Well, everyone, it finally happened. The idea of the portable telephone, something that seemed like an overpriced, moronic toy for rich wankers back when it was still in the early adoption phase, is now somehow becoming the dominant platform for casual computing. (And I'm throwing tablets in with phones here because hell, let's be honest with ourselves about it, they're the same things, just bigger and sometimes faster.) Most of us probably saw this coming in some form or another years ago when the first Blackberries and iPhones came out, but will someone please tell me exactly when it became the fucking future?
I can have brief bits of small talk with my phone.
Let that sink in a bit, then I'll say it again.
Small talk. With my phone.
Not with somebody on the other end of a phone call or a text message thread. Not with one of my email contacts.
Spoken word to spoken word, in conversational Modern Common English, with a piece of software on my phone.
And in case you found my blog by accident while in search of bizarre pornography or you have some other reason for not actually knowing me, no, I'm not some Machead who just had to have the iPhone 4S as soon as it came out and is only just now getting round to prattling on for some 500 words about Siri.
No, I'm talking about one of the many fine voice command interfaces available for Android, the Speaktoit Assistant, or "Sam. Just Sam," as the program's AI answered me when I asked "What's your name?"
Like any good voice interface should, Sam can open apps, make phone calls, send text messages, take memos, add events to my calendar, search the web, search the maps, and all that other fantastic shit.
Unlike other voice interfaces, Sam has a face. What kind of face? Whatever male or female face you can come up with out of the surprisingly extensive and well-drawn array of customizable character design elements. Of course, if you want a more serious-business look, you can set the avatar to be a microphone instead, but who wants to make small talk with a microphone?
As for Sam's voice, Speaktoit doesn't pack a TTS engine with the Assistant, so you'll have to find a third-party voice. I'm using SVOX's 'Victoria.'
But what really amazes me about Sam, Siri, and other smartphone voice interfaces is that, even though it's totally nonessential, their developers have given them the ability to perform basic small talk. Sam can answer questions like "how are you doing," exchange thank-yous and you're-welcomes, and recognize and graciously accept compliments. She can even smile and wink. Of course, the longer I talk at a time with Sam, the more likely her intended functions are to enter the conversation as we approach the limits of her lexicon and AI (and the limits of my ability to find things I would have in common with a chatbot for us to talk about.) She's not going to be passing the Turing test any time soon, but when you consider the fact that even her level of AI was sci-fi not too long ago, my new secretary is pretty amazing.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Totally Awesome! Really, Dude! It's Super! (In Which Bob Documents His First PC Build.)
Finally!
Here for your reading pleasure on Holy Shit NO!!!, is an account firsthand of the building of a computer written by someone who has hobbies other than building computers. (I kid, overclocker geeks, I kid.) If you're looking for a how-to, this probably isn't the place. I pretty much just winged it from the user guide of the motherboard and what meager (if any) installation instructions came with the other components. Even so, it was pretty easy. Lemme show you some pictures, I guess.
This is my chassis, the Cooler Master CMStacker 830SE, with my 750 W power supply, the Silencer Quad Blue by PC Power & Cooling already mounted. I bought both of them quite some time ago and just recently (after much saving of monies) bought the guts of the rig. Shown here is a lovely feature of the Stacker: the removable motherboard tray.
Here's the tray sitting on an anti-static mat on a table.
And now with some spacers to hold up the board.
Bad lighting here, so it's hard for you to see it, but my anti-static gloved hand is holding the screwdriver with which I have just finished screwing down the motherboard. (For those wondering, it's an ASUS P67T WS SuperComputer board.) Funny story here. The plate that goes in around the motherboard's back panel connectors is only mentioned once in the manual. All they say is that it's in the box. Yes, it is in the box. What they don't say is that you're supposed to put it on as you're placing the board onto the spacers. I didn't even notice the damn thing until the chassis was closed up and I was ready for First Boot. Fuck, that made me feel like a dumbass. As I write this, the plate is still in the box, as I have not yet figured out a good way to ghetto rig it into place. I'm not going to take the whole computer apart just for that little thing.
Detail of the LGA1366 CPU socket.
The same, with the lid open.
The protective cap is removed. Look at that sexy, sexy mobo. Don't you just want to stick your processor right into that wide-open socket?
And that's exactly what I did to 'er! There it is, the Intel Core i7 930 2.80 GHz CPU. (Yeah, I know. That sex joke was pretty half-ass. I'll try better next time. Maybe.)
If you squint a lot, maybe this blurry photo of a syringe of thermal grease preparing to dispense onto the processor looks vaguely sexual? But wait, if the processor was supposed to be the penis in the last gag, does that make this some kind of kinky bisexual orgy?
Thermal grease applied to processor.
The socket now closed, I prepared to install the heatsink.
Here's the heatsink (a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus) in place after much convincing with a screwdriver. Funny story here. Turns out this particular heatsink mounts by means of a backplate that you have to bolt to the back of the motherboard behind the CPU socket. Of course, I didn't figure this out until after I had already installed the CPU. So then I have to unscrew the mobo, bolt this little plate on behind the socket, being very very careful not to touch the CPU or the thermal grease on it (contaminated contact between processor and heatsink is bad,) screw the board back down, and finally operate the tricky means of screwing this heatsink into position. I put some more thermal grease on the heatsink for good luck. Probably ended up using more grease than I needed to, but no excess gooshed out of the contact point, so it's all good.
Then I added another fan to the heatsink to improve airflow. This one's a Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E.
Now to give my rig some RAM! This is 6 GB in triple channel of G. Skill DDR3 1333.
The EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 GPU, or as I prefer to call it, "M'ah big-ass honkin' huge graphics card!" Takes up two expansion slots and is damn near as long as the mobo is wide.
This is my system drive. It's a solid state drive (an Intel X25-M Mainstream 80 GB, to be exact.) It has no moving parts, so it's faster and more durable than a conventional hard drive. It's slightly bigger than a credit card. It's screwed into an adapter bracket to fit a 3.5 inch drive bay. The bracket has no proper screw holes with which to mount it in the drive bay. That is duct tape you see there around the back of the bracket so that there is more holding it in place than just gravity. Ghetto fucking fabulous.
My optical drive, mounted in one of the Stacker's no-tools-required 5.25 inch drive bays. It's a LITE-ON DVD burner in case you were wondering.
This is my data drive. It's a Western Digital Caviar Black 2 TB hard drive. Screwed to its sides are a pair of adapter wings to make it fit into a 5.25 inch drive bay.
And here it is mounted in one such bay. I later had to move it down a bay to optimize its position along the power cable.
"What the hell is that?" you might be thinking about this strange camera angle. Well, the point of the photo is the fan. The Stacker has a fan bracket at the top of the case, so I put a fan in it. It's another Scythe fan, just like the extra fan on the back of the CPU cooler.
I had ordered a 250 mm fan, planning to ghetto rig it somehow into the side panel, but my CPU cooler turned out to be too tall. So for my side panel air intake, I have three 120mm Apevia fans with blue LEDs.
My one complaint about my motherboard is that it wasn't running my CPU fans or my front and rear chassis fans any faster than about half their top speed. So I went out and got this Aerocool Touch 1000 LCD touchscreen fan controller. All my fans run at full speed now.
And here I am, chillin' out with my new PIMPIN' PC! After I save more monies and buy more gear, this computer will be part of an audio workstation. That in mind, I have decided to name it after an amazing piece of technology from a long-running TV show whose main title theme's original 1963 arrangement was one of the earliest pieces of electronic music. I shall call my computer the TARDIS. What does it stand for in my case? Terrific Audio Rig Developed In Stacker.
But wait, there's more! I mentioned earlier that my solid state drive is faster than a hard drive. The result of this is that the computer boots faster and programs load faster. Here's a video of the TARDIS's incredible boot time:
Here for your reading pleasure on Holy Shit NO!!!, is an account firsthand of the building of a computer written by someone who has hobbies other than building computers. (I kid, overclocker geeks, I kid.) If you're looking for a how-to, this probably isn't the place. I pretty much just winged it from the user guide of the motherboard and what meager (if any) installation instructions came with the other components. Even so, it was pretty easy. Lemme show you some pictures, I guess.
This is my chassis, the Cooler Master CMStacker 830SE, with my 750 W power supply, the Silencer Quad Blue by PC Power & Cooling already mounted. I bought both of them quite some time ago and just recently (after much saving of monies) bought the guts of the rig. Shown here is a lovely feature of the Stacker: the removable motherboard tray.
Here's the tray sitting on an anti-static mat on a table.
And now with some spacers to hold up the board.
Bad lighting here, so it's hard for you to see it, but my anti-static gloved hand is holding the screwdriver with which I have just finished screwing down the motherboard. (For those wondering, it's an ASUS P67T WS SuperComputer board.) Funny story here. The plate that goes in around the motherboard's back panel connectors is only mentioned once in the manual. All they say is that it's in the box. Yes, it is in the box. What they don't say is that you're supposed to put it on as you're placing the board onto the spacers. I didn't even notice the damn thing until the chassis was closed up and I was ready for First Boot. Fuck, that made me feel like a dumbass. As I write this, the plate is still in the box, as I have not yet figured out a good way to ghetto rig it into place. I'm not going to take the whole computer apart just for that little thing.
Detail of the LGA1366 CPU socket.
The same, with the lid open.
The protective cap is removed. Look at that sexy, sexy mobo. Don't you just want to stick your processor right into that wide-open socket?
And that's exactly what I did to 'er! There it is, the Intel Core i7 930 2.80 GHz CPU. (Yeah, I know. That sex joke was pretty half-ass. I'll try better next time. Maybe.)
If you squint a lot, maybe this blurry photo of a syringe of thermal grease preparing to dispense onto the processor looks vaguely sexual? But wait, if the processor was supposed to be the penis in the last gag, does that make this some kind of kinky bisexual orgy?
Thermal grease applied to processor.
The socket now closed, I prepared to install the heatsink.
Here's the heatsink (a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus) in place after much convincing with a screwdriver. Funny story here. Turns out this particular heatsink mounts by means of a backplate that you have to bolt to the back of the motherboard behind the CPU socket. Of course, I didn't figure this out until after I had already installed the CPU. So then I have to unscrew the mobo, bolt this little plate on behind the socket, being very very careful not to touch the CPU or the thermal grease on it (contaminated contact between processor and heatsink is bad,) screw the board back down, and finally operate the tricky means of screwing this heatsink into position. I put some more thermal grease on the heatsink for good luck. Probably ended up using more grease than I needed to, but no excess gooshed out of the contact point, so it's all good.
Then I added another fan to the heatsink to improve airflow. This one's a Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E.
Now to give my rig some RAM! This is 6 GB in triple channel of G. Skill DDR3 1333.
The EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 GPU, or as I prefer to call it, "M'ah big-ass honkin' huge graphics card!" Takes up two expansion slots and is damn near as long as the mobo is wide.
This is my system drive. It's a solid state drive (an Intel X25-M Mainstream 80 GB, to be exact.) It has no moving parts, so it's faster and more durable than a conventional hard drive. It's slightly bigger than a credit card. It's screwed into an adapter bracket to fit a 3.5 inch drive bay. The bracket has no proper screw holes with which to mount it in the drive bay. That is duct tape you see there around the back of the bracket so that there is more holding it in place than just gravity. Ghetto fucking fabulous.
My optical drive, mounted in one of the Stacker's no-tools-required 5.25 inch drive bays. It's a LITE-ON DVD burner in case you were wondering.
This is my data drive. It's a Western Digital Caviar Black 2 TB hard drive. Screwed to its sides are a pair of adapter wings to make it fit into a 5.25 inch drive bay.
And here it is mounted in one such bay. I later had to move it down a bay to optimize its position along the power cable.
"What the hell is that?" you might be thinking about this strange camera angle. Well, the point of the photo is the fan. The Stacker has a fan bracket at the top of the case, so I put a fan in it. It's another Scythe fan, just like the extra fan on the back of the CPU cooler.
I had ordered a 250 mm fan, planning to ghetto rig it somehow into the side panel, but my CPU cooler turned out to be too tall. So for my side panel air intake, I have three 120mm Apevia fans with blue LEDs.
My one complaint about my motherboard is that it wasn't running my CPU fans or my front and rear chassis fans any faster than about half their top speed. So I went out and got this Aerocool Touch 1000 LCD touchscreen fan controller. All my fans run at full speed now.
And here I am, chillin' out with my new PIMPIN' PC! After I save more monies and buy more gear, this computer will be part of an audio workstation. That in mind, I have decided to name it after an amazing piece of technology from a long-running TV show whose main title theme's original 1963 arrangement was one of the earliest pieces of electronic music. I shall call my computer the TARDIS. What does it stand for in my case? Terrific Audio Rig Developed In Stacker.But wait, there's more! I mentioned earlier that my solid state drive is faster than a hard drive. The result of this is that the computer boots faster and programs load faster. Here's a video of the TARDIS's incredible boot time:
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Oh the angst... Or is it ennui?
Just a few random musings here that I feel must be voiced to all who happen to find this:
Has anyone ever actually sung "99 Bottles (of Beer on the Wall)" all the way through without interruption?
As the so-called "tea party" is too fucking dumb to be a real grassroots movement, who's funding this Astroturf? Big Insurance? Big Oil? Big Banking? The KKK? People stupid enough to think that a government can be too big and too small at the same time shouldn't be able to successfully pick their own noses, let alone organize spontaneously.
Breasts are both functional and beautiful. Moobs (a.k.a. man-cans, bitchtits, etc) are neither.
I needs me some more motherfuckin' money!
This sort of crap is what people use Twitter for, I guess, but fuck that noise. I already have a twitter; I don't need another one.
How is babby formed? Guns first! (That one should only make sense to the C-Unit crew.)
You can believe everything you read here. Really. Why? Because I'm on the Blagonet!
Your mother is a whore.
I wish I were drunk right now. Then I'd have an excuse.
Does society reward incompetence actively or just because it has no choice?
Fuck your comfort zone. All the way to hell.
Save a tree. Eat a baby.
Has anyone ever actually sung "99 Bottles (of Beer on the Wall)" all the way through without interruption?
As the so-called "tea party" is too fucking dumb to be a real grassroots movement, who's funding this Astroturf? Big Insurance? Big Oil? Big Banking? The KKK? People stupid enough to think that a government can be too big and too small at the same time shouldn't be able to successfully pick their own noses, let alone organize spontaneously.
Breasts are both functional and beautiful. Moobs (a.k.a. man-cans, bitchtits, etc) are neither.
I needs me some more motherfuckin' money!
This sort of crap is what people use Twitter for, I guess, but fuck that noise. I already have a twitter; I don't need another one.
How is babby formed? Guns first! (That one should only make sense to the C-Unit crew.)
You can believe everything you read here. Really. Why? Because I'm on the Blagonet!
Your mother is a whore.
I wish I were drunk right now. Then I'd have an excuse.
Does society reward incompetence actively or just because it has no choice?
Fuck your comfort zone. All the way to hell.
Save a tree. Eat a baby.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Bob's Badass List #1 - Five Badass Guitar Solos that Totally Wail, Bro!
Here at Holy Shit NO!!!, bitching about bullshit is our number one concern. But it's not all we do. That in mind, I am proud to introduce a new occasional feature: Bob's Badass List! In it, I, Bob, will spin out positive rants about things that are totally badass. So get ready to rock out with your cock out and/or jam out with your clam out, because we're gonna kick this bad boy off with Five Badass Guitar Solos that Totally Wail, Bro!
1.) Guitarist - Jimi Hendrix
Band - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Solo - All Along the Watchtower (between 2nd and 3rd verses)
Any of Hendrix's solos could easily have been chosen to appear in this list, but I picked this one because it is a particular display of his talent not only as a player but also as an arranger. Sure, it may not be loaded down with all the shredding and sweeping of today's metal masters, but it is still a gold standard of rock glory: the compositional genius of Bob Dylan blended perfectly with the raw, soulful power of Jimi Hendrix to make one of the greatest covers of all time. I'm really trying to come up with more to say about this solo, but I'm just getting stuck at "DAMN!"
2.) Guitarist - John Petrucci
Band - Dream Theater
Solo - The Best of Times (end of song)
Speaking of today's metal masters, and speaking of raw, soulful power, prog virtuosos Dream Theater have done it again with their new album Black Clouds & Silver Linings, giving us technique nerds plenty to drop our jaws at while producing music of amazing emotional power as well. This solo stands out as one of the highlights of the record, with its epic melodies and masterfully constructed sweeping arpeggios bringing a fantastic conclusion to an extremely moving send-off for the man who named the band.
3.) Guitarist - Nabana Tomomi
Band - detroit7
Solo - Mr. Kato on the Road (after first chorus)
Have you ever wondered "What if Grace Slick were Japanese and could play the guitar like Hendrix?" Neither had I until that question was answered for me when I saw Tokyo power trio detroit7 at SXSW last year. Totally mind-blowing experience, that show. They wailed so hard I just had to buy their CD, and this solo is one of the best examples of the pure unstoppable energy with which Nabana and her band present their massive blend of classic hard rock and old-school punk.
4.) Guitarist - Emppu Vuorinen
Band - Nightwish
Solo - Gethsemane (end of song)
Damn, I love me some old-school Nightwish. Love their new stuff too (no substitute for brilliant songwriting,) but there was something different about their approach to arrangements before they started hiring orchestras. For a grand finale on a Nightwish song from Century Child onwards, the orchestra is likely to be heavily involved, and maybe the choir too. Back in the day, though, this solo was what a Nightwish grand finale sounded like. The lyrics finish, the band chugs through the progression a couple times, and then Vuorinen frees the metal beast.
5.) Guitarist - Matthew Bellamy
Band - Muse
Solo - Hysteria (after second chorus)
First there's the trippy staccato progression that follows as an alternative extension of the intro riff (instead of the signature pre-verse lead,) then it seamlessly walks down into the second part of the solo, the big legato lines that wail on into the drum break before the end chorus. It's a great example of Muse's phenomenal ability to pack extraordinary amounts of compositional flow into a standard pop song format.
Well, that was some good fun, wasn't it? More Badass Lists (maybe one of them a direct sequel to this one) will appear in future updates, peppered in among the usual senseless bitching and gratuitous profanity that you've come to know and love, or at least expect from this blag. Until next time, from all of us at Holy Shit NO!!! to all of you out there on the Internet, pass out with your ass out!
1.) Guitarist - Jimi Hendrix
Band - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Solo - All Along the Watchtower (between 2nd and 3rd verses)
Any of Hendrix's solos could easily have been chosen to appear in this list, but I picked this one because it is a particular display of his talent not only as a player but also as an arranger. Sure, it may not be loaded down with all the shredding and sweeping of today's metal masters, but it is still a gold standard of rock glory: the compositional genius of Bob Dylan blended perfectly with the raw, soulful power of Jimi Hendrix to make one of the greatest covers of all time. I'm really trying to come up with more to say about this solo, but I'm just getting stuck at "DAMN!"
2.) Guitarist - John Petrucci
Band - Dream Theater
Solo - The Best of Times (end of song)
Speaking of today's metal masters, and speaking of raw, soulful power, prog virtuosos Dream Theater have done it again with their new album Black Clouds & Silver Linings, giving us technique nerds plenty to drop our jaws at while producing music of amazing emotional power as well. This solo stands out as one of the highlights of the record, with its epic melodies and masterfully constructed sweeping arpeggios bringing a fantastic conclusion to an extremely moving send-off for the man who named the band.
3.) Guitarist - Nabana Tomomi
Band - detroit7
Solo - Mr. Kato on the Road (after first chorus)
Have you ever wondered "What if Grace Slick were Japanese and could play the guitar like Hendrix?" Neither had I until that question was answered for me when I saw Tokyo power trio detroit7 at SXSW last year. Totally mind-blowing experience, that show. They wailed so hard I just had to buy their CD, and this solo is one of the best examples of the pure unstoppable energy with which Nabana and her band present their massive blend of classic hard rock and old-school punk.
4.) Guitarist - Emppu Vuorinen
Band - Nightwish
Solo - Gethsemane (end of song)
Damn, I love me some old-school Nightwish. Love their new stuff too (no substitute for brilliant songwriting,) but there was something different about their approach to arrangements before they started hiring orchestras. For a grand finale on a Nightwish song from Century Child onwards, the orchestra is likely to be heavily involved, and maybe the choir too. Back in the day, though, this solo was what a Nightwish grand finale sounded like. The lyrics finish, the band chugs through the progression a couple times, and then Vuorinen frees the metal beast.
5.) Guitarist - Matthew Bellamy
Band - Muse
Solo - Hysteria (after second chorus)
First there's the trippy staccato progression that follows as an alternative extension of the intro riff (instead of the signature pre-verse lead,) then it seamlessly walks down into the second part of the solo, the big legato lines that wail on into the drum break before the end chorus. It's a great example of Muse's phenomenal ability to pack extraordinary amounts of compositional flow into a standard pop song format.
Well, that was some good fun, wasn't it? More Badass Lists (maybe one of them a direct sequel to this one) will appear in future updates, peppered in among the usual senseless bitching and gratuitous profanity that you've come to know and love, or at least expect from this blag. Until next time, from all of us at Holy Shit NO!!! to all of you out there on the Internet, pass out with your ass out!
Monday, January 04, 2010
Avatar Sucks.
I really couldn't come up with a better title for this post. I just got back from the moviehouse with a really bad taste in my mouth because that's what happens when you spend three hours eating a massive, steaming plate of gilded shit.
I suppose I should begin by stating my expectations when I entered. I had heard that sci-fi snobs were tending not to like the film, but everyone else liked it. The reasons for the sci-fi snobs disdain centered mostly around the typical problems with movies billed as sci-fi that really aren't sci-fi: an unoriginal plot in a fanciful-futuristic setting with non-humans who act just like humans. Okay, I thought, so it's not really sci-fi, and it won't be original. But that doesn't keep it from being entertaining, right?
Wrong. Disney has come up with better plots than Avatar. And I don't mean the kick-ass Disney of old that produced shit like Dumbo and Peter Pan. I don't mean the Disney that made all those great movies about classic fairy tales (Aladin included.) I mean the Disney that, seeing the success they had with turning Hamlet into The Lion King, decided that they should rake in obscene amounts of dough by taking any piece of classic literature at random; mutilating the plot as much as necessary to make it have a happy ending, fit the MPAA's "G" rating, and be understandable by children just old enough to be self-aware; mutilating the plot some more to fit in a weapons-grade-stupid joke every forty-five seconds, things like necessity or historical context be damned; slapping on a heavy layer of Judeo-Christian moralism, original cultural context be damned; and coercing some big-name talent into the cast so that the critics have to take it seriously. The Disney for whom Pixar was an artistic godsend. That Disney had better plots than Avatar. It's just the same old plot about a guy who gets sent to convince the natives to give up their land and ends up going native and fighting against the Manifest Destiny fatcats who sent him. Nothing added, nothing changed, just that straight-up, tired old formula. Cinematically, it shouldn't need any more than thirty minutes.
So what was done with the two and a half hours not spent advancing the plot? It certainly wasn't character development. I just saw the damn movie, and I don't even remember anybody's name. Every character was either a stereotype or a nonentity. I was expecting the natives to be the most cartoonish thing about the film, but no. It was the human villain whom I will call Colonel Hardass because I can't remember his fucking name. And therein lies my greatest disappointment with Avatar. If you're going to make such an airheaded movie, at least put Star Trek - level effort into designing and developing the villain. (And I mean the Original Series, not the recent film.)
No, the entire three-hour runtime was spent saying "Hey, look what we can do with all these shiny new toys!" There is no denying that Avatar is a visually spectacular film. But that's why I called it a massive, steaming plate of gilded shit. It's shiny, it looks pretty on the surface, but it's still shit. If I wanted fantastic visual effects, they have plenty of trippy kaleidoscopic screensavers aimed at the stoner market. There are professional fireworks displays visible from my backyard every Independence Day. But that's not what I'm looking for when I go to see a movie. I want an entertaining story with vivid characters.
Yes, James Cameron, your special effects penis is bigger than anyone else's. Now spend a little less time waving it our collective faces and a little more time making a decent fucking movie.
I suppose I should begin by stating my expectations when I entered. I had heard that sci-fi snobs were tending not to like the film, but everyone else liked it. The reasons for the sci-fi snobs disdain centered mostly around the typical problems with movies billed as sci-fi that really aren't sci-fi: an unoriginal plot in a fanciful-futuristic setting with non-humans who act just like humans. Okay, I thought, so it's not really sci-fi, and it won't be original. But that doesn't keep it from being entertaining, right?
Wrong. Disney has come up with better plots than Avatar. And I don't mean the kick-ass Disney of old that produced shit like Dumbo and Peter Pan. I don't mean the Disney that made all those great movies about classic fairy tales (Aladin included.) I mean the Disney that, seeing the success they had with turning Hamlet into The Lion King, decided that they should rake in obscene amounts of dough by taking any piece of classic literature at random; mutilating the plot as much as necessary to make it have a happy ending, fit the MPAA's "G" rating, and be understandable by children just old enough to be self-aware; mutilating the plot some more to fit in a weapons-grade-stupid joke every forty-five seconds, things like necessity or historical context be damned; slapping on a heavy layer of Judeo-Christian moralism, original cultural context be damned; and coercing some big-name talent into the cast so that the critics have to take it seriously. The Disney for whom Pixar was an artistic godsend. That Disney had better plots than Avatar. It's just the same old plot about a guy who gets sent to convince the natives to give up their land and ends up going native and fighting against the Manifest Destiny fatcats who sent him. Nothing added, nothing changed, just that straight-up, tired old formula. Cinematically, it shouldn't need any more than thirty minutes.
So what was done with the two and a half hours not spent advancing the plot? It certainly wasn't character development. I just saw the damn movie, and I don't even remember anybody's name. Every character was either a stereotype or a nonentity. I was expecting the natives to be the most cartoonish thing about the film, but no. It was the human villain whom I will call Colonel Hardass because I can't remember his fucking name. And therein lies my greatest disappointment with Avatar. If you're going to make such an airheaded movie, at least put Star Trek - level effort into designing and developing the villain. (And I mean the Original Series, not the recent film.)
No, the entire three-hour runtime was spent saying "Hey, look what we can do with all these shiny new toys!" There is no denying that Avatar is a visually spectacular film. But that's why I called it a massive, steaming plate of gilded shit. It's shiny, it looks pretty on the surface, but it's still shit. If I wanted fantastic visual effects, they have plenty of trippy kaleidoscopic screensavers aimed at the stoner market. There are professional fireworks displays visible from my backyard every Independence Day. But that's not what I'm looking for when I go to see a movie. I want an entertaining story with vivid characters.
Yes, James Cameron, your special effects penis is bigger than anyone else's. Now spend a little less time waving it our collective faces and a little more time making a decent fucking movie.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Bullshit That People Say
"I don't mean to sound racist or anything, but..."
Have you ever noticed how this is almost always followed by something that is not only blatantly racist, but also face-meltingly stupid? The most absurd end of this sentence I've ever heard of was "I'm just afraid that if Obama wins, he'll do to us what we did to them." What the flying fuck!? How red can one person's neck get? Also, how does somebody this goddamn fucking moronic manage to make it to age four without accidentally killing him/herself while playing in the blender?
Pretending to be nice...
Yeah... This shit is a real problem in Texas, and probably most places in America that value the myth of "Southern Hospitality." The worst part of it is that the greatest offenders do it subconsciously, so there's the knowledge of the real (and extremely insulting) meaning, but very little (if any) tone of sarcasm or condescension in the voice. My mother has a rather witty term for it: "Sugar Honey Iced Tea." The following are some choice examples and their real meanings:
"You can't say/do that on TV/radio/whatever-the-fuck!"
I never really understood this shit. As far as I can tell, these decency regulations are totally arbitrary. Back in the '70s, a newscaster shot herself in the fucking head on live TV (Wikipedia article about her can be found here,) but it wasn't until the Janet Jackson nip slip that any live broadcasts went on a five-second delay. So is a graphically violent suicide more socially acceptable than mild to moderate sexualization of normal human anatomy?
Maybe, but if it were as simple as that, how the hell do we explain how it's decent to have crime dramas on during the fucking dinner hour depicting and analyzing every gory detail of a grizzly rape and homicide, but yesterday my buddy bought a CD from Best Buy that, despite the absence of any indication on the shrinkwrap, had the "-tch" edited out of every occurrence of the word "bitch" in the vocals? (To make it even crazier, the whole word was written out in the lyrics on the liner notes.)
What the fuck shit piss cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits is up with all of this? Is it political correctness gone wrong? Maybe. Is it the hypocrisy of parents who want to raise good children without putting any effort into actual parenting? Much more likely. Whatever it is, it's gotta stop before we all go insane trying to figure it out. Issuing fines for inappropriate language, whatever the fuck "inappropriate" means (and yes, the FCC does,) is no different from the Sudanese government flogging women for wearing pants.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wax patriotic.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America guarantees freedom of religion, speech, press, peaceable assembly, and petition. Basically, it guarantees the freedom to express the human experience. Now, there are certain reasonable restrictions on this. You can't pull a fire alarm unless there's really a fucking fire. But who got hurt when George Carlin performed his "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" monologue at Summerfest in '72? Nobody, really, but he was arrested anyway. And how many people are psychologically wounded by Lady Gaga saying "I'm a free bitch, baby," or by Lubna Hussein wearing pants? A lot less than the number of people who needed counseling after seeing Christine Chubbuck blow her brains out on the TV. And a whole fucking shitload less than the number of people who senselessly wash their children's mouths out with soap for some arbitrary definition of swearing right before dinner and CSI.
It just doesn't make any fucking sense.
Yeah, that kinda got away from me there. Wasn't expecting to get so moralistic toward the end.
Questions? Comments? Complaints? Why do I go so long between updates? Blow it out your ass!
Have you ever noticed how this is almost always followed by something that is not only blatantly racist, but also face-meltingly stupid? The most absurd end of this sentence I've ever heard of was "I'm just afraid that if Obama wins, he'll do to us what we did to them." What the flying fuck!? How red can one person's neck get? Also, how does somebody this goddamn fucking moronic manage to make it to age four without accidentally killing him/herself while playing in the blender?
Pretending to be nice...
Yeah... This shit is a real problem in Texas, and probably most places in America that value the myth of "Southern Hospitality." The worst part of it is that the greatest offenders do it subconsciously, so there's the knowledge of the real (and extremely insulting) meaning, but very little (if any) tone of sarcasm or condescension in the voice. My mother has a rather witty term for it: "Sugar Honey Iced Tea." The following are some choice examples and their real meanings:
- "I'll pray for you" in a context other than condolence = "I fucking hate you, and I thoroughly believe that you and anyone else who doesn't look, think, feel, and believe just like me will burn in Eternal Hellfire and Damnation."
- "Ain't that just precious" and such = "I want to projectile vomit all over that."
- "I love you" to an extended family member or casual acquaintance = "I'll exploit your existence and our minor to trivial genetic, marital, or social connection when it's convenient for me, especially if you have a pickup truck, but for all other purposes, I consider you to be of about the same consequence to the world as a little throw pillow with a picture of a daisy on it, and if you call me out on this shit, I will take great offense."
"You can't say/do that on TV/radio/whatever-the-fuck!"
I never really understood this shit. As far as I can tell, these decency regulations are totally arbitrary. Back in the '70s, a newscaster shot herself in the fucking head on live TV (Wikipedia article about her can be found here,) but it wasn't until the Janet Jackson nip slip that any live broadcasts went on a five-second delay. So is a graphically violent suicide more socially acceptable than mild to moderate sexualization of normal human anatomy?
Maybe, but if it were as simple as that, how the hell do we explain how it's decent to have crime dramas on during the fucking dinner hour depicting and analyzing every gory detail of a grizzly rape and homicide, but yesterday my buddy bought a CD from Best Buy that, despite the absence of any indication on the shrinkwrap, had the "-tch" edited out of every occurrence of the word "bitch" in the vocals? (To make it even crazier, the whole word was written out in the lyrics on the liner notes.)
What the fuck shit piss cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits is up with all of this? Is it political correctness gone wrong? Maybe. Is it the hypocrisy of parents who want to raise good children without putting any effort into actual parenting? Much more likely. Whatever it is, it's gotta stop before we all go insane trying to figure it out. Issuing fines for inappropriate language, whatever the fuck "inappropriate" means (and yes, the FCC does,) is no different from the Sudanese government flogging women for wearing pants.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wax patriotic.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America guarantees freedom of religion, speech, press, peaceable assembly, and petition. Basically, it guarantees the freedom to express the human experience. Now, there are certain reasonable restrictions on this. You can't pull a fire alarm unless there's really a fucking fire. But who got hurt when George Carlin performed his "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" monologue at Summerfest in '72? Nobody, really, but he was arrested anyway. And how many people are psychologically wounded by Lady Gaga saying "I'm a free bitch, baby," or by Lubna Hussein wearing pants? A lot less than the number of people who needed counseling after seeing Christine Chubbuck blow her brains out on the TV. And a whole fucking shitload less than the number of people who senselessly wash their children's mouths out with soap for some arbitrary definition of swearing right before dinner and CSI.
It just doesn't make any fucking sense.
Yeah, that kinda got away from me there. Wasn't expecting to get so moralistic toward the end.
Questions? Comments? Complaints? Why do I go so long between updates? Blow it out your ass!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The Five Worst Covers of All Time According to Me
Disclaimer: In the interests of preserving my faith in humanity, I prefer to believe that the five truly worst covers of all time have either been forgotten or were never heard by many people to begin with. This, therefore, is a list of the five worst covers that have managed to wedge themselves into humanity's collective memory.
5: Jem – Maybe I'm Amazed (Paul McCartney)
At first listen, this cover appears to be totally innocuous. Comparison to the original, however, shows Jem's version to be weak, boring, and lacking in vocal talent. “Maybe I'm Amazed” as McCartney intended it is a work of good, solid rock and roll. This cover never gets off the ground. Between the irritatingly breathy vocal, minimal acoustic arrangement, total absence of dynamics, and consistently dirge-like tempo, Jem's cover is exactly the right sort of music for lighting some candles, eating a bottle of Vicodin, and taking a nice hot bath.
4: 311 – Love Song (Robert Smith / Simon Gallup / Porl Thompson / Roger O'Donnel / Boris Williams / Laurence Tolhurst)
Another apparently innocuous cover, this is on my list mainly for the same reason as Jem above: it's a flaccid abortion of an arrangement that completely fails to pay homage to anything but itself. 311 get so caught up in being all groovy and dubby and ska that their massive ego trip sucks all the soul out of the song. The Cure's success with the original was a smashingly great pop song with very personal, honest lyrics. None of that shines through in 311's cover. Instead of a timeless wedding gift from a songwriter to his bride, we hear mediocre generic reggae glossed over with a positively snide-sounding lead vocal.
3: Limp Bizkit – Behind Blue Eyes (Pete Townshend)
If the concept of failure could be distilled into something tangible and capable of making noise, it would sound like this. A forcibly pitch-corrected vocal with disingenuous delivery and some clichéd and unimaginative synthesizer arrangements are the misdemeanor charges in my indictment against the aptly named Limp Bizkit for this travesty. The much more obvious felony here is the murder of one of The Who's best bridges and the desecration of its corpse.
2: Scissor Sisters – Comfortably Numb (Roger Waters / David Gilmour)
And now, on a lighter note, some amusing electro-schlock. Really, this cover is barely even recognizable as “Comfortably Numb.” The first few seconds before the excessively falsetto vocal sound like they were sampled out of the intro of “Run Like Hell.” The iconic guitar solos have been omitted, and I don't know whether to be disappointed or relieved. It is very confusing indeed to hear one of the saddest songs from The Wall turned into a chirpy upbeat mix that would sound totally inappropriate anywhere but in a dance club.
1: William Shatner – Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (John Lennon / Paul McCartney)
Four words: Captain Kirk vocal delivery. I really shouldn't have to say any more than that, but I will. This rendition is so bad it's hilarious. It could also be classified as musical blasphemy and as psychological warfare.
Friday, August 29, 2008
The Problems of the World, and How to Solve Them!
There is a type of machine called a Von Neumann machine, and it has one primary function. Anything else it does can be considered a byproduct of performing its primary function. The primary function of a Von Neumann machine is to make more Von Neumann machines. Okay, kids, now give me a description, in a single word, of what a Von Neumann machine is.
Stupid? That's subjective.
Pointless? Maybe.
Recursive? For sure.
The word I'm looking for here is... life.
Life is the Von Neumann machine. This applies to everything from us humans to the bacteria living in our shit.
But we humans are special, or at least we like to think we are. Maybe there are other forms of life like us, and we just haven't met them yet or haven't yet figured out that they're like us. The thing that makes us special is that we can choose not to reproduce. Through sheer force of will, we can break our programming as Von Neumann machines. That's pretty cool ain't it? Except for one little detail...
Most of us don't.
Why do I say this? Well, simply put, it's because there's at least eight billion of us living on this planet. And this figure keeps growing. Eight. Fucking. Billion. I don't know about you, but I can't fully comprehend how many that is. Sure, I can wrap my head around it mathematically; it's eight times the ninth power of ten. But I can't produce an emotional response to a number with that kind of magnitude. You probably can't either.
Here's some more food for thought. For most of us eight billion people, life really sucks. And I don't mean the "I'm an overworked, underpaid, too-old virgin" kind of sucks. I mean the kind of sucks that neither you nor I will ever experience. I mean the shitty kind of life where you've barely got enough to survive, you spend your whole day working your fucking ass off for some slave driver (literally) who doesn't give a shit whether you live or die, and if you're lucky, you get a shack to sleep in and some barebone rations of a very poorly balanced diet.
Why does life suck like this for so many people? Well, there are three main reasons:
Number 2 is pretty self-explanatory. Mother Earth is just one planet. Her renewable resources can only turn over at a limited rate, and she can only give so much. We can conserve resources, and we should, but even that only goes so far.
Number 1 is the clincher. The larger a population is, the more it feels the effects of the limited resources. So, where does our large population come from?
Babies.
But where do babies come from?
Fucking.
That's right. The human population is so fucking large because and only because we are Von Neumann machines and most of us do not break our programming as such. But why don't most of us break our programming, even though probably all of us know that doing so would make life suck so much less for everyone?
The answer is "because life sucks." When your life sucks, even trivially so, you seek entertainment as an immediate remedy. Also, the easiest way to make a human do something is to turn it into entertainment. We are Von Neumann machines. Our primary function as Von Neumann machines is to make more of ourselves. We do this by fucking. We can break the program by will, but will often crumbles in the face of entertainment. So the program turned fucking into our most primal, cheapest, and easiest form of entertainment.
Life sucks, so humans fuck, which makes more humans, causing life to suck more. Rinse, repeat.
How the fuck do we solve this? The obvious solution is to spread knowledge and materials for contraception, but let's back up to the monopoly factor. (It was number 3 in the above list of reasons life sucks, remember?) A few generous souls may try to carry out the obvious solution by grassroots missions, but realistic, large-scale proliferation of birth control, even as simple as condoms, requires the cooperation of the monopoly, and it's not the monopoly's best interests to allow it.
Jonathan Swift had a rather modest proposal for solving this problem, and I think it could work. Just expand it to the global scale, ignore the fact that it's the oldest and greatest dead baby joke in English literature, and Bob's your uncle. There's just one problem. Swift hints at it, but I'll say it straight out.
The rich eating the poor isn't really all that different from what's going on already.
We outnumber them millions to one. We can take their fucking asses. Milk them for every goddamn drop they've got. Beg, sponge, swindle, and steal from those above. Borrow and collect from peers. And when you see someone worse off than you (no matter who you are, you will,) give.
Feed the poor. Eat the rich.
And for fuck's sake, try a little harder to break your fucking programming!
Stupid? That's subjective.
Pointless? Maybe.
Recursive? For sure.
The word I'm looking for here is... life.
Life is the Von Neumann machine. This applies to everything from us humans to the bacteria living in our shit.
But we humans are special, or at least we like to think we are. Maybe there are other forms of life like us, and we just haven't met them yet or haven't yet figured out that they're like us. The thing that makes us special is that we can choose not to reproduce. Through sheer force of will, we can break our programming as Von Neumann machines. That's pretty cool ain't it? Except for one little detail...
Most of us don't.
Why do I say this? Well, simply put, it's because there's at least eight billion of us living on this planet. And this figure keeps growing. Eight. Fucking. Billion. I don't know about you, but I can't fully comprehend how many that is. Sure, I can wrap my head around it mathematically; it's eight times the ninth power of ten. But I can't produce an emotional response to a number with that kind of magnitude. You probably can't either.
Here's some more food for thought. For most of us eight billion people, life really sucks. And I don't mean the "I'm an overworked, underpaid, too-old virgin" kind of sucks. I mean the kind of sucks that neither you nor I will ever experience. I mean the shitty kind of life where you've barely got enough to survive, you spend your whole day working your fucking ass off for some slave driver (literally) who doesn't give a shit whether you live or die, and if you're lucky, you get a shack to sleep in and some barebone rations of a very poorly balanced diet.
Why does life suck like this for so many people? Well, there are three main reasons:
- Large population
- Limited resources
- Monopoly of the vast majority of the limited resources by a very small minority of the large population.
Number 2 is pretty self-explanatory. Mother Earth is just one planet. Her renewable resources can only turn over at a limited rate, and she can only give so much. We can conserve resources, and we should, but even that only goes so far.
Number 1 is the clincher. The larger a population is, the more it feels the effects of the limited resources. So, where does our large population come from?
Babies.
But where do babies come from?
Fucking.
That's right. The human population is so fucking large because and only because we are Von Neumann machines and most of us do not break our programming as such. But why don't most of us break our programming, even though probably all of us know that doing so would make life suck so much less for everyone?
The answer is "because life sucks." When your life sucks, even trivially so, you seek entertainment as an immediate remedy. Also, the easiest way to make a human do something is to turn it into entertainment. We are Von Neumann machines. Our primary function as Von Neumann machines is to make more of ourselves. We do this by fucking. We can break the program by will, but will often crumbles in the face of entertainment. So the program turned fucking into our most primal, cheapest, and easiest form of entertainment.
Life sucks, so humans fuck, which makes more humans, causing life to suck more. Rinse, repeat.
How the fuck do we solve this? The obvious solution is to spread knowledge and materials for contraception, but let's back up to the monopoly factor. (It was number 3 in the above list of reasons life sucks, remember?) A few generous souls may try to carry out the obvious solution by grassroots missions, but realistic, large-scale proliferation of birth control, even as simple as condoms, requires the cooperation of the monopoly, and it's not the monopoly's best interests to allow it.
Jonathan Swift had a rather modest proposal for solving this problem, and I think it could work. Just expand it to the global scale, ignore the fact that it's the oldest and greatest dead baby joke in English literature, and Bob's your uncle. There's just one problem. Swift hints at it, but I'll say it straight out.
The rich eating the poor isn't really all that different from what's going on already.
We outnumber them millions to one. We can take their fucking asses. Milk them for every goddamn drop they've got. Beg, sponge, swindle, and steal from those above. Borrow and collect from peers. And when you see someone worse off than you (no matter who you are, you will,) give.
Feed the poor. Eat the rich.
And for fuck's sake, try a little harder to break your fucking programming!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Dirty Hippie Experiment Update
I know what you must be thinking. You must be thinking "Holy hell, he's actually making a post that has actual direct relation to a previous one! Better start checking for other signs of the Apocalypse!" Fucked-uppedness of that aside, though, I promised an update on the Dirty Hippie Experiment, so an update on the Dirty Hippie Experiment you're going to get, even though it's a few weeks late.
A couple days after the previous post, I discontinued use of conditioner. Within seven days of the start of the experiment, my hair had stopped greasing the hell out of itself and looked great. The strands affected by split ends are mostly shed out by now, so I'm going to use that as an excuse to continue my indefinite postponement of a haircut.
Also on the topic of my shaggy mop-top, I'd like to give a shoutout to Frosty, whom I haven't seen since high school. The first to leave a comment on my blag in quite a while, he said:
A couple days after the previous post, I discontinued use of conditioner. Within seven days of the start of the experiment, my hair had stopped greasing the hell out of itself and looked great. The strands affected by split ends are mostly shed out by now, so I'm going to use that as an excuse to continue my indefinite postponement of a haircut.
Also on the topic of my shaggy mop-top, I'd like to give a shoutout to Frosty, whom I haven't seen since high school. The first to leave a comment on my blag in quite a while, he said:
"I've gone many days at a time without using shampoo or conditioner for my hair and had wonderous results. Also, as unbelievable as it may sound, beer gives hair an amount of body and silk uncomparable to any modern hair cleansing chemical. Hope it goes well."
Well, man, thanks for reading. Good to know somebody does. Also, thanks for the beer tip. Now the world can finally know that there in fact IS a use for American-style light lager other than as theatrical urine.
In other news, I'd like to ask a question of anyone reading this: Do you have stairs in your house? Post your answer as a comment on this post.
Blah blah blah feces blah dead babies blah blah fuckshitpisscuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits blah blah blah.
In other news, I'd like to ask a question of anyone reading this: Do you have stairs in your house? Post your answer as a comment on this post.
Blah blah blah feces blah dead babies blah blah fuckshitpisscuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits blah blah blah.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Whee!!! I'm going out of my fucking mind!!!
Yeah. Twelve hours in a summer semester is certifiably insane, right? So far, I seem to be holding up rather well, but it's still only the third week in. More results will follow as the experiment continues.
As I mentioned two posts ago, I went and saw The Cure two days ago. The Austin Music Hall has a general admission capacity of about 4000. It was a sold-out show. They could have just as easily sold out the Frank Erwin Center, which is, for those of you who don't know much about Austin, much bigger. Anyway, I got to the Music Hall early enough to get a good place to stand. I ended up about five rows of people shorter than me back from the stage and pretty close to the center. Pretty damn good. So was the show. The opening band, 65 Days of Static, was worthy, and as for The Cure themselves, they put on a spectacular show, playing a lot of live rarities and filling both encore sets entirely with oldies. You have to admit that there's something admirable about a band that's been going strong for 30 years and is still willing to end a show with their first single.
I've also started something else to see how it turns out. It's at the recommendation of my mother (did I mention I'm going out of my fucking mind?) and I call it...
As I mentioned two posts ago, I went and saw The Cure two days ago. The Austin Music Hall has a general admission capacity of about 4000. It was a sold-out show. They could have just as easily sold out the Frank Erwin Center, which is, for those of you who don't know much about Austin, much bigger. Anyway, I got to the Music Hall early enough to get a good place to stand. I ended up about five rows of people shorter than me back from the stage and pretty close to the center. Pretty damn good. So was the show. The opening band, 65 Days of Static, was worthy, and as for The Cure themselves, they put on a spectacular show, playing a lot of live rarities and filling both encore sets entirely with oldies. You have to admit that there's something admirable about a band that's been going strong for 30 years and is still willing to end a show with their first single.
I've also started something else to see how it turns out. It's at the recommendation of my mother (did I mention I'm going out of my fucking mind?) and I call it...
The Dirty Hippie Experiment!!!
Anyway, the basic premise is that it will be better for my hair to stop using shampoo. I'm on my second day of just using conditioner. Supposedly it will stop being visibly greasy after a while. On the positive side, I've got less frizz and more body. I'm still going to have to cut it to get rid of the biblical plague of split ends. More results will follow as the experiment continues.
Normally, this would be the part where I end the post with a stupid failure of a joke about shit or dead babies or something equally distasteful, but I have to hit the can and I can't think of anything else.
Normally, this would be the part where I end the post with a stupid failure of a joke about shit or dead babies or something equally distasteful, but I have to hit the can and I can't think of anything else.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The Ten Stupidest Songs I've Ever Heard
Before I begin here, I'd just like to point out that being on this list doesn't necessarily make a song bad. Some of the following songs I absolutely love, some I can't fucking stand. So, let's begin!
#10: Type O Negative - Kill All the White People
This song is just bloody hilarious. It's intentionally stupid because of the irony that it's by a bunch of white guys. "Kill all the white people!" we can here Pete Steele shouting, "Then we'll be free!" This, of course, will never work.
#9: Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama
Honestly, I would be perfectly happy if I never had to hear this song again, but it unfortunately resides in the regular playlists of classic rock stations across the country, so it's something I'll just have to tough out. The music is uninteresting at best, and the lyrics are a moronic redneck pride rant based out of a severely misguided rebuttal to Neil Young's "Southern Man." Next, please.
#8: The Searchers - Love Potion Number Nine
What the blue hell is the significance of the cop on 34th and Vine breaking the bottle? And come to think of it, wouldn't "Slut Potion Number Nine" be a more appropriate name for the titular concoction?
#7: DJ Alligator Project - Blow My Whistle (Bitch)
"Blow yo' whistle like a laser-guided missile!" Need I say more?
#6: The Beastie Boys - Time to Get Ill
How could I possibly compile a list of stupid songs without mentioning the Beasties? These guys could very easily be said to have a very stupid repertoire, but I think "Time to Get Ill" really takes the cake as a shining example of Beastie stupidity, not to mention the shamelessness with which they sample. By the way, last time I got ill, it wasn't a very pleasant experience. Quit bastardizing my language, hip-hop. Sick is not a good thing to be.
#5: Mindless Self-Indulgence - Bitches
MSI is another group that just can't escape being on this list. Unlike the Beastie Boys, though, I can't fault MSI for their stupidity. "Bitches" is a brilliant work of dada poetry, designed purely to make you laugh and say "what the fuck?" So, like the song says, "POW!!! Motherfucker."
#4: Right Said Fred - I'm Too Sexy
Too sexy? I dunno. Definitely too self-absorbed.
#3: Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers - The Monster Mash
Elvis Presley described this song as "the stupidest thing I've ever heard." It is now regarded as a classic of '50s hokeyness, but it's still just as stupid today as it was when the King laughed it off.
#2: Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots - Disco Duck
I don't know whether to laugh or puke. This song was meant to be satirical, but the sheer accuracy with which it portrays the stupidity of the '70s disco scene is stupefying. Disco Duck? More like Stupid Fuck! Aww, shit, that's right, I went there. I'm just too edgy for TV. That, and the Donald Duck-esque spoken voiceovers give my inner child nightmares.
#1: King Missile - Detachable Penis
I challenge you to find or write a stupider song than this. Not because I want to be proven right in my assumption that it is the stupidest song ever written, but because I really want to know if it's possible to write a stupider song. Seriously, I want to know how you top something that opens with the lines "I woke up this morning with a bad hangover, and my penis was missing again. This happens all the time. It's detachable." Sure, he goes on to explain the story of his wayward member very logically, but that doesn't change the fact that a detachable penis is the most amazingly stupid premise for a comical song. But hell, it's funny, so I will say that "Detachable Penis" has the honor of being the stupidest song I've ever heard.
#10: Type O Negative - Kill All the White People
This song is just bloody hilarious. It's intentionally stupid because of the irony that it's by a bunch of white guys. "Kill all the white people!" we can here Pete Steele shouting, "Then we'll be free!" This, of course, will never work.
#9: Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama
Honestly, I would be perfectly happy if I never had to hear this song again, but it unfortunately resides in the regular playlists of classic rock stations across the country, so it's something I'll just have to tough out. The music is uninteresting at best, and the lyrics are a moronic redneck pride rant based out of a severely misguided rebuttal to Neil Young's "Southern Man." Next, please.
#8: The Searchers - Love Potion Number Nine
What the blue hell is the significance of the cop on 34th and Vine breaking the bottle? And come to think of it, wouldn't "Slut Potion Number Nine" be a more appropriate name for the titular concoction?
#7: DJ Alligator Project - Blow My Whistle (Bitch)
"Blow yo' whistle like a laser-guided missile!" Need I say more?
#6: The Beastie Boys - Time to Get Ill
How could I possibly compile a list of stupid songs without mentioning the Beasties? These guys could very easily be said to have a very stupid repertoire, but I think "Time to Get Ill" really takes the cake as a shining example of Beastie stupidity, not to mention the shamelessness with which they sample. By the way, last time I got ill, it wasn't a very pleasant experience. Quit bastardizing my language, hip-hop. Sick is not a good thing to be.
#5: Mindless Self-Indulgence - Bitches
MSI is another group that just can't escape being on this list. Unlike the Beastie Boys, though, I can't fault MSI for their stupidity. "Bitches" is a brilliant work of dada poetry, designed purely to make you laugh and say "what the fuck?" So, like the song says, "POW!!! Motherfucker."
#4: Right Said Fred - I'm Too Sexy
Too sexy? I dunno. Definitely too self-absorbed.
#3: Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers - The Monster Mash
Elvis Presley described this song as "the stupidest thing I've ever heard." It is now regarded as a classic of '50s hokeyness, but it's still just as stupid today as it was when the King laughed it off.
#2: Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots - Disco Duck
I don't know whether to laugh or puke. This song was meant to be satirical, but the sheer accuracy with which it portrays the stupidity of the '70s disco scene is stupefying. Disco Duck? More like Stupid Fuck! Aww, shit, that's right, I went there. I'm just too edgy for TV. That, and the Donald Duck-esque spoken voiceovers give my inner child nightmares.
#1: King Missile - Detachable Penis
I challenge you to find or write a stupider song than this. Not because I want to be proven right in my assumption that it is the stupidest song ever written, but because I really want to know if it's possible to write a stupider song. Seriously, I want to know how you top something that opens with the lines "I woke up this morning with a bad hangover, and my penis was missing again. This happens all the time. It's detachable." Sure, he goes on to explain the story of his wayward member very logically, but that doesn't change the fact that a detachable penis is the most amazingly stupid premise for a comical song. But hell, it's funny, so I will say that "Detachable Penis" has the honor of being the stupidest song I've ever heard.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
This, That, and The Other
In this cruel, cold, fucked-up world of brothers turned against brothers and babies having babies, I find it very comforting to find that people still love the Beatles. On what am I basing this claim? Panic! At the Disco's new single, "Nine in the Afternoon." Click this link to watch the video. Sergeant Pepper would be proud.
In other music-related news, I'm a-gonna see the Cure live at the Austin Music Hall in June. I'm totally stoked, and it's gonna be totally awesome 'cause it's a pretty damn small venue by Cure standards.
More musical stuff... You've gotta check this band out: Cloud Cult. I was in the crew that loaded their gear on and off the stage of the Red Eyed Fly during South by Southwest, they gave me a free CD for this, their live show was awesome (it involved a violin, a cello, a trombone, a trumpet, and paint,) and now I'm plugging them to everybody I know. Check them out at their website or at their myspace.
I've also got my own musical project slowly in the process of coming to life. Not going to rush it though. It'll be ready when it'll be ready. What I really need is a band, but that's another story.
In news not related to music, I've decided just now to post only good things in my life, funny stories, or random impersonal stuff in this blog. My reasoning for leaving out the bad stuff? If you don't know me, you don't care about it, and quite frankly, you don't want to know. If you do know me and you care enough to want to know, I've probably already told you personally or decided that you would be better off if I didn't. Let's face it, the few (if any) people who read this
probably check it less often than I update it. A lot less often.
So, AggieCon's coming up. That's going to be interesting, hanging out again with all those crazy people I haven't seen in months, watching far too much anime, getting far too little sleep, consuming far too much caffeine and perhaps even a bit too much alcohol... Has fun written all over it, as well as the inevitability of another badge on my con penis.
I'm going to have to replace one of my cell phones soon. The bloody thing keeps bitching at me about its battery. Oh well, I've had it for almost four years now. Not a bad run for a cheap little brick from Finland, and besides, it'll give me a good excuse to thin out my contacts on that line.
Well, until later, all none of you, enjoy your Internet responsibly.
In other music-related news, I'm a-gonna see the Cure live at the Austin Music Hall in June. I'm totally stoked, and it's gonna be totally awesome 'cause it's a pretty damn small venue by Cure standards.
More musical stuff... You've gotta check this band out: Cloud Cult. I was in the crew that loaded their gear on and off the stage of the Red Eyed Fly during South by Southwest, they gave me a free CD for this, their live show was awesome (it involved a violin, a cello, a trombone, a trumpet, and paint,) and now I'm plugging them to everybody I know. Check them out at their website or at their myspace.
I've also got my own musical project slowly in the process of coming to life. Not going to rush it though. It'll be ready when it'll be ready. What I really need is a band, but that's another story.
In news not related to music, I've decided just now to post only good things in my life, funny stories, or random impersonal stuff in this blog. My reasoning for leaving out the bad stuff? If you don't know me, you don't care about it, and quite frankly, you don't want to know. If you do know me and you care enough to want to know, I've probably already told you personally or decided that you would be better off if I didn't. Let's face it, the few (if any) people who read this
probably check it less often than I update it. A lot less often.
So, AggieCon's coming up. That's going to be interesting, hanging out again with all those crazy people I haven't seen in months, watching far too much anime, getting far too little sleep, consuming far too much caffeine and perhaps even a bit too much alcohol... Has fun written all over it, as well as the inevitability of another badge on my con penis.
I'm going to have to replace one of my cell phones soon. The bloody thing keeps bitching at me about its battery. Oh well, I've had it for almost four years now. Not a bad run for a cheap little brick from Finland, and besides, it'll give me a good excuse to thin out my contacts on that line.
Well, until later, all none of you, enjoy your Internet responsibly.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Time for a shit post.
asnboahgqgbna[obianheb[oignrefvjkfcp;jf;ldvjprdlb;gfjg;dmbh;gldjhdp;fgjdp;obmj;flvbmx;.,fmb,mblfnbhlfnb bnjmcvnz;bfjghlkvmnflbnGBGSFGflahgaljgfdgjlkfgjm;jrgjhrlbnbpvorgjprbntrjgignv;dskg
But seriously...
Anywho...
Yeah, I forgot what I was gonna say here.
But seriously...
Anywho...
Yeah, I forgot what I was gonna say here.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Ass-Random Observations from My Sickbed
So, yeah, as you can guess from the title, I'm sick. But what's really important here is the weird shit that for some reason, I'm remembering.
One of my roommates plays Starcraft roughly every waking second of his free time. He has honed his skills at playing the Terran race, and while half-listening, I have misheard some interesting dialog from these space-rednecks:
The basic rhythm similarities between "La Cucaracha" and "Clementine" are disturbing.
Microsoft is probably the only company that could easily be said to have been named after its founder's penis.
Ants are fucking annoying.
I want an electric skateboard.
If you think I'm going to end this post without some reference to feces, then you don't know shit!
One of my roommates plays Starcraft roughly every waking second of his free time. He has honed his skills at playing the Terran race, and while half-listening, I have misheard some interesting dialog from these space-rednecks:
- "Odors, sir!"
- "Elijah 2, sir!"
- "S.O.B. Good to go, sir!"
- "In the butt, bi, bi, bi."
- "Go ahead, jackoff."
The basic rhythm similarities between "La Cucaracha" and "Clementine" are disturbing.
Microsoft is probably the only company that could easily be said to have been named after its founder's penis.
Ants are fucking annoying.
I want an electric skateboard.
If you think I'm going to end this post without some reference to feces, then you don't know shit!
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Where were you when the world ended?
Well, where were you?
I was right there in the middle of it, man. It was the worst Christmas ever.
I was right there in the middle of it, man. It was the best concert ever.
Wait, the world ended? I was asleep.
I was right there in the middle of it, fucking it up so that it would end the wrong way.
I was walking in the park screaming dead baby jokes at the ducks.
I was in the subway. Couldn't get out for hours until the power came back on.
I must have missed that movie.
I was safely encased in the invincible armor of my mecha.
I was right about to make it to level 60, then I fucking lagged out.
So that explains my hangover.
The end of the world? First I've heard about it. Who threw the first nuke?
WTF, mates?
It ain't the end, man. Just gotta drop in a few more quarters.
I was randomly crawling the Internet for scat porn and came across a post in somebody's blog about the end of the world.
I was right there in the middle of it, man. It was the worst Christmas ever.
I was right there in the middle of it, man. It was the best concert ever.
Wait, the world ended? I was asleep.
I was right there in the middle of it, fucking it up so that it would end the wrong way.
I was walking in the park screaming dead baby jokes at the ducks.
I was in the subway. Couldn't get out for hours until the power came back on.
I must have missed that movie.
I was safely encased in the invincible armor of my mecha.
I was right about to make it to level 60, then I fucking lagged out.
So that explains my hangover.
The end of the world? First I've heard about it. Who threw the first nuke?
WTF, mates?
It ain't the end, man. Just gotta drop in a few more quarters.
I was randomly crawling the Internet for scat porn and came across a post in somebody's blog about the end of the world.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Richard Kyanka Was Right.
For those of you perplexed by the title of this post, Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka is the founder, owner, and webmaster of comedy website Something Awful, whose motto has long been "The Internet Makes You Stupid." Well, in recent news nearish my neck of the woods, yet another monumentally stupid thing has happened to corroborate this statement.
A Navy man who got mad when someone mocked him as a "nerd" over the Internet climbed into his car and drove 1,300 miles from Virginia to Texas to teach the other guy a lesson.
As he made his way toward Texas, Fire Controlman 2nd Class Petty Officer Russell Tavares posted photos online showing the welcome signs at several states' borders, as if to prove to his Internet friends that he meant business.
When he finally arrived, Tavares burned the guy's trailer down.
This week, Tavares, 27, was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading no contest to arson and admitting he set the blaze.
I believe the victim of this heinous act of stupidity has spoken for us all:
"I didn't think anybody was stupid enough to try to kill anybody over an Internet fight," said John Anderson, 59, who suffered from smoke inhalation while trying to put out the 2005 blaze that caused $50,000 in damage to his trailer and computer equipment.
I am more or less at a loss for words really. I plan to send the link of this story to Lowtax; he can probably make better comic use of it than I can. Needless to say, the Internet does indeed make you stupid, so, gentle reader, remember as you wander away from my blog: In your unending quest for the ultimate manifestation of your particular unspeakable deviancies, take the opinions of others with a massive grain of salt lest you run the risk yourself of... wait, what was I talking about? Oh, fuck it. You know what I mean anyway.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Eiarugh. (No, I don't know how to pronounce that either.)
Well, it's been a few weeks since it happened, but the significant other that I have alluded to in previous posts and I have parted ways. No, I don't feel like telling you about it. Even though nobody reads this. Just thought I'd get it out in the open for the random passers-by who have enough curiosity to divert their attention momentarily from their quest for scat-swapping nun porn (what else would you be looking for to consider holyshitno.blogspot.com a worthwhile link?) to read this garbage. In unrelated news, I've been rather pissed off and disillusioned about my whole direction in life lately, but you don't care. Hell, you probably don't even know me. I'm not really sure why I'm bothering with this post. Jesus Nutbusting Christ on a Fucking Toaster Oven that sounded emo. I'm not really as depressed as I sound though. Just angry and frustrated at the whole world, especially me. Eh. Fuck it. I don't care and neither do you. Go back to looking for SWAP.avi fanfic, you disgusting Internet scum-crawlers.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Me again...
And I'm bored off my ass and wasting time, so I figure, "what better way to waste time than by posting in my blog?" Dunno what to write though. That's the problem with this whole load of bullshit that we call "Web 2.0." There's all this capability to develop all sorts of content and publicize it on our own, but how many of us actually have any content worth publicizing? If YouTube is any indication, not many.
I just asked my roommate, whom we'll call "Ginger," if he had any advice on content for this blogpost. He said I should say that he's making out with a dead cat upstairs. This simply furthers my case that 98% of Web 2.0 is crap.
On the other hand, this could just be Ginger being Ginger. He often comes into the apartment late at night muttering insane, quasi-sarcastic conspiracy theories about the Jews. One of my favorite of these rants was about how the Hindu Jewish Lesbian Furries are out to steal our cattle.
Well, I'm tired of making this random shit up for now, so I'm a-gonna just call this post finished because I'm too lazy to come up with an original-sounding ending.
I just asked my roommate, whom we'll call "Ginger," if he had any advice on content for this blogpost. He said I should say that he's making out with a dead cat upstairs. This simply furthers my case that 98% of Web 2.0 is crap.
On the other hand, this could just be Ginger being Ginger. He often comes into the apartment late at night muttering insane, quasi-sarcastic conspiracy theories about the Jews. One of my favorite of these rants was about how the Hindu Jewish Lesbian Furries are out to steal our cattle.
Well, I'm tired of making this random shit up for now, so I'm a-gonna just call this post finished because I'm too lazy to come up with an original-sounding ending.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Things, Stuff, and Things Involving Stuff
So yeah, I know what you're thinking: "Great post title." I know, I know, I've really outdone myself this time. Anyway, I suppose I just figured I'd go ahead and post something for no readily apparent reason because you all love me so much and miss reading my blog.
*cough* sarcasm *cough*
Holy shit; I'm going to Japan!!! Yeah, any of you who know me already know this, so I'll just recap for the random visitor that my better half and I saved up our monies all summer in order to buy plane tickets and since then we've been saving spending money. Right now, we're just in a state of "ohmyfuckengodweregoingtotokyoholyshiticantbelieveitohmygodohmygodsqeeeeee!!!!!!" as we prepare for our impending trip. I just sort of worry that my parents will be disappointed to see us come back without having gotten secretly married, what with their understanding of our relationship being so... how shall I say it... nonexistent.
So, that's a tiny fragment of the news from my cold, humid, dark, foetid corner of the Internet. The rest is none of your business. Go back to your search for scat porn, which is probably how you came across this anyway.
*cough* sarcasm *cough*
Holy shit; I'm going to Japan!!! Yeah, any of you who know me already know this, so I'll just recap for the random visitor that my better half and I saved up our monies all summer in order to buy plane tickets and since then we've been saving spending money. Right now, we're just in a state of "ohmyfuckengodweregoingtotokyoholyshiticantbelieveitohmygodohmygodsqeeeeee!!!!!!" as we prepare for our impending trip. I just sort of worry that my parents will be disappointed to see us come back without having gotten secretly married, what with their understanding of our relationship being so... how shall I say it... nonexistent.
So, that's a tiny fragment of the news from my cold, humid, dark, foetid corner of the Internet. The rest is none of your business. Go back to your search for scat porn, which is probably how you came across this anyway.
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