A tribute to "The BUFFALOg"

As you all know, I have a soft spot in my heart for the city of Buffalo...and the animal called "buffalo"...and buffalo wing sauce...and the act of buffaloing. As most of you probably also know, there is another well-respected and highly-trafficked blog about Buffalo called "The BUFFALOg," written by Craig Howard, a real unsung everyday hero and true man of the people.

The fact is that blogging is a tough business and you are bound to make some friends and enemies along the way. The Buffalo Master, after repeatedly refusing my brilliant contributions to the science of the buffalo phenomenon, has now earned himself a rightful spot on the "enemies" list. I am rarely hostile, however - when I first contact a fellow blogger, I will generally extend the olive branch, attempt to create a peaceful and mutually beneficial rapport, and of course shamelessly self-promote in their "comments" section.

Now Craig Howard and I are "brothas from anotha motha," which is something we say in the ghetto that means "similar people." Craig is a celebrity who blogs about Buffalo. I am a celebrity who blogs about Buffalo (and buffalo and buffalo and buffalo). Craig lives in Buffalo. I have been to Buffalo once, have watched the Buffalo Bills on TV a few times, and enjoy buffalo wings. We roll with the same crew, more or less.

I attempted to contact Craig a couple months ago about promoting each other's blogs. Craig's lack of response indicated to me that he found this proposal unsuitable. Maybe he didn't think I had it in me to keep posting quality content. Maybe he thought I spazzed out a little too much when I first realized what a gigantic celebrity this blog had made me. Maybe he just doesn't think I'm Buffalo enough.

So, to show my support for "The BUFFALOg" and all that it stands for, I have added it to my highly exclusive blogroll (on right side of page) and will now comment on a few of Craig's highly informative and thought-provoking posts:

Dishonesty For Ideology's Sake: I wholeheartedly agree with Craig on this one. Dickipedia is not to be trusted. Its article on the buffalo phenomenon is an embarrassing disgrace to humanity and is misleading to the point where it is corrupting the fragile minds of our nation's youth. Shame on them.

Meaningless Rankings: Now here's a great one. Craig presents an excellent rebuttal to some douchebag's claim that "Buffalo is the second poorest city in America." He concedes that it is in fact true that Buffalo has roughly the same number of poor people as Boston, a much larger city, making Buffalo about 30% "poor" and Boston only about 13% "poor." Then he says that the reason Buffalo is considered so poor is not because there are too many poor people there, but rather that there are not enough non-poor people there. So all you non-poor people: move to Buffalo now! The city needs you! Think of all the delicious wings you could be eating!

In case the non-poor people are too selfish to move to Buffalo to bring that number down, I have another solution: simply redraw the city limits to remove some of the poorer areas of Buffalo and include some of the richer outlying areas. Take this, for example:

Problem solved.

A Strange Tern Of Events (Sorry, I Couldn't Resist): This is a fascinating post that explores some important controversial topics while also making clever puns such as "tern" (the bird) instead of "turn." Quite the masterpiece. Let me just state on the record that I have no idea what a "petard" is, and I would have no clue what "schadenfreude" was either if a lady friend of mine hadn't dragged me to watch Avenue Q, which surprisingly wasn't not too unbad (I worded it that way because I'm a real man and would never admit that I actually enjoyed a musical theater production). So while the masterful use of vocabulary used in this post probably confuses 99% of Craig's audience, he brings up an important point: we might as well say "F*** it," because there will never be peace between the U.S. and Canada, and hell, none of us even want to go up and visit that country anyway. Freezing cold, rampant moose-humping, fries with gravy, and Celine Dion, all in one place? No thanks. Buffalo doesn't need any "Peace Bridge" - let the war rage on!

So there it is, Craig. Even though I currently set up shop in the Bay Area, rest assured that I BLEED BUFFALO BROWN!!! The history books will remember you and me as heroes from the same mold: tireless crusaders willing to sacrifice everything we have for the glory of Buffalo. The fact is that in this business you're either with someone or against them. Pick the right side here, buddy - if you don't do it for me, do it for Buffalo!

Bloggin' ain't easy

500 hits. Well, almost 600 actually. Wow, seems like just a few weeks ago we were celebrating the big 1-0-0. It's only a matter of time before that number reaches 100,000,000,000. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Blogging is tiring - it's not easy coming up with new stupid stuff to talk about every day or two. Now I know how the screenplay writers for all those Rob Schneider movies must have felt!

Nope, bloggin' ain't easy. Makes pimping look like a regular walk in the park! (Believe me, I would know. What do you think my day job is?)

Still, despite publicity efforts often bordering on desperate, "Buffalo This" has to my knowledge failed to make it on a single blogroll. Not a single blog in the vast, almighty blogosphere has deemed this blog worthy of a small link on the right side of its main page, despite my efforts to establish a rapport (read: incessantly annoy) the writers of related blogs. A more detailed post about this tragedy may be coming in the next few days.

Still, 500 hits ain't too bad. To see how we got there, let's take a look back at a timeline showing the key events in the long, storied history of this blog:


10,000 B.C.
Modern-day buffalo evolve (or are "intelligently designed," depending on what you believe) in North America.

1801
The city of Buffalo, New York is founded. This name is chosen over "Beau Fleuve," representing the first of many important symbolic victories over the despicable French.

10/3/1964
Teressa Bellisimo invents buffalo wings at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, NY. All other foods are declared officially obsolete.

4/11/1983
The stork drops me at an unfortunate couple's doorstep. A chain of events is set in motion that eventually causes a ridiculously stupid, sophomoric - well actually more like freshmanic - blog to come into existence roughly 25 years later.

7/8/2008
"Buffalo This" is born. I realize I'm now a celebrity and sort of freak out. Come on - not like you wouldn't do the same.

7/9/2008
First post on the buffalo phenomenon. Critics are astounded by its complexity yet simplicity.

7/21/2008
After a brilliant flash of inspiration, I expand the buffalo phenomenon to an unprecedented 18 buffaloes. The world sits open-mouthed in awe for a few minutes.

7/28/2008
"Buffalo This" gets its 100th hit and we throw a huge bash to celebrate. We play Edward 40-hands and Regis Philbin and I get absolutely plastered.

8/3/2008
As a publicity stunt, I bet Joe Keane $500 that the Large Hadron Collider will not destroy the earth on longbets.org.

8/6/2008
"Bison That" emerges as a rival to "Buffalo This." So far it has turned out to be a real flash in the pan.

8/7/2008
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and I release a single called "Buffalo" to the tune of "Kokomo." It rockets to the top of the charts in 15 different countries.

8/17/2008
"Buffalo This" officially moves to Buffalo, NY, but keeps its real physical location in the San Francisco Bay Area.

9/2/2008
Someone clicks on a link somewhere, becoming the 500th person to visit this site and probably about the 495th to regret doing so within about 10 seconds. In an unrelated event, I get a concussion while playing softball due to a poorly placed sprinkler - as if the posts on this blog needed to get any less intelligent.

Anyway, thanks to all of the billions - ok, hundreds - of people who took the time out of their busy days of wasting time on the internet to check out this blog! In the rare event that you didn't find what you read too offensively idiotic, don't forget to vote for "Buffalo This" on humor-blogs.com!

Fame don't buffalo me

Now that "Buffalo This" is another wayward piece of crap floating around in the almighty blogosphere, the real challenge to this business has become evident: getting people to give a shit about your blog. I started this thing with the very reasonable and practical goal of getting 1 million regular readers by the end of July 2008. I'm not going to rule anything out yet, but as of now making that goal does not look very likely. As far as I know, nobody has commented on my posts (Can't I even get some obnoxious idiot to write "FIRST!!!" on one of the comment boards? Come on!), and at last count I have one regular reader - myself - and maybe some irregular readers - people that have stumbled upon this blog from a Google search or the link to my blog on Wikipedia's Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo page that some Big Brotheresque censorship-happy douchebag keeps deleting. Once I start spreading news of this blog to friends and family by word of mouth, maybe I'll get a few more readers. But it's a long way to 1 million.

On a different note, being a celebrity has not been nearly as tough as I expected it to be. (Note to the staff of "Us Weekly": I am NOT having an affair with Scarlett Johansson or Jessica Alba. We are just friends, seriously!) I really don't get why the stars complain so much. Of course it is a little annoying having to avoid doing things like going to the club without underwear or keeping questionable photos on my cell phone. It could just be that this is so easy for me because I am not the type to be easily buffaloed by the paparazzi - maybe some of the other celebs out there who aren't as tough as I am let the 'razzi get into their dome piece more than I do. Being a celebrity does have its perks however. Being super-loaded and having millions of people who idolize you are great, but nothing is as satisfying as being able to say to yourself in the mirror every morning, "Lookin' good there chief (I call myself 'chief' a lot). People worship you. You are the f***ing man!!!" Until you're famous you have no idea how great that is. A lyric from David Bowie's song "Fame" comes closest to describing the feeling: "Fame!" That should give you a pretty clear picture of what it's like.

Let's get to 1 million! Or at least 10! Come on, anyone?