Bill here. I’m taking care of the FoF post today since Jena’s getting ready to roll around in the mud in Shakopee for 7 weekends in some strange pagan ritual called the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. There’s only one problem. I’m not sure what to write about. I guess the point of these is to find fun internet time wasters but all I do while Jena’s gone to the Ren Fest is eat Little Caesar’s pizza and watch shit on Hulu. A list of links to my favorite shows isn’t going to make for much of a post and nobody needs to know how much anime I watch (way too much).
Not a problem. I’ll just google some shit and do the “I feel lucky” option. Maybe do a post about the shit I find doing that.
Alright. Slight problem.
Everytime I start to type something into the google search bar it autocompletes and the “I’m feeling lucky” bar disappears. I wonder what’ll happen if I just hit “I’m feeling lucky” without even typing anything into the search bar. Has anybody even done that? Where will the internet take me?
Huh. When I mouse over the “I’m feeling lucky” button it does a slot machine reel into another word. What happens when I click “I feel wonderful”?
Neat! What about when I click “I’m feeling trendy”?
Well how about that? There seems to be plenty of choices when I mouse over. “I’m feeling artistic” will take you to the Google Cultural Institute which I didn’t even know was a thing –
There’s tons of more “I’m feeling” choices, too. I’d say I could do this all day but once the wife and kid are gone I’m going to get a Little Caesar’s pizza and watch stuff on Hulu and Netflix until my eyes glaze over.
Monthly Archives: August 2013
WWE Superstar Comes Out as Gay
Darren Young (no relation), WWE Superstar came out out of the closet in an impromptu TMZ interview at Los Angeles International airport. After the announcement, he ripped off his shirt, picked up three suitcases with one hand, looked around and said “anybody got a problem with that?” Everybody in baggage claim just silently shook their heads. Even the guy in the cutoff flannel with the confederate flag hat.
Young is the first person to identify as gay while actively in a sport where you think you’d see a lot more of that. I mean, this is a sport full of guys that oil themselves up and barely wear anything. When they do wear clothes it looks like this –
This is a huge step for widespread acceptance of homosexuality in places where you don’t normally see it. While he certainly is a trailblazer in his sport, I doubt he’ll come across any bullying or harassment. I certainly wouldn’t give him shit about it. He looks like he could rip snap me in half –
Maybe that’s what the equality movement needs, more intimidating looking queers. If the WWE had more hulking, roided-out gay men on their roster then homophobes would stop using “fag” as an insult to denote weakness or femininity and start using it as a warning towards agressive macho men.
Congratulations to pioneer Darren Young. I’d say it takes guts to be the first to come out in your field but honestly you could tell TMZ you have sex with trees and I don’t think anybody would question you about it.
Seriously What the Fuck is Going on in Egypt?
For those of you that haven’t been paying attention, Egypt has been a complete political shitshow since forever. They have a rich history of political upheaval and things have really picked up in pace over the last two years. Here’s what happened in just a short amount of time.
pre-2011
Hosni Mubarak, vice president of Egypt, was appointed as President in 1981 after president Anwar Sadat was assassinated, most likely by Mubarak. In his nearly 30 years as president corruption ran rampant and civil liberties were trampled. Fed up, the people of Egypt held massive protests and Mumbarak stepped down from office and free elections were held.
2012
Sick of social inequalities and limits on free speech, Egyptians use their first free election to create a Theocracy because they’re new at this. They elect Mohamed Morsi, head of the Muslim Brotherhood and one intimidating looking motherfucker.
After just a few months in office. Morsi grants himself new judicial and legislative powers that he said were just to protect the new constitution while it was being drafted. The people of Egypt wiped the sweat off their brows, took their protest signs which they just set down, crossed out “Mubarak”, wrote in “Morsi” and wearily took back to the streets.
2013
Protests against Morsi grow and grow. Eventually, the Egyptian military issue an Ultimatum to the government to meet the demands of the people. Morsi publicly rejected the ultimatum because have you seen the guy? The military intervened and removed Morsi from office.
2013 (like two days later)
There’s massive protests against Morsi’s removal because this country just can’t make up it’s fucking mind. Supporters of Morsi clash with people who are glad he’s gone, the military intervenes and everybody in Egypt wonders how a military coup could have become so violent. The protests and violence have only grown and now the military has issued a State of Emergency and the Huffington Post is losing it’s fucking mind –
The crazy thing is that Egypt was in a constant state of emergency when Mubarak was in office so they’re back to square one.
Hopefully they’ll get everything sorted out and they’ll finally be a true democracy where the government is not run by the military or the church, but by the rich.
Winter Olympics Boycott.
The 2014 Winter Olympic games will be held in Sochi, Russia. Russia seemed like a natural pick since the country has a rich tradition of inventing winter games like “Die in Cold Alone” and “Ration the Potato” but many people are unhappy with the decision. Ever since Russia recently enacted draconian legislation banning the “promotion of homosexuality to minors”, life has been hell on earth for GLBT people there. Pride rallies are turning violent with police brutality becoming the norm, gay people are being beaten in the streets, some people are even filming the beatings and posting it online and law enforcement is doing nothing to stop this.
This is awful, but this won’t stop me from watching the Winter Olympics, it’s just changing the reason I don’t watch the Winter Olympics.
The winter games are so goddamn boring. The most exciting sport they have is basically the downhill cuddle –
and their most boring sport actually involves cleaning –
So yeah, I wasn’t about to watch the Winter Olympics anyway but if it will help raise awareness of the horrible injustice happening against GLBT people in Russia then I’ll totally say it’s because of a boycott.
It’s not always easy being an activist. Except this time. This time being an activist is the easiest thing in the world.
Discrimination Against Mondays
Last Thursday, Monday filed discrimination charges against the other days of the week, citing repeated accounts of being called depressing, difficult, and the worst day of the week.
Harassment and bullying started in the workplace over morning cups of coffee and hangovers from Sunday, but quickly moved to the internet in the form of Facebook statuses and LOLcats.
Here are some examples of harassment and bullying that Monday has included in it’s very lengthy discrimination case:
“A number of songs feature Monday, often as a day of depression, anxiety, or melancholy. For example, Monday, Monday (1966) from the Mamas & the Papas, Rainy Days and Mondays (1971) from the Carpenters, I Don’t Like Mondays (1979) from the Boomtown Rats, and Manic Monday (1986) from the Bangles.” -Wikipedia
Many of the internet images being passed around against Mondays:
It’s even recorded some slanderous words about it:
And even Youngnotions has been cited as anti-Monday.
But it turns out, the rest of the work week is just as depressing as Monday.
Reported in the Journal of Positive Psychology, a study found that people are just as depressed Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday as they are on Monday. Only Friday showed a slight elevation in spirits.
Monday claims that slander has caused it to lose its position of “first day of the week” to Sunday in America and on religious calendars, and fears if left unhindered, the trend will pick up in Europe and international calendars.
Sunday was unavailable for comment.
Fuck Off Friday: Learn Something
I’ve received the books for my son’s next school year. Sales are springing up in department stores everywhere. You can just sense kids trying to get that last bit of play out of them before being shipped of to our institutionalized classrooms to learn things.
In the Young household, the teenager goes to an online school, because we feel it’s the perfect balance of learning what you need to function in our society and being given the freedom to study things that actually interest you. A regular brick and mortar school was crushing my child’s natural curiosity, so we looked for something that encouraged outside study.
You don’t need to be in an online school to push your curiosity and learn new things. There is a whole world of online content at your disposal.
The most obvious are TEDTalks, where experts come in and give a talk on something. Here is a talk on Existential Risk.
Now, I find these talks fun, but not everyone wants to listen to someone talk about The End of Humanity. They want a more playful education. Well I’ve got you covered.
Crash Course is a YouTube channel that has informative summaries of sections of history, chemistry, and literature. I’m a huge fan of this course on Islam:
Why are there so many nerdy white guys talking? If these don’t appeal to you, may I present Thug Notes- video summaries and analysis of classical works by a Thug.
So go out there and learn something!
We’re Running Out of Things to Make Expensive.
A couple of weeks ago I saw a story on my facebook feed for a restaurant in L.A. that has a 45 page water menu and a “water sommelier”. I put quotations around “water sommelier” because that’s just a thing they made up and not a real profession.
The same restaurant came up on my newsfeed today with a different article and I wanted to write about it but what do you say? Obviously it’s bullshit. There was even an episode of Bullshit! dedicated to bottled water. A Norwegian news station reported that Voss water is basically tap water and a writer for Jezebel did a $12 “water flight” and reported that two of the waters tasted like water and the third tasted like shit.
This is nothing new. Bottled water has been fooling consumers and cluttering landfills for over a decade, some guy just figured how to increase the profit margin on it. The problem is I’m having a hard time thinking of a parody thing to compare it to. Like, what cheap thing could you jack up the price on to satirize this? My first thought was air but Oxygen Bars was a fad that died out years ago. I once knew a lady that threw birthday parties for dogs and made a ton of money off of it. Shitty jeans cost more money than sturdy ones. Rich idiots will pay for anything if you market it correctly and we’re running out of things to “expensify”.
The only thing I can think of that hasn’t been done is garbage. Like, charge people a bunch of money to buy garbage food.
Stay with me, here.
The first instinct is to market it as homeless chic but that won’t attract people. You have to convince them that food being in the garbage actually makes it better. You could say that pairing different foods in different garbage cans produces different taste combinations. Much like European cheese with maggots is considered a delicacy, the more flies that have had their way with your food, the better.
The garbage will be all locally sourced and is, by default, 100% recycled.
Okay this started as a joke but if I can get an investor in on this we could become insanely rich (almost went with the “filthy rich” pun but decided against it).
Security Flaw in Google Chrome Discovered.
The Huffington Post recently reported it’s much easier to get somebody’s passwords than you think. All you need to do is go into their google chrome settings via chrome://settings/passwords and all your saved passwords will be displayed. Personally, I never have Chrome save my passwords anyway since I only have one easy to remember password (pissparty69) but this could spell trouble for people who save sensitive passwords on chrome and let people they don’t completely trust use their computer.
This is just one of the many security flaws that have popped up for Chrome over the years. Here’s just a few of the flaws that it’s had in the past that google has since fixed.
Pressing alt+f7 with browser open turned webcam on whenever adult content is playing and sends a link to the streaming video to everybody in your gmail contacts.
Any 16 digit number copied onto clipboard set to default paste.
All twitter DMs sent from verified accounts forwarded to Gawker.
Google+ showed google search history during the two weeks everybody used google+
ctrl+shift+b posts to every social network that you’re logged into that you’re totally searching in incognito mode.
Googling “pressure cooker” would send police to your home to question you (oh wait that actually happened).
When questioned about fixing the flaw, a representative from google rolled his eyes, made a jerking motion with his fist and said that they were going to get right on that because they really feared losing users to Internet Explorer.
Baiting for the Masters
Recently, one of our favorite readers sent in an article about a boy who masturbated 42 times and died.
According to Douglas Adams, the answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42. Maybe he just wanted to test the theory?
It’s almost certain this article is a fake. It’s from an unrecognized news source and seems unlikely. But I always like to check up, just in case.
I’ve checked Snopes, Google, and other sites to get my “this is fake” verification. Nothing. Which means I have to do all the hard work myself.
Just like when I masturbate.
The first thing that should tip us off is that there is an exact count on the number of times he jerked it. As if someone was sitting next to his bed with one of those little clicker things.
I suppose he could have connected that webcam he had been reportedly telling his classmates about. But then, that’s a pretty weird detail to leave out of a news story.
But the thing that really tells me that this article is fake is that you can’t simply masturbate to death. People who have died during masturbation have done so from outside influences. Auto-erotic asphyxiation or toys misused.
I mean, what was it that actually killed him in jerking it too much? He ran out of semen and his body just shut down? He rubbed his dick raw and bleed to death? A heart attack?
But you can’t just “die from masturbation.” I know- I looked it up on a reputable source.
Yahoo! answers.
Newly Unveiled Lab Grown Hamburger is Single Greatest Threat to Humanity.
Scientists have recently grown a batch of hamburger meat in-vitro. If production could be scaled up and cost driven down, lab grown meat could replace beef from cattle altogether. This could potentially be great news for the environment as the 1.3 billion cattle on the planet use a lot of water and produce tons of greenhouse gases through the production of methane.
That’s right. Cow farts are killing this planet. True story.
While this could be a great sign for the environment this could potentially spell disaster for humanity. We, as a species, need to keep eating cows if we’re to survive.
Cattle were one of the first animals to be domesticated by humans about 10,000 years ago. Why were they among the first species to be domesticated by early man? Because they were the greatest threat.
People knew the danger posed by cattle if they weren’t tamed. These are 1500 pound beasts with horns we’re talking about. By keeping them docile, penned and full of antibiotics we’re safe but once the need for old fashioned meat dies out these cows and bulls will be released into the wild. With nobody to keep them penned up and fed they’ll have to wander further and further for food, all that walking turning fat into lean muscle. Without careful, supervised breeding taking place different breeds will reproduce. Individual traits from the breeds will mix making stronger, more resilient offspring. After just a few years the gentle giants we so graciously released into the wild will turn from this –
to this –
These reawakened beasts will storm our cities, remembering the millennia of torture and confinement we’ve inflicted on them. They’ll tie up the testicles of the men and ride around on their backs while squeezing the milk out of the women’s breasts. The only people who will be spared will be the Hindus who have been kissing the cows’ asses, knowing this day may very well come.
Please. Eat as many hamburgers as you can. For the love of God, eat meat if you want humanity to live!