Kill This Blog

I’m such a doofus. Or not. Okay, you decide. And my apologies for this post, which pretty much amounts to an unabashed commercial message. But there’s a real bargain going on here, so please indulge me.

I’ve been on a Shakespeare kick for the last year and a half or so. I live in Alexandria, Virginia — that’s northern Virginia, inside the beltway, a short drive to the Folger Shakespeare Library and, more to the point, within range of at least three theatre companies that regularly put on productions of Shakespeare’s plays.

It’s been an embarrassment of riches. In the last 18 months I’ve averaged a different live Shakespeare play every two months or so. Just ask Random Kath — she’ll vouch for me. Highlights: Teller’s production of Macbeth. The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Love’s Labors Lost outdoors at the Carter Barron Ampitheatre. And an impromptu Christmas version of Hamlet at the Clark Street Playhouse.

So, to the point: Back in March of 2007, I paid $200 for a complete set of hardcover Pelican Shakespeares: 38 volumes. It’s a terrific set — an easy-to-read quality hardcover edition of the 37 plays in Shakespeare’s canon, plus one volume of the Sonnets. Way better than one of those giant one-volume Shakespeares that threaten to snap your arms off at the wrist, these are easy to carry, easy to read, and each volume is self-contained with all the support you need to enjoy the play without being overwhelmed with footnotes.

I repeat: I paid $200 for this. Full price. Here’s a pic of my actual set, on my actual bookshelf, taken with the crappy li’l camera in my actual MacBook:

And now, here’s the doofus part: Amazon has it for sale right now at $59.80. That’s a 70% discount from what I paid for it. Doing the math, that comes out to less than $1.60 per volume. As Othello put it just before offing Desdemona, “Oy vey iz mir!”

There are a couple of drawbacks. I would have preferred that the volumes be a little bit smaller so that they would be truly pocket-sized. And I would also have liked if they included a couple of more volumes in the set so that I’d also have Two Noble Kinsmen and the narrative poems to round out the oeuvre.

But at this price it’s hard to complain.

I realize that most of my readers have already clicked away at this point. But for a few of you, well, I can already hear you drooling. I’m miffed as all get-out that I way overpaid for the set, but I also know that some of you will be thanking me for putting you wise to this.

So, does that un-doofus me a little then?

Here’s the link:

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There are two sides to human nature, and they are forever at war. There is the cool, soul-dead rational side. There is the raging animal, all appetite, all anger. Neither side can win the battle, for to win is to destroy our own nature. Victory is cataclysm. It’s like that Star Trek episode with the two Kirks. No, not that one, the other one.

Monkey hate technology
Robot hate the monkey
They will fight eternally
Monkey vs. Robot!
Monkey vs. Robot!

I first saw this video seven or eight years ago. It’s always hung around in my head since then as a metaphor for our inner battles, and as a meta-metaphor for really cheesey metaphors. I lost track of it, and I couldn’t find it forever. But being that we now live in a world without obscurity, there it is, smack-dab on YooToob.

It’s brilliant. It’s stupid. It’s stupidly brilliant.

Click to play, Dummy.

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Smothered in a prolonged group hug.

Pierced in the forehead by a metallic Ninja hurling star.

In a fall from a high tower, while holding an armload of harpoons.

Blacking out from anesthesia as a group of fat guys close in with spoons.

Crushed by an inexplicable number of doilies.

Gummed to death by malicious old men.

Shot from a cannon onto a long, pointy stick.

Alone, on the subway, holding a potted fern.

And, finally,

Melanoma.

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You need to read more. You need to read a lot more. You need to read every damn book ever printed, right Bucky? Okay, so slack off and narrow that list down to, say, the thousand best books ever written. It’ll only cost you $7,989.50 (plus shipping).

This post is an experiment. I’ve recently been accepted as an Amazon Associate, meaning that if I link stuff here that people actually end up buying, I get a small percentage, and I’m posting to see if the links work properly. And why shouldn’t I test it with the most expensive set of books in the entire Amazon catalog? Hey, I might get lucky!

My aim with this blog is to learn how the Internet works, including online marketing. Eventually I’ll be doing some honest-to-gawd product reviews, but for now the main point is not that I manage to sell something, but to learn how online marketing gets done. So thank you for your indulgence as I give myself this marketing lesson today.

If you were to click the link below and do thing you know, deep down, that you really, really want to do, by my calculation I would make $319.58. I would very much like to have $319.58. In fact, maybe you should buy two sets, so that, I dunno, you could lend some of the books out to friends, and in that case I’d make $639.16. So why aren’t you getting out your credit cards and ordering, you buncha pikers? These pixels are costing me money! I neeeEeeEEEeeeeed this! Buy ten sets! ARRRIIIHARRRGGGHHH!!!

Not that the great classics of Western Civilization aren’t worth spending some time with. And at least one Amazon reviewer apparently actually bought the set. Quoting a reader review from the Amazon website:

This is an orgy for a book-lover. I have had a wonderful time from the moment I placed the order. They arrived in 25 boxes shrink-wrapped on a wooden pallet, over 750 lbs. of books. It took about twelve hours to unpack them, check them off the packing list (one for each box), and then check them off the list we downloaded from Amazon.com. They take up about 77 linear feet. 

Turns out I’ve actually read some of these. And there’s much, much more to read about it on the Amazon review pages (I’m an Amazon addict. I especially like reading one-star customer reviews. Indignation is a minor art.).

So check it out. And don’t feel obligated to buy it or anything. But check it out, and then buy it:

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Yesterday the nice folks at Daily Blog Tips posted a glossary for bloggers. Unfortunately,  they got a lot of it wrong. Below are my revisions.

A-List: That’s “A” for “Arianna,” as in “Huffington.” A-List Blogs are those with more power and prestige than others. They’re not bad people or anything, but that Dooce lady scares me, and I think I once saw Seth Godin eat a bug.

Akismet: A popular plug-in for WordPress blogs which automatically blocks comment spam, thus eliminating what is often the most interesting part of the conversation.

Archive: That special place on a blog where posts which have seldom been read are kept so that they may be more thoroughly ignored in the future.

Blog: That which was formerly achieved with a brick wall and a can of spray paint, and which is now affected with a file transfer protocol client and pixels.

Blogosphere: A sort of digitized English soccer riot, but without the respect for decorum.

Blogroll: A list of websites a blogger keeps in the hope that they will one day send him backlinks.

Digg: A mysterious icon at the bottom of this post with no known function. There are no reports to suggest that anyone has ever dared to click it.

Domain: Given the bleak and solitary nature of blogging, and considering the Seinfeldian sense of the word, a “domain” is that which a blogger spends many, many, many hours attempting to “master.”

Feedcount: The total number of RSS subscribers to a given blog (e.g., in the present instance, zero).

Google Analytics: Pornography for webmasters.

Niche: That designated subject which is officially neglected, often for weeks, while an author posts about politics.

Page View: What a blogger gets when a reader looks at his blog once. If that same reader looks at the blog again, the blogger gets a second Page View. And so on. Are we going too fast for you?

Pligg: Please. Somebody just made that word up. For crying out loud, stop wasting everybody’s time.

Splog: The hazy toxic smoke often seen polluting the skies above Splos Angeles.

Squornk: See? I can make up words too.

Technorati: A website that, theoretically, ranks blogs according to the number of links they receive from other websites. We say “theoretically,” because to date, no one has ever been able to get a Technorati page to load.

Twitter: The world’s largest 24-hour online ADHD support group.

Unique Visitors: People who visit your website who, for the purpose of web statistics, are deemed exactly as important as, and who are therefore considered interchangeable with, any other individual visitor to your site. Hence “Unique.”

WordPress: Blogging software developed by people who are probably having second thoughts now that they know it was used to compose this glossary.

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I don’t know if this is worth a whole blog post, but I’ve been clicking around Imeem.com and finding some nifty stuff there, nifty at least to me. The song provided below is an a cappella version of Randy Newman’s “Short People” by a group called The King’s Singers. And, no, I nevuh hoid uv em eeder.

Perhaps I should take a moment to point out that I actually like the songs and videos I’ve been posting here. The thought has occurred to me that since much of this (much? how about all, buster?) is offbeat and loopy, that maybe people could be thinking I’m only yanking chains with what I post.

On the contrary, I consider myself the standard of good taste and high art, and I provide these materials merely for your edification. Yes, clearly you’re all a bunch of filthy troglodytes, and I am all too aware that I am wasting my time in my fruitless efforts to bring you to civilization. But perhaps when the walls of the citadel are crumbled finally to dust, you will then find a moment to thank me for these vain attempts at instruction. Alas, your regrets will be futile, as I will already be lodged in my island fortress laughing at your post-apocalyptic horror from my giant mad genius evil display monitor.

Click to play, dummy!

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Adding to the list of the many, many reasons that I am way, way cooler than you are, dear reader, is the fact that I know Erin Jackson, who is a semi-finalist in this year’s Last Comic Standing tournament on the well-known and highly-regarded NBC Television Network.

Erin will appear in the Vegas round of LCS and I am certain that everyone in the DC comedy scene is rooting for her. In a world where there is a lot of pettiness and jealousy (much of it instigated by me), Erin has achieved the rare feat of being liked by everybody. And she’s a fun and insightful comic on stage as well.

Here’s her audition set from the NBC website:

So there you go, folks. As a reader of this blog, you now have a rooting interest in her success, and you are hereby commanded to follow her exploits in the days to come.

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The track is from The Flying Lizards, circa 1980. Great song, but the truth is that I’m just testing out imeem, which is another website that lets you embed music into your blog posts and whatnot online. There are a variety of sites like this, and I’ve found that most of them tend to be buggy. This one looks promising.

You’ve probably heard this song. If not, you’re in for a treat. And if you don’t like it, consider your good luck that I didn’t post a file from Jandek.

In my preview of this post, The Lizards seem to play just fine. Please post a comment if you have trouble getting the link to play, or even if you can play it just fine, and you want to tell me how much you hate it. ‘Kay?

Click to play, Dummy!

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When the burdens of life weigh heavy my soul, I often find solace in contemplating the life of the Great Emancipator.

I loves me my Hard Drinkin’ Lincoln.

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In one of my earliest posts on this blog I owned up to being my own worst obstacle. It’s the typical situation for me: I want to make progress but see no clear path, and so while I have many ideas and ambitions, I get frustrated in my inability to implement them.

Right now the biggest bugaboo is the design of this page. It’s functional, but bland. It needs to be engaging and memorable. And getting there requires… what? It’s not clear. I’ve looked at many, many available themes, and none of them seems quite right. I could pay a pro to customize one for me, but that would involve a layout of cash, and even more to the point: I’m so new to blogging that even if I did get the snazziest of pages, I might soon change my mind about what I want. Then I’d be just as frustrated with the new page as I am with this one.

So the alternative is to learn to design the page myself, or at least to know enough about the code to make adjustments to some existing theme to suit my needs. But that does not look easy. I’ll be exploring the ‘Net for better resources to help me along with this (and if you have any suggestions, please leave a comment!). So I’m at that point of intimidation right now, the point where I need to remind myself that, hey, lots of people do web design. It can’t be that hard.

A third option would be to just find a theme that I can live with, and shoehorn my imagination into that template. This is probably the route I will take in the short term. We’ll see.

The solution to all of this? Press on. As long as there is progress from month to month, I shouldn’t let myself get too frustrated about things. After all, it was just a few days ago that I set a To-Do List for myself. There’s plenty for me to spend my time on there.

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