euthanasia in the blog-o-sphere

City Weekly is a local publication originating north of the UC (that's Utah County for those not familiar with geography in the jello belt) that recently revealed it's list of "Utah's Best," jointly selected by writers AND readers. All I really learned from this list is that people in Utah love FOX 13 news. They love it, love it, love it.

In other words, people in Utah are dumb.

I'm not bagging on the Beehive State, there are dumb people everywhere.

The one category that blew my mind was for "best blogger" and of course Utah's best blogger was Dooce who has a huge following, lots of cute and funny little stories, has won "bloggies" and everything else you would expect.

I hold no ill will toward Dooce, she is a fine blogger. What made my brain pop were the blogs that City Weekly chose as their second and third best. Second is a blog that recaps what happens every day on the X96 morning show. The third was something that kept readers apprised of various happenings and sales in the state, I honestly didn't look at it too closely after I realized it wasn't interesting.

It smells of a cop out of massive proportions. And no, I am not feeling snubbed or anything silly like that. I am simply flabbergasted that this was the best they could come up with.

Luckily, Google's blogger has given me the tools to look into the matter personally. In the last hour I have sifted through all of the blogs (on blogger) from Provo and Springville and have decidedly discovered 3,196 solid candidates for Utah's worst blog. Maybe City Weekly was right after all. If there is something better out there, I will find it. At least I'm starting to narrow it down a bit through the process of elimination.

The search goes on, I'll let you know what I find.

boss jokes

You've probably heard how given enough time a certain number of monkeys banging away at typewriters would eventually type out the complete works of Shakespeare. I never understood why the bar for that probability had to be set so high, as I would be impressed if a bunch of monkeys eventually came up with the first three chapters of Tuesdays with Morrie.

But then I think of replacing those monkeys with the people I work for and I doubt they could hammer out a Dick & Jane in any amount of time even if they were using the actual book as a reference.

yet another joker named noodles

Up until a little while ago I actually believed I was the only person named Noodles. Even I can surprise myself with how pathetically naive I can be. Of course, I only go as Noodles online.

In real life I have a painfully normal, regular name. It’s Jeffrey, but I go by Jef. People ask me if that's really how I spell my name and I tell them "why the hell do you care?" or "Yeah, I don't need a lot and I want that F to go to someone who REALLY might need it." Of course the only people who ask me that question are people I work with at S-Mart (the soulless retailer that employs my sorry ass), not exactly a bunch of people waiting for the local MENSA meeting to start… Seriously, these are the same people who forced me to stop wearing t-shirts with funny jokes on the front because I grew tired of waiting for them to read them, moving their lips and sounding out all the words.

Not like I'm some super genius. I can't even spell, and I even went to a private school.

Noodles Blunderson has been my online persona and alter-ego for nearly five years now. I'd been saving up the name for a few years prior to that. I thought I might use it for a character in a short story I have yet to write. Then I found this place called the internet where I could skewer people anonymously, so I put that unused moniker to good use.

There was this restaurant I used to frequent where they always asked if a person wanted noodles or rice (as a side dish, for you MENSA folks). One day I was being asked that question when one particular employee who wasn't helping me at the time recognized me and interrupted saying, "with this guy its ALWAYS noodles." Several weeks later while strolling around town, I bumped into the same guy. He introduced me to his lady friend as if we went way back. "Baby," he said, "this is Noodles."

So at least I have managed to avoid the trapping of giving myself a nick-name because someone actually called me this once. I am pathetic because I flog it like a dead horse. Then again, flogging a dead horse is the second bullet on my resume under "special interests" right after long walks on the beach and right before talking about my feelings. On the other hand, there are only a few people who know me as both Noodles and Jef, and they can all be eliminated with a single phone call.

It is kind of sad when people give themselves their own nick-name. I work with a guy named Mike but he told me to call him Rooster. When I asked him how he got the name he said he gave it to himself. I don't talk to that guy anymore. But I did see him at a reception for the local MENSA chapter. I was standing outside looking in, of course...

I did meet a guy named NOODLE about a year ago who was a friend of a friend. He was a strange cat but he was entertaining as hell when he was drunk—as long as you don’t mind hearing the same stories over and over and over again.

Searching online I haven't found a lot of Noodles, certainly fewer Noodles Blundersons. But to find, one does actually have to look which is not something I've done a lot of. It’s time consuming and not as fun as so many other things on the net. I do know that I once forgot to renew my hotmail account for that name, only to discover a few months later that someone was using it. I should e-mail them someday and say hey. We obviously have one thing in common.

Right after I secured this blog account, I did a Google search for blogs by jokers named Noodles. I found there were already blogs by people named Noodles. I only checked two. One was really lame and one was really boring. I suppose I can't really talk since they had received comments for their blogs and I haven't even gotten a page hit from anyone but myself.

At least I can say that I have the very worst blog by a guy who calls himself Noodles (but only on-line). And being the worst is something I excel at.