The Daily Booger

WHO I AM

My name is Brad Conte, and at the risk of stating the obvious, I have way too much time on my hands. I blame our so-called education system, because a) it fails to challenge me enough to the point where I don’t have time to sit around for hours a week in my underwear eating nacho cheese dip straight from the container while I think of ways to unfairly exploit the hard-earned popularity of America’s most esteemed literary icons for my own short-lived personal gain, and b) blaming the education system is popular at the moment. Next year I’ll blame global warming.

I currently reside in the vague area of Sacramento, California, and attend UC Davis as a junior pursuing dual B.S. degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science. You can read more about me on my personal website (which I apologize in advance for being dry and boring).

When I’m not busy shirking homework assignments I enjoy reading. And, without a doubt, my favorite author is Bill Clinton. No, wait, that’s my favorite stand-up comedian — that guy was a laugh riot back in his day. No, my favorite author is Dave Barry, a Pulitzer Prize winning legendary humor writer (and quite possibly the legendary humor writer). Now semi-retired, he made his humor career writing a weekly humor column for the Miami Herald (which was syndicated by hundreds of other newspapers) and publishing humor books. I think it probably goes without saying that I’ve read every column of his I can get my hands on, own all of his books, and have his signed 7″x11″ portrait with his signature across the neck (in addition to multiple other autographs).

I’m somewhat sketchy on the details of when I started reading Dave’s work. I think it was around 2001, when I was 12. I know for a fact that his first column I read was entitled “A Report From the Surgeon General: Americans, What A Bunch Of Whales”. I’m pretty sure his first book I read was Dave Barry Slept Here.

MY EDITING STAFF

I do not write this blog entirely by myself, however, I have an extensive staff of editors, consisting of my girlfriend, whose job it is to go through each article prior to publishing and, in a bright red font, make helpful inline comments about all the grammar, spelling, and various other errors I have made. The reason I have her do this on the computer is because when I had her do it on hard copies of each article I was spending hundreds of dollars per week on red pens.

My editing staff is very smart, an excellent writer, beautiful, and an excellent cook who I hope plans to feed me on my next visit. She actually regularly reads so-called “good” and “popular” literature that does not depend on booger jokes and has published an actual book, thus making her a literary goddess compared to myself.

Sometimes, however, my editing staff and I don’t see eye to eye on a finer point of something I’ve written. She will make her usual bright red comment inline with the article text and I will, if I disagree strongly enough with her on the issue, use a different color of font to write a remark responding to her remark in my article. If we’re in good form, this can go back and forth until the article is several weeks overdue and we both loathe the very sight of each other. Usually we’re really good about being cooperative and efficient, but sometimes my editing staff does go a little off the deep end we can get a little distracted. But for the sake of both her reputation and the qualify of my future dinner, it’s usually always my fault.

SUPPORT FOR THE BOOGER

I’m doing fine running this site on my own financial means and I have no intention of placing ads on it. Not that I don’t want to, I can’t. Most of my conversations with ad agencies look like this:

Ad Agency Representative: So, you would like for us to put our company name and advertisements on your website.
Me: That is correct.
Representative: And what is the name of this website?
Me: The Daily Booger.
Representative (curious look on face): And… what type of content do you serve on your ‘Daily Booger’ website?
Me: I plagiarize booger jokes from a well-known, widely-published, Pulitzer prize-winning author. And I write about spiders.
Representative: I see. And… what kind of target audience reads your site?
Me: You can let other people read what you write?

However, not doing my homework assignments usually means that I wind up doing a lot of last minute late night studying, for which I need caffeine. If you remember what college was like (or if you didn’t go to college but think you can imagine what attending one would be like) or have a job that sometimes requires a late night at the office (or you don’t have a job but think you can imagine what having one would be like), you might consider donating a little something to my caffeine fund. All donations are tax deductible. Whether the IRS will agree with your deduction or whether they will decide to audit you with a meat hook is a different story.

CONTACT THE BOOGER

You can e-mail the staff for The Booger at the following address: