HOW TO WRITE YOUR OWN BLUE NOSE ARTICLE

by Rick_Slick

Not everyone can write... writing is hard. All those words and grammar rules and requirements of coherency can be tough to deal with, and quite frankly, a bit restrictive when trying to express your jumbled-up, immature, perverted thoughts and ideas -- especially when you're trying to make completely sober people laugh. I can write circles around the local 13-year-olds at the Institute For Children Who Can't Write Good, so clearly I rate among the greatest pens of English literature, such as Shakespeare, Tom Clancy, and Snoop Dogg. As a result of this self-proclamation of amazing writing prowess, I thought I would give the billions of people all over the globe who religiously read my article a primer on how to write your own Blue Nose article in case I one day die in a tragic fatal nose-picking accident of some sort.

Choose your topic. The first step is to choose an appropriate topic to ramble about like I do. Sometimes I just skip this step because it's too time-consuming, but I often get my ideas from what's going on in the Official Forums, some current events in There, or things that RavenTresses makes me write about even though I wear the pants in the relationship and I merely take her ideas as suggestions, even when she's straddling my fetal-positioned body on the floor and hitting me with her purse. I try to pick subject matter that the "other, more legitimate journalists on this paper" (Geea's words) would typically avoid due to lack of interest or potential loss of respect from the reading public. Browsing through the Official Forums even now, my keen mind has picked up on several interesting article ideas just from the thread subjects alone:

"Now THIS Is Very Offensive"

"Quite Disappointed..."

"Is This Ethical, Wrong, or What?"

"Rant: How easy to get someone moderated"

"I feel cheated!"

Formulate a catchy introduction. The next thing you need to do is come up with an introduction that sucks the reader into your web of lies and made-up misinformation and tricks them into being at least remotely interested in anything you have to say. This is exactly how I seduced RavenTresses, so obviously this comes second-nature to me. For the rest of you, it will require some heavy practice. You want to polish and fine-tune your efforts as much as possible, because this is the small paragraph that appears with the title graphic on the main page that's supposed to make people want to click the link and read your drivel. Here are some examples attempted by other staffers on The Voice:

"NigelBlackthorne once again proves that his club dance style is not dissimilar to a Japanese schoolgirl flailing her limbs all around on a Dance Dance Revolution arcade machine to the techno version of DHT's 'Listen to Your Heart', and also writes an article for you to read..."

"Recently back from winning Rick_Slick's unemployment hearing against The Voice, Geea presents a stank new look at the warm stream of designer toilets being featured this week in auctions as she drops off her kids at the pool..."

"No one knows vehicles inside and out better than our very own Hatch. For instance, did you know the proper terms for those four round-lookin things on each corner of your buggy are "wheels"? Join us for his latest Avatar & Driver column as he talks about how often to change the blinker fluid on your brand new ZMW buggy and where the canuter valve is located on the 2006 engines..."

Cause the reader to pity you. Nothing generates a loyal audience like good, old-fashioned pity. This is why the "Die Hard" series of movies is so popular... you're all like, "How can the same horrible situation happen to the same poor guy so many times?" But you know what? You're fixin' to see the next installment, I bet. This is just like my articles -- you can hardly believe how I got away with spewing words all over the Internet again and can't wait to read my next bit of inane prose before they lock me up. I frequently play off this tactic by recalling the last time Geea was about to fire me despite how hard-working and utterly fantastic I am. You might also want to open with such statements as:

"While writing this article, Archie and I got into a fistfight over which boy band was better... N-Sync or the Backstreet Boys. It sure is hard to type on a laptop computer from a hospital bed..."

"I just tossed a carrot into a wood chipper and my pet bunny hopped after it, so you'll have to excuse me if my article is a little short or incoherent this week as my swollen eyes well up with tears of immense sorrow..."

"What is love? No one loves me. I shall never feel the warmth of someone's soft gaze upon my soul, nor shall I ever shudder at a lover's yearning touch. My heart and soul will forever be empty, as this cruel thing called love has forsaken me. But aside from all that, there's this really cool Avatar Hockey competition planned for next Friday..."

The subject and your opinion. While wallowing in a festering pool of your own self-pity, it's often easy to forget what it actually is that you're writing about. I believe this is evident in nearly all of my articles. What you want to do is bring it back around to the topic at hand, and then state your opinion on the matter. Even if you have no basis in reality for having said opinion, you can cleverly circumvent this minor issue by reminding your audience that everything they read on the Internet is 100% true. And because you used a factual statistic like "100%", then there is little room for doubt or for annoying naysayers to call you out. Everybody hates a naysayer... they're always so negative and trying to prove you wrong and whatnot. If you want to really eliminate doubt, use some decimal places like "100.00%" because everyone knows that decimal places denote greater accuracy. Here is an example that shows you how this works:

"The following article will expose Vash_Community's embezzlement of There corporate funds designated for the Neighborhood PAZ project to purchase his very own pink HUMVEE. Frankly, I think his taste in HUMVEE colors suck and he should be reprimanded by the company for his tackiness. Also, this is all 100.0000% true stuff because you just read it on the Internet and everything on the Internet goes through an intensive filtering process that excludes falsehoods and blatant lies."

Refer to nostalgia. Bringing up the good ol' days involves your reader in your sordid personal life and helps them identify with you, by making them aware that even though you're a high and mighty Voice journalist, you were once mediocre just like all them. These parallels that you draw to some sort of awkward childhood memory are valuable in establishing credibility as a reporter, because most people foolishly believe that if you went through the same sort of trials and tribulations that they did back in the day, you are obviously just a normal person like them and they should trust you and what you have to say. I will now give you some examples of how to use this to your benefit:

"This interview reminded me of back in high school where the health teacher droned on and on about how we would all die instantly from sexual intercourse, and I started daydreaming about how my brand new Rainbow Brite lunch box would be all the rage at lunch, but in fact at lunchtime I was laughed at and taken out into the playground and severely beaten by the seniors and the physical education instructor."

"I'm not entirely sure how these auction pages work, but it's sort of like all those flea markets Grandma used to take me to when I was a little kid, and she'd buy me some chili cheese dogs. Except I wasn't very good at eating things when I was young, so I ended up with a face full of chili and a hotdog half stuck up my nose, and my Grandma would take her smelly ever-present washcloth out of her purse and wash my entire face in front of everyone and make me smell like an old lady's armpit for the rest of the day."

Work your girlfriend into your article. When your girlfriend is as pretty as mine is, you need to include her in your writing to ensure she receives the proper amount of attention. Even today, RavenTresses logs into There and goes to Karuna Plaza, only to be surrounded by a coven of jealous witches who say, "Ohhh... I know all about that RavenTresses girl. She's.... pretty." "You're that pretty girl everyone's always talking about!" "So maybe you are pretty... what of it? You wanna fight?" Then RavenTresses has to log off after the nasty IMs start coming in and the disparaging signs go up. If it weren't for me, she would only receive a fraction of that sort of attention! You're welcome, sweetie!

Facts are for sissies. If you don't know or understand anything about what you're trying to write about, don't be afraid to make stuff up. I do it all the time, and it's probably completely transparent to all of you. Facts and accurate information are often constraining and boring. For instance, if I told you that I crept upstairs inside The Voice Headquarters this morning and witnessed Geea and NigelBlackthorne quietly sitting at their desks, putting together all the documentation they need to terminate my employment, that would be boring. But now if I made stuff up and said that I spied on them while they were both [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] with a feather duster and [CENSORED] with two strips of bacon, because [CENSORED] all over  [CENSORED] [CENSORED] with blocks of government commodity cheese, that would be far more interesting. Remember, four out of five statistics are just made up for effect and to rile people up. The other 33% are mathematically incorrect.

Use pictures to illustrate your article. No one wants to read anything without pictures, because pictures say a thousand words, and reading a thousand words takes a long time. If you don't have a picture that supports your topic or whatever point that you are beating into the ground, artificially construct one with Photoshop. Of course, there are restrictions and limitations you will want to follow with your pictures. First of all, when Photoshopping yourself into some place you never went to while still expensing the trip to the newspaper, don't forget to use the Magic Wand feature to delete out the background from your avatar:

Another helpful tip is to make sure your girlfriend doesn't block too much of the picture:

You also want to make sure the picture has something to do with your article. For example, if you were writing an article about birthday cake:

Ensure that you have your avatar scaled correctly when Photoshopping it in:

Include an interview of some sort. Interviews assist in establishing that whole credibility nonsense, so sometimes I like to interview a few people for my article for good measure. The person you interview doesn't need to know anything about your topic, just make sure they're credible or have a cool name. People with lame, uninspired names tend to seem shady -- like Baloo for example. This guy is responsible for the entire economy of There, but it's all like "Baloo? Is that like BALLOON?? HAHAHAHA YOU FORGOT THE L AND THE N, YOU SHADY CREEP!!!" Yeah, don't trust that guy. Additionally, when interviewing someone, make sure you identify them in some way (as well as yourself) with a clever descriptive phrase:

Rick_Slick, the Greatest Interviewer Ever. Quickly establishes me as the greatest interviewer that ever lived. 

Mackie, the Mary Lou Retton of Event Hosting. Rapidly establishes her as some limber munchkin with fifteen minutes of fame back in the 80's that has something to do with event hosting.

Baloo, the Shady Balloon Guy. Self-explanatory. 

Stuff not to write. Just as you would teach your own children what words not to say in public, I offer a few tips as to what to leave out of your articles for the sake of professionalism and good taste. Generally, you don't want to write anything about putting your [CENSORED] into someone's [CENSORED], because children read this and you don't want them to learn that sort of dirty talk from anywhere but their 2nd grade class at public school.

Another important thing to remember when writing your article is to try not to have any racist comments in there, or Geea will get mad and censor you.  She censored me right in the face once with the back of her hand, and I had to eat soft foods like paste and little packets of salt for a week. Censoring hurts, so you shouldn't write any racist stuff because it'll offend all the NASCAR racists and the hoverbike racists and any other sort of racists and racist fans that may hang out in There.

Your concluding remarks. This is the part where you abruptly end the article, regardless of how much progress you made in telling readers about whatever nonsense you were trying to write about. Simply present your ill-informed and unsubstantiated conclusions regarding the topic of the article, drawing particular attention to how awesome you are so that less people will doubt your legitimacy. If you really want to hit home with your reader, offer some drastic consequences that may be rendered if people don't accept your opinions, thoughts, or feelings as their own. To illustrate this concept, I offer an example:

"And that's pretty much why Mission: Slightly Difficult will be the greatest There movie ever made. Once it's released by Miracle Pictures later this month, swarms of greasy fans will launch it into cult status, surpassing Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible series in popularity and making me the most amazing man alive. And if you don't believe that, your genitalia will probably shrivel up and fall off."

The disclaimers. At the end, you'll want to have your editor add disclaimers if needed to protect the newspaper in case someone calls you out on any of the stuff you made up. Sometimes, spreading false rumors and seeding the populace with gross misinformation can be considered "slander" or some silly legal mumbo-jumbo like that, but I've found that if Geea just slaps a few disclaimers everywhere that imply people that believe anything I say must be morons, then I can pretty much get away with saying anything I want because I'm awesome and everyone loves me!

[Editor's Note: The Voice does not condone or endorse the following: Campaigns of misinformation directed at the general populace, ridiculing pink HUMVEEs, high school males carrying Rainbow Brite lunchboxes, racist remarks no matter what is being raced, using Photoshop to lure your company into reimbursing you for business trips you did not attend, and pretty much anything that comes out of Rick_Slick's piehole.]