Tonight I am grateful… oh so grateful, for our new dog sitter, who lives a mile down the road, loves our dog, took excellent care of her over the weekend, and is relatively inexpensive.
Before adding a dog to your family, find a dog sitter. There is nothing better than the peace of mind in knowing that you can leave for a few days and not have to worry about your furry little friend.
This was tweeted by author Steve Himmer yesterday, and I thought it was fascinating enough to post here.
Himmer asks:
Is there one sentence in this paragraph that would make sense to a time traveler from 1995?
Gaga Social Media Makes Books Go Viral? (Dwarfs The Oprah Effect)
"Lady Gaga, one of the web's commanding giga-stars - with 21.5m followers on Twitter (Stephen Fry has a mere 4m) - has recommended a book, on Facebook. "Lüc Carl Buy his book. HE'S AWESOME!!!!! Great memoir about losing weight on your own terms." Within a matter of hours, more than 15,000 people had "liked" it, a pretty reliable indicator of a coming "viral" success." The Guardian (UK) 04/11/12
I have a piece in Beyond the Margins today.
Beyond the Margins is a highly respected and well-read blog about the craft of writing and the business of publishing, produced by a team of writers from many walks of life.
My piece deals with my high level of discomfort in regards to my current manuscript, including issues related to breast reductions, sex, leather boots and a woman’s inexplicable propensity to be honest.
This 90 second cartoon was voted as one of the top 50 cartoons of all time.
Being who I am, I was immediately skeptical of this rating. I possess a strong contrarian streak which demands that I distrust the masses and assume that organizational evaluations and rankings are contrived, manipulated and/or flawed.
I watched the video expecting to be underwhelmed and disappointed.
Happily, I was not.
A daily deal site that features underwear is exciting, but it’s the story behind the creation of cheapundies.com that caught my attention:
The site was launched by two entrepreneurs still in their 20s, Edward Upton and Michael Grider. As a teenager, Upton got into the habit of buying overstock merchandise from Abercrombie & Fitch on the cheap, and then selling them for a profit via eBay’s site in the UK. Various lessons in e-commerce and business ventures followed, before Cheap Undies—which isn’t remotely bashful about showing a whole lot of skin for men and women alike—became a reality a couple months ago.
Are you as annoyed about the Cheap Undies creation story as I am?
As a teenager, Edward Upton was purchasing overstock merchandise and selling it over the Internet for a profit.
Now in his twenties, he has launched a daily deal site that’s garnered attention from enormous media outlets like TIME, The Washington Post, Business Insider and Vanity Fair.
I did a little research and learned that Upton, now 28, launched the business in 2006 when he was just 22. A high school dropout, he initially used the site to sell his own line of “intimate menswear” as well as several designer brands.
His partner, Michael Grider, came on board a year later to serve as product manager. Grider is 26 years old.
Can you believe this? Stories like this make me crazy.
Do you have any idea what I was doing before my twenty-fifth birthday?
In chronological order, some of the highlights include:
And that just gets me to the age of 25.
These guys who launch business and careers before the age of thirty are both impressive and infuriating.
The amount of time I lost flailing about in the early twenties is staggering, and regardless of how hard I work, I can never recapture those years.
I can’t tell you how much this annoys me.
Earlier this week, I suggested that the best advice I have to offer is to put yourself out there. Take risks. Dare to be different.
This guy has a similar message, except that he is more eloquent, more amusing and more accomplished than me.
So listen to him. Listen now. Heed his warning.
Bestselling author Ellen Potter’s recent interview in The Baltimore Sun featured this gem:
[Encouragement] is important in this field, right?
Oh, yes. One professor in college told me flat-out I wasn't good enough to enter the creative writing program. I saved that letter and promised myself I would send it back to her when my first book came out. And [early on], I got so many rejections. I just submitted and submitted. I did not stop. It was just sheer bulldoggedness.
Boy do I hope she sent that letter back to that professor.
Either way, I admire anyone who is driven by spite, and even better, who is willing to admit to it.
I can’t explain it, but watching this video makes me so sad. Watching someone with so much life ahead of him, knowing that it has now come to an end. That it was always going to come to an end. That his life had one singular direction. Straight into the grave.
Knowing that the men off-camera who are speaking to Jones are probably dead, too. That every item in that office; the desk - the pictures on the walls, the arm chair, the curtains, the telephone - no longer exist. And being reminded that the objects that we treasure will someday, much sooner than we think, become valueless and cease to exist as well.
It saddens me to look at someone with so much future ahead of him and be reminded about how time inexorably grinds away at everything. To see such vitality and hope ruined by death, and to know that the people and things that populate my life will someday cease to exist as well, and then, eventually, will be forgotten as this world is replaced by another.
All that from a one minute audition video.
What is wrong with me?
My wife and I hope to be able to build our own home someday. If we’re ever able to do so, I’d like my home to include this:
My daughter is fascinated by the Moon.
She thinks it is beautiful and precious.
Little does she know what could have been.
“That’s your opinion.” For clarification, this statement, and ones similar to it, are often made after a person states an opinion in the midst of a heated argument.
For example:
“No, I think chunky monkey is a the stupidest ice cream on the planet. Strawberry is clearly the best. It’s simple. It’s classic. It’s known by all. Sometimes it contains actual strawberries. And you’re not left wondering if it’s made from actual monkey bits. Strawberry rocks.”
“That’s your opinion, monkey-face!”
One of the nice things about learning to distinguish between fact and opinion in elementary school is that this universal knowledge base mitigates the need to say “in my opinion” after stating an opinion.
So when I say that Mariano Rivera is the best closer in baseball history or that Sarah Palin would make a frightening President or that Ranch dressing is the most vile substance known to man, we all know that these are opinions, no matter how forcefully or with how much certainty I may state them.
Yes. It’s an opinion. We all know it’s an opinion. We know the difference between fact and opinion.
Just like it is an opinion when I tell you that you are a moron for defining my opinion as an opinion.
Distinguishing an opinion does not qualify as a valid verbal rebuttal.
In our world, we do not need to differentiate facts and opinions as we speak.
We all just do it in our heads.
“Nobody’s perfect.” Your perfection was never in question. In fact, it wasn’t even in the universe of possibility, so to imply that I might not have been aware of your imperfection only serves to highlight how far from perfect you are.
Furthermore, how do you know that nobody’s perfect?
Do you know everybody?
Philosophers can’t even agree on the definition of perfection, and yet you are ready to declare that all 7 billion people on Earth are, sight unseen, imperfect?
“At least I admit my flaws.” How is this supposed to help me? I already know that you’re an idiot. Acknowledging your stupidity has no value to me.
At least I admit my flaws? At least? This platitude is in no way an acknowledged means defending one’s position, nor is the passive-aggressive implication that I fail to admit to my flaws any form of accepted counterattack.
Maybe I have no flaws.
Maybe one as admittedly flawed as you has no business assessing the potential flaws in another human being.
Besides, I wasn’t looking for a confession. I was hoping that instead of admitting to your flaws, you would get rid of them, or at least not display them so prominently in my presence.
My in-laws travel with a lot of technology.
See these smiles? Look how happy this guy is!
Want to guess what he does for a living?
He is a member of the brave men and women of Pet Butler, a Boca Raton company that will send “technicians” to your home to remove animal feces from your property so that you will never have to pick up after your dog again.
Now those smiles make sense. Don’t they?
These are the professional pooper scoopers of the world.
In addition to the unique service that they offer, Pet Butler says that “You will be happy to know that every Pet Butler technician wears a clean and tidy uniform and our service trucks are very clearly marked so you will always know if Pet Butler is in your yard and driveway.”
There’s a strong selling point. Thanks to Pet Butler’s “clearly marked” vehicles, your neighbors will be made well aware of your decision to convert your once-pristine backyard into a temporary cesspool for dog excrement.
I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to see the Pet Butler truck parked in your driveway twice a week.
“Hey John! Why don’t you and the family stop by for some barbecue chicken and a little badminton tonight?”
“I don’t know, Bill. Doesn’t Pet Butler come to your place on Tuesdays and Fridays? I don’t think I want my kids running around your backyard on a Sunday. Can we reschedule?”
And how about those uniforms…
So clean!
So tidy!
So difficult to discern the distinction between clean and tidy, since they essentially mean the same thing, especially when it comes to describing uniforms!
Oh, and if the trucks and uniforms weren’t enough to get excited about, Pet Butler has franchise opportunities available.
Or in their words:
“We have franchise opportunities available for all Entre-manures!”
And their mission statement reads:
“Pet Butler was founded in 1988 providing poo-fessional pet waste cleanup…”
And their online company tour begins with a link that reads:
Entre-manures!
Poo-fessional!
What we “doo” (with quotation marks around the word doo, just in case you mistook the misspelling for anything but a pun)!
Not only is Pet Butler a professional waste cleanup company, but they are also quite capable and apparently rather fond of feces-related wordplay! Just what I want to see when evaluating the seriousness of a potential franchise.
And just in case you wanted even more poop-related wordplay, Pet Butler actually has a page where people can propose new, “family friendly” slogans, all centering upon excrement.
There are currently 89 new slogans listed, including such gems as "If your dog's a poopin', we'll do the scoopin'" and “We're #1 in the #2 business!"
All of this can be yours for the price of a clearly marked vehicle, a clean and tidy uniform, and presumably a few plastic bags.
Like Giana O. of Avon by the Sea, New Jersey says in her testimonial:
"Between work, kids and a husband, who has time to clean the dogs poop??? Not me but Pet Butler does!!"
Not only is Giana O. never satisfied with a single punctuation mark, but she makes a great point. Why not let your dog crap all over your yard, and then every few days have someone picked it up for a nominal fee? Sure, your yard will be laden with toxic landmines for the majority of the week, but Giana O. has kids, damn it.
And a job.
And did you notice?
She has a husband, too. And a husband who she included in a list with kids and work, so that guy must be a handful!
Or as Giana O. might says, a handful!!!!
It’s important to note that while I find Pet Butler an unusual business, I am not making fun of the people who actually perform the work.
Rather, I am making fun of:
1. Pet Butler’s customers, who can’t pick up their own dog’s poop and are willing to allow it to sit on their lawns for days at a time
2. The person or persons who wrote the copy for Pet Butler’s website, as well as the owners of the company who allow it to continue to represent their company.
Although in fairness, I got more pleasure in surfing their website this morning than I do from most network television programs. So in that regard, I should be at least a little thankful.
Thanks, Pet Butler! You’re Turd-rific!
Last night’s apocalyptic dream took an interesting turn: A previously unknown stuffed animal contagion jumped species, went airborne and infected human beings, killing anyone coming in exposed to a stuffed animal within a day.
Pretty horrible as diseases and dreams go.
Parents and small children died first, followed by preschool workers, hoarders, toy store employees and the sentimental type.
The only survivors of the apocalypse were nerdy loners who had never found love and angry drill sergeants.
All this according to the rapidly deteriorating news anchor who I was watching on television as I raided the food stores of a local daycare facility.
Another thrilling night of survival.
Can’t decide which is better. Like choosing between hot dogs and ice cream.
Was Scooby Doo’s Daphne actually hot, or was her hotness the result of her juxtaposition to the dreadful looking and more dreadfully named Velma?
