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Welcome to everyone who got here because of the TWO Perfect Post Awards I was given for this post. Many thanks to Shelli and Miss Britt for awarding these to me.

Thanks so much for coming by! - Karl

The ongoing 100 Things About Karl list continues.

1. Knock on wood, I have never broken a bone. That’s pretty amazing, I think, considering some of the things I’ve done in my life. I have, however, torn ligaments in my left foot. I tripped down several stairs when I was in technical school in the Air Force. Wore a cast and used crutches for six weeks, which was kind of nice, since it meant I didn’t have to march to school during that time. Was a pain in the ass bathing, though. I admit I milked it for as long as I could. I hated marching. Really, it’s amazing I made it in the Air Force. I’m so not a conformist in group-think.
2. My first computer was a Timex-Sinclair 1000. That was 1982, I think. It cost $99 and hooked up to your television. I learned BASIC programming using that sucker. You used a cassette drive to save and load programs. I programmed an automatic Dungeons & Dragons character generator. Very cool. You know, in a completely geeky way.
3. I’m part Irish, part Italian, and the rest is unknown. My father was adopted at a young age so the Erikson comes from his adopted family (Swedish). Odds are good that he’s Jewish since his birth name was Solomon. So that means I’m a great drinker, have fast-growing hair follicles, and am fully qualified to whine my ass off.
4. I started shaving when I was 14. I was forced to. Seems that nobody liked my baby hair mustache. I thought it was cool. Now I hate shaving so much that I only do it a couple of times a week, sometimes less. Some find that sexy in a man; I just find it lazy. Oops, I’m not supposed to call myself lazy, according to half a dozen therapists.
5. I have three unfinished manuscripts. The first is my autobiography, which I haven’t touched in years. The other two are novels (one a sci-fi mystery kind of thing, the other a romantic comedy) that I began during National Novel Writing Month. All three are stuck on my old crashed computer’s hard drive. I’m getting itchy to do something with them, but will have to see about recovering the drive first. Yeah, procrastinate much?
6. I’m a conservative, politically speaking. Some might say I’m actually a moderate, I don’t know. I just know that in all of the years I’ve been voting (ever since I voted for Reagan when I was freshly 18), I have never voted for a Democrat. Yes, that means I helped to elect the bozo we have in office now. I DID vote for Perot in 1992 because I wasn’t happy with either party and wanted to make a statement. A statement was made, but I still think it was a wasted vote. Third parties never make it in America. Never have, never will. This irks me. I mean, would you be satisfied if you went into a grocery store and only had two choices of cereal or two choices of soda? Nope, me either.
7. I have frequent nightmares, many of them so intense they wake me up, and I’m a pretty sound sleeper. Sometimes I’ll wake myself up because I’m screaming, not only in my dream but in reality. I’ve also woken up because I fell off my bed a few times, kicking and fighting off my phantasmal attackers. A psychiatrist once asked me if I knew how many nightmares the average person has. I guessed three or four a month. He told me, “One a year.” That number still shocks me. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but regardless, I have at least three or four bad dreams a week. Part of the PTSD, I’m sure.
8. I hate hearing about other people’s dreams. It bores me to tears. I’d rather watch meat thaw. I hate reading about dreams in people’s blogs. I hate dream scenes in TV shows and movies because dreams don’t freaking matter! You’ll see something happen in a dream and then see the person wake up, which nullifies everything that just happened. The exception maybe being “Nightmares on Elm Street,” when most of the action happens in the dreams.
9. I like being early. I used to be terminally tardy, often showing up 10-15 minutes late wherever I went. I didn’t WANT to be early because it seemed like a waste of time to just sit there for 5-10 minutes when that could have meant 5-10 more minutes of Internet time or TV. A friend told me that it was rude to be late and I’d never thought of it that way before. But I agree. When you show up late, you’re a distraction to the meeting or gathering…everyone has to stop and acknowledge your presence, and possibly catch you up on what you’ve missed. Being early is far less stressful for me, too. Yes, there are occasions when I’m late - traffic or whatnot - but I’d much rather show up two hours early for a flight than get there 45 minutes ahead. Gives me plenty of time to check in and relax in the terminal, read, have breakfast or lunch, check e-mail, etc.
10. I cannot bear to watch live television most of the time. Ever since I got Tivo a few years ago, I now have to wait until a show is 20 minutes in before I start watching it. Hilly and I share this trait and we call that 20 minutes the “Tivo Buffer.” This is the amount of time that must pass before you can start watching the show and fast forward through all of the commercial breaks without interruption. Exceptions include “Lost” and “Jeopardy” and news.

Filed under 100 Things, Memes, Politics, Television, Web/Tech | Comments (35)

OK, for the next 10 items on my ongoing 100 Things About Karl list, I’m going to talk about things I hate. Hate is a mighty strong word, but I don’t have the same aversion to it that a lot of people do. Unless we’re talking about people.

1. I hate lima beans. I’ve eaten many of them over the years - pretty much forced to growing up. I’m convinced that succotash (a mixture of corn and lima beans) was invented by the World Lima Bean Council to trick people into eating the Devil’s Legume. I’m happy that I’m all growed up now so I can control my own lima bean destiny.
2. I hate grapefruit. They taste nasty and sour and I don’t know how anyone can stand them. Oddly enough, I like Fresca, which is a grapefruit soda. I can’t explain it. Similarly, when I was little I hated onions but loved onion rings. I suppose my Italian genes finally hit puberty because I totally dig onions these days.
3. I hate seafood. Yes, all of it. “But what about shrimp?” people ask me. Does shrimp come from the water? Yes, yes it does. Then I HATE it. I also hate when people hear about my disdain for seafood and say, “Well, that’s because you haven’t had it prepared the right way.” To them I say, “You’re a moron, but that’s because you haven’t used your brain the right way.”
4. I hate licorice. Absolutely revolting. I was forever ditching my black jellybeans every Easter - still do, on the odd occasion I eat jellybeans. Now they have to be sugar-free. And for some reason, they actually make sugar-free black jellybeans. Gross. And yes, that means I hate Uzo, too. And anisette. Anything that tastes like licorice will make me puke. Or want to puke, which is even worse.
5. I hate grits. Yes, I live in the South, but I’m not a Southerner. Grits are just blecch. I’ve tried them over and over again, thinking I’m missing something. I’m done trying them. I know that tastebuds can change over time, but my grits tastebuds just ain’t evolving. Never gonna happen.
6. I hate mean people. There’s just no cause for being nasty. Sure, I can be an asshole at times…I think everyone is capable of that. But for the most part I keep my Inner Asshole at bay. When I see someone treat a waiter or waitress poorly, I just cringe. A total babe turns flat-out repulsive to me if she’s a vindictive sniping little bitch. Have some fucking courtesy, respect, and understanding. They go a long way. And if you simply cannot control your mouth, perhaps you should stay in your cave and shut the fuck up.
7. I hate American Idol. It is absolutely shitty television. I don’t care if you like it, either. The only part even remotely worth watching is the audition process because those people are so bad it’s good. The rest of it? It’s like a bad karaoke competition.
8. I hate spiders. I hate most all bugs, actually, if they’re in my house. Bugs belong outside, not in. And I’m not one of those people that feels like you shouldn’t kill a living creature. They’re beneficial to the environment, etc. etc. Bullshit. If I see a spider outside, fine. But if there’s one in my house, that mutherfucker is going to die, probably ending up a stain on the wall.
9. I hate needles. I could never be a heroin addict because there’s no way I’d be injecting myself all the time. This is ironic since I’m a diabetic and just had to start taking insulin in September of 2007. Yes, I have to give myself shots every night before bed. Yes, I hate it and have to psych myself up before sticking myself in the gut, even though it doesn’t hurt.
10. I hate Dave Matthews. Not the person, I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice fellow. But I cannot STAND his singing voice. Irritates me more than nails dragging along a chalkboard. To me, he sounds like a cat whose tail is being intermittently pinched by a rocking chair rolling on top of it. I would sooner listen to Tiny Tim or even Britney Spears. I know, that’s saying a lot.

Filed under 100 Things, Music, Television | Comments (49)

I hate mentioning her by name because, while I acknowledge she is a good writer and an accomplished photographer, I just can’t be bothered reading Dooce’s journal. (Why? Because of her no-comments policy, see yesterday’s long-ass post about that.)

But the fact of the matter remains that Dooce inadvertently coined the term “dooced” when she got fired from her job some years back because of her blog. That is, by and large, why she’s so immensely popular now as a so-called blogger. She got in on the ground floor, so to speak. Now anytime someone gets fired because of their blog, they call it getting Dooced. I’m here to change that. From now on, we’re going to call it getting Karled.

That’s right, in case you missed it on Twitter yesterday afternoon, I have been fired as a columnist for one of the local newspapers in town. Why? In short, because of this post. I have been reproducing my regular Monday column here on Mondays pretty much for the last 2-1/2 years I’ve been writing the column. Not any more.

It wasn’t the column itself that got me fired. I spoke with my editor on the phone yesterday afternoon to ask what was going on and to apologize. Yes, I apologized because it was never my intention to hurt her or anyone else at the newspaper. She told me that they had been planning to run the column in next Monday’s paper, but she needed to get permission from other editors first. Understandable.

I certainly never intended to come off as slamming the newspaper. But as my editor told me, it wasn’t the column that they had a problem with. It was the COMMENTS on the post. She was on vacation all last week, so really didn’t have a chance to talk to me about why they didn’t have any people at the charity event. They DID make arrangements to get photographs from some of the people that were in attendance, but couldn’t do the overtime necessary to send out a full-time photographer. I jumped the gun and made assumptions I shouldn’t have made. For that, I take responsibility.

I always took great care not to mention the newspaper by name here, and I never gave out my blog URL in the column, either. It’s a family newspaper and I would never send people to my blog indiscriminately because I swear like a sailor lots of the time.

Nevertheless, someone at the newspaper found my blog and brought it to other people’s attention on Monday. Having worked in close-knit cubicle environments before, I know how quickly word spreads like wildfire in an office. I’m sure it didn’t take much time at all for my blog to make the rounds. At least it’s a nice, new pretty blog design.

I’m upset, yes, for several reasons. For one thing, I should have been more judicious about my comments on the blog. I should have also called and talked to my editor before posting Monday’s post and leaving subsequent comments. But I’m also kinda pissed because what the fuck? This is MY blog and I have the right to say whatever the hell I want to say. I never expected or asked anyone at the newspaper to look at my blog. On purpose. I realize I’m not everyone’s cup of tea.

I certainly wouldn’t have made those comments on the newspaper’s web site. That really WOULD be unprofessional. But on my own blog? Bah.

I’ve been Karled. So yeah, I’m looking for more writing gigs now. If you know of any, please let me know. I promise I’ll be a (relatively) good boy from here on out. Maybe I just shouldn’t run any future columns here, to be safe.

Filed under 2HT Mentions, Blogging, Column, Local Goings On, Television, Travel, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Comments (68)