Geek In Crisis

Ever lose your life?

Well, I have. In fact, not only did I lose my life, I lost a whole lot of HoBiscuit’s life, too. You see, being a Geek, I keep most of my important documents, client billing information, treasured photographs, music, movies and a whole bunch of other valuable things on my computer. Which means that if something bad should happen to my computer, oh, let’s just say a hard drive meltdown for example, it could devastate me.

And why do I bring this up?

Well, you might have noticed that it’s been a little quiet around here lately. And, upon noticing the deafening silence, you might have asked yourself if something might have happened to poor GeekMan that would keep him away from you for so long. And then you’d probably shrug your shoulders and think, “Oh well, another idiot Blogger bites the dust. There’s plenty where that schmuck came from and to tell the truth I never really thought he was that funny, anyway.”

You heartless bastard.

Well, I haven’t bitten the dust, as it were. But, one of my external hard drives did. This was the drive I called “Silver” because it had a cool silver metal casing and could hold 250GBs of my important pr0n … ahem, I mean work documents. Silver contained all my digital photographs, all my digitized music, my movies (no pr0n), my web designs and even the backups for some of my work files. All that stuff, all of that important-to-me stuff which came out to over 140GBs worth of data, POOF! Gone. Just like that.

But there is a bright side.

You see, just last week I was thinking to myself that it would probably be a smart thing to do some kind of massive backup of all my important files. “Self,” I said to myself. “It would be horrible if you were to wake up one day and find that your external hard drives were dead and that the last time you had made backups of the files was in August of 2004. Why don’t we get ourselves one of those network attached storage thingamabobs and make daily backups so that we can avoid any unpleasant occurrences?”

And to my credit, I agreed with myself.

So I went and ordered one of these from Amazon. It arrived a couple of days later and I set it up to backup EVERYTHING on both of my external hard drives because I didn’t want to risk losing anything. And then, just ONE DAY after doing this backup, Silver rode off into the sunset for the last time.

Moral? I am the most prescient Geek alive.

So now I’m almost back to normal. I’ll tell you all about the last two weeks of my life starting on Monday when I hope everything’s calmed down enough that I can finally get back to some sort of “normal” Blogging schedule. But in the meantime, why don’t you do yourself a big favor and get a backup drive so you can backup all the important, and not so important, crap you’ve got on your computer? You’ll thank me in the morning.

And yes, that includes your prized collection of Japanese bukake pr0n.

Haiku-alicious

When life gives you lemons wear goggles.

I know most of you, heck ALL of you, don’t really care about my real life, but I’m going to tell you a little about my week so far just because it’s driving me crazy so I might as well bring you along for the ride. And you know what? Just because I’m going a bit crazy, I think I’ll tell you using Haiku!

New PhotoBlog site
CSS, HTML
Soon to be revealed

Must buy new laptops
Money flows and disappears
Like flushing toilet

Work, work, work, work, work
Interfering with my life
Yet without, I cry

Searching for or not
Brother, best friend and trouble
Always together

Grandpa hospital
Anxious worry, hopeless fear
Better soon, we hope

I’ll be back as soon as I can.

Product Of The Century

You never know when inspiration will strike.

Last weekend, while sitting in a restaurant eating brunch, I overheard two young ladies discussing the sorry state of their dating lives. Now, by the way these two ladies were describing their sex lives, you’ll forgive me for first assuming they were auditioning for a new “Sex & The City” spinoff or something because between the two of them they appeared to be dating about 20 men at the same time. And yet, no matter how many men they dated in a month, they couldn’t seem to find Mr. Right. Even when they slept with their date’s roommate or brother.

Awwww… pity.

At some point the loud and increasingly annoying conversation suddenly turned into a discussion of the possible gayness of the men these ladies wanted to date, but as of yet had not. One lady would throw out a name to the other who would then voice her opinion on that mans possible gayness factor and then she would throw another name back at the first lady and etc., etc., etc.

Which got me thinking.

There are plenty of guys out there who seem very effeminate but who aren’t homosexual at all, and then there are the guys who are homosexuals but seem very heterosexual in their demeanor. I’m sure that right this very second, each and every one of you reading this are thinking of someone you know who has this problem, someone who seems to be sending out signals that don’t match with their claimed sexual orientation. And now you’re wondering how anyone will ever be able to tell unless someone is rude enough to simply walk up to the guy and ask him if he’s gay.

Luckily, I have developed a better way.

Through the miracle of science and CafePress, I have invented a method that will now and forever answer the age old question of a mans sexual orientation without the embarrassment one would face by actually asking. Quite simply, by using what I have been so clever to invent no one will ever question a man’s sexual orientation ever again. So, without further ado, I introduce to you The Wearable Gaydar Validators!

The Flaming Tee and the Manly-Man Tee!

So, if you or someone you know is a very effeminate but heterosexual man, they should buy (or you should purchase for them) the Manly-Man Tee. If they are a very masculine seeming gay man, they should buy (or, again, you should purchase for them) The Flaming Tee. Buy as many as you can afford, because it is up to you to help end the plight of all the mis-categorized men the world over. These poor, unfortunate guys are unable to fend for themselves and need your help to survive in the cutthroat world of the modern dating scene. Without these shirts, men the world over might spend the rest of their lives in their clean, minimalist and impeccably furnished apartments, or sitting in front of a TV on a stained black leather couch while eating pizza out of the cardboard box, wondering why they just can’t find their soulmate.

And that would be sad.

Danger! Danger! Danger!

I thought he was brilliant.

For those of you who don’t know yet, Steve Irwin – The Crocodile Hunter, died over the weekend when a stingray stabbed him through the heart with its poisonous, barbed tail. According to the investigators Steve wasn’t doing anything to antagonize the stingray, which is weird because I’ve swam with stingrays myself and even though there was a large group of humans taking their picture and touching them as they swam by they never seemed to be upset enough to stab someone through the heart. But then again, the investigators have the actual footage that was being shot that day which shows the whole gruesome thing, so I guess they would know.

I wonder if Steve said “Danger, danger!” before he got stabbed.

I remember the first time I ever saw him on TV. He was slogging through the mud somewhere in the middle of Australia looking for a monster croc that he needed to capture and relocate further away from a small town. His over-the-top Australianishness made me burst out laughing almost immediately and when he did finally find the croc I began screaming at the TV for him to run the heck away!

The thing was fricking HUGE!

But to my utter amazement, armed with nothing more than a sturdy rope and a bath towel, Steve not only captured the croc, he did it without getting hurt in the slightest. From that moment on I was a fan and since then I’ve watched almost everything he’s done. And yes, that even includes his stupendously bad movie, Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course.

Ew. Just thinking about that movie makes me want to puke.

I’ve watched in amazement as Steve would pick up some of the most poisonous snakes in the world with no protection but a pair of cheap sunglasses. I saw the time a giant croc attacked and destroyed Steve’s lawnmower while Steve was trying to mow the grass in its pen at Steve’s Australian zoo. I’ve watched Steve save some crocs and other animals from mistreatment, and ultimately death, at a horrible, horrible Philippine zoo. I’ve seen him swim with sharks, hold a scorpion in his hands and even wave his tiny newborn baby over a crocs head and every time I held my breath thinking that this time he would go too far. That this was the moment he would get hurt or maimed or even die.

But he always proved me wrong.

Steve never really pushed too far; he tried not to ever antagonized or deliberately upset an animal. And, after watching his shows for a little while, I began to understand that his overacting was what made everything he was doing seem so dangerous, and not the animals. It was him and his crew that were in control of the situation and any time they felt it was getting out of control, or that the animals were becoming annoyed, they simply backed off and left the animals alone. Which makes it even more amazingly sad to me that it wasn’t a giant croc, or a poisonous snake, or even a shark that finally did Steve in, it was just a pissed off stingray with really good aim.

I really thought Steve would wind up croc food one day. Go figure.

Anywaste, Steve was a good man who made learning about animals really fun and exciting for me and for that I salute him. Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie! Oi, oi, oi!

Crikey, I’m going to miss him.

What Happened To GeekMan?

Wow, have I been busy.

Many things have conspired this week to keep me from you, my loyal minions. Doctor appointments, new websites, family members in trouble, social gatherings and even the finale of Who Wants To Be A Super Hero, have all done their best to keep me from writing here, but fear not! They have all failed and I am still here for you!

What do you mean you’re all on vacation today?

Well, in the off chance that someone out there checks this website sometime during this holiday weekend let me just say, “You suck.” Not one person wrote to me this week to find out if I was ok, or to offer their help with my WordPress woes, or even just to say hi. And this saddens me. It makes me sad because it means that my readers who I know check this site regularly for updates, are a bunch of heartless, uncaring, Bread-worshipping, poopy-heads.

Yeah, I’m looking at you too, Jules.

Sigh. Well I guess that’s too be expected, what with my on again, off again Blogging schedule of late. In my defense it is summertime and I’ve been doing other things with my time during these hot summer months, but I know you don’t care. You just want me to bring on the funny, don’t you? To you I’m just a clown, a fricking comedian who is only here on the earth to bring a little humor to your day. OK, then. I’ve got your humor, jackhole.

I’ve got it right here!

Take that! Ha!

Huh? What do you mean, “It looks like you’re holding a broken pencil?!” I’m insulting you by holding my crotch, stupid. Aren’t you insulted? What was that? A pencil’s eraser?! Hey! You’re not supposed to insult me! I’m insulting you with my gangsta pose and attitude!

Uhm… beyatch.

…

Oh crap. Now I think I’m going to cry.

Worst. Comedian. Ever.

I know I’m going to regret this in the morning.

Click here to see my first ever attempt at doing stand up comedy in front of strangers. Now, just so that you’re properly warned, the material I used for my stand up routine was racier than most of what I write here on the site. That’s not to say it’s full of curse words or anything, but it might not be safe for some office environments. Also, I apologize in advance for the crappy clip. The quality of the video I recieved was slightly below “amazingly blown out” and the audio was so bad that I could barely make out some of what was said, but I did my best to clean it up before posting it. And at least you can get the general idea of what I’m doing and saying.

Which is just enough to let you know how much I suck.

What The Frick Happened?

Yesterday evening this site died.

I had nothing to do with the demise of TMG and to say I was surprised by my website’s death just doesn’t quite capture what I felt when I visited here and saw over 9 months of my online life was missing. Even worse was that only a few hours later, the entire site disappeared and there was nothing here but a 404 Error page.

Boy, was I ever surprised by that!

After 24 hours of frantic emails to my web host provider the problem seems to have been fixed which is good, but what isn’t good is that it even happened in the first place. And the real kicker? All of this happened two days after my stupid post about quitting!

Now don’t I feel stupid?

Anywaste, everything seems to be alright now, but because of this whole mess I think I’ll try a different host for a new site I’m thinking of creating. You know, just in case. And I also think I’ll post the little note I was going to leave here when all this drama began yesterday, just so I’ll remember exactly how I felt when I believed 9 months of my online life were erased by mistake.

I’m very angry.

Right now my website has reverted back to a version of itself from over 9 months ago and I don’t know why. Somehow, without my permission or knowledge, my web hosting provider decided to do something to my site and now I may have permanently lost almost a year’s worth of posts, pictures and updates. All that work and now it’s just gone. Poof. Just like that. Even worse, they haven’t answered my emailed inquiries in over 6 hours and, like most web-based services, they don’t have a contact phone number.

Which leaves me with nothing to do but wait.

There’s no real point to this post except to let all of you know that I haven’t voluntarily disappeared and if I don’t post for a while it won’t be because I don’t want to, but more likely it’ll be because I can’t. If these guys, who I have to say have been great to me for the last 5 years, have actually screwed me by erasing over 9 months of my internet life then I am going to be looking for, and moving to, a new provider which may take me a while. If they can somehow retrieve the lost files and get me back to where I was yesterday before this glitch then I’ll be back much sooner, although I might still want a new host when my current contract runs out. For now though, I’m so pissed off I could scream.

Screw that. I think I will scream. AAAAARRRGGHHH!!!

So, anyone know of a good web host provider they’d like to recommend?

One Of The Heroes

I’m on TV again.

Yesterday, HoBiscuit and I were part of the live studio audience watching a taping of the Colbert Report. We were lucky enough to get seats right in the front row and I even got to give Stephen a high-five twice while he was mugging for the crowd.

Oh, happy day.

When we were shown our seats I happened to notice that a couple of rows behind us in the audience was the plush, leather chair that Stephen had been “saving” for soon-to-be ex-Senator Joe Lieberman. This discovery caused butterflies to gather in my stomach because I knew that I had a very good chance of getting on TV if they showed a wide angle audience shot of the chair during the show. Now, it wasn’t the thought of being on TV that made the butterflies swarm, but rather the knowledge that not knowing I might actually be on TV that morning I happened to have dressed for comfort instead of dressing as if I were going to a job interview.

So of course I’m in the shot.

Which means that I am now forever immortalized as “That Guy On The Colbert Report Who Dressed Like A Retarded, Color-Blind Golfer.” Let this be a lesson to you, boys and girls. If you’re going to leave the house, for any reason whatsoever, always, always dress as if you’re going to interview for a job as the new CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. In fact, today I’m going to my local Men’s Warehouse and ordering 8 fancy suits for myself. Why 8? One for every day of the week and a spare, of course!

I’m gonna like the way I look, they guarantee it.

For those who watched the Colbert Report last night, you might have seen me on the lower right-hand side of your TV set at the very beginning of the audience sweep to Lieberman’s chair. I’m looking off camera (to your right, my left) at Stephen who was very funny even off camera. He’s also taller than HoBiscuit thought he would be, which makes it easier to understand why she has such a crush on him. It might also help explain why she handed me divorce papers right after the show citing my “irrefutably inferior breeding stock,” the “obvious fact that the plaintiff should be with a real man with huge balls like Stephen Colbert instead of a pathetic, balless Geek like the defendant” and also the “impossibility of continuing the farce of pretending to be in love with someone as undeniably stupid as the defendant no matter how much he pays.” Plus, she claims my account is in arrears.

But hey, I’m on TV!

Excelsior!

Who Wants To Be A Superhero is my favorite TV show. Ever.

If you haven’t seen this show yet because you think that it sounds like the stupidest premise ever, then you don’t know the genius that you’re missing. Quickly put, the premise is that people create a superhero persona, go to a “hero” audition in costume, then if they get picked they go to a Real World / Big Brother type house and are then subjected to trials and contests similar to Amazing Race, The Mole, Survivor, Fear Factor and every other “reality” game show you can think of. And they have to do it all in character and in costume!

It’s so wonderful it brings tears to my eyes.

And the people! They are the most amazingly bizarre cast of misfits I’ve ever seen! There’s a woman who calls herself “Fat Momma” and gets her powers from eating doughnuts! A guy calling himself “Major Victory” whose catchphrase is “Be a winner, not a wiener!” A health-food nutcase called “Creature!” A “Monkey Woman!” Even “Cell Phone Girl!” And get this, they’ve even got a super villain who was kicked off the show and now wants revenge!

Brilliant!

To put the icing on the cake Stan Lee, the creator of the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Daredevil and of course, my hero Spider-Man, is the host, judge and jury of the show. To make even THAT more crazy, he only shows up on TV screens! The contestants never actually meet him or see him in person, they can only talk to his image on a screen! I’m betting that Stan Lee is nobody’s fool and had it written into his contract that he would never be in the same room as these wannabe super-whackos.

The man is a genius.

By now you’re probably wondering why these idiots would subject themselves to this kind of public humiliation, well, I’ll tell you. The winner gets to be the newest comic book super hero in their very own Dark Horse comic book AND they get to appear in a SciFi original movie. As far as I can tell, there’s not even any money involved! The idiots!

OMG, hilarious does not do this show justice.

Stand Up Kind Of Guy

I made my comedic debut Monday night.

For the last two months I’ve been secretly taking a class on stand-up comedy and Monday night I, along with the rest of the class, got to stand up in front of a real, live audience and do my routine. To say it was nerve wracking would be putting it mildly since I peed my pants at least 4 times before getting up on stage. Good news is people seemed to like my act and I didn’t completely suck ass.

Bad news is I think I want to do it again.

I don’t know why, but I really enjoyed doing my bit on the stage in front of an audience. Especially when the lady sitting in the front row, who had not even smiled once during anybody else’s act, suddenly laughed out loud at one of the funny parts of my act.

Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

If you’re curious about what I did as my act I can tell you that I did something not many comics do anymore, or at least something not many famous comics do. I told a story. Without jokes. The story I told was a funny, slightly embellished account of the night I finally realized just how big of a loser I really am. If you want to have an idea of what the audience heard Monday night you can read a more detailed account of that night here.

And yes, it’s a true story.

Since I’m supposed to be getting a copy of my performance on DVD next week, I’m playing with the idea of posting it somewhere (YouTube?) just so everyone I know who wasn’t able to be there can see it and tell me how badly I sucked ass. And if I’m feeling REALLY masochistic maybe I’ll even tell all of you where to find it, too.

But only if you promise to respect me in the morning.