Blogging is Dead. This site is obsolete.

Posted by Johnny at 2:55 p.m.

I hearby declare blogging (and blagging) officially deceased. Technically, it died at the exact moment one of my super non-technical friends, who shall remain nameless, registered his blogger account, which caused me to have apocalyptic flashes... but we'll just say it died today (August 8, 2007).

You might ask, "so what about social networks?"

Let me answer that question with another question: fuck you. Social networks are the digital equivalent of the Popular Club in junior high, except that there's no way to filter out the ugly people because it's all anonymous. Therefore, popularity is purely quantitative and is directly proportional to the amount of time you waste trying to be popular, and you become a big douchebag in the process. In conclusion, social networks should have been aborted before the first trimester and are therefore dead.

"So if social networking is out, then what's the Next Big Thing™, Johnny? Is it twitter? It's twitter isn't it?"

Fuck no. Twitter is going the way of the hamster dance. Who gives a fuck about what you're thinking at this exact instance, anyway? "Craving nacho cheese." "Fantasizing about Harry Potter." "Yay, knitting tonight!" BORING. Shoot me in the face.

"You're an ass, just tell me."

FINE. The next big thing is... prepare yourself... continuously streaming vital signs monitored via a discreet anal probe. Think of it as the vital signs twitter, or Vitter™.

Basically, you have a wi-fi enabled anal probe that monitors your vital signs, such as heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, glucose levels, etc. and streams these to a central repository so your friends can keep track of you. You can subscribe to feeds via RSS and even view daily summaries with graphs and charts, etc. Of course, your friends can comment on trends (e.g. "Wow, that must have been a spicy vindaloo at lunch", or "dude, you forgot to take your insulin").

One thing Kevin pointed out to me in the idea phase is that he won't be able to stalk people if he gives up on social networks. I pointed him to Vitter. Here's our conversation:

Kevin: but...where will i stalk people now?
Johnny: you can stalk people through vitter
Johnny: "ooh, she seems healthy"

So you can see, this opens up a whole new avenue for Internet creepiness. "Mmm, I like my girls at 38 degrees." Guys like Reid would enjoy it.

So does the introduction of Vitter mean this blog is going to disappear? Probably not, because it's hard to convey brilliant ideas, like Vitter, by raising your cholesterol. One day, though... one day.

Born to Fist

Posted by Johnny at 4:31 p.m.

Haha... hahahaha... haha... hahahahahahahahaha.

I think something got lost in translation there.

Freaky Shit

Posted by Johnny at 1:52 p.m.

Here's the first one (from Digg, of course). Looks like the three stooges (Bushy, Rovey, and Dicky) have been reading up on their Goering.



And the second one, also from Digg, is the worlds tallest man shaking hands with the worlds shortest man. Both are from inner Mongolia. The tallest man recently helped save a bunch of dolphins somehow, but I can't remember the details and I'm too lazy to look it up.


PS: Hey, it's Friday the 13th. Cool, I think.

Confession

Posted by Johnny at 10:33 a.m.

[from digg]

Overheard in New York

Posted by Johnny at 1:22 p.m.

[from here]

Guy #1: I'd totally hit that.
Guy #2: Dude, I'd hit that so hard whoever could pull me out would become the King of England.

Mother: Don't you ever do that again! [slaps child hard]
Child, calmly: Well, are you happy with yourself?

Girl #1: My friend Chandra thinks she's still a virgin because she's only had anal sex.
Girl #2: How do you know this girl?
Girl #1: She goes to my church.

Teen girl: I'm not saying I wish I had a penis. It would just be nice to be able to pee standing up.
Teen guy: Peeing standing up is a lot like eating grapefruit... One wrong move, and you could squirt yourself in the eye.
Teen girl: Oh my god... seriously?

Chick #1: Omigod, like, if I like your earrings, why should I tell someone else I like your earrings? I should just tell you.
Chick #2: Omigod, I'm just like that too. But really it's because I love getting compliments.
Chick #1: Omigod! Me, too! It's the only reason why I say nice things to other people.

Drunk ponytailed guy: So, like what's our situation?
Girl: Ummm, what do you mean?
Drunk ponytailed guy: Like do you ... want me to come up?
Girl: What part of your ponytail makes you think I'd go home with you tonight?

God Squad lady: Praise Jesus! You won't be saved without Jesus! You have to start believing in Jesus to be saved! Jesus will always be there for you!
Suit #1: Would it be so awful if we pushed her out when the doors open?
Suit #2: No. Jesus will save her.

Random letters and quotes

Posted by Johnny at 9:28 a.m.

from xkcd

Johnny: "And this is why love sucks - it directs all of your blood away from your brain and into your heart and genitalia."

Reid: "Well, all of your blood passes through your heart regardless."

Johnny: "Right."

High School Papers, or Peter Nguyen is my God

Posted by Johnny at 12:20 p.m.

If I could go back to high school and care even less than I did at the time, I would write shit like this for every assignment.
Thank you, Jimmy McPerson, and touché, teacher.

Damn you, Walt Whitman!

Birthday Calculator

Posted by Johnny at 5:26 p.m.

This is pretty cool. It tells you various stats about your birthday. Apparently, I share a birthday with Ringo Starr.

It also tells you what your life path number is. Mine is 1. From the site:

The Life Path 1 suggests that you entered this plane with skills allowing you to become a leader type rather easily. Your nature is charged with individualistic desires, a demand for independence, and the need for personal attainment. Many of our military generals, corporate leaders, and political leaders are men and women having the Life Path 1. When you display positive 1 traits your mind is capable of significant creative inspiration, and it possesses the enthusiasm and drive to accomplish a great deal. You are very good at getting the ball rolling; initiating new projects is your forte. You are at your best when confronted with obstacles and challenges, as you combat these with strength and daring. This is both the physical and inner varieties of strength. With this strength comes utter determination and the capability to lead. As a natural leader you have a flair for taking charge of any situation. You have a tendency to do this, even if, at times, it is not appropriate for you to do so.

Highly original, you may have talents as an inventor or innovator of some sort. In any work that you choose, your independent attitude can show through. You have very strong personal needs and desires, and you feel it is always necessary to follow your own convictions. You tire of routine and highly detailed tasks rather quickly.

Dead on.

Perceived Fridayness

Posted by Johnny at 12:42 p.m.

And now to make full use of my "graphs" tag...

Jerry Fallwell Died

Posted by Johnny at 1:04 p.m.

When I had time to rant about things (my young, idealistic days), I would often jump at the shit spewed forth by right wing Christian leaders such as Pat "Motherfucker" Robertson and Jerry Fallwell. Now that I'm a little older and a little wiser, I'm not going to rant about Fallwell on his death - I'm going to leave that to the digg community and post the best responses here. I hope you enjoy it.

I hate to say this but I'm Conservative and he scared me

It's wrong to speak ill of the dead.
So I have little to say.
I suppose the world is a better place now than it was.

I hope it's not too hot where he's at right now.
Oh wait. I do.
Good riddance you fucking whore. I hope you're burning in a place you've feared in your life.

Fuck Jerry Falwell, too bad he didn't die years earlier. Enjoy your time in hell, you racist, homophobic asshole. Hopefully someone runs a train on your corpse.

If you're going to mourn for this guy, you'd better mourn for everyone:
"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals”
"God has removed it's veil of protection from America in no small part, because of the feminists and the gays"
"“The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country”
“If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being”

In other news: hell just got a little fatter.

Why do the good always die so young?

Tonight I shall go to Larry Flynt's Hustler Club in his remembrance.

If hell actually existed, he would truly be rotting in it. Luckily for him it doesn't.

Jerry Falwell finally did something for the people!!!

I just hope he stays dead.

73 years too late.

That's probably enough for now.

Venn Bliss

Posted by Johnny at 9:06 a.m.

Update:
There are more spelling mistakes in this letter that weren't highlighted. 10 points if you can find them all.

Update 2:
Someone at work dropped the lid from a fruit cup into a toilet. This raises two questions:

1. Who the fuck eats and shits at the same time?
   
2. Do you really need to be running at peak efficiency all day?

Please shoot me

Posted by Johnny at 4:48 p.m.

No matter how hard I try, I can't dislike the new Avril Lavigne single ("Girlfriend").

I know.

Hooks aplenty, there's a ton to latch onto in this little ditty: the cheerleader chorus, the layered harmonies in the verses, the half-time pre-chorus, etc. The production is great - I'm sure it's compressed like crazy, but the mix is fantastic. The guitars have a nice fluid crunch (I'm aware of the oxymoron), which reminds me of my twangy Strat sound through a high gain setting on my Orange amp. Mmm, delicious. The bass drum is a bit clicky for my taste, but it really drives the verses. The bass is there, doing its job as usual. If vocal pitch correction was used, they probably did it in the background harmonies to tighten things up, but I couldn't really hear any in the lead parts - another plus.

The target audience is clearly the 13-15 year-old female crowd ("she's like, so whatever"), and so the lyrical content is about as complicated and layered as Dude, Where's my Car?, but it's just so appealing to hear Avril say "motherfucking princess" (in the uncensored version, of course). I wouldn't put it in the same league as Norah Jones dropping the MF bomb in her Peeping Tom feature, "Sucker," because that was damn hot/sexy, whereas this is cute/playful.

As far as girl rock/punk/whatever is concerned, I still wouldn't put her in the same league as Katy Rose in terms of songwriting ability, but since most of you are probably saying "who?" to that reference, I think we know who has the better hooks.

The rest of the album is decent, but the 3 ballads feel forced and could have been left out. I highly recommend the uncensored version over the censored one for obvious reasons. After listening to all 40 minutes of it, you might feel like you've lost 30 IQ points and are on your way to developing diabetes, but that might be your thing.

Now to listen to some Shining to balance out my day....

Fate.... or stalking?

Posted by Johnny at 10:55 a.m.

I will summarize this story below:

• Guy dreams up phone number
• Guy sends text message to said number
• Number belongs to girl
• Guy marries girl
  

That was heavily abridged, but you get the gist of it. The couple met because the guy dreamt of her phone number and sent it a text message, thinking he'd met her the night before. He hadn't, but they fell in love and got married.

Seems plausible.... OR DOES IT?

Which of the following scenarios is more likely? 1) I "dream" about a 7 or 10 digit phone number (complete with 10,000,000 or 10,000,000,000 possible numbers), send it a text message, and find out that it belongs to a (presumably) attractive female my age; OR 2) I stalk a girl whom I (presumably) find attractive, find out her phone number, and then contact her by describing scenario 1?

Yeah, that's what I thought. Whatever, it doesn't really matter because they'll be divorced within 2 years.

Bathroom Graffiti

Posted by Johnny at 11:12 a.m.

New Fad: Idiocy!

Posted by Johnny at 4:15 p.m.

Since 1998 [source], fathers and daughters have been having galas dedicated to "celebrat[ing] the father-daughter relationship" in the mid- and south-western US. They call them "Purity Balls" because the daughters pledge pre-marital chastity to ease their worried fathers' minds.

To me, this is just as creepy as incest and probably worse for society because it's creating taboos instead of breaking them. The Good Christian Father™ wants to control his Precious Little Angel™ and prevent her from the Dangers of Sex™ until he can transfer ownership of her to Some Lucky Guy™ who will whisk her away to his heavenly kingdom and fuck her in the missionary position once per year for five years for the sole purpose of procreation (please, God, give them boys!).

Although sex does require a certain level of maturity, both for emotional stability and physical security, this is exactly the wrong way to go about protecting your children from the actual dangers of sex. You see, sex education requires education about sex in order to succeed.

The popularity of the balls in the United States, especially among evangelical Christians, mirrors the Bush administration's support of abstinence education in US schools. The government's funding for such initiatives has more than doubled in recent years to 206 million dollars.

Abstinence education is not the same as sexual education. Telling people not to have sex winds up cultivating a thick taboo around the act, making it even more irresistible to daddy's Precious Little Whore and Some Unlucky Guy, neither of whom has the knowledge required for practising safe sex. You may say, "Johnny, what you say makes sense, but you're just hypothesizing!" Au contraire, mon cherie:

One study conducted by researchers at the universities of Columbia and Yale found that 88 percent of pledgers wind up having sex before marriage.

"Unfortunately these young people tend, once they start to have sex, to have more partners in a shorter period of time and to use contraception much less than their non-pledging peers," said Debra Hauser, executive vice president at Advocates for Youth, a Washington-based non-profit organization.

Ha! Evidence!

So, if 88 percent of people who have pledged not to have sex before marriage are going to break that pledge, what's the point? You might as well teach them about STDs, STIs, condoms, birth control, pregnancy, pap tests, hygiene, etc. so that they don't start popping out Little Whores and Unlucky Guys of their own and spreading the Clap around the Baptist Youth Choir. The other 12 percent were either too ugly or too asexual to begin with, so they probably didn't need the abstinence education.

In conclusion, allow me to present the worst corporate logo ever:

PS: NEW POST. Jesus Christ, people.

Scooter Libby & Losers

Posted by Johnny at 9:42 a.m.

Whether or not Bubba is Scooter's cell mate, whoever has that bank account is a genius.

Also, the following people are losers: Anyone who refers to Rod Stewart as "Rockin' Rod". That is all.

Cacti

Posted by Johnny at 2:16 p.m.

I'm not sure how much of this was written with serious intentions and how much is graffiti, but here is the conservapedia article on the cactus. (Conservapedia was set up to counter the apparently liberal bias inherent in Wikipedia. But what they mistook as a liberal bias is actually the use of "science" and "facts".)

The secularist view of the Cactaceae is that they are roughly two million years old, and that they have evolved exclusively in the new world. This view fails to explain, however, how it is that the Opuntia genus is native to the island of Opus, near Greece. Cacti are known for their high content of alkaloids, and have often been used in the sacramental rights of the Native Americans. Because of this, the early Catholic missionaries in the west thought the plants to be the work of Satan, and this is perhaps a preferable view to that of materialistic evolution since it is difficult to imagine how something like mescaline could have evolved by natural selection. Besides that, the psychoactive content of many cacti have inspired the writings of such ungodly men as Aldous Huxley and Albert Hoffman.

Several species of cactus are now endangered in the west due to "poaching" by collectors and invasive species. But, since Genesis suggests that man has been given dominion over all of the earth, the environmentalist concerns on this note are entirely inappropriate. It may also be that environmentalists, in addition to flauting the Word of God, are merely concerned about the effects that declining cactus populations will have on their supply of mescaline.

The Shaggs

Posted by Johnny at 2:43 p.m.

Song: My Pal Foot Foot


Song: Halloween

Subtle Line from The Office

Posted by Johnny at 9:45 a.m.

Jan and Michael are at a party, hosted by Jan's boss (Jan is Michael's boss). The two have just made their relationship public. Michael is making an ass of himself, which, surprisingly, turns Jan on so much that she drags him into the washroom for sex.

Michael, reluctant to have sex in a washroom, says, upon entering:

"Why are we going in the bathroom? I thought this is where you liked your privacy."

Brilliant.

Other highlights:
"And now, Michael the Magic, will attempt to escape from extreme bondage."

"I want the house, Jan. I want the picket fence, I want the ketchup fights, and the tickling, and the giggling."

(Jan) "Why is this so hard? That's what she said. Oh God, what am I saying?!"

Two Rants in One

Posted by Johnny at 10:53 a.m.

Tech as a Premise for Movie Plots
Andre and I watched "Man of the Year" last night and the premise was that a glitch in the computerized voting system allowed Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams' Jon Stewart-like character) to win a presidential election in spite of receiving < 20% of the vote. The glitch/bug involved handing the election to the candidate with the lowest alphabetical set of double letters in his last name (bb in Dobbs, gg in Kellogg, and ll in Mills). So in a race between Dobbs, Kellogg, and Mills, Dobbs would be the winner regardless of the actual vote count. (What about the ll in Kellogg?)

If you spend no longer than 1 second thinking about this, it seems reasonable. I spent about 2 seconds, however, and decided that it was incredibly stupid.

First of all, what exactly did this bug cause? Did it register 3 times as many votes for the candidate with the lowest double letters? Did it retain the actual vote count and just display the winner incorrectly? If the latter was true, one would hope that people would be rigorously checking the result logs to verify the reported winner; or even better, that the voting system didn't report a winner at all, leaving that up to statisticians and election officials responsible for interpreting the raw results.

Ok, forget what the bug actually did and focus on the bug itself. On the scale of mission-critical systems, I would rank a voting system slightly lower than air traffic controlling, life support, and traffic lights. For the sake of the developed world, I would hope that such an idiotic bug would NEVER make it into any system on this scale. In fact, this bug is so specific that it would have to be consciously coded into the system by a malicious employee. Not even incompetence could create something like this. And any software company creating a critical system like this who didn't test their system with production-scale data until a week before its release (like they did in the movie) should be put out of business forever, and its high-level managers should be sterilized.

Other than that, the movie wasn't bad - some decent political commentary.

"News"
I don't give a flying fuck about Britney Spears, so why would I want to know that she shaved her head? More importantly, why would I want every single media outlet, including celeb-obsessed friends, telling me how shocked they are that she shaved her head? WHO CARES? Similarly, what more needs to be said about Anna Nicole Smith's death than "she died due to blah, and the paternity of her daughter is in question"? We don't need to spend weeks analyzing the contents of her fridge and passing this off as news.

Celebrity news is not news. The root word of "news" is "new", which implies that for an event to be considered "news", something "new" has to have occurred. Personally, I wouldn't consider celebrities acting like spoiled idiots to be new in any way. Death is news, but it doesn't warrant hijacking front page headlines for weeks. The fact that this garbage dominates the media is further proof that the average person is an idiot and isn't worth my time.