A lot of people make fun of me

when I tell them that Crowded House is my favorite band.  And I figure, that’s okay, because I make fun of a lot of other people for a whole bunch of reasons, and maybe there’s a physical law that governs the amount of taunting in the universe, and sends each of us back what we put out there.  But regardless, when my co-worker came by my desk the other day and said, “Hey, did you see that sissy band you like is playing at The Greek Theater in August?” it was the best news I’d heard since I talked those cops out of giving me a DUI.*  Tickets go on sale this Saturday, and while I’ll no doubt take some abuse from people for going to see a 1980′s one hit wonder pop act from New Zealand, I’m pretty sure at some point I did or said something to deserve it.

By the way, the best thing about my belief system (as pertains to hurtful taunting) is that no one is to blame; if I receive taunts for my musical taste, then surely I’ve done or said things to deserve the taunting.  And conversely, if I tease a closeted gay co-worker about how totally gay he is, only to find out later that he really was full on, “I am into penises” gay, well then surely he too did something to deserve the taunts he received.  Probably something gay, knowing him.

*Note: just kidding, honey – or AM I?

links for 2007-05-29

• If Someone Wanted To Publish My Blog Entries For Money, I Wouldn’t Say No | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source
  Devastating
  (tags: blogs onion satire)

It’s funny because it’s true

Comedian Louis C.K. on the dangers of visiting Chinatown:

“[I'm concerned] about going to Chinatown and seeing duck vaginas in a big barrel and being afraid to eat one, because I don’t want to find out that I love duck vaginas and I gotta have them, and at 4 o’clock in the morning, I’m having a craving for duck vaginas, and Chinatown’s closed, so I have to go to the park with a knife.”

Along the lines of truth/wisdom in a comedy routine, this entire page of quotes from stand up comic Demetri Martin pretty much makes me laugh.  Favorites:

I went into a clothing store, and the lady asked me what size I was. I said, ‘Actual’. I’m not to scale.

‘Cotton balls’ is an example of something I would buy, but not want to have as a nickname. ‘Cinnamon buns’, on the other hand, is something I would buy and want to have as a nickname. ‘Are you Cinnamon Buns?’ ‘You bet your sweet ass I am.’

Some jokes are short and elegant, like a mathematical proof or a midget in a ballgown

I like video games, but they’re really violent. I’d like to play a video game where you help the people who were shot in all the other games. It’d be called ‘Really Busy Hospital.’

When I was young I was really into sports. But then I realised you could buy trophies. So now I’m good at everything.

Oh yeah, as long as I’m making a post about childish things that make me laugh, I feel I should point out that the greatest photo in the history of the internet has officially been found.

Soylent Reality Television is PEOPLE!

In the wake of the news that homoerotic will-o-the-wisp Sanjaya Malakar might have been (gasp!) a performance art character, I felt compelled to invent 9 more shocking bits of TV news:

1. Rosie O’Donnell is actually three small lesbians inside a giant automaton, feverishly working the levers & gadgets.
2. Sig Hansen from Deadliest Catch? Terrified of the ocean. All his scenes are greenscreen/rotoscoping.
3. Tim Gunn? Hates fashion, loves rebuilding homes. Lost a bet in 2004 to Ty Pennington, his one time lover, and has been forced to job swap until one of their shows gets cancelled.
4. The original Regis Philbin died in 1994. Frank Gifford killed him when he thought Reg was getting fresh with Kathie Lee. This misunderstanding later led to Gifford’s own affair, and the related blackmail scandal. In the wake of the tragedy, ABC hushed up the crime and hired relative unknown Steven Yahblonic, an elderly but spry Queens native who was an uncanny Philbin doppleganger. Plans for a similar replacement for the long dead Roger Ebert (coincidentally, ALSO murdered by Gifford, for reasons yet unknown) continue to this day.
5. On the show “Dancing With The Stars,” many of the contestants aren’t actually stars, but rather faded has beens, reduced to celebrity talent show travesties that strip away the remaining dignity they had in exchange for a few more minutes in the warmth of public attention.
6. America’s Next Top Model & America’s Most Wanted have been on a collision course for several years; one day the same contestant will win both shows.
7. Three members of the cast of Grey’s Anatomy have clauses in their contracts (driven by whether they hit ratings benchmarks) that allow them to perform actual surgery on etherized, terminally ill patients on camera. For two of the actors, both trained in the Method style, it is to improve the realism of their performances. But in the case of Patrick Dempsey, it is to allow him to continue the decade-long serial killing habit he acquired on the set of Can’t Buy Me Love.
8. In an attempt to keep his “Jack Bauer” persona in character, Keifer Sutherland refuses to respond to people who call him by his given name, in lieu of his character’s name. Also, he has not taken a piss in seven years.
9. The guy in the bee costume on Sabado Gigante?
   HE’S NOT WEARING A COSTUME.

links for 2007-05-25

• God Bless Chris Barrus
  My old friend from QuartzCity throws me an inside joke on this screenshot of his high score at Global Thermonuclear War.
  (tags: dragonbonus)

Cultural Progeria

I think I may have caught Old Man Grumpus (2nd from the top) disease at some point.  More & more I don’t like what’s on TV or new music or movies.  Which is a bummer, because I feel like when you stop liking new stuff, you start dying a little. 

However, the real sign, to me, of the inevitable impending end isn’t just cultural, it’s technological.  When a new technology comes by, and spreads quickly, and soon everyone’s using it except for a few crazy holdouts, like people still refusing to use the telephone in the 1930s, that’s a sign that the end is near. 

And the thing is, I’m really good with techie, gadgety crap. I’m not particularly old (35), I live in a big city, albeit not big enough to get Fiber Optic Internet Service like the folks in Cooterville, but still, a big city, and I read about new stuff all the time.  I was one of the dorks to pre-order a TiVo when they first launched, six months ahead of the on sale date.  I was the first person I knew to subscribe to high speed internet access, to buy an MP3 player, to use Bittorrent, to get a streaming media server, the list goes on. 

But I know that out there somewhere, there’s a guy (or girl), and they’re like two years old right now, and someday, maybe thirty years from now, they’re going to invent a thing.  That thing, whatever it is, everyone is going to want one, one day.  People won’t be able to live without it.  In my mind, I envision this new sweeping invention (akin to cell phones, or televisions, or VCRs, or DVRs – soon) as looking like a black, inscrutable small box, like a matchbook sized version of the monolith from 2001.

And I won’t have one.  I won’t really even understand the appeal of having one.  A little part of me won’t even understand how you use one.  I will be vaguely annoyed when I see other people using theirs.   I will bore people around me telling them how I don’t believe in “the box” and how I don’t need one because my ancient pre-box technology suits me just fine.  I’ve been worried about this invention for over a decade now. I wonder if I’ll know the day it gets invented, like, will I cosmically feel its coming into being. 

To be clear, there’s lots of stuff I don’t need, right now.  Like texting on my cellphone.  I know everyone does it, but it’s a pain, and I’m not 13, so I don’t bother.  But I understand what it is and why you’d do it.  This thing, “the box,” I don’t even know what it’s for.  I just know that in the future the goddamn kids on my lawn won’t stop playing with theirs.

links for 2007-05-24

• Dog Breeders Issue Massive Recall Of ’07 Pugs

  This article is so tragically awesomely true. The slideshow is the absolute highlight. Truthfully, I only wish Lola would get recalled.

  (tags: pugs humor defects)

Validation at long sweet last

If you don’t count the founder or his twin henchmen, nor the thousands of helpful people who answer questions in AskMetafilter, nor any of the regulars who are all more beloved than I, then I am clearly the most important person at Metafilter.

Now sure, some of you will say, “imaginary bonus points on an internet message board don’t really matter in the real world,” but you people are the same folk who said that cars could never be powered by gravy, and who’s laughing now?

In the future, when there’s a regular award for “Most Interesting Person on the Internet”, I think that award should be called The Jonson. As in, “the winner of this year’s Jonson for Most Interesting Post involving LolCats is… “

links for 2007-05-21

• Presidential Approval Ratings
  interesting visualization of rankings since the forties – apparently the recurring theme is buyers remorse. Reagan & Clinton seem to be the only ones with non-war related upticks.
  (tags: politics history statistics)

The Jonson Media Empire Has Been Poorly Thought Through

I’ve never been execptionally proactive about snatching up domain names, which explains why rouse.com & jonson.com are both unavailable to me now.  I don’t suppose I’d mind, if they were at least being used for something awesome like walrus pornography or star wars re-enactment amateur theater, but it seems like they’re just being wasted on crap I don’t enjoy at all.

Rouse.com is owned by a bunch of strangers with the same family name as me, and they use it to post a bunch of photos of their respective offspring, but as far as I can tell, other than a surname, the only thing I have in common with those Rouses is a secret fetish for asian mail-order brides*

But even that is more than I have in common with the people at Jonson.com, who, from what I can make of their insane homepage sell something called “Specialstolar Specialstol Kontorsstolar Kontorsstol Arbetsstolar Arbetsstol Ergonomiska arbetsstolar.”  After further review of their site, I suspect they have some sort of crazy brain injury where it looks to them like they’re typing regular words in English but all that’s coming out is this crazy moon-man jibberish.  Again, useless.

But don’t waste your tears on me – I feel like the real victim here is the American public, always so hungry for more information about me, only to find nightmare inducing images like this one, or the nonsensical scribblings of a depraved half-wit.

*Note: just kidding, honey – or AM I?