Overdetermined Signifiers for Shitty Poetry

As used as I am
To ruining my plans,
Imagining meaning that can’t exist,
The underburdened existentialist,
Aspiring nihilist narcissist,
And finding patterns within nervous ticks,

I’m done with that routine
Of tripping on ennui
And turned around to fix the last four hours,
A perfect symbol of the last four years,
And found the plant I imagined as ours,
A perfect arrangement of angled mirrors.

Having been within sight of why
I sailed into that stormy night
Still sans knowledge of what,
Or of how to sail,
Or swim,
For that matter,
Or any idea of how the hell to understand semaphore.

That rowboat I took out to sea
Was gone when I came to,
And after days of just not avoiding the beach enough,
Trying to find where I lost it,
Trying to find how I had lost it,
And delusional about finding it,
I finally had the sobering experience
Of being informed there was never actually a boat at all,
Though we’d probably both have liked one,
And I’d understand how the hell I got on this island anyway.

All the same,
I appreciate your attempt at talking to me in semaphore,
And I guess I should be thankful
That your red flags were white.

- – -

I don’t know if this is a draft or a poem I’m just not terribly certain about, but, for the former, I rarely ever go back and revise unfinished poetry anyway, and, for the latter, I need to update the blog at some point in time. Also for the latter, putting poetry up on this blog, regardless of my suspicions about its quality, does offer me the opportunity to get some input on it (theoretically). Anybody reading this happen to be feeling particularly critical today? Any thoughts?

So I’d like to throw poetry and such up here more often, except the caveat there is that I actually have to write poetry and such more often. The workaround I came up with about a year ago was to write a weekly haiku, although the “weekly” part was predictably short lived, and the “haiku” part lost its appeal to me. Not that I have anything against haikus, I just feel like I could be a little more creative.

Anyway, hopefully you enjoyed my latest depressing poem. If not, here’s a sharp contrast for your enjoyment, written by a friend of mine, which I assured her I would link to and promptly forgot to do so for a month. I imagine it’s still topical.

That’s all. I’m going to try going to sleep before midnight for once. I hear that’s good for you.

Evolution of an Afterthought

In other words,

It’s like finally getting to the gym and exercising,

And feeling great about yourself

Until you struggle to push the door open again.

And you’re too busy to go again the rest of the week.

In other words,

It’s like being at a classy restaurant,

Being offered none but the highest culture in a rented tux,

And having what you want to drink read to you.

May I recommend the ’84 regrets?

’84 was a great year for regrets.

In other words,

It’s like your computer not working all of a sudden,

As it gives you an indecipherable error message,

But wants to convey it was probably something you said.

This action cannot be undone.

In other words,

It’s like writing a poem backwards,

Where you have a great idea of where you want to go,

But you have no idea how to start.

I loved thee once, but your friend is really cute.

In other words,

It’s like the alarm going off

Just an hour after you finally fell asleep,

And you want to get more sleep,

But you suppose you should probably be awake.

For some reason.

In other words,

I read my poem about the girl I never thought I’d see again

And didn’t think to look at her in the crowd.

- – -

Thought I’d write up a nice, happy little poem for you guys to say sorry about the unexpected and unannounced mini-hiatus. It’s a long story involving many phone calls with Dell, untimely purchases, and broken hearts, but it seems that my technical difficulties are finally resolved in that my Studio 15 laptop finally turns on again. Not that I can recommend that anybody buy a Dell. They have the shittiest technical support and customer service I’ve ever dealt with, and it took a solid month to get this issue resolved, and from what I hear, many other Dell consumers have the same problem. Next business day repair, my ass.

Attempts to update more frequently begin anew.

That Silly Operator!

Ok. So I just wrote a filler post about how I’m in college and I don’t know how that’s going to affect the blog, but I’m not going on hiatus, but what with everything going on, I don’t feel like I have anything to put here that I can do at this time. I’d rather not do a filler post, so ideally the kind of thing I’d do at this point in time is write up a haiku or post an old short story, but I don’t feel like writing a haiku or any kind of poem for that matter, and I don’t actually have all that many short stories to throw up here to begin with.

And, of course, today is a Wednesday, and I always feel discouraged approaching my blog on Wednesday because I’d have watched the new Zero Punctuation earlier today and then suddenly feel incapable of putting anything worthwhile on the same internet.

So I wrote that much of this post without any idea about what I was actually going to write this post about, and then did some digging through old word documents on my computer, and decided on posting something, well, exceptionally different. This is a skit I wrote for a Spanish class in my sophomore year of high school. I believe we had to do something along the lines of use some set number of vocab words and use the future tense and reflexive verbs and stuff. I didn’t really feel like writing a skit, though, and this is what happened. If you don’t speak Spanish, I’ll throw in a translation after each line. So here you go. An example of how much better a writer I’ve become in just two years and totally not a filler post. For extra fun, grab some friends and act it out! It’s educational!

(Timo descuelga el teléfono)

[Timo picks up the phone]

Operador: ¡Aló! Yo soy el operador.

[Hello! I am the operator.]

Timo: ¿Me lo conectaría a mi amigo Marticio?

[Would you connect me to my friend Marticio?]

Operador: Sí. Te conectaré a él.

[Yes. I will connect you to him.]

(El Operador trabaja. El bombero descuelga el teléfono)

[The operator works. The fireman picks up the phone.]

Bombero: ¡Aló! Esta es la estación de bomberos. ¡Estaremos allí pronto!

[Hello! This is the fire station! We will be there soon!]

Timo: ¡No! ¡Lo siento! Yo tengo el número equivocado.

[No! I'm sorry! I have the wrong number.]

Bombero: Entonces… no estaremos allí pronto.

[Then... we will not be there soon.]

(Cuelgan. Timo descuelga el teléfono)

[Hang up. Timo picks up the phone.]

Operador: ¡Aló! Hace bien tiempo hoy, ¿verdad?

[Hello! It's good weather today, isn't it?]

Timo: ¡Usted me conecta al número equivocado!

[You connected me to the wrong number!]

Operador: Lo siento, probaré de nuevo.

[I'm sorry, I will try again.]

(El Operador trabaja. El Comunista descuelga el teléfono)

[The operator works. The Communist picks up the phone.]

Comunista: ¡Aló! ¿De parte de quién?

[Hello! Who's calling?]

Timo: ¡Hola, Marticio! Es mí, Timo. ¿Podrías ir a un partido de hockey conmigo mañana?

[Hello, Marticio! It's me, Timo. Would you go to a hockey game with me tomorrow?]

Comunista: Lo siento. No soy Marticio. Soy una comunista y no iré porque no creo en una economía libre.

[Sorry. I'm not Marticio. I am a communist and I will not go because I don't believe in a free economy.]

(Cuelgan. Timo descuelga el teléfono)

[Hang up. Timo picks up the phone.]

Operador: ¡Hola Timo!

[Hello Timo!]

Timo: ¿Me conectaría ya?

[Would you connect me again?]

Operador: ¡Esta vez, te conectaré a Marticio!

[This time, I will connect you to Marticio!]

(El Operador trabaja. Claude descuelga el teléfono)

[The operator works. Claude picks up the phone.]

Claude: (En Francés) Bonjour! Je m’appelle Claude. Qui est ceci?

[(In French) Hello! My name is Claude! Who is this?]

Timo: ¿Me conectó él a Francia?

[He connected me to France?]

Claude: ¿Habla español? Lo siento. Me gustaría hablar español.

[You speak Spanish? I'm sorry. I would like to speak Spanish.]

Timo: Pero Ud. puede habla español.

[But you can speak Spanish.]

Claude: ¡Hoy es un día increíble! ¡Diré a mi cartero!

[Today is an incredible day! I will tell my mailman!]

(Cuelgan. Timo descuelga el teléfono)

[Hang up. Timo picks up the phone.]

Operador: Hola Timo. Yo lo haré este tiempo.

[Hello Timo. I will connect you this time.]

(El Operador trabaja. Marticio descuelga el teléfono)

[The operator works. Marticio picks up the phone.]

Marticio: Aló. Este es Marticio.

[Hello. This is Marticio.]

Timo: ¡Marticio! Es mí, Timo. ¿Podrías ir a un partido de hockey conmigo mañana?

[Marticio! It's me, Timo. Would you go to a hockey game with me tomorrow?]

Marticio: Lo siento, Timo. No iré porque tengo que usar el vocabulario del capítulo seis. Ahora colgaré mi teléfono celular y llenaré una formulario tan yo puedo envolver y mandar un paquete por correo urgente.

[I'm sorry, Timo. I will not go because I have to use vocabulary from chapter six. Now I will hang up my cellular phone and dial a number so I can wrap and send a package by urgent mail.]

(Cuelgan. Timo sale y su hermano Nacho descuelga el teléfono)

[They hang up. Timo leaves and his brother Nacho picks up the phone.]

Operador: ¡Aló, Timo! Soy el operador.

[Hello, Timo! I am the operator.]

Nacho: No soy Timo, soy su hermano, Nacho. ¿Podrías conectárseme a Rusia?

[I'm not Timo, I'm his brother, Nacho. Would you connect me to Russia?]

Operador: Lo siento, Nacho. Lo haré immediatemente.

[Sorry, Nacho. I will do it immediately.]

Comunista: ¡Aló! ¿De parte de quién?

[Hello? Who's calling?]

Nacho: ¡Aló! Nuestro plan tuvo mucho éxito. Mi hermano no tiene nadie para ir al partido de hockey.

[Hello! Our plan was very successful! My brother doesn't have anybody to go to the hockey game.]

Comunista: ¿Te dio los boletos?

[He gave you the tickets?]

Nacho: Sí, los tengo aquí.

[Yes, I have them here.]

Comunista: ¡Vamos al partido de hockey!

[Let's go to the hockey game!]

(Más tarde, al partido de hockey)

[Much later, at the hockey game]

Comunista: ¡Este es mejor que el comunismo!

[This is better than communism!]

Nacho: Sí, el hockey es muy emocionante.

[Yes, hockey is very emotional.]

(Los dos gritan)

[They cheer.]

Spoiler Warning

So I’m in Canada right now, in case someone’s noticed that I haven’t updated in about a week. Not to say that there isn’t internet in Canada, but more that I don’t really have access to it, so I couldn’t publish this post that I’ve had sitting around, already written, waiting to use at a time so that it wouldn’t seem like  I went away or anything…

Oh well. Anyway, here’s another short story I wrote for a class last year for kicks and giggles. The assignment had something to do with dialogue, and I sort of pride myself on writing comic witty banter. The title speaks for itself. Seriously. Read with some caution.

- – -

“So… it’s almost eleven-thirty…” Jon looked up at the clock and rubbed his eyes. “Are we almost done with this paper?”

“We’re… halfway there?” Neil squinted at the computer monitor then looked back. “That sounds right.”

“Okay, well, here.” Leland flipped through the book. “We need… what, two more examples of narrative pacing? What about the part where they take Blevins behind the trees and shoot him, because-”

“Whoa, wait, they shoot Blevins?!”

“Uh… yeah,” Leland drew out the words as his eyes widened. “They shoot Blevins…”

“I’m not there yet! That’s not cool!”

“That happened in part three. Of four. Also, we’re supposed to have the book done. Hence, you know, the paper we’re working on. For tomorrow.”

“I know enough to help out, it’s all analysis. You don’t really need to actually know the story to do that.”

“It might help!”

“Okay, anyway, about narrative pacing…” Neil cut in.

“Yeah, well, you don’t just ruin a book for someone else!”

“You were supposed to have it done! We have to write a paper on it for tomorrow!”

“I had to do the Film Society reading!”

“What reading? Watch There Will Be Blood?”

“I had subtitles on.”

“So I think that because the author uses a lot of separate lines, the narrative pacing slows to a more retarded pace and raises the tension…”

“You know what else is retarded?” Jon interrupted and muttered into his book. “People who ruin books for people who haven’t finished them yet.”

“Oh shut up already!” Leland spun his chair away from the computer monitor. “It’s not like I told you Snape killed Dumbledore.”

“You didn’t…” Jon glared at him through the now thin slit between his eyelids.

“You’re kidding. That came out like three years ago! You haven’t finished yet?”

“Stop spoiling books for me!”

“Oh, I’m sorry! You know what else? Harry kills Voldemort!”

“Dammit, Leland!” Jon jumped out of his chair.

“So the tension affects the reader’s mood by…”

“On Murder on the Orient Express, everybody did it!” Leland got to his feet too.

“Leland!”

“Guys. The reader’s mood…”

“Oh, yeah?” Jon looked around. “Well, in The Sixth Sense, Bruce Willis was dead the whole time!”

“Everybody already knows that!”

“The mood…”

“Yeah, well, in Psycho, Bates’s mom was dead the whole time!”

Leland raised his palms and stared at Jon.

“Everybody knows! It’s common knowledge! Like how Edward Norton and Brad Pitt were the same person in Fight Club.”

“I haven’t seen that movie yet!”

“Mood!”

“The Planet of the Apes was Earth the whole time!” Jon raised his arms.

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was a dream sequence the whole time!”

“Rosemary’s baby is the devil!”

“George shoots Lennie!”

“Everybody dies in Hamlet!”

“Everybody knows that!”

“Mood!”

“Soylent Green is people!”

“People who haven’t even heard of that movie know that!”

“Mood!”

“Rosebud was his sleigh!”

Leland raised his eyebrow.

“Uh… Darth Vader is Luke’s father?”

Leland leaned forward.

“He loved Big Brother.”

“Dammit, Leland!”

Jon lunged and tackled Leland onto the ground.

“Mood!”

Introductions Are In Order (haiku 11)

I love playing sports.

The feeling is euphoric.

What are your hobbies?

- – -

As my friends and I inch closer to leaving and starting life at our respective colleges , little signs of our new imminent reality present themselves to us. For example, the other day my friend received roommate information. His roommate’s message rather explicitly paints him as your traditional sports-loving athlete. My friend is all about science. And eccentricity. I wanted to write a haiku that captured the extent of what must have been a thoroughly uncomfortable gut reaction.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re both sure they’ll get along just fine. Right now we’re mainly reveling in the irony. He’s yet to reply to his roommate’s “So what do you like to do for fun?” facebook message, not because he’s trying to put it off, but because he’s unsure how to properly tap into just how wonderful this situation is. A response he’s been playing with is to send him a numbered list, starting with something horrendously vague like “hanging out with friends” and eventually working its way towards something completely insane like “Building pants of fire.” My suggestion was to just link him to his blog post about converting the energy content of a Big Mac into the acceleration of a nine pound baby. If anyone has any other ideas, please share them.

At the same time, all I know about my roommate is that his first name is “Carleton”, and that this is awesome.

Meeting Moons and Shaking Hands

A short story I wrote for a class last year that I’m rather meh about. It’s a rare attempt of mine at writing something serious (read: not comic), so I always worry about it turning out badly, or, worse, funny. I’d been waiting to use the ending for a while, but I’m not crazy about how I ultimately got there. Thoughts?

- – -

A rippled version of the clear night sky reflected by the bay expanded out in all directions, creating a sphere of stars encompassing both halves of the horizon, a perfection ruined only by the astronomical faux pas of a doppelganger of the half moon, as if both halves couldn’t agree on where to meet. Jumping, he thought, the three hundred sixteen feet off the bridge would be just like jumping into the sky.

Always the person to find himself in an inexplicable situation, Dane Renault had managed to come to a crossroads in the middle of a bridge. Traffic was never very heavy in this part of the city, and he was largely concealed in a small nook between two of the poles along the side of the bridge. His position by the side of the bridge gave him a clear view of the bay beneath him and the sky above him or the bay above him and the sky beneath him. If he kept his head far enough to the left, he could support this space-like illusion, although he was not in the mood to reflect on the insignificance of a single person against the scale of space. Instead he kept his head to the right, where he could just people watch, and had for the past eight hours, watching what other sorts of people would find themselves by the bay between sunset and sunrise, like the creepy old nun walking her dog, the gang of skinny-dippers with somewhat unflattering physiques, and a young couple most likely out well past their curfew, agreeing to meet again at sunrise, but arguing about where. Renault checked his watch. The sun would probably rise in another twenty minutes or so. If he was going to jump, he told himself, it would have to be sometime soon, while he could still jump unnoticed and fall into the sky.

He jerked forward at a loud bang, then sighed and slunk back down as he realized it was only a car backfiring. He hated the city. He hated the gradual increase of crime. He hated moving his family here. He hated himself.

Five fifty-six AM. He buried his face in his hands as police sirens reverberated throughout the city. Exactly nine hours ago, his wife and son were murdered. He had only registered the event to the point where he knew it took place nine hours prior, and he was now standing on the edge of a bridge, and had been since the event. He wasn’t capable of considering an alternative, yet he had stood on the bridge split between whatever that might be and jumping down into the sky.

Shaking, Renault advanced and gripped the railing. It was cold and wet, and he was unable to figure out whether he regretted not bringing gloves, almost terrified at the thought of determining his fate based on his feelings towards a forgotten pair of gloves. He was distracted again by more voices from the right side of the bay, and decided he could afford putting it off a moment longer to listen to the two men, who promised to be interesting based on their trench coats.

“Well, someone certainly took their sweet time getting here!” The shorter, pudgier one remarked. “You think I’m-”

“Shhh! Shut up!” The taller one said in a considerably more muted tone and a vaguely out-of-place accent. Renault had to lean forward to hear better. “You think we can just run around in the open shouting out our business?”

“Aw, calm down!” Renault also noticed the shorter man’s voice was rather nasally. “The crime rate’s soaring! Nobody’s even going to be here anyway. Who gets up this early?”

“Or who stays up this late.” The taller man said gruffly. “The cockiness isn’t very becoming, by the way.”

“Eh, screw you too. So you got it or what?”

“Just saying, you be careful. I’m in this for myself, okay? I’m not going to help you out when you throw your ass on the line.”

Renault saw light out of the corner of his eye and jolted back into the crevice. A truck drove past, shaking the pole Renault pressed himself up against to conceal himself, who then breathed a sigh of relief as the truck drove past, and allowed himself to sink down right as he heard the gunshot.

He rushed forward to the railing again and looked down. The two men in the trench coats were there, the shorter one with a smoking gun, and an oddly familiar body lying face up a few yards from them.

“What the hell are you doing?!” The taller man shouted.

“I don’t know! Where did she come from? Oh, Jesus, it’s a kid too.”

Renault then recognized her immediately. It was one of the people he saw earlier, the couple who were going to meet up at sunrise. Renault looked up at the horizon, and noticed it was definitely nearing sunrise. His task momentarily forgotten, it occurred to him that the boyfriend would arrive any at any minute, and certainly meet a similar fate.

“What did I tell you?” The taller man stomped his foot. “I said we’d meet quietly by the bay. Quietly! What part of that word did you not understand?”

“What part of the word ‘Five A.M.’ did you not understand?”

“Don’t turn this on me, I haven’t shot anyone yet.”

“Oh, I’ll turn it on you, showing up an hour late! If you got your ass down here when you were supposed to-”

“Don’t get cocky with me; you see where that’s just gotten you.”

“First, I’m not being cocky, and second, so what?”

“Right, you’ve only shot the one kid.”

“Sophie?”

Another gunshot. The boyfriend fell.

“Oh, Christ, another kid!”

“Then quit shooting that damn thing!”

“Hey, this is just as much your fault!”

“Oh, really? Which one did I shoot, again?”

“Well, smartass, if you just showed up when, you know, I thought we agreed to, this wouldn’t have happened! We’re in this together, like it or not.” The short man trotted to the side. “Now help me hide these bodies. Drag ‘em in the river or something.”

The tall man sighed. “Well, you clearly haven’t heard a single word I’ve said.”

Another gunshot. The short man fell. The taller man pocketed his gun and fled.

Renault stood staring at the three bodies as the night sky began to fade away, then left the bridge fifteen minutes later, deep in thought and unable to shake what he had just seen from his mind. He walked aimlessly through town, following the cracks in the sidewalk. Whatever the alternative might be, he thought, it certainly beat being those bodies. His head tilted up with the rising sun. He took a deep breath, and entered the first store he came across. There was only one man in the store, sitting behind the register staring away from Renault at a television.

“With you in a moment.” He called back in a dried out British accent. Renault stepped up to the counter as the man listened to the news.

“… three bodies by the side of Rodion Bay. There are no clear suspects as of yet, although authorities have already begun to consider the possibility of links to last night’s double homicide of Lisa and Marten Renault by husband and father, Dane Renault, of whom police are still in pursuit. Authorities say he was last seen wearing…”

“Scummy bugger. Anyway, good morning to you.” The clerk muttered and turned to the counter to find himself staring straight into a gun.

“Good morning. All the money in the register. Please.”

haiku 10

this two year dance ends

what we’ll never talk about

but know anyway

- – -

So I’m kind of liking the idea of posting these haikus coupled with little explanation rants, even though I’ve only done two before this one, because it gives me a good excuse to just ramble about anything I want, or just talk about the creative process. Anyway, I’m still perfectly free to not explain them, which is what’s happening right now. I will say, though, it was harder to write than I thought, because I knew exactly what I wanted to say, found amazingly enough that it fit into the strict 5, 7, 5 syllable format, and then realized that it wasn’t what I wanted to say at all. But I’m satisfied with how it turned out, so it’s all good.

And just a quick last thing, since it’s (finally) summer, there’s a brand new feature of sorts that I might try to write soon, since I’ve been waiting for a break like this to try it. I don’t want to say much yet, because I don’t have it all figured out, but I can say that it’s going to be a short story, except I want to write and release it in a way that, because of the nature of the internet and the blog, allows it to be done more… episodically.

Whatever could I mean?

Pair In Thesis

Kids, I’ve got something special for you today: a co-op poem with The Suburban Scoundrel, written on Facebook chat over the past two hours. It’s exceptionally stream of consciousness, especially coming from two alternating authors, so enjoy and tell us what you think!

- – -

First in the green, then a little blue one
flits into view and once more I begin.
(all you)
First in the grey, the side just past the sun
where the blue, red, brown take their time to sin.
(sorry, I was thinking)

Well, god must have chosen the wings,
which draw me like nothing else, push the air beneath them.
Well, god better draw one over,
eventually, if not sooner, since bastard owes me anyway.

(too much?)
(perf)

But hell, I know that god well enough, talk to him every night.
Better to hold my wits in my hands, step 1.

And hell, it seems, might be attainable enough.
I’ll scatter those prayers for those to find, unclasp those wits,
leave the mysticism for the mystics.

I’m always just talking to that god in me, myself–
that’s step 2, to know this one must be there for my hand alone.
(sorry bout that)

And it’s my hand alone left alone, and I blame you–
collectively, for continually taking the flight in your nature, as I remain earthbound.
(bout…?)

Left alone? no. flight is inevitable, yet so is your rest and my approach
There is no better place for you to perch than at my feet!

As long as you’re feeling up to it.
(wait, still working, hit enter too early)
But I gotta say, I’m rather partial to the feet idea. Fly over? Please?

I’ll ask unreservedly, move my hand and step 3 expect a few small steps
Like the first few I saw– you thought I wasn’t looking? I assume on those.

I assume you assume cuz it’s obvious,
so you should assume I assume,
during the times when I don’t assume,
but know,
but assume I’m getting desperate.

You’ve stopped stepping towards me, and where do you think you’re going?
stepping laterally and literally stopping,
the latter will strike me as a boulder you’ve pushed to the top.
I’ll push towards over and falling.

Fly away, Icarus, and I’ll just Sisyphus it up,
pushing on the proverbial pull door,
waiting for you to fly too high
and that day we both come crashing down
back to where we started,
but nothing gained from our efforts.
(So how do we go about wrapping this up?)

(well, you’ll have to do your final line after I end mine too soon)
And really it was never beginning because there was only an end.
(damn, I did it too)
Is it russian roulette or am I mistaken by the gunmetal on my temple?

So to make things simple,
let’s just pretend we don’t know each other,
while I wait for someone else I can pretend I don’t know either.

(done?)
(almost)

Fuck

(there)
(ahaha, are we seriously ending with that?)
(that’s how it always ends)

The Procrastinator’s Rant: Centennial Edition

It’s a sign of the times, folks. The Procrastinator’s Rant is officially one year old. Or, rather, it was about a week ago, since I miscounted, thus ruining my idea to do a combined one-year-old/100th-post super post of awesome to celebrate. So it’s just my 100th post, not both that and the one year mark. I know. Lame.

Although on the other hand, this frees me up to do something else. For whatever reason, hitting that 100th post just doesn’t strike me as as big a deal as the one year mark, so I don’t have much interest in making a grand spectacle of all that happened during Procrastinator’s Rant’s first year or making a grand thank you, the latter because I do that in every other post anyway, because I’m thrilled people are actually reading the words I put on the internet. Really, on a serious note, given how a little over a year ago my only real outlet for my thoughts and humor was just whenever I hung out with my friends, the fact that there are actually people from California to Wisconsin, Illinois to Ohio, and more who not only read what I have to say, but do so willingly for entertainment is still pretty thrilling, and I of course need to thank everybody who does for doing so, and these are just people I specifically know about. During the first three months of Procrastinator’s Rant, I got 400 hits, which I now get on a monthly basis, and that’s not counting that day I got stumbled and got 600 hits overnight for that post about AP Biology ruining Pokemon.

And last, but not least, within that first year, I’ve become Google approved:

Yes. When you search for my blog on google, it is the first thing that comes up. Tight.

Anyway, like I said maybe two paragraphs ago, the fact that I totally didn’t spend any time on this post revelling in how eventful the blog’s first year was frees me up for a feature I’ve wanted to do for a while, and the 100th post seems like as good a place as any, since it’s sort of like that aforementioned thank you to everybody who made this possible, but in a different manner.

In other words, I’m going through and making fun of all the bizarre ways people have found this blog.

WordPress lets you see who referred to and what search terms led people to your blog, and although most of the time you’ll get fairly normal searches like, say, “Procrastinator’s Rant”, sometimes you get the unusual, the interesting, and the fairly unsettling. So I’m going to share these with you, the reader, and since most of the time they definitely did not get what they were looking for, I’m going to fix that and offer up the top five right here! Think of it as giving the fans what they want!

How else would I mark this milestone? Really?

1) Procrastinator Poem/Jokes About Procrastinators/How To Tell If You’re A Procrastinator/What Does The Word Procrastinator Mean?

First, let’s start with the only slightly misled. They were searching for something about procrastinators, and technically they got it, although my blog doesn’t really have a single thing to do with that. I already made fun of the “How To Tell If You’re A Procrastinator” guy, but the rest are newer to me.

Technically speaking all the poems on my blog would qualify as procrastinator poems, since I was almost certainly supposed to be doing something else whilst writing them, but if you want a poem strictly about procrastinators, here’s a limerick:

There once was a man from the equator,

A notorious procrastinator,

Who decided to wait

And postpone ‘til late

On that literature essay that’s due tomorrow and totally going to kill your grade if you don’t do a good job on it oh snap. Ator.

And, um… a joke about procrastinators…:

How many procrastinators does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

None, because a procrastinator is one who needlessly defers the performance of anything, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness, so they probably wouldn’t be very well suited for actually carrying out the task.

Oh, hey! Two birds with one stone there! Moving on!

2) Watchmen Joke

This one actually had me fairly confused for a while, because it’s been pulling in a lot of hits, especially since I didn’t remember any actual jokes from the movie, aside from how silly Malin Akerman’s acting was (zing). So I actually, believe it or not, had to google this one to see what people could possibly be trying to find, since I doubt there’s such a high demand for knock knock jokes about The Watchmen.

So I think I’ve narrowed it down to two possibilities. One being The Comedian’s tearful realization that life’s a joke (and if that’s what was being searched for, well… that’s the joke! Life! =D ), and the other was Rorschach’s, well, joke:

“Heard a joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, ‘Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.’ Man bursts into tears. Says, ‘But, doctor… I am Pagliacci.’ Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains. Fade to black.”

Hahaha!

And then on that third possibility you actually were looking for a joke about The Watchmen:

How many Watchmen does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Depends. The Comedian will screw anything that moves, Dr. Manhattan will make as many of himself as said screwing requires, and Nite Owl and Silk Spectre will do so in an awkward, lengthy, slow-motion scene that takes place in a flying submarine or something.

Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains. Fade to black.

3 )Magikarp When I Evolve/Making Fun of Magikarp/Magikarp DUR/Badass Magikarp

For whatever reason, people love coming to Procrastinator’s Rant for all their Magikarp-mocking needs. Well, what’s that all about? Really, we’ve all known Magikarp’s sucked for at least ten years, and we’re perfectly aware that he’s going to evolve into Gyarados, so clearly people are more than willing to put up with it. And how come nobody gives Goldeen any crap for being useless in Super Smash Bros.? It doesn’t do or evolve into anything useful there, how come it gets off the hook?

Who am I kidding? Magikarp jokes!

How many Magikarp does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Water Pokemon are weak to electricity! THAT’S A TERRIBLE IDEA!

4) Earthbound Haiku

Again, there’s two things people could be searching for. There actually is a haiku in Earthbound, which serve as Everdread’s last words after he falls out the building (spoiler):

But if you’re actually looking for a haiku about Earthbound, well… I’m sure I can think of one:

Funny and charming

Together on our journey

Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness…

And here’s a joke!

How many Nintendo of America executives does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Who knows? They’re too busy screwing over Earthbound/Mother fans!

5) Starmen.net Jerks/Starmen.net Sucks

Okay, seriously? Why are so many people searching for this? What did Starmen.net ever do to you? Those guys have been keeping the Earthbound/Mother cult fanbase alive for easily a decade, since Nintendo of America clearly has no desire to do so. Really? Did they steal your lunch money and call you fat or something? They seem like pretty nice fellows over there. I have nothing against them, and it’s kind of weird how all these searches lead to my blog…

So… that’s basically it! Although I’m sure this will be wildly unpopular amongst my raging fans, there really isn’t much material to make a joke about that last one.

Bah:

How many Starmen does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

I don’t know, but it takes like a kajillion before you find the Sword of Kings because only one out of every 128 have them and IT TAKES FOREVER!

haiku 9

who’s just another

asshole on the internet

made you laugh each time

- – -

Without naming (many) names, something I’ve noticed is that far and away one of the quickest ways to feign success is to be an asshole on the internet. Being a jerk doesn’t really merit you too much success in real life. In the real world, people get offended, resulting in consequences. In the internet world, you can pretty much say whatever you want not only with minimal repercussions, but instead with wild success. Take a look at Maddox. Sure, the man’s funny and well-known for it, but he’s also equally well-known for being among the most insultingly opinionated people around, and he’s met a fair amount of success for it. And there are countless people like him on the internet, who, on any basic level, have a fan base centered around little more than the fact that people enjoy how mean the guy is.

Granted, it’s easy to like these people in real life too, but the key difference is that in real life, you actually have to know them. You’re exposed to them constantly, whether or not you feel like being subjected to their unrelentingly scathing character or not, and you see just how often they’re not being funny. Enjoying the further adventures of such people on the internet, however, creates such a barrier where you only see them in what’s largely the way you want to see them, in a context where they are funny in complete disregard to how big an asshole they are.

Now I’m not going to go so far as to say that I don’t enjoy such behavior. Listening to Zero Punctuation’s Yahtzee destroy everything that comes his way is, unsettlingly often, the highlight of my Wednesday, and I’ve recently subscribed to a guy on Youtube who records his commentary while he plays old video games after finally deciding I found him entertaining enough to bother doing so, even though, as you’ve probably guessed, the guy’s kind of a dick. Comments on his videos he actually had a remotely positive reaction to are far and few between, and more often than not you have to wonder why people even bother leaving such praising comments that so often get angrily ripped apart, although I could just be looking into it too much, and I’m sure the guy’s not all that bad, but for whatever reason, there’s still that aspect of the human condition that loves an asshole. (Plea: No going Freud on me, readers.)

Anyway, I’m not really sure what my point going into this was. Take whatever you can get out of this one. Maybe go start a blog/vlog/webcomic/talk show/lemonade stand and be the angiest and most insulting person you can be and see if people flock to you to watch the joys of socially repressed rage freed by the anonymity of the internet, or maybe be increasingly skeptical to what merits quality and popularity. Causation and correlation, people.