A Bit About Me

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Along with my daily duties as founder and head writer of HumorMeOnline.com, in 2003, I took the Grand Prize in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (also known as the "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" competition). I've also been a contributor to "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and the web's "The Late Show with David Letterman". I also occupy my time writing three blogs, "Blogged Down at the Moment", "Brit Word of the Day" and "Production Numbers"...and my off-time is spent contemplating in an "on again/off again" fashion...my feable attempts at writing any one of a dozen books. I would love to write professionally one day...and by that I mean "actually get a paycheck".

09 February 2013


Tick-tock. Are you watching?

15 minutes.






The time it takes for me to wake up and get out the door if I really need to go somewhere...without putting a face on.

Is 1.042% of a day (according to the Internet as I'm not mathy and I wasn't going to try to calculate).

Songs I knew for a fact that were longer than 15 minutes: Genesis' "Supper's Ready" (23:06), Renaissance's "Song of Scheherazade" (24:39), and Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (17:05).

Songs that I thought were close to 15 minutes long, but aren't: Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" (8:02), Pink Floyd's "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" (side 1 - 13:38 and side 2 - 12:29)...and anything by REO Speedwagon (All songs by them were way too long as I hate them with a passion...and they seemed to drag on and on and on and on...)

The length of time it seems to take for the average "time out" in basketball to end.

The average time I spend on hold waiting for any company I call.

The time I think it will take me when I run in to buy anything.

The total time I take to run my daughter in to school on days we aren't late - when we manage to get all green lights.

The total time I wait for just the lights to change when I run my daughter in to school on days she is running late.

The amount of time elapsed whereby I refuse to watch any film (I've never seen before) which has already started.

The difference between life and death for a heart attack victim...aka the average point at which resuscitation is stopped.

The length of time Andy Warhol predicted we'd all become famous for -- needless to say you knew I was going to include it...and most celebrities have long exceeded their window of famousity.

The average run time of Charles Chaplin's [uncredited] short films.

Time's up.




In summation, 15 minutes was the time it took me to think of and/or research (Internet-wise) the above statements.




(That last one took a while...and, in retrospect, upon clicking each one maniacally, afterward, it might be closer to 18 minutes average time. For some reason many were 16 minutes long. I guess we might have been more ADHD back then than I initially thought. But, what the hell...I think it proved some dramatic point -- so I left it stay.






Hey, what else takes about 15 minutes? Clicking on the "We Work for Cheese" blog and reading some of those other entries. Well, perhaps you have to be Evelyn Wood-trained...but I can guarantee those minutes will be worth it. (If you haven't deduced by now - today's prompt was "15 Minutes".









20 comments:

  1. I've had it with my blog spacing and it getting all spazzy on me. When I tried to post this earlier - it had black on black lettering and I had to retype like 1/3 of it. So...pardon its appearance - it really has some issue. (Each time it tells me there's some error which occurred - but, for the life of me, I have no clue what it is.) Ugh.

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    1. Line spaces are a nuisance for me as well on my own blog. Why does everything have to work against us all the time? Blogging is supposed to be easy, isn't it?

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  2. That's an amazing set of statistics. I'm glad I had 15 minutes to spare to read them.

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  3. I didn't think of them first, either (you know - I don't work on the blog posts until I look at the word of the day - other than the two I've just copy/pasted). So, that's what my head thought of when I thought of "15 Minutes". Fifteen minutes is longer than you think - but it's also shorter.

    :)

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  4. So it took a little more than 15 minutes for you to type this post, right?

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  5. The post I posted - took 15 minutes. Start to finish except for the end bits where it said I went back to go over the Chaplin films more thoroughly. And the adding of the link to Nicky and Mike...and, of course posting it with the stupid black-out and line breaks I had to fix.

    But, if you are asking how long it took me to think, check the Internet and type it up from where it starts under the clock to where I said "Time's up." - that was 15 minutes. I set the alarm in the kitchen for 16 minutes so I'd have time to get back and start thinking/typing. When it went off - part-way thru checking the Chaplin things...I stopped.

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  6. I also had to scrap two ideas that I thought were good - but were not usable. Oh well.

    Had I done this before the invention of the Internet, I'd still be digging out albums to find times...and there would be no way for me to look up those heart attack and Chaplin film facts.

    It's kind of like that film, if you've ever watched it, called "Desk Set" with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. They work at an archives division of a company - and a big computer is being brought in. I won't go into any details - so no spoilers from me.

    I remember the days of having to go to the library and looking things up - well, you don't have to do that anymore. And how I envied my friends who had encyclopedias...altho I do have a set of them I picked up for $120.00 about 15 years ago. Still, nothing like page-turning if you ask me...but, I can also "get lost" reading facts on the Internet...and I so love doing that. :)

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  7. Very good. Your brain was obviously moving faster than mine was, although I was getting nowhere pretty fast.

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  8. Mine never shuts up. I take Ambien to get it to shut up and it really doesn't help much anymore. Getting tired of two hours worth of sleep again. And if I eat anything, forget it - not going to sleep. Not a fun medicine. Used to be pretty good because at least I thought I was creative on it - now, nothing. Oh well.

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  9. Stairway to Heaven is only 8 minutes, eh? I always thought it seemed like it was hours long and it went on and on and on. Except for the time I got to dance with a long-time crush at the prom. Then it seemed too short. But normally too long. :)

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  10. Hey Mariann! I didn't know a lot of these, and was especially surprised by the resuscitation one. And just so everyone knows, I've never been famous for fifteen minutes. Unless I think of baseball. Indigo

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    1. Okay - what is it with baseball? Did you do something quasi-famous with it?

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  11. P.J. - That's how I feel about a lot of songs. Well, except the dancing part. I don't dance.

    Indigo - Well, your time's not up - perhaps your famousy part is yet to come. :)

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  12. I always thought the song Friends of Mr Cairo was about 15 minutes long. Turns out it was a little over 12.

    I'm amazed that you were able to pull and type that much information in only 15 minutes. Pretty impressive!

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  13. I don't think I know that song. I'll have to go look it up.

    I have a lot of stuff in my head...I wish the really good stuff would come out first. :(

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  14. I like Jon Anderson. He's very tiny, tho. I've seen "Yes" in concert - and, yes, he's definitely very tiny.

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  15. It took me a lot longer than 15 minutes to write my post, in fact, it takes me ages to do most things, I keep getting distracted by other stuff that needs doing right this second. And nope, it can't wait 15 minutes. Hell, I've been trying to comment on your blog for 15 hours. I started, got distracted, then went to bed, and now I'm here again. Sigh.

    Anyway, i liked your post. ;) Lots of interesting facts.

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    1. Well, some interesting facts. A lot of silly things about me...but I don't mind. :)

      I pretty much write my blogs up quite quickly. I am the anti-editor. Maybe that's why I get annoyed at people who say you have to have an outline in order to write anything. And I knew one person who would obsess over the smallest of details. Details that no one would ever care about...and that were better the first time they were written. Sometimes, I think, if you think too much about something...it comes across like you thought too much about it - and then it's not natural sounding.

      I would rather read something which sounded like it came from the heart and not from the "Proper Rules of Writing" book.

      Anyway, I'm glad you liked it. :)

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  16. That was a fun list to read. I'll add one song to the honorable mentions list for the almost-15-minute songs: "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That) by Meatloaf. I originally thought that song was at least fifteen minutes, but the internet tells me that song is only twelve minutes long.

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    1. Oh, I don't like Meatloaf, either. The food I do - the singer...nah. But yea, that Paradise by the Dashboard Light song also seems like it went on forever.

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