleep with the TV on and I started to watch the morning show as well. And then I'd leave the TV on while I was trying to do other productive stuff, like writing.

Sunday, though, I reached a new low. I spent the evening presumably "learning a new monologue" which rapidly deteriorated into watching the season premier of Celebrity Apprentice.

Celebrity Apprentice is just an excuse for Donald Trump to yell at a bunch of has-beens and 'famous people' who had up until the show been unknown to me. That's all it is. It's mind popcorn.

Yet there I was, glued to the TV, somehow surprised that Andrew Dice Clay is kind of a douche-bag and that Dennis Rodman is still kind of a freak.

And then, after watching Trump fire Andrew Dice Clay, I thought to myself "Good, that's the decision I would have HOLY SHIT, WHAT AM I DOING?!"

I had half a mind to unplug everything from the wall and just sit there and recuperate from the psychic shock of the realization that I just watched a full two hours of Joan Rivers' shiny plastic face.

But as I was about to pull the plug, I saw the soft pixilated light of the TV dancing temptingly before my very eyes. The TV seemed to sing to me. "Late night news is next! Pistons highlights!" So I sat back down.

Somebody please help me.

Freaking Out About Memes

Someone needs to put a stop to all of these meme things floating around out there.

I joined facebook a while back because I wanted a method to stalk former friends and acquaintances without having to reestablish meaningful contact with any of them. While I appreciate the availability of this information (pictures, notes, etc.), there are unfortunately many irritating aspects of facebook.

One of these is the meme.

What the hell is a meme? It's some sort of survey type thing that gets passed around from person to person across the interwebs. The idea is that once you're tagged you have to put down a bunch of personal information about yourself and then pass on or "tag" another person, who then repeats.

This happened to me once back in November via the blogosphere. I was tagged to share seven things about myself, which I then posted on my regular blog.

After much deliberation, I managed to squeeze out seven things about myself. I thought I was done. Then I got tagged this week - twice! - on facebook to share 25 random things about myself.

I don't like sharing random bits of information with people. I don't know why. I just don't. If something comes up in a conversation where a piece of information might pertain to the conversation then that's fine, but 25 things out of the blue? Not a fan. But the people who tagged me shared 25 things about them, so not only are other people able to do it with ease but they are also willing to share their personal information with me so what the hell is wrong with me now that I don't want to share, you know, what am I hiding?

So now, I'm freaking out because I don't know if I should repeat myself (in which case I still need to think of 18 more things) or do I need to write unique stuff for each one, which means I need to think of 57 interesting random bits about myself.

Don't get me wrong - I'm the most interesting person I know. But 57 interesting tidbits worth?!

I mean come on.