Thers: Hey, Molly?
Molly I: Yes...?
Thers: You know, when you were making burritos last night, did you, like, put peyote in the salsa? By any chance?
Molly I: Uh, no, not to my recollection. Why do you ask?
Thers: Because I saw this, and I thought, did I take hallucinogens without knowing it and restart Altmouse without remembering I did it?
Molly I: You saw what?
Thers: This thing, where Althouse is supposed to be a judge for some dumbass faux-reality-show contest.... thing, at Above the Law, where they're trying to pick a new blogger, and for some reason they want Althouse to be a judge, along with the SCOTUSblog guy and... Jesus Christ, Dahlia Lithwick! Man, they must have incriminating pictures of her or something.
Molly I: What are you talking about again?
Thers: Well, this stuff from Althouse, stuff she's really said in public. Here:
The most important part of blogging is — to use an American Idol expression — song selection. You should be spending much more time looking for good things to blog than actually writing up the post. But you've had your stories imposed on you, and they are stories that don't interest me at all. I clicked on the links, took a look, and couldn't be bothered. And why are they all about black people getting into trouble? Is that supposed to be funny?
But that's not the contestants' responsibility. You got stuck with that. It's like Mariah Carey night. I hate the songs, so how can I care how you sing them? You'd better do something very smart and tricky or I'm gone in a second. This is blogging! You have less than a second to reel me in. One thing I hated about the original articles is that they are complicated and about people I don't know and have no motivation to learn about. Why should I figure out what damned thing happened? So the least you could do is make it very short and funny in some way that didn't require me to understand a lot of crap I don't care about. But you all went long. And putting it in list form or as a series of steps doesn't fool me. It's still long and boring. Blah. I hate everything. You did not amuse me. I would never buy this record.
Molly I: Gah!
Thers: I know! Here, I wrote this, and I was joking:
I think television sets should come in different scents. When "American Idol" comes on, I would like my television to smell like apples.
Molly I: So she wasn't liking it.
Thers: No, she was basically saying, "hey, stupid. Treat me like a moron!"
Molly I: Probably good advice. Hey, over at Eschaton, Willendorf Venus referred to Althouse as "QuasiMoDo."
Thers: That's fuckin' awesome!
Molly I: You want to change the baby's pants?
Thers: Sure. I just read Althouse. That's a step up!