New Design

I was never really happy using a ready-made Blogger template, given that I supposedly make websites for a living and all. Anyway, I decided to do something about it and came up with a new design. This will prompt at least one friend to say “oh, you’ve got time to work on your website but when the fuck are you gonna make the one you promised me?” What can I say, I’m a cock,

So anyway, now I have a design that’s completely my own. I’m not sure if it’s any better than the one I was using (probably not) but at least it’s unique. I think maybe it’s a little too blue and I worry about the readability somewhat.

Let me know what you think (like anybody reads this shit) and I’ll change the color scheme if you think it sucks.

Baby, If You’ve Ever Wondered…

Some people wish for world peace. Some wish for unimaginable wealth. Still others wish for group sex with Tina Fey and Thora Birch. My dreams are much simpler. I wish for a box set of all episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati on DVD.

Unfortunately, due to the licensing costs of all the music the show contained, that celebrity three-way seems more likely. There are a few episodes available in shitty VHS versions, but they’ve replaced most of the original music with generic crap. Of course, actors were often talking over the music, so they’ve redubbed those lines with impersonators. And in cases where the dialogue referred to the music that was playing, they’ve changed the lines. That’s a god-damned travesty.

But there may be a glimmer of hope. Supposedly, Shout Factory is considering spending the money to license the music and release good DVD versions of the show. They’ve done it before with SCTV and Freaks and Geeks. You can email them encouragement at info@shoutfactory.com. I already have, of course. You can also put in your two cents at http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/.

On the down side, the music licensing will drive the DVD prices way up, but I think it would be worth it. If nothing else, the original versions as aired in the 70’s need to be preserved before one of the funniest television shows of all time is lost forever.

Who Are These Idiots and Who Gave Them Internet Access?

Patrick Gaskill was certainly struck by Inspirado when he created his Suggested Google Alphabet page. Here you can see an up-to-the-second list of the most popular search terms per letter of the alphabet entered into Google.

Unfortunately, it only confirms that the internet has been taken over by morons.

Because Patrick’s page updates with every hit, what you see by following the link above may be different from what I list here, but that’s not enough to stop me from making fun of the most popular searches as listed on 1/26/2005.

A is for amazon
B is for best buy
C is for cnn
D is for dictionary
E is for ebay

OK, right off the bat we’ve got 5 instances of people searching for the actual domain name of the site they’re looking for. The URL for Amazon is www.amazon.com you dumbass. As my good friend Larry would say, “What’s the number for 911?”. Granted, dictionary.com isn’t the only dictionary on the web, but it’s certainly the easiest to remember, and it also happens to be the top-ranked result Google gives (as of now anyway).

F is for Firefox

OK, wait. Maybe the internet hasn’t been taken over by morons after all. It really does give me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that so many people are looking for my favorite web browser. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, run—don’t walk—to the Firefox website, download it, install it and never use Internet Explorer again. You need reasons other than some asshole’s recommendation? OK, you see, IE is a piece of shit. Do you have any idea how ridiculous it is to get a virus or pick up spyware from going to a web site? That that can happen boggles the fucking mind. It’s almost as if IE was specifically written to allow it. Firefox won’t fuck with you that way. It won’t even allow popups if you don’t let it. And if that’s not enough, tabbed browsing rules. And did I mention the shitloads of extensions and themes for customization? Oh yeah, it’s also completely free.

Another reason the F entry gives me a little hope is that until recently, the URL for Firefox was not www.firefox.com. It actually was worthy of a search! On the downside, they may be searching for that shitty Clint Eastwood movie.

G is for games

Yeah, I suppose. Have fun sifting through the 360,000,000 results!

H is for hotmail
I is for ikea

I don’t know whether to ridicule people who search for these or pity them. Oh wait, of course I do.

J is for jokes

Welcome to the information super-highway, a tool that rivals the printing press for revolutionizing communication. Let’s look up some jokes to tell at the office.

K is for kazaa

While the address for this is in fact www.kazaa.com, I’m hoping they’re actually looking for an early version that doesn’t fill your PC with spyware. Or maybe they’re confusing Kazaa and Limewire. Or maybe they’re actually searching for that shitty Shaquille O’Neal movie.

L is for lyrics

Is it just me or are lyrics sites fucking horrendous with these days? Thank gods that the fucking Harry Fox Agency sued lyrics.ch into submission years ago. Now instead of one good site we have a thousand little shitty ones all pushing spyware and popups. They also completely fucked up OLGA. I hope those fucking cocks at HFA choke on their mothers’ shit.

M is for mapquest

You’re searching for Mapquest when the address is mapquest.com? You know what? You’re too stupid to drive.

N is for news

Since there’s maybe 2 or 3 news sites (tops) out there, you’ll surely find exactly what you’re looking for by punching “news” into Google.

O is for online dictionary

As opposed to all the print dictionaries that turn up on the web.

P is for paris hilton

Oh, give me a fucking break. If you give two fucks about this spoiled little rich cunt, please get the fuck off the internet and back in your trailer you pathetic waste of skin. If you’re looking for her porn video, that’s even worse. This woman (and I use the term loosely) is the very definition of skank. Her snatch is likely a rancid cesspool of hitherto unknown variations of herpes and at least one heroin-resistant strain of chlamydia.

Also, you can’t tell me the number one search for ‘P’ isn’t ‘Porn’. I think this was some judicious editing by the folks at Google.

Q is for quotes

Because nothing else starts with Q.

R is for recipes

Yeah, fine. Too bad you can’t even make toast.

S is for spybot

If everyone were to heed the collective advice of the geek community and forsake Internet Explorer for Firefox, nobody would need Spybot. You do need to pretty much use Google every time you want to find it though, because the URL (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/) is impossible to remember and spybot.com, .org and .net are all owned by assholes filching on Spybot’s good name. So this entry is pretty awesome. People are using Spybot, which is good, and using Google for something that actually needs searched for. As Chief Gunnery Sgt. Hartman would say, out-fucking-standing!

T is for tara reid

Looking for the titty pictures I’m sure.

But T should really stand for Thunderbird to go along with F for Firefox. The only internet application more likely than Microsoft Internet Explorer to give you a virus is Microsoft Outlook (noticing a pattern here?). If you run Outlook, dump it immediately and install Thunderbird. It’s better anyway, it’s free, and it has built in spam controls. And extensions and themes, of course.

U is for ups

I’ll say it very slowly: double-you… double-you… double-you… you… pee… ess… dot… com… you… dumb… fucking… turd.

V is for verizon

Well, thanks to shitty web design, Verizon has made the list for V. Thing is, 9 out of 10 people are looking for www.verizonwireless.com, but verizon.com brings up local service, DSL, and other crap that maybe some people on the east coast actually give a rat’s fuck about. There’s a link for wireless buried deep on that page, which takes you to another page with more crap, which then, finally, has a link to www.verizonwireless.com. Here’s a hint to the dumbasses who designed the Verizon site: Go to Google and enter “usability“.

W is for weather

I’m sure that entering “weather” into the strongest search engine on what is a vast global network of computers delivering information in all languages to all corners of the earth gave you exactly what you were looking for—the weather for Toledo Ohio on the morning of 01/26/2005.

And um, incidentally, there’s www.weather.com.

X is for xbox

Damn, I was rooting for Xenology Today.

Y is for yahoo

Dude, seriously. You’re not really that dumb, are you?

Z is for zip codes

Yeah, I can live with that.

Now that this horse is obviously dead, it’s time to beat it.

Of the most popular search terms for the 26 letters of the English alphabet:

• 10 letters (A, B, C, E, H, I, K, M, U & Y) were searches for the main part of the actual domain name of the site that was obviously being searched for. That’s roughly 38.5%. The mind boggles.
• 4 letters (D, V, W & X) were searches that would have taken you to a site that probably would have given you what you wanted had you surrounded it with “www.” and “.com” in the address bar.
• 6 letters’ searches (G, J, L, N, Q & W) were very vague. Narrow it down people. Try “toledo weather” or “lawyer jokes” or “general tso chicken recipe”.
• 1 letter (O) was redundant with another letter (D).
• 2 letters (P & T) were for stupid shit that nobody should care about.
• 5 letters (F, S, V, X & Z) were actually for useful searches.

Yes, I know those numbers add up to 28. A couple letters (W & X) made it into two categories.

Now I must ask, are people really so dumb they punch “amazon” into Google rather than typing www.amazon.com into the address bar? I think that’s probably the case, but there are some other possibilities I’ve come up with, listed below.

#1: Google steals focus

If google.com is your start page (it should probably be everybody’s) if you open your browser and begin typing in the address bar, you’ll likely get part of what you were typing in the address bar and part in the Google search box, especially if you are on dialup. This is because once the Google main page has loaded, the cursor is automagically positioned in the search box, regardless of whether or not you’re typing. Pressing enter then submits to Google.

While this can be a problem, I think the likelihood of it accounting for painfully obvious searches is small. It could up the instance of searches for “mazon.com” or “w.yahoo.com”, but not “amazon” or “yahoo” by themselves.

#2: Major web sites hacking Google

The idea here is that Amazon, Yahoo, Mapquest and Paris Hilton could be running programs that automatically submit thousands of searches to Google in an attempt to up their ranking. I don’t think this actually affects the rankings (I could be wrong, I’m not fully-versed in Google’s ranking criteria). Rankings are adjusted by the number of times a particular result link is followed, but just bulk searching may not have an effect. Even if it does, I’m sure the folks at Google are smart enough to discount consecutive hits from the same IP block when calculating the rankings.

This explanation also completely fails Hanlon’s Razor.

#3: People don’t know what the address bar is or what it’s for

It sounds crazy, but there’s people out there who have their start page set to some search engine or another (hopefully it’s Google) and don’t know how to enter an address. I overheard a conversation between my wife and a another person once where my wife was saying “open Internet Explorer (this was in the pre-Firefox days) and enter ‘www.weather.com’…OK, now see the zip code box…?” They didn’t see the zip code box. Eventually we asked what they did see, and it was something along the lines of “Yahoo search results”. They were searching Yahoo for www.weather.com, unaware that a URL goes up in the address bar.

I consider this separate from the “fucking morons” theory because I realize that there are plenty of otherwise smart people out there who are clueless about computers, just as I am clueless about calculus and playing the harp. I’ve actually even seen computers come with the browser installed so that the address bar is hidden in a cheap attempt to force users to use some shitty search engine.

#4: The internet has been taken over by morons

OK, I think you know where I stand on that one.

As an interesting side note, I’m going to mention that almost a month has past between my first seeing the Suggested Google Alphabet page and writing this. In that time I don’t think any of the search words have changed. Interestingly, since that page links live to searches for the most popular terms, it will have an effect on the most popular terms and help to keep them popular. Ironic, no?

So there you have it. When I decided to write this, I had no idea it was going to inspire such virulent rage on my part. All I can say in my defense is that the site’s called Bile Duct for a reason and that I fucking hate Paris Hilton. And the Harry Fucking Fox Agency.

On the upside, if all these words are such popular search terms, I should get a lot of inadvertent hits. Yay!

Holy Shit, it’s Rage Kage!

So I finally got around to seeing Jacob’s Ladder a few nights back. I saw the tail end of it in the early 90’s on HBO and thought it looked pretty freakin’ cool but it was never on again. I’ve wanted to see it for a few years now, but it’s kind of hard to find. None of my local video stores had it despite there being a new special edition DVD, and I didn’t really want to buy it without seeing it first.

Anyway, in order to help my friend Larry get a free iPod, I signed up for a trial of Blockbuster Online, and it was the first movie I picked.

Great movie if you like psychological horror what-the-fuck-is-real movies. Highly recommended.

Watching the credits (which I do because I’m a film snob), I recognized a familiar name. A couple actually, but the big one for me was Kyle Gass. If that name means nothing to you, you may as well stop reading now. You won’t give a fuck. But the enlightened among you will recognize that as the full name of KG, 50% of Tenacious D. He was listed as Tony. Thing is I didn’t remember a Tony in the movie.

Anyway, I scanned through the movie again looking for Kage. There’s a scene where Jacob Singer (played by Tim Robbins) has a fever of 106 degrees. His girlfriend rounds up all the neighbors to help her throw him in a bathtub filled with ice. One of those neighbors, apparently named Tony, is KG. He had no lines and is onscreen for maybe 5 seconds total. It’s strange that he was credited, considering that Macaulay Culkin had a bigger part, multiple scenes with actual lines and shit, and was never credited.

After the whole ice-bath scene plays out, Jacob awakes to a doctor looking down on him. His doctor is Lewis Black, then unknown but now semi-famous for his stand-up and his appearances on The Daily Show. He actually had a line: “You’re a lucky guy Jake. You must have friends in high places.” This line is ironic, but you’d have to see the movie to understand.

Also in the movie are a pre-Pulp Fiction Ving Rhames, a pre-Seinfeld Jason Alexander and a pre-ER Eriq Lasalle. But who gives a shit about them, that was totally fucking KG helping with the ice!!!

Anyway, now if I ever have the good fortune to meet the underrated half of the D, I know exactly what I’ll say: “I loved you in Jacob’s Ladder!”

KG and another guy

KG, Tim Robbins and that other guy

KG looks worried

Lewis Black

Some credits

This is Your Child on Drugs.

So I was watching TV the other day and saw a new Partnership for a Drug-Free America commercial. Actually I don’t think they’re called that anymore. They have some new 21st century name or something. Anyway, you know who I’m talking about. The commercial featured an average looking teenage boy doing a talking-head monologue that went something like this:

Hey teenager, are your parents watching this with you? Good. Have they talked to you about the drug ecstasy yet? No? They still think partying is about drinking beer, huh? They don’t know good kids just like you take ecstasy. They’ve never asked about the vitamins in your room or the glow-stick jewelry. Ecstasy can kill you and drugs are bad.

OK, I don’t think he actually said “drugs are bad”, but I forget how he wraps up.

Anyway, I just want to say thank God for this commercial! It’s high time parents were made aware of the drug ecstasy (not to be confused with the emotion ecstasy) and its inextricable link to glow-stick jewelry. Where there is glow-stick jewelry there is, without a doubt, ecstasy. Probably ketamine too.

But unfortunately, this commercial doesn’t go nearly far enough toward educating parents. Every drug out there has definitive warning signs, so as a public service I’m going to list them below.

By far, the biggest indicator of drug use in general is moodiness and rebelliousness in teenagers. Non drug using teenagers are perfectly happy, self-actualized individuals that have super relationships with their parents and their entire families. If your teenager shies away from family activities and seems to want to spend a lot of time out of the house or alone, seek counseling immediately.

If your teenager exhibits moodiness and rebellion, the music he or she listens to and the way they dress can help you determine exactly what drug they are addicted to. Generally speaking, if your child listens to the same music you listened to when you were young, it’s a safe bet they take the same drugs you did. Classic rock means marijuana and 80’s pop is a sure sign of cocaine.

Here are some specific warning signs that your child is in trouble with drugs and other nefarious activities.

Does your child wear baggy hip-hop clothing and listen to rap music?

Your child smokes crack.

Does your child wear tie-dyed t-shirts and listen to The Grateful Dead, Phish, Widespread Panic or Government Mule?

Your child smokes pot and takes LSD.

Does your child listen to The Velvet Underground or Nirvana?

Definitely heroin. If no track marks are evident, he or she shoots it under his toenails or eyelids.

Does your child listen to heavy metal music?

Methamphetamine.

Does your child listen to the blues?

Your child shot a man in Memphis.

Does your child listen to Marilyn Manson?

Your child worships The Devil and fucks dead kittens (unless your child is a girl, in which case she fucks live dobermans).

Does your child listen to techno dance music?

Ecstasy and ketamine again. That this was left out of the PSA described above is a huge disservice to paranoid parents.

Does your child wear ripped clothing, dye their hair funny colors and listen to punk rock?

Your child sniffs butyl nitrate and is probably bisexual, unless they are just a poseur.

Is your child a high-school cheerleader or football player?

You have nothing to worry about. Your child is a good old fashioned red blooded American alcoholic.

Does your child listen to 1940’s swing music by black bandleaders?

Your child smokes marijuana, but spells it “marihuana”.

Does your child lift weights?

Duh!! Steroids!! If your daughter lifts weights she probably also wolfs muff.

Is your child a teen starlet?

She smokes cigarettes and snorts cocaine.

Does your child wear Wranglers jeans, shirts with snap buttons and listen to country and/or western music?

Again, nothing to worry about. It’s only beer and Jack Daniels.

Does your teenage daughter spend much of her free time at the mall?

Your daughter sucks cock for money.

Does your teenage son spend much of his free time at the mall?

Your son sucks cock for free.

Does your child listen to Christian rock?

Your child is an idiot. They also have no taste and no friends.

Would your child rather spend time on the internet than watching TV?

This is huge. The best you can hope for is that your child is a geek. Other signs of geekdom include reading when not required to (especially science fiction), Monty Python and Dungeons and Dragons. Dungeons and Dragons is also a sure sign of Satanism, so seek immediate religious counseling and possibly exorcism.

If internet use is high but no symptoms of geekdom exist, there is only one other possibility. Your child is meeting middle-aged men in chat rooms then meeting them at the mall to have sex with them.

Does your teen seem nervous around the opposite sex?

Your child is homosexual.

While the temptations facing teens in the 21st century are many, by familiarizing yourself with the warning signs and remaining vigilant, you can save your children. If your child exhibits any of these warning signs, they should be institutionalized at once.

The Sad Case of Ida Wilcox

In the 22 years that The Price is Right has aired on CBS, a total of eight people have died during a taping of the show. Five were from heart attacks (three when called to Contestants’ Row, one when called onto stage, and one at Johnny Olsen’s shouting of “A new car!”). Two were the quiet passings of elderly audience members, and the last was the 1986 demise of one Ida Wilcox from Macon Georgia, described below.

Aside from Ms. Wilcox and the two heart attacks which occurred on stage, the shows still aired. The elderly audience members were quietly removed off-camera, and the three “come on down” heart attack victims were carried away on stretchers by studio paramedics amidst Bob Barker’s assurances that they were OK. In each case a new audience member was called to Contestants’ Row and the footage was edited for broadcast.

But the most spectacular Price is Right death remains Ida Wilcox.

Ida was called to contestants’ row just before the second round. She was the picture of Southern-Baptist propriety, dressed in a navy-blue blouse with lace frills at the neck, matching blue slacks and a blue hat decorated with sprigs of baby’s breath. Upon arrival, she excitedly informed Bob that it was her 78th birthday that day. In fact, she had been chosen as a contestant for that very reason.

Also in Contestants’ Row that day was one Jimmy Reese, a body builder from Dubuque, Iowa. Weighing in at 300 pounds of solid muscle, the six-foot-three Jimmy dwarfed his podium. He wore stone-washed blue jeans and a black t-shirt a size too small, his gargantuan biceps straining the seams as they oozed from the arm holes. His demeanor however seemed incongruous with his mammoth proportions. He placed his bids sheepishly, stooping down to speak softly into the too-low microphone, and appeared noticeably nervous to be on television. He occasionally wiped beaded sweat from his forehead with his slab-of-meat-like hand.

At the beginning of round three, fortune smiled on Jimmy Reese as the item up for bid was a home gym system. It was the exact model Jimmy had coveted for several months, and he was intimately familiar with its price and specifications. He won the gym and made it on stage though he didn’t win $100 for guessing the price precisely. He went on to win a grandfather clock and a dining room set playing the Clock Game.

Ida Wilcox, however, never made it on stage.

Inevitably, the time came for the first Showcase Showdown where Jimmy and two other contestants would have a chance to spin the big wheel. Jimmy was the second of the days first (and only) three contestants to approach the wheel. The Berkeley sorority girl who spun first ended up with a meager 65 cents.

Jimmy’s turn came and he reached for a high grip on the wheel and pulled sharply down. Unfortunately, his nervousness had led his beefy palms to sweat and his grip slipped from the handle. The wheel slowly went “boop boop boop” but did not even complete a single turn. The audience erupted into laughter and Jimmy turned beet red. Bob paused the proceedings to gently rib Jimmy (much to the audience’s amusement), saying “Now Jimmy, I know a big guy like you can get that wheel to go around at least once.” Jimmy wiped his palms on his jeans and regained his composure. He made up his mind that this time he was going to spin that fucking wheel for all it was worth.

Jimmy grabbed hold of the wheel and squatted down. Then, using his over-developed thighs, he straightened and jumped 26 inches into the air turning the wheel backward as he rose. As he descended he held tight, directing his downward momentum into the big wheel. Upon landing, he continued to shove the front of the wheel downward with all his might until he had to let go or risk being pulled under it. Upon releasing his grip he stumbled backward and fell on the stage, bruising his tailbone.

Bob Barker and the other contestants on stage stared slack-jawed as the wheel spun like it had never spun before. The “boop boop boop” of the spinning wheel blended into one continuous tone, the numbers an unreadable blur of white, green and red.

After ten seconds, the wheel showed no signs of slowing down. Bob made no attempt to fill the time. The entire studio stared in rapt attention. After a few more seconds, a hideous creaking noise broke the silence. Expressions of awe turned to shock and fear throughout the studio as the left axle of the wheel broke. The wheel leaned 15 degrees from its upright position but still showed no signs of slowing. Moments later—though it surely seemed an eternity for the participants—the right axle broke free and the wheel hit the stage with a deafening thud. “Jesus Fucking Christ!” yelled Rod Roddy into his microphone as the wheel began to roll across the stage toward Contestants’ Row.

The audience erupted into panicked screams. Housewives shrieked and sailors wept. Two of Barker’s Beauties were flung hard to the stage as they grabbed at the wheel in a futile attempt to curb its momentum.

Poor Ida Wilcox was unable to flee quickly enough, and the wheel crashed into her podium, knocking it free and pinning her between it and the first row of seats. Two hours later she was officially pronounced dead due to internal bleeding at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Studio City, California.

Charges of involuntary manslaughter were briefly brought against Jimmy Reese but were quickly dropped. CBS settled out of court with the family of Ida Wilcox for an undisclosed sum. Jimmy spent the next three years in counseling and now works for Ron’s Landscaping in Iowa City, Iowa. He still enjoys his home gym, grandfather clock and dining room set.

Am I Getting Enough Copper?

So this morning I’m eating a bowl of Multi-Grain Cheerios. During breakfast, you can either stare blankly into space or read the cereal box. Now Multi-Grain Cheerios don’t have fun little games on the box like Frosted Sugar Balls do, so I have to make do with the nutritional information. That’s when I noticed that my Cheerios have 2% of the RDA of copper.

Now of course I’m familiar with iron as a nutrient, I even remember when Mr. Wizard blended up some corn flakes and sucked the iron filings out with a magnet. That was a few decades ago, so my memory of it may not be 100% but I’m pretty sure he said, “See Timmy? When they say iron, they fucking mean iron.”

I’m also aware of zinc and magnesium as dietary metal requirements, and a quick perusal of the Periodic Table of the Elements reveals that even sodium and potassium are alkali metals. But copper? I’d never heard of copper in one’s diet, let alone a recommended daily allowance of the stuff. I quickly investigated the pantry.

The only other product I found that listed copper was a box of plain Cheerios (as opposed to the Multi-Grain ones). Apparently the makers of Cheerios are making a half-hearted (I mean, 2%? Come on!) attempt to stamp out copper deficiency. It wasn’t in any other cereals, or the graham crackers, marshmallows, chili paste or any of the other items I looked at. This would lead me to believe that unless I want to eat 50 bowls of Cheerios, I’m not getting enough copper in my diet. I find the idea that I should be eating copper far more disturbing than the idea that I’m not getting enough. I mean, I suppose I shouldn’t, it makes about as much sense as eating iron, but what next? Should I pig out on albacore tuna to get my RDA of mercury? And am I getting enough tungsten in my diet? And what of iridium?

Anyway, I’m going to start swallowing a penny every day I think.

All right, genuine curiosity got the best of me so I decided to look up why the fuck I need to eat copper. According to this pdf document it functions as a “component of enzymes in iron metabolism”. While this description isn’t exactly clear, I think what they’re trying to say is that copper helps you metabolize iron. That strikes me as ironic.