This Post has no Actual Content

Oh great, another introspective post ...

I was challenged to write a post that did not add any new content beyond what was presented in the first sentence. This is an opportunity to cover ground already trodden. It is a chance to revisit past thoughts and ideas and find fresh angles with which to present them. It certainly does not involve presenting new ideas - just taking the original ideas, rewrapping them, and presenting them again. It's like giving away a gift certificate to a store you never visit. Only it's a challenge; it's a provocation; it's a task available to be undertaken.

Accomplishing the goal is simple - just repeat what has already been said. One might, with only minimal hesitation, use the word: "rehash." Like a dog to his vomit, I return to a worthless sentence and gobble it up, only to chuck it back moments (or sentences) later. I can theoretically continue in this vein - without introducing new content - for as long as one would expect a post to run.

It's not about thinking outside the box - it's about looking at the same box from a different angle. One never knows how many sides it has until one runs out of sides. In the same way, one never can know how long a post can go without introducing new content until all content has been exhausted. And exhausting all possible content is - in a way - what I have been asked to do. I am to continue writing, not to introduce ideas, and hardly even to develop new ones. I write simply to fill the page; to bring the post to the appropriate length.

Here, in the fourth paragraph, I still have nothing new to say. I can only refer you back to the first sentence in the post, which presented the idea which has not only been the main thrust but the exclusive supplier of ideas for every sentence following, including this one, which is particularly lengthy for no particular reason. To reiterate, the beginning of this post is all you really needed to read to know what was going to follow.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, or at least I'm willing to give it an honest shot. Parroting oneself is the key. Having established a basic groundwork in the first sentence, one merely has to duplicate that sentence - or parts of the sentence - over and over again until the correct post length has been reached. And it is in this sentence that I conclude my mirror-like remarks, and, without further ado (by which I mean the ado at the beginning of this post [echoed extensively, as I'm sure you are well aware]), draw this post to a close.

How to Play Traffic

REQUIRED TO PLAY: One serviceable automobile, one valid driver's license. Paranoid friends and relatives add to the fun.

OBJECT OF THE GAME: To obtain the highest possible number of points over a set period of time by completing certain objectives, usually involving tacky violations of road law and/or etiquette, written and unwritten.

HOW TO PLAY: This game is as much a pastime as a sport. You can play anywhere, any time: driving to work, dropping the kids off at soccer, going on a joy ride with friends, moving your father-in-law's jaguar around the block for him. Try to complete as many objectives as possible in the shortest possible time. Style points figure big in this game, as do making up your own objectives on the spur of the moment. Success requires quick thinking, situational awareness, and the sort of mind that brings you to FCN in the first place.

Scoring and objective verification is based on the honor system.

OBJECTIVES (An incomplete list):

Fake forward. While stopped at a red light, edge forward a few inches, then stop.

2 points: Make the car behind you edge forward as well.
4 points: Make the car next to you edge forward.
6 points: Make the car next to you run the light.
9 points: Make the car next to you drive into oncoming traffic.
13 points: Make the car behind you rear-end you. Sue the driver out of house and home.

Zone of Control. Throw a left turn signal indicating a merge into the fast lane, but stay in your current lane indefinitely.

1 point: Make a passing car fall back.
2 points: Make a passing hummer fall back.
4 points: Make a sports car follow behind you indefinitely.
13 points: Make a police car follow behind you indefinitely.

I'm from Europe. Drive a donut in the middle of an intersection.

2 points: Learn a new word from a fellow motorist.
7 points: Learn a new word from a nun.

Litter bug. While stopped at a red light, exit the car to collect a piece of trash lying on the side of the road, then return to the vehicle before the light turns green.

3 points: Get a Spock eyebrow from the driver behind you.
5 points: Collect the litter that the driver behind you just tossed out his window.
9 points: Sell the litter on eBay.
11 points: Catch the litter before it hits the ground.
14 points: Appear on the Village Roadshow with the litter.

Chicken Little. Roll down your window and gesture emphatically skyward.

1 point: Make someone look.
2 points: Catch them looking and laugh at them.
4 points: Make someone leap from their car and run for cover.
8 points: Make everyone in sight leap from their car and run for cover.
15 points: Reverse the flow of traffic.

My favorite song. Roll down your window and sing along with the radio of an adjacent motorist who also has his/her windows down.

2 points: Make the fellow motorist turn his music up.
3 points: Make the fellow motorist turn his music down.
5 points: The song is "Riding Dirty."

Actually, it can be done. Parallel park from across the street by sawing a hard left and closing the hand brake.

2 points: Complete this stunt without damaging anything.
3 points: Complete this stunt and damage a jaguar.
5 points: Complete this stunt and damage your father-in-law's jaguar.
8 points: Complete this stunt in your father-in-law's jaguar.
10 points: Complete this stunt in your prospective father-in-law's jaguar with your sweetheart in the passenger seat.
16 points: Complete this stunt in your prospective father-in-law's jaguar with your prospective mother-in-law in the passenger seat.

Gotcha Going. Rev your engine as a pedestrian passes in front of you on a crosswalk.

-1 point: Get a Spock eyebrow from said pedestrian.
3 points: Get a scream.
5 points: Make said pedestrian break and run.
7 points: Make said pedestrian break and run into oncoming traffic.
12 points: Make an adjacent motorist drive into oncoming traffic.
15 points: The pedestrian is wearing an orange vest and holding a KIDS XING sign.

Cut! Drive off a cliff just before something explodes.

40 points.

Happy Mother's Day!

We had all kinds of great plans about what to do for Mother's day. After an extensive staff meeting, during which we tossed around ideas like getting Mommy G a ring with three stones (one for each contributor), we finally settled on something both economical and fitting.

Expect both your leftover Chuck E Cheese's tokens in the mail any day now, Mommy G!

Why don't you link to other blogs?

If you have followed my web publishing career for a long time (by "a long time," I mean at least fourteen dog years), you may recall the tall, vapid list of links that became a staple on my earlier blogging endeavors. These scrawling shout outs cluttered the page unnecessarily and camouflaged new content to such an extent that readers had to hunt for actual posts. I thought I'd created a website adventure but the not-so fun loving who read the site were irritated out of their minds. The blogroll wasn't attractive, useful or necessary, but it reigned supreme on my sidebar like a vestigial organ waiting for it's listectomy.

A well meaning friend asked me the other day why FCN doesn't have any such blogroll. Of course, I say he was "well meaning" because I am about to insult him. Of all the questions to ask about FCN, is our lack of a blogroll the most earth shattering? Why not ask why Todd dies in his second episode only to live on through several more? Why not ask how three derelicts manage to rise so early to get a post on the internet (Pacific Time, doubters!). Why not ask about Desperate Student? There are plenty of valid questions there.

Then again, the germane question is usually the one that goes unasked, so maybe I shouldn't be too hard on my friend.

Here at FCN, we maintain no list of friendly, reciprocal or even fanciful "blogs we like." In fact, our linkage is very minimalistic. While most sites keep at least a small blogroll with friends' sites or other interesting fare, we don't. Why?

There are many easy answers: We don't have any friends. We don't have any friends who blog. Even if we did have friends who blog, we wouldn't link to their sites. We have such varied taste in blogs that the disputes created by a definitive list would cause a rift between us contributors. Linking to other blogs is morally wrong. No other blogs would like to link to us. Linking requires work.

Like most easy answers, all of the above options are false. The real reason has to do with our rebellious nature. Remember those association games you played as a kid? Blue > water, water > thirsty, thirsty > hungry, etc? Well, oe more we can add to that list is "blog > link list." Where a blog is a useless amalgamation of hyperlinks will be also. Links are considered the "currency" of the internet, whatever that means. They open the door for other sites and the truly globalized internet is the blogrolled one, or so they taught us in blogger 101. "You gotta have 'em," as one wizened author once told me.

This culture of "I'll link to you if you'll link to me" has become standardized across the great servers of the world. Blogs have come to demand links from others, as if it is their birthright to see their name underlined. Don't link and you are using cash in a Visa check card world:



To us here at FCN, nonconformity is more than a virtue, it is a creed. We aren't normal people (who is?) and, in case you hadn't noticed, we broadcast that abnormality through this site. When others say jump we think twice and prepare our estate before asking "how high?" When others write sincere essays for their college entrance, we prepare a passel of indefensible lies.

Not publishing a list of links is our version of growing our hair out. My economics professor hasn't cut his hair or shaved since 1964, a fact that is readily apparent from his dilapidated personal appearance and that is a regular source of pride for him. Since they haven't yet found a way to give blogs hair, we make due with what is available.

That doesn't mean we haven't provided some links now and again. To continue an already tenuous analogy beyond its expiration, some hairs do manage to escape our cyber razor. To wit, see here and here.

Keep in mind that our content exists for the entertainment of ourselves and, of course, our moms. We also sometimes consider the faithful few, but only for fleeting moments. If you want us to link to you, your content needs to be entertaining and captivating. It needs to grab us by the chain and yank, in exactly the way PETA wouldn't approve. Alternatively, it can be funny. We have twelve readers, most of whom will probably at least look at your page if we provide a link, but your material needs to be worthy of their attention.

Please remember that the mere fact that you have a blog is not worthy of our reader's attention. Heck, I have a blog. That's my four word refutation. If you want a link, send us a page of your best content and we will give it fair consideration. That is, we will assign it heads or tails on a coin and make sure the toss is conducted properly.

Okay. Who am I kidding? We are so strapped for content we'll probably post anything. Send us a picture of your Grandma and you'll get face time. Well, maybe not, but it's worth a short, isn't it?

Cold Turkey

Diverting large quantities of carbohydrates and investing billions of our hard earned dollars into research and development has failed to quell our dependence on foreign oil or have any discernible impact on our oil consumption habits. We still shell out for gasoline like booze before the prohibition and guzzle the stuff like a lineman drinks Gatorade.

Do I really need to convince you all that gas is expensive and it "ain't gettin' any cheaper no time soon," as a particularly eloquent commentator explained our situation. If you aren't convinced, run outside to your local filling station and look at the price posted by the pump. If you live within 7,926.41 miles of my house, you will see the price is out of hand. Actually it was out of hand a year ago; now it's out of this world.

Still not convinced? Try walking up to the minimum wage compensated attendant and ask if s/he can cut you a deal. Explain that you are a student strapped for cash or that you just want to stick it to the Saudis. Tell the gas station employee that you want to make a political statement and start buying your fuel less expensively. Ask whether the attendant can help you in this effort by giving you a $1/gallon discount and close the pitch with your best Bob The Tomato smile.

I've tried it a few times. The reaction is either a blank stare followed by a 911 phone call or a response in some Middle Eastern language in a tone that promises a future 911 call. Either way, I am encouraged to shut up and let my pocketbook be gouged.

Oil prices have been linked to all manner of negative impacts. When oil prices rise, we have to spend more on fuel to maintain our current driving habits and have less money to spend on other things. This reduces our overall consumption which means we buy less candy which, in turn, causes General Irritability (GI), a condition that induces such varied and extreme symptoms as increased unemployment, rising suicide and divorce rates and more consumption of such damaging social instruments as alcohol, cigarettes and television. In extreme cases, General Irritability can cause extreme sensation seeking, explosive anger and, yes, even road rage (not to be confused with Road Rash [CAUTION DISTURBING], although that is probably another impact of elevated GI)

You think I'm making this all up, but check it out; it's all in the research. A few years ago, a law was passed to help reduce this General Irritability. Called the GI Bill, the new regulation called for candy drops (like the leaflet drops in Afghanistan (YouTube video below), only sweeter) to solve for the root cause of GI. The law was largely ineffective and found its only real support from the dentists lobby.



Publicly touted solutions to the "Oil Problem" have about as much currency as mercury-filled sandbags for flood prevention. We could invade Saudi Arabia, start drilling in the mountains of Canada or, God forbid, impinge on the breeding ground of the sacred Alaskan caribou (or are they Reindeer?). Since the tranquility of some snow mice in the frozen north is more important then the GI index, we get divorced and commit unholy sepuku whilst the polar bear lobby has delicious meals on K Street.

FCN will not stand by idly as our economy is thrown into a state of total disturbance. With the zero assumption that we are not powerless to halt the reign of oil over our finances, FCN hit the lab and assigned our crack(pot) researchers to developing a solution to this problem. After several hours, a carton of Red Bulls, a visit from a brownie laden Mommy G and a 911 call, we found the solution:

Go Cold Turkey.

Cold Turkey is, of course, a technical term for "just stop it, dang it!" The phrase's etymology takes us back to the days after the First Thanksgiving when the Pilgrim mothers (all four surviving moms, that is) brought out the leftovers from the big feast. At first the Pilgrims were excited to partake of the delicious turkey, until they discovered its temperature. Cold meat isn't nearly as good as the warm stuff, especially in the days before refrigeration. William Bradford is famous for shouting "Cold Turkey" as he overturned the thanksgiving table and threw away the leftovers, thus halting the celebration after three days. Alternate theories of etymology can be found here.

As I said, Go Cold Turkey. To stop consuming oil, all we need to do is, well, stop consuming it. Forget a holiday from gas taxes, let's have a holiday from consumption. Ditch your car wherever it runs out of fuel and start walking everywhere (or find a sucker who still buys gas and ask to borrow his wheels). Quit your job - you won't need to work when you don't have to pay for gas anymore - and become a hermit. Chillax in your own energy freedom.

While everyone else scurries around gobbling up oil, you will know who the real turkey is. And when that gets old, write us and tell us how it went.