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And Now…Something Sort of Different

Michael 2 Comments

A few years ago I had a great idea to change the name of the blog. The Real Reality Show Blog made sense in the beginning as a response to the reality being foisted upon us by cable television so-called reality shows. Come on now, let’s have a show of hands, how many think those housewives are really real. And not to spoil anybody’s surprise, on almost any of those shows where somebody gets surprised, didn’t you ever wonder how the producers managed to get the surprise-ees mic’ed up without them knowing it. So, since the reality of those shows was more than a little in question, the Real Reality Show Blog filled the gap with real stuff, real places, and real people from wherever I really happened to be.

Over time (a lot of time – I started writing this drivel in 2012!) the reality wasn’t any less but it was sometimes augmented with commentary, thoughts, and suppositions. It became more the musings of some old, single, white guy. In fact, the first alternate name I thought of for the blog was just that – Old Single White Guy. Even though it describes me to a T, it really pushes the bounds of political correctness. And then I thought, oh no, I can’t call it that because any time I started following a new blog the blogger would get an e-mail from WordPress stating, “Congratulations! Old Single White Guy just started following you!” and I just don’t have the money to spend on keeping a lawyer on retainer.

It was clear that my first thought was not my best thought. Not surprising considering I recently wrote an entire post about poor first thoughts. And then it hit me! The famous sign from that post, the one I’m looking at while I’m writing this. The one I’ve looked at writing almost every post for the last almost ten years. Don’t Believe Everything You Think. That’s it! I got it and I got it good. Or bad.  Or whichever is good nowadays. That could be “THE” perfect name for this perfectly imperfect nonsense.

Yep, Don’t Believe Everything You Think. But I’ve built a brand. How will people find me? Duh, who the … um, who might be looking for me. I’ve never “advertised.” I’ve never linked from there to here from the various there’s I haunt – cyberly speaking that is. Yet somehow in just the last 4 years people have landed on this site over 20,000 times. If I only had a nickel. [Sigh] Not to worry though. I’m not changing the name of this blog so if you haven’t subscribed but you just know how to get here you can keep getting here however that is. But I am using the name for a new podcast version of this.

You’ve all seen the notices from WordPress, turn your blog into a podcast. Well, it seems easy enough and I want to experiment a little.  If I’ve done this right, you should find a link Don’t Believe Everything You Think on the Anchor platform where you will hear me reading this drivel. And some other stuff. And each time I do this there’ll be more other stuff. Go listen and please come back here and tell me what you think. (This particular drivel you should find right here.)

01a39c24efcfb5bde1debe2de75e473c90853c0da5e44078e88df466a2e22901.0And remember, even though you may not have known it, chances are pretty good that there’s an old, single, white guy following you.

Oh, one more thing. When I set that up over there, or over here if you’re now listening instead of reading, they ask for a category I guess so they can figure out where to pigeonhole you. What could I say about this? There isn’t a category for claptrap. So I called it a personal journal. And that reminded me of something. You’ve heard me speak of my daughter many times. She does many things, including writing. For her though it’s professional. Yeah, she actually makes money writing. She’s written something new that’s not meant to be read but to encourage others writing. I thought of this when I was selecting “personal journal” for my category. She’s written journal prompts, but I think pretty cleverly. She’s developed a card deck of prompts. According to her, “Everyone has a story, but not everyone knows what their story is.” The deck has 52 cards packed in a study box. Go check them out, at Untitled. She doesn’t know I’m telling you this, so if you see her, don’t say anything. Thanks.

What’s In a Name?

Michael 2 Comments

I once read that the two most common ways a person will select an alias are turning his first name into a last name while picking a very common first name (thus John Doe becomes Bob Johns) or picking a famous person’s name then shrugging off the similarity (“Well, this is the first time we’ve had Johnny Carson stay with us,” is replied to with HMNI2“Yeah, I get that a lot.”). The problem with these is that they don’t work well for women. While Peter can become Peters and Jeffrey turns into Jeffries, what’s Melissa supposed to become or who would believe Mary Catherine unless she was wearing a habit. Why I was researching aliases is the topic for a different post.

Well, have no fear. I have the perfect manner for a person of the female persuasion to disappear into the ephemera as easily as her male counterpoint. You probably have seen this since it has been floating about the Internet in one form or another since at least 2011. Everyone has six names. Those are:

  1. Your real name
  2. Your soap opera name: Your middle name + the street you live on
  3. Your Star Trek name: First three letter of your last name + first two of your middle name+ last 2 of your first name
  4. Your superhero name: The color of your shirt + the item to your right (or left if you prefer)
  5. Goth name: “Black” + the name of one of your pets
  6. Rapper name: “Lil” + the last thing you ate

Thus George Bush (one of my favorite aliases (aliai?) becomes:

Herbert Bizzell (of course I meant Daddy Bush (really),
Bushege,
Gold Shredder,
Black Millie (we may have to work on that one), or
Lil Peanut Butter depending on the  particular alias requiring circumstance

So you see, this is not only a terrific party game but also an amazing alias break for all opportunities. Going to a night club and don’t want your significant other to find out. Have no fear Melissa Elizabeth Mainlady of 123 Elm Street, Elizabeth Elms will be your wing woman. Gong to Comic con and prefer your law office buddies don’t find out. Maielmel will cover the registration fee. Yes, the possibilities may not be endless but they should cover almost any possible alias requirement.

So now, speaking of researching aliases…oh yes, that’s a topic for another post.

That’s what I think. Really. How ’bout you?

 

Relatively Speaking

Michael Leave a comment

Not long ago we mentioned we had a small handful of wedding events over just a couple of weeks.  We know the story that implies if it weren’t for weddings and funerals, nobody would ever see any relatives.  We also know there are some relatives who are probably best left uncovered except for the special occasions.  Then there are other relatives who can’t be put away.  Ever.  And then there are those who fall into the “Over there, two tables away, in the blue dress.  Who is she?” category.  Those are today’s topic.

One of our events was a rehearsal dinner.  What was once a nice, civilized way of getting some quality time with the happy couple, their parents, and the rest of the wedding party has grown up to become a mini-family reunion .  Some of the other but still closer members of the family are now joining the traditional rehearsing folk for an extra dose of fellowship among family members.

Whether at the newly expanded rehearsal dinner, the traditional family reunion, the now in season graduation party, or the unconstrained Christmas open house, we are finding ourselves in more situations wondering, “Over there, two tables away, in the blue dress.  Who is she?”

We have the solution.  Of course we do.  We never bring up something for which we don’t already have an answer.  That’s one of the perks of knowing the question before anybody else.  The solution of course is the use of name tags.  Yes, we know that some families already have discovered this and already use name tags.  These are different.  These include the connection between guest and point person of honor.  For example, at our attended function, She of We’s name tag would read “She, Aunt of Groom.”  At a graduation party, one might read “He, second cousin of father of graduate.”   At a family reunion where there is not always the central character that drives the reason for the party, there are always characters enough who everybody in the extended family will know or remember.  There it might read, “He, son of Cleo, the older one who took that job on the barge when everybody said she was being an asp for doing.”

On the other hand, as long as the party isn’t too big, sometimes it’s fun to wonder, ““Over there, two tables away, in the blue dress.  Who is she?”  This is especially true when the entire  table gets involved with the discussion of just who she is.  It’s exceptionally especially true if there is somebody at the table who knows the lady in the blue dress and the others can convince him or her that is wrong and the lady in the blue dress is really someone else.

We know some people will just go up to the lady in the blue dress, politely handle some obviously needed introductions, and go on to apologize for not remembering right from the start. Some would say that’s the right thing to do.

Yeah, but being right around the relatives is sometimes overrated anyway.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?