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Posts published in April 2010

God, I love you all so much.

To all my lovely readers, I just wanted to write to tell you that I love you. Thank you for reading The Black Laser. It means a lot to me that you spend your valuable time reading and enjoying the sometimes/sometimes-not nonsense I post here. I’m not the most clever man, nor do I have the most insightful thoughts, but I hope that I can provide a smidgeon of entertainment for you or a break from work or maybe even a new sweet band you’ve never heard. Even better, my readership has soared over the past few months.

Let’s look, shall we?!

This is a map of my monthly hits over the lifetime of The Black Laser. On the left there you can see where I started the site in November of 2008 (it’s been so long!) and where we are now on April 22, 2010. You can see the little numbers on the Y axis, but how about a little reference for you?

These are The Black Laser’s two slowest months on record at a paltry 509 hits in February, 2009 and 520 hits in September, 2009. Pathetic. You’ll notice that these dips on the graph don’t really dip so much for the period between November, 2008 and January, 2010.

January, 2010 was about on par with my previous highest traffic month of April, 2009. Then, as you can see, something changed.

My hits nearly double. Wild! Where’s all this new traffic from? Have I made a bunch of new friends? Do people like it more when I post random crap instead of stories? Heartbreaking? Who are all you people visiting The Black Laser? I want to know! Why aren’t you commenting? I love you!

Here’s where we are now with 9 days left in April at pretty much the same level of traffic experienced in both February AND March. Unless the world explodes, we’ll probably break 2000 hits for the month which is pretty fucking amazing for a blog by me that doesn’t advertise anywhere nor have any specific purpose or goal. I just post things I like and I guess you guys like the things I like and that makes me super happy. My ego swells.

Of course, for a site like Gawker or whatever—for whom, incidentally, my friend Megan writes—this level of traffic is like a dust mote in the eye of the Kraken. But I’m just….*counts*…. one man. One man with one snarky fucked up attitude and the desire to share with friends, enemies, and strangers on this wild, wooly thing we call the internets. So, readers, thank you. I appreciate you all. It also helps me know that if I ever do decide to put ads on The Black Laser (I won’t) that I could make some ok extra cash off it. Sweet!

In appreciation, here’s a killer photo of a bald eagle eating a crow that I found on Fucking Delicious. Enjoy!

Dipset Haiku

This is the second of two poetry jokes I am posting right now.

Urban Dictionary has 58 definitions for the term “dipset“. The one I am inclined to take into consideration for this posting is as follows:

dipset

The diplomats, also known as dipset, are a Harlem new york based group who previously signed to Rockefeller records but now are signed to their own label diplomat records. The group was founded by rappers Cameron and Jim Jones. The diplomats first became popular following Cameron’s reemergence in 2002.

Usage: “Dipset…yup…yeh, yeh, yeh”

With that placed firmly in the forefront of our brains, today I happened across Dipset Haiku, a humorous collection of haikus in what I can only assume to be Cam’ron and the remainder of the Dipset’s style.

Here are a few gems.

3G'd Up
The Great Recession
Rehab
Yellow Bellies

But get yourself o’er to the site and read the rest. Perfect for a boring day at the office. I’m also a real big fan of their color palette.

Paul Muldoon Critiques Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok”

This is the first of two poetry jokes I am about to post.

Princeton professor and Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Muldoon critiques my favorite pop starlet of the moment, Kesha. In my opinion, he accurately describes the majesty of Kesha’s work, the wonderful way she uses word meaning in novel ways to express fresh ideas, and her obvious homage to Yeats.

I feel inspired by her work to create and to continue to create in the face of people not being able to understand the true depths of your work.

Death Metal Lyric or William Blake Quote?

I stole this from McSweeney’s. I’m not this clever.

1. “Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.”

2. “We are Satan’s generation.”

3. “As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted.”

4. “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”

5. “The child of burning time has gone. He hasn’t come back.”

6. “Flames of profligacy, naked bodies flowing in the stream of wild dreams.”

7. “The original Archangel or possessor of the command of the heavenly host, is called the Devil.”

8. “The sulphur-kingdom, purgatory, hell`s damnation, no man will be perditioned for all time.”

9. “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.”

10. “Every man is therefore guilty of all the good he did.”

The key is here. How many did you get right?

Meet my friend Alden.

That’s him at about 1:30 with the beard. I’ve known Alden for, oh, about a million years. He’s a gentle giant of a man who can grow a kick ass beard. But, uh, Alden, I think you need to wear a beard hair net in the kitchen. Just sayin’.

Here’s what the Huntington, West Virginia Herald Dispatch has to say about what he’s doing with celeb-super chef Jamie Oliver.

During the past three weeks, chef Alden Cadwell of Sustainable Food Systems has been to Village of Barboursville, Nichols and Geneva Kent elementary schools. He will be at Spring Hill on Jan. 4 and 9, then conduct two countywide cook trainings on Jan. 14 and 15 — two days that students are off. Eventually, the 70 percent of the student population that accounts for more than 8,500 lunches each day all will have a healthier meal choice in the lunch line.

Cadwell’s main focus is shifting from the use of processed foods to whole and fresh ingredients. The schools where training has taken place already will have new menus in January. The elementary schools will dine on items such as macaroni and cheese, quesadillas, barbecue chicken, cheesy cornbread and beefy nachos with cheese and lettuce. Also being served in January are rotisserie chicken, baked pizza noodles and homemade tomato soup with a toasted cheese sandwich. Other elementary schools are serving cheeseburgers, chicken patties and nuggets and steak with gravy.

Good job, old boy! You are a champion. Keep kids healthy. I’ll be needing them to fill my army of the stars in my conquest of the universe.

Here’s the rest of the article.