Author: Shawn

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Validated or downright icky?

Those are the two feelings sloshing back and forth inside my head tonight. It started with a voice mail message from a friend in Orlando: she was watching MTV and saw a shot of Scarlet and me sitting on a bed. Huh?! Like from Beauty and the Geek?! Upon arriving home this afternoon, I checked my e-mail and found a message from Cher (from Season 2)—she forwarded a PDF file that was five pages long. In the San Fernando TV Guide, there are two MTV channels that had 90 listings for Beauty and the Geek. That’s right, 90.

I haven’t the slightest idea which episodes of which season are playing at what time, given that the regular episodes are listed as “Beauty and the Geek, ” but they’ve also scattered the Casting Special 10 times and The Aftermath 12 times throughout the mix. Regardless, it’s playing at various times between today (the 19th) through Dec. 1st. For some reason, my Myspace page became really popular this afternoon.

So you may be asking yourself, “Why isn’t he jumping up and down with glee, giddy because he’s regained his B (or C or D)-level celebrity status?” Well, for one thing, I’m sitting in bed while writing this on my laptop and it’s very difficult to jump up and down while resting on my butt and typing. (Don’t think I haven’t tried…) For another thing, it’s on MTV. I could handle being associated with Smallville and Gilmore Girls, but now the show is gonna get lumped in with reality TV garbage like The Real World! THE REAL WORLD!!!

Yeah, MTV has a much larger fan base than the WB (“the CW,” now that they merged with UPN), so many, many more younger people who fit the show’s target audience will bother to watch it. Also, even thought it’s on cable, it’s not buried in the abyss known as the crappy UHF stations! Yay! But… but… THE REAL WORLD!!! So now I’m torn about how to feel. Yay for expanding further into the mainstream media, but… but… well, you get the idea.

(Incidentally, I wonder how MTV got the rights to the show. The first season started last June, so it’s been on the air for less than a year and a half. Did the WB lose the contract when it merged with UPN? Did they sell the rights for a couple bucks and a box of Cracker Jacks? Did Ashton Kutcher blackmail the CEO of the WB because the dude slept with Demi Moore? How did he manage to pack up his Beautiful and Geeky bags and move elsewhere? Well, however it happened, that’s not my primary concern: I’m busy waiting for the DVDs for Season 1 to hit stores nation-wide. Now that will garner some activity on my Myspace page…)

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Some of my business

Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, some Generation-X members of Mensa created a Yahoo mailing list for other members to keep in touch, talk about politics and religion, share cooking recipes and favorite methods to kill people without getting blood on your clothes… it’s fun stuff. The moderators of the list have set boundaries for what people can write, one of which has recently been broken, but they haven’t stopped it. That’s even more fun stuff.

The crime: making personal attacks. The perpetrator: some dude from South Africa whose screen name is “None of your business.” (Clever, isn’t he?) While we’re not sure what his motivation is, he has made it abundantly clear that he wants to be banned from the list. Consequently, the moderators won’t do it, but that hasn’t stopped him from trying. He’ll go off on a tear about how America is an oppressive nation, we killed all the Indians, bombed the Japanese, we eat too many Big Macs at McDonald’s… basically, he’s being as much of a prick as he possibly can.

I usually “lurk” on the list and let other people discuss how to kill their enemies, but after a few days of reading this guy’s drivel, I decided to throw my hat into the mix. (His initial message was a response to something one of my friends wrote—you can read our nifty exchanges below.) He’s usually quite prompt with his smart-ass replies, but he hasn’t written anything about my final message in this post. I’m quite disappointed, really, but when it comes to being a smart-ass… who’s yo’ daddy?

Now all I have to do is think up an appropriate victory dance. Given that he’s also talked about how low he could go with his insults, I’m thinking I should get the limbo pole ready. Continue reading “Some of my business”

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Very Short Stories

Someone pointed me towards this article in Wired Magazine—it looked like so much fun that I started writing some very short stories of my own. Whether they’re worthy of getting published in a magazine is another question altogether…
_ _ _ _ _

Oh, it hurts me! My brain!

We came, we saw, we fled.

“Hey, what does this button do?”

A man, chased by virile monkeys.

Just cross these two wires and

Banjos obsolete: “Dueling Accordions” goes platinum.

Binky felt his juggling clubs malfunctioning.

In the beginning, there was… something.

Finally, she cut the brake lines.

The end… until the next beginning. — Vicki Abbott

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Vote Big Bird for City Council!

That’s right, you should all go out and exercise your right to fill in little bubbles on a sheet of paper, slip the paper into a machine and discover tonight that your choices made no difference when the final results are tallied. God, I love the smell of democracy in the air! It reminds me of visiting the barn at the State Fair where cows and horses stand around and poop all day.

My dad filed an absentee ballot since he’s been out of town for the weekend, so I got a peek at who’s on which ticket beforehand. For City Council, there are the two incumbents and one person who has no experience at any level of politics, which is why I figured Big Bird would be a pretty good candidate instead: you know he’s going to be working for the children’s best interests and he’ll want to clean up the streets. And teach everyone basic Spanish. But there’s a much larger list running for governor with their various party’s support. I just wonder what some of them would want to accomplish if they were elected. We have:

  • Independence
  • Republican
  • Democratic-Farmer-Labor
  • Green
  • American Party
  • Quit Raising Taxes

I shit you not. There is someone running for the “Quit Raising Taxes” party. Some politicians focus on the war on terror, education, Social Security… I wonder what they’d really do if they ended up in office. Farm subsidies for all? That might explain the smell of democracy in the air.