You Asked, Harvey Answers

Harvey has stepped up to the plate and hit a home run...check out his interview in the extended.

He discusses the BlogWar, BlogBabes, and of course...Graffiti Currency.

(He also thinks Daniel is "hunky", which is a little odd...but at least he has good taste, lol.)

Q: If you could get together any bloggers you wanted for any purpose, who would it be, and what would they do?

A: I’d get all the members of the Corner of the Bar Gang and Corner of the Bar Babes (as listed by Madfish Willie’s Cyber Saloon), together for a rollicking
drunken good evening of fun and conversation.

Orgy to follow in the Champagne Room.

Q: Do you blog just to flirt with female bloggers? What's your motivation?

A: Live to flirt, flirt to live.

Actually, the flirting is more just an outgrowth of being a smart-ass with a dirty mind. Taking innocent remarks the wrong way is a good source of humor, as is
making suggestive comments. Some women find bad boys appealing, and the next thing you know, hey... flirt happens.

I'm not sure if the "motivation" part of the question refers to flirting or blogging. The answer's pretty much the same for both: ego gratification. I'm thrilled whenever I can make a woman feel, well...womanly. And I'm also pleased when people leave a ROTFLMAO in the comments. I find both events quite
rewarding.

Q: Who are the hottest female bloggers? Why?

A: The one's without air conditioning.

I'm having trouble answering this one as phrased. I tend to judge blogerette "hotness" in terms of well-displayed-cleaveage pics. Of the ladies I visit frequently, I believe Susie of Practical Penumbra is the only one to have gone that route.

For non-cleavage displaying pictures, I like Dana of Note-It Posts. I'm a sucker for long, dark hair, and WOW! What a smile!

Heather of Angelweave has a nice pic, too. I love that sassy, saucy, over-the-shoulder flirty pic.

Venomous Kate of Electic Venom recently posted a nice picture of herself in a rather attractive dress. And for some sick reason, I enjoyed that "go thither" look on her face, too. I like tough chicks. I married one, after all.

Also, for non-picturey reasons, I should mention the following women who make my life special:

Susie, for being all kinds of sweet to me and constantly leaving encouraging comments. She flirts like a champ, too.

Lynn of Reflections in d minor, who writes brilliant, insightful pieces about music and art. Aesthetics is a tough topic to handle objectively, but she does so
with great intelligence. I am both admiring and jealous of her talents.

And, of course, Jen Lars, for being a classy lady, a charming interview hostess, and a worthy opponent in the Great Blog War of 2003.

Q: How much do you love me?

A: 6.25 inches. Which, coincidentally, is the length of a $100 bill. Which will buy you a LOT of lovin' in Olongapo.

If there are any other coincidences associate with that answer, I'm not aware of them.

Q: How sexy do you feel?

A: Like a drunken Britney Spears at a frat party.

No, wait… oh, "SEXY". I thought you said "slutty". I need a new monitor.

Probably about 5 on a 10 scale right now. I imagine that later tonight there’s a good chance that number will *ahem* rise.

Q: Are you naughty or nice?

A: Let's see... handcuffs, whipped cream, blindfolds, edible underwear, spanking, chocolate syrup...

Um... nice?

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?

A: Still happily married to my first and only wife.
Everything else is just gravy.

Q: Do you rule your relationship?

A: With an iron fist.

Whenever she lets me.

Seriously, though, there isn't much "ruling" that
needs to be done, since our interests and activities
rarely conflict. We're an amazingly complementary
couple. When there IS a "situation", I usually give in
right away, because when she gets her mulish up, I'm
*know* I'm gonna end up losing, so I don't waste time
arguing.

Q: What brand of beer does the Corner of the Bar Gang
favor?

A: Whichever brand you’re buying for us.

Q: Wisconsin, eh? What's your favorite beer? What's
your favorite cheese?

A: Best beer I ever had was when I was in the Navy,
stationed in Alameda, California. I used to go
sight-seeing in Berkeley, and there was a brewery/bar
there called the Triple Rock Brewery and Alehouse. The
had one called Red Rock Ale that had this rich, nutty
flavor that was to die for.

My favorite cheese is Kraft Singles Fat-Free Sharp
Cheddar slices. Tastes like real cheese, without that
heavy, greasy texture. It's also the only fat-free
cheese I know of that melts worth a damn.

Oh, and since you're mocking Wisconsin, you forgot to
ask about my favorite cow.

Which is the Holstein.

Q: You got carried away buying weapons. You have money left for the following shields: 2 heavy or 6 deflector?

A: When playing old DOS games, like Scorched Earth, with blogless brothers, I prefer quantity to quality, so I’d go with the 6 deflector shields. Of course,
since the best defense is a good offense, I’d also consider investing heavily in extra-large nukes. Who needs a shield when you can take out half a mountain
in one shot?

Q: If the Presidential election were today, who would
you vote for as a write-in candidate?

A: Pre-9-11, I would’ve said Rep. Ron Paul of Texas,
who was elected as a Republican, but actually votes
Libertarian. In fact, he was the Libertarian
presidential candidate in 1988. Whenever I hear his
name, it’s usually in connection with some sensible,
pro-freedom bill that he’s sponsoring, which the rest
of the Congresscritters have bottled up in committee.

Post-9-11, I don’t trust the Libertarian defense
strategy, which is basically to bring all the troops
home & hope America doesn’t get attacked. Personally,
I think we need a world-wide presence to gather the
intelligence we need to stomp the terrorist
cockroaches before they have a chance to leave the
nest.

So, with that in mind, I’d probably vote for Frank J.
of IMAO. Next to W’s current policies, I think his
Nuke the Moon plan has the best chance of providing
world peace.

Q: What's with the phrase "dollars for doughnuts"? Are
they Krispy Kreme doughnuts?

A: Ok, ya lazy bum, I did yer googlin' for ya.

The more common form of the expression is "dollars to
doughnuts", and it implies that you're very confident
about the outcome of a situation, since you're willing
to wager your Real American Dollars against someone
else's nasty Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I hate Krispy
Kreme donuts. They skimp on the frosting & filling.
Now, Dunkin' Donuts... YUM!

See also, "dollars to buttons", "dollars to
dumplings", and "dollars to cobwebs".

Q: How did you ever get involved in graffiti currency?

A: It was a 3-stage process.

Stage 1: A couple days before we left for Jamaica to get married, I was doing my teller thing & had a thought: wouldn't it be cool to have a dollar bill
with our anniversary date in the serial number? Du-uh! NO! But I was stupid-in-love, so I started looking. During the hunt, the math-geek in me kept being
intrigued by the occasional cool patterns in the serial numbers. (oh, and I *did* finally find a 20 with 4999 (April 9, 1999) in it.)

Stage 2: A few weeks later, I wondered: would people actually pay money for a bill with a cool serial number? eBay said "yes", which led me to start selling
the stuff via on-line auctions.

Stage 3: I started examining every bill I saw for potential collector value, and I kept noticing that some bills had a message something like, "you will
receive a lot of money if you write this message on 10 other bills". I started collecting those just to compare and contrast the messages.

Like all bad habits, this one just kept snowballing until I was collecting any bill that was obviously and deliberately marked up. My personal favorites being
the "luv u 4 ever" type messages. Gee, I guess THAT relationship was worth less than a bag of Doritos.

Since then, it's occurred to me that graffiti currency is like a low-tech form of blogging. In both cases, people seem driven by the conflicting urges to be
noticed by the world, yet retain some degree of anonymity.

Q: Have you ever gotten counterfeit money? What do you do?

A: I’ve never gotten a fake deposited to me, but I’ve seen a few. Most were surprisingly bad. They looked like they were printed on an inkjet printer at 300
dpi, with all the fine resolution of a Sunday color comic. Since they also looked like they had circulated a bit, I tend to doubt the government’s claim that the
new currency design will be "safer & more secure".

The proper procedure is to handle the bill as little as possible and inform the bank’s Security Officer, who then informs the police and contacts the Secret
Service, part of whose duties include the investigation of counterfeiting.

Q: Why did you start your blog, and why "Bad Money"?

A: Well, as I mentioned previously, I had this HUGE
collection of graffiti currency, and I quickly
exhausted my list of family & friends to bore with it.
Since my ISP gave me 10 meg of storage space for a web
site, I toyed with the notion of displaying them
on-line. My working title was "Harv's House of
Craptacular Currency" and I envisioned organizing them
by type (writing, drawing, rubber stamp, etc.).
However, I knew exactly jack about HTML, so that
project never took off.

Later on, I discovered blogs and thought, "gee, that
might work." As I researched "how to blog", I
discovered that the keys to popularity were "original
content" and "regular posting." I thought that if I
put up one per day with a witty caption, I could give
people a reason to keep coming back. In addition, I
thought I might throw in well-written, insightful
posts about other blogger's entries, so as to get
their attention with linkage.

Results: traffic=me.

I'd originally hoped to write intellectual, analytical
pieces like a shorter Steven Den Beste, but my inner
smart-ass soon grew too big for its britches, and I
started focusing on humor, instead.

"Bad Money" came about as a euphemism for "Craptacular
Currency". I was afraid that using a form of the word
"crap" might reflect poorly on my employer if my blog
were somehow seen as being connected to the bank where
I worked. Turns out I needn't have worried, since the
bank staff is 98% www.computerilliterate.com. The
other 2% are college students who work part-time, and
think my blog is funny. I've also yet to have a
customer ask me, "hey, aren't you that Bad Money
fella?"

Q: What is the best thing you've ever done for someone
else?

A: It's a toss-up. I encouraged Matt O'Blackfive to
get the hell off Blogspot, and I convinced the
Bartender that the time to start blogging was NOW, and
not "later, when I'm more organized & better
prepared". My gifts to the blogosphere.

Q: What is the worst thing you've ever done to
someone?

A: Back in my college days, I was delivering pizza
late one night in a relatively deserted neighborhood.
After the delivery, as I was backing out of the
driveway, I backed into a mini-van parked across the
street. Not a very hard hit, but I left a small dent
in the fender & chipped some paint. Nobody saw me, so
I just left. It was probably the worst violation of my
personal integrity standards that I've ever left
uncorrected.

Q: Madfish Willie has been chasing the puppy blender
around for weeks, yet you talk to him on the phone,
take trips with him to Antarctica and meet him at the
mall! Harvey, What kind of sick-o "man-love" thing you
got going with Evil Glenn?

A: Nothing sick about it. It’s just a typical, normal,
healthy relationship between a deranged, overzealous
do-gooder and an embodiment of psychotic evil. Not
unlike what Batman and the Joker have going.

Q: Do you feel all the work the Alliance makes you do
causes you to neglect your own blog in the interest of
feeding Frank J's ego?

A: No, for 3 reasons:

1) The Alliance doesn't "make" me do anything. My work
there is donated freely.

2) My blog doesn't get neglected. Over any given week,
I manage to blog about everything I have bookmarked.
Now, it's true that some of the Alliance housekeeping
that I do keeps me from spending time working on bits
of original content, but it's also true that the whole
Blog War adventure has inspired me to write some
brilliant pieces. Offhand, I'd say it's a wash.

3) The Alliance doesn't feed Frank's ego anymore. Yes,
it was his idea, originally, and he's still Fearless
Leader, but his ego is now more connected to his other
projects, like Front Line Voices and his novel. But
the Alliance still lives and grows, even without his
close attention. I'm always amazed that we've kept the
"filthy lie" & "blog war" memes alive for over 2
months now, and it doesn't seem to be stopping. In
fact, with the introduction of the League of Liberals
into the New Blog Showcase Sponsorship Challenge, I
have a feeling things might start heating up even
more.

Which reminds me. I could REALLY use some help in
coming up with new Filthy Lie and Precision Guided
Humor assignments. Anyone with a suggestion, please
drop me a line. I'm only one man, and, according to my
Sitemeter traffic stats, I'm only about 5% as creative
as Frank. I'll take help from anyone. Alliance, Axis,
hell, even the LoL.

In conclusion, I just want to say thanks to all the
good folks (and bad ones) who submitted questions so I
don't look like a readerless loser, and most
especially thanks to Jen Lars for letting me do my
best Bill Whittle imitation.

Sorry about busting your bandwidth, Jen :-)
(Ed. note: it's not mine; it's Pixy's.)

Posted by Jennifer at October 29, 2003 08:28 AM

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