I’ve made a horrible mistake

…I helped my dad set up a blog. It was sort of inevitable, really. One, he’s retired – what else does he have to do? And two, he’s opinionated – I know it’s hard to believe, but McCreights tend to be. What more do you need to blog? At least he’s better with computers than most 64 year olds.

Knowing his interests, it’ll probably mostly be about politics, with a touch of sports and a dash of religion. And he’s calling it If I Were King, based on the phrase that prefaces most of his advice on how to fix the world. Imagine if Shit My Dad Says was now dictator. It’s amusing and a tad bit scary, no? He’s already fixed church, men’s ugly feet, congressional term limits, Tiger Woods, instant reply, and competitive eating.

I think one of the main reason he started it was to have a place where he could publicly poke fun at Teabaggers. And have a place where people actually listen, which is not necessarily true at the dinner table with me and my mom.

So go check it out and say hello! Be gentle, he’s not used to this whole blogging thing. But don’t be too nice – I don’t want this to go to his head or something. I’m not sure if the internet is big enough for two McCreight bloggers…

Blog Makeover

Just to give you guys a heads up, I’m giving Blag Hag a bit of a makeover. It was getting a bit too hodge podge and cramped for me, and I wanted room for larger photos and videos. Hopefully this will look a lot more slick and organized.

If anything looks glitchy, it’s because I’m tweaking it throughout the day, so please be patient. And if you have any suggestions, feel free to post them here. If you think it’s fugly but have no advice on how to improve it, feel free to keep that to yourself ;P

EDIT: Whoops, Disqus commenting has been reinstalled. Sorry ’bout that. Seems to be working now, though I lost a couple of comments that you posted in this thread (I saw them at least!). It’s not working on the About page anymore for some reason, but I’ll see what I can do.

And the blogathon is complete!

Another year, another successful blogathon! Thanks to everyone who donated money to the Secular Student Alliance, suggested blogging prompts, spread the word, helped me with guest posts, and kept me company with your comments. I didn’t go quite as insane this year, but I’m ready to flop into bed and pass out for the rest of the day.

Most importantly, we’ve raised over $2,000 for the Secular Student Alliance! That’s over four times the amount as last year! You guys seriously rock. I know some people were pledging based on things like word count and posts they liked, so I’ll wait until the end of the day to post an official total. You can still donate by going here or using this widget:

Thanks for all of your support! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go die. Hopefully you’ll have enough blog posts to entertain you while I recover.

This is post 49 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Blagging protips from ERV

If you read Pharyngula, you’re probably up to date on Virginia Heffernan’s random diatribe about Pepsigate and various ScienceBloggers (If you don’t read Pharyngula…what?). Instead of joining the pile of people who are debunking all of her factually incorrect statements, the always amusingly insightful ERV decided to share some of her “Blagging Protips”:

Go outside and ask 100 people who PZ Myers is. Who Dave Munger is. Who Mark Hoofnagle or GrrlScientist is. If you get one damn person whos like ‘Oh! I read their blog!’, then I will be shocked. We are a very specific niche of people on the internet. Normal, average NYT readers have no damn idea who these people are, and Heffernan did not give them links to figure it out, or links to posts so her readers could make their own decisions about the blog posts she was demeaning.

…Lets be honest. Its painfully obvious that this article is just Heffernan using PepsiBlog as an excuse to bitch about online personalities at ScienceBlogs she personally doesnt like for some reason. She knows absolutely nothing about science or science blogging. So Virginia Heffernan is the journalistic equivalent of a 16 year-old girl bitching about treefrog1985 and TheRock33 on livejournal in 1999.

Hey, as someone who was once a 16 year old bitching on Livejournal, I’m offended! If anything Heffernan’s rambling was more similar to my 13 year old word vomitting on Xanga.

Go read the rest of ERV’s post for more hilarity and (seriously) useful blogging tips.

This is post 11 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

The atheist blogger drinking game

I was trying to come up with various new ways that people could pledge for Blogathon. Money based on word count or insightful posts is nice, but not particularly amusing. If Blogathon is to be truly entertaining, I think it should be participatory. That’s why I’m suggesting a drinking game!

…I just graduated from college, deal with it.

I’ll get us started. Please suggest new rules in the comments. They can be specific to a certain blog (House rules!) or apply to blogs in general. I’ll give alcoholic quantities here, but feel free to exchange them for monetary amounts if you wish to use them to donate to Blogathon.

The Atheist Blogger Drinking Game

Take a drink whenever…
…the blogger uses a synonym for atheist (“godless,” “heathen,” “infidel”)
…the blogger links to another atheist blog
…there’s a joke about eating babies (use caution when reading Friendly Atheist)
…a troll appears in the comments
…a famous atheist is name-dropped

Finish your drink whenever…
…there’s a story that praises religious people for doing something awesome (that isn’t sarcastic)
…the blogger accidentally links to a Poe

Finish everything in the house whenever…
…the blogger converts to a religion other than Pastafarianism

10am CST may be a bit early to start, but hey, it’s Happy Hour somewhere, right?

…And of course I’m not trying to get people inebriated to make them more likely to donate money. Pssshhhh, what do you think I am, some godless heathen?

This is post 6 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Don’t forget: Blogathon tomorrow!

This is just a friendly reminder that my 24 hour blogathon for charity starts tomorrow (Sat, July 31) at 8am EST. I’ll be making a new blog post every half hour, which is why you haven’t seen much today – saving up for my 49 posts! We’ve already raised $1,000 for the Secular Student Alliance – double our total from last year – but I know we can do even better.

You can help by spreading the world via blog, twitter, semaphores, or whatever your heart desires. Or you can pledge! Maybe you want to donate for every time I write an especially good post, or whenever I make a bad pun. You get to decide!

The SSA is a fabulous organization that helps atheist, agnostic, and humanist student groups across the country. Among many things, they help provide speakers, fund events and service projects, and provide brochures and aide. If you’re interested in the future of the secular movement, I can’t think of a better organization to support.

Thanks again for your help! I hope you enjoy my increasingly insane sleep-deprived blogging tomorrow. See you bright and early!

I should not be allowed to drive bloggers

I’m back from the Secular Student Alliance conference! I apologize again for the dearth of blog posts. I was itching to blog the whole time, but I didn’t have the time or the internet access. Lucky for you that in just a couple days, I’ll be pooping out 49 blog posts in a single day! Hopefully that will more than make up for my absence. But since I made the mistake of checking my email before flopping into bed, here’s one funny story you get from the trip.

I have realized that I should not drive bloggers.

Not because I hate bloggers or I’m a horrible driver or something. God just hates atheist bloggers in transit, apparently. When I had to pick up PZ from the airport, his flight arrived horribly late and I felt like I was going to kill both of us speeding off to our event. When I had to drive Greta Christina to Chicago, it was during a nasty blizzard, where we passed many cars in ditches.

And now I had a driving adventure with Hemant.

Hemant was nice enough to pick up me and my friend Mark on his way to Columbus, OH since we’re fairly close to him. Half way into the six hour drive we decided to switch so he could nap as a passenger, instead of behind the wheel. He pulls over and we trade places.

Me: Man, your side of the car is really hot.
Hemant: Huh, I was just going to say the same thing about your side.

A couple minutes go by and we realize the air conditioning magically broke right when we pulled over. Not the end of the world, but definitely unpleasant since it was in the 90s and humid. Thankfully we were all sweating like crazy, so I didn’t have to worry about my individual stinkiness.

I drive for a bit more. Hemant’s already sleeping.

Mark: Do you smell smoke?
Me: …Yeah.

In retrospect this should have been a red flag, but it smelled so similar to cigarettes we thought we were just driving by a particularly stinky area. Eventually it goes away, and I figure I’ll start to be worried if I see flames shoot out from under the hood.

We’re all dying from the heat, but the zoo is in sight. We’re just stuck waiting to turn at the light, and then we’re in the parking lot. Except there’s just one problem.

Me: Um, Hemant, nothing happens when I press the gas pedal.
Everyone: [insert explitives of your choice here]

Eventually after much restarting, the car decides to live again. I make it to the parking lot, trying not to ever come to a full stop. This was especially interesting when I needed to pay for parking and I’m trying to exchange money without coming to a full stop. We decide to just park the car, go to the zoo with the rest of the group, and deal with it later.

Dealing with it later = Realizing the car doesn’t start at all.

Thankfully my friend Mike was there with his own car and called AAA for us. So we spent the rest of the afternoon following a tow truck and scheming how we could possibly get back to Chicago without Hemant’s car. Eventually we found out his car could be fixed, and we were able to get back to Chicagoland in one piece.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Hemant’s wallet.

I’m starting to think this is compelling evidence for the existence of a God who hates atheist bloggers – not enough to strike them down, but just enough to annoy them with horrible driving experiences. Hopefully I never have to drive Richard Dawkins around – I can’t imagine what major catastrophe would happen then.