Random Things

Sorry for the lack of posts yesterday. Trust me, it wasn’t for lack of trying. Things just kept distracting me and that combined with the fact that the posting system was on crack last night kind of prevented me from doing anything productive other than fucking up the site, which I think is fixed now.

The second post you’ll read, the one right after this one was actually written last night but didn’t see the light of day until just now. Ok it saw the light of day twice, but I don’t think anybody saw it.

I guess there was a small error in the html and it felt obligated to let me know about it when I hit post and publish which is funny in itself because I’ve screwed up before and it hasn’t said a goddamn thing. It’s perfectly happy to let me turn a whole post into one big fucking link but miss one less than sign and oh my God, the world is gonna end. I ended up just canceling the whole post out so I could go back and fix it but for some reason it felt the need to post it anyway. So I fixed it and went back to post it again, but for some reason it put that same error back in. Not sure how that happened but I know it wasn’t my fault. I thought it must be the site being dumb so I posted it again. Then I check the site to see what was going on and neither post was showing up. Fantastic. So I head back to the interface to edit it and see that it’s posted twice. I delete both of them and the one about spyware from earlier in the week that got messed up. Not the good one, that one’s still there. The site doesn’t show any changes until I come back this morning and publish the stuff from yesterday again. Now everything is fine. I’m still not sure how my links can break on the way to where they need to go, but whatever. I hate the internet.

Another thing I hate is my body. I haven’t had a good night of sleep in over a week now and I don’t know why. I’ve had sleep problems for years but it seemed like in the last month or so I’d finally gotten things cleared up. I was feeling better, I wasn’t dragging myself around and feeling tired anymore. Now I’m back to that and I’m not happy about it. There’s no reason why I should be awake at 5 in the morning writing a blog, and my body knows that. It just won’t let me sleep, even though I need it. If any of you have any tricks or anything for getting to or staying asleep, let me know, I’d love to hear about them.

Ok, this post sucks, but I just thought I would explain what was up with the site in case anybody noticed anything strange last night. If you continue to notice strange things please
let me know through email.
Don’t post on the boards about it since I’ll see an email before I’ll see a comment and it would be nice to know as soon as possible so I can figure out what’s going on and fix it.

I’ll be back later with something better than this.

Writer’s Block

Note: I actually wrote this yesterday but between a combination of being tired, sidetracked with other things, and our posting system being on crack, it didn’t make it up. Actually I think it did but more on that in a few minutes. Enjoy the post, if this isn’t the third or fourth time you’re seeing it, it’s not showing up on the site when I go there but that doesn’t seem to mean much.

Today has been a very uneventful day. I haven’t really done much worth noting, there isn’t anything going on in the news today that screams at me to write about it, and there isn’t much on TV right now. I’ve got the news on in the background and the hockey game is about to start but this has just been one of those days where nothing is grabbing my interest in a serious way. I hate days like this. Days where you feel like you should be doing something but aren’t sure exactly what that is. Days where you feel creative and your mind is telling you that you are but then decides to go on lunch break when you sit down and try to form that creativity into something. Days like this aren’t really very good for blogging either but hey, here I am. I figure there’s only one thing to do in a situation like this when postworthy thoughts are hard to come by, and that’s link to other people’s things. Sadly, that’s the best idea I’ve had all damn day, so here we go.

If you’re looking for some more blog action, why not give
Karine
a try. She likes us enough to link to us, so check her out. She also hates Fred Durst so she’s cool with me by default even though there are a couple of Bizkit songs that I don’t mind too much.

Our man Armagideon Time has gone and changed his site address since he says he screwed something up,
so check that out too. Guy’s got some interesting stuff floating around in his head. Worth a look for certain, and you’ll probably wanna make it a favourite. I’m thinking that both of those links will end up over on the right in the near future since they were both nice enough to link back to us so if for some reason you don’t bookmark or give a click right away, you can do so later on.

If you’re in a reading about wrestling frame of mind, you can check out
this review of Steve Austin’s book.
Sounds like it could be an interesting read, and I’m sure it’s gonna sell like crazy.

Also on the wrestling front we have
Wrestle Crap,
which is always bringing everything craptacular your way. If you like wrestling and you’re a fan of laughter, then this is your place.

And if you need a little music to pass your time away, why not head over to the home of
Brad Sucks,
my new favourite 1 man band. He’s got a heaping load of free musical goodness for download and I have very little doubt that you’ll like at least a couple of songs. If you find yourself getting into it, buy his album, it’s only $5 American. Anybody can afford that, even Canadians like me.

While you’re there, snag yourself a copy of
Outside The Inbox,
a compilation of songs inspired by the subject lines of Spam emails. It too is only 5 bucks. I own one, and I’m going to own the Brad Sucks album quite soon I’m thinking since I’m really digging some of this stuff.

Ok, that should keep you busy for awhile I think. If not, check out all the stuff on the right, there’s a fair bit of it there and I’m sure you can find something fun, and more is on the way so keep checking it out.

This post took forever to write. I started it at 7 o’clock and it’s about 10 to 10 now. Man did I ever get sidetracked. I’m not even going to mention the horrible play of the Leafs tonight, they don’t even deserve publicity after a game like that. Actually it wasn’t so much a game as it was a sound thrashing.

I’m off to lay on the couch and fall asleep watching TV now. Feel free to
email me your feedback
or leave it on the boards. Thanks for checking out the site and thanks for all the nice feedback and links to us. Even if you hate us, thanks anyway, I’m feeling generous today. Yes, generous and sleepy. I’m done.

Weird

I’m really not sure what’s gotten into people lately. First we had the guy who swam over Niagara Falls and now this that I just read in
This Is True.

HEY, WATCH THIS! Two police officers on routine patrol in a New South
Wales, Australia, park saw a man on top of a block of toilets set
himself on fire, climb onto a bicycle, and then jump the bike toward a
pile of mattresses. He missed. The officers rushed over to find the
unnamed 39-year-old suffering from burns and broken bones — and still
on fire. They dumped a garbage bin full of water on the man and got him
to a hospital, where he is in serious condition. Police noted there
were quite a few spectators for the stunt. (Australian AP) …He’s 39
years old and trying to impress people with stupid bicycle tricks?
Yeah, that’s the very definition of “cool”.

Don’t ask me why that makes me laugh so much, I’m really not sure. I think it’s just the picture I’m getting in my head of how it all would have went down. More later, topics permitting.

Hallowe’en Countdown. Last Edition

Well, it’s an emotional day. It’s the last installment for the Hallowe’en Countdown which really wasn’t a countdown since there was no particular order. And I’ll admit this is is a very anti-climactic end to the “countdown” as there have been more amusing edtions… but it’s still good and it’s still hard to be done with. Anyway here it is. Down the road we’ll find some Christmas fun but for now, let’s just deal with this.

—
can’t tell you how it began, when it began, or why it began — but it happened. “Ghoul-Aid,” a series of Halloween beverage mixes from the fine folks running Kraft’s Kool-Aid factory, sought to capitalize on the season we love so much with spooky flavors and devilish pictures of the Kool-Aid Man in vampire garb. To say this was the defining moment of mankind is a gross understatement; the reality is, every culture and every race in the entire universe can look to the debut of Ghoul-Aid as the benchmark by which all other events must be compared. In fewer words, I really, really like the stuff.

There were several varieties of Ghoul-Aid available, though “Scary Blackberry” seems to have been the only one to receive a wide release in the States. This, by default, makes a handful of other countries much better than ours. World leaders, take note. Wars are a thing of the past. Conflicts can be resolved and victorious nations can be named simply by determining who has the most available varieties of Ghoul-Aid. Bring our boys home; pour them a cup of liquid sugar high. Yeah. Flavor aside, the real coup was all in the packaging — a Dracula version of the Kool-Aid Man is the kind of thing that shapes the dreams and doodles of any third-grader, or in this case, a really bored guy in his mid 20s. Rumors persist that Ghoul-Aid is a permanent addition — something that’s dusted off year after year during the Halloween season — but I’ve had no luck finding it. That might put the cool drawing of the Ghoul-Aid Man on the shelf, but for those wondering what this “Scary Blackberry” crap tasted like, there’s still hope.

If you’ve never seen the Kool-Aid F.A.Q., you don’t know what you’re missing. The immense document covers everything from how to make “Kool-Aid Toast” to at least 30 different tutorials on how to dye your hair with the shit, and when it comes to lost flavors, the F.A.Q. has you covered. I’m not sure when it was last updated (seems to have been running from at least 1998, if not earlier), but according to some guy named Michael Cooper, “Scary Blackberry” is but a single trip to the local grocer away.

In his words: “Just a note to let you all know I mixed up my own Scary Blackberry tonight, just a little different than the recipe given by Kraft. I actually mixed grape, cherry, and tropical punch and three cups of sugar together in a three quart pitcher and then diluted it accordingly into my storage pitchers. For the record, I can’t say it tastes exactly like Scary Blackberry, because I’ve never had any. I will say that it tastes *exactly* like a mix of those three flavors, with the tropical punch flavor being most dominant. The color, however, is a great Halloween blood reddish-purple.”

Well, if it’s good enough for this Michael Cooper guy, it’s good enough for me…

I had to substitute “Blastin’ Berry Cherry” for “Cherry,” but I found the right “Grape” and “Tropical Punch” flavors. Had to dig through a huge pile of Kool-Aid’s “Mad Scientist” flavors that had magical changing colors and other weird crap, but if that’s what I gotta do to get myself some Ghoul-Aid, I can take it. I was probably a little off with the flavor-to-flavor ratio, but after adding enough sugar to lure ants as far away as Guam, the end results seemed on the mark:

Well I’ll be! Though technically not “Scary Blackberry,” the mixture is indeed an intensely deep red and tastes pretty much exactly how a blackberry-flavored Kool-Aid should. Incredible stuff, actually. I’m not a big Kool-Aid aficionado, but I still drank six or seven cups in succession before finally succumbing to the sugar rush by running around the ceiling singing that song Frasier belts out in his ending credits. This was gooood drinkin’. Who knew the key to harmony lied in a glass of Scary Blackberry Ghoul-Aid? I mean, besides Michael Cooper?

Finally, a reason to obey your thirst. Fuck Sprite.

I’m not sure if they were available here, but at least in Canada, other varieties of Ghoul-Aid popped up. “Scary Black Cherry” and “Eerie Orange” can’t match the charm of the original, but it’s nice to have options if you wanted to drink Halloween Kool-Aid but had a peculiar distaste for anything blackberry-flavored. Unfortunately, instead of wearing the vampire suit, these follow-ups pictured the Kool-Aid Man with nothing more than a cheesy black wrap-around bandana — a costume that would’ve seemed way more pitiful if the guy wasn’t already a living pitcher full of fruit punch.

Anyway, I guess that’s all. For those interested, I wasn’t kidding about that makeshift mixture. It’s really tasty. As for the “real” varieties of Ghoul-Aid, who knows? Maybe Kraft’ll surprise us. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they will. Maybe maybe they they won’t will will won’t. God, I drank too much Kool-Aid.
===
And with that, Hallowe’en is over forever! Well, for a year or so.

Be Safe

Top 10 Signs You Are Too Old To Be Trick Or Treating

10. You get winded from knocking on the door.

9. You have to have another kid chew the candy for you.

8. You ask for high fiber candy only.

7. When someone drops a candy bar in your bag, you lose your balance and fall over.

6. People say, “Great Keith Richards mask!” and you’re not wearing a mask.

5. When the door opens you yell, “Trick or…” and can’t remember the rest.

4. By the end of the night, you have a bag full of restraining orders.

3. You have to carefully choose a costume that won’t dislodge your hairpiece.

2. You’re the only Power Ranger in the neighborhood with a walker.

1. You avoid going to houses where your ex-wives live.

Famous People

Just read a couple things that I thought were worth mentioning. First, Vanilla Ice is 35 today. Happy birthday to him. I respect Vanilla Ice for a few reasons. For one thing, he hardly ever puts out music anymore and when he does, it doesn’t show up on radio and haunt me everywhere I go. But when I think about it, I’d rather hear his stuff than some of the shit we’re subjected to these days.

Another thing I like about him is that for a guy who’s career has basicly been dead since 1992, he’s amazing at making sure people don’t forget him by coming back just enough to make us remember before going away again. We don’t get any sort of Vanilla over-saturation like we get with other celebs. You can count on hearing about him every couple years or so pretty much like clockwork. There was that metal album he did, that boxing match he had for the celebrity boxing special, and I think he even did a song with The Bloodhound Gang at one point. He’s made being washed up in public into an artform and for that he deserves something, although what that is I’m not really sure.

I also respect the fact that he’s not a whore like Pam Anderson, or at least the fact that if he is, he’s smart enough to keep his fool mouth shut about it. Just saw this on Rolling Stone and for some reason it pissed me off.

PAM BOUNCES BETWEEN TOMMY, KID ROCK

Just three days after KID ROCK publicly serenaded
on-again/off-again fiance PAMELA ANDERSON at a New York City bar,
she was seen holding hands and kissing ex-husband TOMMY LEE at the
Los Angeles premiere of “Scary Movie 3,” according to the new issue
of “Us Weekly.” “I see [Kid and Tommy] both,” Anderson told the
magazine. “They’re just great guys. I have the best of all worlds.”

No, you’re a whore! Well maybe not a whore, but a skank for sure. I think the thing that gets me so mad about this is that nobody’s going to say word one about how slutty that is just because she is who she is. Let’s be honest here, if your sister or the girl across the street from you busted out remarks like that she’d be the town tramp and we all know it. I’m sick of celebrities getting a free pass just because they made a movie or something. Give me a break!

Ok, I’m gonna go before I bust a blood vessel or something. Comment at will.

What’s Your Life Rated?

Found this quiz while I was surfing around. I always thought this stuff was kind of neat so I’m sharing it cause well, I can, damnit! It’s a test to figure out what your life would be rated on the MPAA movie ratings scale. Somehow I ended up with NC-17, that’s X for people who aren’t familiar with what that means.

If you do the test, leave your score in the comments section at the end of this post. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of people we’ve got reading this site on a daily basis. You can rate your life
here.

Hallowe’en Countdown: Crowning The Season’s Champ… Sorta

Well, we haven’t had this in a while so here’s another installment of our Hallowe’en Countdown. Enjoy. I’ll try and get some more reading of “interest” for y’all up here tomorrow.

—
We’ve seen lots of oddball candy selections for this Halloween season, but not everyone is skipping over the classics. Even at the top of Choco Mountain, three of the sales leaders have taken a bite out of the holiday spirit and filled the wound with all sorts of marshmallow slime and peanut butter creme. Hershey’s, Reese’s, and Snickers have all been given the Halloween treatment, and more striking than their similarities there is the fact that they’ve uniformly been souped up to look like pumpkins. No ghosts, no vampires, no witches or Frankensteins. Pumpkins, and lots of ’em. Their respected names will surely make these the season’s top sellers and the most bragged about entries into any kid’s trick-or-treat sack, but when all the chocolate is stripped and the bellies of our youth more bloated than a dead beached sea turtle, there can only be…one champion. Which of these three ace card contenders is the true leader of the pumpkin-shaped chocolate Halloween candy society? Let’s find out.

First up, Hershey’s “Marshmallow Pumpkin,” a big chocolate shell containing an even bigger loaf of marshmallow gunk. Though it’s the only one of the three magic pumpkins that isn’t hideously unhealthy, it’s also the most boring. The marshmallow filling is fine on the first bite, but subsequent bites will leave you craving the worse yet tastier types of fillings found in the next entries. There is such a thing as too much marshmallow, and this is edible proof. Worst of all, it’s only shaped like a Jack O’ Lantern in the vaguest of ways, looking as much like half a monkey’s ass as it does a pumpkin. On the plus side, it’s cheap eatin’ and the royal purple foil wrapper might inspire you into grander themes for your future wedding parties. Truth be told, apologies to Hershey’s — this just ain’t the candy I’d be willing to build my future around. Pass.

From flop to glob, here’s Reese’s “Peanut Butter Pumpkin,” a takeoff on their classic peanut butter cups. If you like the cups, you’ll love this — it’s the same thing, just with 80 times more filling. Again, the pumpkin shape is more subdued than it should be, but you’ll be too busy eating way too much peanut butter creme to care. Besides, with this one, it’s all about the free association. This is a Halloween peanut butter cup, right? For all intents? So, you’ll bite into it, realize how much it tastes like the regular cups, and invariably be reminded of that old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercial, where Dracula confesses that “he likes to eat the peanut butter…first.” Then you’ll try to eat the pb-pumpkins just as Dracula, ultimately failing, but having an incredible amount of fun along the way. For 69 cents, all that shit’s a bargain. Still, I don’t think Reese’s has successfully topped our last entry…

Presenting this year’s champion, the “Snickers Pumpkin.” If you’re going to eat a candy bar, there’s usually no better avenue than the almighty Snickers — and every part of that enticing formula has been perfectly mimicked and modified into a pumpkin-shaped holiday concession. This time, the pumpkin actually looks right, with decisively pronounced triangular eyes, a gaping mouth, and a stem that makes you want to take a step back and thank the good lord for creating life intelligent enough to make something so wonderful. And there’s caramel! And nuts and all that other stuff! Chocolate! You can talk up the marshmallows and peddle the peanut butter all you want — anyone faithful to their objectivity can see that Snickers took the crown fair and square tonight.

Bow to your new champ. Then eat it
===
Y’all have a good night. More tomorrow.

Oops

For some reason this didn’t post the first time but maybe that was for the best since I screwed something up anyway. Here it is again, hopefully all fixed.

What’s In A Name?

I just read that The Gator Corporation, the people behind some of the spyware we all love so much, has decided to change it’s name to Claria to better reflect their business plan and marketing strategy
and to distance itself from the Gator name, a name that anybody who has ever been a victim of it’s software or who knows what it does at all hates with a passion.

This is stupid on a number of levels. First, what in hell does Claria even mean? Is there a dictionary definition under the word Claria that means installing your software on other people’s computers without their knowledge like a virus, making it next to impossible to remove, disguising it as something useful and then using that software to track people’s internet surfing habbits, serv pop-up ads to them over sites that didn’t authorize the displaying of those ads as well as gathering personally identifyable information on those same people? If there is then I take it all back, the name change makes perfect sense. However as it is, the only thing that the new name reflects is a company running scared from a bad reputation, one that is very richly deserved.

And that leads to the other problem I have. How stupid do these companies think we are? Do they honestly think that people are going to think that because it’s not Gator serving the ads, but instead it’s Claria installing itself on their computers that it’s ok to allow it to happen without fighting back? Like that conversation is ever gonna happen.

“Hey Dave, help me fix this computer, I’ve got these ads all over it and I never used to have them, I think I got Gator on here somehow.”

“No Bob, that’s Claria, not Gator.”

“Well ok then, guess I can leave it there. Gees, that was close.”

The only thing that this re-branding has done is given us a new name to hate and the same old reasons to hate it. Trust me, people are going to catch on, and they’ll be changing that name to something else in another 5 years. Might I suggest Viral Scum Corporation or how about Unwantedd Commercials Unlimited?

I’ll leave you with this thought. Even if I call it human bi-product fertilization, I still shit on your lawn. The act is more important than the name you give it.

Hoe Or Hockey?

Well, with the wheel of sloth out of the way the boys over at the Edge 102 Morning Show needed to find something else to hook people on…. Well they’ve got a winner in my book.

They’ve started a new phone in contest called “Hoe or Hockey?”. It’s really a pretty simple contest. While you’re on the line they play 3 sound clips for you to guess of whether the clips have been taken from a hockey broadcast or “dirty movie” (as they call it). Obviously it’s usually very simple and easy to decide on but it’s more for humour. They’ve had some great lines like Ryan Smyth in a post game interview spouting off gems like “I’m a Banger! Big time, Baby!” or Bob Cole during a game calling out “Tucker lays the heavy speer to Roenick and he doesn’t look happy about it.”

They’ve run a few other contests similar to this one that were a lot harder to pick out at times. The most difficult one was called “Hoe Renovations” where you had to pick out whether the clip was from a “dirty movie” or from a Home Renovation shows. Again, usually it was just humour but there were rare occasions where the clips were difficult but there were some priceless lines out of that one as well like “To prevent injury, make sure you get right in there before you start pounding away!” or “Things won’t turn out the way you want if you spray the backside.”

Pretty much childish humour. But hey, I need to laugh in the mornings.

More Later