All the pictures I have of me are from graduations, proms, fancy family gettogethers, and weddings. At some point, I used to have a few pictures of me where I was wearing normal clothes, but I quickly burned them.
You see, this way, any future anthropologists that study me will think I was really into formal attire.
Boy, will they be way off.
Screw you, anthropologists.
Hey! John Lamberson! You total buttface. That’s right, I’m talking to you, John Lamberson. I’m talking to the John Lamberson who went to Alanton Elementary School with me. The John Lamberson who I considered one of my seven best friends in fifth grade. The John Lamberson who I laughed with. The John Lamberson who I cried with. The John Lamberson who sat next to me at the lunch table.
I’m talking to the John Lamberson who stole my freakin’ baseball cards.
Oh, don’t even pull that whole “What? I Didn’t Even…? What?” thing with me, John Lamberson. Don’t play like that. You stole them. You stole my entire baseball card collection.
March 13th. Mrs. Nash’s fifth grade class. Everyone, including me, was out back having recess. But not you. You were in our empty classroom. And you stole the red, plastic, floppy binder that was sitting under my desk. The red, plastic, floppy binder that was filled with over thirty sheets of baseball card holders.
I had Topps; I had Donruss; I had Fleer. I even had a few Leaf. I had All-Star Rookies. I had Rated Rookies. I had Rookie Sensations. My friend Stephen had even given me some old cards his brother had from the seventies. They were just commons, but still, 1973 Topps commons were listing at at least $0.15 in Beckett at the time.
But you took it all away, didn’t you, John Lamberson? You took it all away.
I’d worked months to put that collection together. I didn’t get an allowance, John. Did you know that? I just had to bug my mom to buy me a pack of cards every time we went to the 7-11. My poor mother. But you didn’t bother to ask about that, did you, John? You didn’t bother to ask anything at all. You just saw an opportunity during the touch football game at recess, asked Mrs. Nash if you could go to the bathroom, and pilfered another man’s dream.
Damn you, John Lamberson! And damn you, recess! You played right into his hands! Why did you have to be so near to the end of the day, recess?! John Lamberson was already on the bus by the time I even realized the binder was gone. Freakin’ John Lamberson. You assmunch.
Why’d you do it, man? We were friends. Good friends. I’d known you for three years. I was about to ask you to sleepover sometime that next fall. But in one fleeting moment…that was all gone, all forgotten. You just threw it all away, John Lamberson.
What was it? Was my baseball card collection that threatening? Did you think it looked better than yours? Was it jealousy? The cards weren’t even that great, damn it! I had old Topps commons along side Manny Ramirez rookies! The only thing remotely promising was a Todd Van Poppel High School All Star! And Van Poppel’s cards took a nosedive before he ever got to the majors! You really took a hit on my Van Poppel, didn’t you, John Lamberson? Good. I hope it hurt.
Or maybe it wasn’t jealousy. Maybe it was just…the perfect crime. You just couldn’t help yourself. You knew no one would see you. And you knew once you placed my cards in your binder, there’d be no way to tell you’d stole them. You had all the angles figured out, didn’t you? I know your kind, John Lamberson. Your kind makes me sick.
What did you think would happen, huh? Did you think I’d just stop collecting? Did you think I’d just give up? You were sorely mistaken, John Lamberson! My baseball collection rose like a phoenix from the ashes! I asked for a wax box of ’90 Upper Deck for my birthday that year, John Lamberson, and I got it! It delivered me to the promised land! Ken Griffey’s by the handful! John Olerud’s by the gross! Carlos Baerga’s by the truckload! I traded! I wheeled! I dealed! And by eighth grade, I had a collection that was the envy of all who saw it. You thought you ruined me, John Lamberson, but you just made me stronger. You made me…the King of Cards.
Then I got really bored of baseball and started collecting comic books. But that’s unimportant.
Anyway…I just wanted you to know, John Lamberson, that I know about what you did. I know you took my baseball cards. You dickwad.
What’s that, John Lamberson? Do I…? Well, no, I don’t have any concrete proof you took the cards, John Lamberson, but look at the facts, I think it’s-…. Yes, fine, no, but my point is-….
Hmm.
You were mainly into basketball. Not a bad…point. Michael Cohen was the big baseball guy. And come to think of it, he was also the guy who sort of suggested it was you who took the binder. I guess…wow, I guess you’re right, John Lamberson.
I guess I’ve learned a valuable lesson. I can’t just jump to conclusions about people. I can’t just castigate someone without first being sure of their guilt. Fair enough, John Lamberson. Your point is taken. I take back what I said about the great John Lamberson. I take back the years of seething hatred I’ve had for you and your family. I take it all back, John Lamberson. My friend: John Lamberson.
All right then. Now. On to other things.
Hey! Michael Cohen! You incredible fartlick….
You know, you learn a lot about people running a big tough Internet comedy site like T.J. Monkey’s. You learn about their wants. You learn about their needs. You learn about their search queries.
Yes, that’s right: it’s time once again to examine how people find T.J. Monkey’s through search engines, and then shamelessly alter the site to sate our readers’ unique thirsts. Today, we look at the most popular search phrases that result in hits for T.J. Monkey’s.
Many questions come to mind: Is “badass cars” still champion? Has a new search query taken the lead? Is there perhaps more than one new leader? Are there perhaps four? Is there maybe some way we could create a page to cover all four of these new search?
No, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
The top five search keywords that reult in hits on T.J. Monkey’s are:
Let’s take it from the bottom: “violence in movies.” This one’s interesting in that we’re not even on the first page of results on Google for “violence in movies.” This means there’s a really high volume of people searching for this. Some people, I’m sure, are looking for clips of really violent movies. But I guess also there are a lot of people worried about violent entertainment, and they come online to find websites and discuss how bad it is. It makes sense. People are fed up with the movies having all that violence. They’re tired of being subjected to all the gross displays of blood and guts on the big screen. They want to get away from all that, get back to the simple life. They want to find a medium that’s clean and pure and untainted by all of society’s sickos. So they come to the Internet.
New Slogan: T.J. Monkey’s: We like to see a good disembowelment just as much as the next guy.
Next up: “meaning of thanksgiving.” A lot of people are puzzled by Thanksgiving. They sit, staring at plates of turkey with eyes glazed over, muttering repeatedly, “What does it all mean?” John provides clear answers. It’s as simple as that.
New Slogan: T.J. Monkey’s: Come for the historical perspective, stay for the poop jokes.
Number two: “rivers cuomo.” Well, this isn’t a huge surprise. A lot of people like Weezer And a lot of people who like Weezer know that the lead singer of Weezer is Rivers Cuomo. And a fair cross-section of the people who know that the lead singer of Weezer is Rivers Cuomo are creepy and obsessive about the band (this includes me). And nothing screams “creepy and obsessive” like typing someone’s name into an Internet search engine. Want to be creepy and obsessive about me? Here, try it. So, the strange thing here is that currently, as of the writing of this Thought (12/4/2001), “On Rivers Cuomo,” shows up as the number two result on Google for the search query, “rivers cuomo.” Here, try it. That’s bizarrely high. As I said, there are a lot of creepy and obsessive people who like Weezer, which means there are tons of web pages devoted solely to Weezer minutiae. There’s photo galleries. There’s cartoons. There’s a painstakingly detailed web site devoted solely to the songs Weezer played on tour in the summer of 2000. In addition to all that, the words “Rivers Cuomo” must appear on thousands of well trafficked news and music sites. And yet somehow…we’re number two. Rock music.
New Slogan: T.J. Monkey’s: The Pinkerton of short, comedic, rambling essay sites.
And finally: “naked guys.” Well, Internet users like porn, that’s a well-published fact. This comes as no surprise. The wonderful thing about the peops who end up on T.J. Monkey’s after searching for “naked guys”, is that they stay. On average, a user who comes to the site while searching for “naked guys”, sticks around and views at least five other pages. So there they are, searching for some porn, and they happen upon a comedy essay site, and they say, “You know, I’m gonna hold off on all this self-gratification a bit, so I can read some lovely humor pieces about bears and political science.”
New Slogan: T.J. Monkey’s: We’re funny enough to temporarily stop people from masturbating.
So there you have it. We see that our audience has new needs. New desires. And we need to move with the times. Sure, people will always have a deep love for badass cars. Nothing can ever change that. But now we see there’s a new gap in online entertainment. A gap that needs to be filled. And we’re just the site to do it. Yes, we will soon add a section that will feature a combination of these new top four search queries. Stay tuned, gentle readers, for the new T.J. Monkey’s section, under construction as we speak….
The future looks bright for us, friends. I just hope we can handle all the traffic this will undoubtedly bring. Huzzah!
T.J. Monkey's by Porter Mason is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
All original content on PorterMason.com is © 2010 Porter Mason. And there's a privacy policy.
