Did Facebook Kill My Blog?

I started this blog back in 2004, back when having a blog was one of those cool things that dazzled and impressed your less-technically-savvy friends and family members. "You have a blog? Wow, that's so awesome! Do you know Bill Gates and Cher?"

Since then, this little slice of Nobel Prize winner Al Gore's internets has gone through several name changes (Chris Irby's Generic Blog, Rush Limbaugh's All Star Puppy-Eating Cavalcade, WTFWJD?, and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, YOU GODDAMN LIAR!) and I've undergone numerous personal crises that have strengthened me and turned me into the paragon of restraint and insight you see today.

Alas, poor WTFWJD? We hardly knew ye...

I've also gone through some considerable ebbs and flows when it comes to posting. In November of 2005, I came back after a two-month hiatus, apologized for neglecting the blogosphere, and trickled out some posts for the next few months. In July of 2006, I came back after a one-month hiatus, apologized for neglecting the blogosphere, and trickled out some posts for the next few months. In February of 2007, I came back after a four-month hiatus, apologized for neglecting the blogosphere, and trickled out some posts for the next few months. In October of 2007... well, I'm pretty sure you can see where this is going.

Anyway, if you check the Blog Archive to the left, you may notice that my posting pretty much died in April 2009 (much like beloved actress Bea Arthur). I made one last ditch effort in April 2010, and then... BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP...

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest...

So, what happened? Well, in a word, Facebook.

As I mentioned in one of my penultimate posts, I got totally sucked into Mark Zuckerberg's social media cult. I became obsessed with befriending folks I hadn't seen in years and never really liked all that much, and with keeping my massive network of virtual pals apprised of my current status ("Eating wasabi peanuts and downloading images of Ann Coulter's feet").

The thing is, Facebook offers immediate gratification. The moment you post anything, 29,751,498 online buddies will respond to lend their support or show you the error of your ways. Total strangers will request to be your friend because they read something funny you posted on someone else's page. Longtime acquaintances will unfriend you because they read something provocative or offensive that you posted on your own page. FBI agents will send you messages, pretending to be 15-year-old cheerleaders. But that's something else, entirely.

When all else fails, try bringing up Hitler...

But it's been a couple of years, and the bloom is off the Facebook rose. I still check in and post pretty regularly, but gone are the days where I would spend hours poring through hundreds of updates and carrying on dozens of simultaneous conversations. I no longer have any interest in arguing on other folks' pages, and have little patience for the people who feel the need to crap their opinion into their hand and fling it all over my page. And I honestly couldn't possibly give any less of a fuck about what folks are growing in Farmville or whom they're killing in Gang Wars.

I think part of the problem is that whole short-attention span thing. The immediate gratification, coupled with the fact that Facebook limits posts to something in the neighborhood of 4 characters, has basically created an online community of folks who can't be bothered to read. Facebook will let you post longer notes, but reading those requires a couple of extra clicks of the mouse, and who the hell has time for that when there are virtual rutabagas to harvest, baby?

Lately, I've found myself waxing nostalgic about this blog, and the tight-knit community of folks that I pretty much abandoned for the glitzy Babylon that *is* Facebook. And I've been wondering if I should even try picking up where I left off, or just put this thing out of its misery and start fresh.

(In the interests of full disclosure, I did start another blog back in June 2009 that's devoted to the oeuvre of Jack Chick. My updates on that blog have been pretty sporadic as well, but it still gets a decent number of daily hits because folks keep posting my stuff on Reddit and StumbleUpon. I've thought about doing that myself, but what kind of desperate cry for attention would that be?)

So anyway, yeah. Facebook pretty much killed this blog. But like Jesus, Spock, Bobby Ewing, and Batman, it has once again clawed its way out of the grave. Hopefully, this won't be my only post for 2011. I swear, my intentions are good. I'm going to try this blogging thing again.

Also Superman, Gandalf, Jean Grey, Elvis, Osiris, Buffy,
Dr. Who, Lazarus, Pac Man, Kenny, and Wile E. Coyote

But I make no promises...

Beeeeeeeeeeeep... Blip... Blip... Blip...

I honestly have no idea what to write after a year of neglecting the blogosphere. Except I just noticed that, even though the word "blogosphere" has been in wide use since 2002, Blogger still doesn't recognize is as a legitimate word, and suggests that I replace it with "biosphere" or "heliosphere." According to Wikipedia, a heliosphere is caused by the solar wind blowing a bubble in the interstellar medium. According to Sarah Palin, a heliosphere is caused by God taking a bath after He eats beans. Incidentally, Blogger doesn't recognize the word "Palin" as legitimate either, and suggests that I replace it with "Patin" or "pain," which sounds totally reasonable to me. In case you're wondering, Patin is a village in the Bané Department of Boulgou Province in south-eastern Burkina Faso, a landlocked African nation that is probably visible from Sarah Palin's backyard. I'm sure this interesting fact will be covered on the upcoming Discovery reality show Sarah Palin's Alaska, assuming they can find someone other than the Tea Party and the KKK to sponsor it. Personally, I would have called the show Helicopter Wolf Sniper Killfest or Life On This 6,000 Year Old Earth. Or maybe Hunting with Dick Cheney. Remember when he shot that old guy in the face? That was awesome. Anyway, I missed you guys.

Happy 2009!

A new year is underway, and service will resume very shortly here at Click... Click... Click... BANG!!! In the meantime, I hope all of you had a very merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Yule, Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa, or any other holiday you may have chosen to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Note: This joke was totally stolen from my girlfriend Stephanie's t-shirt.

It Works If You Work It

You know how it goes. I drag myself back to the blogosphere after months of neglecting my threes of faithful readers, with all the noble intentions of once again immersing myself in Nobel Prize winner Al Gore's Internet. I manage to crank out a couple of admittedly brilliant and insightful posts that equate conservatives with the Ku Klux Klan and imply that our president might possibly be clinically retarded. And then I vanish once again, leaving a void in your lives that you try in vain to fill with family, friends, and religion.

But I'm going to try something different this time. I'm going to post every day for a week. I know that doesn't sound like much, but I learned long ago that it's important to set realistic and easily attenable goals if you want to succeed, which is why I got so many Cs in college.

So I'll try it for a week. And if I make it, I'll try it for another week. And so on and so on until I finally overcome my addiction to Asian furry porn general sloth and malaise. Or until I inevitably spiral into failure.

Anyone Still Out There?

Hey there. I'm back. Usually, when I return after a lengthy hiatus, I put up a hilarious cartoon of Morbidly Obese Jesus, and I go into exquisite detail about what I've been up to over the ensuing months. But seriously, who has the time?

So, for any inquiring minds out there, I'll tell you the following:

1. Stephanie and I are still together and it's going great. We're in love, and nerd love is the purest and most wholesome kind of love there is.

2. The play that Sean and I wrote last year, Captain Phantasm vs. the Nefarious Dr. Noir: A Melodramatic Serial in Three Parts, will probably be in Pocket Sandwich Theatre's 2009 lineup. Wooohoooo!

3. I'm still contracting for an online directory service whose name I can't mention for fear that their corporate image would be irreparable damaged if they were affiliated with a blog of such low moral character. They recently laid off a buttload of people, but somehow I dodged that bullet. My contract runs until the end of September, and my boss is hoping to get it extended.

4. Speaking of blogs of low moral character, I just started a new site that focuses on Jack Chick and his hilarious fundamentalist Chick tracts. Check out Jack Chick's Funnybook Gospel (or How I Learned To Stop Thinking and Love the Lord).

And that's it! I missed you guys! And if you're reading this right now, then I missed *you* most of all. Just don't tell the others. They'll get jealous.

Aw, hell. Why not?