"Content"

Amazing. Immediately after I lamented the end of my symbiotic relationship with the news-breakers at Formula PR, Dan Guzman of WUSA-TV stepped in to the fill the void. Dan, no doubt driven by a burning desire to rehabilitate his last name among the Nationals cognoscenti, passes along this exclusive look inside the new ballpark that I had kind of forgotten they were building. Story by Dan Guzman, photos by Dan Guzman, video presumably by Dan Guzman: add some paisley and a fuzzy guitar solo and you could call it the Dan Guzman Experience.

It took less than a day for the folks at channel 9 (right?) to solve one of my blogproblems, so I assume that they're already hard at work blowing the lid off what I've termed "VenezuelansWithCarthaginianNamesGate." I mean, if you're going to name your kids after history's most notorious repeat losers, there are better choices, like Jim Kelly or Adlai Stevenson or Bowser.

So, with "content" out of the way, I resume pimping. That article that I want you to click on is still there, thirsty for clicks and even moreso for diggs. And now there's bonus content in the form of insane comments! Here's a fun game: try to identify which of the comments almost make me regret writing the damn thing.

I Hope You Like Our New Direction

You may recall from the much-heralded relaunch of Distinguished Senators my commitment to bringing you the very best of all the press releases that landed in my inbox. I thought it went well for a post, but then my source at Formula PR stopped sending me releases. I figured we had a "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours" relationship, but I guess I was wrong. Perhaps it was unwise of me to steal that line from Superbad about the unusual location of my back.

So with that avenue closed, I was forced to devise a new format. The new Distinguished Senators will consist of two things:
1) My attempts to get to the bottom of the Venezuelan proclivity for Carthaginian names and
B) Helpful directions to things on the Internet that you should read.

As for the Venezuelans, it's very puzzling. Asdrubal Cabrera? Anibal Sanchez? Even Omar Infante's dead brother has one. Hours of research turned up nothing. Clearly, someone -- someone powerful -- didn't want me to find the truth. My current theory, therefore, is that Venezuela was flooded with Carthaginian war criminals after the Third Punic War, and that their descendants are busily planning a fourth.

Meanwhile, I looked far and wide for features on the internet landscape that you, my beloved and closely-knit community of readers, fans, and cultists should make a point of seeing.

I could find only one, and it's right here. The author is someone whose jokes I've been laughing at for years. What I need is for all of you to click on that link -- or, if that link displeases you, this one -- as many times as you possibly can and from as many computers as you can manage to sit in front of.

And I don't know if you've heard of this Digg thing, but let me tell you: I just found out that there is no time like the present to sign up and start digging away. The only flaw I can see is that they won't let me "digg" the only thing I think anyone should be reading more than once. So that's where you come in.