So yeah, I have a profile on a few online dating sites. I don't really bother with them anymore because I find online dating to be much more work than just going out and meeting people--and far less rewarding. But I still keep the profiles up just in case.
I got a message yesterday at a site called "Geek 2 Geek," and it's what it sounds like, a place to meet geeky people. So anyway, I get a message on this geek-dating site, and the chick in the photo is liike, suspiciously attractive. Not that the site is all uggo chicks or anything, and not that I'm quasimodo and wouldn't have an attractive woman like me...but she was just too pretty to be trolling for geek-booty on the internets. Her profile was vague and non-specific. She stated things like "I like watching movies" or "I like going to concerts." She might as well have said, "I like eating food." Also suspicious was the complete lack of anything remotely geeky in her interests--on a site called "Geek 2 Geek" that sticks out like a sore thumb.
And her message to me was "I like your profile, contact me at [randomemailaddress]@yahoo.com I like to get to know you more better."
"Know you more better?" Seriously, who the fuck talks like that?
So at this point my Spidey-senses were tingling and I sent "her" an email wanting specific questions answered:
"What did you like about my profile? You say you like concerts, what's your favorite type of music? What's your favorite band?"
Her response were more suspiciously hot pictures and a request to get on Yahoo Instant Messenger to chat--not a single one of my questions were answered. Huge red flag. Did some googling and found out that this is a common tactic for Nigerian scammers--you know the old tune: "oh my dead uncle was presidents of the Nigeria and I need you to cash a traveler's check and wire money back to me, I give you half!" --except now they swipe photographs of models off of a modeling agency's website and stalk people on dating sites before giving the scam spiel.
I checked the sourcecode for the email and ran the IP addresses through the WhoIs database, and surprise, surprise, guess where the email originated from?
FUCKING NIGERIA
I immediately reported the profile to the dating site and they deleted the profile.
Bottom line: don't fuck with geeks, we know what an IP address is and how to track it, you Nigerian dickslaps!
There's crazy, then there's this guy: Steven Cousineau "aka Dusty Roads," part-time floor installer and full-time raving madman. Or is he? (Protip: he is. He so totally is)
The first time we see "Dusty," he's wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words "future billionaire." On anyone else, that might come off as excessively cocky or even arrogant. But not Dusty Roads! For reasons that will soon become clear, "Dusty" knows this will be true.
The next shot is of him pushing on the doors to the Judges' room, muttering to himself about how he's going to tear the door down. The narrator says he's "enthusiastic," but this is mere understatement. Dusty starts bellowing to the cameraman about how badass he is, how he's going to win, and that the doors to the Judges lead into the future. Meanwhile, they cut away to the other contestants looking at him in shock and horror. He then goes back to pounding on the doors like a junkie looking to score his next fix.
Now we finally get to see Dusty's genius invention, the one he's sure will make him the champion of this contest and change the world forever. He wheels in a bicycle he calls the "A-cycle, the most dynamic bicycle in the world." He then digs out two more wheels claiming that they're "shields." He puts one next to the bike's front wheel, exclaiming "50%!" then another by the back wheel, "50%! Now the bicycle is 100% more safe!" How the bicycle is somehow safe with two extra wheels leaning against it is not explained, but that's just because we're not awesome enough to understand! For you see, Dusty proclaims that "it's the most intense ride you'll ever take!"
When asked if he invented a special bike, he answers "no." Confused, the judges ask what he actually invented, and he says, "my invention is the wheel!"
Yeah, fuck you, cavemen! What've you got now, rocks and sharp sticks? You see, Dusty's so full of awesome that he transcends linear temporal existence. He's made the space-time continuum his bitch and invented the wheel tens of thousands of years after it's already been invented! Take that, causality!
"I invented the wheels of change. They're exactly what America's looking for right now, and I'm proud of 'em!"
After a moment of stunned silence, one judge has the temerity to ask Dusty if he could find anything on the market that would be competitive to his wheels. Dusty smacks him in the mouth verbally by proclaiming, "I am the competition!" To mere mortals, that response wouldn't make any sense or logic, but that's because you don't exist simultaneously in the past, present and future like Dusty does. He's everywhere, therefore he's competing against himself! That's why he knows he's going to win, because he's everyone in the competition all at once! I think i just gave myself a headache...
Undaunted, the judges continue to press him on why his wheels are so special. Dusty shows them mercy and explains, "this wheel has a subliminal safety signal built into it." He spins one wheel, "when this bike stops, those wheels keep spinning to send a message out to the environment to be safe on the road!" See, Dusty wants to make sure that trees and rocks and squirrels know that...uh....wait, what?
The foolish judges, with their painfully limited linear existence, callously vote no on Dusty's genius. You can see the fury and utter disbelief in his face as each turns him down. After all of them vote no, Dusty is flabbergasted. FLABBERGASTED!
"Are you serious? This is about saving and changing lives...that haven't even been born yet!" Aha! So he's trying to save the future by changing the past and...I've gone cross-eyed
So the judges politely ask him to leave. But Dusty just stands there in disbelief. So they ask again, and Dusty continues to stand there like someone who just got dumped at the prom. "You guys just don't want to do this, huh? You don't see anything here, this is just a hunk o' junk?" The judges, fearing for their puny mortal lives, say "no, no!" the way a man does when his wife asks him if she looks fat in an outfit.
After being led out by security, Dusty says, "don't worry, I ain't gonna snap, guys!" Obviously, because you snapped years ago...
Don't worry about ol' Dusty Roads. I hear he's hard at work inventing fire as we speak.
Man, American Inventor has to have the craziest bunch of wackos any reality TV show has ever had. Even moreso than American Idol and its ilk. Seriously, this thing is a gold mine for observational comedy. I'd ask why no one has told me about this show before, but it's on ABC, and nobody actually watches ABC.
Anthony Steffan's invention may not be as disgusting as Hector Ortega's piss poncho, but it's still insane. My friends, I present to you Anthony's "Perfect Pet Petter"
Right off the bat, we can see Mr. Steffan is a total fruitcake. He starts rambling on about pets' psychological needs and then somehow segues into how humans are becoming more intelligent before the judges wisely cut him off. This is the kind of non-sequitor only madmen make because they've spent too long peering into the abyss of their own insanity. Or they've been sniffing glue. I'm not sure which.
So they tell his ass to get on with it. They ask at about 0:33, "what does it do?" Anthony then rambles on about its optional features, gibbering on about motion detectors and timers without actually explaining what those features relate to. So they ask, firmly, again. "What does it do?" To which Mr. Steffan finally answers, "it'll pet your dog."
He then activates it around 0:51, unleashing robotic horror for any canine in earshot. The mannequin hand hot-glued to the machine jerks erratically back and forth while a loud, booming voice declares unemotionally "THAT'S A GOOD BOY YOU'RE A GOOD BOY I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU YOU'RE SUCH A GOOD BOY COME HERE KISS KISS" in an endless loop. I don't know what kind of dogs Mr. Steffan has been around, but any dog I've ever seen would shit bricks the minute the robo-yelling started. What dog would be stupid enough to equate a screaming box with a mannequin hand jutting out of it with the human their missing anyway?
Mr. Steffan proudly proclaims, "it's phenominal!" despite the faces of the judges curling up in fear and disgust as any dog would upon the activation of the canine-torture device. At 1:12, the judges have mercy upon us and canines around the world and ask him to turn it off, the hollow bellowing trails away in a stuttering fade "YOU'RE A GOOD BOY I LO-LO-LO-LO....."
After berating him for his stupidity and wasting time, he goes off spouts awful poetry and then has the audacity to compare himself to the likes of Thomas Edison.
"Gone again, away from home. Poor little pet, left all alone... [awkward pause] Don't be afraid, have no fear! The Perfect Pet Petter is here!"
"They laughed at Thomas Edison, too. But I'll be laughing all the way to the bank! Ha ha"
He didn't laugh at the end there, he actually says, "ha ha" I'm pretty sure Edison wasn't laughed at, either. He actually came up with useful ideas at the right time in history, and his shit actually worked. And even if people did laugh at Edison, he'd still laugh at Anthony Steffan and his animal audio torture machine.
So I was enjoying Seanbaby's second coming of awesome on Cracked.com. He wrote a blog about The most glorious failures in reality TV. It was classic Seanbaby material, some of his best. Unfortunately, since he had to break it down into a list, he had to split his acerbic wit among 10 targets. I felt that #6, American Inventor's Hector Ortega was enough of a fail that the entire blog could have been about him. So I've decided to do a full breakdown of Mr. Ortega's nutbar invention as well as his delusional zeal over it.
First off, here's the full clip:
Now, for the scathing commentary!
Okay, right at 0:53, Hector asks, "what do you do when you desperately need to do number one, but there are no bathrooms available?"
Alright, first of all, nobody over the age of 5 calls it "number one" unless they're talking to people under the age of 5.
Secondly, the answer to this question should be "go behind a bush/alley/tree/rock/etc." But it's not, obviously, because this is an invention show. Cue ridiculously overcomplicated solution to a simple problem: the Bladder Buddy!
From 1:04 to 1:52, Hector does a demonstration of the product: don it like a cloak, zip it up so it looks like your head is sticking out of a body bag, then proceed to urinate into a pouch on the inside of the bag. He explains that the appeal is that "no one can see what you're doing!" Okay, but you're hiding what you're doing in the most conspicuous way possible. Who wouldn't shoot a strange glance at some nut standing in a full-body condom? Does it muffle sound too? Because I'm sure anyone nearby giving him strange looks could probably hear him pissing in that thing...and then even if the sound of piss is muffled, the inevitable post-urination body shiver would give away what he was doing. That's not even getting into the fact that if it somehow became mass-produced, everyone would know what you were in and what you were doing, even if they couldn't see it directly.
Then you fold it up and put it in a bag and carry it with you! Who wants to carry their waste with them? Is that somehow more convenient that peeing behind a bush?
But it gets crazier! 1:53-2:06 he points out that it can come in different colors! And "if you really want to get fancy" it can come in leather and rhinestones! Hey, looking to draw more attention to yourself while you're trying to hide the fact that you're urinating in public? Try covering your piss-cloak in shiny things!
But that's just a precursor to the crowning moment of insanity here, at 2:07, Hector asks, "what about women?" and introduces us to the Bladder Buddy's optional vagina module! Yes, that's right. Hector made a "funnel-like thing" that looks suspiciously like a coffee filter that a woman can put in her ladyparts and pee in public just like a man! Sisters are doing it for themselves! This must be why he included the "leather and rhinestones" option: because if you're going to pee standing up in public with a coffee filter jammed up your hoohah, you might as well look FABULOUS while doing it, right ladies?
The show's judges ask him, at 2:23, if he's actually used it. He replies that he "tried it once at a bus stop" and that while they could tell he was doing something "unusual" they couldn't tell what he was doing. First of all, if you're going to judge people's reactions to public urination, I don't think a New York City bus stop is the most....unbiased place in the world to do so. Hell, he was probably standing in day-old dried piss while he was "testing" his "invention." Secondly, they were looking at you weird because you were standing around with your head sticking out of a giant plastic bag!
Naturally, the judges unanimously reject this ludicrous invention. Hector, still delusional, says he's "confused" that they think it's a "joke." Really? You're confused, Hector? You're confused. I'm confused that you never once stopped to think that your invention was overly complicated, unmarketable, and completely conspicuous. You invented a giant body condom to piss in and then take with you when you're done, when you could just as easily run into a store, behind a bush, or whatever. There's no part of that that isn't batshit insane.
The comedy even continues into the youtube comments! When someone came up with the same sarcastic answer I had to Hector's "number one" question (go in an alley), one person replied with "but the cops can arrest you for that because it's public urination!" Right. Can you show me the city codes that say wearing a Dracula Pee Cape means you're no longer in public?
Or the softies who say "what if he has a bladder problem? didn't think about that, did you, you big sarcastic jerks!" Actually, I did. They invented something for people with bladder problems: adult diapers. Are adult diapers humiliating? I'm sure they are, but at least they're inconspicuous. Everyone is going to look at you inside a pee tent, and if it were sold in stores, everyone would know what it is and what you were doing.
And really, where are you going to be where there's no bathroom available, but you can't go behind a building or a bush? The desert? If you're lost in the desert, you have bigger problems than someone seeing you take a piss.
Look, I love superheroes, I have ever since I watched the SuperFriends on Saturday mornings in the 80s while eating bowls of over-sugared cereal. But I stopped believing I could be one when I was 10. It's great that these people want to help their community/society or whatever, but dressing up in garish costumes and talking like a nutcase is just going to get someone hurt. SERIOUSLY hurt.
What's worse is that these folks actually believe their own nonsense. They really believe they have superpowers. Take "Entemo" from the second link above. He really believes he has a "paranormal" connection with insects.
And then there's this shit. When asked which other "real" superheroes he takes seriously, Entemo replies:
Everyone I can sense as being "the real deal". Thanks to my Parallelogram ability, it's not that hard.
Okay, first off, what the fuck is a parallelogram ability supposed to be?
You know what? Forget it. I really don't want to know his batshit-insane explanation, because it'll be complete bullcrap.
Then there's "Terrifica" who's even more delusional. She refers to people as "superhuman" or "un-superhuman" (the correct term is just normal "human", jackass). She says she only focuses on protecting women from sexual assault but that she's a pacifist and doesn't fight. So what does she do, lecture them? She'll just end up being the victim instead.
I can appreciate their desire to do more and help, but these people are just fruitcakes who are going to get themselves or someone else hurt in their delusional antics. Leave the crime-fighting to the professionals, kids.
1. "You just got served!" Hey, 1984 called and they want their stupid breakdancing contest lingo back. And their breakdancing contests. And their fucking breakdancing.
2. "You had me at hello." While we're on the subject of past years calling for their shit back, can we stop using this line from Jerry Maguire already? It's been 12 damn years and it's not even fun to use it in an ironic manner anymore. It's just old.
3. "[X] jumped the shark" Sad to say, but claiming that things have jumped the shark has in itself, jumped the shark. On a side note, claiming someone has "jumped the couch" is still cool, because it makes fun of Tom Cruise, and that never gets old.
4. "[X] is the new [Y]." Is it that hard to make a comparison between two things without using this phrase? Could you at least try?
5. "You are the weakest link! Goodbye!" Is this show even on anymore?
6. "I'm bringing sexy back." Unless you're Justin Timberlake, shut the fuck up. In fact, even if you are Justin Timberlake, shut the fuck up. That doesn't even make any goddamn sense. It's doesn't make you cool, not even in an ironic way. "Sexy" didn't fucking go anywhere, jackass.
That's all I can think of for now, but I'm sure I haven't touched upon all of the overused phrases out there on the 'net. More to come...
No, this isn't some fancy-pants quasi-inspirational "what I want to be when I grow up" kind of blog, this is about dream-dreams. The shit that happens in your brain when you're asleep.
Ordinarily my dreams are surreal. To give you an idea of what a typical dream of mine is like:
I dream that my nose is dry and I need nasal spray, but the bottle I have is empty. I see this big white bucket of clear fluid and fill up the bottle...then I look at that bucket to make sure it's okay. The label is a drawing of a man's head, but it's "see-through," showing only his eyes, nerves, veins, and his brain. The instructions say to make sure the spray reaches all the way up to the brain. Then beneath that it says that this spray is the 1 spray for getting over addiction to meth and cocaine.
I drop the bottle, saying "what the hell? I'm not on drugs! I shouldn't use this!" I put the lid back on the bucket, then put the bucket in its "box": a large wooden frame with glass sides, then I decide to get rid of the box. I see out the window a cop driving by on a motorcycle..but this cop (CHiP, actually) isn't human. He's cartoon duck. A mallard, to be exact. The duck CHP officer has his sirens blaring and is directing an erratically-driven pickup to pull over. In the driver's seat of this pickup is a cartoon turtle waving a luger.
"Why do I always get the weird ones?" the duck-cop asks himself.
The luger-wielding turtle pulls over, or tries to, but he's such a piss-poor driver that the car skids to a halt and does a 180-degree turn before lightly bumping into a light pole. Officer duck sighs and asks the turtle, who I now notice has black scales and an orange shell, exactly like this Battle Beasts toy I had as a kid. I notice that the back of the turtle's pickup has lots of boxes in it, and it has two signs in the rearview mirror:
The first sign says "Like Me? Then you thief!"
The second says "Haters? I kill you!"
The duck asks the turtle about the gun, to which the turtle replies, "is only water gun. Is not for killing!" in a thick Russian accent. The duck-cop shrugs and gets back on his motorcycle and drives away. The turtle then mumbles something in Russian that sounds unpleasant and gets back in his truck so he can park it properly. He then crosses the street and sets up a table right next to a bus stop. At the table he opens up the boxes from the back of his truck. They're filled with candy bars: Twix, Almond Joy, Baby Ruth, etc. and then starts trying to sell them to people.
A dishevelled man approaches him. His clothing is dirty and torn. His skin is also dirty, hair scraggly and unwashed. But it's the look in his eyes that scares me. He just looks...off. I'm actually afraid for the luger-wielding turtle. The crazy homeless guy takes a candy bar from the table.
"What are you going to do about it, huh?!" he yells at the reptile. Just then my alarm goes off and I wake up.
This sort of weirdness is pretty standard for my dreams. I always hear about people having ultra-realistic dreams and I can't relate. Until I finally had one myself.
I'm not going to describe this dream in detail, but it was about someone I actually know. Don't get me wrong, it was a good dream while I was having it. Too good. And very, very real. Everything, from sound to sight to touch to smell to taste was extremely realistic. I actually believed it was all happening and I was elated. It was like everything I had ever wanted had happened...then I woke up and I realized it was only a dream. I think I actually got depressed from that realization, that's how real the dream was...I miss my fucked up dreams. At least then I know it doesn't matter what happens in them when I wake up.
My subconscious is a dick. If it were a person, I'd punch him right in the gut.
She might as well have said, "I like eating food." Also suspicious was the complete lack of anything remotely geeky in her interests--on a site called "Geek 2 Geek" that sticks out like a sore thumb.
