The Ramblings of a Madman

Well, the last time I blogged, we didn't have the "internet." It was more like we had to write our blogs on whatever we could find...trees, rocks, random bottles. One time I had to write my criticisms of the Harding administration on a patch of mange on a dachsund's back.

So where did the title come from? As some of you may know, my last blog was called "The Dirty Diaper" mainly because diapers are funny. Not only do they look funny and smell funny. The word "diaper" is just funny. Diaper would probably never cut it as a curse word or the name of a thriving internet startup.

I think this fascination with diapers originated my senior year at Belhaven when Danny and I thought it would be funny if one of us stood up angrily in the cafeteria and shouted, "Well, you wear diapers!" As is often the case with such jokes, this is probably not funny to anyone else. The same goes for the phrases "Out, vile jelly," and "Hey! This isn't apple juice!"
This mild obsession also resulted in a story about a fierce barbarian who can never be king because of his fickle bladder.

That aside, I think I'm dealing with a more sophisticated clientelle on blogger, so I ditched the diaper. "This Side of Paradise" is the name of F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel, but I actually found it in a list of old "Star Trek" episodes (perhaps I can discuss my unfortunate love for pop culture in another post). Much like the show itself, ST episode titles managed a good mixture of melodrama metaphysics: "For the World is Hollow, and I Have Touched the Sky," "Who Mourns for Adonais," "Mudd's Women."

In the end, it was a tossup between "This Side of Paradise" and "Operation: Annihilate!" "This Side of Paradise" won because it represented the perfect marriage between high and low culture, so I can be pretentious and snooty and eat my pork right off the pig!