The problem of determining whether you, yourself, are an asshole

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas 19 Comments
A good fence

A good fence

If you read the comments on last Monday’s post, you will find a message from my neighbor [redacted], who is evidently moving out. First of all, welcome [redacted]; you have expanded my readership by 16%. Second of all, after reading said message, I realize that I am a weird hermit who is completely unreasonable in my expectations for quiet. No, wait—I still think I am a normal person. It is an agile interpretation that decides my “imperious pounding” on the floor is the problem when the stereo unavoidably comes on at 3am. The floor, by the way, is [redacted]’s ceiling. Again we encounter the problem of others.

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Kanye West explains problem of social networking, accidentally

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas 5 Comments

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian on a zipline tour of Mexico with the dude who owns Girls Gone Wild.

Normally Combat! blog does not concern itself with celebrities, for the simple reason that we are much more interested in ourselves. It is a widespread problem. Anyone who has taught Intro to Creative Writing knows the power of the autobiographical story to fascinate exactly one person. What happens to us is wildly compelling; even if the plot isn’t great, the setting at the center of the universe makes it terrific. What happens to others is boring. It seems like a perfect system, but there’s a flaw. Kanye West found it a couple weeks ago, when he tweeted and quickly deleted the following:

Then Kim was like, “oh, someone mentioned me on Twitter.”

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