Vlog the Inhaler, or The Occasional Video Blog Musings of Jim Thornton

Our Bible passage today comes from most of us atheists' third favorite part of the Good Book, that is, after Job and Leviticus. I refer, of course, to Ecclesiastes:

There Is Nothing New Under The Sun

(Ecclesiastes 1:9-14 NIV) What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. {10} Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. {11} There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow...14} I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

This morning, while tidying up the flood of dross that somehow manages to accumulate in even the most austere of households, I had a sudden wild hair. (Sorry if the real expression here is "wild hare" or something else. I am not a good speller or accurate recounter of cliches, such as one foul sweep, or is it one fell swoop?)

It's either this:



Or this...



Or maybe something else entirely...

Regardless of how it's spelled, my whiled hayre sprouted or hopped up after I received an email from Australia, the gist of which is not all that important, so I will reprint it in tiny font below, the better for disregarding:

Subject: A great online swimming resource

Hi, I found your details while doing research on swimming websites and wanted to share some information that you and the visitors to your site might find useful.

The resource is our “Teach Your Kid’s to Swim” website – http://www.Uswim.com. The site provides a wealth of information for anyone wanting to know more about good swimming techniques and especially those of you with children interested in learning how to swim.

We even have a YouTube Chanel - http://www.youtube.com/user/UswimAustralia which you can subscribe to and be notified whenever a new video is released.

If you think you, or anyone you know might be interested in our swimming information, we invite you to add a link to our page at: http://www.uswim.com (We have provided sample HTML for your convenience below)*.

Please let me know if you would like any further information or if there is anything further I can help with. If you do not wish to be contacted by me in the future please e-mail me to let me know.

Thanks,
Steve Jones
SiteMost Online Marketing
uSwim Australiahttp://www.uswim.com
*We suggest the following link:
Link Text: uSwim teaching your kids to swim
Description: Online swimming lessons for your children
Sample HTML: <a href="http://www.uswim.com"> uSwim teaching your kids to swim </a> - Online swimming lessons for your children.
This immediately raised the question: what imaginable kind of research might have lead Steve Jones of Australia to me?

Epiphany: the Google! He must have tired of chasing skinny-dipping wallabies and old salties out of his swimming hole and Googled something along the lines of "utlimate swimming-related authorities in the United States" and found at the very top of his Google list, "Vlog the Inhaler."

As indicated already, this Epiphany launched my wild hare to hipperty-hopperty out of its rabbit warren, or possibly my wild hair to painfully uncurl itself from its ingrown and inflamed recess. Either way, I was off to my own computer to ego surf "Vlog the Inhaler" myself to see how famous I am becoming in the ether!

Be careful for the fame you wish for. This is, alas, what I found--the apparent rantings of a criminal maniac in full-blown terroristic threat mode:

http://www.shanepowers.com/2008/12/vlog-inhaler-warning.html?showComment=1234115520000#c1027998684 767394656

WARNING: DO NOT WATCH FILM IF YOU ARE SCARED OF SWEARING CRIMINALS THREATENING VLOG THE INHALER

Upon further examination, I discovered that this possibly actionable promise of a beat-down was dated last December. Regular Vlog the Inhaler readers will note that my first post was in January, I am pretty sure.

Thus, with great relief that this apparent madman was targeting ANOTHER Vlog the Inhaler, my anxiety quieted and swimming evangelism took over. I invited the chain-smoking recreant to stop his filthy habit and swim instead.

I may be an atheist, but that doesn't stop me from being an evangelist for the One True Way, which I think we will all agree is swimming endless laps in an effort to shave a tenth of a second off our 50 yard freestyle times.

The fact that there may be another, indeed a whole squadron of other, Vlog the Inhalers out there in the Internet world reconfirmed the sagacity of Ecclesiastes yet again. Just as I was bemoaning my inability to come up with anything completely original, I noticed one of the angry Mr. Shane Powers' linked blog "followers." The name of this linked blog: The Phuckery.

Ecceliastical confirmation No. 2! There is no new Phuckery under the sun!

At the risk of giving Leslie The Fortress Livingston even more hits, comments, and superior blog statistics, please check out a chain of comments initiated here http://forums.usms.org/blog.php?b=1357#comments when I, Jimby, happened to mention in a comment to Leslie that the word **** is automatically detected by special USMS Vice Police software on this site and converted into four harmless little asterisks. This software, I further pointed out, is as good at speling as I am, thus it fine to write fuc fuk fook and fucity fuk fuc fik!

Final note for today: please do not allow the time you have spent tarrying on this post stop you from reading/watching yesterday's post if, indeed, you have not already done to at least a couple times already. In the race for the highest number of comments left on a swimming blog, Leslie seems to have appropriated my strategy of encouraging multiple short comments in lieu of one longish praisefest.

Thus:

Don't: Jim, I don't care how many Vlog the Inhalers are out there under the sun. You are the only one that matters to me! I love, love, love you!

Do:

First comment:

Jim,

second comment:

I

Third comment:

don't

Fourth comment:

care

and so forth, adding considerably to my tally. Thanks!