Recent Effluvia:

  • It was 20 years ago today…

    Twenty years ago today, I quietly launched this little humor blog called Davezilla. It’s now one of the longest running humor blogs on Earth (if not the longest).

    One thing I am incredibly proud of is the amazing folks I have met through this site. Heroes (to me) like Jeffrey Zeldman, Heather Champ, Jesse James Garrett, Chris Brogan, Sara Evans, Alexis Ohanian, Matt Mullenweg, and too many more to mention. You know who you are.

    This blog has been featured in Wired multiple times, a book by Yahoo! called Five Years that Influenced the Web, and American Greetings even made a desk calendar of my Manly Tips for Bachelor Living section.

    The anagrams were my real start. In 1999, I started making anagrams of celebrities, accompanied by cartoons. Encouraged by Heather Champ to continue doing them, I began seeing my anagrams appearing on university sites, in books, and circulated through emails.

    I figured I had a popular blog when a few things happened.

    Davezilla.com Timeline:

    1999:

    My mother forwarded me an email that had two dozen forwards already called, “Ways to annoy waitstaff” and said I’d probably like it. I replied, “Yes I do. I wrote it.”

    2000:

    I got my first hate mail (2000). Definitely a good sign.

    2001:

    I got a cease and desist letter from billion dollar company in Japan. Toho, to be precise. Owners of all things Godzilla. Their law firm was sending out random C&Ds to any site with “zilla” in the name.

    I laughed about the C&D. Then freaked out. Then calmed down as I recalled that a new browser called Mozilla wasn’t being sued. Neither was a popular new show called Bridezillas.

    Instead, I asked several (150) blogger buds to repost my C&D. I got free legal help from all over the world. I also got a TON of free publicity. My site went from 200 visitors a day to 60,000 a minute (thanks to Slashdot, Wired, and Metafilter).

    I got interviewed 116 times over the C&D. I got on TV. Harvard Law School wrote about it.

    My web host was not amused by the spike and called me at home. Le sigh.

    Blogging has slowed down…

    Today, blogging doesn’t seem to have the camaraderie that it had back then. My audience has moved (mostly) to Facebook. I got married, and have two adorable, precocious girls. My blogging time became limited.

    But this year will change that. Times are getting weird again, and it’s time to anagram.

    Here’s looking at 20 more years of Davezilla…

  • Holy fucking shit, kid

    Holy fucking shit, kid. I need a god damn pizza
    Holy fucking shit, kid. I need a god damn pizza

  • Caption Time, No. 558

    Jesus and Colonel Sanders

  • Call me Treebeard

    FOUR YEAR OLD: “You know what would be so cool, Daddy?”

    ME: “What?”

    FOUR YEAR OLD: “If instead of a beard, you could grow a tree on your face.”

    THREE YEAR OLD: “That would not be good.”

    ME: “No?”

    THREE YEAR OLD: “It would be amazing.”

  • People we can safely dislike #26

    People we can safely dislike #26

    • People who refuse to include punctuation in email or texts.
    • The guy (it’s always a guy) who passes you on the road and then promptly slows down.
    • That lady who refuses to admit she misdialed you… again.
    • Men who wear Crocs with business suits.
    • Young men who think wearing a vest with a porkpie hat makes them jazz musicians.
    • Older women who think wearing loud mumus with oversized glasses makes them artists.
    • People who rasp, wheeze, and smell like a nicotine factory and claim they “quit ten years ago.”
    • The cheap bastard who drinks 3/4 of his expensive cocktail before returning it, claiming they made the wrong drink. Then re-orders the same thing.
    • Anyone with a straw hat.
    • The person in the picture and whatever she’s doing to that poor baby [PHOTO COURTESY: NoWayGirl.com]
    • Anyone who owns more than three parrots.

  • Because Florida.

  • Literary Critiques of App Update Messaging

    Literary Critiques of App Update Messaging

    COMPANY: Adobe
    UPDATE MESSAGE: Bug fixes
    REVIEW: Brevity, thy name is Adobe. Such an economy of words that even punctuation was deemed unnecessary. One thrills at the prospect of knowing with certainty that bugs will be fixed, lives will be spared, and hope restored to mankind.

    COMPANY: Mint
    UPDATE MESSAGE: Bug fixes.
    REVIEW: The glove has been dropped, Adobe. Mint has seen your message, called your bluff, and raised it one period. Will it be fisticuffs? Guns at dawn? Swords drawn? History alone will toast the winner.

    COMPANY: The New Yorker
    UPDATE MESSAGE: * bug fixes and performance improvement.
    REVIEW: The New Yorker—the pinnacle of American publication style—has presented us with a puzzler. From the opening asterisk, to the oddly placed space before the first word, to the utter lack of punctuation, there is clearly something deeper going on here. The observant reader will quickly deduce the answer. The asterisk is in fact, the Dog Star, Sirius. The “bug fixes” and “performance improvement” are clearly a veiled reference to the impending alien invasion.
    Well played, New Yorker. We are packing for the emergency shelters now.

    COMPANY: Tile
    UPDATE MESSAGE: In this release, we’ve further improved the app, making it even easier to find all of the things that matter to you.
    REVIEW: “All of the things that matter to you.” Is that even possible? No, a bold claim, but one that falls woefully short in practice. We have endeavored to find a first edition of Don Quixote, however Tile was unable to complete this task. In fact, Tile was only able to locate our keys and iPhone, and it did so with alarming regularity.

    COMPANY: YouTube
    UPDATE MESSAGE: Fixed bugs, improved performance, took out the garbage, mowed the front lawn, and now we need a little nap.
    REVIEW: YouTube, Mecca for soapy cat and testicular damage videos, is also the haven for those who over-share as evidenced by this witty update which reminds us that most developers still live with their protective mothers.

    COMPANY: Procreate
    UPDATE MESSAGE: If you’ve got one of the new iPad Pros, this update is for you. This fixes a cancelling issue with the canvas zoom and pan gesture on both new iPad Pro models.
    REVIEW: In one fell swoop; the haves and have-nots are segregated. The wealthy have gifts bestowed upon them from the opening salvo, while the lower castes are left to contend with substandard zoom and pan gestures.

    COMPANY: Vevo
    UPDATE MESSAGE: We regularly update our app to fix bugs and improve your Vevo experience!
    REVIEW: Your experience is paramount to the Vevo development team, as evidenced by their use of the exclamation point. Without it, this would be another dull and uninspired update message, but with the addition of this simple punctuation, something magical has transpired. Vevo, formerly a passive video experience, has been released from its chrysalis and metamorphosed like Gregor Samsa. The critical “!” has transformed an erstwhile unadorned Bon Jovi video into a Disney-esque extravaganza. We raise our glass to you, Vevo. Champion of the people!

  • Scout Manure

    Scout Manure

  • These are your choices

    These are your choices. What was the question?

    These are your choices. What was the question?

  • Velociraptor, James Velociraptor

    Velociraptor, James Velociraptor

  • Caption Time, No. 557

    Caaption Time

  • In Russia, you don’t ski corn, corn skis you

    Corn Skis

Swiggety-Swag

I make things. People buy them.

Tarot of the Unexplained

USD $22.95

  • The first tarot deck to include cryptids, the paranormal, portals, and Forteana.
  • Silver, gilded-edge 30 gsm cards
  • Includes a 96-page full-color book
Buy from Weiser Books
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Magical AI Grimoire

USD $22.95

  • 288 page grimoire chronicling the magical community’s adoption of tech and AI
  • Learn how to use AI for spells from multiple magical systems point of view
  • Forward by Peter J. Carroll
Buy from Weiser Books
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