Reality Check

I just found out that the blogger NYC Watchdog lost his five-year-old son to a swimming accident recently.

This is real life. Real loss.

It's so easy to get caught up in the surreal life of the internet. To keep everything and everyone at digital distance. To view people as nothing more than words on a screen.

It's easy to tease. To ridicule. To taunt. To offend. To push. To troll. To scream. To threaten.

It's easy to not give a shit.

Ironically, last year I got caught up in a "blog war" that started with a conversation about pit bulls and ended up traveling from blog to blog, commenter to commenter, insult to insult. NYC Watchdog was one of those who was pulled into the whole mess. He was just another grouping of words on a screen, just like everyone else.

Not now.

Suddenly, he's a father being ripped apart from the inside by losing what was most important in his life. He lost his child. His son. His best friend.

I can't even begin to imagine what he's going through. But I do know that right now, I don't want to be at work. I want to be at home with my kids.

There's a fund that's been set up to help NYCWD. Click the icon above (in my sidebar as well) for details.

Peace, everyone.

Accentuate the Positive

That's what I'm going to be doing, and looking for, here in Blogovia. That's not to say that I'll never post about, nor comment on, topics of the "What the hell's this all about?" variety. But I'm through getting mired in comment wars. That's not an indictment of anyone other than myself. I've just got much better things to do with my time than following, let alone participating in, the antagonism that surfaces in the comments of some of the blogs I read.

In the real world, I rarely get the kinds of opportunities to hear multiple points of view that I do here in Blogovia. That's what I love about it. I love debate. When it's done with respect, I often learn things. Sometimes it's just learning a new perspective, other times it's learning new facts and developments. And because of that, sometimes my perspective changes. I never understand why so many people are so adverse to changing perspective, because when I do, it feels really good. It's a major accomplishment. Maintaining your position in the face of opposing points of view can often be admirable, proper and even necessary. But it's also pretty easy. Truly listening to and considering an opposing point of view is a phenomenal skill; allowing yourself to admit that the opposing point of view carries more weight than yours takes guts. I appreciate that. And no, I'm not talking about politicians who change their "beliefs" as the tide of public opinion changes. I'm talking about the individual, and what's in the individual's heart.

The problem is that many times, debates in Blogovia are anything but respectful. And once they digress to insults, name-calling and the equivalent of middle-school playground pushing and shoving, I'm no longer going to learn anything. All opportunity for me to get what I want from the conversation -- healthy debate, even enlightenment -- is gone down the shitter. I'm not above reproach; I've gotten wrapped up in some of that shit, only to look at it later and think, why the hell did I waste my time with that trainwreck? I will give myself some credit and say I always try to keep it respectful, even when other participants are not. But even then, my comments are still enabling those creating the cesspool.

I've done a pretty good job of keeping things here at Boiled Dinner relatively civil. But I can't control what happens at other blogs, nor can I control what other people do or say. I can only control Jeff K. And Jeff K just ain't gonna play in the shitbox anymore.

Jeff K also ain't gonna keep referring to himself in the third person, but at the moment, Jeff K feels it's the most powerful way to get his message across.

Attention All Yous Newsreader Users

You may have noticed a proliferation of my past posts popping up in your reader. My apologies. Having switched over to Blogger comments a while back, I'm now periodically reposting past posts with links to the Haloscan comments for said posts. I am doing this solely for my own enjoyment, and I apologize that you must come along for this ride.

Blog Wonkiness

I added a few fun widgets to my sidebar recently, but I think that made Boiled Dinner inaccessible for some of you (Jodie and Lucy, for sure... anyone else?) They were widgets from Widgetbox, so there must be some problem in that code. Anyway, I removed them so hopefully, no more problemos.

Slow down, you move too fast.

Got to make the moment(s) last.

The family moments. The work moments. The project moments. The barbecue moments. The hockey moments.

You know, the real-life moments.

The moments I'm not blogging.

Gotta make those last a little more. Which means I gotta cut back on the blogging a bit.

No, I'm not pulling a Nobody/Jen/Teacake and stopping, I'm just slowing, that's all. Maybe a few times per week instead of (nearly) daily.

For those of you who don't care, you can stop reading six lines ago.

*Post title borrowed from Simon and Garfunky

I done been nominated!

My new blog design has made quite an impression! Vanessa went and nominated me for Best Blog Design at the Bloggers Choice Awards, which was a very cool thing to do. If you click the icon below, it'll take you to the page where you can vote if you so choose. Unfortunately, the thumbnail they have of my blog is of my last interim design, not this kick-ass one, so hopefully they'll remedy that real quick-like.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Wild hair + Macintosh + weekend = really, really new template.

This one's here to stay (other than a few design tweaks I still need to make).

Hey Film Freaks

Get over there and start discussing!

Too damn funny.

Eric Spitznagel, who writes the very funny blog Vonnegut's Asshole, posted an "interview" with Lieutenant Jim Dangle and Deputy Travis Junior from Reno 911.

Read it here and ROFLYMFAO.

Film Freaks Film Club

I had this really cool idea while writing a comment to the post below this, and it's such a cool idea it deserves its own post.

Who would be up for a blog-based film club?

Each month (or perhaps every other), someone is designated to choose a film. That person posts the film on his/her blog, and everyone in the club (secret handshakes and wotnot) watches the film by the deadline. Then the person who chose the film begins a discussion on her/his blog by posting questions or discussion prompts.

Or, perhaps the film chooser posts some things to look for during the film, preparing us for the discussion ahead of time.

We'd create a sort of Film Freaks Circle of Blogs.

Or, we could create a single team blog and all members have posting priveleges. That could be Way Cool Junior.

Thoughts?

UPDATE: It is Way Cool Junior. Here's the site.

Blog Newbie

My buddy Brad and I have been real-life friends for many years, and he's one of the few people on the planet whose opinion in movies I trust implicitly. He's a professional editor and cameraman by trade, and he and I have worked on a number of fun, original film & video projects (billing ourselves as the Stabloski Brothers).

Anyway, Brad has a blog now. It's called Stab Film. He only has one entry so far, about Mr. Scorcese, and you should go over there and welcome him to our crazy blog world. Don't be afraid to tell him he's full of shit, either, because he often is. And if you love film, or even just like it a shitload, you should make him a regular part of your blog surfing.

Of course, Brad, that means you have to regularly post on there, dude, or we'll eviscerate you.

READ HALOSCAN COMMENTS.

Comment spam.

Is anyone else getting inundated with spam in your blog comments? Holy shit, I'm really getting annoyed. I get email notification whenever someone leaves a comment at Boiled Dinner, and lately I've been getting spam comments on two-month-old blog entries. Then I have to go into Haloscan and mark them as spam, which deletes them from my blog. They're completely nonsensical comments, but the blog link is always some gambling web site or some shit like that. I'm a spam hater, dude. Full-on.

READ HALOSCAN COMMENTS.

Hey, you found me!

Now that Blogger has a nifty custom domains feature, I decided to stop hosting my blog via FTP and host it this way. I had way too many issues with their FTP support, so hopefully this will improve things.

READ HALOSCAN COMMENTS.

This is not your gravatar image...

If you don't have a gravatar image, this is the one I told Haloscan to put for you (do that in haloscan --> settings --> beta features --> default gravatar image). That's why some of you have this image coming up when you post a comment. I just think it's the cutest thing. Now if only the Gravatar site would freaking work again and people could get in there and add/change their gravatars. How many months has it been? Ridiculous.

READ HALOSCAN COMMENTS.

It's a blogturf war!

I have to say I haven't ever been involved in anything like this before. What a crazy couple days! Most everyone who reads my blog also reads Paula's, but in case you haven't been following the schoolyard banter going back and forth, well, let me tell you, you've been missing out.

It starts here with Paula's post and subsequent comments about pit bull attacks.

It then moved to a chick named Virginia's blog post and subsequent comments complaining about the way she was treated in Paula's comments.

Then back to Paula's with this post and comments about Virginia's post and comments.

Back to Virginia's where she praises her commenters for being so much better than Paula's.

Back to Paula's where she calls bullshit.

Finally over to this dude's, the New York City Watchdog, who did a lot of posturing.

Oh, and this comedianne named Miss Ann Thrope keeps posting really long posts in which she tells people to shut the fuck up. She doesn't seem to have a blog.

Whew! Did you read them all? I know, it'll take three to four days, but trust me, it's worth it.

Nothing amuses me more than people who cannot for the life of them see how their own words and actions contribute to a situation. Virginia, Miss Ann and Watchdog truly think they're not sitting in and smelling their own shit. I went over to Virginia's blog to make nice, because that's how mommy taught me, as did Mark, Joe, Don, PJ, shit, maybe more, and all they can do is bitch about Paula's commenters en masse, Looney and PJ in particular (okay, maybe PJ didn't go over to make nice but to be condescending in a way only PJ can pull off). Oh, I almost forgot about Gekko. She went over there too, and now I'm afraid of her again.

Any acknowledgment from Virginia that, well, while a couple commenters over at Paula's crossed the line (in her opinion, mind you), most of them have come over to my blog and been pretty respectful?

Nope. Nothing.

Why? Because then the whole foundation of her broken heartedness would crumble, and Miss Ann's butting in would have been a complete and utter waste of time.

Virginia accused Paula of not liking people to disagree with her, yet this whole thing was set off because Virginia didn't like people disagreeing with her. Of course, she won't see that. No, it's about how people disagreed with her. Rightttttt.

Well, to Mark and Joe and Don and everyone else who showed some class by going onto their turf and trying to make nice, you've got my respect even more than you already did.

Virginia and her ilk can keep languishing in their own shit and calling it someone else's.

READ HALOSCAN COMMENTS.

Blogger Beta.

It's about freaking time.

READ HALOSCAN COMMENTS.

What's the deal with blogger lately?

Blogger is being a POS and it's pissing me off. I keep getting "sorry, server reset..." error messages, or my blog won't publish, or the damn ball will just spin and spin and spin with nothing happening. The conspiracy theorist in me things Google is doing it on purpose to get us to switch to blogger beta, the black-helicopter flying bastages.

Okay, alright, you fuckers win!

How do I switch Boiled Dinner over to blogger beta?

READ HALOSCAN COMMENTS.

Demi Moore's got nothing on the Nazgul.

Paula has had a shitload of traffic to her sight from people looking for a particular image of D e m i M o o r e.

Boiled Dinner, however, has been getting a shitload of traffic from people looking for this image:



They come from Jordan, Istanbul, Malaysia, Tokyo, Beijing, Cologne, Madrid, Stockholm, Buenos Aires, Nassau and Estonia. They are looking for the Ring Wraiths. They are finding them here.

Paula gets pervs. I get LOTR geeks.

READ HALOSCAN COMMENTS.

WPOCBH

(worthless piece of crap blogger hack)

Some psycho has been over at PJ's Place exercising her right to free fucktardedness. She's been around for a few years over on usenet in misc.writing posting with various names. Now she thinks she's Janet, though she also commented as GLK in the same post, most likely an "oh shit" moment for her when she realized it. She's like the beginning of the Rudolph song: You know Gladys and Janet and Leslie and Daisy, Charles and Bozo and Holly and Crazy... Anyway, most recently PJ -- my mother, I'm proud to say -- posted a small rememberance of 9/11, accompanied by this photo:



Said psycho went to PJ's blog and, I shit you not, wrote a comment chastising PJ for not attributing the photographer, and saying she used it to push her own agenda.

Yes, I'm serious.

PJ's "agenda" was this:

Subject: in memory
Words: My thoughts and prayers are with those who lost loved ones five years ago today.

No, there's no more. That's it. That was her agenda, apparently horribly offensive to Janetgladysglklesliedaisybozoette.

This gutless (or ball-less, as David pointed out), friendless, careerless, pointless, witless, clueless, rhythmless, sexless, valueless, loverless, useless cretin won't even post a link to her/his/its own site.

WAC

And I never say that about anyone.

READ HALOSCAN COMMENTS.

May Contain More Nuts

I'm a nut now. Check it out.

READ HALOSCAN COMMENTS.