The state in which everything is bigger July 16, 2008

Just a quick reminder – I’m going to be in Texas attending Netroots Nation until Sunday. As The Hold Steady would say: I couldn’t even have done this if it weren’t for you. Thanks again, guys.

But since I’m going to be busy with schmoozing with serious bloggers and hoping some of their smartness and traffic rubs off on me, that means there’s going to be a post reduction over here. For your sake, I’ve decided to limit blurry photoblogging and “look at how awesome blogging and bloggers are”-style onanism for the next few days to my Tumblelog, so if you’re into that sort of thing, look there.

Meanwhile, you’ll notice that I trimmed up my blogroll. I thought it was about time. A lot of the blogs on there, while good blogs that I read regularly, don’t really match the tenor of the site and certainly don’t need me linking to them anyway. Cruel and capricious? Maybe, but I’m pretty sure Kos will somehow bravely soldier on without a slot on my blogroll. Other blogs just haven’t been updated in a month or so, so I figured that they’re inert by now.

I also added the “Friends of the Blog” category for people who A) I know personally, B) exist in the same vague corner of the blogosphere as I do, or C) have had some back-and-forth linking with. Or, D) just because. This is my small way of emphasizing that this blog is part of a blogging community, and relies on information gleaned from a lot of other very good blogs out there. A lot of those blogs aren’t Daily Kos, and I’m sure would appreciate some extra traffic or commenting, so feel free to show some love.

Happy 4th of July, everyone July 4, 2008

I’ve probably posted this before, but what better time of the year to reflect on some important facts regarding our most badass founding father?

We owe it to ourselves to remember: He had a pocket full of horses, and fucked the shit out of bears.

PUMA wants to dent your new bicycle June 28, 2008

These letters from John Cain require a little backstory.

I know everyone’s been busy trying to drink it out of their memories, but the fact remains that not too long ago the Democrats got together and had themselves a primary – if I recall correctly, it was pretty ugly. And loooooong. And people started to go a bit nuts. Particularly after it became clear that Obama was going to be the nominee, you began hearing all sorts of nutty accusations. To a small coterie of hardcore Clinton supporters, one thing became clear: they needed to stop the party of Barack Obama at all costs. Even if it meant stopping the party of Hillary Clinton, and the candidate she endorsed and donated the maximum legal sum to. For some reason. But how? How, dammit?

Goin’ to Texas June 20, 2008

You guys rock. For real. Thanks to your support, in a couple weeks I’m going down to Austin, TX on a DFA scholarship to kick it with far more important bloggers than I.

Seriously, you guys. You’re all awesome. I’ll bring back a big, ugly Texas belt buckle for you all.

Tumblr June 18, 2008

Just a reminder to everyone that in order to narrow the focus of this blog and keep it to just politics and snark, I’ve now consigned all of the other random musings and crap that occasionally popped up here to my tumblr blog. So if you’re one of the handful of people who actually liked it when I talked about writing or got all Philosophy major on you, then you should probably add that to your RSS feed.

Suddenly, we’re a group blog June 16, 2008

That’s right kids: the Veritosity editorial board no longer consists of just me. Now it consists of me and one other person.

That person, in question, is the lovely and talented Lizzie Schiffman of Northwestern University. Lizzie’s the Assistant Managing Editor of North by Northwestern, and now the Associate Editor (because we like unnecessarily ornate titles over here) of Veritosity.com. She’s also, like me, a future passenger on the JuanWay Tour and a former Free Spirit-er.

Welcome to the new Veritosity, folks: Very similar to the old one, ‘cept twice as awesome.

Okay, so here’s what I think I’m gonna do June 16, 2008

Tonally, Veritosity’s been gradually approaching getting its own consistent voice, but every once in a while it’ll still end up somewhere else on the map simply because I get bored easily and want to write about stuff that doesn’t fall under the blog’s mission statement (i.e., doing a review of a Hold Steady album instead of more McCain mockery). It livens things up, but it’s not particularly professional, and in a hypothetical universe where I had readers I could imagine them coming here to read a post about politics and going, “WTF is up with this bus tour he keeps talking about and why do I care?”

So new rules, at least temporarily. Veritosity will remain a political mockery blog, and all the stuff about my personal life/writing/culture will go on the Tumblr account. And we’ll see how that goes for a little while. It’ll probably mean a slight reduction of posting here, but a much more consistent product.

In the meantime, I’m also (tentatively!) considering adding more writers to this here blog to liven it up. That’s just a thought, though. Still, if you’re interested in politics and snark, and would like to dispense both online, email me.

Rollin’ and Tumblin’ June 16, 2008

So I just got a Tumblr account. God knows why. I suppose that if it turns out to be the coolest blogging tool ever, it might replace WordPress here on the ol’ main page. I mean, anything’s possible. In the meantime, it’s basically doing the exact same thing as my Twitter account, which only exists to automatically link to every post I make here.

I’m going to play around with it, though. So here it is.

JuanWay Tour on TV June 13, 2008

Check it out.

Beverly Hills – that’s where I wanna be June 13, 2008

Something Awful gets exactly right what’s so damn annoying about Weezer these days.

Also, again, ironic arrogance doesn’t work in mass-audience communications. Let’s say there’s a jovial, quirky fellow who laughs off his many failings with the catch phrase “I’m the greatest at everything.” People who know him might find this act endearing. But if the guy, feeling emboldened, gets “I’m the greatest at everything” tattooed across his chest, and if he swears off shirts forever to display his indelible inkings, and if he secretly worked out for months so the words would look extra-impressive across his taut, oiled pectorals, well, any uninitiated observer will think he’s a ridiculous asshole with delusions of grandeur, and even his old office buddies might reassess his intentions and his appeal. Weezer has become that guy, and it just doesn’t matter anymore that they got the disclaimer “p.s., just kidding” tattooed in 3-point font underneath the garish “greatest” banner.

Shave that goddamn ironic mustache, you tool!