Filed under: Fame > Comments

Sigh! Everyday the new naive blogger checks to see if anyone left any comments. Comments from his wife don't count...cause she knows how often he sighs and wishes someone would leave a comment. Sigh!

Filed under: Publishing > Egalitarianism

Getting published used to be an expensive operation...I mean back in the 1800s they had to set type by hand. Now that'll run up your prices. Today any Joe Shmoe can get published. Please read this New York Times article "You're an Author? Me too!". Printing books is very cheap now, in part because of computers, but also there are different ways to get read now...like blogging for instance. Once I publish this blog it could be potentially read by almost everyone in the world. There's a good chance that no one will read it...but that is not the point. Of course, some would argue that allowing everyone to be published means that anything of real quality will be buried under a heap of mediocrity. But real literary genius had always taken centuries to rise to the top. In the US an average of 172,000 titles are published a year. Since most Americans read less than 5 books a year, we are falling way behind the curve. I myself won't read anything written after 1900. I think it takes at least a hundred years for the good stuff to rise to the top. Another way to look at it is, say 5 good books are written every year, the average American has almost no chance of reading any of them! So my attitude is; relax...stick to books published a hundred years ago and you will be fine.

Filed under: Gravitational Pull > Global Warming

Quick note: I checked this morning and I have the 7th, 8th and 9th spot on a Google search. Keep up the good work me!

I believe Global Warming is contributing to an increase in the gravitational pull of the Earth. Yesterday, Shirley and I went climbing for the first time in a year. My harness had shrunk so I had to use one of the spare gym harnesses I had lying around. Our first climb was Bunny a 5.4...considered an easy climb. Now I climbing in the Gunks like a madman from 1994 to 2004...and I'm sure I climbed Bunny several times a year, so I've climbed it at least 30 times. You could say I'm familiar with the climb. But this time, it was a real struggle. I didn't even try to do the small roof at about 60 feet...which I soloed once. It didn't help that my climbing shoes had shrunk also. I was in real pain. I did make it to the top eventually, but I think Global Warming is going to be really tough on my climbing career.

Filed under: Feeding Frenzy > Caffeinated Piranhas

I didn't start drinking coffee until I turned 40, so I feel like I missed out on a large part of American culture. Every morning now at 9:00 I go up to the cafe on the first floor to get my mega-iced coffee. And boy do I get surly if there are a lot of people there before me. There's always one person blocking the coffee machines and doing inexplicable things like slowly adding packets of sugar to taste. I feel like screaming, "You should know how many packets of sugar go into your coffee, you moron!!!!" Or if some schmuck is searching for lids or holders, "You are standing between me and sanity!!!" In fact, the whole scene, as a mob of people desperately cluster and surge around the coffee machines every morning reminds me of a mob of Hyenas feeding at the carcass of a Gazelle or over-caffeinated Piranhas feasting on a surfer.

Of course, after I've had my mega-iced coffee, I can gaze on my fellow humans with a great deal of complacency. At that point its more like, "Go ahead my good man, take your time...there's plenty of coffee to go around...and no Piranhas in sight."

Filed under: Procrastination > Fortitude

I really want to blog everyday, even when I don't have anything to say. I want to be able to look back 50 years from now and say, "For 50 years, a never missed a day of blogging, Sonny Boy!", to some poor schmuck in charge of changing my Depends. Of course, its highly unlikely that I have that kind of fortitude. We shall see.

Filed under: Fame > Google Rankings

My one ambition in life is to make it to the top of the Google rankings. That is; if one were to Google 'David Merle', I want something about me to come up first. Right now, I have the 7th and 9th spots...which is not bad....but I think I can do better. The question is how? Of course, I could simply do something to make myself actually famous, but after thinking hard about ways to do that for up to two minutes, I decided that becoming actually famous is too much hard work and probably involves guns. So I will have to settle for wanting it really, really bad...and putting myself out there in cyber-space...like with this blog. I don't think anyone actually has to read or look at the stuff I create, it is enough that I create it. The lucky thing is, there is not a lot of competition for the top spot of 'David Merle' in the Google search rankings, so I just might make it.

Another thing I have been trying to do, is make a society of David Merles from around the world. I already chatted with a David Merle in France, who is a really nice guy. However, the David Merle in Germany has so far spurned my attempts at friendship. Maybe he thinks I am an impostor. Or maybe Germans just don't have much of a sense of humor.

Oh, drat! I just realized that by linking to David Merle of France on my blog, I helped him to keep his number two spot in the Google search rankings!

Filed under: Visitations > Il Papa

The Pope came to Yonkers today...yes, you heard me right, Yonkers. He gave a rally at Saint Joseph's Seminary, not 1 mile from where I currently reside. Shirley and I went over there on our way to the movies to invite him over for dinner, but the police who had the streets closed didn't realize that Shirley is a life-long Catholic and that I went to 8 years of Catholic school. In short, they wouldn't let us near his eminence. His loss. Shirley made Deviled Eggs then we had Ninos Envueltos and for dessert we had Angel Food Cake.

Well, anyway, we welcome the Pope to Yonkers and invite him back anytime. He can even come to the movies with us.

Filed under: Openings > Spring is Sprung

All winter long I biked to work, even when it was 12 degrees...brrrrrrrrr. I saw no one, that is to say, I was the only one out there riding my bike (in shorts...its my claim to fame)...and the only one using the dirt path through Van Cortlandt Park. Well almost the only one. Every morning, as I was going south through the park, there was a guy going north, walking. He never seemed to be in a rush, but he didn't look like a homeless person. Dressed fairly well, not too old. I've always wondered about this guy. But in any case, today as I picked up the bike path in Yonkers, lo and behold! there was another guy on a bike just barely ahead of me. A race! I love a race. And I hauled ass after him until I was ready to drop. Luckily he didn't know we were racing or I would have been left far behind...he looked like he was in a kind of leisurely mood. He was on a road bike and I ride a hybrid, so that is my excuse for not catching him. But the point is, he was like the Groundhog or the first Robin...a harbinger of spring. I guess the 70 degree weather really inspired people, because when I returned home at night the bike path was swarming with people, walking, biking, running and roller blading.

Filed under: Openings > Whup-Ass > Last Can

The Civil War pitted brother against brother. I'm sure it started over one brother talking smack about the first great art form of the 21st Century. My brother had the audacity to say that blogging doesn't matter...that you could take all the world's blogs, sink them to the bottom of the ocean and no one would notice the difference. Ha! I would notice! But let me say this about my brother...he means well...he is a good father, husband and firefighter. He loves listening to his collection of 8-Track tapes or popping a movie into his Betamax player, but he thinks these things and the Clapper are the very pinnacle of technological innovation. He doesn't realize that the human race has to keep evolving...or it will stagnate. Technology cannot rest until every household has a 42'' HD TV. Yeah, the Clapper is great, but wouldn't it be even cooler if all the lights in your house knew when to turn off and on, without you having to clap? Its all about communication; not every blog is going to change the world...but every blog participates in something that was never possible before...all the people in the world being connected and being able to share the same ideas and the same technology. And that connectivity will surely change the world. Brother, please oh Brother, please don't be the one who sees the first car chugging by and says, 'It will never replace the horse and buggy'.

Filed under: Technology > Thanks

And who should I thank for what I am today?

Well, my mother of course, not only did she bear me into this world through a veil of agony and tears...not only did she teach me to stand on my own by sending me to the coal mines when I turned 11, first to take over for the Canary, Tweets, who had died the week before, then later as a miner, as soon as I could hoist the pick-ax over my head...not only did she make sure that I lived through the Irish Potato Famine by feeding me worms and grubs that she caught with her very own hands...but she is my inspiration for blogging today. It was she who said, 'Son, I want to start one of those...how do you say it...bloggy-things.' And while researching how one becomes a blogger, I came upon....Google.

Of course Google has always 'been there'....but we owe them abundant praise for providing the tool that I am using to write and publish this blog....hello, people...for free!...but more than that, Google is redefining the world in which we communicate in and they are the fountain from which all technological goodness flows.

Filed under: Shakespeare > Monkeys

You wake up to a whole new day...and there is your blog just waiting for you! Will you write something profound today? Unlikely...but possible. They say that if a large number of monkeys pound away on type writers for long enough, they will eventually write all the works of Shakespeare. And the blog-o-sphere is starting to look just like that scenario. Maybe, I will be the monkey that writes 'Macbeth'...wouldn't that be great?! But the truly frightening part is: what if one of the monkeys writes 'Macbeth'....but nobody notices, because there are too many monkeys banging out Danielle Steele novels?!

Filed under: First Blog > Let 'Er Rip

Everyone's got a blog now, why shouldn't I? Besides, I really think this will act like a mental draino...clear out the cobwebs, you know. It can't be anything but good to force yourself to think, no matter how much it hurts and put something down on virtual paper. And also, it keeps me on the cutting edge of the technological revolution despite the fact that I don't have a 42 inch big screen TV like all of my friends. This blog proves that I am not a throw-back to a simpler time...I am not a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. Ha! Ha!

Plus, this might be a cool place to take some pot-shots at the current administration while there is still time.

Oh yeah, I am looking forward to this...so with that in mind, a drum-roll please as I reach down to push the publish but....