Plagiarism Week ’09 Hits a Few Snags…

This will be a unique post for Plagiarism Week ’09 — as it actually isn’t mimicking any blogs out there per se. Instead, I’m pulling the curtain back a little and letting you know about a certain situation which has occurred.

So — as I bring PW09 to its finale, my thoughts were to come up with something really breathtaking. Something which would build upon an institution known in my little part of the blogosphere by just about anyone.  Something great! Something with a whole lot of multimedia! Fireworks! Something which people would talk about all the way until PW10!

I was proud of this — so much so that, in fact, I got ahead of myself.  So much so that I started bragging a bit about how wonderful it would be.  Nothing could go wrong in my mind.

And then — around lunchtime — two things happened which greatly disturbed me. The first was on a quick trip to Quiznos to get a toasted sub. I was excited that they had lowered their prices across the board on most of their subs, and from experience I’ve enjoyed a tasty veggie sub of theirs with guacamole.  However, when looking at their calue menu, I saw that the veggie sub was not one of the discounted items on their value menu. In fact, the subs with meat and poulty were cheaper to buy than the veggie subs — even though both types of subs came with the same vegetables on them! WHY WOULD QUIZNOS CHARGE A PREMIUM FOR EATING VEGETABLES AND NOT PUTTING MEAT ON A SANDWICH?!? EPIC FAIL ON THEIR PART!!

You know who gets it? Chipotle.  Their vegetarian “burrito bol” costs less than those with poultry and meat! That’s the way it should logically be. Which is why I fully support their establishment and not Quiznos.

(Just for the record — this was not a blog plagiarism; it was just a bullet plagiarism.)

The second thing that happened was far more of a problem — as I received an email from one Jacob Needleman, an intern working at a law firm representing one of the bloggers in our little community.  Before I go on, I might as well say that I really enjoy all of your blogs immensely. And I’ve really appreciated the outpouring of positive feedback from those of you who feel that this has been a clever experiment. And thanks, most importantly, to those of you whom I plagiarized who aren’t total bastards about it and laughed along with everyone else.

Because, apparently, this representative from the law firm informed me that my blog entry for this evening was no laughing matter, I was threatened with an injunction based on a likeness clause for this blogger’s creation which would block me from blogging the offending material. Apparently this institution is an important staple of this blogger’s livelihood, and this blogger felt that my parody hit too close to home.

Maybe I shouldn’t have boasted so much about this to him. Perhaps I shouldn’t have opened a Zazzle store with appropriate t-shirt designs, and I certainly think that, after the fact, dropping 20,000 leaflets out of a helicopter over a town in Ohio advertising my blog was a bit much.  But hopefully we can work something out and come to some agreement that will allow me to post something in the spirit of PW09 which is somewhat relevant and mildly funny.   I’ve gathered the legal counsel I’m assembled for Plagiarism Week, and they are currently in touch with Needleman’s employers to see if something can be worked out.

So — until then, I’ve got no blog entry.  Sorry about that.

But to hold you over — I do have an Utterli!

Direct Utterli Audio