GEORGE PUTNAM (all caps, because that’s the way he said everything), Los Angeles Television/Radio Legend, has died at the age of 94. A protege of Walter Winchell who came to L.A. in 1951 to restart a stalled career as a news anchor, he was famous for his dramatic style and extremely UNobjective reporting. Retrospective of his colorful career: Part One, Part Two. Best known on the Web as the "outstanding news reporter" who narrated the ’50s alarmist documentary "Perversion for Profit", he was also acknowledged as the model for the Mary Tyler Moore show’s bombastic newsman character Ted Baxter (seen here sitting in on a real newscast). Not restricting his editorializing to his daily "One Reporter’s Opinion" segment, he is credited/blamed for the election of Sam Yorty as mayor of Los Angeles. And when TV News outgrew him, he found a home for the next 30 years doing Talk Radio (where some of us believe Rush Limbaugh also modeled his style after him). And that’s the up-to-the-minute obitfilter; up to the minute, that’s all the obitfilter.
Is that all? Of course that’s not all! Click Here.

The Controversial Large Hadron Collider (they should change its official acronym from LHC to CLHC) will begin operation at about 12:30AM Pacific Daylight Time tonight/tomorrow. Of course, nothing the LHC will do is likely to destroy the world or even depress local property values any more than they already are. Still, I was a little concerned about the exact timing of the start-up, since a cosmic cataclysm would cause me to miss Craig Ferguson. But then I saw that tonight’s guests are scheduled to be Russell Brand and Margaret Cho, both of whom are rather overrated. If anything, that guest lineup may be a greater risk of creating a black hole than the LHC. But that’s just my opinion. In fact the greatest risk of a matter/antimatter accident may be the following day when Obama and McCain will make a joint appearance at a 9/11 Ground Zero Anniversary Party Commemoration. Still, if there were any real danger of the LHC destroying the world, it’s good to know it would happen before THAT.

But if we are all sucked into a black hole in the early hours of September 10th, I just want all you WebHeads, NetProphets and BlogSplitters in my half-vast audience to know that I appreciate your support (which after running Google Ads for three years came to $105 - and I’m so glad that I hit the $100 minimum and Google cut the check before anything happened). I can’t think of a greater bunch of people-I-have-never-met-in-real-life to be sucked into a black hole with. Or sucked into anything with. Maybe I’m getting a little too personal. But seriously, I love all you guys and gals in a totally asexual way and I don’t care who knows it.

Some people say we should all live every day like it’s our last day on Earth. I don’t necessarily agree; I think it would cause me to miss even more deadlines than I already do. And for a while I thought “last day on Earth” meant something else so I was keeping one carry-on suitcase packed just in case and hoping it wouldn’t be over the weight limit for the Space Shuttle. I was recently reminded the importance of Living for Today when I saw a close Internet friend go through the worst of Hurricane Gustav. It also reminded me the importance of NOT keeping valuable items in a structure with a tin roof. But most of all it reminded me how great it is to live in a time when I can have close Internet friends who live 2000 miles or more away in the path of hurricanes while my own local area is having the most boringly beautiful summer of my life. I feel like I’m observing all the catastrophic Climate Change from a safe distance.

But all this talk of disaster reminded me of something. It reminded me that I set up a website called ArmageddonOrNot.com a couple of years ago where people could rate the risk and severity of various doomsday scenarios, but when I went through a period of mild depression I didn’t want to update the site. And now that I am feeling much much less depressed, I still don’t want to update the site. So if the LHC does not cause the End of The World, it is going to mark the End of ArmageddonOrNot.com, because I’m going to shut it down. I just haven’t decided what kind of message to leave on the placemark page, how much to explain and how much to try to freak out the already-apocalyptic-minded people who visit the site after I pull the plug.

I was just thinking to myself “my life is good”, and then I realized that that was the title of a song by Randy Newman, and that song may be the most cynical thing he ever wrote (and that’s saying a lot). So maybe I should reword that. Let me get back to you on that. AFTER the 11th.

I’d forgotten my past ventures into political logo humor… (and since they were among the masses of past stuff not yet re-published at the new address, so had the Internet)…

Did you know that Google was an Official Innovation Somethingorother…?

And while I didn’t have the font, I did get a chance to play with Obama’s logo (warning: not recommended for those too emotionally invested in the O-guy). [link fixed - for a while it went nowhere]

So, Josh “cortex” Millard of MetaFilter tried to do a parody of a McCAIN/PALIN sign but he didn’t have the right font. Now Obama’s font, Gotham (the typeface that yells out “I’m Batman!”) is hard to get (free), but McCain’s Optima? He wasn’t even trying. So I redid his “idea” (which is shared by 2740 others of like mind at last count) and - ta dah!

But of course, now having the makings for more signage, I couldn’t leave it at that.
Is that all? Of course that’s not all! Click Here.

Another WordPress security/bugfix upgrade, another Wendell’s WordPress button revision, as I go from to .

Copies of the button for your use: 320×60 200×37 150×28 and for those of you with x-ray eyes 120×22.

Don’t ever say I’ve never done you a favor.

After fighting irregular sleep patterns for months, my biological clock has settled into a schedule of 10 hours of sleep per night (as opposed to 7 hours being enough for me most of my adult life), from 2AM to Noon, Pacific Daylight Time, or “Good Morning from New Zealand”. So any attempts to contact me in the morning will be acts of futility (unless you’re in New Zealand).

Part of the ten-hour ritual appears to be a series of especially vivid dreams, oddly entertaining but usually less than adequate to be made into marketable fiction. Also, unlike most people, I am able to remember much of it, but often in ways that make it all even less coherent. Still, I intend to take this collection of Anti-Sequiturs (my own term for something that goes beyond non-sequitur) and blog them. You have been warned.

Last night (or this morning)…
Is that all? Of course that’s not all! Click Here.

A comic who calls himself Doogie Horner and contributes to the Philadelphia group stand-up blog Comic Vs. Audience (finally, truth in advertising!) made an awesome/hilarious/frightening flowchart of “Things You Say During Sex” (picked up by the Multi-Orgasmic MetaFilter).
Is that all? Of course that’s not all! Click Here.

WARNING: This may be the silliest, most trivial, blog post I have ever made (and that’s saying something).

Last night, after actually getting to sleep at a ‘reasonable’ time, I woke up at 4:30AM, which was the approximate time I used to be occasionally awakened by the sound of the daily newspaper flopping onto my porch and the lights from the delivery truck in my front window as it turned around in from of the WendelLair. That is, until I canceled my subscription less than a week ago. Yep, no more Daily Tribble. But that’s not what this is about.

After I awoke, I, as is my practice, rolled around seeking out a comfortable position with which to resume sleeping. (I am not a single-position-sleeper) At one point, I found myself on my side with both arms stretched in front of me, so I clasped my hands together (fingers interleaved) and WHOA! suddenly became more awake, as if the act of hand-clasping had energized me. I switched from my usual left-hand-thumb-first arrangement to right-hand-thumb-first and got another strange surge of energy, but different. It made me think to myself (which I was now awake enough to do). Is this why so many people put their hands together like this when they pray? Is there a physical stimulus that this causes that’s interpreted as a spiritual energy - or could there be an actual spiritual energy - a Power of Prayer that this hand arrangement collects from the universe that…? Now I’m getting silly. Then I thought about how good it always felt holding hands with my former Significant Others, with fingers interleaved, of course, not wrapping one hand around the other. It was the nicest feeling I could get from another person with the least physical contact. (I’m not saying most pleasurable, I’m saying nicest.) Am I nuts? I’m certainly not alone. But does anybody else notice this effect? Has this ever been studied? Psychologically? Biologically? If not, can I get a research grant to do it? Is this the silliest, most trivial, blog post I have ever made?

If your first Radiohead album was a free “In Rainbows” (like me), then it makes perfect sense to get “OK Computer” for $1.99 Also good if your current mp3s of that album are under 256Kbwhatevers. VERY limited time offer. September 5th and probably most of the 6th.

I’m also sincerely tempted by Steve Miller’s Greatest Hits for $5 (through the weekend), even though it is Steve Miller, one of the cheeziest pop acts of the ’70s… I need to check my collection for cheeze content - make sure this doesn’t raise my cholesterol to a dangerous level.

UPDATE: How did I not notice this? $5 Mitch Hedburg comedy!

One of the coolest things about Twitter is writing replies to people A LOT more famous than I am (and once every hundred times getting a reply back). I’m talking people like Wil Wheaton who have 16,000 other followers. Especially when they respond strongly positively to something I have since forgotten saying. Woot!
Is that all? Of course that’s not all! Click Here.