The Opportunity Of Several Lifetimes
By Brent Diggs on Dec 26, 2007 in Humor
Welcome back Comma fans, I hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas.
My parents are in town from the Great Wet Pacific North and I have been having a good time with them, as well as the rest of the Ominous Clan.
I have also been catching up with my reading, not to mention some long-overdue outings to the movies.
All and all, I have been charging myself up for an exciting year of new humor production. A year of zest and of glandular exhilaration. A year of relentless Commatastic grandeur. A year of blogging.
But, lest anyone should suffer during the long and humorless expanse of this year’s remaining week, I have pulled together a small sampling of the upcoming festivities lodged just over the horizon.
This first installment, which graces your monitor even as I type, utilizes a technique I recently pioneered* known as Humorical Collaborationism.
This revolutionary, and soon to widely emulated, method of blog creation involves providing a decent sized group of intelligent and eminently tasteful individuals with an inspirational image, and standing aside in true Tom Sawyer fashion as they boldly take upon themselves the work of actually writing the post.
Many people dream of one day meeting the stringent standards required to write for the Comma.
Today, for many of you, that dream can come true.**
Remember, this isn’t BoingBoing or some other measly megablog where questionable content can hide under a pile of hourly postings. This is The Ominous Comma. This is the real deal. If your contribution is not in every way, “more fun than a mayonnaise enema,” delete it and start again from scratch.
Now that you achieved the correct level of reverence, here is your illustration.
I am going to be a bit busy this week with the new job, but have fun, keep it clean, and I will chime in as I get a chance.
To ensure some lively banter, allow me to summon some humorous blogger types to this party:
Diesel
Joel
Don
Kadi
Stephen
ChrisC
Sher
RJ
Deb
Frogster
LordLikely
MadMad
VE
Beenz
Jayne
Karl Wolfbrooks Alger
—-
*For the purposes of this post, pioneered will been taken to mean, “stolen from ChrisC. while he was busy starting a new blog.”
**Strictly speaking, the Standards of Authorship which consist more or less of sheer personal Brentliness, are being waived, not met. But you can still dream.
—
This amazing offer is on public display on the outhouse walls of humor-blogs.com
RSS
Email
If he comes with a full head of hair, no imminent diseases, and eyeballs not requiring eyeglasses I’ll bid 1 bottle of cheap California Merlot, a used bicycle circa 1992, and a stack of old bath towels.
Your offer is tempting….throw in on of those hot air hand dryers and we may have a deal.
This idea seems to have worked about as well for you as it did for ChrisC.
Silence, Quack!
I’ll be the judge of what works and what does not.
Alright, this isn’t working.
As I have told you on countless occasions, “If you can’t write your own post, don’t expect anyone else to write it for you.”
Now pay up.
(Sigh)
hmm I was wondering where that went during my transition.
I’ll come back and see what I can come up with once I finish up my weekly Thurs guest post at Radioactive Liberty. :)
So, if I’m reading this right, we’re supposed to compose some incredibly funny stuff for you so that you can take a week off of writing and actually do something that pays, while entertaining your regular readers so that they don’t jump ship and join the literally sevens of people who read me.
Seems reasonable,
I’ll work on it
The key to preventing readers from jumping ship is good, consistent work.
But that is exhausting, so I have invested in sharks, which really helps motivate readers to bail water from time to time and keep us all afloat.
I am personally offended that my name did not make the list. Have I not supported the OC since the genesis? Have I not always put my 1.5 cents into the mix? Debbie, please commence project “Blow Him Out of the Water.”
Those aren’t just names, they’re links. They call out to those writers like a green fuzzy bat-signal in the night sky.
When you get your own blog I will bee happy to link to you. Or better yet, I can set you up with one. We can call it “Everything I love about Brent.”
That way you wouldn’t have to write very long posts.
Okay, you win.
Lynn
We really need a humor blog Lynn. Click on our names all day long and they don’t link to anything!
(I’ll still join project “Blow Him Out of the Water” because it sounds like fun)
Just don’t read too much into that last statement, I’m blushing for some reason and giggling like a teenager…
I would write something very funny, but, my feelings are hurt since I didn’t make the invitation list.
John O
I sent your invitation by telegraph, don’t tell me you have forgotten morse code.
Lynn and John,
Ditto for me, too.
And Brent, I have not one, but THREE blogs. And a masters degree from a highly prestigious university…and have been published in real (print) magazines…Dude, I was hurt! So hurt that I actually thought of making an appointment with Dr. T. (But only for a minute)
Humor is a temperamental mistress — I’m sure that I could not be funny now either…….well, maybe if you asked nicely.
The Doctor says he can pencil you in on Monday if you still need him. Actually, there didn’t seem to be much question in his mind of you needing his services.
As for my part, please see Friday’s post for full apology.
I miss one day at The Comma and all heck breaks loose!
Feelings aside people, we have work to do…plus it’s fun!
Daily vigilance is the price of Commaship.
Baby, you are going about this all wrong.
Here’s the offer: I’ll pay you, you’ll own all rights to the posts and I’ll own the images. At the airport you’ll be given a roundtrip coach ticket, no luggage needed. You fly in Saturday, I’ll do with you what I will, you fly home Sunday, no harm no foul. You keep the tux, the lipstick, the safety goggles and a souvenir glass–and you’ll find up to 5 crisp Benjamins in your pocket, depending. And then I’ll post for you for two weeks straight based on the weekend. If your Technorati rate doesn’t increase by at least 49%, we’ll take another go at it, again on me.
What’d say?
Are you by any chance a literary agent?
Oh that the Ominous One mentioned my name on his blog. I’m all a twitter. Thank you for that. I was beginning to think I couldn’t twitter at all.
Listen, I happen to think you made a wonderful attempt at having someone else do your work for you. It was very Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn.
The one flaw in your plan is that writer’s are lazy, lazy people. Unless we are writing about ourselves in which case, we are very, very wordy people.
Next time, offer a prize for the funniest post. As lazy and self-centered as we are, we get off on winning completely useless awards if they use words like “National” and “Association of Something Literary”. Perhaps an autographed photo of Dr. T???
How about The Quasi-Natural Award For Flatulence In Print? I for one would be honored to win a prize of that prestige and potency.
As for being a twitter, There must be a twelve step program somewhere. If you’re desperate,I’m sure Dr. Toboggans would take your money.
Time may not cure all wounds, but I’ve found that exposure to Dr. T is a definite motivation to get well.
I resent being forced into obligation for this comment. While others may be mad they were left off the list they should be happy they weren’t called out to try and come up with something witty and funny.
It’s like being on the bus ride to grade school all over again. The seat next to me was empty and if I didn’t look at any kids boarding the bus they won’t sit there. But dummy me I made eye contact with the kid that collects bugs and doesn’t stop talking.
I guess I looked at this blog at the wrong moment.
Good Lord, look at that picture we are supposed to have some kind of epiphany of comedy from. There’s nothing topical to work with like maybe a tiger loose at the zoo mauling people. You should have shown your monitor in the background with that tiger picture as the screensaver.
That would have changed things.
But nooooo we have to work with unfunny comedic pictures. Why can’t we at least have a lolcat pic? Now those are funny. So very very funny.
But that is all a pipe dream.
The opportunity of several lifetimes? Only if your a lolcat being mauled by a tiger.
You have discovered my secret. This blog is traffic accident on the information superhighway. Once you look, you are trapped in all consuming vortex of virtual rubber-necking.
And nausea.
As for the lolcat mauling, I think you’re on to something. Ooh, maybe we could feature San Diego police officers shooting rampaging lolcats.
Over and over.
In slow motion.
I’m smiling already.
Am I too late for this party?
I bought booze, and words.
That is the funniest thing I’ve read all day!
I forgot the funny words, however.
Oh they were there my Lord.
Oh! my God, Just when I thought that my vision is already 200/220, then reading your link, I was able to read my name (number 184,pmonchet). I want to thank you for giving me the chance to realize how sharp my eyes are.Please drop by my website if you have time. Thanks again.Happy Chinese New Year even if you are not Chinese (Feb.7,2008).(Year of the Earth Rat)
You consider me humorous? That brings a happy tear to my eye. sniff. I like the new profile pic of you. It’s very chic/sexy. Don’t worry, I’m just an old married woman speaking her mind. :)