Front Page Archive 2002

December 27. So there have been a number of music related articles on this site, but none recently. It was time to change that. So here's a rating of Ridiculous Band Names. Did I miss a band name that has always left you baffled? Or perhaps did I slam a band that you really like? Well, good news, you can now kvetch on my shiny new forum (actually shininess may vary). It's so much better than the old message board that you just have to check it out.

December 22. And you thought November was a slow month for updates. Well, I have more irons in the fire than, well, a guy who has a lot of irons in the fire, and this one seemed by far the best one to pull out and finish off. It's a rant entitled Christmas, December, and Sanity. That's right, it's a holiday rant. You should have known it was coming. Will there be any more content up before Christmas? The answer is maybe. But by maybe I mean no.

December 18. Time sure flies this time of year. Of course, that goes along with working 60+ hour weeks. There still isn't any new content up and ready, although there are a stack of projects in the works. What this post is about the new and improved and functional and all around cool new Message Board. It's new, it's fresh, and I encourage everyone to go over there and post stuff right now. It supports polls and everything. Many thanks go out to zeroseven for installing the board for me.

December 4. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, every where you go. Well, at least it is here, what with the 20 odd centimetres of snow that fell yesterday. So Stuff of the Month was promised for the weekend. Well, that didn't happen, now did it? There is a rather twisted edition of Stuff up now, though, so check it out. Oh, and as promised, there's a new poll. To see the final results for the last one you'll have to hit Stuff of the Month. Sensing a theme here yet? No? So go read Stuff of the Month already.

November 30. Completion is necessary. So now the review of the new fall TV season has been completed, with Still More New TV Shows. Next year I'm not going to do four separate reviews of the bulk of the new shows. It takes forever and it's not much fun. Maybe next year I'll do a speed rating of all the shows all at once. Of course, that's ten months from now, so we'll see. Unrelated, look for the December Stuff of the Month over the weekend or maybe on Monday.

November 19. Yeah, okay, this site has been kinda quiet for a little while now. So I've been really busy. There's a lot of content in the works, just not finished yet. So it's a good thing that the Sunday fliers provided me with Absurdity in Advertising, Part IV. Oh, and the current poll is almost over. New poll coming with the next update, or maybe the one after that, so vote in the current one now.

November 4. It's that time again. What time is that, you ask? Why it's time for Stuff of the Month once again. This is the single most time consuming regular column on the site (not this edition in particular, mind you, this one was only heavily time consuming, not really, really ridiculously time consuming) and I'm wondering if people appreciate it or not. Hit the message board and tell me. Speaking of which, there is a new version of the board in the works. Look for that in the near future.

October 29. To echo the last update, normally there aren't updates on Tuesday. No, nothing urgent has come up. I've been watching entirely too much television lately, though, some of it quite awful. Why am I doing this? So I can bring you Even More New TV Shows, of course. You're welcome. I watch the good shows so you'll know what to watch. I watch the bad shows so you don't have to. I watch the ugly shows because, well, I'm a sucker for punishment. Oh, go vote in the poll. So far there is no clear indication of what people want, so maybe more votes will help to clairify. That, and I have a new poll idea I'm going to be doing soon.

October 24. Normally there aren't updates on Thursday, but something of relative urgency has just come up that compels a mid week update. If you are an Eastlink digital cable customer, (in which case you will get a free preview of the channel Mystery this weekend) or if you get Mystery on another service, you want to read this feature and pay close attention to item #23 on my list of Twenty Four Reasons to Watch 24. Remember, the new season begins on Tuesday.

October 19. If one opens the Bible just a little beyond the middle, one will come to the book of Ecclesiastes. Here it is written that there is no new thing under the sun. While this won't be disputed here, there is something new on this site. I've posted something quite unlike anything ever posted here before. It's an article about Cooking.

October 13. You know, it seems like all I ever do on the front page in these updates when I'm posting new content is apologize for the updates being late. Maybe I shouldn't bother with that. Maybe I shouldn't bother with these front page comments at all. Or maybe I should. Tell you what, go vote in the new poll below, tell me what you think. Now, about the new content, yes, it's not Friday, but here's the Friday update. I have a good reason for the delay, but I'm not going to tell you about it. And I'm not sorry. So here's the second edition of the fall 2002 show review.

October 6. The plan is that the first thing that goes up in a given month is the Stuff of the Month. Not this month. It's the second article that went up. So now it's up. There is a completely new category in there this month, one that may slightly advocate breaking of federal laws. So now you've been warned. But go read it anyway, even if you don't want to be a lawbreaker. Reading it won't get you into trouble. Carrying out the instructions therein won't actually get you into trouble either. Getting caught could.

October 1. Normally I'd be posting the new Stuff of the Month about now, but it's not nearly ready yet, so look for it later in the week. Instead,here's the Monday posting on Tuesday. Yes, yes, I know, Tuesday isn't Monday, it's Tuesday. Well, it's still Monday in Hawaii, so technically I could call this the Monday update, but I won't. It's another Good/Bad/Ugly rating, but this one is part of a series, the new fall TV show ratings. This is the second annual one of these.

September 28. It's been two weeks since I last updated, and I'm sorry. I didn't plan that. Things just kept piling up and piling up and I was out of town and my new hosting company moved their servers and things were down, and well, I started lots of features, but only now have I completed one. It's a Good/Bad/Ugly rating of Facial Piercings. That's right, piercings on the face. Everything is from the neck up, so it's all good.

September 13. It's that time again. Okay, so I missed it last month, but now A Thousand Words is back and even better. And when I say better,I mean pretty much the same. What were you expecting? In administrivia, the site has moved to a different host, pretty much without a hitch, apart from a few hours it was down yesterday morning. This new host lets me do some stuff that the old one didn't, so look for some changes in the site in the near future. Nothing huge, but changes.

Sept 11. We all know what today is. It's Wednesday. This means I'm not supposed to be updating the site. Well, I am. Surprise. I'm writing about the same thing everyone else is today. It's not funny. You probably don't want to read it. Oh, and the site is moving to another host, so things might not be operating properly for the next few days.

Sept 9. I haven't ranted about anything for almost a month now, so it was time for a new rant. Enjoy. Also, if anyone tried to email me within the last week, my hotmail address was having problems, so your mail most likely didn't get through. In fact, if it was sent any time from Tuesday night until this afternoon, it definitely didn't. It appears to be working fine now, so feel free to try again.

September 2. First things first. The summer poll is now over, and the results are as follow. If there were Dontmindme.com T-shirts, would you buy one? Heck no: 3 Votes. Only if they were totally wicked awesome: 4 Votes. Sure: 11 Votes Make sure you order a lot cause I want a dozen: 1 Vote. So, look for T-shirts coming soon. And when I say soon, I mean eventually. Second, Stuff of the Month is now up. And it's actually up within 48 hours of the month starting. Shocking, I know.

August 26. Okay, here's the story. I was away last weekend, from Wednesday to Sunday. So that's why there was no update that Friday. As for Monday, I was over tired and didn't have anything remotely close to being ready. As for last Friday, well, let me just say that setting up a home network is sometimes a lot more complicated and troublesome than it really should be. That said, here's a new edition of Absurdity in Advertising that just might be the funniest one yet. Thanks go out to Brian for spotting this.

August 12. Inspiration is an unpredicatable creature. I've found it calls at strange times and leaves youwith no choice but to answer. Other times it's just a telemarketer from Columbia House looking for your roommate. Well, on Saturday night it was definitely inspiration. I got a new chair on Saturday, and I felt my self compelled to write about it. Well, not just about one chair. How much of a rant can one really be expected to write about one chair? That's why today's rant is about my two chairs.

August 9. It's late, but it's still technically Friday here for another four minutes, so here's the Friday update. It slots in nicely with Stuff of the Month, too, so that's cool. It was time for a Good/Bad/Ugly rating, so I rated Beltware. Oh, if you haven't voted in the current poll, vote soon, because I'm probably going to put up a new poll with the next update.

August 6. Being sick rather sucks. Not only are you entirely too tired and out of it and sore and coughing and stuff, but you also don't get site updates done on time. Or at all. So here's the somewhat delayed Stuff of the Month for August. Better late than never and all that. At least I'm starting to feel somewhat more normal now.

July 29. It's late, I'm tired, but I stayed up late to bring you something very special. And when I say special, I mean it was something I had nearly finished previously, and so it was going to be the easiest thing to have ready for Monday morning. I don't want to deny my readers their Monday morning fix of Dontmindme.com. I do want to encourage you to vote in the poll below if you haven't voted yet, because I will be taking it down soon to make room for a new pool.

July 26. This is something entirely new to this site. I'm going to post some news headlines and mock them. Simple and direct. Not a new idea overall, mind you, but new to this site. So I wasn't particularly inspired to come up with something wildly original tonight. Deal with it. We'll see how it goes. Unrelated, I want a new logo for the site. And when I say new, I mean I want a logo, period. I don't have one now. If anyone out there feels creatively inclined, design a logo and sent it to me. I'll give you credit and a link (if you have a site of your own) and everything.

July 23. I'm starting to get tired of my Internet access going down every 12 hours. Bad Eastlink! Bad! Thankfully it's up right now, so I was able to get my Monday update posted. It's a reasonably extensive Good/Bad/Ugly rating of eating utensils. Unrelated, I'm thinking of doing a bit of a redesign with the site, so if you have any suggestions for things you like to see, or maybe things you want me to leave alone, hit the forum and let me know.

July 17. This seems to have become a tradition here as of late, but here is the Monday update early Wednesday morning. There's a reason though, my Internet access went down Saturday evening and has been down ever since. Repair guy was by today, and now everything appears to be working normally. So here's a rant, and not about problems with Internet access, although that might be a rant for another day.

July 13. Here's the Friday update on Saturday. Think of it as being like the way the 2003 car models come out in 2002, only the other way, and having nothing to do with cars. I wasn't going to do a Good/Bad/Ugly rating today, but the item I was working on just didn't seem to be clicking, so here's something else that I think turned out rather well. And I made a nifty animated gif for it too.

July 10. Here's the montly Stuff. It's late. Really, really ridiculously late. I'm sorry, I'll try not let it happen again. Well, at least not for a while. Everyone needs a bit of unscheduled vacation time now and then. I know I did. The fact that my internet access went down for a while combined with just being entirely uninspired combined with family stuff combined with being overtired. Look for the regularly scheduled update on Friday.

June 24. The Sunday flyers are a great source of recyclable waste, weekly sales information, and occassionally some free entertainment. This week it was Shoppers Drug Mart's turn to amuse me. Don't worry, I got my scanner out and there's a copy of the funniest page up in Absurdity in Advertising, Part II.

June 21. Things seem to go in cycles. There were five rants last month, but this is the first one for this month. And it might be the last. Just not in a ranting mood I guess. Anyway, it's late, I don't have much more to say, just read my rant about Chocolate Bar Advertising.

June 14. First things first. Here's a new edition of A Thousand Words. It's funny, so go look at the pictures, read the captions and laugh. In other news, you might notice a few changes on the main page, the most notable of which is a Google search bar. You can do a direct Google search of the entire net, or, and this is the best part, click on Search Dontmindme.com to search on just this site. So if you want to find the article I did about Garbage bags you're just one quick search from finding it.

June 10. Well, second scheduled update day, and I'm still on schedule, which is good. Getting off schedule this early would be a bad way to start. But I'm not off schedule, so let's not worry about it. I have a new Good/Bad/Ugly rating up, and this one is actually about something current. It's also the first speed rating I've done since March.

June 7. I had a brilliant idea this week. A few months ago I committed to updating this site ten times per month. While I've hit that target three out of five months thus far this year, it's not a terribly specific target. So instead, I am changing that to updating every Monday and Friday. Since I generally don't work on Sunday or Thursday it makes perfect sense. Also, you will know when to expect new content. On that subject, here is this Friday's new content, the rather delayed Stuff of the Month. Bunch of new categories this month. Tell me what you think of them by using the message board or my nifty flash email button.

May 31. Well, it's very early in the morning, and here's the first of my two-to-go articles. Will there be a second? Time will tell. Also, you may have noticed something new on the sidebar called Make a Donation. Running this site isn't free, and if anyone feels like sending a dollar or three my way that's a good way to do it. Although now that I look at it, maybe commenting on donations wasn't such a great idea to accompany that particular graphic. Oh well.

May 30. Look, I know this is the second last day of the month, and this is only the eighth feature I've posted. Will I post two more before Friday midnight? I'll try, but don't count on it. I am accepting submissions from outside writers, however, so if you think you might be funny enough to at least make me smile a little (it's really not hard) email me. I'm looking for stories, cartoons, rants, you name it. I'll even link back to your site and do my best to make you famous. Sound good?

May 26. I'm not really sure why, but I seem to be in a rantish mood this month. This is the fourth rant this month, and perhaps not the last. It's not that I don't want to do Good/Bad/Ugly ratings or other postings, but rants are what I'm coming up with. And this rant is not about moving, so it's all good.

May 23. Remember last time when I commented about writer's block? No? Okay, look down a few inches and you can read it in my May 19 posting. I've been fighting the writer's block a bit more, and I see to be winning, so here's the long awaited (well, a few weeks awaited) awaited second part of my write up about moving.

May 19. Are you familiar with writer's block? I've been suffering from something similar lately. Maybe it's more of motivation block, but I haven't been writing much lately. It's not a lack of ideas, it's not lack of time. Maybe it is writer's block after all. I finally got something done, though, my first rating in three weeks. And a half cool new animated gif, too.

May 14. It's that time again. No, not time to clean out the basement, although, well, actually it was that time last week. Dragging an old mattress upstairs and out to the curb is loads of fun. Here's some free advice — don't put heavy stuff down in your basement. Not that mattresses are all that heavy, but heavy stuff in basements is a bad idea if you ever want to take said heavy stuff back out of the basement. But I digress. It's time for yet another edition of A Thousand Words.

May 10. I've moved. But I'm not going to write about that right now. Later, probably, but not now. Still not thoroughly settled in, and I'm not in the mood to write. Most of this new article was written last week, I merely finished it off tonight. I do that sometimes. Other times I'll write an entire 800 word feature in the course of two hours. But enough about that. Go read You Must Remember This.

May 3. On the off chance this graphic doesn't give everything away, I'm currently in the process of moving, and yes, I did the obvious thing, and I wrote about it. Now you can read about my moving experience, or at least the 'pre-move' stuff that's happened so far, or at least what I remembered to include.

May 2. I was going to post new Stuff yesterday evening, but I was dead tired after work (12 hours can do that to you). So I decided to lay down on the couch "just for a few minutes" and slept all night. Anyway, it's up now. I've done more tweaking of categories. If you don't like my tweaking, that's what the message board is for.

April 29. Completion is good. Even when the original idea isn't all that great, it's always nice to have something finished. Such is the case with my latest Good/Bad/Ugly rating, called More Doors. And no, that's not intended to be a bad Lord of the Rings pun. It's intended to be a second part of my ratings of Doors. Some administrivia: the current poll is closed, with almost universal agreement about the size of text here: It's fine. Leave it alone. So I shall. Look for a new poll soon. Also, I've added some links on the sidebar. If you want your site linked there, let me know via email.

April 26. It's entirely too late to be doing this since I work in the morning, but a good idea is a good idea, even when it's not your own good idea. And when it's an easy to do idea, so much the better. Now I just have to remember to email the person whose idea I stole, because I happen to owe him an email already. At least I link to him in my latest article.

April 23. Some of my rants are about silly and trivial topics. Some of them aren't. This one falls squarely into the second category, in case the lovely graphic to the right didn't give it away. That doesn't mean I haven't managed to include a little levity, at least if you don't live in France. I'm not especially confident that this rant is any good, though, so a little feedback would be appreciated. Hit the forums or drop me an email on it.

April 20. If I go crazy will you still call me Superman? Superman never made any money saving the world from Solomon Gundy. Wish I could fly like Superman. Superman where are you now? Everything's gone wrong some how. You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind. You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and have you figured out the theme yet?

April 17. Sometimes when I go to post a new article I know exactly what I want to put on the front page to announce it. Other times I have no idea what I want to write here. I don't want to give away too much of the article, but at the same time I want people to click on the link (or the picture, which is linked anyway) and go read it. This is one of those times. So without further ado, I have a new rant up, and it's about Salsa. But it's not really about salsa. I've said too much already.

April 13. If I've learned one thing in my time running this site, it's that not running spellcheck can make you look like an idiot. If I've learned a second thing, it's that you've got to give the people want they want. That said, I'm not posting more practical jokes, although that's what the people seem to want, I'm posting another edition of A Thousand Words, because it's what I want. If I've learned a third thing from running this site, it's that photo captions are fun.

April 11. It's that time again. No, it's not time to set fire to your neighbour's backyard woodpile so you can have an impromptu marshmallow roast, although that's a good time, too. It's time for another Good/Bad/Ugly rating of More Mid Season Replacement Shows. It's also time to go and vote in my current poll, which you can find on this page below, because I'm going to change the question to something new in the very near future.

April 8. Let me make one thing clear right now: I don't work in advertising or marketing. I have a soul, and I like having a soul. Sometimes, though, I think I should work in either of the aforementioned fields. Call me arrogant, but I think I'd be good at it. After all, I'm witty, creative, intelligent, and full of ideas. Some of these ideas are better than others, but all of them are better than the idea behind the inspiration for my latest article, called Absurdity in Advertising.

April 5. Never say I don't deliver on my promises. That's right, Stuff of the Month for April is finally here. I've tinkered with the categories for Stuff this month, and some old categories are out while some new ones are in. Look for minor monthly changes to this department in the future. I'm going to try to keep it reasonably fresh.

April 4. New stuff of the month is coming. It really is. I'm working on it, and I'm tinkering it with it a little before postingit. Look for it in a day or two. In the mean time here's an angry rant from a guest writer. It's not a furious rant, but it is angry, and funny, and you should go and read it now, and forget all abou the fact that there's no new stuff of the month yet. Deal?

March 31. Everyone has, at some time or another, needed a reference letter or three. And chances are that should you ever hold a job with higher responsibilities than making sure the ketchup dispenser is filled that you will have to write the odd letter of reference yourself. If you find this a daunting task, help is at hand. Behold the Dontmindme.com guide to writing reference letters.

March 28. "You know that it would be untrue / You know that I would be a liar / If I was to say to you / Girl, we couldn't get much higher / Come on baby, light my fire / Come on baby, light my fire / Try to set the night on fire." On the off chance those lyrics and the graphic to the right didn't get my message across, I did arating of Doors. Not the band, the things with hinges. Go read it now.

March 26. Okay, it's way, way too late at night, I thought I could get through my tape of the 2002 Academy Awards much faster than I actually did, so here's my speed rating of the awards. Enjoy.

March 23. Something different this way comes. It's always good to have new content on the site, and this is certainly something new. I have a surprise new item from a past guest writer that I found quite amusing, so I'm posting it for all to read. Plus I did a quick and funky little trademark violating graphic for it. Go check it out.

March 22. Do I suffer from insomnia or just poor judgement? Perhaps that will be the question for a future pool. In the mean time you should vote in my current poll, not a lot of people have, and it's been up the better part of two weeks now. You should also visit the message board if you haven't (or even if you have), and post to your heart's content. That's what it's there for. Or, if that's not your thing, hit the email button on the sidebar (it's a nice shiny flash button that took me minutes to build, so I'd appreciate if people would use it). And don't forget to read my latest rant.

March 18. Oh dear. It's been an entire week since I updated this site. A week. A bloody week. I'm sorry, this wasn't planned, but I was short on inspiration and short on time. And this week promises to be just as bad. I'll try to not let it go as long this time. Anyway, here's my long promised rating of Mid Season Replacement Shows.

March 10. Sometimes you get mad, and when you do, you might feel the urge to go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell "Hey, I'm mad as heck and I'm not going to take it anymore!" Or you could try one of the other forms of protest that I just rated. And then you should go vote in my poll below.

March 9. I think I'm going to be retiring my other small pic used to announce A Thousand Words in the past, at least for the time being. It's a great pic, really, but I don't feel like putting the face of Hamas up on my site right now. So here's Dubya being abducted by a UFO. Enjoy. Go read A Thousand Words, Part IV.

March 7. I think I'm suffering from Olympic withdrawl. No events, no medals, no controversy, no wall to wall coverage, and no two hour hockey game every night. Or maybe it's just midwinter blahs. In any case, here's a new Good/Bad/Ugly rating.