I was thinking about my previous post, this morning… more specifically, how I almost screwed it up! I’ll start at the beginning…
I was at work and listening to my MP-3 player and it played that clip of the Monty Python-Life of Brian stoning scene (one of my favorites). The stoning got me thinking about the stone-throwing coming from the GOP in the recent news. I checked on YouTube to see if I could get the video clip as a stand-alone scene and found that I could.
From there I jotted down a few notes, mostly the names of the pictures I would use.
When I came home after work, I sat down and wrote the post, found the pictures and got everything all loaded up in time for the Pens game to start.
Feelin’ good, feelin’ cocky, happy to get the job done.
Later when I went to log off the PC for the night and go to bed, I looked over the post one last time and then suddenly realized that I had completely forgotten to include the stone-throwing angle and Python clip!
Then I thought , “Wouldn’t it be cool if blogs were like DVDs and you could just produce a commentary track or something that talks about how you put a post together?”
I know, it’s scary what crawls through my brain sometimes. But that thought led to this one: “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if your LIFE was like a DVD?”
OK, that’s just inspired! It’s your real life, complete with bonus features and running commentary. You’re trundling along, say, doing your grocery shopping and then:
Voice Over (VO) Me: I was looking for some Pop Tarts. I hadn’t had them in ages… not since I practically OD’d on them once I moved out of the house. Mom never let us have Pop Tarts.
VO Mom: Are you kidding me, Bluz? I offered you pancakes, eggs, omelets, waffles and all you can bitch about is not getting Pop Tarts? Oh yeah, you had it rough… Ingrate…
VO Me: It was all about saving you work! I didn’t want you to have to slave over the stove first thing in the morning. Plus I loved the cherry ones.
VO Mom: Your ass. You were just being a gruntie.
VO Friend: Remember when you first moved out? You had about 85 boxes of Pop Tarts in the cabinet. I’ve never seen anyone dunk Pop Tarts in Diet Coke for breakfast before.
VO Me: Dude, that was just once, ‘cuz I was out of Cherry Coke.
How much more interesting would life be like this?
Then there are the other special features:
Deleted Scenes!
Everything you ever decided against doing, you could see how it would have worked out if it hadn’t hit the cutting room floor.
Costuming!
Explaining some of those odd fashion choices you’ve made over the years. Watch as the hot chick in the Merry-Go-Round talks you into buying a neon-checkered shirt that practically glows in the dark that you only wear once before finally giving away. Watch as you pinball from Tony Manero slick to Urban Cowboy redneck.
Hey Watch This!
See every stupid drunken stunt you ever pulled, from the January outdoor pool parties in nothing but shorts and Tee’s, to falling down the front steps at your buddy’s wedding receptions and landing on the sidewalk as the keg you were helping carry rolls into Main Street.
Watch yourself getting turned down by every girl you ever asked out, in rapid succession. You can actually see your heart breaking, in Slo-Mo HD.
Your rifling through your pockets and find a $20 bill… Easter Egg! You open the fridge and spot one last beer back in the corner… Easter Egg! You dig through the back of an old clothes drawer and find… Gah! The old neon-checkered shirt… How the hell did THAT happen? That’s a rotten egg.
Yeah, the possibilities are endless.
It’s too late for me though. Too much time has passed. But I say to the nation’s youth… You’re already documenting every waking moment of your lives! This would be a breeze for you. Your life-DVD could become the new Christmas Newsletter.
I always post a little too soon. Almost every post I miss a typo, no matter how many times I read it over. I can find errors in other people's work much easier than in my own. I think my brain knows what I'm saying and just covers it up or something.
ReplyDeleteWhat we're all really thinking is a hell of a lot more interesting than what's on TV...Well, for most people. The key is to be able to actually express it for other people to get. That would be the hard part. Otherwise, you'd have to put in an obligatory, "You had to be there." Like a laugh track on a sitcom.
ReplyDeleteBagger:
ReplyDeleteOh, I have to go in and revise for stupid stuff like typos or missing paragraphs all the time. It's like when directors film out of sequence... I write out of sequence a lot and rearrange things. Unfortunately, the pieces don't always end up where I intended them.
The only way for me to correct it is to wait. You never see the errors when you've just written them... you have to wait until you have "fresh eyes", like the next day. Then you see the problems right away. Of course, I don't have the patience to do that consistently. I guess that's the price we pay to be timely.
GUY:
And when you're walking along and say something that might need further explanation, you can just go, "Eh, we'll explain it on the DVD."
I always end up looking over my own blog posts when I get the first comment or so and think, "Gods, I really do use certain words an awful lot...and I could use more paragraph breaks...and what is it with me and parentheses?" I've usually edited my own post, like, three times in WordPad, too. That's when I like to remind myself, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
ReplyDeleteWhen I first moved out on my own, I would have PopTarts and Diet Pepsi and an orange or grapefruit every single day. The citrus was meant to be healthy, and it really was, too--I was so broke, I'd get my morning exercise by stealing it off of nearby ornamental trees. On my DVD commentary, I'd be saying, "It's a Florida thing."
The inventor (?) of PopTarts should have to eat them every day of his (No woman would have created such a fluke) life. Ok. All you ever got was "nourishment", no Lucky Charms, Froot Loops, Korn Klumps, Berry Bumps, HoneyNuts, Funky Butts. Plus a wicked wit, wry take and voluminous vocabulary allows you to make of your life one running, funny documentary complete with dialogue and pictures.
ReplyDeleteLilo:
ReplyDeleteI usually do my writing in Word, then copy it over to Blogger. (Then screw around with the html to make it look like it's supposed to. Unfortunately, I don't know html, which makes it all the more difficult.) I try to proof as I go, but as I mentioned to Bagger, when you've just written it, you're too close to it to edit properly. I always find the mistakes right off, the next day.
Mary Ann:
Depriving your children of Pop Tarts and Frosted Flakes constitutes child abuse. I hope you're proud of yourself. You know I spent the better part of my 20's face down in the gutter, clutching an empty box of Fruity Pebbles. I was a total "Smack" addict... Sugar Smacks.