Loading ...
|
I didn’t intend to do so many “Make Up Your Own Caption” posts, but sometimes, when the quantity and quality of the material is this good, ya just gotta dance wit’ what brung ya…
(Picture via The Authoritah )
One of the benefits of switching to Textpattern as our blogging application is that it keeps logs of all hits to this website, along with referrering sites, search engines and search strings used. In the spirit of the Dadaists, who held that all language is a subjective construct manipulated by the powers that be to keep us stupid, we present to you another Dada Search String Poem, which we have titled:
MSN Is The Worst Search Engine In History
what did the germans doin homeland experiments with gum and its flavors small puffy titty KFC bucket pics INDONESIA HOBBIT SKELETONS nba playoffs started today gay monkeys “Speak now or forever hold your peace: new adult swim lineup for 2005 CAVEMAN AND THE bIBLE WILL MONKEYS EVOLVE Smeer the Queer pogo stick physics PARTY GIRLS CREAM PIE PICS nixon alcohol deoxyribonucleic nefarious reverse evolution caveman cartoon day of defeat recoil programs drain backyard french darwin snoop poop Weird High School events
As one may surmise from the title, these particular search strings, which somehow directed people to this website, came entirely from MSN Search. (In fact, this website is the number one MSN Search result for both “KFC bucket pics” and “INDONESIA HOBBIT SKELETONS.”) The search strings have not been edited for spelling, capitalization, or punctuation in any way…as if you couldn’t figure that out already.
The most reasonable conclusion we can come to for why some of these searches brought up this website is that, unlike a professional search engine such as Google, MSN must not factor proximity into its search algorithms. For instance, this page does contain the words “puffy” and “titty,” yet they are nowhere near one another on the page, and thus should not show up together in a search.
Our other conclusion, after morbid curiosity drove us to try some of these search strings for ourselves…wow, there are some sick, sick people out there.
(And yes, I am aware of the fact that displaying all these search strings on the site will only increase the number of hits we get from weirdos. C’est la vie.)
In honor of Sunday being Jebus Day, we bring you the scariest Jebus statue ever….
(link found nyah. )
You know the drill, my loyal minions…
As we speak, I have in my hot little hands Lullabies To Paralyze, the latest magnum opus from rock and roll gods Queens of the Stone Age. It has been an excruciating two and a half year wait since QOTSA’s last album, Songs For the Deaf, and when I found out that today was the release date, I seriously considered taking the day off from work in order to be at the record store the second it opened.
As it was, today was torture, obsessively watching a clock which never seemed to move. But finally, 4:30pm, release! I’m pretty sure I set a land-speed record during my frantic race from the Central District back home to Ballard. In fact, I don’t think I touched the brake pedal once. I dimly remember the yells of outraged pedestrians as they leaped out of the oncoming path of my wildly careening vehicle, but screw them. As Herr Doktor used to say, their voices are the barking of dumb dogs.
Now, on this general subject, I will fully admit to having no sense of objectivity. I have been a huge fan of singer/guitarist Josh Homme from way back in his days with the mighty Kyuss. I own every release from both Kyuss and QOTSA, as well as the guy’s numerous side projects (Desert Sessions, Eagles of Death Metal, etc.) In short, I think the man is a genius, and I haven’t bought an album by him that I didn’t like.
So how does Lullabies measure up? I’m only on the second listen-through right now, but I can safely say that the misgivings I had last month after hearing “Little Sister,” the first single, were misplaced. That single, possibly the most conventional rock song Homme has ever penned, led me to worry that QOTSA was going in a more commercial direction. Well, no fear there, the band’s trademark weirdness is still in full effect. (One listen to “Someone’s in the Wolf” should be enough to hammer that point home.) While the band is definitely employing more polished production than on their earlier albums, the familiar aspects of the QOTSA sound—pummeling, earthshaking guitar riffs, Homme’s ghostly vocals, odd instrumentation and guitar tunings—are still there.
So far, my favorite tracks are “Tangled Up in Plaid,” “Everybody Knows That You Are Insane,” “Burn The Witch,” and the aforementioned “Wolf.” I’m sure that will change as I listen to the disk multiple times…which I most assuredly will do. Lullabies has already pushed the two cds I had been playing obsessively for the past month (Mars Volta’s Frances The Mute and Trail of Dead’s Worlds Apart ) right the hell out of my car cd player.
Anyway, to sum up: Lullabies To Paralyze is a fantastic new release by the Greatest Rock And Roll Band Currently In Existence. Like every QOTSA album, it rawks to wake the dead. If played loud enough, if will shift tectonic plates. Is it as good as Songs For The Deaf? Hey, let’s not get ahead of ourselves; we are talking about my favorite album of the decade here. I’ll need a lot more time to offer a final opinion on which one is better.
A few thousand more listens should do it.
Rolling Stone has been completely useless for about 25 years now, but give them credit: they do know how to properly eulogize one of their own.
Many of this month’s articles are excerpted online in their HST Tribute Page, but to get the full articles, you should buy the print version. This is the first time I’ve said this about Rolling Stone since the Kurt Cobain issue, and it’ll probably be the last time I ever say it: it’s worth the price.
Yes, it’s that time again, the second-holiest day of the year (trailing only Talk Like a Pirate Day, of course.) Today, those of us lucky enough to be Irish or just alcoholic can celebrate our heritage or addictions by tossing back many pints of the sacred linn dubh (known as Guinness to the ungodly.)
Personally, as the product of many generations of Irish drunks, I am appalled at being forced to type this post while at work. The Powers That Be have still not seen clear to give this day the federal holiday it so richly deserves. When will the discrimination end? Sure, I can wage my own little protest and celebrate Irish tradition by not working very hard, but that’s hardly the same thing.
If you are as offended by this miscarriage of justice as I, do likewise! Spend the day goofing off, reading blogs when you should be working, and generally being as unproductive as possible. It’s the only way those Saxon bastards will learn they can’t push us around.
Six hours til the first pint of linn dubh.
That is not dead which can eternal lie And with strange aeons even death may die. – The Necronomicon
It is with great pleasure that we note that the 20th century’s most influential horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft, is finally receiving the rightful place in the literary canon that has been so long denied him. The Library of America, a nonprofit publisher devoted to issuing the collected works of “serious” writers, has put together a handsome, 800 page hardcover tome which, for the first time, collects all of HPL’s best novellas and stories in one place.
We must admit that we were more than a little surprised to see a positive review of the Lovecraft collection, penned by a writer for the National Review, appearing in the Wall Street Journal. However, upon careful perusal of the HPL canon, certain unimistakable connections become perfectly clear. For instance:
That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy.– The Call of Cthulhu
Now, if that isn’t a dead-on description of the worldviews of both the Wall Street Journal and the National Review, I don’t know what is. Why, the entire passage could’ve come directly from a Project for the New American Century whitepaper!
But I digress. The prose of Howard Philips Lovecraft has inspired much more than just the conquest dreams of bloodthirsty neoconservatives: the novels of Stephen King, the songs of Metallica, numerous film festivals, and even the presidential election, to name just a few examples. Truly, this magnificent author, ignored and relegated to pulp magazines during his lifetime, has since attained unprecedented acclaim and respectability. Such a shame that, being dead, he’s not around to enjoy any of it.
Or…...is he?
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!
Bob: So, Peter, I see you’ve been missing a lot of work lately.Peter: Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob.
– Office Space
So here I am, sitting at my desk at work, for the first time in almost a week. Last Tuesday, I was stricken with what seemed, at first, to be a really bad cold, but which turned out to be acute bronchitis. After six days of hacking and wheezing, drinking orange juice by the gallon, and mainlining Nyquil and antibiotics, I’m almost back to normal. I still have the cough, but at least I no longer feel like my head is floating ten feet above the rest of my body. And, even better, the kiddies are all off on a four day field trip this week, so the library is nice and quiet…which is fortunate, since the place looks like a tornado hit it, and it will probably take me the whole week just to clean up the mess.
Incidentally, Fight Club is NOT a good movie to watch while you have a fever. I found that out the hard way last week. I’ve never had so many freaky-ass dreams in my life.
And speaking of libraries: as I make the rounds of blogs I haven’t read for the past week, I find out that US Rep. Bernie Sanders has reintroduced the Freedom To Read Protection Act. This bill, which would exempt libraries and bookstores from some of the more intrusive surveillance measures of the USA Patriot Act, should have passed last time…but we’ll let Sanders himself tell how democracy was cheated.
What’s the most coveted award in the world? The award that sets the glitterati and their paid sycophants and suckfish all a-twitter? What award show beats “American Idol” in the ratings like a red-headed stepchild? Is it the Oscars? Naw. The Emmys? Puh-lease. The Grammys? Not in this lifetime. Drum roll…...
That’s right, it’s the Craaaziest Christian of the Year™ award!
It’s been almost three months since we crowned 2004’s Craaaziest Christian™, and no doubt you have all been on the edges of your seats in breatless anticipation of this year’s nominees. Well, your wait is over! Here’s the first batch of 2005:
Woman claims image of Virgin Mary appears on bathroom mirror
Nebraska girl finds pretzel that looks like Mary and Jesus, sells it on E-Bay
Teacher at Christian school fires pellet gun at student in class
Man strangles wife because “divorce is frowned upon by the Lord”
Talk about an embarassment of riches: this many loonies to choose from, and there’s still more than nine months left in the year! Look for the next batch sometime in May…or sooner, if (as seems likely) the ranks of Craaazy Christians™ continue to grow exponentially by the day. In the meantime, who should be the winner from this first group?
As in any war, you win some, you lose some.
First, the Good News: it looks like the Republican attempt to destroy Social Security under the ruse of saving it is running out of gas. Not only is the American public waking up to the fact that DubYa’s “Chicken Little” claims of impending collapse are a crock; his own party is beginning to jump ship, and the Democrats, amazingly, appear to have spontaeously grown spines. (Hey, I’m as surprised as you.) Certainly, the rather glaring fact that There Is No Social Security Crisis helps their cause, but I’m betting their newfound feistiness probably has at least as much to do with the recent polls.
And now alas, the Bad News: the Republican attempt to rewrite the nations’ bankruptcy laws will succeed. This bill, when passed, will treat people who go bankrupt through illness, divorce, military service, or loss of their job the same as someone who rang up their debt at a casino. It will do nothing to penalize credit card companies, whose profits are soaring even as they knowingly issue cards to people who are credit risks. While the poor and middle class will now find it harder to rebuild after an economic disaster, the rich, not surprisingly, will have a king-sized loophole. And anti-abortion protesters will still be able to declare bankruptcy to get out of paying debts incurred when they cause damage to clinics.
But, hey, I should look at the bright side, right? After all, the library I work at is in a school for homeless kids. With the Republicans making it harder for families to escape the cycle of spiralling debt that causes so much homelessness in the first place…the school is guaranteed a never-ending supply of new students. I’ll never be out of a job!
