dancing bunnies!

Screws of fury

Sjoerd Verweij — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:48:55 GMT

The next time you sit down in a public bathroom, the kind that has multiple, erm, outlets... look around you. Odds are that the stall has been assembled of lowest-bidder fantasy-wood, covered with lowest-bid, I've-had-every-grain-of-creativity-burnt-out-of-my-soul veneer. Odds are, it will be some type of off-white (called something spectacularly creative which, in the end, means, off-motherfucking-white), or something gray (I don't even know what the marketing droids come up with for these, nor do I wish to know).

Now, look at the fittings. I mean the metal bits that hold the sub-standard plastic/wood slabs together.

Notice anything odd?

Look at the screws.

Odds are, you are looking at a phenomenon that, as far as I know, did not exist a decade ago. I speak of the type of screws that only allow for tightening by conventional screwdrivers. To put it another way, screws that cannot be loosened by a normal screwdriver.

If you do not know what I am talking about, you have never seen them and I hereby suggest you go and spend your time on something more productive than reading this post, since it talks of things that do not apply to you. Go play with your dog, write a novel, mow the lawn. Go forth, in short.

Still here?

So you have seen them. Someone sat down, produced the blueprint and caused to be produced this (I could be wrong here, but this is the sentiment it provokes in me) most passive-aggressive odds-and-ends bit of hardware: the screw that goes in but does not come out.

What is the motivation behind this? No, seriously, think about this. Why, over a stunningly short span, have all new developments chosen this type of screw? To me, it implies that these screws are being used for a reason. Obviously, they are using these puppies because people were taking bathroom stalls apart.

Which, of course, leads to the next question:

Who the flying fuck takes bathroom stalls apart?

Where, pray tell, is this roving band of people taking public bathroom stalls apart (doing so, for that matter, in some way, unbeknownst to people actually using them at the time)? Is there a Bathroom Stall Parts Mafia that I have been previously unaware of?

Christ on a crutch, what is going on here? Am I missing something?

Neopoleon

Sjoerd Verweij — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:34:36 GMT

An awesome blog, an awesome writer, one of the few people that understands the magnificence that is Windows Live Writer...

Awesomeness.

I am even willing to forgive him his French ancestry. And that's a biggie.

Fun with spam

Sjoerd Verweij — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:28:17 GMT

I am torn. Is this pedophilia or a bed-wetting fetish?

No, I am not making these up.

Fun with spam

Sjoerd Verweij — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:25:49 GMT

I'll take the middle one.

No, I don't make these up.

I wish I made it up

Sjoerd Verweij — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:09:08 GMT

The social

Sjoerd Verweij — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:04:46 GMT

I went through my older posts today, and was reminded of the Facebook kerfuffle that even had luminaries like Robert Scoble* & Rodney Rumford engage the points I put forth (and Dare Obesanjo do a concern-troll boo-hoo drive-by, without contributing anything of value either way).

I feel spectacularly vindicated.

I said it then, and I'll say it now: Facebook is not a paradigm shift.

What was the biggest Facebook issue in the past year? People should not be allowed to play Scrabble on it. No, really. I could care less one way or the other, and there might be an interesting legal dust-up over this, not to mention a "change-it-just-enough-to-not-get-sued" campaign on the part of the developers... but in the end, it is all vindicating my basic points:

Nobody cares.
Scrabble is your biggest draw?
Who the hell is sufficiently boring to play Scrabble online?
How is this better than, oh, Yahoo! Games?
Nobody cares.
How many people do you know on Facebook? I'm at a grand total of 0.
What does Facebook do that I cannot do through e-mail, MySpace and IM?
Nobody cares.
Where's the there?
Why should I be on Facebook (or Twitter, for that matter)?
What does it do for me?
Nobody cares.

There have been no moneymakers, no new penetrating apps, no new killer apps, just molasses-like expansion into the original demographic.

Yawn. And then? Who is making money? Off of what? And how?

You know what a paradigm shift is? Microsoft allowing XNA games on Live Arcade. It's a game-changer. It truly changes the rules of the game. That does not necessarily mean good will come of it, but it does change things. It allows people to do things that were impossible before... in the case of XNA games on XBLA, it's "hello 15,000,000 users... download the demo of my well-reviewed-by-peers game that will cost you nothing to try and, hey, pick it, $8 to download". If I were, oh, PopCap, I'd be freaking out. And not in a good way.

Speaking of nostalgia: I would KILL for the issue of Kijk (somewhere between 1991 and 1994, I know it was a June issue) that has my original 50-line GW-BASIC version of Tetris in it... heck, even a scan of the relevant page. Anyone helping me to obtain that issue will have an unlimited tab the next time I visit The Netherlands. Oh, Nico Baaijens... where art thou?

* Dude, change your font. Times New Roman makes the baby Jesus cry. I'll write the CSS for you if need be, if only to stop my eyes from bleeding.

What the...

Sjoerd Verweij — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:43:09 GMT

It's amazing how spam sneaks up on you. Notwithstanding all the safeguards that I have in place, I just noticed that an old post of mine attracted over 1,500 spam comments. In a manner of 45 minutes.

Yikes.

Sometimes it sucks to be a site host.

Ze intelleegens of spam, part II

Sjoerd Verweij — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:07:13 GMT

Spam is obviously all bots, all the time now. Which is fine, I can see how that would happen. It's just shocking to me that whoever created these bots seems to have absolutely no connection to the English language, the physical world, or reality. Perhaps the bots are writing bots now?

Here, a snapshot. I get reams and reams of these on a daily basis. Tell me this doesn't look like a Pinter play:

Portrait Molnar? Asian betta? Pinays Mature?

Delicious heels houndstooth brand?

Vintage motherfucking Laundry Basket?

What is wrong with these people? Are there even any people involved anymore? Am I battling SkyNet now?

Oh, how I hate people

Sjoerd Verweij — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:47:55 GMT

There you are. A random situation at a random time of day in a random location, and someone is being spectacularly inconsiderate towards you, they know they are doing it, and they don't care.

You know the feeling. Were these cave-man times, this would be the time to inaugurate that extra-knobby club you were saving for a special occasion. Time to collect another jawbone for the mantelpiece. Time to rip the beating heart out of the living, breathing heap of disrespect...

Whoa. Sorry about that.

Anyway, it is one of those times where you truly feel societal niceties are somewhat overrated. Unconsciously, a generous, healthy and gratifying heap of indignation builds inside you. How dare they do this to you? How dare they cut in line, block you off, not let you in line, hold open the door when you are carrying several metric ass-loads of cargo, or thank you for letting them in line? What, specifically, makes you so irrevocably below the pond scum of the Earth that this behavior on their part is acceptable, nay, not punishable by Things Invented By The Spanish Inquisition That Will Make You Wish They Picked Waterboarding(TM)?

But that is not the problem. People are dicks. It's a part of life. You know it. And actually, it is somewhat cathartic at times to be able to work up a nice, frothing lather of indignation at the asinine behavior of others. What is most painful is that sometimes, just sometimes, when you have said lather frothing up a storm, when you are half an inch away from making firm plans to decide on a strong intent to write a letter to an editor to be determined later about the decline of social consideration in today's society...

Just sometimes...

They look at you, realize their behavior, cease and desist immediately and sincerely apologize.

That, my friends, is just fucked up. Here you are, with a heaping bucket of indignation, outrage and a sizable imminent bout of insightful social commentary, and here they go and prove it was an honest mistake? Now what? Hmm? Do they ever give any thought, any whatsoever, to what you are supposed to do now?

Oh, how I hate people. Inconsiderate bastards.

Paranormal State

Sjoerd Verweij — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:42:42 GMT

Last night I watched 3 episodes of Paranormal State on A&E. Why? Well, I heard about it, it was on, the remote was too far out of reach from my comfy corner of the couch and after it started, I could not stop watching. Call it rubbernecking, call it having a penchant for utter and complete intellectual train wrecks, call it masochism. Get off my back, will ya? I watched it, and now I am compelled to share. Or vent. Or maybe a bit of both.

Anyway, for those of you who have never seen this new gold standard in woo-ish tripe, I'll describe the first episode I saw since it was the silliest and should give you a good idea of what to expect when you tune in.

The intro for the show sets off all kinds of alarm bells. A young and distinctly snake-oil-salesman-looking guy explains how the show came to be: it all started with the "paranormal events" in his "youth" (to me, he looks to be about 12 now, but maybe that's just me getting old), he decided to found something called the Paranormal Research Society at a random university (I assume they snuck in at night and wrote the charter in the cafeteria). This society consists of a few decidedly intern-looking clowns. Of course, they suffer from the "we can't pay you so here's an impressive title" syndrome, like "Tech Expert" (hooks up video cameras and carries laptop), "Occult Expert" (has nose ring and demon zits, lights candles) and -- whoa -- an intern (kicks whatever's supposed to be haunted "by accident" at 3AM to produce at least one freaky highlight... every single episode). He also mentions how they are sometimes "warriors". Right. I see.

I almost forgot. The voice-overs are done by the director/founder/lead clown himself. Pretentious in content, they are actually called Director's Log. I kid you not. Taking a page from Star Trek, he fashions himself Captain of the USS Inanity and Boldly Goes Where No Tool Has Gone Before. To provide that true authentic feeling, during these they show a little B-footage of him walking around with a little voice recorder, and they actually take the time distort his voice to get that pinched, authentic sound. And it gets worse: at the end of each episode, there is a Final Director's Log (as the titles roll on the Director standing on the scene) that manages to combine the very worst of the Star Trek title Captain's Logs (you know, the Supplemental Ones where the Enterprise Continues Its Original Boring Courier Mission To Starbase 73), Jerry Springer's Final Thoughts and all this in that Trent Reznor-like my-your-cell-phone-is-crappy sea of noise. It truly is a giant bucket of lame with spicy brain damage berries on top.

Anyhoo, this merry band of incompetence follows up on tips about paranormal activity. And for this, my inaugural Paranormal State episode, it was the Case Of The Haunted Piano. Did I mention they actually roll graphics to that effect, and even make up Case Numbers? That always start with 2007, and always end in F (which I assume, until proven otherwise, stands for Fucktard?)

Very well, Haunted Piano it is. A couple who dabble in antiques get a piano, move it into the house, freak out, shove it onto the porch after a day and call the ~~credulous dipshit squad~~ Paranormal Research Society. The Society arrives and meets the couple, who at first blush seem quite normal.

Until they start talking.

The lady of the house explains that as soon as the piano was moved into the house she felt its aura, its bad, bad aura. The man tells of the instant mouse infestation, and his continuous anxiety ever since the piano came in.

Wait a minute... did she just talk about the piano having an aura?

Woo. Woo. WOO!

See, they should've known something was wrong with this piano. They got it on craigslist.com for free. Everyone nods and agrees that this is very suspicious, and somehow this is left in in editing despite the fact that the piano expert they bring in not five ever-loving mother-humping minutes later to help them track the origins of the piano values the thing at "pay me to take it to the dump". But that would mess with the back story, and you need the expert to look like you did at least some research, so I am assuming that the editing decision was based on the fact that the average viewer of this show had a Twinkie in his or her ears for at least one of these segments.

Time for a 3AM séance Dead Time, where the Society members set up cameras and try to authenticate what is going on. In this case, it means that the Intern and Nose Ring sit outside in the snow on the porch talking to the piano (picture Ouija-board conversation here) while Roadie and Director sit in the basement monitoring the action. Oh, and there's candles. Lots of candles. On the piano, around the piano, the team's holding 'em, candles left, right, everywhere. Come to think of it, there's candles all the damned time in this show. For no good reason whatsoever. Must be product placement... note to self: is there a candle mafia?

Not a whole lot of anything, let alone anything Paranormal goes on (shocker), unless you count the sound effects which of course go completely Emeril during these segments. So the next day, the Director finds this is a "serious case" which needs "further investigation" and calls in a ~~bat-shit crazy bug-eyed old charlatan~~ nice old psychic lady to help out. And this is a heavy hitter, too: she once was the Chief Investigator (you can just hear the caps) in the Amityville Horror case. Wow. Can't argue with those credentials. Of course, I find out later by watching other episodes that on this show, every single damned case is a "serious case" which needs "further investigation" by the same damned Amityville Horror Chief Investigator lady, and that you can pinpoint the moment in the show where they call her with eerie accuracy (midway through the third segment, with a sample size of 3, MOE +/- 0 minutes).

Spectacularly unsurprisingly, there is something very wrong with the piano and they need to get it out of there. But to make sure that the spirit thingamajig stays in the piano, there needs to be a "binding ceremony" to prevent it from jumping out into the house, or into the couple, or into the mailbox, I guess. This ceremony seems to consist of everyone standing around the piano and asking Jesus to keep it in. Like a prayer straitjacket or something. I wish I was making this up. Suddenly it occurs to me that if I were to peek outside and see my neighbors perform such a ceremony, I would be sorely tempted to grab AR-15 and put the entire sorry lot out of everyone's misery -- and improving the gene pool in the process. But I digress.

Since the most exciting footage so far is from snow melting on the piano, the society has decided to try another Dead Time session, this time in the warehouse. Of course, not a damned thing happens this time either, but it does allow the intern to kick the piano "by accident" and then "apologize" for it -- since the dumb-ass forgot to do it the first time, and they do need something juicy for the previews. Then again, that might be the cynic in me.

After this, a perfectly serious Log entry follows, explaining that it would be too risky to burn the piano since the ghosty thingy could get out. No matter that there's absolutely nothing indicating any activity of any kind -- the Amityville Horror Chief Investigator said so, and now it's time for serious measures.

They smash the piano to pieces.

They bury the pieces.

They consecrate the ground. This seems to again involve standing around praying, but this time they up the ante with some holy water and burying St. Somebody medallions. I seem to recall that most churches frown upon doing this, as in two-hundred-years-ago-we'd-burn-you-for-this frowning. Not in this show; it's all perfectly integrated woo. As for the medallions, in other episodes they hand these suckers out as "future protection" against the demons. I hate to repeat myself, but I shit you not. They actually mean it.

And that is that. Another case solved. Or something.

The other episodes involved such gems as a medium channeling a dog (I swear, you have not lived until you've seen a middle-aged flamer acting like a dog, pretending not to speak any English but understanding such questions as "Is the presence human" quite nicely), non-decomposing dog corpses and a lady addicted to listening for demon voices on a little voice recorder (high-point of that episode was the medium telling this obviously disturbed woman that she was "not crazy at all", but rather "a beautiful person", and that she would need to "get out more"). This may sound mean-spirited, but with the level of loopiness the lady demonstrated, I sincerely disagree.

All in all, I am just in awe of this show. The heaping helpings of blithering stupidity combined with such unrelenting lameness in every aspect ensure that there would be no way, no way whatsoever to parody this. And that is quite a feat.