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It's Subscription Time!
Rich Galen Friday October 14, 2005
The Annual Mullings Subscription Drive begins today!
If you click on the link you will be taken directly to the page which will beg you - BEG you - to drag out your credit card and buy a $25 subscription.
Here's another reason why I will never be a millionaire: In 2003, the Subscription Drive was in February. In 2004 - because of my six months in Iraq - subscription month moved back to September. In 2005 - because of the hurricanes - it has moved yet six MORE weeks back to Mid-October which, as luck would have it, is today.
At this rate, in 2007 the Subscription Drive will be back at its original place - February. Except I will have lost an entire year.
No matter.
Since the last Subscription Drive there have been 171 Mullings describing, amongst other things:
The Third and Final Presidential Debate in Tempe, Arizona
Election Night with MSNBC in New York City
Southeast India and Sri Lanka on Tsunami relief duty
The Presidential Inaugural
Opening Day of the baseball season
Being irritated by the Small Business Administration
New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
Afghanistan for their elections
As well as the annual favorites like The Six Words of Christmas, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Back to School.
As long as this is going to be a news-less Mullings, let's go to the mail bag and answer some standard questions:
How long does it take to write Mullings?
It depends. Some nights I have the whole thing written in my head and it only takes as long as typing it. Other nights I have to struggle to find a hook. Occasionally I have written the whole thing and realized that the next-to-last bullet point is really what the column is about so I've just erased the whole thing and started again.
In any event, the Secret Decoder Ring often takes as long as the column itself. Plus coding everything for the Web and the e-mail version and it's generally a two-hour activity.
Speaking of bullet points, how did you arrive at that style?
In a previous incarnation, Mullings was called "Talking Points" and so was in a talking point - bulleted - format. When I went to GOPAC in 1998 and decided to write a column on a regular basis, I changed the name but kept the format.
Alright. Speaking of the name, how did you come up with Mullings?
I was looking for a snappy name for marketing purposes. I had often thought that the only people in the world who regularly used the verb "to mull" with any frequency were Associated Press headline writers: "President Mulls Cabinet Choices," as opposed to real humans who never say, "Honey, I'm mulling Chinese or Italian for dinner."
I used to have this atop each column but it has been lost over the years. The verb "to mull" has two meanings:
1. To consider or think about
2. To add spice as to cider or wine (mulled cider or mulled wine).
Why do you use "Mullings Director of Standards and Practices" and "The Lad" when you refer to your wife and son?
Because. Those are the rules. The MD of S&P is one of the most private people on the planet and doesn't think - just because I think I have to tell every ONE every THING I'm doing and every PLACE I'm doing it that her life's book should be similarly opened to public inspection.
Any changes in store for us for our 25 bucks?
I've thought about having a "Letters to Mullings" section with your complaints and my clever rejoinders, but I get between 150 and 300 e-mails a day and I don't have the time or energy to sift through them, save them, format them and publish them.
I have also thought about doing a podcast of Mullings - reading the column aloud so you can get the true flavor of my irritation and/or wit.
If you have some other ideas, I'm open to listening.
Last one: Do you ever run out of ideas?
You mean not counting today?
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to the Subscription Page and nothing else because I don't want you to be distracted.
--END --
Copyright © 2005 Richard A. Galen
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