People You May Know (January 29)

Bennie Wint
Vince Offer
Rajendrasinh Babubha Makwana
John Bulloch
Esther Wenck
Cecil Suwal
Tiffany Cherry
Reina Villatoro
Richard Lobb
Knowshon Moreno
Helio Gracie

Flashbacks

When I was around 14, my dad showed me a book he had read when he was around 14. It was a 1948 compilation of zany stories by Max Shulman, a novelist and TV writer best known (and now forgotten) for creating the Dobie Gillis TV character. I actually never read the book. But together my dad and I read the introduction, which was hilarious at the time. The intro was titled "How to be a Writer, or Oblivion Made Simple." My favorite part was a section on how to use flashbacks in narrative. In my opinion it belongs on every writer's shelf next to Strunk & White. I'd like to illegally share it:

"A story can be told in one of two ways: chronologically from the beginning, or in flashback. Flashback, in turn, lends itself to several variations:

Simple flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated.

Double flashback -- Two characters each remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated.

Triple flashback -- Three characters each remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated.

(There are also quadruple, quintuple, sextuple, etc., flashbacks. The beginning writer is advised not to go beyond sextuple.)

Telescoping flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. A character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated.

Double telescoping flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. A character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. A character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated.

Telescoping double flashback -- This is not to be confused with double telescoping flashback. In double telescoping flashback, you will recall, one character remembers an incident in his past in which one other character appears who remembers an incident in which one other character appears. But in telescoping double flashback, two characters who appear during the narration of these incidents remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated.

Double telescoping double flashback -- Two characters each remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated. Two characters who appear during the narration of these incidents remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated. Two characters who appear during the narration of these incidents remember incidents in their pasts. These incidents are narrated.

(As you can see, any number of attractive variations suggest themselves. For example, telescoping triple flashback, double telescoping triple flashback, triple telescoping double flashback, etc.)

False flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. Then it is discovered that the incident never happened to this character at all.

False telescoping flashback -- This is like telescoping flashback except both incidents never really happened.

False telescoping true flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. This incident really happened. A character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. This incident never happened.

True telescoping false flashback -- A character remembers an incident in his past. This incident is narrated. This incident never happened. However, a character who appears during the narration of this incident remembers an incident in his past which really did happen. This incident is narrated.

(Again the combinations are endless. Indeed there are types of false flashbacks for which the nomenclature has not yet been determined. An example is a flashback in which three characters remember incidents in their pasts, the first false, the others true. In the narration of these incidents three other characters remember incidents in their pasts. But -- and mark this well -- the character in the false incident remembers a true incident, and the characters in the true incidents remember false incidents. To call this flashback either a false double telescoping true triple flashback or a true double telescoping false triple flashback would be misleading.)"

-- Max Shulman, 1948

Rock the Jokes: As of Today, Your Vote Counts

Hello. Thank you. For the past seven years or so, Blue Donut has been home to a page called the 100 Funniest Jokes of All Time (applause). The list was compiled originally for a late-1999 "comedy" issue of GQ magazine. Everyone in the media was making contrived end-of-the-millennium lists at that time, and I thought it would be funny (and also funny) to list the "funniest jokes ever" and rank them in order, as if it were as precise a science as listing the top 100 novels of the century. I talked to some comedians and piled up old joke books and put together a list, which the magazine chopped down to 75 jokes for space and added some stupid ones. After that, I put the original, non-editor's-cut version online, and for lack of anything better to do it has become the world's #1 Google result on searches for "funniest joke" and #3 for "funniest jokes."

The list has always been static, and stuck in the past, just like the cultural references on a newspaper comics page. Now that all changes. Thanks to finding a guy who knows how to write online dabatase code, the joke list is undergoing the biggest change in its history. Now you can vote on each joke, giving each a rating from one-half-a-star to five stars. Jokes will be re-ranked continually based on their average world ranking. The hegemony of the French Toast Joke is over! I will be able to add jokes to the list (we'll still call it the "100"). And, coming next: I will accept jokes from site visitors and add many of them, too (after reviewing each submission -- you know how much I dislike the mean and the tasteless). I encourage you to take this opportunity to make your voice heard. The ballot awaits here.

The Best Opening Seconds in Recorded Music

Is there anything better than an awesome opening to a song? It's like a thrilling first line in a book, or that first sweet bite of a juicy nectarine, if you like nectarines. Not all songs with classic opening moments stay awesome all the way through. And sometimes books with promising starts become dull and you fall asleep, or nectarines end up all grainy or gushy. But blasting out of the gate with an explosion counts for something.

What are the greatest opening seconds in recorded music? Here are some ideas. You'll surely disagree. I'm no music snob, more a hits guy. I'm picking radio songs. I like guitars. If some of the choices below seem obvious, they're obvious for a reason. You're not going to leave Abe Lincoln off the "Best Presidents" because it's not cool anymore to include him. He has earned his place in Cooperstown, with his awesome riffs. I invite all rock snobs and friendly freaks to share suggestions better than mine, in Comments. But it's about time we got this discussion started. I'll add to this intro-palooza as more ideas arise. (UPDATE: some selections from comments have been added.) You may need the Flash player installed to play the audio clips; may need to click twice on the arrow to play 'em, just to show you mean it.

The best opening 1 second in recorded music: I Feel Good, by James Brown


The best opening 2 seconds: A Hard Day’s Night, by The Beatles


The best opening 3 seconds: Blitzkrieg Bop, by The Ramones


The best opening 4 seconds: September, by Earth Wind & Fire


The best opening 5 seconds: Jumping Jack Flash, by The Rolling Stones


The best opening 10 seconds: T.V. Eye, by The Stooges


The best opening 11 seconds: The Magnificent Seven, by Elmer Bernstein/Henry Mancini


The best opening 12 seconds: Rebel Rebel, by David Bowie


The best opening 14 seconds: Theme from Shaft, by Isaac Hayes


The best opening 25 seconds: ABC, by The Jackson 5


Are these choices lame? Give me better ones!

People You May Know (January 15)

Yeah, I'm still digging this People You May Know feature, and I'm going to keep doing it until it everyone else caves. Here's a chance to reach out and learn by clicking on interesting names. It's an all-new name-based approach to the news:

Marcus Schrenker
Adolf Hitler Campbell
Ed Podolak
Bradley Schlozman
Rachel Glandorf
Jamal Woolard
Nicole Zobkiw
Rocky Rawstern
Jurgen Liebig
Luke Ravenstahl
Gotz Spielmann
Ivana Hong
Tsitsi Singizi

The Ripoff of Widescreen TV Sports

Today let's take a break to explore a serious issue: the giant fan ripoff of sports broadcasts on widescreen TVs. You're going to need a little bit of math sense and a bit of common sense to follow this, but the pictures help a lot. Watching sports is a big reason why guys purchase big widescreen high-definition TV sets. But the fact is: no TV sporting event on any major network is being shot to take advantage of the wider screen. Here's a sneak peek of what I mean:

See those black vertical lines I've drawn? They define the extra space you get with a widescreen TV set. As you can see above, in the standard baseball shot from the center field camera, the extra space on the sides (it's mathematically one quarter of that pricey wide screen you've paid for) is useless. They show a few bums in the crowd. This isn't just about baseball or ESPN. It's ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Comcast, Versus. They intentionally leave 1/4 of the screen pretty vacant. The practice has a name: "center-cut protection." It's meant to ensure sure that millions of older TV sets that aren't wide don't miss any action. Here's another example -- I've got a million:

Congratulations on buying your fancy new widescreen TV set. Now you get to see the ball boy.

Most new TVs sold these days are HDTVs in the widescreen aspect ratio called 16-by-9. It's a reasonable estimate that Americans will have spent $100 billion on widescreen TVs by the end of this year. Yeah, $100 billion. That's bailout kind of bucks. I base this estimate on data supplied by the Consumer Electronics Association that shows U.S. digital TV sales reaching about $85 billion wholesale from 2003 to 2008.

A lot of people think that widescreen TVs are bigger. Actually they are just a different shape. In fact, at any given diagonal measurement -- say 37 inches -- a 16-by-9 widescreen has less screen area than a traditional 4-by-3 TV. That's just basic geometry. Pythagoras was doing this stuff years ago. It's just a different shape. The question is: how do you use this new-shape frame to depict the world? Is it even an improvement?

Wider screens are great for movies, which are filmed wider. And the promise was that widescreen TV would deliver new ways of looking at sports: you could have a quarterback way over here on the left and a receiver way over there on the right. Cool! But no.


You just get the standard shot, framed the standard way, with essentially blank space on the sides. This isn't going to change soon, because millions of 4-by-3 TV sets aren't going away soon. Even if the "Digital Transition" of television signals isn't delayed past its planned February 17 date (a delay now seems likely), the federal government has spent $1.34 billion to help people buy converter boxes that will keep 4-by-3 TV sets in wide use for a long time.

Which means TV sports producers really aren't even thinking about new ways to frame shots to take advantage of wide screen. Think about it: the ideal tennis shot on widescreen TV might not be the usual overhead from one end of the court. It might be a panoramic overhead shot from the side. Basketball is tougher. Much of the game is played half-court, the players aligned in a square box. Would there ever be an advantage to a wider-angle shot of basketball?


Hey, at least in this one, widescreen viewers get to see the other 3/4s of the referee.

The Arrow

People You May Know (January 9)

I like this People You May Know feature, and I'm going to keep doing it until it everyone comes around. Imagine it -- a chance to see what's happening in the world by clicking on interesting names:

Usama al-Kini
James Blanning
Percy Harvin
Joe Quesada
Josephine Quintaville
James Walton
Charles Carneglia
Yvonne Prettner Solon
Jose Angel Rios
Moses Wetangula
Freida Pinto
Joan Cunnane

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People You May Know: The Mega-Directory

Familiar Phrases that Came from Shakespeare

    Perhaps you didn't realize that many of the hackneyed cliches we use every day appeared originally in the works of Mr. William Shakespeare. Blue Donut proudly presents a compendium of familiar expressions that came from Shakespeare:

"Sweets to the sweet"
"Something is rotten in Denmark"
"Strange bedfellows"
"The naked truth"
"This mortal coil"
"What's in a name?"
"Kiss my grits."
"You and what army?"
"Go for it."
"It's not the tool -- it's the mechanic."
"Hey, porcupine head."
"They're Grrreat!"
"Getting to second base"
"You got a problem with that?"
"Get out of my dreams, get into my car"
"And the beat goes on."
"Word up"
"Takin' care of business"
"I wouldn't kick her out of bed."
"Rico, Suave"
"The Heartbeat of America"
"Please return trays to full, upright position."
"This time it's personal."
"Havlicek stole the ball."
"Ya think?"
"Employees must wash hands before returning to work."
"Three-peat"
"Think outside the box"
"Celebreality"
"My bad"

Tournament of the Week: America's Favorite Vegetables and Obama Cabinet Nominees

Further Cutbacks

TO: All employees
FROM: Company management

This has been a tough, emotional day for all of us here at the company -- especially for the nine percent of you who, as of this morning, are officially "on the History Channel," as the kids say. We'd really hoped to avoid layoffs, but the bailout check still hasn't cleared for some reason, and we just can't spend money we don't have, according to some new regulation. Along with the staff downsizing, we regrettably announce the following further cutbacks:

* In order to contain shipping costs, all overnight deliveries now will go out once a week, on Thursdays.

* We are suspending our Workplace Sensitivity Training program. It will replaced by a simple chart that highlights where not to touch other employees.

* For corporate accounting purposes, a "billion" will now be eight hundred fifty million.

* To lighten the mood in the office, we will continue to hold our annual holiday party for disgruntled employees, but this year it will be "bring your own weapon."

* Effective January 1, company-paid health insurance will cover only one child per family, so for many of you, it's decision time.

* In an effort to reduce payroll costs, we have begun merging several job functions. When you have a chance, stop by and say hello to Herb Miller, our new "janiccountant."

* Due to rising raw materials costs, we are scaling back the size of our industrial hydraulic lifts and will market the smaller models as "Bite Size!"

* Vacation days still may be applied to time served in prison but only if the sentence is company-related.

* In the cafeteria, Special K and Total breakfast cereals will no longer be available. They will be replaced by Regular K and Partial.

* Friday foot massages will be self-service.

* The foosball table in the employee lounge will be removed, chopped up, and used for firewood.

* Do you like your desk or your chair? Is there a co-worker you've secretly had a crush on? Make us an offer!

* The free Starbucks service in the kitchenette will be removed on February 5. After this date, if you need a little pick-me-up to stay alert during the workday, Sheila in human resources has volunteered to staple your hand. The service will remain free.

* Remember: we are all salespeople! Please alert management if you are able to sell the company.