3-23-2004 - Eddie, what time is it?

Today a very good friend of mine is coming from Oregon to visit. He is one of those friends who knows everything about you so you really do not have to clean up as you would a REAL guest. He has been a friend in good times bad, through thick and through thin, and through my bad hat phase in 1985.

Thanks Ed

3-10-2004 - When the lights come down at my house

I am not extremely proud of this, but I just now took my X-mas lights down. It was not weather related, no time restrictions, no urgent business. I was just lazy.

3-5-2004 - New Hamster, same Hamster chow

If you are reading this, we are on our new server. Shoot me an email if you run across any problems. Thanks

2-24-2003 - Attention Whore?

My good buddy Brian (webmaster of www.bbspot.com) has left for Iran for a month. His wife has family there who has never seen their children. I do not know what is harder, going to a country in chaos or leaving your site for a month. During his absence, he has asked me to update his personal parodies. Each day he uses his webcam to mock real-life personals on his site, now...it is me. I have done a few in the past and had fun, now I am addicted. Of course I still want everyone to visit Broken Newz daily, although if you get a chance, check these out.

2-6-2004 - "Any More Captain And She's Gonna Blow!"

Some of you have been noticing that Broken Newz has been a little sluggish, sometimes even not loading. It seems we have outgrown our server. Traffic has been growing lately at an incredible rate. Which is a good thing. We are moving to a new server ASAP. For now, thanks for your patience.

2-3-2004 - Superbowl Reflections

Memories are dim. But I am sure I had fun. Brooks put on a great show and I got to meet some great Farkers. Unfortunately every photo I have seen from this truly shows how intoxicated I was.

1-21-2004 - Superbowl in Vegas

Fark.com is having a Superbowl party in cooperation with Sports by Brooks. Beer-football-gambling-chicks-more beer. And you cannot make it because? I am going to be there, hope to see some of you there.

The first 10 people who come up to me and ask get a free Broken Newz T-shirt

1-13-2004 - Baby Steps

Last night I squinted at my inbox. 335 messages all awaiting response. These were beyond to gaggles of spam I received on a daily basis, these were actual emails. After a few bloody hours in front of my PC, I handled all but 55. I am feeling sassy. So for those of you who write and think "that pinhead Doty will not email me back!" Gimme time, it is on my 'to do' list.

12-29-2003 - Always the last to know

The other night I was watching an episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants. A quick one line of dialogue appeared to come from Highlander (and much more) actor Clancy Brown. A bit of research revealed that he does the voice of Mr. Krabs. I am sure I am the last to know this. But for those of you dimmer than I, and are fans of SB, you are now wiser. Go back to sleep.

12-9-2003 - Website Shout-out

Time to give another site a heads up. Chortler is a hilarious Canadian satire site that seemed to launch about the same time as us. This site has some of the best headlines on the web. The following content is just as good. Like us, they tend to be topical. I can vouch for the fact that this is not always easy to do. Recently they successfully redesigned their site making it attractive and easy to use. Great work guys, now please start getting crappy so we look funnier.

I bring them up because lately I have been seeing them flooding Google News. Google News has recently added us as a news supplier. NY Post, LA Times, Washington Post and Broken Newz, just like it should be. Being topical we tend to get quite a few clicks from them. Google is now on my X-mas list. Gee Google, you look great. Have you lost weight? (getting my ass kissing mode going).

11-28-2004 - We do not look a day over one

Although there is a bit of lameness in doing this type of thing, we have decided to do a bit of celebrating for our two year anniversary. We will be doing some give-a-ways (shirts and such) as well as recapping the last year. Keep an eye out and thanks for reading.

11-17-2003 - The Friendly Confines

I have mentioned a few times on this site that I am a diehard Cubs fan. Nothing to be ashamed of. I have received emails of encouragement and ridicule for this. But I am confident in my life choice of baseball teams. You cannot knock me down.

This weekend I received a 24"x36" picture of Wrigley field. It was taken during a game from what looks to be the announcer box. It is professionally done and the coolest thing I have received all year, if not all decade. I love it. A reader told me he was sending it in gratitude for the laughter we give him. How great is that?!

I would like to thank everyone else who regularly visits the site. I also would like to remind you all that I am also a big Beatles fan (hint hint)

11-13-2003 - The Face of our American Workforce

I just had a friend ask me if I thought Bush looks stupid (His facial expressions, mannerisms, etc.). Being a fairly conservative upstanding citizen I generally do not try to pick on our commander and chief….. but all in all, that was an easy answer. Back in my days at Micron, there was a guy I worked with who was extremely lazy. He walked around most of the day not having a clue to what he was doing. It was truly sad and annoying to all. Every time a superior came by, he started working extremely fast while making the same facial expression Bush uses on a daily basis. So when I see Bush, I always assume he just got caught not working, and was trying to cover it up

10-30-2003 - The S Files

This week I was contact by the F.B.I. in question over a piece we did last month. They were concerned due to recent death threats to the Judge in mention. Hard to believe that some of the 51 million people who registered would want him dead.

I of course NOT being one of them.

I explained where we stood, explained it was a parody, actually had to explain who the DMA was (so much for researching your case). Everything was smoothed out. Of course this means I now have a file with the F.B.I.

I can think of three things in my life that would have already granted me a federal file. I will not go over them here. I will ask the residents of Key West to keep an eye out for my pants

10-15-2003 - For your viewing pleasure

A year and few months later, I finally got around to posting the video of my appearance on Tech TV. Here it is for those who care. Now I am off to collect the head of a certain Cubs fan.

10-13-2003 - A Tit for a Tat, an Eye for an Eye

Last year we had an office cam. But not just any office cam, our cam was a direct feed off an Amsterdam voyeur house. Full of fresh foreign females frolicking feverishly from foyer …..well, you get the point. It was entertaining for all. After a bit we were caught and the free of charge nudity was pulled out from under our feet. Boo hoo.

Since that day, I have had several readers offer URLs that could take its place. The previous feed was unique. Most of us felt a bond with the resident hookers. If I was ever to supply a new feed, it would need to be just as special.

Last week I was sent feed that appeared to be located somewhere in British Columbia, although there was no audio as before so I could not rely on accents for my assumption. I checked out a few rooms, each were labeled 'teens' 'mature' 'fetish' etc. I came to a room marked 'erotic', upon entering that room I saw a woman touching her eye. "Ack" I thought. Poor girl has to take care of ocular discomfort online. Can she has no privacy? After viewing a few more seconds I notice that this was part of the show. Someone was actually requesting this for sexual satisfaction. "MOTHER OF GOD!" I thought, this was the same torture my friend Ed had used on me all through High School. How could anyone be asking for this haggard single mom to perform such a sick oddity. Thirty seconds of viewing, the eye touching was still going on….I left.

Obviously this site was not the quality level of porn Broken Newz was looking for. Truly I do not think any site will ever fill the void in my heart those Amsterdam Vixens left. They were my first; you always remember your first.

Oh yeah, and to Ed. Stay off the porn sites. That is just sick.

10-10-2003 - What A Ride It Has Been

The staff at Broken Newz is in mourning. We are all saddened over the death of the recent California Recall. How could this beautiful thing end? There were enough jokes in this little timeline of events to fill 2 years of publication.

We are sad.

Traffic was at an all time high due to this. A majority of the traffic was thanks to the Recall Cards. I am still getting several emails a week asking how they can purchase a set. Just send me your cash and I will spend it on something frivolous. Some major sites (Yahoo, msnbc, fox, and others) all gave us a little free PR followed by a ton of traffic. Thanks

Even some candidates had some things to say. One of which was Kurt Rightmyer who did not care for our little cards. I told him we could settle it in the ring. I never heard back (chicken!)

I am sure something dishy will break soon to offer us ample material. Arnold is sure to mess up, democrats will eat each other, someone in the Middle East will throw something at someone else, Carrot Top will make a movie.

Oh yeah - Go Cubs!

9-10-2003 - Talking Baseball

I am a huge Cubs fan. Big enough that I debated posting this due to my belief it might jinx them. But as I knock on wood (Not Kerry Wood), I begin.

I can give a 1500 word rant here….but I bite my tongue and go for the basics.

First of all. Stop playing Estes. He is a loser and has already cost the Cubs enough pain. Two. Stop playing Alfonseca. He is even a bigger loser. How many times can we watch this guy load the bases with walks before we start randomly assaulting strangers on the streets? Lastelyish, STOP PLAING O'LEARY! Are you seeing if he can set the league record for ending games by hitting double plays!

The Cubs may be the most exciting team to watch right now. As of this second they are tied for first place with Houston, but I feel good things for Chicago. Sammy, Alou, Kenny, Kerry, Mark, Other Mark, Carlos, Tom, and beat up Corey…..You guys rock and your fans are right behind you. Keep it up

Except you Corey….rest that knee

Alright, that is enough……PLAY BALL!!

8-13-2003 - Reality is sucking my will to sit

Being addicted to the internet is hard work, sitting in front of a pc all day at work then staying up all night online is not as easy at it seems.

Not just all fun and games…..huh?

Lately I have been cutting into my web time with real life. For some reason I have been spending far less time online. Summers have always distracted desk time somewhat, but this is more than usual.

It is not from lack of buddies being online, or good sites to surf. We still update daily so no problem finding things to do on Broken Newz. Obviously there is still porn everywhere so that is not a problem either.

Hell, Fark.com alone can still consume 3 hours of my day.

So could my priorities be out of whack? Is doing yard work suddenly in my top 5 fun things to do? How scary is that? I may be turning into my Dad. If I start tucking my shirt in my underwear…..can anyone let me know?

Worst part is, it took me about three days to write this update. I was too busy *gulp* enjoying the sun. Well, winter is around the corner. Gloom….cold…..I am sure that will kick me back in www mode. That or miraculous online release of some long forgotten Denise Richards nude photos would do the trick as well.

7-26-2003 - People are savages

Recently someone jacked my Spiderman Antenna Ball. What has this world come to? You could say I was asking for it, parading around with a big ass spidey-head on my car. I mean it was huge next to those wimpy Jack heads. Any speed over 60 mph and that big red head was whipping around like his spider-sense was on fire.

Now it is gone.

What sort of person swipes an antenna ball? It was a buck brand new (excluding what I paid for my Carl's Jr. Combo meal). So with depreciation, it might be worth 15 cents street value. Did I just support someone's crack habit? What's next? Is someone going to peel off my In-N-Out sticker from my vehicle as well? What happened to the good old days when you just worried about your hubcaps or hood ornaments? Is no antenna ball safe?

I guess the worst part of this situation is that I have now lowered my expectations of society. I have been giving people in general too much credit, hoping for more than they can offer. For that, I am sad.

I am also upset because I have yet to find another Spiderman antenna ball in town that I can jack to replace my own.

7-17-2003 - Why is it that the insane are so loveable?

A while ago I worked with a guy named Chuck. Chuck was insane

You could sit there for hours and listen to his tales; they were fascinating, full of adventure and complete 100% untrue.

Most people did not even bother to confront him because he was harmless, and total loveable. He was convinced his coworkers were out to get him, but would never hurt a them. He was convinced the Government was out to get him, but would never bomb a federal building. He was harmless…..and loveable.

He knew women only wanted him for his money, although he was broke. He knew that his friends only wanted to use him, although he had nothing to offer. He always told horrid tales of how the Care Bear were stolen from him and was going to sue them for millions. That story I never did completely understand. To this day, no papers have been filed.

He would mumble to himself of the ploys set out against him, then his laugh would light up the room. I worked with Chuck for 4 years; he never threatened me, talked behind my back, or killed me in an office shootout. For that, I am thankful.

I miss working with Chuck, and all the other Chucks out there. You know who there are, the little office psycho that someone always accidentally lets in on the office party. The one who always thinks you stole paper clips from his desk. The one who is convinced that either the government or aliens have placed a listening device deep inside his ass.

7-11-2003 - Hands Across Parody

I have made friends with many webmasters over the years. Some of which have satire sites like myself. Recently a group of us decided to create a website where we can post our stories in harmony, like one big satire group hug. Here is the site, enjoy

7-7-2003 - Spelling Mistakes? Me?

I received this email the other day

I was reading when you were saying a few days ago about keeping some of the satirical things you think about in your head. I decided against that a long time ago, if you have a look at my website you'll see: http://www.spellingmistakescostlives.com - if you like it'd be cool if I could get a link. Cheers man. - Darren

Otay Darren, here is your link. Thanks

7-3-2003 - Stay out of my head

After writing satire for a while, you watch the news with a whole new perspective. No matter how horrible the story is on CNN, you always try to find humor in it. Of course not every twist in put online. Some ideas stay in my head where they belong.

I was watching the news today about the string of mutilated cats found in Colorado and Utah. Of course the first image in my head is of smaller than normal U.F.O.s who have a hard time taking down cows. Then I think of a single cat dressed like jack of the ripper.

Ideas best left in my head

I do want to point out a new satire site I discovered the other day. Most of you probably have already seen it. Thelemon is done by Shamus Young and is a young but well done satire site. It reminds me a bit of one of my other favorite sites thespeciousreport. By the way, you have to check out The No Spam registry.

Happy 4th everyone.

6-27-2003 - You won't like me when I'm angry

Movie theaters suck. Seldom do I see movies on the big screens anymore due to the price of tickets, concessions and the fact that I stick to everything I touch. Plus blockbusters just aren't what they use to be.

But lately I have be prompted to actually leave my 'bitchen' surround sound system and DVD player to step foot in these human fly traps. Is it worth it? Hmmmm

Last week I decided to see the Hulk. I knew it would be crowded (I learned my lesson after trying to see Nemo opening night) so I went to the largest theater in town. I decided to get there 30 minutes before start time. Too bad 90% of the full capacity crowd got there 40 minutes prior. Up front I was, neck kinked, $3.00 soda and $4.00 popcorn in hand. Showtime.

Wow, did that start off slow or what? I understand that you need to add some story with the action, but what story? Not really a love story since the guy was dumped. Did I miss the part were they got back together? Anyways, the action was….alright. Although too many "night fights" to help counteract the CGI flaws.

I hate reviewing movies, my opinion does not mean much against the 1000 of reviews puked out each week. But out of what I have seen in the theaters in the last few months…

X-men 2 - Good (Maybe better that the first)
Bruce Almighty - Good (as good as Liar Liar? Maybe not)
Matrix Reloaded - Bleh (Not really a fan of the first, so why did I go?)
Finding Nemo - Excellent (What is Disney going to do when the lose Pixar and have to rely on real animation again?)

That is it, probably the only films I have seen in theaters in 2003. I am looking forward to seeing LXG, although I am sure I will be disappointed. Can Connery still kick ass and not wreak of BenGay? Watch your hip Sean!

6-18-2003 - About Face

As I dig through my submission for My Brother's head, I also find emails concerning a website called "Larrysface". It appears that someone is photoshopping their brother as well and posting it on a websites. Thanks for the emails folks, but there is no call for concern.

The internet is a big place.

I am sure many people were altering family members long before I started. I checked out the site, it is hilarious. So thanks for the emails.

Also, read my interview from Studio 8. These guys are hilarious.

6-8-2003 - The French gave us a 6

There is an inaccurate rating game on the internet. It is called Alexa.

Alexa.com rates traffic on websites then publishes a number in relation. 1 being best (honor given to Yahoo), some webmaster rely on this system to feel better about their site. I have seen sites with a rating as high as 5 million……time to hire a marketing guy!

Right now Alexa has us rated in the 25k area. We have been treading water there for almost a year. I cannot complain with that number even though I feel their system is extremely inaccurate. Here are my reasons why….

Alexa rates from a toolbar installed on a browser. Only visitors with the installed toolbar affect your rating. I would think around 10% of internet users have this installed, most are other webmasters who use it to see ratings of other sites.

There is a satire forum I regularly visit along with a few dozen other webmasters. The site that hosts it maybe gets 50k page views a month. But due to other webmasters continuing to return to this site on a daily basis, the site has a 19k Alexa rating. There are sites on the forum that have well over half a million page views monthly with a much higher number. In reality, a site with about 50 page views should have a rating of about 500k.

I should add that I believe Alexa offers a great service. I am sure there is no easier way to rate sites without actually reading visitor logs. And 25k is a fine number, that puts us in the top 5% of all websites on the web. But I do think our number is still inaccurate, I think we should be a 2

6-2-2003 - Testing on animals

I live for Costco, I can be seen strolling the isles once or twice each week, usually spending far more than planned.

Who doesn't?

But my pet peeve is the frozen food section. The freezer in my garage can feed a small country if needed. Bulk is my friend. A year ago I was addicted to the bagel dogs they so proudly offered in their frozen food section. I bought them by the truck load. Am I eating them still today? no

Ask me why....

Because they stopped selling them. How fair is that? Would your crack dealer stop selling crack? No! So why would Costco do that? But it goes far beyond bagel dogs. French Toast sticks....gone, Garlic Scampi.....gone, Teriyaki sticks...gone, and more. I am now hesitant to try new things at Costco in fear of them ripping them from my butter stained lips. Is this fair? No! Will I still continue to go to Costco? Yes.

I am weak in this area. The place rocks, I just wanted to get that off my chest while I toast up a Eggo from my box of 300.

5-27-2003 - I'm so vain, I bet I think this song is about me

The response to my "Editor's Ramblings" have been great. I sat on this idea for over a year thinking "Do I really have anything to say?"

Well, I don't

But people are listening to me anyway. I received a ton of email the first week. It was great to hear from our readers. Thanks to everyone who told me the photo I used of myself as a header for this was horrible. When you go your whole live being nonphotogenic, you take what you can get.

"I am not going to waste another summer!" A quote I spurt out every year in attempt to make this one the best one ever. Do I?....who knows. But again I hope to break my record for fun in the sunny months. This one might be hard since I moved to a much much much warmer location. I feel some of it will be spent inside with a beer in my hand watching a Cubs game. But my heart will be running free outside, with a beer.

5-22-2003 Behind the scenes

We get emails, tons o' emails. I probably have over a hundred emails sitting in a folder at this moment I need to reply to. So if you are on that list, be patient, I am not the jerk I appear to be. Most of the emails offer praise, some opinion and yes…some just call us a-holes. Some ask about us, who we are, where we are, what we are wearing.

Hmmmm…where to begin?

So I guess it would not be a bad idea to give a little background of our site and hopefully answer some of your questions as well as bring you a little closer to our family, you bring the potato salad.

Broken Newz was launched in 2001. Prior to this I was the Director of Marketing for another webzine who was suffering in the aftermath of the dot.com failures. In a preemptive move, I jumped ship and took employment with another internet company who offered me the reigns to freedom and success. This was days before the 9/11 tragedy. My new employer decided it was a bad time to expand with our projects and let me go. Of course, he did give me a $500 severance check and set me off to find a job at the worst moment in a decade. But I am sure he felt good about himself. This knob who will remain nameless (Tracy Lotz) made me understand that if I could never rely on other idiots to make a living, so I got together with a long time friend Tad Hayworth to launch Broken Newz.

In our first week, we managed to find about 500 visitors. For us, that was a great feat. Over the next year we seemed to grow by leaps and bounds. We accumulated more writers, mega talents like William Grim, Marni Malarkey, Steve Tanner, Dan Kilian, David Jessop and more. We revamped the site with the help of Code-gurus Gavin Haubelt and Michael Mink, and managed to acquire hundreds of thousands readers a month (Thanks).

Part of this was with the help of some great sites we have developed friendships with along the way - Fark, BBspot, Rightwingnews, Bobfromaccounting and too many more to mention. Check out our link page for the rest.

We are getting ready for phase three of Broken Newz. Most of what we have planned is backend upgrades and reader involvement. Of course, part of it will enhance my ability to reply to emails better. And for those of you asking us to die a slow and horrible death, we are working on it.

5-20-2003 A Stare is Born

I have been meaning for months to launch the blog section of the site. Each time I was ready, I would just stare at the screen hoping for a stroke of inspiration, it never came.

Damn you're lazy - fellow webmaster

• I guess I had to have a reason for the blog
• Site updates
• What we are doing
• How I feel about the world
• My favorite recipes for dip

I could not really find a center for my ramblings, but then they are just ramblings. Do ramblings need any sort of organization or planning?

I guess this will just be a good place for me to vent, offer praise to fellow writers and staff. Express my distaste for Celine Dion and other points of interest. With that, I officially launch my Editor's Blog.

Send me a comment