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.

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!

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!

Not Dead Yet, Vol. MCXVII

I guess I decided to take a week off. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! Seriously, though, I've been pushing out at least one a day over at Junkiness (mine are the really non-hip ones), which you could try thinking of as "WULAD East" or something. It's slightly more biting and less Garfunkel-centric, however.

I will send you into the weekend with the following comment, which reminds me why WULAD's Commentin' Commandos really rock the house more than those of any other website. It showed up on my post about Jan-Michael Vincent's cello artistry during the intro to Airwolf:

To whom it may concern,

I was wondering whether you know where I might be able to find the cello score for the songs played in the movie Airwolf.

Please let me hear from you.

Thank you,

Chris

Can't help you, Chris, but kudos to you for staying away from crowd-pleasers like the Bach Cello Suites and going after the really challenging examples of the repertoire. Best wishes and good luck on your recital!

I Know

Since I've been asked to ride the Junkiness train for another week, posting here at good ol' WULAD will be spotty for a while longer. Have you perused all the time-tested junk in our overflowing archive? Have you?

In the meantime,

• be sure to inject your Junkiness daily;
  
• don't confess to any sensational crimes unless you can prove you committed them; and
  
• tell me what's happening in this picture:

Coming Up: WULAD's Rerun Week!

Next week, I'll be guest-snarking over at Junkiness ("For Addicts of News, Gossip, and Heroin"), a sexciting newish venture from the creators of such internet hotspots as Haypenny, Utter Wonder, and Kittenpants. Since this will no doubt require me to spend every spare moment trawling the bloated underbelly of celebrity in search of juicy tidbits about Lindsay Lohan's toe fungus, I will be unfortunately unable to grind out the sort of semiweekly hilarity that readers of WULAD have come to expect.

However, the WULAD Wregurgitation Wpatrol has graciously agreed to step in for the duration of my absence, and will be presenting a no-holds-barred, no-stone-unturned, no-new-material-unnoncreated week of near-endless laughs and re-good times, all while paying tribute to the late great Fred Berry (whose spirit is currently streaking across the night sky over the Arctic): that's right, I'm talkin' bout...



Each day, we'll be presenting samples from WULAD's glory days for your reappreciation or re-not-give-a-shit-ation, and with any luck, be back with fresh material the following week, or my name isn't "Mel Chaim Shlomo Abraham Hyman Goldstein Ben Gurion Jingleheimer Gibson."

Enjoy, and be sure to check in on me while I fail miserably at my new (substitute) gig!

Stuff, Things

I know I said that The Bible II: Heretic Boogaloo would be comin' at you live at a rate of one chapter per week: what you've got to understand about that, however, is that I was totally lying. Nevertheless, it will come, though you may have to fidget in expectation for a bit between installments. (Sounds like my college years!)

In other news, ever since I've been slacking at this website, the Mets have been rocking like a hurricane. Which means that any attempt by me to update more frequently could be catastrophic to a team whose fans have suffered much in the past. (And last I checked, there's no "WULAD" in "team.")

But for the time being, expect our crack editorial staff to keep up the same rate of two pretty-okay posts per week, which, considering the thousands of man-hours the WULAD Wreadership spend elsewhere, should be plenty 'nuff to keep you going until the Mets start losing or I get fired or both.

In further other news, here is a sign I recently saw on an airplane which made me think I was becoming dyslexic:



... alternate explanations? Spit 'em out.

I know, what have I done for you lately? Well, as evidenced by the previous entry, it's in no-one's best interest that I put something up here just to put something up here. So in the tradition of great blog titans stretching back into the mists of time, I ask that you sit patiently while I replenish my creative juices. Perhaps a game of "UNO" is in order.

However, it isn't my style to leave you with nothing, so here, for your infotainification, are

Top Excuses for Not Updating Blog
... from Ye Olde Time-Traveler's Intercerebral Data Stream Gazette-Weekly, August 12, 6,000,000 B.C.—3456 A.D.—B4/X Timesphere

• Was out late gathering sticks, rocks, animal hides, and disco clothing for clan's participation in tomorrow's Holo-Laser Orbital Battle and Old-Tyme Ice Cream Social
  
  
• Helen of Troy may be good in the sack, but she burned down my damn teepee trying to make French toast, and she can't drive a hoverbike to save her life
  
  
• Let's just say that those people who warn you about hanging around with your hormone-crazed teenaged grandmother are right
  
  
• Still cleaning up the mess that Cornelius, Zira, and Karl Marx made at my cubewarming party last night
  
  
• You'd never believe what a pain in the ass it is to create a stable timesphere matrix using only substances available in 12th-century Utah
  
  
• I don't care how damn busy he is; if I link to freakin' Fredrick the Great, he should link to me, end of story
  
  
• Mammoth tusk stuck in my drivetrain, again
  
  
• Summoned to late 20th-century California to help some losers with their history report
  
  
• You know how we were wondering what it would be like if the Mongol horde had conquered Europe? Well, before I left for my last trip, you weren't eating yak butter and your middle name wasn't Genghis
  
  
• Busy downloading that video of Pamela Anderson doin' it with Shakespeare
  
  
• Just because Proust posts twenty damn times a day doesn't mean everybody should do it

Top Excuses for Not Updating Blog
...as reported in Zok’s Prehistoric Post-Examiner and Ladies’ Cave Journal, June 2, 500,000 B.C.

• Computer buried under two-mile-thick ice sheet
  
  
• Busy testing theory that saber-toothed cats just want someone to love (FYI—theory now considered in need of revision)
  
  
• Bandwidth is for shit ever since LaurasiaLink and Gondwanaland Broadband taken over by Pangaea Online
  
  
• Spent hours crafting lengthy opinion piece about how Neanderthals are only good at dancing and sports, only to have it eaten by computer, which was then eaten by Neanderthals
  
  
• Tiny protohuman brain have serious problem with HTML and CSS—how Style Sheet work, anyway?
  
  
• Grog*Spot site-hosting increasingly spotty since Grog discovered fermented mastodon milk
  
  
• Still scratching head over morning’s appearance of large black monolith accompanied by overbearing and bombastic Strauss score
  
  
• Stayed out too late at Huey Lewis show
  
  
• Web server constructed of mud, spit, and bones of giant sloth surprisingly ineffective
  
  
• Can’t get in the mood ever since iPod eaten by Tyrannosaur—just kidding, Zok know dinosaurs not coexist with cavemen.
  
  
• Trying to develop new web app to streamline file transfer, but instead keep coming up with strange, hot, orange, smoking thing that burn Zok’s hands
  
  
• "Clan of the Cave Bear"? More like Clan of the Shitty Neighbors Who Won’t Shut Up All Night!

...More Top Excuses through history here, here, here, here, and here.

Return of the Native
... sort of. Expect sporadic content while the WULAD Administration, its support staff, medical team, pit crew, Players' Association, and the WULAD Dancers reacclimate to working stiff-dom.

In the meantime, enjoy this 98% effort-free list of internet searches which led perfectly well-meaning seekers to this site while we were away:

• krazy glue miracles
  
• stages of a boy turning out to be a knight medieval
  
• body cavity search pictures
  
• Telling Adam Corolla he's a genius is like telling the Pope he's Catholic
  
• poems on cultural clash relating to Bend it Like Beckham
  
• la modelo de costume national esse
  
• Jack _________ of Barney Miller
  
• Neal Pollack sucks
  
• ASIAN GIRLS WITH PIGEON EGGS IN THEIR ASS
  
• urinating in public and new york city and criminal court summons
  
• does the movie the mummy has postmodernism
  
• world worstest preteen site
  
• picture of a douche poo dog

I think you'll agree the huddled masses have been getting along fine without us.

Top Excuses for Not Updating Blog
...as reported in the Like Swingin’ Cold War Journal, July 28, 1960

• Miles Davis borrowed my laptop and pawned it
  
  
• Still trying to figure out why Norman Mailer called me a “White Negro,” but I don’t think he meant it in a good way
  
  
• Spent past 3 days on a Benzedrine-fueled creative spree only to discover typewriter is not internet-ready
  
  
• Busy planning vacation in the happy tropical paradise of Northern Vietnam
  
  
• I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride, but something touched me deep inside, the day... the music... died. So I’ve been watching a lot of porn
  
  
• Bandwidth is for shit ever since El Telecóm de la Revolución Popular took over Havana Online
  
  
• Concerned about Windows58’s vulnerability to viruses and the Red Menace
  
  
• Saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, and it really bummed me out
  
  
• Just got back from Manchuria, but I assure you it had nothing to do with my candidacy
  
  
• Some dude in a cowboy hat crashed through my ceiling on an H-bomb and totally trashed my iMac
  
  
• Busy planning vacation in the happy tropical paradise of the Bikini Atoll
  
  
• The Khmer Rouge came by and burned my house down and killed my entire family—I guess those guys aren’t really into blogs
  
  
• Takes forever to get your lunch in Greensboro ever since those Negroes started sitting at the counter doing nothing
  
  
• When Khruschev said he'd "bury" me, I didn't think he meant it literally, or that the chosen medium would be Vienna sausages
  
  
• Practicing for long, lucrative career as house bongo-player at jazz poetry café
  
  
• You wouldn't believe how much yammering about the afterlife you have to sit through to get Shirley MacLaine in the sack
  
  
• Don’t believe the hype: Sputnik Broadband® sucks

Top Excuses for Not Updating Blog
... as reported in the Daily Gazette of the Potomac, July 19, 1864

• Still depressed over bad sideburn-trim and that whole Antietam thing
  
  
• Busy editing new "Lincolnisms" desktop calendar, berating President Lincoln’s excessive and awkward usage of future imperfect tense
  
  
• Backup servers not as resistant to flaming arrows as you would think
  
  
• Packing carpet-bag in anticipation of selfless humanitarian service in reconstructing the post-war South
  
  
• Had to work a double-shift at Uncle Jebediah’s Lynch-Mob Lemon-Ade and Souvenir Stand
  
  
• Word of advice, my brethren: Sherman’s “March to the Sea” is not a beach party
  
  
• Network down after system infected with virus while transporting complimentary Army blankets to Indians
  
  
• Wife came down with the vapors, or brain fever or whatever
  
  
• This wood-burning PlayStation is for shit, but I can’t put the damn thing down
  
  
• Some local ragamuffin kid stole off down river on a raft with one of my best slaves, and learned valuable lessons about humanity and brotherhood before we caught him and whipped his scrawny orphan ass
  
  
• Distracted by 19th Century Fox News’s claim that the war was the Transcendentalists’ fault, what with their moral relativism and short skirts
  
  
• Don't believe everything you read—Fredrick Douglass knows how to party.
  
  
• Boss caught me looking at porn on my adding machine
  
  
• Been in the outhouse “deleting Spam,” if you know what I mean
  
  
• Another word of advice, my brethren: Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp Root is not a substitute for Margarita Mix
  
  
• Sleeping off hangover after visiting Stonewall Jackson’s new self-named pub in Greenwich Village and discovering surprising new ways to express male friendship
  
  
• Trying to decide whether my diary would sound better read by Jeremy Irons or Martin Sheen
  
  
• Up late playing new game called “Tetris,” which involves dropping bricks of various shapes on immigrants and child-laborers
  
  
• Haven’t gotten used to blog software’s new coal-on-shovel interface
  
  
• Got scalped, again

Note: More top excuses through history here, here, and here.

Still More Top Excuses for Not Updating Blog

...as published in Ye Olde Medieval Tech News and Witchcraft Gazette, February 9, 1204 A.D.:

• Distracted by bare ankle of Lady Janette during stake-burning halftime show of ScourgeBowl ‘04
  
  
• Just flew in from a catapult in Saxony, and man, are my arms tired
  
  
• Locked self in the bathroom all day with my copy of Liber augmenti et diminutionis vacatus numeratio divinationis, if you know what I mean
  
  
• Convinced that blogs were created by our sworn enemies the Normans to steal our attention while they plunder our townships and teach our womenfolk how to read
  
  
• Beginning to think I shouldn’t have made out with that leper chick at the office party
  
  
• Tired of making cheap jokes at the expense of the heathen Chinese, and their silly “Great Wall” and “gunpowder”
  
  
• Bandwidth is for shit ever since Royal Telecom of His Majesty Richard I merged with Aquitaine Online
  
  
• Ideas not coming so easily after having evil headache spirits drilled out of skull
  
  
• My days of blasphemy are over, as I promised some Pope while I was on the rack
  
  
• Concerned about vulnerability to worms in Windows 1200 and my infected leg wound
  
  
• Heart not in it ever since Thomas á Becket bit the big one
  
  
• Was up late with the pogroms and whatnot
  
  
• Tired of making cheap jokes at the expense of the heathen Arabs, and their ridiculous “libraries” and “spherical trigonometry”
  
  
• Computer made of hay, pitch, and stone surprisingly ineffective

More Top Excuses for Not Updating Blog

...as reported in The New York Times in Your Skull, Feb 2, 2104 A.D.

• Ambushed by cloned self in dark alley, organs stolen while unconscious
  
  
• Worn out from long night with AguileraBot
  
  
• Third head really killing me today
  
  
• Ordered to report to Iraq by Generalissimo Dick Cheney IV, again
  
  
• Busy penning article on genius of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, now universally acknowledged as best film ever made
  
  
• Demoralized by lack of good holo-comments
  
  
• Distracted by Janet Jackson’s reanimated singing nipple during SuperBowl CXXXVIII
  
  
• Following 11th Commandment ("Thou shalt have no other blogs before mine"), recently posted by God 2.0 on www.BlogAlmighty.com
  
  
• Immersed in oeuvre of greatest living American novelist Paris Hilton (especially her epic Finnegans Wake 2: Electric Boogaloo)
  
  
• Made self sick by eating 22 bowls of Soylent Green just to get to prize at bottom of box
  
  
• Lost interest when told that blogs now outnumber humans by factor of twelve

Top Excuses for Not Updating Blog

...as tabulated by American Academy of Important Statistics and Stuff, Jan. 2004:

• Computer incapacitated by baloney sandwich wedged in D: drive
  
  
• Hospitalized following drunken fracas at LegoLand
  
  
• Busy rummaging through Spalding Gray’s trash for “clues”
  
  
• Meeting with Commissioner of Baseball to discuss possible reinstatement on way to dog track
  
  
• Grounded
  
  
• Developed carpal-tunnel syndrome following launch of HotMaryPoppinsAction.com
  
  
• Sent to Alaskan military school by dad following flunking of History exam due to George Carlin’s interference
  
  
• Recruited unexpectedly to fill vacancy in The Bloodhound Gang
  
  
• Searching for weapons of mass destruction and babes
  
  
• Didn’t feel like it