Messing with meta

[firefolk]

I was sitting in my cubicle at Dappled Things Corporate, enjoying a hearty breakfast of coffee and aspirin, when the familiar bellow came tearing through the newsroom: "TOOOOOOOOOOOO--NERRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!" Checking to make sure my base-jumping chute was firmly in place--Bernardo has a tendency to throw staff writers out the window, and our offices are on the 71st floor--I headed into the editor's room.
"What's up, Chief?" I said brightly.
Berni turned the full force of his glare upon me, and smoke came out of his eyes. Actual smoke. "What the HELL do you think you're doing, Toner?!" he roared. Outside the window I could see pigeons falling from the ledge, stunned by the soundwaves.
"Er--well, right now I'm working on the article you assigned me last week, about the new flavor of Cheetos."
"I assigned you that article eight months ago! They've already yanked that flavor off the shelves. I could see Cheeto-flavored NyQuil, but NyQuil-flavored Cheetos? What were they thinking?"
I whipped out my notepad. "That's insightful stuff, Chief. Do you mind if I quote you in my byline?"
"You haven't even done the byline yet?!"
"I wanted to examine every angle of the--"
"Save it. You've got more important things to do. Do you realize you've made 99 posts on our forum?"
"Oh?--er--well, no, not exactly. . . I mean, I haven't kept a strict--"
"I want triple digits out of you, Toner. I want that hundredth post."
"But I don't know what to--"
"NOW!" (It was much louder than indicated here, but a sheet of paper large enough to hold all the exclamation points he used would not fit in this solar system.)
So I went stumbling back into the newsroom, racking my brains for something to post about. Finally I decided to swing back Katy's desk and see if she had any bright ideas I could take credit for. "Hey, Katy--got a second?"
She was, as usual, juggling emus. "For you, Toner? I've got--" impressively, she checked her watch without dropping even a single emu "--five seconds. What's on your mind?"
"Well, Berni wants me to do a forum post but I've got no idea what to write about. I was wondering if you had any suggestions."
"Have you considered meta-fiction?"
"Do--do what now?"
"You know, writing a story about the process by which that very story came to be written. You could even include this conversation."
"Which never actually took place!" I exclaimed. "Brilliant! I could fabricate expository dialogue upon whether that selfsame dialogue should be framed in the past or present tense--since I, the fictional construct, am writing as though recounting past events but the actual real-life author is making this up as he goes along. For example, should I have just said, 'Which is not currently taking place'? Or wait--is it the other way around, because I'm writing as though I were speaking right now but looking back on it as though it had taken place in the. . . Oh @#!%, my head's gonna explode again."
"Fire in the hole!" Katy yelled, and the rest of the staff ducked behind plastic tarps as every atom in my brainpan detonated at the speed of light. "For goodness' sake," she said crossly, "that's the third time this week. I hate to think what'll happen when you make your THOUSANDTH post, Toner."
But in the absence of a functioning cerebrospinal apparatus, I was in no condition to reply. I had a hard enough time just wrapping up this post.

[bluemaydie]

Quick! Somebody start a really involved discussion that goes on for months and months and involves hundreds of posts and subthreads. If we work this right, I'll be able to hear his head exploding from Texas!!!

[estiel]

omg! Let's see------
Should the term "media" now include webblogs, electronic readers, sundry cellphone apparrati?
Should comments on blogs be censored? Doesn't that violate the right to free speech?
Should the pope's visit to the UK and the beatification of Cardinal Newman be canceled unless the pope agrees to pay all expenses for his own hospitality? (Very hot topic in the UK just now...)
Not as hot, but still somewhat warm: Should the pope be arrested on his arrival for "crimes against humanity"?
Should writers agree to have their hand severed if they offend Allah or Muhammed? (Seriously, it's in todays news....)
Should Sharia Law become legal in the U.S. as the Archbishop of Canterbury wants it to be legal in the UK? (--so that men can with full impunity stone their women whom they suspect of insufficient allegiance to or adoration of their male body parts? The Archbishop thinks we should be tolerant....)

[bluemaydie]

OK--
1) To heck with "media," should those things be considered "texts" and appropriate material for writing dissertations?
2) Heck, yeah, as long as the blogger states openly that he will be censoring comments. It's not like the blogger controls the whole internet. (Or does he?)
3) Um, the UK is weird.
4) The UK is really weird.
5) Since most of my bad writing is probably an offense to the Divine, just by existing, I'll say no. I already don't have enough hands.
6) What's with the UK's weirdness? Um, no.

[firefolk]

Seriously, what in the nine circles of Hell and damnation. If the Pope wants to come to your country and beatify one of your great writers, you don't--you don't CHARGE him for it. I feel retarded just, you know, even having to write those words. It's like discovering that your best friend doesn't brush his/her teeth, and having to sit him/her down and explain about cavities and toothpaste and stuff even though he/she is like a highly respected neurosurgeon or something. I don't even care about the "crimes against humanity" idiocy, because people will always accuse us of that. But, really, they're charging the Pope room and board? It's like something out of Kafka. It's like something out of Mel Brooks. It's like Mel Brooks and Kafka performed the Fusion Dance from Dragonball Z and became one ghastly misshapen entity bent on making up weird dumb stuff that was somehow at once profound and crazy and funny but also made you want to take a shower afterwards, and then all that stuff came true in the real world. Someone really needs to pick up Ireland and slap England with it.

[Bernardo]

I love you guys.

[estiel]

Huh? Oh, well. Love, they say, has its reasons....