The secret to blogging

I sometimes get letters from young people soliciting advice on how to make it in this blog game. In response, I always say three things: Nobody cares about your fantasy football team or how drunk you were over the weekend (unless you happen to be Lindsay Lohan); try to write something interesting that isn't being said elsewhere and, finally, whenever you can't think of anything interesting just post a mildly racist and slightly out-of-context file-shared video from a goofy Japanese game show.

Here we have a series of middle-aged men wearing karate uniforms attempting to eat small marshmallows hung by strings as they are restrained by a Spanish Inquisition-like facial torture device. The men whoop and holler like a bunch of samurais about to launch a samurai attack, and the studio audience laughs uncontrollably. The video is quite long and is basically this same sinister scene repeated with each contestants. Which makes the on-going consistency of the enthusiasm behind the whooping and hollering and laughter that much more impressive and unexplainable.