So here’s what I did:

ComedyNews.Org is a socially-powered comedy news site featuring interviews, reviews and news stories from around the world. It’s a web application that allows you to submit an article that will be reviewed by all and will be promoted, based on popularity, to the main page. When a user submits a news article it will be placed in the “unpublished” area until it gains sufficient votes to be promoted to the main page. Users can comment on each article in threaded discussions.. and there’s a bunch of social network-y crap going on, too.

If you’re a comedy nerd looking for comedy nerd news, stop by and chime in. If you see a comedy-related story out there, please submit it!

I’ve been a long-time critic of lame-ass forwards and the people who send them. If you’ve read my past columns (and now that I think about it, there’s not that great of a probability that you have) you’ve heard me run off on tangents about this inconsiderate, bandwidth-wasting annoyance. This is one of those things I keep talking about because people keep sending them!

Don’t get me wrong. I love hearing from my friends and family. There is nothing I love more than to get a short note from a buddy.. or a long, involved, well-thought-out letter. As long as what you’re sending me is original content.. you expressing your feelings, thoughts and opinions… or acting silly, just sending a goofy note of nonsense… or being informative, sending some bit of knowledge I may find handy somehow. These are all valid reasons for clicking on “send.” What I hate is getting the stupid junk chain-mail that the internet-virgin housewives and other AOL-users send back and forth to each other until it eventually ends up coming my way seven or eight times from different people. Each thinking that they’re being very clever for sending everybody they know some stupid, cliched crap.

I slam AOL here because, well, it sucks. It’s a giant stinking monster that infects and bogs down the real internet with it’s masses of morons. Get on any USENET Newsgroup of your choice and look for off-topic posts filled with poor logic, grammar and spelling.. look for the trolls trying to start fights.. look for the complete idiots.. I’ll bet 90% of them have “@aol.com” in their email address. Why? Because “it’s so easy!” and as we all know, stupid people need easy solutions. Not that there aren’t legitimate, smart, creative and nice people who use AOL.. but they are in the minority, and are guilty by association.. and are contributing to the evil global conglomerate which is AOL-Time/Warner. Get a real internet service provider.. get a permanent, broadband connection and get out of dial-up hell. It’s the year 2001, for Megatheos’ sake. Once again, I’ve digressed.

Normally these ridiculous forwards fall into one of these categories:

• THIS IS SO FUNNY!! - I forgot to mention that the “Forward This Crap To Everybody I Know” idiots typically type in ALL-CAPS because they are oblivious to the generally-accepted idea that “shouting” is rude and annoying.. of course, they’re usually completely unaware of the world around them. Anyway, this type of forward contains lame “story” jokes that are 5-10 minute reads before you get to any sort of punch line. Another abomination is the list of jokes about blondes or rednecks or whatever.. some of these would be funny if everybody hadn’t heard them all before, and if they were re-written, and all the “dead” words and phrases were edited out..
• L@@K AT THIS! – This message will invariably have a file attached. A honking 300KB or larger executable file that plays some sorry animation on your screen while it infects your hard drive with whatever the virus of the week is. Either that, or the file is an image somebody altered.. so Osama bin Laden is pounding a goat from the rear, or Clinton and Gore look like Beavis and Butt-head, or it’s a squirrell standing up showing off his horse’s schlong. Some of these are pretty nicely done, but the majority have been cut and pasted together by some teen whose Photoshop skills are sophmoric at best. Telltale signs are when they have no concept of lighting sources and how shadows fall. These are simple concepts that amateurs often overlook.
• URGENT VIRUS WARNING!! - If you keep your virus definitions updated, and refuse to accept or send attachments that you can’t verify, then you’ll be just fine. Usually these come from the same computer illiterate morons who spread the virus around by forwarding the executable files of dancing pumpkins or whatever. I just love the way the media makes such a big deal out of every virus that comes along. Like this is something new.. an unprecedented plague that they use to show off their lack of computer skills live on the air. It warms my cold, black little heart to hear some 55-year old fart who hasn’t moved his ass out from behind a desk in years try to explain the dangers of the internet when he clearly has no concept of what the words on the teleprompter actually mean.
• EMAIL BETA TEST - This is one of my favories. It usually goes something like this: “Microsoft (also Disney or another big-name with big-money) is beta-testing some new email-tracking software and if you forward this to everyone you know Bill Gates (or Michael Eisner, or whoever) will give you $500!” Yeah, because Bill Gates is the nice, generous kind of evil, elitist, monopolistic trillionaire. Rich guys don’t get rich by giving their money away.. and even if they did, do you really think anybody needs your ‘help’ with their fictional technology? Sure, Microsoft is such a mom-and-pop shop that they can’t spare any of their own workers to test out new stuff..
• PERSONALITY SURVEYS – “Take this test! Add up the points and see what type of person you really are.” Ugh.. I know who I am.. I’m the guy sick of getting this crap. Also in this category are the questionaires that are 7-10 pages long asking such important questions like “what’s your favorite desert?” Ladies, if you want to find out the intricate details of my personality.. just have sex with me. That’s the easiest way. We can talk about your feelings afterward if you’d like.
• UPLIFTING FEEL-GOOD STORIES - Long, heart warming, faith-affirming stories of personal triumph, and traces of the “good in humanity.” Then at the end you read, “Forward this to 10 people within 2 minutes or you’re saying you hate Jesus.” What? That’s blackmail! You’re putting words in my mouth.. I never said I hate Jesus and I’m not going to hell when I delete your stupid drivel. I’m pretty sure God cringes every time you zealots start throwing his name around like you’re some name-dropping Hollywood phony.

Like I say, normally those are the categories. Lately, we’ve had a ton of crap come thru spreading ignorance, fear and hate in response to the September 11, 2001 acts of ignorance, fear and hate. Now the most common thing is, “I normally don’t forward these, but I know this is true because my girlfriend used to date a guy who heard a drunk Arab in a bar talking about how Nostradomus said that when Skittles changes their flavors, something bad will happen in the new city of Yorks.” Just shut-up.

In the immortal words of my favorite Grateful Dead song, “New Speedway Boogie”: “Please don’t dominate the rap, Jack / if you’ve got nothing new to say..”

“Ha, ha,” I responded. (Notice I didn’t say, “LOL!” This is because I’m not an annoying moron “laughing out loud” at every comment that even brushes up against humor. Ok, ok.. no letters from ex-girlfriends: for the purpose of this column, let’s just SAY I’m not an annoying moron.)

Then I tried to rationalize to him why I haven’t had any new rants in over two months: “Orphans. I’ve been reading stories to kids in the orphanage.”

“Really? When did you learn to read?”

“Hmm…. right. So, really.. I’ve been donating my time to Habitat for Humanity. Every weekend, building houses for the needy.”

“Uh-huh. You haven’t done anything requiring physical labor since 1993.”

“Touche, mon ami, touche.”

He then slapped me for speaking French – and thank God he did. In doing so, he may very well have saved my life. With that simple physical response he snapped me back into reality (or as close as I come to lucidity, at least) after an insane two month rampage.

The day after MangyDog.com published my “Valentines Day” rant, the HumanClick “chat with me” thingie blew up. It seems that upon reading that column, the masses of mangy maniacs came under the impression that I may be able to help them with their questions about dating, love and romance. Let’s clear that up right now.. if I knew anything about dating, love or romance – would I have this much free time? No. Sadly, the best advice I have for anybody is to read Iceberg Slim’s classic book, “Pimp: The Story of My Life”, and to check out the HBO documentary, “Pimps Up, Ho’s Down.”

Having studied those works extensively, I decided to avoid Valentines Day (and a good part of the last two months) by decending into the seedy underbelly of society. Armed only with my wit and a Swiss Army knife, I embarked on a journey not unlike the ones chronicled in Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road.” Well.. if you crossed that book with the words of the modern poet, Too $hort, that would be more like it.

But, I could write a novella about that zany misadventure. Then Disney would buy the rights to the story, change the disturbing low-lifes into loveable wacky characters, arrange for cheap figurines to be included in every Happy Meal, and release a really lame movie starting Kirk Cameron. Instead, let me catch you up on All Things Chad.

I’ve been doing freelance web design stuff for about 7 months or so.. I’ve had a few different clients, but I spent most of that time working in-house at a web design / hosting company in Nashville. Things have been going pretty good for me… they were keeping me busy, and I was churning out some good stuff. I generally consider most of my creative endeavors “crap” (and rightfully so), but my recent output has been crap of an above-average quality.

Lately there have been major cut-backs across the board in the dot-com world.. That didn’t really worry me – I don’t work for a “dot-com”.. I just make ‘em. Business was going really good for me: I had plenty to do. But every day I’d hear about hundreds of people getting laid off left and right in this business.

While I wasn’t “laid off”.. Friday I was offered an exciting new opportunity to telecommute from home working on a contract / project basis. Of course, I haven’t heard from them since, but any day now.. I’m pretty sure they’ll call with some work for me to do.

I hope.

Now, I’m truly “self employed”.. which, in my case, means “self unemployed.” I can wake up whenever, wear whatever, drink whatever, say whatever.. Nobody gets in my way while I’m trying to navigate thru the morons clogging up the interstates on my way to and from work. Nobody from ‘Management’ is here to give me dirty looks as I play Ultima Online or EverQuest. Nobody complains when I crank my music up really loud and play the same song over and over for hours. And, well, nobody is giving me any money.

I’m sure I’ll get some work to do very shortly. If not, I’m switching over to plan B: I’ll put all my stuff in storage, and my faithful canine Guido and I will travel to Jamaica to be beach bums with the Rastas. I figure, if you’re going to be homeless, you might as well do it someplace nice.

So, if you have a problem… if no one else can help.. and if you can find me.. maybe you can hire The “C” Team.