In this episode, I take on the killer android WD-40 using my clever strategy of pussing out.

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Everyone hate Jonas NOW.

Why should you hate this creature? It’s only because he’s the ultimate source of malcontent in a house belonging to a thing called Wimzie. And trust me, I’m surprised the house itself hasn’t been set on fire yet. It’s a place populated by trolls, goblins, birds and dragons. What doesn’t belong in this picture? Answer: God. Because there’s no way God would let this house of evil stand for so long unless he was being distracted by something. The story of that distraction is told in Paradise Lost, or in a version for thirteen year olds called Lucifer VS. Master Chief.

But every other creature in Wimzie’s House is baked potatoes compared to Jonas, who I’m confident causes every problem they encounter. I mean, he is a goblin, after all. You invite one into your house and you’re bound to have trouble. What’s worse is that most goblins can’t ruin lives all day. Not Jonas. While the normal goblins are packing up their goblin tools and getting ready for bed, Jonas is ruining lives 24/7. He’s even got an value menu where you can still get spit in the face after 10 PM.

“Well, whiskers and gravy!” you say. (And don’t think I’m making this up. This is exactly how you talk.) “Jonas is just five years old. He wears a beanie and he wants to be a scientific detective when he grows up. How can he possibly be the cause of all trouble at Wimzie’s House?” But little do you realize that goblins learn how to be a pain in the ass from an early age.

Take the manners episode, for example. In this one, the little monsters are told to use their manners when they go to another creature’s birthday party later that day. So what does Jonas do? Like some kind of misbehaving catalyst, he lets loose a major burp!

Then Wimzie adopts this awful behavior with a burp of her own!

Before I can pick up my monocle, Wimzie’s baby brother burps, too!

And when you think the whole affair is said and done, Barney unloads the biggest burp of all!

Now do you see how skilled Jonas is at spreading his little jerk germs? Soon he’ll know how to lose friends and influence people into trying to kill him. It’s unforgivable.

And you may be saying, “Well, boggles and dash! Surely he didn’t intend to act that way!” You’d be wrong, of course. Jonas actively doesn’t give a whit about other people’s feelings. He goes to amazing lengths just to make sure that he’s right or that he wins. And he loves to mock you, too. Consider another episode where they’re about to play hide and seek. Wimzie is bummed that Jonas always finds where she’s hiding, and Jonas rubs it in with his snarky attitude. Poor Wimzie doesn’t even realize that Jonas pays off the hiding places to tell him where she is!

And it’s not like Wimzie doesn’t try to fight back against this. When she and her friend finds a hiding place that even Jonas hasn’t considered, she tries to stay put until he says ‘uncle’. But saying ‘uncle’ would mean that Jonas would lose, and he doesn’t want that. Goblins hate to lose. No matter what game they’re playing, winning is the highest priority. Goblins will try to out-blow a hurricane if they thought they had a chance.

So Jonas never says “uncle”, and Wimzie hides for so long that her parents start to worry. Everyone scours the house multiple times looking for her. Does Jonas try to stop this at any time? Nope! In fact, it only ends when Wimzie willingly brings herself out of hiding to calm her parents down. And to top it off, Jonas then walks over and tags Wimzie to put her out of the game, since it never really ended because he never said “uncle”! Now Wimzie and her friend are in massive trouble, reduced to tears, and Jonas gets off scotch free!

“Well, peaches and shazbot!” you say. “Surely Jonas has SOME redeeming qualities, right?” WRONG. His redeeming qualities are just bad qualities that pale in comparison to his AWFUL ones. This is readily apparent in another episode where Jonas bores everyone with his logic while Wimzie makes everyone happy with her natural comedic talent. “Well, I’ll show them that I can be fun, too!” he promises, becoming jealous of Wimzie. “Even more fun than Wimzie! More fun than they ever dreamed possible!”

And how does he decide to accomplish this? Goblin stand-up comedy.

“Well, knockers and fizzle!” you say. “Goblin stand-up comedy sounds great!”

Goblin stand-up comedy is HORRIBLE. The performance is lacking, the jokes are badly written, and there aren’t actually any jokes. It’s just running around and making random noises. Goblins think this is hilarious, but since goblin stand-up offends entire nations, it’s not something to break out around your friends. And you’ll get in trouble for it. You know how it works. One day you try some goblin improv, the next you aren’t allowed to tell jokes within fifty yards of a playground…things like that.

Man, even the CLOTHES Jonas wears can ruin your good time. This diagram illustrates how each article of clothing works together to ride your ass ALL DAY LONG.

So that’s why you must loathe Jonas. Rub your hands menacingly, and hate him from afar. If we all work together, we may get through to Jonas and make him realize green goblins aren’t welcome around these parts.

Wait a second. Jonas is a green goblin…that means…!

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In my case, it’s delayed karma. When I was in third grade, I once made fun of another student who always had to wash his hands before joining his class in the lunchroom. I guess the Greek god of slow and ironic punishment decided I needed to learn a lesson, because now I have an obsessive need to make sure doors I use are locked. I just wonder what took Jerk-icles so long to curse me. I guess he was waiting until I lowered my guard long enough. You know me – I’d confiscate your erection if I thought it was a security risk.

A little backstory behind this one. Hark back to 2004, when I was living in Pensacola, Florida as a junior in high school. By that time, I was an experienced hurricane survivalist. Florida’s a hot spot for some wicked storms, after all, and the street I lived on was even more vulnerable since it lived next door to a series of docks leading out into the bay. But that wasn’t enough to keep our family rooted during Hurricane Erin and Opal. (I think Dad’s reluctance to leave his computer was the primary cause there.)

So when Hurricane Ivan charged on through the Panhandle, me and my mother stayed home. This, like many other decisions I made that year, proved to be a stupid idea. Ivan wreaked havoc across our entire street, flooding our house, knocking down trees and shutting off access to electricity for days. It wasn’t completely unbearable, though – not only did I discover that the MREs passed out by FEMA are damn tasty, but we bonded with our neighbors and built memories that I’ll treasure my whole life. That way, when I die, the memories will fetch a good price on Antiques Roadshow.

But I felt I had to stay on guard. Sure, the situation didn’t degrade into Mad Max levels, but I can get pretty paranoid. After I heard reports of people posing as FEMA workers to scam victims, I adopted my father’s old “lockdown” routine, where I’d check all the doors in our house to make sure everything was closed tight. Six years later, I’m still fussing over it. I know it’s stupid to check locks multiple times. I’m pretty sure they don’t undo themselves, unless you haven’t been paying them, in which case they’ll drop out the door and go to McDonalds without telling you. And yet, it’s very hard to quit. Why can I change other habits while this one holds a death grip on my soul?

Hmmm. Guess I’m just a sucker for great legs.

And it’s not just with the front and back door, either. Any door can fall victim to my curse. When I close a fridge door, I press in on the handle to make sure it’s sealed. When I exit a car, I tap in the door even after the lock clearly snaps in place. Even the trunk doesn’t get a free pass – I have to slap it down. I’m just afraid someone who got sent to the doghouse will find the open trunk and think it’s an upgrade.

But it’s not like I’m in dire straits or anything. At most, my little habit is annoying, but it hardly encompasses my life. Hell, I’ve got it easy. Did you know Marc Summers, the host of Double Dare, would redo his homework from scratch if he made a single mistake? I’m not sure if my brain can comprehend a life where EVERYTHING had to look perfect. But you know what they say about walking a mile in someone’s shoes. (When you work as a loan shark, you take whatever payments you can get.)

Still, I’m convinced this is a habit I can eventually stop. I’ve broken them before, and I feel I can break this one. Mind you, this habit is fortified within a spiked fortress defended by flaming griffons, but I’m willing to take the shot. Besides, I went to high school with a hydrogen bomb and helped it during algebra. I think it’s time to call in a favor.

What about you? Do you have any obsessive behaviors?

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But, you know…the whole list post concept? It’s getting a bit old. I’ll be fair – the same popular bloggers recommend that you don’t whore out the list posts. And yeah, list posts do a good job at highlighting the major points you want to make. Still, it’s a technique that’s used way too much. Hell, some top bloggers have made their careers out of writing an inexcusable amount of list posts.

Three of these top bloggers are:

- Darren Rowse of ProBlogger

- Leo Baubata of Zen Habits

- Yaro Starak of Entrepreneur’s Journey

Now, I don’t hate the list post itself. And I’m not saying everyone should stop writing them. I just think that sometimes it’s a crutch that many people rely on as a cornerstone of their blogging strategy. Especially the top bloggers, who have a big fanbase that’s gonna read what they write anyway.

So what can we do? Throw down a challenge, of course.

If you’re a top blogger or you’re just getting started, I challenge you to go a month without making any kind of list post whatsoever. This means avoiding the use of numbers, bullets, or headlines to divide your points into chunks. Instead, I’d like to see you write in a traditional article/narrative style. Can you cover all your points in a clear and legible manner, without the use of a list? Can you be so interesting that you’ll make a guy sit down and pour through the entire post? Now that’s a true accomplishment. And unlike that time I tried to eat ten hot dogs in a minute, your family can still use their couch afterwards.

Of course, if you’ve never tried a month-long challenge, you may have a hard time with it. That’s why I’m going to tell you about six things you can do to make sure you reach your goal.

1. Tell your family and your friends about your goal, and keep them updated. This creates public accountability – not only will it help you stay focused, but you’ll want to do well so you won’t let anyone down.

2. Tweet about your goal on Twitter. Same as above. Feel free to update here as well.

3. Update your Facebook with a post about your goal. Again, same as above. Plus, it’ll be way less annoying than an app.

4. Start a thread on a forum you own or visit. Each day during the challenge, post an update, and keep it up until all thirty days have passed.

5. Remove anything from your presence that might spur you into making a list post. Do it before you begin the challenge, so you start with an advantage.

6. Make a bet with a friend. If you complete the challenge, he has to do something for you. But, if you lose, you have to do something for him. Make sure the punishment is something you’d normally avoid, so you’ll be spurred into action.

Okay, I don’t expect you to have a hard time with this challenge. What I want you to do is to write without relying on a certain format. After all, why do people link posts to begin with? It’s not because it’s organized in a certain way – it’s because the post has great content. Yes, list posts are a simple way to organize and highlight your content, but in the end, if you’re not writing the best content you can, people aren’t going to care. (Unless your name is Seth MacFarlane. If that’s the case, we love you, and please accept this lovely gift called Africa.)

Now, at the end of a month, if you still want to do list posts, go right ahead. It’s not a harmful practice in itself. But keep asking the question: “Am I creating the best content I possibly can, content that people will want to share?” New bloggers – you’ll gain a lot of influence in the blogosphere if you focus your guns on creating great value over formatting tricks. Top bloggers – you already provide great value, so you don’t need to use a lot of list posts anymore. Your fanbase will still listen, no matter what you say. Hell, you can post random gibberish and a few of your readers will think, “You’re right, posting in tongues sounds like a great idea for my blog.”

Just try it for a while and see how it goes. It could be an interesting experiment. As for me, I’m gonna fetch some dinner. Some of the things I might have for dinner include:

* Spaghetti and meatballs

* Peanut butter crackers and two cups of sherbet

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