Holy Shit!

I still have a blog!

For those of you still listening, I'd like to interrupt our regularly scheduled radio silence to let you know that a) I still love you, even after you spit in my face on Cheaters and threw my dentures in the compost bin, and b) I have begun yet another freelance blogging gig which you may read and enjoy and where you can keep up with my "creative" pursuits.

The new gig is over at the Comedy Central Insider blog, run by my good pal and prison bitch Matt Tobey (it marks the fourth internet whizbang on which I've worked with him), where I'll be posting humorous items several times weekly about subjects of interest to comedy fans, such as:

• Sara Silverman: misunderstood genius, or misunderstood cleavage?
• Better to be sat on by: Brian Posehn or Patton Oswalt?
• Bob Odenkirk vs. Bill Odenkirk: which is the evil twin?
and
• Is South Park the new Simpsons?

... all while gently noting the potency of Uncle Viacom's Cure-All Swamp-Root Elixir™. (And it's low in trans-fats!)

My first post today takes aim at such sacred cows as indie rockers and Zach Galifianakis and features a challenging quiz sure to leave you panting for more. Which is good, because I plan to keep writing as long as I need money. (Note: the first comment after the post really makes it for me.)

So be sure to add CC Insider to your daily rounds (or if you're a jerk, you can even just read mine). And I may drop the occasional non-profit gem over here at WULAD as well. That's all for now!

P.S. Vote Ron Paul!*

*If you're an idiot.

I Am a Bad Person

... but you already knew that. Why? The reasons are many, but the specific thing that's got me flogging myself to sleep each night lately is the fact that several months ago, I humbly asked my readers to return to the golden shores of WULAD, while promising to resume regular posting of the sort of high-quality prose you've come to expect (in between long stretches of inactivity).

And for a few weeks, it worked--I was able to balance the requirements of my day job as a secret agent and freelance assassin with my other comedic commitments (such as this, this, this, and sometimes even this), while still saving up enough creative juice to crap out a WULAD-exclusive post about how awful California bagels are or why we should all vote for Lyndon LaRouche.

But maintaining this balance became more and more difficult as the days wore on, and posts here became more and more likely to consist of a short blurb, a handful of excuses, and links to all my other (occasionally paid) jokin'-nuggets from around the web. And eventually even those clip-show posts trickled down to nothing. For that, I do apologize, from the bottom of my black, black heart. (How black is it? Let's just say that the reason you're not reading a hilarious list of the funniest moments in Heath Ledger's corpse-wheeling video is that the poor guy was just too boring for me to come up with anything good.)

Anyway, the combination of the factors listed above, the fact that I'm about to take a 3-month sabbatical from "the Company" to focus on other pursuits, and my general sense of being burnt out on "writing about stupid shit" (as I told Glayne Stonewad), means that your friendly webnorhood WULAD will unfortunately be going back into creative deep-freeze until at least May. We'll see how I feel then--it's possible my satirical batteries will have been completely recharged, and I'll be raring to get my nose back to the blogging wheel. It's also possible I'll plant high-powered metaphorical explosives on said wheel and blow it to smithereens along with all the floppy vestiges of my blog "career." I honestly don't know.

But for now, I must leave you. I will, however, provide the following chunk of my writings from the past few weeks, which with proper rationing should last you through the coming months of desolation:

• Cracked Science Corner!!!!11!!


• The Cleaver Presents… The 2007 Dweezil Awards Year-End Spectacular!


• Late to the Party!


• What a Long, Strange Brit It’s Been (featuring excerpts from all 26 posts I've ever written about America's Princess of Trash)


• Ian’s Unnecessary News Roundup


• Cracked Entertainment Corner!!!!11!!


• 2007 Dweezil Awards: The Results! (including farewell to Cleaver)


• Rob Lowe’s Brother’s Girlfriend Having Affair with Val Kilmer’s Mother’s Son?!


• More Ian’s Unnecessary News Roundup (1/17)


• Economic Meltdown: What Can YOU Do?


• When LOLcats Attack!; and of course...


• Even More Ian’s Unnecessary News Roundup (1/22)

So when shall we two meet again, in thunder, lightning, or at a joint Spears/Winehouse funeral bash? None can say; but until then, may all your days be sunny, and all your nights be wrapped up... like a you-know-what.

Workin' for the Man Every Night and Day

In another "Holy Crap, They Pay People to Do This?" development, I'm happy to announce that as of this week I'm going to be contributing semi-regularly to Comedy Central's Indecision '08 blog. My first appearance is a group effort, painstakingly compiled with fellow Junkiness alumni Messrs. Tobey, Gladstone, and DiClaudio:

You may be wondering why Chuck Norris has decided to throw his massive support behind Mike Huckabee for president. Turns out there's a bunch of reasons...

• When Mike Huckabee participated in the Iowa Straw Poll, they had to re-name it the Iowa Iron Pole.
  
• Mike Huckabee can cut taxes... with his penis.
  
• Stephen Hawking told Mike Huckabee the universe was 12 billion years old once. Once.
  
• Mike Huckabee lost 100 pounds of body fat by eating it.
  
• Jesus asked Mike Huckabee for career advice, but Huckabee was too busy body-slamming Satan.
  
• Mike Huckabee flosses his teeth with the bones of abortion doctors at least twice a day.
  
• Mike Huckabee is forbidden to interfere with human history.
  
• Top scientists believe global warming is a direct consequence of Mike Huckabee getting angry.
  
• Mike Huckabee opposes gay marriage because every man on earth wants to marry him.
  
• Mike Huckabee won't repeal the Estate Tax out of sympathy for the families of his victims.
  
• Mike Huckabee has completed six marathons, two of which aren't until next year.
  
• Fred Thomspon, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani all got cancer because Mike Huckabee looked at them too hard.
  
• If Mike Huckabee is elected, he'll bring all the troops home--he can handle this himself.
  
• If Mike Huckabee had been around in Biblical times, the symbol of Christianity would be Pontius Pilate with a cross up his ass.

But wait--there's more!

WULADly World News

I have several items of interest to share with you today, my prodigal sons and daughters.

First, I have a new thing up on that fine website McSweeney's today called Horror Movies for Kids. This supplements my two earlier McSweeney's things, "Alternatives to Opening a Can O' Whupass for the Less Confrontationally-Inclined" and "Favorite Gerund Movie Titles, Un-Gerunded." (You'll notice I wrote them using my nom de plume.) One of those even ended up in a real paper book, for which I earned enough money to buy eight $2.99 daily sandwich specials at Subway. Please click on over and read and enjoy them forthwith.

Secondly, I have signed on to become a regular contributor to the recently relaunched (but currently buggy) Cracked.com blog. This is exciting for at least two reasons: one, it will allow me to spread the joy of WULAD to a wider audience, some of whom will hopefully come here for more and/or to tell me I suck; and two, it will subsidize my $2.99 daily sandwich specials at Subway. I'll be posting there on Tuesday afternoons, Thursday mornings, and alternating Fridays. (Kudos to Glayne Wadstone, a former Junkiness squad member and current Offsprunger, for his assistance in procuring this "gig," as those crazy beatnik kids say nowadays.)

(If you're justifiably wondering whether this means WULAD is going to go back to the state of empty suckage from which it only recently recovered, the answer is a full-throated NO. You people have shown me that freelance blog-gigs come and go, but WULAD Nation is forever.)

Which brings me to the last item on today's agenda: I have to say I am so—dare I say—stoked about the quality of everyone's fine Batman, Mi Amor contributions that I've decided they're too good to lie rotting in the comments box, festering in their own literary smut. Since I don't have the resources to buy each and every one of you a $2.99 daily sandwich special at Subway, they will all be featured in a future secret project about which I can't tell you anything yet, except that it's going to be 834,672.043 kinds of awesome. So if you haven't yet tossed your hat into the ring, there's still time.

Good weekends all around, and try not to get too shit-faced at "Al Gore's Nobel Prize Fiesta and Global Warming Beer-Bong Kegger"!

The WULAD Also Rises

NOTE: Today, in an attempt to rekindle the smoldering ashes of the once-mighty WULAD Nation, I sent the following letter to all the members of said Nation who were foolish enough to provide me their email addresses. In case you didn't receive one, the sentiment still stands.

Hello Internet "Friends":

No doubt you've been aware of a vague emptiness in the pit of your lower left soul over the past year or so, a hunger which no amount of sugary confectionery, deep-fried lollipops, or cocaine-dusted teddy bears can fill. You'll be happy to know that through the use of highly-advanced scienceology, my team of kidnapped Iraqi germ-warfare researchers have identified the source of this sensation: you have rabies.

But also, you've been missing your beloved WULAD. Well, you're receiving this email because, at some time or another, you played a small part in the digital blog-odyssey known as Wrapped Up Like a Douche (or if you didn't, then I believe you would have had you been given the chance). And after a period of scattering my oats over the internet hoping one of them would sprout and grow into a mighty recognition-tree, I recently decided to come back home to the site that started it all, and resume posting semi-regular content. Naturally, my formerly vibrant community of rabid readers, cracklin' commenters, and starry-eyed stalkers had long since left the joint for dead.

To make matters worse, due to an infuriating SNAFUBAR on the part of the wonderfully mediocre blogging apparatus which hosts the site, I found that my legion of RSS subscribers had been scattered to the four winds, so even the loyalest of loyal readers had no way of knowing I'd picked up the torch once again. So here I am, cap in hand, asking for you to come on back and once again rule the galaxy at my side.

As a bonus, I'm kicking off Homecoming month with a challenging contest which I'm sure will tickle your fiction bones. (What's the prize, you ask? Not dying of boredom, that's what.) So, young men and women of WULADland, do you accept this charge? What say you?

WHAT SAY YOU?

Huggybunnies,

Ian

Junkiness, R.I.P.

After much hemming and hawing and what-have-you and so on and so forth, the Junkiness staff has decided to throw in the towel and head for greener pastures, where our helicopter will most likely be shot down and we'll be adopted by friendly natives before being forcibly repatriated by Kevin Costner. Anyway, stop by and say your goodbyes--we'll be sitting shiva all week:

Junkiness: In Memoriam.

In spite of my grief at the demise of such a fine young blog, however, I'm still writing for The Cleaver daily, and will continue with the occasional WULAD post, which may help fill the void in some way--much like buying a new cat can take the sting out of the death of your old cat. Or baby.

Junkin' and Cleavin' and Offspringin' (and Wuladdin')

Did you like how I announced the resurrection of WULAD and then proceeded to disappear for a month? I thought you would. It was my way of separating the true fans from those who only visit the site because of my star turn on 3-2-1 Contact. You know who you are.

What actually happened was that Junkiness began winding down, as we've been unable to find and keep our target audience--or more accurately, we found our target audience, but it just happened to be celebrity crotch-shot masturbators with no discernible sense of humor. So we were somewhat busy scraping together last-ditch efforts to go out with an offensive bang.

Nothing's finalized as of yet, and the site is still technically active (I wrote a moving tribute to the impending Spice Girls reunion just yesterday), but as that project was winding down, another has wound up--as of a few weeks ago, I've joined the staff of Offsprung, a blog "for parents who don't suck," which was founded by the talented writers Neal Pollack, a.k.a. "Alternadad" (who I've been "appreciating" for years) and Matt Tobey, who's been one of my cohorts at Junkiness and is an excellent lay.

"What's this?" you say, "a parenting blog? But you yourself are no paterfamilias, silly WULAD!" And you'd be right. But as I pointed out to readers there, I have had parents, and was once a child.

[Which reminds me of a story: C-Baby and I were talking about Bruce Springsteen for some reason, and she asked, "Don't you remember how he was such a big thing in the early 80s, and was on the cover of 'Newsweek' and stuff?" and I replied, "No, I didn't read 'Newsweek.' I was a child."]

Anyway, Matt and I and Katie Spence write for an Offsprung sub-blog called The Cleaver (named for Ward, I believe), which has a similar tone to Junkiness, but with a focus on parenting and family-related stories. It doesn't sound like it'd be funny, but believe me, it is. So whether you have some little buggers of your own, or just enjoy decent writing and extreme close-ups of Christina Aguilera's uterus, come on by.

Meanwhile, I have every intention of continuing the process of rebuilding the WULAD empire, one post at a time. (Did I mention I'm not really a writer? God bless crystal meth!)

The WULAD Is Dead! Long Live the WULAD!

Hello there! Anyone still listening?

I didn't think so. That's OK, if there's one thing I've learned in my days away from this site, trying to hit the blog Big Time, it's that traffic isn't everything, and I'll take quality of at least semi-literate readers over quantity of mouth-breathers looking for nude photos of Gary Coleman any day. Although I suppose some of you could be both.

As you can see, WULAD lives again. (And with a spiffy new design, no less.)

"Wherefore do thou so?" you ask me, "and we mean 'wherefore' in its correct usage, meaning 'why,' not 'where' like idiotic high-schoolers always use it when they're reading Romeo & Juliet and checking out Olivia Hussey's teenaged rack." Well, I'll tell you. As I lay in bed last night, tossing and turning with the strains of Lionel Richie's "Sail On" looping continuously in my skull, a voice suddenly called to me from The Other Side. It was Jerry Falwell, and he drawled: "Bring back WULAD, you loser... people liked it, and most of them got the jokes... by the way, I was wrong about everything: it turns out God is a little old Vietnamese lady who smells like shoes... also, you have to pee really bad... really bad... really baaaaad..." And I awoke with a start.

Another reason to plug the old reanimation cables on to the mummified nipples of WULAD and give it some juice: although I still enjoy contributing to Junkiness on a daily basis--that's the site where I join a select group of craftspeople in looking for laughs both cheap and pricey at the expense of the rich, the powerful, and half-naked crackheads who are attacked by alligators--there are just some things I've been aching to write about that don't quite fit their format.

So I encourage you to swing by your newly-rejuvenated WULAD a few times a week (or better yet, subscribe to our RSS feed) for scathing satirical tidbits, terrifying floating heads, and slice-of-life vingettes such as the following conversation, in which I demonstrate what a maven of pop culture I truly am:

Me: We can eat wherever. I'm not trying to get up in your grill.
Her: Don't say that, please.
Me: What, "Up in your grill"? Yeah, I guess it's pretty uncool now that it's in the new Shaq movie.
Her: That's Shrek, not Shaq.

Coming up next: a new installment in the ever-expanding tome of The Bible II.

Are You Ready for Some Update-Ball?!

Since readers have been stopping by to say hello and ask where the fuck I am, I thought I'd offer a little update. Most of my energy has been going to writing for Junkiness, since we have a stable of five awesometastic contributors and a quota of eight posts per day (upon pain of genital electrocution). It's not quite as free-form as WULAD, but I appreciate the team spirit (our mascot is "The Fighting Black Jesuses") and the approximately 2,000 additional visitors per day beyond the highest number this site ever had, even in the heady days of the Britney Bajingo-Baring insanity of late 2006.

So the easiest way for you to get your WULAD fix is to read Junkiness on a daily basis, with the knowledge that approximately one-fifth to one-third (depending on the day) of the genius there flowed from my mighty keyboard. If you're interested in more specific information on who wrote what, you can subscribe to the site's RSS feed, which includes author tags—but since the collaborative spirit is the best part of the thing, you should of course read everyone else's wicked-brilliant posts.

Finally, just to prove that I've been hard at work hammering the molten metal of news and gossip into the finely-honed steel of satire, here's an author's-choice fistful of what I consider my recent greatest hits over there:

• Paris Hilton, Goodwill Ambassador
  
• An Inconvenient Sleuth
  
• Obama: "Vote for Me or I’ll Jack You with This Crowbar"
  
• Hey Pot, It’s Kettle—You’re a Pedophile!
  
• State of the Union 2007: The Junkiness Edition
  
• Burn, Baby Burn—Geothermal Inferno!
  
• Breaking News: Spears Family Circus Stalls at Three
  
• The Candidate of a Thousand Faces
  
• Yes, Virginia, There is a Racist Clause

... Those ought to keep you busy for a while, or my name isn't naked Harry Potter. Anyway, posting here at WULAD will be on a once-in-a-blue-moon basis for the foreseeable future, so be sure to subscribe to the strange and wonderful WULAD RSS feed (and if you subscribed prior to a few months ago, you'll need to resubscribe—details here) so you won't miss a damn word. So until we meet again: Godspeed, you black Jesuses!

P.S. I almost forgot—there's one more reader-contributed installment of The Bible II in the can, so I will be presenting that next week for your religious education and holy enjoyment.

P.P.S. Happy Ground Hog Day!

WULAD Web Wround-Up

The W. W. W.-up drops unexpectedly into town just in time for the holidays, to drink all your brandy and eggnog, guilt you into buying gifts, and tell dirty jokes to your children! Let's begin.

• T-shirts and other fine merchandise emblazoned with the emblem of the Church of Tivo (which I designed back before I had to switch to that Comcast shit DVR machine which is to Tivo what Blimpie's is to 2nd Avenue Deli) are available at Junkiness, along with a variety of holiday and celebriwhore-themed items. Head on over and buy many of them.
  
  
• Speaking of Junkiness, I put up what may be the single most objectionable thing I've ever written there today. Feel free to read it and then send me letter-bombs.
  
  
• I'm moderately pleased that CariDee won. I'm looking forward to seeing Melrose on the home shopping network sharing that fake smile with the bedridden credit-card addicts of the nation. Either that or on a Simple Life-style reality show with Jade.
  
  
• Remember what I said about Terri Schiavo and the right to die? I may have to take it back.
  
  
• Our favorite celebrity-spanker single-handedly resuscitates the genre with this one-act play.
  
  
• Happy Hanukhah! (from C-Baby)
  
  
• Reminder: If you subscribe to the notorious WULAD xml feed, you need to update the feed URL. See below for the nerdy details.

Have a good weekend, and try not to stick any dreidels up your ass!

A Little Mumbo, a Little Jumbo

For those of you who are subscribed to this site's XML feed, you may have noticed there's been nothing doing lately--I mean besides the usual nothing--it turns out that I did something funky a long time ago when I was setting the original feed up, and now that I've moved the site to the new version of a certain popular blog-publishing interface which shall remain nameless, the funky feed name won't work anymore.

So unfortunately my loyal readers are going to have to resubscribe, using either of the handy feeds below (which are exactly the same as far as a geek-but-not-in-a-profitable-way such as myself is concerned):

• 
  
  
• 

Unfortunately, for those of you who only read this site through the old, funky rss feed, I have no way of getting this information to you. Cheers!