I remember it like it was last Thursday. Because it was last Thursday, and I have an excellent memory. I remember showing up to Jack O’Brien’s office (house?) with my suitcase in hand, hope in my eyes, and a smile on my face. And a flask full of Jack Daniels in my pocket. It was April 24th, the day before April 25th, a day I’d been looking forward to all year. I took a quick swig from my flask and dropped it off with Jack’s secretary. He has a “thing” about me drinking from a flask.
While on the clock.
And at 2:00 in the afternoon.
Jack can be pretty uptight sometimes, but I wasn’t about to get on his bad side. Not today. While his secretary stared at the flask, clearly puzzled, I showed myself up the stairs to Jack’s cubicle (bedroom?). I had to make sure to stay on my absolute best behavior. After all, the ROFLCon was the next day and Jack had personally selected me to appear on behalf of Cracked. The ROFLCon, for the girlfriend-having readers of the blog, is the first annual conference for internet celebrities and the founders of internet memes. All of the net’s royalty was invited: Tron Guy, somebody from Fark, Homestar Runner, those I Can Haz Cheezburger shit heads, and others. This was an exclusive party, a special gathering designed to celebrate and praise internet super celebrities.
People like me.
I wasn’t sure how much ass I’d be able to snag at this party, but my most conservative estimates put it somewhere in the triple digits. I might have to buy a U-Haul truck so I have somewhere to stockpile all of the skanky blonde hood-rats that will undoubtedly be throwing themselves crotch-first right at me. I love the internet.
Jack was waiting for me, and I could barely contain my anticipation.

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I was supposed to be on a two week vacation from Cracked. I’d even cleared everything with my editor, Jack O’Brien. But late last night, I got a desperate phone call:

“Gladstone. Come back. I need you.”

By an amazing coincidence, a compliant and sexual curious Gillian Anderson had said the same thing to me only hours earlier. But this was different. This was Jack. And he was in a bad way. At first, I assumed he was still grieving over his ridiculous decision not to feature my Radiohead video on the home page. But, incredibly, it turned out that wasn’t it at all.

“It’s my girlfriend,” he said. “I think. . . I think she’s fucking Justin Timberlake!”

I was shocked. I’d known Jack for almost three years and not once in all that time did it ever occur to me that he was straight. But apparently, as Jack explained, he’d been in a serious relationship with Miranda “LaserBeam” Johannsen —dental hygienist and former American Gladiator— for over six months. I tried to take that all in as I quietly unwrapped the Village People box set I was about to send him for his birthday.

“Gladstone, are you there?”

“Not only am I here, but I know four simple steps to help you find out for sure.”

“Could you tell me?” Jack asked. “And more importantly, could you turn it into a column because, I gotta admit, the blog’s turned to pure crap without you the last ten days.”

FOUR SURE-FIRE WAYS TO TELL IF YOUR GIRLFRIEND IS SCREWING JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE

1. She Keeps Grooming You To Look More White Trash and/or Orthodox Jew

Seriously, how does he do it? With a minimum of effort Timberlake can go from the kind of trailer trash who puts pork rinds on a fluffernutter sandwich to the truly devout who shuns both pork and shellfish based on passages in the book of Leviticus. Most impressive, is that Timberlake achieves both these extremes in his failed attempts to be Black. I’m not sure why your girlfriend digs this. Perhaps, her first love was Rabbi Scooter Bob Horowitz? But you know what they say: “Once white trash/Orthodox Jew in a failed attempt to be Black, never back.” So odds are good that if she’s bedding down with Timberlake, then she’ll want more of that good stuff from you.

Jack’s Score:

Yes, Jack can be made to look white trash — hell, he does that to himself by shopping at the last remaining Chess King in existence— but make this guy look Jewish? The only time people say “Jack O’Brien” and “beard” in the same sentence is when they’re referring to his girlfriend (who may or may not be fucking Justin Timberlake).

***

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The Biographicon.
Have you heard of this thing? It’s the Wikipedia for people who would otherwise never make it into Wikipedia, (that’s you!). The object of the Biographicon is to give regular, everyday users the chance to edit and create their own biographies with the end goal of getting a bio for everyone on the planet.

The set up of the site is such that, at this point, anyone can edit anyone else’s biographies. Now, is this good news or bad news? That all depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, it removes some of the elitism that’s been plaguing Wikipedia lately, (an elitism, it should be noted, similar to the elitism that made Wikipedia necessary in the first place). On the other hand, by opening the doors to everyone, it’s difficult to stop people from viciously attacking the bios of other users for no discernible reason.

Granted, Biographicon has an editor or two that regularly checks to make sure no one is writing anything too awful or inaccurate, and generally these editors have a good eye for spotting false information and, usually, the offending information is soundly deleted.



But not always.

Me personally? I’m kind of into this Biographicon. I mean, I’m famous enough that Tina Fey will drastically change her mind in order to have sex with me, but not quite famous enough to end up in Wikipedia just yet. Until those Wikipedia fat cats realize that I do belong on their stupid site for jerks, Biographicon will have to do. Finally, I’ll have a page that details my whole life history.
I couldn’t create a page myself, though, (I’m far too busy and important, of course). So, I enlisted the help of Cracked.com’s Head Editor, Jack O’Brien.



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Well folks, Spring is here which, for most people means love is in the air. For the nerdy, pasty, internet obsessed tech crowd, however, (that’s you, Cracked.com readers!), it means one thing: South by Southwest. That’s right, the 22nd Annual South by Southwest Festival, a celebration of music, movies, technology and the internet, is going on all this week. Bloggers, pseudo-celebrities and nerds everywhere are flocking to Texas for a week of boner-inducing inter-news, and as an incredibly important and influential Cracked Blogger, it’s only natural that I should be in attendance.

I don’t mean to brag, but as an experienced journalist, I have somewhat of a knack for sensing when something huge is about to happen and, let me tell you, I had one hell of a hunch that this particular SXSW festival was going to be different. Something big was going to go down, and I wanted to be there when it happened. If my hunch was accurate, (and they always are), this story could almost guarantee me a Pulitzer. Alternately, I heard Jenna Fischer was going to be there, and I’ve always kind of wanted to ask her if she’s ever seriously considered taking a shower with me.

I went to visit Cracked’s Head Editor Jack O’Brien last week to see about getting a plane ticket to the event…

“Let me ask you something, Jack Rabbit-” I began
“Don’t call me that” he interrupted.

“What if I was to tell you that I’m planning an article so controversial, so inspirational, so fucking life-changing that, after you read it, your head will literally spit your eyes right off your god damn face because your brain would realize that there’s no point in reading anything else ever. Got that? Your brain says you don’t even need eyes anymore because you already read the most important article ever conceived. That’s how fucking Ninja Turtles this article is.” I paused to let my words sink in, and because I accidentally spit all over myself in my excitement. “If I told you I could write that article and get it up on Cracked by the end of the week, would you just shit your pants, or what?” I could tell I had him.
“Probably not, no,” he answered. “But I’ll admit it, you’ve got my attention.” I also had his wallet, but he didn’t need to know that.
“You can have that article, Jack to the Future-”
“Don’t call me that.”
“-and all it would take on your part is a plane ticket to Austin. One little plane ticket, and you’ll have the article that’ll change the world. One plane ticket … and a few other incidental expenses,” I mumbled as I pulled out my expense proposal.
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