Testing My New TU Curse Words Blog Filter

So I was talking with Michael Huber, the editor of the Times-Union blog universe, and he alerted me that although the higher-ups at the TU enjoy my daily blogs, and that I’m in the upper third of all TU blog posters (of course, we all know who’s the #1 blog poster – natch, it’s Capital Confidential).

However, he did want me to watch out for curse words and offensive language that might have filtered into my  blog posts, and to keep an eye out for those bloggers who may use profanity or barnyard expletives.  This was news to me; usually if someone does that, or leaves a vulgar comment, I usually replace the vulgarities with [EXPLETIVE DELETED] and go from there.

“No, no,” he said, “it was when you listed some of your trivia opponents’ team names.”

Okay, in that case, I did at least modify some of the names with exclamation points in place of their true team name, or spelled it out phonetically so that although the team name would READ the same, it would LOOK different on the page.

“No, no, it’s not those.  The two teams you listed were See You Next Tuesday and Clay Aiken’s Skid Marks.  The higher-ups at the TU had problems with those team nicknames.”

Oh… THOSE team nicknames. Yeah, kinda forgot about those.  I guess they didn’t equate “skid marks” with cars that brake fast, leaving tire impressions in the pavement.

“So what we would like to do, Chuck, if you don’t mind,” said Huber, “We’ve developed a brand new product with the blog posts, it’s called a “Curse Words Blog Filter.”

Really…

“So why are you mentioning this to me?” I asked.

“We’d like you to test drive it for a day or two.”

With that, a couple of settings were changed on my WordPress TU blog account.

I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

“Try to type a swear word into your blog.”

Well, there was that blog post a few days ago from Kristi Gustafson about jewelers that will make charms and ornaments in the shape of a woman’s –

Waitaminnit – what the was that??

“Oh good,” said Huber.  “It installed correctly.”

“What installed correctly?” I asked.

“The curse words blog filter.  If you try to say anything offensive, the program will automatically replace the words you were going to type with this image.  You can curse like a longshoreman in your blog, and what will come out will be readable to anybody of any age. Listen, I gotta go right now, I’m multitasking here at the office and there’s a rare convention-only Jar Jar Binks action figure up on eBay and I want to outsnipe someone else and get it for myself. See you later.”

Okay… so now I can talk about how those ers at August Cove Resorts keep calling my house and nagging me to buy their stupid ing timeshares. Or maybe I can do a piece about how I missed winning Trivia on Thursday night because I got the ing question wrong and Clay Aiken’s s took the win.

This filter is ing powerful.  And slightly annoying.

Okay, now for the ultimate test. George Carlin, here we go. There are seven words you can’t say on television – , , , , , and !

Whoa. This ing thing can really wreak havoc on a blog post.

Let’s see if I can get away with using Battlestar Galactica curse words like or .

Oh that’s not good. You can’t even curse in Battlestar Galactica cursing? just not fair – hey, wait a second, I said “It’s not fair,” not “ not fair,” – oh, for ‘s sakes I gotta be careful about typos that instead of “its” I accidentally added a “T” and got ?

This is just too ed up to deal with.

In fact, I think this whole curse words blog filter is a big steaming pile of , and another thing –

Uh-oh.  What was that?

Where’s Huber’s number… it’s in my cell phone someplace… dialing …

“Good morning, Michael Huber.”

“Mike, it’s Chuck Miller.  You know that curse words blog filter you put on my webpage?”

“Yeah, how’s it working out for you?”

“Well, for some reason the filter went from “no swear words” to “you now pay fifty cents.”  What’s going on here?”

“Well, Chuck, you know the newspaper business has to make money wherever it can… and if it means charging fifty dollars for every time someone curses on one of our blogs, then that’s what’s gotta happen.”

“No, it said fifty cents.”

“Oh… thanks for bringing that to my attention, Chuck, I’ll get that fixed.  It really needs to be fifty dollars per curse.  Besides, it will help pay for that limited edition Indiana Jones action figure I just saw on eBay for my collection.  Gotta go, I have to take this call from Rob Madeo.  Bye.”

Oops – I guess I’m going to have to make this the cleanest weblog in the entire Hearst Corporation.

That, and I must remember not to do an “Albums I Want to Be Buried With” column about adding the best of Richard Pryor to my collection.  Hee.