I once coined a rule that you couldn't read more than three complete articles on Wikipedia without running into a reference to some obscure joke from The Simpsons, Monty Python, or most commonly, Family Guy. Seriously: I just now clicked two links and landed at Anarcho-syndicalism of all things, and sure enough, there's Holy Grail in the "trivia" section. Should it be plural like that, since no one is ever going to enter another item of trivia?

Anyway, in the name of Inclusionism, I can live with fans tagging articles with a complete catalogue of all jokes from their favorite comedy series. That information is at least useful to somebody somewhere. What's driving me bonkers lately is not being able to get through three articles without seeing announcements at the top. Not the donations announcement, but the "due to recent vandalism this article is locked" announcement, or the "this article is about a current event" announcement, or the ever-popular "the neutrality of this article is disputed" announcement. Well, of course it's disputed! Every single article in the entire Wikipedia is disputed by somebody somewhere! Duh. That's like ten years ago when you couldn't visit somebody's homepage without an "under construction" animated gif, as if anybody visiting any web site would ever assume it was completely done and wouldn't change again. Think, people, and stop wasting my time with pointless announcements just because it's so convenient to slap one up there and feel like you've contributed something.


Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

21 Days

Any advice for what to do with my last three weeks of living single? Kelly will now move here on February 4, due to various factors. This, it goes without saying, rules. Go »

Members of an Elite Squad

When I started watching Law & Order: Special Victims Unit a year ago (!!), I predicted that I would never write about its good episodes because it was a mediocre series. Along the way, it turned out to have plenty of mediocre hours and some lousy ones, but it had a lot more good or even great hours than I expected. Go »

February 10-16

I don't really blog much about my day-to-day existence because it feels too mundane. But life is made up of those little days, and we don't get an accurate picture of each other's lives if we only discuss the big events. Here's a snapshot of my life last week. Go »

And If You're Not Careful, You Might Learn Something

Ten things I learned from watching the entire run of The Cosby Show over the last few months on Netflix streaming: - Cliff wasn't the only one who wore wild sweaters. - Seinfeld was celebrated as the "show about nothing," but this show had even less plot. Entire episodes just riffed for twenty minutes on Vanessa fretting over a test or Theo having a crush on a girl, nothing more. Go »

Final Chapter

The movies that are going to be written about in Brittany Murphy's obituaries are Just Married, 8 Mile, Clueless, and maybe Sin City. But the one most sadly relevant is a movie that few people saw, The Dead Girl. Each chapter of the movie shows how a different woman is affected by the discovery of a woman's body in a field, until the last chapter doubles back and shows us her haunting final days. Go »

Captain's Compromise

I think a lot (too much maybe) about morality in storytelling. Anybody keeping up with The MCU Project might be getting tired of my complaints about how little thought the writers of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. put into this important part of their job. Go »