BunkoSquad: Inside BunkoSquad.com Archives

All Entries Related to "Inside BunkoSquad.com"

July 17, 2008

Time to Fess Up

I haven't written anything for a couple weeks, I know. Truth is, I've been working on something secret and awesome. Without exaggerating, it's like a million times better than LOLbowski.

And here it is.

Posted by Michael at 11:28 AM | Comments (9)

June 13, 2008

10 Years...Coming Up

Mid-August. Somewhere in Greater Boston. There will be some sort of celebration to commemorate ten years of sporadic posting, epic procrastination and occasional yuks. Yes, the BunkoSquad 10th Anniversary Party. If you're reading this, consider yourself invited. Please please PLEASE email me (bunkosquad@gmail.com) if you think you can make it and want to get updates when I know more.

Posted by Michael at 11:04 AM

April 27, 2008

Sneak Preview

Posted by Michael at 06:57 PM | Comments (1)

April 03, 2008

There Are Times I Wish I Didn't Personally Know My Entire Audience

There's a joke I'd really really really like to make about a news story today. But I won't. And it's killing me.

Posted by Michael at 04:31 PM | Comments (3)

March 31, 2008

Visual Backup

Apparently, computers won't let you do the "Print Screen" function from the DVD player. Bummer. But I found out it's real easy to work around, and have been happily busying myself (while not recovering from the mild form of bubonic plague I contracted last week) starting to make screenshots of my favorite movies.

So when I make one of my countless references to "that scene in Airplane! right after Elaine asks if there's anybody aboard who can fly a plane", I can now show rather than tell:

I got 19 stills from Airplane! alone. This could be a big development in BunkoSquad timewasting. What can you make of this?

(If the pictures aren't perfectly clear, remember I'm new at this.)

Posted by Michael at 09:54 AM | Comments (1)

March 11, 2008

I Know

Yes, we're in another prolonged stretch of not writing anything. Which is probably a good thing.

Posted by Michael at 09:45 AM | Comments (0)

February 13, 2008

Goin' Fishing

You may or may not know this, but in August, BunkoSquad will have been around for ten years. That's longer than Presidential administrations, longer than most marriages, longer even than the Yankees' World Series drought. That's a long freaking time. To put it in perspective, when BunkoSquad first started, it was just an infrequently-updated hodgepodge of movie quotes, sports observations and bitching about the weather. And since then, it's grown into...well. Um.

I've joked more than once that in just ten years, this site's readership has literally tripled. Yeah. That's one of those black-humor situations. I think in ten years, I've had about four posts percolate into something that gets noticed beyond my cadre of loyal stalwarts. Which isn't to say that I don't appreciate and love said cadre, it's just that if you keep fishing in the same lake for your whole life, you've got to sit down and think over whether it's because you really really like the taste of those fish, or because you don't know where else to try.

Also, the shop where I used to buy my sensical metaphors went out of business.

Anyway, the point(?!) is that I really don't know anymore what I want this site to be. Politics - there's a million people doing it better, putting sweat and work into it that I know I can't or won't. Sports - I have an outlet for that now (you are reading Bostonist regularly, right?) and don't have a lot of leftovers for here. I suppose it could turn into one of those navel-gazing reflective blogs, but frankly my day-to-day life bores the holy hell out of me, and I can't even imagine plucking out anecdotes and life lessons and arranging them into something that won't cause a stampede to the exits.

"But wait...", I hear from out there somewhere. "What about your movie countdown?" I've had one person, who doesn't even use the Internet, complain to me about how long it's taking. (True.) I've had one person wistfully say that they used to wait and wait for the next review with their grandparents, and now their grandchildren are learning to read, and waiting and waiting for the next review makes it feel like five generations are linked. (Not true, but just you wait.) I don't have a good answer for this.

But I do have a bad one. See, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable living in a world where "me finishing something I started" is possible. One of the great leitmotifs in my life is the Brilliant Idea Not Carried Out. True story: in high school, I was an APBA junkie - the stats-based baseball card game that can probably be all done by computers now. I took the 1990 cards, made a schedule where each team would play each other team twice, and played out an entire season. Made trades and everything. No, I never did go on a date in high school, thanks for asking. Then the regular season ended, I drew up my playoff brackets, and - that was it. Just stopped. I never played it through, never crowned a champion (though I'd have bet on the Astros - they seemed to be peaking at the right time), and have nothing to show for it except a trail of bemused Staples employees wondering about the dweeb who used to come in weekly and order 100 copies of a blank box score.

So maybe you can see why the idea of me finishing something as monumental as [I've let] this project [become] freaks me out. If I accomplish something this [didn't have to be so] difficult, what then? What am I, if not a one-man cavalcade of fuzzy unrealized ambition? (Here's where I realize I should have password-protected this entry, and would have if I thought anyone would still be reading.)

But if anyone asks, I'll say it's because they still haven't released The African Queen on Region 1 DVD yet.

I guess what I'm trying to say, after a fashion, and after that cringeworthy trip down Memory Lane, is that if I go days and days and days between entries, it's not out of mere laziness or procrastination (really!) but because I want it to mean something, to be part of a cohesive body of blathering that will make future scholars go, "OK, I guess maybe he did know what he was doing." Or else it's because things disappear off the front page after 30 days and an empty blog with a long sidebar is a depressing sight indeed.

I know the theory that when you write, you're supposed to write for yourself. And I am truly grateful (and a bit stunned) that occasionally, what I write means something to someone else. But, I'll be honest here, I've recently entertained thoughts of pulling the plug on the site. I mean, really, having a personal website that lasts 9.8 years seriously appeals to whichever part of me loves unfinished business.

But I'm going to stick it out. Maybe some puddings don't need a theme. My brain is all over the place, and retreads the same ground, and vapor-locks on occasion - why shouldn't my website? I'll never write anything as good as Proust; I doubt I'll ever even read anything as good as Proust. Hell, I know the difference between "lose" and "loose", which right there puts me in the 92nd percentile of the Internet. I want this site to be something that's never finished, not because I gave up, but because I don't want it to end. (The movie countdown's another story, and all I can offer you there is another sheepish shrug and a promise).

And I want you all to come to my 10th Anniversary Party this summer. Even if not another soul finds this site between now and then.

Kthxbye.

Posted by Michael at 11:48 PM

February 11, 2008

The Eternal Verities

I thought I had posted this before, and I did. Originally on BunkoSquad 2/13/07:

Dear Weatherpeople:

You can stop now. All right? You can please stop telling us what the temperature is with the wind-chill factor.

You say, "it's 20 but it will feel like 10 because of the wind!" like it's supposed to mean something. We don't know what 10 feels like. It never feels like 10. Because when it's 10, it feels like 0. When it's 0, it feels like 10 below. And so on.

I don't know if you guys have noticed, but the wind never stops blowing. Boston is one sustained gust of wind from Christmas to Opening Day. Last week a hot dog wrapper flew out of my hand; three days later it came back to me with Customs stamps from Romania and South Korea on it.

So when you say, "it's 20 but it will feel like 10 because of the wind chill", you might as well say "it's 65 but it will feel like 10 because of the rotation of the Earth". Equally constant, equally useless.

See you next year.

Posted by Michael at 08:29 AM | Comments (2)

January 29, 2008

Muses R Us

If anyone knows of any stores in the greater Boston area that sell things like: inspiration, ideas, something that will make me write something interesting, please let me know, ok? Doesn't even have to be T-accessible.

Else I'll have to bust out the pre-recorded New Kids riff I practiced on some long-suffering friends last night at Trivia (team name: Camper Van Gundy).

Posted by Michael at 01:57 PM | Comments (1)

November 19, 2007

I'm Not Sure How I Feel About This

Posted by Michael at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)

October 31, 2007

Quotes

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, then to [blog] and remove all doubt" - unknown

"The report of my death was an exaggeration" - Twain

I'll come clean; I've been spending the last two months trying to overcome writer's block and finally realize my dream of writing a three-act musical in which the 2004 Red Sox invent a time machine, go back in time and change the course of history with their beer-guzzling and clutch-hitting ways. It just doesn't work as a musical, though, and I refuse to bastardize my vision by making it a novel or a screenplay. Too bad, because the scene where Mark Bellhorn and Alaric the Goth stride together into the smoking ruins of Rome would have been a friggin' classic.

Oh well. Some are born to greatness. Some achieve greatness. And some snipe from the sidelines, offer up semiannual movie reviews, and occasionally go into hermitdom for months at a time.

Posted by Michael at 11:18 AM | Comments (5)

September 05, 2007

Summer 2007

Posted by Michael at 10:50 AM | Comments (6)

May 17, 2007

Yeah, I Know

It won't last forever.

Posted by Michael at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)

May 07, 2007

Three Notes

1. My Something Old, Something New review of Lucky You is excerpted on page 19 of today's BostonNOW.

2. My thoughts on Roger Clemens are on Bostonist this morning.

3. Added six new towns to Project 351, including a cemetery that's supposed to be haunted. I'll be writing that up soon.

Posted by Michael at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)

May 02, 2007

Print Edition

If you're in the MBTA area this morning and are wondering, yes, that is a blurb from my On Broadway review on Page 17 of today's BostonNOW paper. Here's to the humble beginning of a new era in BunkoSquad history.

Posted by Michael at 08:13 AM | Comments (2)

April 27, 2007

Quiet Week

I've been quiet here lately, since I'm spending the week getting into the rhythm of writing regular sports updates at Bostonist. So if you don't hear from me here for a time, check there; I'm there five days a week. This week, we learned the Japanese word for broom and investigated the hoop-de-doo over Curt Schilling's sock.

In other news: SurvivorBlog ETA is Friday evening. Lost was good this week. BunkoCon II should happen sometime in August, around the site's ninth anniversary. We're scouting locations.

Posted by Michael at 12:31 AM | Comments (0)

March 20, 2007

Fillin' In

Doug from Our Book Of Scrap is travelling this week, and has handed over the keys to an illustrious panel of guest-writers. Which includes me, due to what I can only assume is a clerical error. So I'll be dusting off some old stuff and putting some new stuff up over there all day. While you're there, remember to vote on his Hall of Fame project and Sports Movie tournament.

Posted by Michael at 01:02 AM | Comments (0)

March 02, 2007

I Just Want to Be Loved, Is That So Wrong?

BostonNOW is a new free daily paper that's intended to be distributed much like the Metro, but with a predominately local perspective. To that end, they're asking for local bloggers and writers to come to a meeting next week, so they can pitch their plan and rally some enthusiasm.

Of course, not everyone loves this. The Universal Hub and Media Nation posts about this have several comments to the effect that BostonNOW is basically looking for free labor for their revenue-generating enterprise.

Well, I'm gonna go. When you're an amateur writer with big dreams and a wildly variable rate of productivity, you need the deadlines and the exposure more than you need the $10. (Though if anyone sends me $10, I won't send it back.) Even though BunkoSquad has been churning away on the K-list of blogs since 1998 (I started out on the B-list, but the number of blogs has really exploded in nine years), I still am at the point where I'm literally giddy for hours if someone mentions me or links to me (thanks Obscurorant!), and I worry that I'll never get better if I feel like I'm spinning my wheels and writing for the same audience of twelve that I had years ago.

So I'm going to check this out. We'll see how it goes.

(Post title from Jon Lovitz' Harvey Fierstein impression, if not from Harvey himself)

Posted by Michael at 06:22 PM | Comments (3)

February 11, 2007

Attention RSSers!

If you're reading BunkoSquad via RSS, I'm now located at http://feeds.feedburner.com/bunkosquad. Stop in and say hi.

Posted by Michael at 07:21 PM | Comments (0)

January 30, 2007

As Seen on teh Interwebz

I'm now helping out Jon and Caroline at Bostonist with the daily "Sports Redux" wrapup column. I'll be doing it a couple times a week; here's my first one.

Posted by Michael at 09:10 AM | Comments (2)

January 19, 2007

Poor Sten

I've been getting a ton of comment spam lately that's a little stranger than most. They all come from the same "commenter", named Sten[Random-number]. The comments are straight out of the diaries of mopey 17-year-olds (at least, the ones I remember). A sample:

"My mind is like a bunch of nothing, but I guess it doesn't bother me. I haven't been up to anything recently. I've pretty much been doing nothing to speak of." - Sten91455

"I've just been staying at home waiting for something to happen. Whatever. Not much on my mind lately. I guess it doesn't bother me." - Sten6757

"Basically nothing noteworthy happening right now, but eh. Today was a complete loss. I haven't been up to much recently. I've pretty much been doing nothing worth mentioning." - Sten40849

Sten refuses to provide a valid email address, so I can't reach out to him/her, and provides URL links to replica firearm dealers, tattoo removal information, and something about French breakfast cereals. Clearly, Sten has issues all over the map. So, from one blogger to a comment-spammer, my highly unprofessional advice is suicide. The quicker, the messier, the better.

Posted by Michael at 11:01 AM | Comments (1)

January 10, 2007

January 07, 2007

Life Ain't Fair

Nobody on earth complains more than me about winter weather.

For two days in January, it's been over 60 degrees.

Thus, I have been completely shut-in and sidelined with a miserable nasty cold for the past two days.

Grumble grumble grumble. It would have been utterly unbearable but for the little laptop DVD player my aunt and uncle gave me for Christmas.

Hope y'all had fun out there in the sunshine.

Posted by Michael at 12:22 AM | Comments (2)

November 16, 2006

To Be Fair

I didn't specify which weekend.

Posted by Michael at 08:43 AM | Comments (0)

November 10, 2006

Keep Your Pants On

I was out last night. SurvivorBlog will return over the weekend. God Bless the DVR.

Posted by Michael at 08:09 AM | Comments (1)

August 03, 2006

Hi

Went away, been busy, too hot, blah blah blah.

Movie review this weekend to reward you patient types.

Posted by Michael at 01:35 PM | Comments (1)

May 17, 2006

Status Report

I haven't forgotten the Survivor finale. Or the next movie review. Or the pithy remarks you've come to expect biweekly. The fact is, right now, the world of computers is sending me very strong "GET OUT" signals. If I were a superstitious man, or a slightly more manic Stephen King fan, I'd be convinced that demons were involved; it's been that crazy a run of bad luck. But hang in there. If four goofy New Yorkers can stare down an ancient Babylonian god and an undead Carpathian madman, I can get back in the swing of things.

Someday.

Posted by Michael at 08:31 PM | Comments (1)

March 04, 2006

One Can Only Hold Out So Long

I started a damn MySpace page. My hatred for picture-swipers continues unabated.

Posted by Michael at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)

December 18, 2005

But Enough About Me

How are things going with all of you? Comment! Talk! Inspire me to get off my butt (well, on - it's hard to type standing up) and write something new!

Posted by Michael at 03:14 PM | Comments (5)

August 18, 2005

That Being Said...

...don't expect a lot of posting here till the end of August, probably.

Life's just a bit hectic right now.

Posted by Michael at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)

August 12, 2005

Don't Know What Ya Got Till It's Gone

So posting was light. Not a lot to say, and I believe that when the President goes on vacation for a month, America goes on vacation for a month.

Then yesterday I got an alarmed email from an alert reader. Crap. All the "your domain name is expiring" email had been going to an account I barely even check anymore (another reason I'd like to kill me a spammer), and BunkoSquad had its plug pulled.

As soon as I saw it was down, and was going to require a lot of maneuvering to get it back up (I was on the phone with the GoDaddy guy and had to remember a bank account number I haven't used in 3 years), I immediately realized that I do want to keep this going. I may not get to update every day, but I want to try. And there are a few more things I'd like to add as time goes by.

Lost in my panic was the fact that, since my registration expired on Wednesday, that means that BunkoSquad.com celebrated its seventh birthday in lockdown. Kind of ironic.

Posted by Michael at 02:59 PM | Comments (6)

July 16, 2005

Incommunicado

Sorry not much lately. Real life's been busy, but there are two legit reasons why I've been slacking off lately.

First, I've been totally consumed with watching the first four years of The West Wing on DVD. It's like crack, but that's understandable; why would I want to leave a fantasy world where everyone who works in the White House is smart and erudite and doesn't leak the names of CIA operatives and is honestly worried about trying to help as many people as possible?

Second, the spamholes are back. It's hard to be pithy and witty when I spend half my internet time deleting offers for me and my readers to play poker and get a mortgage and see Paris Hilton nude. Now for myself, I own a deck of cards, and don't own a home, and wouldn't get within 50 feet of Paris Hilton without a Level-4 Ebola-virus suit. And I suspect many of my readers are the same way. So I've been vigilantly guarding the gates of cheesy commerce more and writing less.

Plus I've gotten sucked into the aforementioned Ultimate Wingnut Challenge at World O'Crap. There's an awful lot of work being put into it, and it shows.

Posted by Michael at 12:35 PM | Comments (2)

June 29, 2005

Paging Hank Aaron

I just noticed that BunkoSquad has accumulated 714 comments since moving to Movable Type. Next comment that comes in, I'm going to do a ceremonial lap and hope that a couple extras from 70's cop shows join me around 3rd.

Posted by Michael at 01:26 PM | Comments (1)

March 21, 2005

Note To Self

People don't comment on the political stuff. Interesting.

Posted by Michael at 07:57 PM | Comments (9)

February 23, 2005

My Place On the Internets

Two things I read today got me to thinkin':

1.) Ezra Klein's entry on the perception that there aren't a lot of females on the heavy-hitters list of blogdom, particularly on the left. Ezra basically admits that they are out there; they just haven't cracked the "pretty closed club" of the most popular sites that link predominately to one another, and most blog-readers are creatures of habit who check the same few sites each day and only rarely a) click on a link and b) spend any time checking out the rest of the site once they get there.

2.) Atrios prints, in its frantic entirety, a letter from Ron "Don't Call Me Roy" of Why Are We Back?, pleading for some recognition of the digging work he (Ron) has done in the Gannon/Talon scandal.

While Ron gets a little strident, his points are valid. A lot of people are doing a lot of blogging, but all the attention seems to go to the usual suspects. The top of the mountain, I guess, is a cold and lonely place. (For a look into a real clubhouse mentality, check out the comments on that Atrios entry. A more insular group of Myrmidons you'd be hard-pressed to find.)

So what does this have to do with me?

Although I've been doing this site for 6 1/2 years (in Internet terms, that's since the Holy Roman Empire), I don't have it in me to be a professional blogger. I'm not a trained journalist, I don't have the motivation to track down stories, and I don't have the time to post about every damn thing that crosses my mind. But I also don't want this to be an exercise in solopsism, to the point where I'm the only person who cares if I've posted in 3 weeks or not.

There's a happy medium, and I think I'm there. Sure, I'd like to be higher than #9,686, but I'm not going to change what I do, or blogwhore up and down the East Coast to get there. I'm small enough that I probably personally know 85% of my readership, and get a little giddy when someone I don't know checks in, but I also don't have a large hungry readership with a sense of entitlement in terms of time or content (or, for that matter, frequent trolls, or the kind of mental midgets who think they're special 'cause they get the "FIRST POST!!!!" in the comments section).

The downside to having a small readership, which I know 85% of personally, is a necessary bit of self-consciousness as to what I post about and what I go on about. C'est la vie. If I were talking to a bunch of total strangers, I might do a little less self-censoring, but it wouldn't be as much fun.

What does all this mean? I don't know. I'm happy to keep doing what I'm doing, but if anyone has any suggestions, I'll take 'em. If anyone out there doesn't think they're part of that 85%, come on in and introduce yourself; I've actually met a couple people off this site who I never would have found otherwise. I write this for myself, but every time someone says they check BunkoSquad on a regular basis, it reminds me that I'm writing it for other people too. So don't be shy. I promise I'll even start writing back more frequently.

Posted by Michael at 07:29 PM | Comments (1)

January 08, 2005

A Vow

If the day should ever come when you see me agreeing with a policy of the George W. Bush Administration...

(pause for nervous laughter)

If that day ever comes (right after you see me in pinstripes), I promise you it will be because I actually agree with the policy. And not because some flunky in the Administration paid me $240,000 to agree with it.

How can we find out if/how much Hannity, O'Reilly, et. al, are on the payroll?

Posted by Michael at 01:38 AM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2002

About

BunkoSquad began in the summer of 1998. It was a magical time. The Internet hadn't been completely malled out yet. The World Cup in France thrilled millions of people I never hope to meet. And domestication of the dog continued unabated. Originally meant as a place to collect writings I've done, reviews of ballparks, and weird quirky stuff, it has evolved into...well, that's still what it is, basically.

BunkoSquad is written and maintained by Michael Femia. I couldn't really think of a way to tell you more about me without sounding like an oversharing self-obsessed narcissist, so I settled on ripping off the "About Each Survivor" section from the web site of the popular TV show. Ahem.

NAME: Michael Femia
AGE: 33
MARITAL STATUS: Single; let's mingle
OCCUPATION: Writer and other stuff
LOCATION: Boston, Massachusetts
LUXURY ITEM: A case of Mountain Dew
SIGN: Aries/Taurus cusp

Favorites

COLOR: Green
SMELL: Cinnamon rolls
GAMES: Setback and Jumpman, Jr.
SPORTS TEAM: Tie: Red Sox and Celtics
TV SHOW: The Simpsons and Arrested Development
MOVIE: It's an old Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.
ACTOR: Gene Hackman
ACTRESS: Zooey Deschanel
BOOK: "Youth In Revolt"
MUSIC TYPE: Rock, "Alternative", 80s pop
BAND: Pearl Jam, Tom Waits
MAGAZINE: don't really know anymore
BREAKFAST: Any breakfast cereal, as long as you don't ruin it by pouring milk all over it
DINNER: Any seafood
CANDY BAR: Reeses Sticks or Sky Bar
ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE: that Belgian monk beer my friend David told me to order that one time
NONALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE: Mountain Dew

Posted by Michael at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)

November 08, 1998

Privacy Policy

[This was written in 1998.]

BunkoSquad would absolutely defend your right to privacy. I won't tell a single soul you've been looking at this site, and won't tell anyone except my brother and maybe my sister, and a couple people at work if you decide to email me. Unless you're really famous, then I'll probably tell my parents, my friend Mark, and a couple more people at work. Of course, if you're really really famous, like the President* or Nelson Mandela or Posh Spice, then I may post something on my site to the effect that other people better go to my site a lot cause The Pope or Nomar Garciaparra or ~~John F. Kennedy Jr.~~ or Drew Barrymore did and/or does. So that's that. I will also never sell, disseminate (?), or distribute email addresses and demographic info to any third party, cause you know (or at least you would if you've read my stuff) that I feel 99% of all corporations and most nonprofits are soulless evil entities and I wouldn't cross the street to help your average millionaire CEO get out of a bear trap any more than I would betray the trust people have that send me stuff. Although, let's face it, I'd like a car and a month in Rome, so if someone were to offer me $4 million for a bunch of email addresses, let's face it, I'd sell you out like Britney Spears tickets. Maybe $3 million. No less. I also defend the right to privacy in terms of just about everything else, which is why my hints and pleas for a violent-if-necessary overthrow of the current US status quo are getting a little more, shall we say, desperate, as the evil one-world monopoly that is the US government and Wall Street and the major networks and Disney and McDonalds and the World Bank reach farther and farther into each individual life so they can target-market every single human being on earth by their age and income and favorite colors and how many sheets of toilet paper they use on average and which Monkee was their favorite and how long they can tolerate waiting for porn sites to download before they give up and what their worst grade-school-photo-day-hairstyle was. Whew. My goal is to entertain, provoke, maybe even touch a little something in everyone who sees my site. Particularly Drew Barrymore.

The above does not apply in Wyoming.

Posted by Michael at 06:11 PM | Comments (0)

BunkoSquad

Building yesterday's tomorrow, today. Since 1998.