The perils of posting from a cell phone — I actually wrote something here as I was being driven to Chico, and my phone apparently ate it, making it a blank post. Which didn’t stop anyone since it gathered 66 comments.
Anyway, I’m feeling guilty. I was in the pleasant warmth (and moistness) of California, feeling no stress, and my wife called to report that she was stranded. She’d been on her way to work when she was slammed by a blizzard and white-out conditions, conditions which make driving literally impossible, and she’d pulled over into a gas station in a tiny town in rural Minnesota. And had been stuck there for hours, with no end in sight, and so she’d simply been hunkered down in a gas station all day. There is no motel or much of anything in that town, so she’s relying on the kindness of strangers — some charitable family in town might be able to put her up for a night, because she sure isn’t going anywhere.
Or maybe she could handle the late night shift at the gas station? Nah, they probably just close up for the night, especially in a blizzard.
It’s not my fault, but a fellow still has to feel awful about abandoning his wife to the hazards of Minnesota weather. The least I can do is tell all of you that if ever you get to meet the Trophy Wife™ you should offer her some sympathy, since she puts up with even more than you can possibly imagine. The Catholic church might as well start canonization procedures now, because living with me ought to make her a shoo-in for sainthood, despite the trivial fact that she’s not Catholic.
Did you forget your anniversary or her birthday?
She didn;t eat all those clams herself?
A post of truly Orac-like depth, length, and analysis.
Um, there’s apparently nothing here but the title. Is this Mary’s little way of communicating with you?
*intrigued*
so what did PZ forget about?
Inspired by “For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn”, perhaps?
Apparently PZ was spirited away by ETs before he could finish his post. I wonder what the ransom will be?
Is that “bad” as in naughty, or bad as in busted!?
News Flash. PZ is speachless. Film at 11.
Ok, so did Pee Zee post this, or did The Trophy Wife™? And is it Pee Zed or The Trophy Wife who is Bad, Bad…?
Or are the Reptilian Big Pharma Overloads sending a warning message? Something like a horse’s head in the bed?
I signed into a WordPress blog
To find an empty post
About a neglectful spouse
And no exposition about it
I replied to the WordPress blog
To make the empty post
Seem like it had some company
And that’s about it
Seems a strange procession
To be blogging without content
As we wander through the blogosphere
Without wearing protection
As I post, I wonder about
The audience for this comment
Will they even get the references?
“When I told you at breakfast we were all out of Rice Krispies, what I meant was that there was only enough left for me. Sorry.”
Look a PZ’s Twitter page for explanation. Although PZ has three kids who can chop firewood and fight off dire wolves instead of him.
As spouse is non-gender specific one wonders if this is a mea culpa?
I like that PZ can (probably accidentally) make a post with absolutely no content, yet still get lots of comments.
…Yes, I know I am contributing to this =P
Thx, dexitroboper.
Meh. Teh intertoobz is getting too meta.
“It took me three hours before I figured out that ‘F.U. stood for ‘Felix Unger’!”
tl;dr
Wait, I don’t get it. What happened to the man with the cigarette?
but…
the tweet sent me back here.
Now I’m supposed to loop back to the tweet again?
confused…
Okay, I looked at PZ’s twitter, and he’s apparently referring to the fact that he’s driving in a light, warm California rain — and the poor Trophy Wife is stranded in a Minnesota blizzard with white-out conditions.
Though how this makes him a bad, bad spouse, I don’t know. He should have taken her with him? Happiness is a zero-sum game, and PZ ought to pull the car over and hit himself on the head a few times, just to balance things out a bit? PZ does not, after all, control the weather….
…. or does he????
Buy the woman some snow tires, an ice-scraper, and a box of chocolate. All will be forgotten <--- lie. Women are like elephants, long memories and you never want one to step on you. gl.
hey, that’s MY blizzard! meanie, taking all my snow :-(
@Sastra: I can just see him wriggling his eyebrows up and down when he reads this.
Good to know it’s just competing weather. :)
However, in the future, wouldn’t this be a great way to grovel for a wrongdoing? Just post something cryptic like that and the Pharynguhordes will come up with much worse offenses and punishments than the situation probably deserves. It’s like being put in the stockade in the center of town for the afternoon.
The weather is clearing up in Chico, isn’t it?
Sastra:
It’s obvious. PZ forgot to turn off his weather machine — which he keeps hidden in his underground lair — before leaving for his trip. It must have been set for ‘blizzard.’
Okay… Let’s start writing letters of apology on PZ’s behalf.
Cuttlefish? You just do whatever it is that you do, okay?
you can always make it up to her with Nautiluses.
Teh CO has fucked up and posted a blank post.
Even now, driving in a light rain to Chico, home of the Sierra Nevada brewery and [doesn’t matter], he is probably thinking that he’s posted a post and a comment, but he hasn’t.
If this was radio (back me up here scoot), somebody upstairs would be on the phone yelling DEAD AIR!!!
You KNOW he controls the weather. He uses the same mad crazy world control super powers to control the weather that he uses to crush woo bugs and pwn woo polls and flood irrational sites.
And it’s out of control! Light rain and snow in one day? You can’t tell me that is not supernatural world ending, end times kind of power.
Fear his powers for they are legion.
Ai, I hear you Jadehawk. This winter is bullshit.
Perhaps this is a sort of anti-starfart. To neutralize a particularly effecting rant, you have to post something blank and let everyone’s imagination make it into something terrible. You know, like how we hardly ever see the shark in Jaws or the monster in Alien. Not seeing it is scarier than seeing it.
Apparently, Candlejack got to him before he could finish his po
yes, contrary to popular belief, chicks don’t like being called “shawty.” go figure.
This is PZs new MO: Just post a title and let the dedicated minions fill in the blanks. It takes so much less of his time.
Take the spouse on a warm sunny vacation at the first opportunity and I’m sure all will be forgiven :P
Someone’s in trouble. :O
@romsteady
Sounds a bit like “Dead” by They Might Be Giants.
Welcome to the beginning of Abstract Blogging…..
This isn’t the first time there’s been a blank post here.
βPer
Nah, the weather machine in the lair just blew a fuse. I think it was laughing at Mike Adams, Health Danger and Mighty 9/11 Tootsie Roll. Normal climate change service will be restored shortly.
Unfortunately, it also affected my intertubes connection so I can’t offer you some light music whilst we wait…
Homeopathic blogging: Write a post, delete it, and shake the blog vigorously. The result is the most potent topic you can imagine.
Psychological experiment related to the endless threads? I think so. Looking forward to the debriefing of the hypothesis…
Though how this makes him a bad, bad spouse, I don’t know.
how quickly you all forget.
you don’t recall PZ’s car accident?
shame shame.
I do believe the comment refers to him driving in the rain while being distracted… supposedly similar conditions that lead to his previously noted accident.
digital minimalism
Those with a hankering for blog posts of a more typically incendiary variety could try over here. Watch out: it’s incendiary.
PZ? I think you should go hide somewhere.
It’s Zen blogging.
Noted atheist blogger admits to moral bankruptcy.
Must. . . know. . . whole. . . post.
Otherwise my brain will explode trying to understand what you mean.
Next up: Posts solely composed of high-ASCII characters.
At the radio station where I worked, the amount of trouble the DJ was in was directly proportional to the number of times the program director could say “DEAD AIR” before something came out of the speakers.
.
In my experience, they don’t like being called “chicks” either. YMMV.
The suspense is killing me!
Ack, someone beat me to homeopathic blogging.
Bad, bad spouse to the tune of Red, Red Wine.
Thanks PZed, now I can’t get that song out of my head.
!
Is this the blog equivalent of one of those tones that only dogs can hear? Are there some squirrels out there reading a really insightful post that the rest of us can’t see?
This may refer to the geoduck post a few back.
I love how a post about nothing can generate so much discussion. :D
Ya know, “Bad spouse”, he must have been talking to my wife, about me.
It’s always about me, after all.
MikeM
@61 Treppenwitz FTW.
–carole @ #58: It put me in mind of a different tune, familiar to the watchers of Dr Horrible:
Bad Spouse
Bad Spouse
Bad Spouse
Bad Spouse
He drives through California
Biologist P-Zed
I wrote this post to warn ya
To use your head!
The Trophy Wife will mourn ya,
But first she’ll make you dead
It’s snowing here, and you’re a louse,
She’s stuck inside a freezing house
Bad Spouse
Bad Spouse
Bad Spouse
He’s Bad
The gleeful horde of minions
Is watching this unfold
Your home is your dominion,
Or so we’re told—
But Trophy Wife’s opinion,
Will leave you in the cold
When you come back, you’ll clean the house,
Enjoy the sunshine, bad Bad Spouse!
Oooh, sniny!
Hey look, a post.
At about 5:30…that’s more than 2 hours of dead blogair.
“My phone ate my homework.”
Bush league, CO; bush league.
Yeah well they made that palpatine guy pope and I’m fairly sure he’s a sith. The only problem I foresee is that she isn’t an old sexually repressed white man.
It did! Really, I’m not lying!
Also, now that I’ve arrived in Chico, I’ve been trying to get in touch with her, and the cell phone connection is awful — the sound wobbles and wails as I try to reach out through the blizzard, and she doesn’t answer. Now I get to feel guilty and worried.
St. Trophy Wife, patron saint of wives with traveling husbands?
And here I was thinking you were about to confess to an affair online. “All those lonely nights away, I’ve been under a lot of stress lately”, etc, etc.
This thread was a lot more interesting before PZ included content in the post.
I think the Catholic Church has made saints out of the Buddha and a dog, so they may have looser standards than most folks think.
Erm, the Trophy wife would compare to the Buddha, of course. PZ would probably be lucky to rate as a dog, by this point.
Good luck to both.
PZ,
All best wishes (recognizing, of course, absolutely no supernatural power therein) for your wife and yourself amidst your various travels, beset with severe weather and under California skies alike! Keep us posted!
Still learning,
Robert
Just tell her that, really, Chico is no fun at all.
Good luck with that.
You could offer to drive by to Sac/Davis by way of Reno, just so you could share her pain. Travel conditions really are horrible over Donner Summit right now.
Don’t worry PZ. Whiteouts on the road are part of everyone’s lives. I had to stay 15 hours in some stranger’s home because of a blizzard. The ‘rents car just wasn’t going anywhere.
Is she in Hancock, by any chance? I know a posse there.
PZ, the trophy wife was intelligent enough to not only marry you but to manage you, she’ll know what to do now.
Having grown up in Minnesota myself, I know exactly what those blizzards can do. They’re not bad if you’re prepared for them though, with a fridge full of emergency beer and plenty of couches for those multi-day parties which can get verrrry interesting.
Blame the cell phone… that’s what my kid would do, yeah… it was the phone!
PZ: Now I get to feel guilty and worried.
And we all get to join you, at least in the worry part.
I hope she knows how to jimmy the coke and horrid-cheez-cracker machines.
Ron Sullivan
http://toad.faultline.org
Dandy, do you have the conclusive physical evidence for your imaginary deity yet? If not, you are nothing but a delusional idjit fool. Go back to your foolery…
Terribly sorry, PZ.
Wish there were something we as your fandom could do.
But I will sneak in a request: maybe you can deliver us from professor god-loves-me-better-than-the-haitians troll.
If you come through Reno you can sleep on my couch!
@75: Nice to hear from you, Robert (desert son) after a (long?) hiatus.
Kausik Datta,
Thanks for the kind welcome, it’s nice to be back. It’s been a hectic December and January, including my father’s congestive heart failure – though he’s now very well, for which I’m grateful to science, medicine, and its practitioners, as well as Dad’s dogged attention to diet and exercise.
Dad would probably cite “god” in there somewhere as a mediating influence, but I’ll stick with where the evidence lies. Regardless, my family and I are pleased he’s now in fine fettle and back to raising hell with his fellow septuagenarians on the tennis court.
To bed now, and a busy week, but I look forward to visiting with greater frequency Pharyngula once more. I bid you all good night, with hopes for your safety wherever weather and travel, in myriad combination, may find you.
Still learning,
Robert
With the demise of venomfangx the youtube skeptic, atheist and general idiot ownership community is frantically looking for a new posterboy for creationist stupidity. Here is one contender with his video entitled “Advise for atheists”
With one cell phones eating peoples homework and another crapping out at the moments it is actually needed one has to wonder…is there an higher power involved? Or maybe the trophy wife just turned it off while she is getting to know the gas station attendant thereby forgoing her chance of sainthood. Nothing formal, just a bit of fun Q&A.
Looking forward to hearing the two of you have been safely reunited.
refering to #88’s video:
If you godless, devil worshiping atheists really want to help, seriously consider using a tow strap or rope instead of a chain. Chains become shrapnel when they break.
oh, and bring a shovel.
That never stopped Jesus.
Same storm battered Saskatchewan. For some strange reason it paralyzed the city snow ploughs and froze out the public transit and garbage collection. In all seriousness we only got 35 cm of snow and it’s really not that cold, only about -20°C. These are normal values for this time of year.
I think someone was praying that Jesus was going to clear the streets. >;]
wsg
If you’re feeling guilty PZ, maybe you are Catholic also?
No problem.
The first pope (Peter) wasn’t even Catholic. Heck, even Jesus wasn’t a Catholic!