I was reading the Lite Side archive the
other day - mainly because at my age you tend to forget the stuff
you've written more than a week ago, so it's all fresh and brand new
again - and I noticed that there is a bunch of stuff that is irrelevant
to the Mac, and to low-end Macs in particular. For example, there's
that ongoing thread about picking on Gateway's ugly Profile computer,
the myriad innovations of Michael Dell and Bill Gates, stupid fake
letters from readers (or fake letters from stupid readers? stupid
letters from fake readers? I forget), and don't forget the Bumper
Snickers and rejected Switcher ads, too.
Now, we're not going to link all of these things for you - just go
visit the archive and click on everything you see until you've read it
all, then come back. No rush, we'll still be here when you get
back.
Now that you're back, you can see my point. About 90% of the crap I
write isn't even about Macs, and the stuff that is isn't about low-end
ones. So why is it here?
Obviously the author (and that would be me) is under some sort of
delusion that he's funny. Or there's some sort of nearly total blood
clot in some important area of his brain.
My wife says the fundamental problem is that I write most of this
stuff at 1 AM, and most folks read it at 1 PM. It's a lot
funnier when you brain is filled with fatigue toxins, believe me. And
guess what? It's even funnier at 3 AM. Studies show around
8 AM is the worst time to read the Lite Side. I get the worst mail
from people time stamped from 8 AM to 11 AM. Really nasty stuff,
too.
Nevertheless, the inevitable conclusion you have to reach is that
the stuff is inappropriate, so I've decided to boycott my own writing
and never again read anything I've ever written or am going to write in
the future.
As to why someone with Dan Knight's reputation would allow such a
travesty to occur, that has to do with the fact that I pay him $20 a
week to let me publish my articles, but through a clever ruse and some
slight of hand, he keeps sending me checks to pay off the debt that I
convince him he still owes me. It's pretty clever, sort of like when
you ask someone for two tens in exchange for a five. Do it fast enough,
and they won't notice they're actually given you more money than you
gave them. But don't tell Dan. He'll probably be ticked off when he
figures it out. I know I would be.
You know, if you get one of those corpus callosum operations
that splits your brain in half, it is possible to write something
without being able to read it, particularly if you wear an eye patch on
your left eye while you write with your right hand.
Drugs might work, too.
Don't try to talk me out of it now; I'm determined. It's not some
juvenile power play or some ancient genetic tendency to wee-wee on the
other monkey's turf, after all. I mean, how much power is there in
taking away the only reader willing to admit that he reads this stuff?
If I don't read my own stuff, then the hits on the site will drop by at
least 60%, and that's a good thing, right?
With so few readers involved, it's hardly something to brag about.
Imagine what it looks like on my resume:
- 2003: Initiated boycott to stop me from reading my own past
articles. Generated hundreds of hits in support of the boycott.
Prevented me from reading my own past articles for several days.
Maybe it'll be picked up by one of those humor column summaries such
as Jim Romenesko's Reading
Room.
Mac Website Humor Columnist Urges Readers to Support Boycott of His
Own Articles
Citing a thorough lack of humor and pointless tripe unrelated to
the site's mission, web author Jeff Adkins today urged his readers to
support him in his tireless quest to boycott his own column. "You can
read it if you want," he says, "In fact, come back every week to see
whether or not I've read one of my own columns or not." According to
Adkins, "There's a risk that I'll read one of my own articles on any
given day of the week. So come back regularly, several times a day to
check and see if I've resisted temptation and fallen into a
never-ending pit of humorless despair."
If you want to express your support for this important boycott,
click here.
That doesn't actually do anything. I just like the idea of having
hundreds (ahem, sorry, tens of thousands) of people click on a spot on
a screen for no apparent reason. Little power trip there. Sorry. Can't
help myself.
There was something else I wanted to say, but I can't go back up to
the top and read what I wrote to help me remember, because that would
be hypocritical. And goodness knows, we can't have that on an
Unofficial Mac Website.
That'd violate some sort of a rule, wouldn't it?
