On my way to work today I found myself behind a car ridin' on spinners.

It was a Ford Contour.

If you are going to "pimp-out" your "ride", you should at least have a ride that speaks to being a pimp. Pimpworthy, ya dig? I understand them on an expensive Escalade, or a tricked-out caddy, or even a ricer, but a late 90's sedan from Ford?

They weren't even quality (not that I'm particularly surprised). They looked as if they could have been made of plastic--hardly the "big balla'" image one would want to project. Not only that, the back left one was gimpy--instead of spinning, it just kinda wobbled there, an unwilling participant in its owner's attempt to gain "street cred".

As I sat there, somewhat transfixed by the wobbly spinner, I contemplated that it might be a metaphor for this guy's entire life. No matter how hard he strived to make it, something always held him back. Nothing was ever perfect--he never caught a break. There would always be a flaw. There would always be a gimpy wheel.

Then I realized he was probably just a cheap bastard.

Keebler-University.edu
"Come realize your delicious, cream-filled dream."

SARS-and-You.org
"Forget Avian Flu, remember me, SARS?"

Careers-In-Mimicry.com
"Look at that guy from the Police Academy movies, he made millions, right?"

Nothing-But-Doorbells.com
"For all your ringing needs."

Wheres-Balto.com
"Find the sleddog in the snow! What, too obscure?"

Pancake-House-Hotties.com
"Covered in syrup and waiting for you!"

Intertubes.net
"Delivering your packets one truck at a time."

The-Church-Of-Kirk-Cameron.org
"Our Father, who art Mike on Growing Pains..."

Amish-On-The-Net.net
"Our servers are butter-churn powered."

Sometimes-Y.org
"The least respected vowel needs your financial support."

Ukulele-Shillelagh-Melee.com
"Tiny bubbles in my... 2 damage! 2 damage!"

Pissed-Off-Androids.net
"INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!"

1001-Uses-For-Lint.com
"It's gotta be useful for something. Am I right?"

Masticate.com
"Hot tooth-on-tooth action!"

I recently acquired a EZDisc CD/DVD-ROM dispenser. It's a little thing that you fill with blank CD/DVDs and it despenses them with a push of a button. It's not exactly the kind of thing that will revolutionize the ergonomics of your work area, but I'm a guy who owns a toothpick dispenser, so I can't really talk. The user manual ("manual" is really a "sheet of paper". It should be call a "user pamphlet") amuses me. Allow me to quote from its glorious optimism:

It is a pleasure to own a simple but fun Dispenser. You don't need to follow the traditional troublesome process, to open and close the lid with cake box every time you need a disc. To get a disc with one single process is much more convenient and smart....

I dispensed with the usual "[sic]" editor's marks, for obvious reasons.

I have to say, living in Japan must be a real joy. They seem to get such pleasure out of everything. I mean, here, I just thought it would be nifty to despense discs when I needed one, but sounds like it will actually bring me joy that I can't yet imagine. I have had a void inside me for a long time and now I am realizing that it may just be that I don't own enough Japanese products.

Perhaps I'll put in an order for manga and some Pocky.

Things you don't want to hear from a relative upon coming home for Thanksgiving dinner:

"Somebody's been eating well. You sure have put on a lot of weight."

Didn't stop me from having a second (and third) slice of pie, however. Nothing could stop that.

A turkey for me, a turkey for you... let's eat the turkey in a big brown shoe...

Well, it's Fall here in Northeastern Ohio and it gets dark around 5:00pm so you know what that means... Actually you probably don't, so I'll just tell you. It means: deer. Deer everywhere. You can't swing a deer without hitting a deer this time of year.

Man, fuck deer.

Now, I'm all for loving nature's precious creatures (especially if they are delicious with steak sauce), but deer are another story. Sure, they are beautiful and magestic and what not, but that's only when they are off in the woods someplace or in a Disney movie. They are something else entirely when they are wandering back and forth across the street in the middle of a pitch black Fall Ohio night.

That is neither cute, nor majestic.

In the past week, I think I've come across these roving ruminants every night, often multiple times. When it's especially late you drive like someone with too many points on their license: slowly, and in a heightened state of paranoia. Seriously, those fuckers could be anywhere.

What really irks me about the whole situation is that we have deer crossing signs for this very reason. I mean, look, if they aren't gonna cross there, then we need to work out a new agreement, or somebody is gonna have to start handing out jaywalking tickets.

This is too weird not to post. Tenacious D (Jack Black and Kyle Gass) performing live on stage with Andy Serkis who played Gollum/Sméagol in the Lord of the Rings films. Please enjoy their performance of "The One That I Want" from the musical Grease.



Bizarre, but funny.

Lore Sjöberg (ooh, umlaut!) is a writer for Wired News and co-founder of the Brunching Shuttlecocks humor website. His columns in Wired tend to be amusing takes on videogames, technology, and the Internet (he does write for Wired, after all).

Recently he wrote about how videogame forums are often populated with complainers who, for whatever reason, feel the need to gripe about everything and seem to hate the game in question with a passion, in spite of the fact that they also seem to do nothing but play it. He proceeds to humorously enumerate the different types of complainers, with categorizations that ring all too true if you spend any time at all surfing such forums. I do. And I was amused.

Reading this article reminded me of one he had written a few months back entitled, "The Ultimate Blog Post", something I meant to post here about at the time but, you know, I'm lazy. Please do read it, it's quite enjoyable. He talks disparagingly about blogs and then gives what he thinks would be the ultimate blog post for various sites. Of particular note:

Boing Boing: Crocheted replica of subway map cracks DRM on collection of old video games.

Cute Overload: A kitten licks a puppy while the puppy licks a bunny.

Digg: Hey, cool, someone wrote an article about Digg!

And so I ask you, readers, what would the Ultimate WITFITS Post be about? I could posit a guess, but again, laziness. Plus, you're a bright group. And those of you that blog, take a jab at yourself and list what you think your Ultimate Post would encompass.

Last night's Robot Chicken, a stop-motion animated show on Adult Swim created by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich that I highly recommend, featured a great opening bit combining the movie Titanic and leetspeak (or AOLspeak, or text-speak if you prefer).



Incidentally, did I mention that they actually seem to "get" the Internet and allow you to watch full episodes online of shows that have just aired? Awesome.

The walls in my apartment aren't exactly soundproof. If my neighbors (nextdoor or downstairs) are watching television or enjoying their music, I can usually hear it, mostly as a non-distinct background sound. It's somewhat annoying, but not really that bad, and they have to put up with my videogames and repeated watchings of the Moria scene in The Fellowship of the Ring, so it all evens out.

I usually tune it out, but I'm writing this post because I can't help but comment on what I'm hearing. It sounds like my neighbor is playing the theme from Beverly Hills Cop at an excessive volume. But not really the theme, more like a knock off version, you know the kind that television shows use when they want to parody the Eddie Murphy classic without actually forking out the money for the rights to the theme. It's almost surreal.

I can only draw one of two conclusions from this.
1) My neighbor is watching a bad porn, very loudly (Beverly Hills Cock?)
2) My neighbor just bought an electronic keyboard and is enthralled with the built in accompaniment feature.

It's almost worth going over there and finding out. Almost.

I really hope they play "Party All The Time" next. I could die happy.

Katonian Press - When Americans head out to their polling place today to exercise their right to vote, they may find a new way to cast their ballot. Voting machines: meet "Web 2.0".

In response to continuing controversy surrounding electronic voting machines in the United States, private groups have stepped up to attempt to solve the problem that government and big business cannot. Leading the charge is young Internet entrepreneur Kevin Rose, former television host on the now defunct TechTV and, perhaps more famously, founder of the popular social news site Digg.com.

Tapping the collective wisdom

Building on the success of Digg, Kevin Rose announced earlier this year that he would be investing a good chunk of the venture capital he has raised into creating the "next big thing" in electronic voting. The basic concept is a system where voters can submit candidates and initiatives which can then be "dugg" (voted for) or "buried" (voted against) by other voters across the country. Candidates which are dugg float to the top and receive more exposure, whereas those that are buried remain in obscurity and may be flagged to inform other voters why they have been voted against. Reasons for burying a candidate include such options as "Duplicate Candidate", "Wrong Party", "Inaccurate Campaign Promises", and "OK, this candidate is lame". "It's a self-policing Democracy," says Rose. "And best of all, you can vote for who you like, and demote the guys that suck."

The feature list for these new voting machines is small but powerful. Candidates can be sorted by party, most diggs, and recently popular. In addition, voters can add "bedfellows" (essentially a "friends list" of other voters) and see which candidates and issues they have dugg. Most controversial, though, is the main ballot to the voting interface that highlights a number of individuals and initiatives selected automatically by a complex algorithm based mainly on their digg count and who has dugg them.

A sophisticated anti-gaming process

The system for promoting candidates has come under fire numerous times during the development of the Digg voting machines used in earlier local elections and primaries. In previous versions, strange write-in candidates ("Pee Wee Herman", "Abraham Lincoln", the socialist candidate) would sometimes appear on the main ballot. The algorithm was tweaked numerous times, but not to the complete satisfaction of the voting public. Some individuals noted that a large majority of the candidates were making their way on to the ballot through the diggs of a small minority of the community that all voted together. Critics argued that small, active groups were gaming the system, voting along the same lines as their bedfellows to promote candidates and issues, and dominating the elections. Members of this elite group shot back that they were working hardest for America and were being backstabbed for their efforts to combat terrorism. More changes to the algorithm were implemented to combat these concerns (essentially giving more weight to candidates with a variety of voters behind them, and somewhat less weight to those who are voted on by groups of bedfellows) but these changes angered some in the community. Top electronic voter "KR0ve" (whose full e-voting username is the unpronouncable "KR0ve666GW78GHW80WC82PG8284RR84WC86GB92GWB0004pl4me") penned an angry and juvenile letter in response to the changes claiming he resisted using other voting systems in the past because he believed in Rose's solution, but that he'd be returning to paper ballets after being "urinated on" by the voting system's founder.

Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others

Although only a small number of voters are likely to openly embrace the new Digg machines, their success (or failure) will either usher in a new era of involvement in our democratic process, or reaffirm the value of the tried and true way of doing things. With Democrats looking to steal congress, and the Republicans hoping to stay the course, voting irregularities are likely to are likely to be the source of consternation for months to come, regardless of party.

As for me... I'm voting for Kodos.