May 19, 2013

Celebrity Telethon for the Blogfish!

by Fred Fingery

Okay readers, we are just 1 “like,” 1 “comment,” and 1 “follow” away from reaching our goal of supplying the blogfish with the love and nourishment he so desperately needs. That’s right, we’re almost there, and we have practicallyserious.com celebrities RIGHT NOW working the phones, taking donations. Yes, you read that correctly. If you leave a like/comment/follow within the next couple of days, you will have the opportunity to chit chat with some of practicallyserious.com’s most recognized celebrities, such as: Bob Wickipy AND Lawrence Tolchin from the paranormal blogging investigators; the blog-rover Creativity (actually, his bespectacled handlers in Cape Kennedy will be the ones taking the calls); the disembodied wordspirit Lyker (fellow bloggers: I’m told that as thanks, Lyker will unreservedly “like” a bunch of your own blog’s posts without reading them); and the Blog-Post Assassin, himself. We guarantee that all likes/follows/comments donated to this blogpost will reach the blogfish directly. No middlemen to muddle the operation; you can trust this post. Don’t pass up on this awesome opportunity. Get some names to “drop” at your next cheese-and-wine dinner party!

Read “Please Feed My Blogfish” here!

Click to read more about our celebrity guest operators:

Bob Wickipy/ Lawrence Tolchin /Creativity/ Lyker / Blog-Post Assassin

Posted in Practically Humorous, Uncategorized, Unorthodoxy | 3 Comments »

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May 12, 2013

Please Feed My Blogfish

by Fred Fingery

Please Feed My Blogfish

These are the words for the blogfish. The blogfish is a special kind of fish that only lives in blogwords. It uses them like water, drawing oxygen from their awkwardness. You probably haven’t noticed, but the old blogfish, Patrick II, died of starvation very shortly after I published his original blogpost; and that, immediately afterwards, I’d surreptitiously replaced that poor soul with a new fish that is kinda the same size and color (black & white). The first one was murdered. By you. By your negligence. Even after I Patrick IIIwent out of my way to say that blogfish eat “likes” and “user comments” and new “follows,” very few readers gave that post a like, and/or a comment. Nor, on the occasion of that particular post, did practicallyserious.com garner a single new follower. I wasn’t asking for much. I mean, a single follow would have kept the blogfish alive for almost a year! And if that’s me being greedy, then what about this: a single user comment would have kept the blogfish alive for at least six or seven months. That would have been plenty of time for the poor little guy to have a decent life of eating and swimming and pooping. So, in the name of all that is holy, help me keep New  Blogfish alive. At least “like” this post. That’ll get him out of the starting gate.

If you would like to donate a comment, but don’t know what to write about, then how about trying to help me come up with an official name for New Blogfish? Or else I’ll just call him Patrick III.

Read about my ill-fated first blogfish here!

Posted in Editorial, Practically Humorous, Unorthodoxy | 2 Comments »

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May 4, 2013

Easy Alternatives to “At the End of the Day…”

by Fred Fingery

Easy Alternatives to the Phrase “At the End of the Day…”

attheendofthedayPeople say it too much. Period. “We can talk about this until we’re blue in the face, but, at the end of the day…yadda yadda yadda.” You hear it every day, sometimes twice in the same sentence. And I’m not joking. On one strange occasion, I literally heard it said twice in the same run-on sentence. I’d reproduce that sentence for you but, for the life of me, I can’t remember exactly how it went. Nor, for all of my creative powers, can I imagineer a realistic stand-in sentence; it would just sound too goofy. All I know is that it happened. And that afterwards I took a very hot shower. As hot as I could stand it.

No. It doesn’t make you sound smart. It doesn’t make you sound like a successful businessman. It just makes you sound like you’re trying to sound like your dad (and succeeding).

Trust me, I’ve been observing this phenomenon over the past few years and, at the end of the day, I’ve found that people abuse the hell out of this phrase. It’s like they aren’t aware of the so many other, more colorful ways to communicate the exact same sentiment.

I decided to offer my readers a list of sturdy alternatives to this overused phrase. Please do us all a favor. Dare to be different. If you want to say “at the end of the day,” just go ahead and substitute in one of the following phrases.

Easy Alternatives to the Overused Phrase “At the End of the Day…”

  • When the dust settles…
  • When all is said and done…
  • When the shoe’s on the other foot…
  • When push comes to shove…
  • When the fat lady sings…
  • When it comes to the showdown…
  • When the fat lady comes to the showdown…
  • When the smoke clears…
  • When Dr. Grant decides not to endorse Jurassic Park…

One more thing. While writing this article I racked my brain to come up with the most offensive overuse of “At the end of the day” possible. I basically held a one-person Manhattan Project tasked with splitting the “At the end of the day” atom. Here is what I came up with.

“I mean, I know it seems like he says it all the time, but, at the end of the day, Philip ‘At the End of the Day’ McArthur usually says ‘at the end of the day’ at the end of the day.”

Readers: if you feel you can out-“At the end of the Day” me, please give it a shot. At the end of the day you will fail, but I like a good challenge!

___

Learn how I feel about people who call you “boss!”

Posted in Editorial, Lists, Practically Humorous, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

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April 29, 2013

My Blog-Post is Getting Married!

by Fred Fingery

My Blog-Post is Getting Married!

Ladies and gentlemen, I have an important announcement to make. Two of my most “visited” blog posts have decided to do the right thing and make it official. Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about 8 Reasons Men Keep Their Eyes Open When Making Out With Women and 8 Reasons Women Close Their Eyes When Kissed, the blogosphere’s favorite blog-post couple. And yes, I’m talking about marriage. Those of you who have been following the tabloids probably know by now that these two posts have been getting pretty serious over the last few months, and now, I’m so very pleased to announce, 8 Reasons Men Keep Their Eyes Open When Making Out With Women has decided to “put a ring on it.” I guess he’s scared of some other blog post showing up and stealing 8 Reasons Women Close Their Eyes When Kissed away from him. This consuming fear has nudged him into a whole new world of responsibility and commitment. Quite frankly, I’m shocked. I didn’t think he had it in him. I thought he valued his identity, his freedom, but I guess that kind of stuff doesn’t matter to him anymore. (Between me, you and the wall, I think he’s thinking with the “wrong head,” but that’s just my opinion.)

Anywho, the wedding is going to happen pretty soon now. The happy couple won’t give me an exact date; they’re going all Brad and Angelina on me. But when it goes down we’ll be here to invade the ceremony and give you all the details. What color will she wear? Who will he pick to be his best blog? Stay tuned folks!

Get caught up with all the latest gossip…

Read 8 Reasons Men Keep Their Eyes Open While Making Out with Women!

Read 8 Reasons Women Close Their Eyes When Kissed!

Posted in Editorial, Practically Humorous, Relationships, Unorthodoxy | 4 Comments »

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April 24, 2013

When There’s a Contact Lens Lost Inside Your Head

by Fred Fingery

When There’s a Contact Lens Lost Inside Your Head

contact1Anyone who wears contacts probably has dealt this particular scenario at some point or another. You’re ready to turn in for the night. You take contact lens #1 out of your
left eye and drop it into the appropriate side of the little contact lens container thing. So far so good. No problems. But now it’s time to deal with the other eye. This one doesn’t go so easy.

The contact doesn’t want to come out. It feels like it’s been blow-torched in there, fused to your eyeball. There’s no apparent line of demarcation between where the contact lens ends and the eye begins. With your dirty fingers you fiddle around in there, trying to catch a solid grip on that stubborn thing so you could peel it off and go to bed. No luck. And then you come to the horrific realization that you can’t grip the lens because it isn’t there anymore. It’s gone! Been gone for a while! At some point early on in your extraction mission your clumsy fingers must have somehow shifted the lens’ position on your eyeball just enough so that it slid back into your eye socket. You realize with horror that the lens is now floating somewhere on or around your brain, floating in the liquids of your head like Dennis Quaid’s miniature submarine in the sweet ‘80s film, Inner Space.

innerspaceYou feel powerless. You feel violated. You wonder: will it stay in there forever? Will it settle down somewhere it’s not supposed to be and cause you to hallucinate, start seeing giant glass domes everywhere you look?

And, most importantly, you’ll want to know…

How do I get this rogue contact lens out of my head?

As always, practicallyserious.com has the information you require. Here are three effective ways to get that rogue contact lens out of your head.

3 Things to Do When There’s a Contact Lens Lost Inside Your Head

  • Sneeze it Out This one pretty much speaks for itself. Just sneeze the thing out of your nose! Do like they do in the cartoons: grab a big fluffy feather and tickle your nose with it until you start to sneeze uncontrollably. Nine out of ten times this will solve the problem. If the feather doesn’t get you sneezing quite violently enough, go ahead and develop a cat allergy and then grab the nearest American Longhair and rub it all over your face like it’s Oxy 10. Keep doing this until you blast the contact lens right out of your nostril onto the coffee table next to the coffee mug you use all the time and never rinse out. Just try to remember, at least, to rinse the lens, preferably before you put it back in your eye.Self-cleaning-oven-display
  • Burn it Off  This suggestion draws inspiration from the modern-day marvel of self-cleaning ovens. If you can get the inner temperature of your head hot enough, anything that’s not supposed to be there will eventually disintegrate, turn to ash. And no, I don’t mean stick your head in an oven. That would be stupid. I’m talking about drinking a lot of coffee—three or four pots—and then trying your very very best to imagine a sequel to the nonsensical, rambling, clearly-improvised science fiction movie, Prometheus, that would somehow make the first one make sense and be cool. If you focus all of your hypercaffeinated brainpower on this unsolvable brain paradox, your inner head-temperature will quickly start to heat up in the same way an overclocked CPU will overheat on a PC when you have too many programs running. If you can get your brain hot enough, the rogue contact lens will soon disappear in a quick puff of smoke.
  • Watch a Michael Bay Movie  Okay, so, you know how if you detonate a thermonuclear device in the upper atmosphere it’ll send a static electric charge that will short out anything with an electric circuit directly beneath it (if not, please refer to the James Bond movie, Goldeneye)? Well that’s kinda like what happens in your brain when you watch any movie directed by Michael Bay. It pretty much shorts out your entire head, cleans the slate, kinda like doing a factory reset on your mobile device. In theory, such a major brain reset will remove anything in/on your brain that wasn’t there when you came off the assembly line. Yes, we’re talking about you, Rogue Contact Lens. You will be deleted like a corrupted Google Play app.

Read another classic article!

Learn about my landmark contact lens invention!

Posted in Editorial, Practically Humorous, Unorthodoxy | Leave a Comment »

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April 5, 2013

How to Feed Yourself on Five-Dollars-a-Week

by Fred Fingery

How to Feed Yourself on Five-Dollars-a-Week

The thing to do here is ration. Depending on what you’re starting with, I’d go ahead and separate it into five separate units. If you’re starting with five ones, this isn’t going to be hard at all—just take the ones out of your wallet and put them down on the table next to each other in a line—one for Monday, one for Tuesday, one for Wednes…you get the idea. If you’re starting with a five-dollar-bill, then I’d humbly recommend you break out a nice pair of Fiskars scissors and cut the bill into five equal-sized strips. Once you’ve done this, go ahead and lay the strips down on the kitchen table, one for each day of the week, just like I told you to do with the ones.

Now, if you’re starting with five dollars in coins, it’s a little different: yes, you should separate the coins into five different piles; but, unlike what we did with the one-dollar-bills, you should ration the coins based on density, NOT value. For instance, if you have most of the five dollars in pennies, and the rest in quarters, you should NOT treat the quarters as equals to the pennies. Value-wise, quarters are better than pennies, I think we all know this, but they’re not equal food-wise. Twenty-five pennies will fill up your belly much quicker than a quarter would, so keep that in mind.

Once you figured out the whole rationing thing, then it becomes a matter of self control. Just eat the Monday money for Monday and the Tuesday money for Tuesday. Don’t eat Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday all on Monday. That wouldn’t be good.

Dollars and/or coins tend to be a little bland by themselves, so I’d recommend adding salt and pepper to taste; or honey, if you don’t mind all that nasty stickiness.

Bon appetite!

_____

If you liked this post, check out my very informative How to Prepare a Chicken for Dinner

Posted in Practically Humorous, Unorthodoxy | 4 Comments »

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April 3, 2013

Blogging Phenomenon: “Darkcontent”

by Fred Fingery

Simulated Large Hadron Collider CMS particle detection data indicating the presence of “darkcontent” in practicallyserious.com’s archives.

In a controversial paper published earlier today, practicallyserious Space Agency (PSSA) astrophysicist Leo Foley offers what he considers mathematical proof of a blogging phenomenon known as “darkcontent.” Darkcontent has long been considered a possible explanation for why practicallyserious.com is able to exist for extended periods of time without offering any new blog posts. A relatively new idea in blogging-physics, darkcontent’s existence is inferred from gravitational effects on visible blog content and gravitational lensing of background wordpress radiation, and was originally hypothesized to account for discrepancies between calculations of the mass and quality of practicallyserious.com’s archive, considered in the context of how long the blog has been in existence.

“Basically, there’s a major discrepancy between how long this particular blog has been in existence, and the general quality and quantity of the writing,” said Foley during a Q & A held after his initial presentation of his findings. “Something doesn’t add up. No writer can remain mediocre for so long without showing at least marginal improvement. This is common sense. Even without trying, the writer would have to improve, if only a little bit. Well, my latest series of experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Cern suggest that this blog has, indeed, gotten better, a lot better, only we can’t see it. Therefore I propose there are well-written, high quality posts hidden in those ever-growing gaps between the real blog posts. We have no physical proof of their quality, yet we can infer their existence by the massive blocks of time between each new post. Gravitationally and creatively speaking, they must be there, or else the blog would simply fly apart.”

Foley boldly suggests that darkcontent may account for over 99% of practicallyserious.com’s total mass. “The good stuff is there, I’m tellin ya. We have the numbers to prove it, we just don’t have the technology to see it. Yet.” According to Foley, there’s still hope that practicallyserious.com can one day be a top notch, world-class blog. “Darkcontent is waiting, lads, waiting to be discovered, and it’s high quality stuff. It’s funny as hell, or, at the very least, decently-written. If we can better understand it, we may be able to one day see it, harness it, bring it to the foreground with the rest of practicallyserious.com’s sporadic ‘lightcontent.’

For more practicallyserious.com Space Agency antics, check out this story:

“Creativity” Rover Cleared for Launch 

Posted in Editorial, Practically Humorous, Practically Serious News | Leave a Comment »

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March 9, 2013

“Spinning” Published

by Fred Fingery

I’ve recently enjoyed my first publication, a short story I wrote (originally intended for this very blog) called “Spinning.” It was accepted and published by Monkeybicycle.net — check it out here: “Spinning”

Poor practicallyserious.com! Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Whenever I write blogfictions I particularly like, I end up not posting them at all, with hopes of publishing them elsewhere. Though some online magazines will happily accept previously published stories (many magazines consider stories posted on personal blogs to be “published”) and that is how I had a version of the story “Green Thumb” published at eHorror. So, in that case at least, practicallyserious.com sort of got some.

_____

Check out “Green Thumb” here, or even here!

Posted in Editorial | 2 Comments »

February 27, 2013

Flash Fiction: “Futuresmell”

by Fred Fingery

Futuresmell (Farmyard part 2)

bulldozersPast the distant treeline Malamute saw the cranes swinging big tubes of metal. But his pedestrian eyes were only good for initial, vague impressions. It was his snout that would tell him what he wanted to know. Malamute’s sense of smell was so fine-tuned he could could sniff from any random occurrence a level of factual detail equivalent to what a promising graduate-level scholar, engaging wholeheartedly in two-or-three days’ worth of research, could come up with. For example, a mere three sniffs into his snout-recon, Malamute knew without question that a real estate developer named Leonard Craltin—who had a sort of man crush on his Latino office intern, Phil Ricardo—had broken ground on an ambitious project to build a high-class movie theater smack in the middle of the farmyards, whether the farmers there were movie buffs or not. A forth sniff told him that Mr. Craltin had, earlier today, bullied Farmer Mongol into selling his land at a cutthroat price. Malamute didn’t like where all of this was heading, so he took a really really big breath and then, as he did on rare occasions, sniffed clear into the future, instinctively translating into usable data the inscrutable scents that swirled on the horizon. And so that’s how he discovered that Mr. Craltin would, having connived Farmer Mongol out of his land, next come to Malamute’s own employer, Farmer Jert; and would bully him into selling his poor excuse for a farm. And then poor Malamute would be out of a job, likely to get scooped up by a catcher and brought to a high security pound for dogmen. Malamute couldn’t bare to sniff any more after that. It was too stinky.

_______

Read part 1 here!

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February 18, 2013

Flash Fiction: “Farmyard”

by Fred Fingery

Farmyard (part 1)

Malamute shuffled out of the bunkhouse scratching his doughy, left glute. He was a skinny dogman with the body of a pale teenage boy, but with the thick furry head of a middle-aged Siberian Husky (growing up, he had been erroneously told by his handlers that his head belonged to the Malamute species, not Husky, hence the inaccurate moniker). His eyes were a loving, chocolaty brown and the fur which rippled softly in the wind was like snow and dirt. After sniffing miles into the wind for breakfast things, Malamute took a few steps over to where the marigolds were and he pulled down his khaki slacks and took a shiny dump right there, quite solid, impressive even. Then he walked to the tool shed, lazily working his pants back up from his waddling ankles. He didn’t wipe his arse, not yet. He wouldn’t get around to that until later, when his boss came back and demanded he do it. For now, the farm was his and his alone, and he felt he shouldn’t fret over silly human conventions. When he got the rake he went to the tomato garden and started raking the dirt there. Neither he, nor his employer, knew the first thing about farming, but early on the two of them agreed it was probably a good idea to rake the dirt (as long as there were no plants already there) at least twice a day. They believed this to have a similar function as stirring soup while it cooked. He was just about done with this when he heard the bulldozers. His big ears perked up and even hardened a little, and he two-legged galloped over to the pinewood fence and climbed halfway up to get a better look.  There was trouble brewing on the horizon…

Posted in Fiction | Leave a Comment »

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