MGK’s Tech Guy here! Some https certificates automation fell over behind the scenes, and it quietly broke for a while, so trying to browse over https would error out. I’ve nudged the automation back into place, and belatedly pointed our “is it working” checks to use https, so next time, it should make more noise.

“CLARISSA”: Hi! I saw your blog mightgodkingdotcom and we think it’s great! We’d like to open up a dialogue where you would host a sponsored post about HOT AIR BALLONS. Do you think your readers would be interested in HOT AIR BALLONS? We would of course be willing to compensate you for hosting the sponsored post in the amount of twenty-five dollars. Please respond!
MGK: *deletes email*

***

“HARRY”: Hi, I make infographics, and in order to get more exposure I’d like to ask you to post my infographic! It’s about Black Panther! Looking at your blog I bet your readers would like an infographic about Black Panther!
MGK: *huh, this one seems targeted, at least, let’s look at it*
INFOGRAPHIC: Black Panther’ is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Jack Kirby, first appearing in Fantastic Four #52 (July 1966) in the Silver Age of Comic Books. Black Panther’s real name is T’Challa, king and protector of the fictional African nation called Wakanda. Along with possessing enhanced abilities achieved through ancient Wakandan rituals of drinking the heart shaped herb, T’Challa also relies on his proficiency in science, rigorous physical training, hand-to-hand combat skills, and access to wealth and advanced technology to combat his enemies. Black Panther is the first superhero of African descent in mainstream American comics, having debuted years before early African American superheroes such as Marvel Comics’ the Falcon (1969) and Luke Cage (1972) or DC Comics’ John Stewart in the role of Green Lantern (1971). The Black Panther storyline which ran through thirteen issues of the Jungle Action series (numbers six through eighteen) is considered to be Marvel Comics’ first graphic novel.
MGK: This is literally just the first two paragraphs of the Black Panther entry from Wikipedia combined with some stolen artwork.
“HARRY”: You don’t even have to post it yourself! Here’s an embedded link that you can copy and paste! We’ll compensate you if you do!
MGK: This is obviously a link to a phishing site.
“HARRY”: But I know what you really want to ask, and yes, we will compensate you!
MGK: *deletes email*

***

“CLARISSA”: Hi, Mighty Go King! I’m following up on my previous email about you hosting our sponsored post about HOT AIR BALLONS. I don’t want you to miss out on this opportunity!
MGK: *deletes email*

***

“GEORGE SCHMIDT”: hello I am an aspiring freelance writer and I would like to post on mightygodking dot com and i would like to send you a sample
MGK: *continues reading out of curiosity*
“GEORGE SCHMIDT”: this sample is about polo shirts, i will pay you ten dollars if you post it for me
MGK: *deletes email*

***

“CLARISSA”: Hello again! I didn’t hear back from you about out HOT AIR BALLONS proposal so –
MGK: *deletes email*

***

“MARK: I came across your blog site while looking for resources for our next blog and I knew I had to reach out immediately, kudos on a fantastic blog. My name is Mark and I do blogs for an online blogging company. Do you accept sponsored blogs? Is this something you would like to blog about? Blog you later!
MGK: *deletes email*

***

“LORI”: Would your readers be interested in entering into a contest where they could win fantastic prizes like quality undergarments! I bet they would, and all you have to do is host one sponsored blog post. Unlike all those other scammers offering sponsored content, we pay up front, and our contest is real. Don’t you owe it to your readers? Wouldn’t they be excited by a chance to win free undergarments, or purchase undergarments at a discount? I’m sure this will excite your readership and drive up your social media metrics!
MGK: *deletes email*

***

“CLARISSA”: Hello once more! I still haven’t heard back from you about our HOT AIR BALLONS blog proposal. I have been authorized to up our sponsorship offer to fifty dollars and I’m letting our network of blog contacts know about this excellent opportunity!
MGK: *furiously typing* You haven’t heard back from me because you are a waste of energy. Nigerian scammers have more fucking style from you. Me ignoring your seven other emails isn’t an invitation to send more, it’s me saying “fuck off” as politely as possible, and you’re not taking the hint. You are literally the embodiment of every commercial sentiment that makes the internet worse with every passing second that you exist. Nobody wants to read your shitty advertorial about ballooning. Nobody will ever read it. You are just creating a sea of endless chaff making it so much harder to get to the wheat that we all want. So, please, just fuck off. Also, “balloons” has two “Os.”

***

“CLARISSA”: Thanks for your feedback on my previous email! Obviously you are not interested in HOT AIR BALLOONS content. However, I note from your email that you appear to be interested in FARMING content. Would this be more to your liking? Let me know! For FARMING content we can offer one hundred dollars per post!

He’s a longtime reader of this blog!

The Three Lies of Politics

Seriously, it is scary how hard he is sticking to something I wrote in 2010. His primary “campaign plank”, if you actually want to call it that, is “We’re going to build a big wall to keep all the Mexicans out and we’ll make Mexico pay for it.” That is literally Numbers One, Two and Three in a single sentence.

Last night, he explained to everyone that he could solve the problem of jobs going overseas (implied Lie #1, because “jobs going overseas” is always code for “to non-white people”) in ten minutes just by sitting down and talking to people (Lie #2, spectacularly bold-faced because only a complete rube would buy that one) and getting corporate taxes down so the companies invest in America again (implied Lie #3, suggesting that somehow cutting corporate taxes will magically pay for itself because the only thing stopping money from flowing into American coffers is the greedy grasping IRS).

It’s not that Trump is a huckster that bothers me. I’m cynical enough to understand that every politician presents their vision of what they want to do in their campaign, not what they can do. No, what bothers me is that the man is such a transparent, shameless, empty huckster. I get that politicians make promises they can’t keep, but Trump hasn’t made a single promise that he can keep.

The new season of the Amazing Race starts tonight, and the consensus seemed to be that recapping it would once again be welcomed. This time around, I will try to make sure that content appears between each recap, though, so that those of you who aren’t Race fans will have something to come to the site for over the next thirteen weeks or so. (Expect to see at least a few book reviews, for example.) See you tomorrow with a first-episode recap!

So I am starting to wind up the early stages of the 2013 RSPW Awards, and for those interested I thought I’d discuss the process, in part because I want to get it down for my own use later.

continue reading "2013 Rec.sport.pro-wrestling Awards – the preparation post"

I just found this comment added to an incredibly old thread (link removed):

“Debora said on August 10th, 2013 at 1:14 pm
If i could possibly clone myself ten times the will perform all other Search-engine Optimization business I require by hand.
I can’t therefore I exploit Ultimate Demon in place
my homepage: freelance blogging delhi (Debora)”

I want to frame this. I want to develop it into a screenplay, about a mad computer programmer who becomes obsessed with developing the perfect software for optimizing her search-engine. “No, it’s not fast enough. “It’s not good enough!” she rants to her assistant. “1.6 million results in .30 seconds? What if they need one result, and only one? We need a search-engine that can know–truly know–what the searcher wants! We need the Telepathic Master Engine! And I will code it!”

And in Act Two, she realizes that she simply can’t code it by herself. She needs someone as intelligent as her to collaborate with, someone who can truly understand all her revolutionary ideas about search-engine creation. So she instead begins work on human cloning technology, planning to create an army of Deboras to work in parallel and create her infinitely powerful search-engine optimizer in a fraction of the time!

Then finally, in Act Three, she’s been abandoned by her assistant. Her love interest has told her that he loves her, but he can’t watch her tear herself apart with this obsession. She’s finally realized that she can no more clone herself ten times than she can perform all the search-engine optimization business that she requires by hand. So instead, she turns to the last resort of the mad. She kidnaps thirteen infants and prepares to summon and exploit the Ultimate Demon. With the power of the occult backing her computers, she will create the perfect search engine. She will optimize and organize the Internet! All human knowledge will bow to her command!

I haven’t figured out how it ends yet, but I think that it has something to do with the assistant challenging her Ultimate Demon to find a single specific piece of lesbian porn and failing. But we might have to change that to get a PG-13.

It’s been a while since we did an “ask me anything/make requests” post, so here is one.

(Requests for “more original comics” will be noted in the “are you an artist if not then learn to draw” file.)

Just a sidenote: in order to update this site’s technology to the 2005 mark, comments are now editable (with a ten minute window) and also there is spellcheck.

Something I have needed to do for some time, so your patience is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: Note that the second question allows for multiple answers.

Ask me anything and/or post requests today.

I’m in court tomorrow morning (it is my job, after all) and that combined with a couple other things means Al’Rashad won’t get published Monday morning as per usual. We will get it up as soon as possible! (I think this is only the second time we’ve been late, which is not bad for a comic that has been going for… holy shit, over two and a half years? Man, the time gets away from you, don’t it.

Unfortunately, my internet at home is down because I made the mistake of thinking that maybe I should upgrade my internet to something that wouldn’t require me to pre-cache a lousy YouTube video and would actually make me consider subscribing to Netflix.

The punchline here is I live in Canada and expecting the internet people to make it easy for me to pay them more money for additional services was kind of a pipe dream, but they sure remembered to turn off my old internet. So, until they either turn on my old internet or set up the new one I am severely constrained in my posting capabilities.

Hey, this is the Tech Guy. We’ve got a new social network widget here. The old one wasn’t working reliably with Facebook, due to something on their end. To use the new widget, just mouse over or click on the placeholder graphic below the post – below the older sharing buttons. Compared to using the normal Like button, the pages will load faster and the Facebook tracking code won’t load automatically, which the privacy-conscious might appreciate.

I used a plugin for socialite.js, if you want to do something similar.

Please kick the tires and let me know if it works for you. Thanks!

Peyton, over in John Seavey’s post about the Fake Geek Girl bullshit which I am glad he wrote because honestly at this point I just do not have the energy to engage with that bullshit for what feels like the tenth time, writes:

As a complete aside I also wanted to thank MGK, John Seavey, and Jim Smith for this site. As someone said upthread, it’s one of the few places, along with Scalzi’s Whatever, Evanier’s blog, and Jim Hines blog and a few others that, as a female nerd, feels safe and supportive.

I’m just gonna say that I feel very proud to have received this comment, since I decided quite some time ago (like, years) that this was going to be one of my primary goals for the site. As I get older1 I find myself getting more liberal rather than less, which is a pleasant thing to realize, and John and Jim and everybody else I’ve invited to the site were invited, at least in part, because I knew they had no truck with all of the bullshit that nerd-dom encourages in celebration of the straight white guy norm. And I say that as a white guy who mostly invited straight white guys, which happened mostly because whenever I’ve encouraged guest bloggers to apply, they are usually straight white guys.2

This really isn’t just about the blog, either, but what I do generally. I mean, I’ve said before that Al’Rashad is adapted from a screenplay I wrote about a dozen years ago, but the simple truth is that the comic is much better than the screenplay ever was. The big action beats are for the most part the same thus far, but:

– Originally Rayana was much less proactive as a character. Even then I wanted her to be kick-ass, but as written in the screenplay, she was not nearly at the nigh-Brainiac-Five level of intelligence and competence which she is at now, and she works, I think, so much better now than she did previously. Having Kahal be her personal engine of destruction adds a new twist to their relationship which I like quite a bit as well; I like that Kahal takes his lead from Rayana whenever it isn’t a “right now we fight desperately” moment.
– Apali was originally male, and moreover was not nearly so important to the story as she is now. Making her female actually broadened her quite a bit and let me do more with her. The fact that she has essentially been Rayana’s surrogate mother isn’t something I’ve explicitly written in a page yet, but I think it’s pretty obvious, and that simply wouldn’t work as well if she were male as she was originally.
– Also, Joro really should have been a girl, as I’ve written previously, but the ship sailed on that one. Sometimes you realize things too late.
– Finally, there’s one more major character aspect that hasn’t been revealed yet (and might not even be revealed in the first story arc) but to which I gave serious thought, then discussed it with Davinder, then discussed it further with a few people whose opinion I respect in order to make sure that it would work with what had been written already. I think when it gets revealed people will accuse me of pandering (as always happens in these instances), but again: it’s something that makes the overall story simply work better. This is because different races and genders and sexual orientations and all the rest: they’re not checkboxes you have to fill in to pass a test. To blatantly steal from Pratchett: they are all different metals, and alloys are stronger.

I’m drifting a bit here from my original point because I started talking about my comic (which you should all read and adore, of course), but to get back to it: it’s a damn shame that the internet needs places that are “safe and supportive” for female nerds and gay nerds and non-white nerds and all of the other nerds who are not typical nerds, because everybody should have the right to act like a goddamned overgrown child about some irrelevant piece of pop-culture if they so choose because that is what we are all doing, really. The question should not even have to be posed. More people who I can argue “but Superman would TOTALLY beat up Thor” with is always going to be a benefit. More people who will argue whether the Enterprise could blow up a Star Destroyer are always welcome.3 I really don’t care if they have tits or different amounts of melanin – I care that they have fresh perspectives and new ideas, because more ideas is always better.

But so long as those places are necessary, I am determined that my place will be one of those places. This is not an ironclad promise that I will always be perfectly enlightened, because we are all works in progress and nobody ever gets it right one hundred percent of the time. But I think it is important that I try.

Okay, soapbox mode over, and tomorrow if I have time I’ll write the essay about Wreck-It Ralph that lots of people have been demanding for some reason.

1. IMPORTANT CAVEAT: I AM NOT OLD OLD, JUST, LIKE, OLDER AND STUFF [↩]
2. Unless Jim Smith is actually a pseudonym for “Laverne Washington,” which it could be. You never know with Jim. [↩]
3. Right answer: The Battlestar Galactica nukes both of them. [↩]

So it has come time, once again, to pay my web-hosting fees. I am not saying all of you should feel obligated to hit the Paypal button on the right-hand sidebar; far from it. I don’t put up ads because I don’t think my readers should be forced to pay anything; this is my place, after all.

But – it would be appreciated, certainly.

And for everyone, donors and not: requests for posts/discussion in the comments! Usual rules apply.