by | February 21, 2012 · 7:18 am

How to Write a Blog Post in 39 Simple Steps!

So, last week we got Freshly Pressed for the second time. Woooo! And we even somehow got more page views than during our first lightning strike of good fortune! Perhaps because we now have so-called ‘content.’  Anyway, after much frivolity and celebration, Sam and I set out to determine exactly how this came to pass. Unfortunately, our frivolity was a bit too frivolous, and the next morning, all we had was a pizza napkin with the phrases “internet gnomes” and “snorkel” scribbled hastily in tomato sauce.

We later expanded on this idea, but “really sneaky internet gnome oceanographers” still seemed like a subpar explanation.

Having failed at our initial attempt, we decided to do the next best thing: retrace our steps and copy them exactly.

After much sleuthing and step-tracing, we’ve compiled a handy, step-by-step guide that should allow us to achieve brilliance on a weekly basis. In our extreme beneficence, we’ve decided to share these trade secrets with you, the reader. This may be career suicide, but as enlightened members of the Internet Age, we realize that all information must be free and open for the good of humanity. So here, without further ado, is the secret to creating a killer blog post (maybe).

5 P.M. Step 1 (Russ): Prepare

Good. You’re starting early. This is gonna be a piece of cake. Sit down at your unnecessarily-powerful gaming computer, slap on your nerdy wrist guard that protects you from the dangers of typing, and pour yourself a little scotch to, you know, channel the Spirits of Hemingway. Here we go.

5:05 P.M. Step 2 (Russ): Procrastinate

You have more than enough time to write this bad boy. After all, you started early! You deserve a reward for your dedication. Maybe an episode of TV. Or two. Or three.

6:30 P.M. Step 3 (Russ): Guilt

I can’t believe you wasted all that time! What were you thinking? And you call yourself a writer. Writers write. They don’t sit around, you know, not writing.

7:00 P.M. Step 4 (Russ): Choose a Topic

Let’s see, what to write about? Your life’s been going on for a while now—something must have happened somewhere along the line. Something? Anything? Oh god. How could anyone ever care about what you have to say?

7:15 P.M. Step 5 (Russ): Admit Failure

Face it. You’ve never experienced a single real crisis or challenge or unique event (outside of that time you tripped and caught your ice cream scoop with its own cone). How could you possibly think you’d be able to produce quality writing inspired by your own life?

7:45 P.M. Step 6 (Russ): Beg

In the course of living amongst humanity, you’ve managed to spend a lot of your time around “people.” Maybe they can help! Go through your phone book and ask everyone you know if they have any brilliant ideas for your blog.

8:00 P.M. Step 1 (Sam): Receive the Signal

Instant message from Russ. Hello. Yes, you know what day it is. You’ll get done in about an hour probably. No you don’t have any idea about what to write about.

8:30 P.M. Step 7 (Russ): Resent Others

If they had truly been your friends, they would have dropped everything to figure out exactly what you should say to the people of the internet. Reminding you of the time you ate eight-month-old cream cheese isn’t enough!

9:00 P.M. Step 8 (Russ): Come to Terms with Reality (Not sure if this step has ever actually occurred)

Ok, it’s getting late. You need to have something written. After all, tomorrow’s a Tuesday, and you’ve made a group of strangers a promise for some reason.

9:45 P.M. Step 9 (Russ): Start a Draft

The time has come to actually put words onto virtual paper. Slap on some tunes, like the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack or the music of World of Warcraft. Pound a Rockstar or two and get in the zone. If you just start hitting keys, letters will appear, and perhaps they’ll form words, which will perhaps make sentences.

11:00 P.M.  Step 10 (Russ): Finish the Draft

Genius. This is pure gold. You’re really on a roll tonight.  You’re even starting to remember why you love writing.

11:10 P.M. Step 11 (Russ): Read the Draft.

Oh god, what were you thinking? Did you write those words? Those utterly despicable words. The caffeine must have given you hallucinations or something.

11:15 P.M. Step 2 (Sam): Finish Work at the Office

Holy cow, how did it get so late?

11:20 P.M. Step 12 (Russ): Freak Out

You clearly have no talent. Maybe this blog thing was a bad idea. But wait, blogging is all you’re qualified for. If not this, then what?!

11:30 P.M. Step 13 (Russ): Write Another Draft

Ok. There has to be something salvageable here. If you can just trim the bad parts, your junkyard of a draft should provide the materials to rebuild your post, stronger than it was before. You have the technology.

11:35 P.M. Step 3 (Sam): Go Home

Bike home in the dark. On the way, it’ll start to rain.  Keep an eye out for low-hanging branches which will whip you in the face, just to make sure you aren’t enjoying yourself too much.

12:15 A.M. Step 14 (Russ): Send It to Sam

Send the file to your co-blogger, hoping against hope that your words won’t cause his eyes to melt away in horror, like that time you accidentally looked into the Ark of the Covenant.

12:16 A.M. Step 4 (Sam): Ignore Draft

There’s a draft of something on your computer when you boot it back up. Lovely. You should read it, but you haven’t eaten in a while. Food will put you in a better mood, and you’re going to have to make it eventually anyway.

12:30 A.M. Step 5 (Sam): Finish Dinner

That was a good decision. Nothing like salami on pita bread to let you know you’re alive.

12:20 A.M. Step 15 (Russ): Worry

As Sam reads the draft, you’ll be unable to accomplish anything. Will this be the one that finally reveals your complete ineptitude? Will you alienate all your readers? Will they realize how unfunny you are? Oh god, why hasn’t Sam said anything? He’ll assure you it’s because he was making dinner, but you know the truth. He doesn’t know how to break the news to you.

12:30 A.M. Step 6 (Sam): Read and Edit Draft

Hm. This post makes very little sense and will probably insult a good many of your readers. How do you break the news to him? And how the hell does he expect you to draw a cow explaining ‘the concept of remorse’? Make some edits and hope the images won’t change in the rewrite.

1:00 A.M. Step 7 (Sam): Protect Russ’s Ego

Go back and add some positive feedback to your edits so Russ doesn’t think you hate it.

1:05 A.M. Step 16 (Russ): Rejoice

Sam says he likes it! Not only that, but he’s made a slew of edits and now it’s five times funnier. That guy’s the best!

1:15 A.M. Step 8 (Sam) Start Drawing

Well, you’d better get started—it’s not getting any earlier. Start with the one that seems like the easiest and least likely to be in the final draft. Make sure to save the most complicated one for last so that when you finally get to it you’re so tired that the thought of drawing it becomes an overwhelming chore!

It’s best to queue up all the latest episodes of The Colbert Report on the other monitor as you draw. Keeps the mind occupied.

After each drawing is finished, send it over to Russ. If it confuses him, you’ve done something wrong. Usually though, he’s absurdly excited about it to the point that you feel embarrassed. Then he’ll make a couple perfectly reasonable observations about how to improve them, and you will grudgingly grumble about having to make them even though he’s absolutely right.

1:20 A.M.  Step 17 (Russ): Rewrite Over and Over and Over Whilst Giving Feedback on Sam’s Drawings

You wonder how Sam will manage to bring your absurdly complicated whims to visual reality. Every half hour or so he’ll shoot you a draft of a drawing. How did he make that so good?! Once in a while though, you’ll need to step in and tell him that the hands he drew are too claw-like and terrifying. While he deals with this, do around 5 rewrites, making sure to work in some television, or, if you’re alone, something more risqué.

2:00 A.M. Step 9a (Sam): Enjoy Yourself

You’re making fairly good progress. See, this is fine. This is fun! Drawing is what you love to do, right? Why do you act like this is some sort of chore you have in addition to work? You just need to relax a bit!


2:10 A.M. Step 9b (Sam): Really Enjoy Yourself

Inhale or imbibe some relaxing substances. You’ll have a blast! This is going to be the best post ever.


3:45 A.M. Step 10 (Sam): Panic

Your masterpiece is complete! Adding that extra alien spaceship was totally worth it. And it’s only–how is it already 3:45?? There are still… 9 more pictures to draw??? How did this happen? You’ll briefly consider lying down and resting your eyes for just 10 minutes, but you know if you do that, there’s no waking up.

6:00 A.M. Step 11 (Sam): Rejoice

That’s the last drawing! Should you edit the text one last time? You could. But then again, it’s six in the morning.

“Can I go to bed now?”

The 30 seconds it takes Russ to respond will be the longest in the world.

6:00 and 30 seconds A.M. Step 18 (Russ): Let Sam Sleep

Sam never drinks as many Rockstars, so by the time he finishes the art, he’ll only be about 10% awake and will be very disgruntled by any requests for early morning companionship. If you try to ask him for input now, he’ll just start ranting, marveling at your ability to be so incredibly verbose without actually saying anything.

6:05 A.M. Step 12 (Sam): Sleep

Check Reddit one last time on your phone before collapsing in exhaustion.

6:30 A.M. Step 19 (Russ): Despair

You need to think of bonus jokes for all the images?! This last, dainty straw will be more than your caffeine-fueled, overclocked brain can bear. And you were so close to completing this week’s post without a mental breakdown!

6:40 A.M. Step 20 (Russ): Man Up

Just say the first thing that comes into your head. No one’s going to know. People probably don’t even read the mouseover text anyway.

7:00 A.M. Step 21 (Russ): Final Review

Read through it one last time. Too bad at this point you’ll no longer be able tell what’s funny and what’s gibbering inanity. Your ability to comprehend words will seem to have fled entirely. That’s the sign that you’ve finished the post!

7:15 A.M. Step 22 (Russ): Post It!

A great sense of accomplishment and release should wash over you as you stare at your fledgling post, all on its own out there in the dangerous world of the internet. It doesn’t know what it’s in for.

7:16 A.M. Step 23 (Russ): Refresh!

Time to go to the stats page and hit F5 until your fingers break. Has anyone seen it yet? What about now? Now? Any comments? I can’t wait to respond to comments!

7:45 A.M. Step 24 (Russ): Go to Sleep

When the sun is shining brightly in the rosy dawn and the birds begin their joyful song, delighted by another beautiful morning, you’ll know it’s time for bed. Shut down your computer, turn off the lights, and crawl under your covers, comforted by the fact that you’ve accomplished a bare minimum of productivity. You may not get paid, but at least it’s something.

8:00 A.M. Step 25 (Russ): Wait a Second!

As you drift off to sleep, your brain will drowsily mull over the post, which will inevitably lead to the realization that you should have referred to that evil taxi driver as a “toothless hobgoblin” instead of a “vehicle-dwelling night-lurker,” or something equally unimportant.

8:15 A.M. Step 26 (Russ): Boot Up the Computer and Make Changes

Leap out of bed and input the minor changes. As long as the computer’s already on, you might as well refresh the stats page. And if you wait just a few more minutes there are sure to be comments to respond to!…

——

And there you have it. As easy as stuffing a rabid weasel into a snake-filled gunnysack! And not nearly as much chance of infection! With these simple steps, you too can be on your way to making a mark in the blogging world. And if you’re nothing like us, perhaps you’ll manage to keep your psyche from shattering into tiny, unsalvageable parts along the way!

Note: If, in repeating these steps exactly, you find yourself able to write something that would gain Internet-wide mild approval and bemusement, we hope you’ll remember Reasonably Ludicrous as the blog that made it all possible. Good luck!

Bonus Step 27:

Add this step so that the title of your post can seem like a Hitchcock reference.

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by | February 13, 2012 · 6:36 am

The Single Person’s Guide to Not Being Sad on Valentine’s Day

A handy list of Do’s an Don’t’s!

DO

Wander around your apartment in your underwear. Or, if you’re feeling ‘ballsy,’ completely naked! Your girlfriend was the one who always wanted you to “put some clothes on, for god’s sake.” You thought that was counterproductive–she was just going to take them off anyway! Well now’s your chance to feel those hard-to-reach spots get caressed by the winds of freedom rather than by someone who demands you come to every single one of her interpretive dance recitals. Enjoy it!

DO

Watch at least 5 episodes of Entourage or any other show that makes relationships look worthless and singleness seem awesome. Don’t you want to be those guys? Well, if you were dating, you couldn’t be.

DON’T

Watch The Notebook or Love, Actually, or anything that’s not about rampant casual sex or a lot of killing. Be careful. In some of those movies that seem like they’re about casual sex (No Strings Attached, Strictly Sexual, Friends with Benefits) the main characters actually develop feelings and learn to grow and love each other! That’s exactly what you’re trying to avoid!

DON’T

Pull out that scrapbook your girlfriend gave you last Valentine’s day when you were still a couple. Look how happy you both were. She was so beautiful, and you had the most the wonderful times together. What could possibly have happened? Where did you go wrong? Why did she leave you? Whyyyyyy?!?!

DO

Get a little drunk. He thought you had a drinking problem, but you know that’s not true. The simple fact of the matter is that there’s nothing wrong with a few double-apple vodkatinis if it will help you forget the way he used to gently brush your hair back behind your ear. Alcohol makes it harder to feel anything, and things you can’t fully understand don’t bother you quite as much. So this Valentine’s day, get yourself a present: gallons of homemade bathtub hooch! As you relax, your pores will suck in the liquid indifference!

DON’T

Get too drunk. Because then you’re going to send some very regrettable text messages.

DO

Create a Facebook page for your cat. In a recent study, cats were proven to be the #1 way to distract yourself from your loneliness. How better to make your pet seem more like a real person than by giving it an internet presence?

DON’T

Facebook stalk your exes and compare yourself to their new girlfriends. They’re better than you. And on the off chance that they’re just skanks, what is he doing with her?!

DON’T

Compose love poems. Trust me; I’m an English major. Nothing is sadder than composing poetry, except for composing bad poetry. And anything you write right now is going to be pretty emo.

DO

Burn love poems, gaining strength from the heat of their passion. A bit of cackling is also recommended.

DON’T

Leave your apartment for any reason. Right now, couples everywhere are painstakingly attempting to fulfill their most elaborate fantasies for one another, reveling in an exhilarating exchange of physical and mental gratification.  If you step outside your haven, you’re bound to see couples engaging in that horrible sensation known as “joy.” This might send you into a fit of jealousy and rage, and that would be bad for your digestion.

DO

Eat away the pain. And if you want to wipe your hands on your clothes, go for it! Nobody’s watching. You can be as messy and self-destructive as you want. It’s your body—you’re not sharing it with anyone anymore. Stuff it with fried chicken and chocolate all day long! Well, maybe not chocolate. She used to love chocolate…

DON’T

Go on a first date. On Valentine’s Day? What are you, insane? That’s way too much pressure. If it goes well, the whole thing will start on such a romantic note that you’ll feel obligated to see it through till marriage. But how could it even go well? Why would she agree to a date on today of all days? Is she using you to fill some gap in her meaningless life? Are you using her for the same reason? What are her expectations? If you do end up hooking up, would she mind if you cried afterward? Better just to avoid the whole thing.

DON’T

Call your parents. They will probably attempt to console you, and having your parents on your side can be a terrible feeling. If not that, they’ll pester you about not having anyone, using keywords like “grandchildren” and “who could ever love someone like you anyway?”

DO

Send yourselves flowers. Nothing like some flowers to brighten up your day and/or room of mournful memories.

DON’T

Tell anyone.

DO
Spend some quality time with your favorite toys. They’ll never be able to abandon you—you took out their batteries.

DO

Feel a sense of healthy indignation. Why should you pander to a holiday with roots so muddled your elementary school teachers didn’t even understand them. What does the decapitation of an 8th century priest have to do with chocolate hearts and overpriced bouquets? It hasn’t got the logic of a rabbit delivering eggs or a fat man squeezing down a chimney pipe, so therefore you’re allowed to ignore it. A flying fat kid with a bow and arrow? How are you supposed to be romantic with the thought of that hovering above you? In fact, it’s probably best that you forget the holiday exists entirely. From now on, let February 14th be known as “Normal Day Day,” upon which all the men and women of the world will go to work, come home, and that night, be visited by the headache fairy, whose magical pixie dust grants you the excuse of being “too tired” tonight, honey.

There you have it. With this simple guide, you’ll be able to avoid the pain this invented, pressure-filled holiday confers on all of us. Good luck! And have a happy Normal Day Day, everyone!

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by | February 7, 2012 · 7:36 am

The Apocalypse

Ever since I was a child, I’ve had a healthy fear of the apocalypse.

My parents sent me to Sunday school but didn’t have the heart to reinforce any of the dogma. So when I’d tell the lords of the church (ministers? priests? scary robe men?) that I didn’t believe in that big bearded dude in the sky, they’d kindly explain that well in that case I was going to Hell.

And when you’re just a kid, the Hell thing is a rather daunting prospect. There’s all this burning and general unpleasantness that, in my minor experience with burning, seemed like it would not be nearly as much fun as, say, playing in the jungle gym.

I never understood why parents send their kids to these fire and brimstone churchy things. I guess maybe it helps turn their offspring away from sin, but in my case, all I gained was the certainty of eternal damnation. If you’re as frequent a sinner as I am, there’s really no hope, and as far as I can figure, eternity lasts a pretty long time. It’s a concept that can freak anyone out, let alone someone who gets scared every time he commits to going on vacation for a whole weekend. When will I get my writing done?!

James Joyce has this incredible passage in Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man that goes something like, “Imagine that once every hundred years, a bird flies to a beach to pick up a single grain of sand. Now imagine that this bird has the beak-control to perform such a task, and that it can live forever so it can complete said task a lot of times. And imagine that it has some important reason to continue doing this, like, say, it made a promise to its dying wife. Now that you really understand where this bird is coming from, what’s driving it, think about how long it would take the bird to clear the entire beach of sand. A long time, right? After it had cleared a thousand million cajillion beaches, not even one single instant of eternity would have passed. So you have to wonder, why does the bird take only one grain every hundred years? I mean, it can live forever, so it must not have to forage for food or anything. What else has it got to do? If I’m this bird, and moving the entire beach is my only goal, I’m taking at least one grain every thirty, thirty-five years minimum.”

That’s one of my favorite Joyce quotes. I can really relate to the way he so masterfully examines the ineptitude of birds. Anyway, the point of the matter is that eternity takes forever, and if I’m going to be stuck experiencing it, I’d rather it be pleasant. And after having suffered through Dante’s Divine Comedy, I know that Hell, whether it’s fiery or icy, is not a place I want to end up. Although, no matter what it’s like, it probably won’t be as bad as reading Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Still, whenever I close my eyes, I see images of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding through the sky and running amok. I was never clear on what they did exactly, so it always came down to “running amok.” Do they attack you? Or are they just there to look scary while all the good people are taken up to Heaven? Do they simply stop by earth to enjoy a game of polo? I don’t know.

I spent most of my childhood and teenage years and present day considering every possible Apocalyptic scenario, debating the likelihood of each. Aliens were a frontrunner for a long time, especially after I saw Independence Day. I was sure they’d come down through some wormhole/slipstream thingy and enslave us all, or at least do a good deal of probing. But then I took a physics class and my professor convinced me that space travel was impossible, and even if some aliens somehow managed it, they’d probably be disinterested in probing. So I switched to zombies.

The television was always convincing me that humanity would create some virus that turns us into the walking dead, and if I can’t trust that magical talking box in my living room, what can I trust? Or would we recreate dinosaurs? Or would radiation make cockroaches into giant, people-eating monstrosities? Or would we create artificial intelligence so powerful that our robots would turn on their masters? There were so many ways it could all end!

Despite this neurotic and never-ending fear, I still manage to cope…mostly. But there was one day in high school when I lost it, sure that the world was ending and I’d soon be saying hi to nice Mr. Satan.

It was a Friday night, and my friend Tom had a football game. His parents were on vacation, so he was set to spend the night at my house. Sleepover! Yay! But like, for dudes. It’s an exciting game (he’s playing running back), but on this play toward the end, he just gets blown up by one of the defenders. Suddenly he’s on the ground and his face is bleeding everywhere and he can barely form sentences. The game ends and now he’s in my care. He clearly has a concussion, and I’m completely unprepared to handle the situation. Are concussions life-threatening? Or do I like, get him an ice pack?

I decide to drive him home and reassess with the aid of adults, but on the way to the car, we run into some huge guys from the rival team, and they start taunting us.

“Hey stupid!” they yell, cleverly. “How’d you like that loss?”

I respond the way I always respond to this sort of thing. “It was the best!” I like to be overenthusiastic and as genuinely excited as possible. “Losing is my favorite!”

“Hey shithead, you messing with me?”

“What? Why, I never! Me? Mess with you? It couldn’t be.”

“Listen, buddy—”

Tom chimes in. “Russ,” he says, woozily. “These guys could kill us. We have to get out of here.”

This sparks my fear of death, so I wrap up my pleasant conversation and stuff him into the car.

That night, after much worrying on the part of my parents, Tom and I finally manage to fall asleep downstairs in our sleeping bags.

The next morning, I awake to the Apocalypse.

It’s just past dawn, and something isn’t right. Tom is missing, and I’m hoping he hasn’t wandered away in a fit of concussion madness. Then I see him outside, arms extended, head facing the heavens, as if he were embracing an oncoming tidal wave. Or as if he were enjoying a bout of concussion madness.

I join him and immediately understand. The heavens are alight with brilliant color. This is no sunrise; the entire sky, once blue, has turned to blood and fire.

The air is filled with ash, floating down upon our shoulders, swirling through the daylight, landing on the pool, burning our lungs. It might be my imagination, but I’m pretty sure I see some horsemen just above the tree line.

I immediately begin remembering everything I’d ever done wrong and wondering if it adds up to enough to warrant eternal damnation.

Tom hasn’t said anything, trapped in similar contemplation. The world is utterly silent. Maybe everyone else had already been taken to Heaven and Tom and I are the only two left. This strikes me as odd, since Tom had always seemed such a decent fellow. Maybe Tom’s concussion has somehow rubbed off on me and neither of us is seeing clearly. Or maybe those guys really had beaten us up and now I’m in some sort of coma.

In the midst of our silent introspection, the crowing began.

“Bckaw! Bckaw!”

The chickens had somehow escaped their pen, perhaps driven mad with a desire for freedom by the tearing of the sky. And thanks to some primal instinct, they had flown to the highest point they could find, the peak of our roof. There they stood, beckoning the end with their demonic cries, silhouetted upon a backdrop of fire and uncertainty, the unholy harbingers of the Apocalypse, there to judge you and, with their beady eyes, measure your worth.

Turns out this was the morning of the devastating San Diego fires, and not, as I thought, the end times. Rather than the entire world being destroyed, it had only been a gigantic swath of the wilderness and a few hundred houses. And instead of the horror of eternal damnation, I got to skip school for a week. Still, being confronted with the possibility of divine retribution makes you think, you never know when that day is going to come, so I’d better go try to be a nice person, or if not that, maybe a funny one. Does blogging help offset sinning? I sure hope so.

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