Join with me now, bretheren…

Driftglass’s prayerful poem for silence:

Now pretty pennies are at stake
The Supremes won’t fix the Rev’s Mistake;
Not the House of Newt, or Freeper’s Blog,
or Batshit loons, or Man-On-Dog,
Or peddlers of Special, “Schiavo” Laws
Can fuck with the Establishment Clause.
Screw with it, you’re in for trouble,
Like a hell-broth, boil and bubble.
And here it comes. Big Fat Trouble;
Christ is Pissed; His Daddy Double.

Pray for rain or for the Cubs.
Pray for gain or tummy rubs.
Pray by your bed, on your head
Or in the shed, on the day you wed.
Pray out loud or quietly.
Pray for yourself, or pray for me.
Pray in a pew or on a mat.
Pray she doesn’t stop doing THAT.
Pray anyhow and anywhere,
But keep it out of the Public Square.

(Via d r i f t g l a s s.)

Mark’s Mojo

Well, I’ve given it a week, and the traffic from Mark Evanier’s post about us sent just shy of 800 visitors, of which about 20% seem to be sticking around. This is fascinating to watch on many levels, and we’ll be keeping an eye to see how long the boost lasts. Of course, it’s entirely possible that other people will be linking (like the brilliant Arthur Silber at The Light of Reason, who you ought to try if you haven’t already) and this is by no means an exact science– log analysis rarely is– but still, it amuses.

I wonder if Mark realizes exactly how much juice he has, and I’m always interested to see blog strength in action– like word of mouth on steriods.* Mark probably has a better idea from his Amazon sales figures and PayPal tips, but this is still interesting data. For that matter, I wonder how much traffic I’m sending his way. A smaller percentage, sure, but I’m curious what the crossover is. I assume that folks who read me were already reading his stuff.

Oh, and while I’m thinking about it: Mark, after San Diego I went to Vegas to recover (during the worst heat wave ever) and saw Ronn Lucas’s live show at the Rio on your recommendation. I spoke with him after the show and said you sent me, and he said you should give him a call. Ask him about the marriage proposal. And thanks for all the extra traffic.

* Remind me to tell you sometime about the test to see how fast we could spread the rumor that Marina Sirtis was going to play Catwoman in Batman Returns.

And speaking of persecution

I got a note about a really mean-spirited review of Creative Couplings the other day. (No, I’m not going to link to it. I’m not going to waste my newly acquired blog juice on this guy.) He calls the rabbi I consulted with on the story names I won’t repeat, says that TV shows require consultants but novels don’t, and that I could have done just as well reading Judiasm for Dummies rather than consult with a rabbi, and in general uses his little soapbox to slam the Forward, “which doesn’t seem capable of not promoting anything that secularizes or demeans judaism and jews”.

And then he follows up with a post saying “authentic talmidei chachamim are carefull (sic) in their words and don’t resort to slander and character assasination as a substitute for argument”.

For some reason he reminded me of Emo Philips trying to talk a potential suicide out of jumping off a bridge:

“I said, ‘Are you a Christian or a Jew?’ He said, ‘A Christian.’
I said, ‘Me too. Protestant or Catholic?’ He said, ‘Protestant.’
I said, ‘Me too. What franchise?’ He says, ‘Baptist.’
I said, ‘Me too. Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?’ He says, ‘Northern Baptist.’
I said, ‘Me too. Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?’ He says, ‘Northern Conservative Baptist.’
I said, ‘Me too. Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist?’ He says, ‘Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist.’
I said, ‘Me too. Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Eastern Region?’ He says, ‘Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region.’
I said, ‘Me too. Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region, Council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region, Council of 1912?’ He says, Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region, Council of 1912.’
I said, ‘Die, heretic!’ and I pushed him over.”

Aha! I’m not paranoid!

Go to Google and do a search on “persecution complex“. This site hits as #3 on the list.

You are all after me. I knew it. Here that drunken bastard Ellis was complaining about the filthy monkeys, and I knew that it was just a diversion. You were all messing with my mind, forging emails form ex-girlfriends, sending coded messages in my ATM receipts, cutting my cocaine with anthrax, having the cats whispering in my ears… and the person who reprogrammed my clock radio to play nothing but Christian radio was inspired, particularly after you put the voice modulator on there so all the apocalyptic rants came out in the voices of William Shatner and Yeardley Smith.

Getting all the dancers in the strip clubs to point and laugh was overkill, but I can see why you indulged.

And you claim that you’ve started the bag searches at subway stations to prevent terror attacks? Please. I know you just want to look at my porn and plant spiders in the hidden pouches.

But it’s not going to work, you hear me? You might have gotten to Dave Chapelle, but you won’t get me!!!

(You thought I was going to end with a bit about the Bush administration out to get me? Please. I may have a persecution complex, but I’m not so far gone to give those guys that much credit for competence…)

On the printed version of Encyclopedia Britannica

EBlogger writes:

When I tell people I work for Encyclopædia Britannica, they typically have one of two responses:

(1) When are you guys gonna get a web site?

or

(2) Do you guys still make books?

Glenn Hauman is apparently one of the latter, when he writes “they stopped publishing a paper edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica a few years back.” As far as I can tell, that statement isn’t true.

This came from an article I remembered from 1999, which the Wayback Machine has helpfully archived:

Encyclopaedia Turns Its Back On Books

Encyclopaedia Britannica announced that it has stopped printing books because its multimedia CD-Rom version is a far bigger seller (July 27, 1999). The ending of a tradition reaching back more than 200 years came about because the company now sells only a minimal number of books, compared with 150,000 CD-Roms every year in Europe alone. A full set of volumes costs £900 while the computerised version, containing the same information, is priced at just £89

James Strachan, the UK managing director, said: ‘There are no plans to print any more books, although that doesn’t mean we never would if consumers demanded them.

‘But the economics of the encyclopedia business mean it is far more profitable for us to concentrate on electronic publishing rather than book publishing. ‘He said far more people buy the computerised version than ever bought the books, and consumers also find it more user-friendly.

Mr Strachan added: ‘I hope traditionalists will recognise that we can’t produce Encyclopaedia Britannica at a loss. ‘I think this shows the beginnings of a revolution that nobody properly understands yet

‘What is important for us is the thing that constitutes Britannica – 45 million words – are still exactly the same. What has changed is the way people use them.

So it appears that they stopped in Britain, but not worldwide. And for all I know, they may have started up again in the UK.

On the other hand, when you consider there’s a 6000% price difference between the printed edition and the CD-ROM, you really have to wonder who’s buying the paper edition nowadays…

(And yes, I knew they had a web site. I even remember the feature they had for a while deconstructing all of the obscure references Dennis Miller made on Monday Night Football.)

Welcome, News From Me readers

If you’re coming here from this post, welcome to the fray. You don’t know this (and neither did Mark) but you’re about to help settle a point of contention.

Peter David was asking me whether there had been any traffic surge due to this article in the London Independent saying his blog was one of the quirkiest on the net, and I said I hadn’t seen any. Then I followed up with, “On the other hand, if Neil or Mark mentions you in his blog, traffic will spike.”

And now, lo and behold, Mark’s just given me a link.

So we’re going to take a day or two and see what it does to my traffic, and we’ll see if Mark Evanier has more blog juice than one of the larger newspapers in Great Britain. Watch this space.