Todd Stadler's blog

Crappy, devolving pop culture observations

Dear Blog,

Sigh. I have to be honest. I'm doing what I swore I wouldn't do and posting out of guilt. We had a good streak going there for a while. At least, I thought so. Those were good times, right? And then — I know — I got busy. Well, not really busy so much as distracted — it's not like I actually accomplished much else while I was ignoring you.

And all I have to offer today are tired pop-culture observations (oh, and let's not forget the too-clever-by-nil ironic self-observatory conceit) that want so desperately to be funny but do very little to add to the level of discourse on the internet. The only thing I could possibly do to better prove the essential worthlessness of this blog (yea, and a so-called blog it is) would be to include a political rant that links to and quotes a third-tier political-rant blog, which itself links to more popular politically ranty blogs, ultimately ending, of course, in a link to a nytimes.com article. And don't think I don't feel that temptation.

But that's not the point. The point is, as already mentioned, ironic, (faux) self-deprecatory, sarcastic, ennui-laden writing. With sprinkles.

And this anecdote: I was at the doughnut shop today, and the song playing was Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me", that epitome of late-80s head-banging, and when the line "Do you take sugar?! One lump or two?!?!" came on...

No, I can't. The song is stupid — of course the song is stupid! And this whole story is stupid. I can't go on writing about this. Or rather, I won't. I will, however, post this diary-entry-of-a-tortured-blogger, just to spite myself and those poor souls who pass through these backwaters of the Web. Ha!

And just to get it off my chest, lest I feel tempted to write another blog entry on this only-slightly-different story, I also recently heard "The Girl is Mine", and yes that song is, in retrospect, also quite silly. "The doggone girl is mine," indeed! And let's not even focus on the singers of the song and how more ridiculous things become when you take them into account. Yes, let's not.

I'm sorry, blog. I really am. You've become a dumping-ground for half-written tirades, a place where guilt clouds pass over, dropping hyper-self-referentialismic rain and the occasional neologism. And twisted, cracked, and hastily-glued-together-again metaphors. And an overabundance of conjunctions.

Love,
Todd

Astros' win calls for prancing

Okay, I'm not a sports fanatic of any sort, much less of any particular game or team. But I couldn't help notice the photo in today's newspaper that showed jubilant Astros celebrating their win over the Atlanta Braves in Game 4 of the National League Division Series. Maybe it's that I have family-in-law in Houston, so their joy is my joy, or at least my pleasant indifference.

But then again, maybe it's that the photo featured Luke Scott captured in the middle of what appears to be his "jazz hands" routine.

Which doesn't really explain why I spent so much time making the stupid animated GIF at right, but what did you expect?