2017: New Beginnings

If you're a person who has read Greenlee Gazette in the past, you're both rare, and aware that in recent weeks and months, I haven't bee blogging very regularly. As I've struggled to relate, there are many reasons for this, chief among them that my need to unload, to get my ideas out there, have been met in other ways over the years. I felt almost alone back in 2007 when I started this thing, unheard, almost in an alternate universe where facts didn't seem to matter. Karl Rove and the Bush team said and did what they wanted, and people seemed to take it at face value. It was very aggravating and depressing, and blogging provided an outlet for all of that.

And boy, was I prolific! I started slowly, and then burst into a many-times-per-day blogger, logging hundreds, even once thousands of posts per year. Now, I'm lucky to get a few posts up per week. I've pondered just calling it quits, but I really don't want to do that. So, I've been sputtering out a few things here and there. And I was set to really give it a go again after Trump won the presidency. After all, we've circled back around to surreality of a Twilight Zone norm for politics.

People love this guy? Newsflash: I don't.

Very likely, I'm going to be happy to have kept the blog going. And I guess there was no real danger of it being deleted. It just might have sat here, unaltered for the rest of Blogger's existence. But the Trumpster fire that is only just getting flared up will need commentary, and I'll need concentrated doses of brain dumpage that Twitter can't really provide. So, I'll be here in 2017.

It just may take a little effort to really get going. Life got a little out of balance for completely un-Trump related reasons, recently. After almost two years working from home part time, I finally got a full-time job. That in and of itself would be fine, after all, I was fully employed for most of my blogging years. But I still have my part-time at-home job too! And I sorely need to work in where I'm going to be getting some exercise (not to mention dieting). So, scheduling is a bit of a problem.

But I'll sort it all out somehow. I'll want to, I'm sure, as this new post-Obama era gets into full, ludicrous speed. In the meantime, I just wanted something up here on January 1, to prove I'm still here!

Blast from the Past: New & Improved!

I was stuck for an idea for the year's first Blast from the Past. And then I thought, new year. New and improved (we hope) year! Remember how all the products on TV in the seventies were constantly new & improved? We never really figured out what was so different, but they sure made a big deal of it. So, here are some of those old pop culture nuggets.






1. Tide detergent - Probably the most improved item in commercials was detergent. By now, you'd think they'd have it perfect!
3. Zest soap - Soap was always being improved too. And how many times did they go through the, "Wait a minute, it's not new." "No, it's new and improved!" bit?
3. Quake & Quisp cereal - How improved could they be? Did you ever even eat either of them in the first place?
4. Secret deodorant - Yeah, apparently, they couldn't get this one right the first time either.
5. Diet Pepsi - This one was novel for its time, inspiring countless spoofs, including a classic Saturday Night Live "General Dynamics" clip.
6. Pringles Potato Chips - Now, with RIDGES!
7. Hunts Tomato Ketchup - Roy Clark of Hee-Haw explains why Hunts is now better than Heinz.
8. Windex window cleaner - I'm betting your life just wasn't complete until they improved Windex with lemon.

That's it for this week. I'm sure there are many, many more. But the YouTube search engine doesn't make it easy! Happy Monday!

Glenn Beck's New Year Off to a Bad Start

Image from source, News Corpse

Do you think he'll cry?

[Excerpt]

Glenn Beck’s New Year Off To A Rousing Flop



First the good news: Glenn Beck dropped by New York’s WOR radio station over poor ratings. The largest commercial market in the country is ditching Glenn Beck. That’s gotta hurt. Especially since Beck’s Philadelphia affiliate previously announced that they were dumping him as well. Is this the beginning of a trend? . . .
 
Read more at: News Corpse

Blogiversary! 31 Months! Over 5,900 Posts!

Wow. I'm still here. My goals for the blog keep shifting. At first, I wasn't sure it was going anywhere. Then, my goals were six months, a year. 1,000 posts. And here I am, more than 2-1/2 years in, creeping up on 6,000 posts. I get bummed sometimes that I've never really "broken through," but then again, I'd probably get stage fright if I did.

The world is a vastly different place from where it was when I started this blog. It began out of frustration with the Bush administration and the dominance of FOX "News." Today, Bush is a (bad) memory, and the Obama era is--though still pretty fresh--in full swing. I'm not as impressed with it as I'd hoped, but really, could anybody fix the mess we were in quickly?

I've still not lit upon the "destination feature" I've been hoping for. I'd like to come up with a great idea that people look forward to on a schedule, like Democratic Underground's Top 10 Conservative Idiots. Maybe in 2010 I'll find that idea. In the mean time, I'll keep plugging along, though I probably won't swing into full blog force for a couple more days. Still enjoying my holiday vacation.

So thanks for reading, and as always, bring your friends!

Top 100 Weirdest Stories of 2009

Image from source, Asylum

Well, unless something really weird happens in the next couple of days, that is. . .

[Excerpt]

The 100 Weirdest News Stories We Dugg in 2009

99. Too Fat to Work Family Says $36,000 Is Not Enough Benefit Cash

The Chawners, a married English couple and their two adult daughters, haven't been able to work in 12 years. The reason? They're too fat. Weighing in at between 240 and 340 pounds, the Chawners claim they're too heavy to find work and that the 36, 000 dollars they get a year in government assistance isn't enough to, ahem, "put food on the table. . ."

See the rest at: Asylum

A Decade in Seven Minutes

The decade is almost over, and we still don't know what the hell to call it. The two-thousandsees? The oooos? The ots? The 0s? I don't know. And I don't know that the decade is almost over yet, either. After all, if 2000 was the last year of the twentieth century, and 2001 was the beginning of the new decade/century/millennium, we still have a year to go.

But pop culture doesn't work that way. The 70s started in 1970, not 1971, right? So I think we'll all have to be forced to agree that this decade runs from 2000-2009. But looky here, 2010 will start the twenty-teens, but we don't get to start saying "teen" until 2013. It's all so confusing. Wake me up when we get to 2020. That'll be easier. And I'll be so old!

Blogiversary: 7 Months! New Year!

Greenlee Gazette tucks one more month under the belt (and believe me, there's a lot less room in there right now), as of midnight. And it was a pretty good month, I'm happy to say. We chalked up over 4,000 page views, with almost 3,000 total readers for the month. Added to our totals, we're now past 12,000 visitors for the run of the blog. That's small potatoes for the big blogs of course, but for a small-time (almost) one-man show, I'm pretty proud of it.

I'm still looking for ideas. I'm looking into ways to promote the blog and bring in more traffic. I've tried to pepper this space with some fun stuff, in addition to the super-serious political pieces. I've added a few recurring features like Shameless Gossip, and Featured Blog, in addition to Blast from the Past. In the coming months, I hope to institute a little more structure, possibly scheduling certain features for regular days of the week. A cartoon is still an idea that intrigues me, if I can find the time.

Also this month, contributor and friend, Stupid Monkey Planet is set to debut in his own space. If that goes on as planned, there will likely be a great deal of cross-pollination between our two sites, which should add a distinctly different flavor to the blog. Please stick around, and bring your friends!