Thesaurus.Com’s Advertising Algorithm Can go Fuck itself

Just because I’ve been researching deep isolation and profound feelings of loneliness online. . .

Everyone’s got a fucking opinion, don’t they?

I was into making fun of hipsters before it was cool

I am admittedly a reader of Buzzfeed.Com and saw this story about hipster bingo on their website.  Buzzfeed, incidentally, is a hipster website that often writes about how hipsters are all hipstery and how other hipsters are totally lame but not us cause we’re not hipsters we’re tastemakers and yes there is a difference thank you very much.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m just engaged in a great big experiment in irrelevance… Don’t you?

Toad Venom Sex Stone Kills an NYC Man!

Sweeping the NYC news scene is information about an aphrodisiac that is being sold over-the-counter in sex shops that is made from poisonous toad venom. Here’s what the NY Times has to say:

A 35-year-old New York City man died after ingesting an illegal aphrodisiac derived from toad venom, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced on Friday...

Stone or Piedra — also known under the street names Rock Hard, Hard Rock, Love Stone, Black Stone or Chinese Rock — is a hard, dark brown square and measures less than a square inch, and it may be packaged in a clear plastic bag with incomplete labeling, the Health Department said. The product, typically sold in adult stores and neighborhood stores, is banned by the Food and Drug Administration and is listed on an F.D.A. import alert for Chinese herbal medicines. The product’s active ingredients contain chemicals known as bufadienolides, which are derived from toad venom and some trees and can disrupt the normal rhythm of the heart.

Alas, our hero wound up dying because he ATE the aphrodisiac instead of using it the way you’re supposed to: By rubbing it against the shaft of your penis. One has to assume he must have swallowed a few condoms and diaphragms before he figured out you don’t ingest those, either.

The toad venom is supposed to prolong erection by, presumably, numbing the nerve endings. I’ve purchased a tube or two of “Natural Male Enhancement Gel” in my time to see what its all about. You last a long time because you don’t feel anything. Not exactly what I’d call an aphrodisiac.

In fact, last time I checked there was no such thing as a real aphrodisiac (unless you count Slave Leia) which is, without a doubt, one of the saddest discoveries that science has produced.

Link to NY Times

The Leaky Ass of God.

I had to be in Union Square butt ass early on Sunday morning to do a film shoot. But when I got there, that piece of crap public art "The Meteronome," which normally spews steam all day, had malfunctioned and was raining water down on the street below. I decided to try out my cell phone's video camera and learned... That my cell phone's video camera sucks. I also learned that I sound like an idiot at 8am on a Sunday after 3 hours of sleep... Please forgive the idiotic commentary, such as it is.

(Some friends of mine used to call this piece of art "The Ass of God," (or was it "God's Steaming Asshole"?) thus the title of this photo.)

View from across the street.






View from up close.

Now that's what I call service

Did my taxes online with H&R Block this year. It was pretty great. I had a fantastic email exchange with my "online tax professional."

But the juvenile in me just couldn't stop giggling at their home-page graphic.

Flickr photo printing at Target is a Web of LIES!

I've always been enamored with the idea of sending my photos from Flickr to a Target for pickup in an hour. So imagine... When I actually need to take advantage of this service, I discover the service is actually a great big bucket of donkey crap.

I called Target before leaving the house to pick up the photos and they said the photos might not be ready for another 24 hours. I told the woman that the website said they'd be ready in an hour, but she simply responded that it could take a full day.

I asked to speak to a manager who sounded exasperated with the question. She said that the processing time for the Target photo lab WAS 1 hour, but that Flickr had a habit of not sending the order to stores for up to 24 hours.

What the hell, Flickr? You can't get it together to send a freakin' email of attached photos in less than 24 hours?

Omaha Steaks and Telephone Spam

My girlfriend just got a phone call from Omaha Steaks. She bought a friend of ours a gift certificate for Xmas and promptly unsubscribed from their email blasts. But they just decided to give her a call anyway. The opening of the phone call went something like this:

"Howdy! I'm calling from Omaha Nebraska! How are things up there in New York City!? I'm just calling to tell you about some of the seafood specials we've got available for lent!"

You meat-eaters are weird.

Esophogeal Litigation - The Blue Man Group goes too far

Everyone's favorite multi-billionaire performance artists are getting sued by an audience member from their Chicago show. Apparently their avant-garde-artistry-cum-Dell-commercial involved shoving a camera down some old man's throat.

Unlike a bunch of other audience members who have seen the Blue Men, this particular "square" was not amused.

The Blue Man actors used the "esophagus cam" to project an image of Srodon's mouth and throat onto a screen for the audience's amusement, according to the suit filed in Cook County Circuit Court.

Srodon was in the audience with his 8-year-old grandson when the Blue Men approached him, the lawsuit alleges.

The Blue Man actors circled around him, held his neck and arms and "forced his head back" to insert the camera, according to the suit.

Srodon "struggled to free himself and remove the 'esophagus cam' from his mouth but was forcibly restrained by the Blue Man actors," the lawsuit said.

The full story can be found here.

Let this be a lesson to performance artists everywhere: Don't get rich. As long as you stay poor no one will sue you. For pete's sake, Ron Athey flung AIDS-tainted blood at his audience members and he's a master teacher at NYU.

Jesus Died For Your Voicemail

A good friend of mine occasionally has the need to make phone calls to customers throughout the country. Just the other day he was asked to call a gentleman from the Southern part of this country who had the following charming outgoing message (Press the play button below to listen):

boomp3.com

For those at work or without speakers, here's what our friend has to say when he misses a call:

Good morning and welcome to hte United States of America. Please press 1 for English. Press 2 to disconnect until you learn how to speak English. And remember, only two defining forces have ever died for you: Jesus Chris and the American solider. One died for your soul, the other died for your freedom.

I'm a squirrel! Its my birthday! I'm a squirrel! Its my birthday!

I happened upon this decimated birthday cake on the streets of brooklyn. It was a spiderman cake, so I have to assume its destruction led to the shedding of many manchild tears. But this little squirrel took the opportunity to chow down on what was left.