The AHM

I've recently stopped reading on of my author blogs, mostly because I was detecting a creeping stench of "arrogant a##hole" building up over time. He's a very good writer, and funny (at times), but I figure if I want to enjoy that I can just read the books, where the creeping stench will not be present, rather than the blog. It occurred to me, though, that when I started reading the blog there was nary a stench, not even a whiff. It seems, as I said, that the whole "AHness" kind of crept on in. And I was wondering if there could be some way to quantify and measure these creeping jerkiness.

What is needed, I have decided, is an A##hole Meter. What is also needed is an abbreviation: the AHM. I'm not sure what should go into the AHM, how to make it tick, but I'm convinced the idea has merit. Perhaps it should be the proportion of sentences that have "I" and "great" in them in a blog post. As those sentences become more common, points start clicking on the AHM. Or the number of posts that have a tone of "you people suck." I think in this particular case, though, it's more of the first. This author has a ton of fans posting just loads of sycophantic bs for his every post, and I think it's finally starting to sink it for him. So the AHM would probably be picking up on that.

I think an AHM might come in handy in lots of situations though. You could take it with you on a first date, or if you're conducting a job interview, or evaluating a potential renter. I'd say I could take it to work but it would probably just melt down within the first 5 minutes. I believe some levels of AH-ness do not need a device to measure. It's like using a device to tell if the sun is out. Look up, you'll know. And for some people you just look at them, or hear them for 1 minute, and you know. Whether you want to or not.

By the way, I'm not going to say who the author is because I'm just not that interested in making personal attacks against someone, even someone who would never know I've made them (unless they're in politics, that's different :o). That may keep the AHM from clicking as loudly for this post, but maybe not.