Blog Idea Generator Hilarity

So, I didn’t know what to write this week. The irony is that I plan to do the A-Z blog challenge starting Saturday, and I have all those picked out or narrowed down to 4-5 possibilities. But a random day and a random topic? Lost. Suddenly, I’m bereft of ideas. I could use one of the A-Z ones I didn’t pick, but where’s the fun in that?

So, I decided to Google “random blog idea generator”. Who knew that was even a thing? I landed on this page with several different generators. http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/02/12/blog-topic-generators

They are all okay, but this one cracks me up. http://www.portent.com/tools/title-maker

I have been thinking about wildlife conservation thanks to that foul dentist who lured and killed Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe. I’m not a fan of hunting for anything other than viable, sustainable food, and for culling numbers (like the overabundance of vicious wild hogs in the South). I personally couldn’t do it unless starving and would need a barf bag and seventeen do-overs. There’s a line from Stephen King’s Misery where Paul Sheldon thinks about his reluctance to kill Annie Wilkes, and he thinks that he’s like someone who loves a big, juicy steak but who wouldn’t last a minute in a slaughterhouse. That’s me. I prefer my meat to be as far from being a recognizable animal as possible. I’m a wuss. If I was put in a situation where it was kill or starve to death, I’m sure I would manage, but I wouldn’t make it a habit. Trophy hunting…I just find it grotesque and pathetically striving for some sort of power. But today isn’t about that.

Cecil’s death has a lot of people up in arms, and all I can hope for is that it makes people more aware of conservation of the critically endangered animals. (Granted, this dentist has also killed a polar bear, a rhino, a leopard, an elephant, and so on. But we’re not here to talk about him. Stop trying to make me, damn it!) It made me think about the recently ended Shark Week and the unspeakable act of hunting sharks for their fins. Yes, it is used for food, but not in the same way one might kill a deer to feed a family for weeks. It’s a delicacy for otherwise prosperous people in prosperous places. The fins are chopped off and the shark is tossed back in the water to drown (since most sharks need to swim to filter oxygen from the water), or be picked off by other predators while it lays there, unable to escape or defend itself.

I digress. I started thinking about oceans and sharks and thought I would use those as subjects in the blog subject generator. My favorite generator spits back ideas and little bubbles of thoughts to help you along, and some of them are hilarious. I will end this rambling post with some of the ideas and subsequent thought bubbles it spat at me when I used the words “ocean” and “shark”.

— How did oceans kill Kenny? (South Park has a high murder rate)

— Why oceans are scarier than dating Taylor Swift. (Why is she so popular? / Magic 8-Ball says you entered “pickles.” / The fear factor? / You’re never ever ever getting back together.)

— How oceans are like a school bully. (Do you feel lucky? Well do you, punk? / Come at me, bro.)

How oceans are part of a vast right wing conspiracy. (You’re gonna need a bigger boat. / There’s no other explanation.)

— How sharks can help you predict the future. (I want to know! Your readers do, too. That’s why psychic hotlines still make money. / A spoonful of silliness can make even the driest topic go down. Do not overdose.)

— Will sharks ever rule the world? (If your keyword is Prince Charles, chances are no.)

— The 14 worst songs about sharks. (Well, it has to be about something.)

Some are actually good, like: why our world would end without oceans, or 10 insane (but true) things about sharks, or where oceans are headed in the next 5 years, or why sharks are killing you, or how sharks aren’t as bad as you think. Of course, the final touch is the admonition at the bottom of the page, and I leave you with it:

“It’s funny when Ralph Wiggum invents his own grammar, but most of us aren’t nearly that special.”

~ by Darren Endymion on July 30, 2015.