Archive for life

Being a comedy contributor at Cracked.com like being repeatedly punched in the crotch until you die

Posted in blogging, humor, life with tags , , , , , on July 20, 2009 by Paxton

cracked_page1

Hey, everyone, I don’t know if everybody knows this, but I was accepted as a comedy writer/contributor at Cracked.com. That means I get to make comedy pitches to the Cracked editors and if they accept my pitch, I get to write the article. It was a huge deal for me to be accepted as a writer there and I’ve been stoked to submit pitches to them in the hopes that I can start writing comedy somewhat “professionally”.  It’s interesting to see how that website and it’s editors work behind the scenes. They have strict rules about what they accept and I’ve had several comedy pitches turned down by the editors. The editors liked my pitches, but the article format at Cracked is a vicious beast, and I was told the content didn’t fit what they are trying to do. Not to be deterred, I’m taking these failed pitches, writing them anyway and posting them here.

I’ve posted two failed Cracked pitches already without telling you. The articles 15 Steps for Surviving the Zombie Apocolypse and Little Women Fight Club: Making Literature more Awesome were both pitches that were turned down by Cracked.com. If you haven’t, go read those articles and let me know that they are awesome and that Cracked can “suck it”.  Because I thought the ideas were good anyway, I wrote them and posted them up for you guys to see.  This week’s article is another failed comedy pitch (either I’m not very good at comedy writing or Cracked.com is just not a good fit for me). It’s a re-imagining of an earlier article I wrote about Pop Culture’s Coolest Time Machines. Think of this third failed Cracked article as the previous article’s evil twin brother.

So, I think the frequency of my pitches to Cracked are going to stop for the time being.  All the rejects these past few months were kind of getting me down and I was not even wanting to write on this blog.  But, I’ve built a bridge, gotten over it, and now I’m back kicking your ass with AWESOME!!  Never fear, I’m still here, bringing you the awesome funny that will melt your face into a puddle of sticky goo.

Be prepared, readers.  Be prepared.

Oh, and I still go over to Cracked and read their articles because they do have a phenomenally talented stable of writers and their stuff is constantly funny, hence me wanting to join their ranks.  I hold no ill will, and I’m still going to try to get stuff published over there, but not as hard as I’ve been trying since January.  My focus is writing for this blog and keeping it as cool and awesome as a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick to the grill.

Chuck roundhouse

Advertisement

Weekly Geeks 2009-20: Guilty Pleasures

Posted in life, personal, Weekly Geeks with tags , , on June 1, 2009 by Paxton

Weekly Geeks

Weekly Geeks time!!!

What’s your non-reading guilty pleasure?
Trashy TV?
Trashier movies?
Junk food?

Guilty pleasures mean that you are embarrassed what other people think about that particular action. For the most part, I enjoy what I enjoy and am not embarrassed about it. Everyone that knows me knows I like this thing or that, I don’t try to hide it. However, here are a few of my non-reading habits that might be odd to a normal person, but are just another part of the magnificent AWESOME-ness that is me.

Giant Eagle
1. Checking out supermarkets I’ve never been to.
Whenever I travel by myself or with my wife (or family) if we pass a cool looking supermarket I’ve never been to, I have to go in. It’s just something I enjoy. When my wife and I went to Paris in 2007 I actually had us go to Mona Vie, a Parisian supermarket/department store.  I found a bunch of cool sodas and chips.  When I go to one of these new groceries, I check out the soda aisle first to see if that particular place has any new sodas I’ve never seen before. I then go check out the snack food aisle for any cool goodies I’ve never seen before; chips, snack cakes, etc. I then check out the cereal aisle for any cool boxes I’ve never scoped before. If I find anything cool, I’ll either buy it on the spot or take pictures of it while in the store.  The links within this paragraph go to several of my Flickr sets highlighting the appropriate items I’ve found during some of my travels. If you click the picture of the Giant Eagle up there you’ll go to my Flickr set of Supermarket chains I’ve visited.  Check them out.

That would probably be the biggest “guilty pleasure” of mine.  What else do I like to do….hmmmm…

Continue reading

How my iPod Shuffle controls my runs like a mini-dictator

Posted in Apple, exercise, humor, iPod, life, running, technology with tags , , , , , on April 16, 2009 by Paxton

Okay, I mentioned earlier that I ran the Gate River Run here in Jacksonville on Mar 14. Well, I was able to run the whole 9.3 miles and I finished in 1hr and 33minutes. That’s right at 10 minute miles. I’m happy with that and I hope to break that next year. If you want to see some pics of me during the race click here.  Beware, I look ROUGH.

I’ve had a few people ask what I like to listen to when I’m running and the answer is my iPod Shuffle. I load it up with some awesome running tunes and then just let it pick the order. It’s great. As for the type of music, I enjoy hard rock and a bit of gangsta rap when I run. I need high energy to keep me going. No ballads or wimpy crap. I need ball-drivin’, head-bangin’, car-crashin’, ear-splittin’ RAAAAWWWWWWK when I run.

The other day I was feeling saucy so I hooked my Shuffle up to the computer and set iTunes to auto-load songs. This means I have no idea what was picked as everything was just picked at random. Normally, I tell iTunes what songs I want, then the iPod picks the playlist order, but this time I let iTunes pick the songs. FYI…that was a HUGE mistake. I have this running condition called MADD, Music Attention Deficit Disorder. I may LOVE a song in the car, but when I’m running, odds are, I’m going to hate it. Seriously, when I’m running, the chances of me liking a song are cut to 50%, at least.

Want to know how my run went? Below is the horrible sound track to a man dying. There were some good songs, but then, there was everything else.

Continue reading