TheBomb.Com.Com

For the bacon lovers

2008-12-19T16:33:00.000-08:00

You think people who work here eat bacon?

This is fucking hilarious.

2008-10-18T10:28:00.000-07:00

These people dance...

2008-10-12T21:02:00.000-07:00

...Like they've got ants in their pants.

And they need to dance.

What Would a Maverick Do

2008-10-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

repeat: what would a maverick do

Reality Shows

2008-10-03T09:39:00.000-07:00

many moons ago a little profile in a little publication called the Washington City Paper projected late night shots and the georgetown trust fund babies who use it into the public spotlight. people were mostly outraged and appalled by their behavior and justifiably so. but the truth is, what more do we americans love more than appalling behavior in our news stories?

hells ya, appalling behavior on our TeeVees. late night shots and the vapid culture that surrounds it has officially been turned a reality show in the vein of the hills or laguna beach. i'm still confused if this qualifies for reality, but i've smoked so much pot in my day i have no fucking clue what reality is. we'll call this show close enough.

this is a turning point in history: the invasion of DC by god damn young republicans is complete. we don't need to worry about these coors-light drinking bastards coming to columbia heights anymore. they're projecting an image to the world that none of us can do anything to stop. tire burning sure as shit won't help, despite gene's best efforts.

but honestly, is that such a bad thing? do we even care about the bitch goddess' image in the world? sarah palin thinks it's a shit hole, so why not show everyone just how shitty it is? i personally am going to love every minute of this series. my heart with ache with rage everytime they show a line at georgetown cupcake or some girl puking on her white dress in adams morgan. i'll laugh with furious anger every time they go to the mall pretending like there is something to do there, ever. most importantly, i'll really be able to empathize with these characters... i mean, real people... as they contemplate the truly important questions in life, such as which private club to join and new ways to establish their superiority.

the show is called Blonde Charity Mafia--hahahaha, what genius came up with that?!?!--and it's been picked up by lifetime. the local news clip is below and it's also hilarious.

Bicycle Enthusiast Envoy Returns

2008-09-25T19:06:00.000-07:00

what does that title mean? next to nothing, but the acronym spells BEER which is pretty clever.

speaking of beer... and bicycles, look at this Pabst fixie. it's like a collision of worlds, or not really at all. studies show 100% of fixie riders drink PBR.

Information

2008-09-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

if tbdcdcdbdc is good for anything, it's being a forum for cutting edge intellectual thought. surriously. what haven't we discussed here? Ageism? check. Excessive Coffee Consumption? check. Inter-Species Animal Breeding? triple-check. and all of this was done in the month of june.

that's why i'm happy to offer this presentation by some swedish dude about stuff. i'm not sure what this is actually about, but damn those graphics are fancy. the only thing that could make this presentation better would be a Jacked Up! sequence but then again, that might not be entirely appropriate when talking about poverty and income distribution.

I know I know, Yeah You Too

2008-08-22T12:43:00.000-07:00

Kerry played this remix (more of a mash-up really) of a Clipse song for me shortly after we moved to DC from Portland. I thought it was good then, but it's grown on me quite a bit and has since become my summer jam of every year. I could bbq the living shit out of something to this song. I'm talking steak, sausages, zucchini, lettuce, grapes, bubblicious, runts and, of course, hot beats.

Darkside of Oz

2008-08-16T19:25:00.000-07:00

darkside of oz isn't an amazing conspiracy. the two don't actually go together. instead our brains hear the sounds and see the images and create relationships that don't actually exist. this isn't to discount how entertaining it is, though. on the contrary, it's bombdotcom.com. but the phenomenon isn't limited to just darkside of oz.

this phenomenon works for pretty much anything, especially The Flaming Lips and the cartoon channel. don't knock it until you try it. it also, amazingly, works with with Justice/Will Smith/WALE. in full disclosure, i am not on the payroll of any of the aforementioned artists and this is not my idea. i took it from Justice themselves via an interview in Pitchfork: "...when we got this song we loaded the Will Smith video on YouTube [for] "Getting Jiggy Wit It". We are just putting that track on top of the video. It's perfect. It's like a hit, you know? We were dancing behind our table looking at the video. It's really cool."

what you need to do: play the WALE track then play Gettin Jiggy Wit It on mute. Justice was right. it is really cool... and hilarious.

Shorts Jump The Shark

2008-08-04T22:24:00.000-07:00

It's over. Put away your linen shorts-suit and bow-tie. The honeymoon is over. With the recent article in the establishment bastion that is the New York Times, the golden days of shorts are over. Hipsters nation-wide will shortly be seen burning their shorts in the street, or perhaps keeping them in the closet for their next trip to Germany, where they won't even be popular yet for another year. But when the Times quotes an octogenarian on the return of shorts, it's all over. Moment of silence.

Bombay the Bomb way

2008-07-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

Greetings. Having made a recent shift of continent, your erstwhile tbdcdcdbdc NE DC correspondent has now become your faithful tbdcdcdbdc South Asia correspondent. As such, I'm actually blogging from the past. I don't know if you all still remember the past, but it's pretty flippin' wild. Trust me.

Natch, India yields many things that are tbdcdcdbdc. From my immediate arrival, however, I was struck by the amount of rubble that seems to be everywhere in Bombay. It would seem, in fact, that the entire city is destroyed every night and reconstructed with new bricks, because every road is seemingly littered with chunks of brick and cement and steel and glass. I have no idea where it might all come from.

In any case, on my second day here, I was driving across town when I looked out of the window to see a shining example of contrast. Sitting in the rubble, on top of a particularly large chunk of concrete, a man was engaged in one of life's finest tonsorial pleasures - getting a straight edge razor shave from a barber.

Ah.... Luxury.

Now, I didn't have my camera on hand at the time, but apparently this phenomenon isn't so rare, as a google image search for "barber shave india" yielded the above photo. Rare or not, it's definitely the bomb.

Classic Rock

2008-07-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

ohhh, ya, the smooth sounds of the 70's. nothin sounds like summer more than some bombdotcom.com classic rock. doesn't matter where you are, turn the volume up, the bullshit down and escape.

Weezer + Radiohead + Portland = ...?

2008-06-27T08:44:00.000-07:00

the end is extremely fucking nigh. when weezer cover radiohead in portland, ore. of all places, you can be confident the headless horsemen and elephants of the apocalypse are not far behind. i'm afraid--to tell you the truth--i don't know what hipsterdom can do to stop the inevitable end.

Genedebs' "Bandana Only" future

2008-06-19T06:48:00.000-07:00

genedebs, along with yours truly, is also approaching the end of his "official" employment. (i have no idea what those quotation marks add to that but go with it.) this means his free time, i.e. all of his time, will be spent wearing only a bandana watching sci-fi made for TV movies and thinking about his fixed gear bike. if he had planned correctly, he could have waited until being unemployed to build a fixed gear bike out of a frame he "got a sick deal on" but he didn't his loss. but not ours.

oh, no. i'm sure mr. debs will commit a significant amount of his bandana-only summer scowering the intrawebs for little gems like this.

this video is an absolute grab bag of insanity and finding these things takes precious, precious time. think about it, there are like 7 billion people in india and they make at least 14 trillion movies a year. (bollywood is their biggest export, ya know.) and there are like 14.3423x10^30 people living in a single house in tokyo so they watch a lot of movies. if you run the numbers then finding a japanese trailer for a bollywood flick should be pretty easy but it isn't because the interwebs are tricky like that. that's why it takes time. the type of time you only have if you're forced to sit at a desk 8 hours a day and pretend to work or if you're "underemployed" but still have access to the internet. this is the exact amount of precious, wasting-my-youth time i have and genedebs will certainly have in his immediate future.

two unrelated notes: 1, i'm sorry to the interns that got canned for not buying gin, but they must have seen it coming, "booze hound" was in the job description and that certainly implies one is of drinking age. then again, maybe they're underage booze hounds and thus super-cool and that's why they got the job... i'll leave those questions to someone more intelligent than myself to figure out. and 2, if genedebs will no longer be the sole defender of the modern labor movement, does the name genedebs become obsolete?

obsolete pen names, big in 2k11?

under age former interns, big in 2k8.5?

WHO IS BARACK OBAMA?

2008-06-18T12:50:00.000-07:00

read the following as fast and with the same emphasis as this video.

There are many things people do not know about BARACK OBAMA. It is every American's duty to read this message and pass it along to all of their friends and loved ones.

Barack Obama wears a FLAG PIN at all times. Even in the shower.

Barack Obama says the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE every time he sees an American flag. He also ends every sentence by saying, "WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL." Click here for video of Obama quietly mouthing the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE in his sleep.

A tape exists of Michelle Obama saying the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE at a conference on PATRIOTISM.

Every weekend, Barack and Michelle take their daughters HUNTING.

Barack Obama is a PATRIOTIC AMERICAN. He has one HAND over his HEART at all times. He occasionally switches when one arm gets tired, which is almost never because he is STRONG.

Barack Obama has the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE tattooed on his stomach. It's upside-down, so he can read it while doing sit-ups.

There's only one artist on Barack Obama's iPod: FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.

Barack Obama is a DEVOUT CHRISTIAN. His favorite book is the BIBLE, which he has memorized. His name means HE WHO LOVES JESUS in the ancient language of Aramaic. He is PROUD that Jesus was an American.

Barack Obama goes to church every morning. He goes to church every afternoon. He goes to church every evening. He is IN CHURCH RIGHT NOW.

Barack Obama's new airplane includes a conference room, a kitchen, and a MEGACHURCH.
Barack Obama's skin is the color of AMERICAN SOIL.

Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.

Barack Obama says that Americans cling to GUNS and RELIGION because they are AWESOME.

Live Blogging The Great Office Coffee Drinking Contest (Attempt 2)

2008-06-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

Today is the great office coffee drinking contest. The rules are simple, as long as you work in an office. First, drink coffee. Second, (and this rule is optional) live blog the event. The contestants for today's contest are MC Lean and Rooftop Media.

5:45 MC Lean: on the tail end of this experiment , if you can call it that, and on the verge of another, i'm struck by how dynamic this experience has been. after 14 cups i am literally without words, so, in the de facto theme of the day, i will leave my closing remarks to one Hunter S Thompson:

Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Has it been five years? Six? It seems like a lifetime, the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.

And that, I think, was the handle--that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark--that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

5:40: RM: It's almost over. 14th cup is almost gone. I've got a lot of problems with myself right now. Physiological as well as psychological. My heart hurts. As does my head. All I can say is...I WON! I beat coffee. And I got paid to do it.

Later suckers.

4:59 ML: if there is one thing we can all take away from this experiment, it's that food is the best cure for overly ambitious caffeine consumption. every time i've reached the edge, food has brought me back, lifting my mind to states of elation i didn't know existed.

one of the early goals of this experiment was to find things that are awesome on the internet. i figured early on that with my heightened level of consciousness i would be able to surf the web with super-human productivity. god was i wrong. as i've already noted, i spent nearly the entire day recycling my experiences into a single blur. imagine my thoughts are clothes in a dryer, now imagine that dryer on the fastest spin cycle possible. can you tell the difference between the clothes? hell no, they're moving too fast. that was me trying to follow my thoughts.

anyway, thanks to the sordid, voyeuristic following this liveblogging experiment has garnered other people have found bomb things for me to post and without a doubt, this is the best one.

if you're impatient like me (remember, 11 cups of coffee) and can't stand the suspense the face punching begins at 1:04. this video includes everything i love, well, just two things: smoking with cigarettes and slow motion. slow motion makes everything look cool, especially when your mind is on the spin cycle.

4:44pm RM: Things are really starting to come up Millhouse. I just scored some free food, I saw Dan Porch and what was once a horrible state of caffinated self-hate and confusion has turned into a delusional, caffinated state of elation.

I'm balls-deep in my 12th cup of coffee (iced this time) and the sugar I added is having an undeniably positive effect. I feel like I'm drunk. Actually drunk. But they can't fire me because it's okay to drink coffee in the office.

That being said, it's best that I stay away from co-workers at this point. Maybe they can smell it on me? Maybe they can see it in my eyes.

I found this video. Pretty hilarious. I don't even hate Oprah that much, but holy god, does she make some hilarious faces!

4:33 ML: i've lost myself in the vortex of my experiment. i have spent almost every minute of this day looking at this blog and ingesting the liveblogging of what i experienced 10 minutes before. i can't explain what that this does to ones consciousness when you're jacked up on caffeine. it's like some sort of psychotic ferris wheel that you can't get off of. i didn't even notice this was happening until briefly leaving this site and looking at the Slate homepage. suddenly the reality that a world outside of caffeine-induced-live-blogging exists, that my buzz is not all there is in the world set in. what a relief.

4:15 ML: as you all can plainly see, things are getting interesting. (if you can't plainly see, you haven't been keeping up with the day's progress.) at the point i thought this coffee drinking challenge would become a marathon--holding a slow pace to reach a responsible goal in a given time--we turned it back into a sprint. RM is looking at 11 cups while i barely have two sips until i've bested 10 and i have no intentions of stopping. all this in just about 2 hours.

what can explain this behavior? was it some absurd boost of adrenaline, probably caffeine induced? what's the point of all this? do we intend on emerging on the other side with some sort of heightened understanding? do we expect this to be like some spiritual/hallucinogenic "change your perspective on shit" experience?

i can feel my mind slipping and i can't carry that thought any further. anyway, the answer is probably the caffeine induced adrenaline, so what's the point asking more rhetorical questions.

4:10pm RM: Shit's getting real.

ML: found more coffee

brewing now

RM: and how!

thanks

i need a fix

ML: so bad

bennett has been drinking it

that fucker!

RM: what!

fucker

Raelynn

ML: ya. fuckin fucker came in while i was brewing it

Nate: fuck

ML: huh? what about raelynn?

RM: raelynn left 10mins ago...as she's walking out she looks down at me and says: coffee?

i said yea

she said, it's 330

u shouldn't be drinking cofffee

ML: hahah

RM: i said: if you only knew

Sent at 3:46 PM on Friday

Nate: dude

ML: yo

RM: we've typed over 2000 words today

ML: hahahaha

Sent at 3:48 PM on Friday

ML: im serious. how is this thing going to end

cup 10 is in my hand

the coffee is ready to rock

Sent at 3:53 PM on Friday

RM: dude

i'm going to get a cup

ML: nice. it's hot as fuck

i need to drink water but i've lost the will

it's caffeine or bust at this point

RM: yuyp

my heart is palpatating

hard-core

ML: wow. mine is alright

but my hands are getting jittery again

Sent at 4:01 PM on Friday

RM: fucking amanda

is in the kitchen baking

delicious food

ML: ya, i told this is my 10th cup

she said, "that's not healthy"

RM: moz sticks, patato skins

sliders from kevin

everything

and she wont fucking share a fucking thing

this is fucking bullshit

gonna come up to our kitchen, cook delicious food and not fucking share?

bullshit

she said it was for shannon's birhtday and that maybe if i was friends with shannon i'd get some food

ML: thats bullshit!

RM: i said it's not my fault i'm not friends with shannon

ML: righ!

RM: maybe if she was fucking friends with me!

fuck

fucking angry now

real fucjkiugns angry

ML: how's #10?

RM: hot (and it's 10.75)

3:46 ML: don't worry, tbdcdcdcdbdc readers, more coffee is on the way. we found another bag of grounds and it is brewing as we speak.

this reprieve from pouring caffeine down my throat, though, provides me another opportunity to call attention to genedebs' post. we moved it below the liveblogging because it's not as important as this, but it is nonetheless applicable and awesome. you my scroll down or click here to see it.

3:38 ML: the situation becomes dire:

RM: dude / u need to make a new pot and fast / stat / even

ML: we're out of caffeinated coffee / fuck?!?!

RM: no / fucking lie

ML: upstairs? i can't do that alone

RM: dude

ML: or at all / im getting the fear again

RM: ru serious? grow up / pull your shit together / this isn't a fucking joke.

ML: you're right

RM: all that was left was 3/4 of a cup

ML: did you already drink it? so you're on 10 3/4 and i'm only on 9? this is fucked

RM: no! i'm at 9 and 3/4 / what the fuck! don't fucking let me fall that short

2:41 RM: Cup 8 down the hatch. Cup 9 warm in my hand. Thinking cup 10's gonna have to be on ice.

Feelin' good. Feelin' real good. Still haven't done any work today...I did just make some copies for one my bosses, so that's pretty sweet. Otherwise i've been here, live-blogging. Looking for funny shit on the web.

Not really finding much.

Until I found this...

http://view.break.com/513310

Gosh, I wish there was sound! Look at that destruction! Epic.

I can only imagine what it'd take to push me to this point. I think earlier in the day, around cup 5, I could have lapsed. But now, as cup 9 brings me toward a zen like state of calm uber-awareness, I couldn't imagine committing such vicious acts against my co-workers. They're all very wonderful.

2:14 ML: having just got back from an afternoon walk i feel refreshed. we got some free soup and cheese samples from dean and deluca and also landed a free teriyaki chicken sample in the georgetown mall food court.

that said i'm moving into my 7th cup and can see the finish line. with under 4 hours to go i'm confident i can make it to 10 cups. no longer do i feel intimidated or anxious about interacting with my coworkers. in fact, i feel like this caffeine buzz has somehow projected my consciousness a few milliseconds into the future and i'm one step ahead of everyone.

the real question is how this experiment will end. at some point the coffee and the work week will end... and what then? once you've crossed the edge, how does one return to normalcy? can one return to normalcy after an experiment such as this? as Hunter S Thompson once wrote (via jack), "there is no honest way to describe 'the edge.' Only those poor souls who have already crossed it could possibly understand ." what understanding then is necessary to return?

tally:
6.5 cups of coffee (and counting)
4 pints of water
1 sandwich
1 sample french onion soup
2 sample pieces of aged gouda

1:35 RM: I'm deep into cup 6. Still haven't eaten anything. Gonna hold off. Eating is for p*%$ies. My digestive system is all kinds of fucked up. I don't really know what my body is telling me to do - mind over matter. Drink more coffee. Another glass of water coming soon.

But here's my question of the day? Does John McCain really hate war?

He says "war" an awful lot for someone who hates it so much...is he trying to remind us that we're hopelessly and inextricably involved in an endless war against evil others? Evil others who will kill your nice Christian babies?

Well thank goodness for John McCain! I'd almost forgotten that we're spending a billion dollars a month to murder innocent America-haters half-way across the world...for our safety! Thank goodness for John McCain because before he came out with that spot, I'd forgotten that the best way to "keep America safe" is by always putting American soldiers in harm's way! That makes perfect sense. If we always have someone to kill on other continents, we'll never have people coming to our continent to kill the majority of us!

Also, is this the best issue for McCain to be running on? Seems kinda silly to me - seems like he should focus on something most Americans don't hate...like the economy...like providing dehydrated babies with bottles of hot water...like providing all puppies with winter jackets. I dunno, just a thought.

1:17 ML: i feel as if i'm coming out of a black out. the last hour or so was intense but i'm definitely getting on top of my buzz. i got some food in me, a few cups o' joe and a glass of water and i feel great.

we also had a few contests of typeracer. jack felt his honor had been insulted so he threw down the glove. it was a gentleman's duel and we all escaped with our pride intact.

12:54pm

ML: wow! this new pot is hot as hell

RM: and how!

i'm working on a post

ML: my water drinking has sky rocketed

Sent at 12:40 PM on Friday

RM: dude

i have tthe coffee sweats

ML: im beginning to laugh uncontrollably

and definitely the sweats

i feel teh same way, with the judging eyes

RM: what you laughing at? You got something funny for me?

ML: no, it's spontaneous and unprovoked

Sent at 12:46 PM on Friday

RM: my heart does kinda hurt

question

why is this funny?

ML: shoot

RM:

12:48 ML: while i can't put it better than RM--"At this point I'm talk[ing] to co-workers as if I'm drunk on gin, smelling of cigarettes, and trying to cover it all up. Of course, I'm neither of those things, but I can feel their eyes on me, judging, waiting for me to slip up."--i have the added anxiety that everyone is looking at me, waiting for me to confirm their deepest and darkest suspicions of me: that i'm a binge-aholic and unfit for the workplace.

i think i'm getting the fear.

tally:
4 coffees
3 pints of water
1 turkey sandwich

12:33pm RM: Well said ML. I also recommend skipping most of Jack's post. Science is tbdcdcdbdc. Trying to explain science to people is not.

Pot of coffee #2 is in the kitchen. It's hot and dark and delicious. I'm halfway into cup #5. I also decided to chug a glass of water. 50+ ounces of coffee before 12:45pm is not entirely healthy. I need to maintain and equilibrium. At this point I'm talk to co-workers as if I'm drunk on gin, smelling of cigarettes, and trying to cover it all up. Of course, I'm neither of those things, but I can feel their eyes on me, judging, waiting for me to slip up. There's no law against coffee. Get off my back.

My finger just brushed the can of seltzer to my left. I jumped because I thought I'd knocked it over. It barely budged. I'm losing it.]

Check out this hilarious picture of W.

12:15pm:

RM: you're gonna bitch outta the contest that easily

that's pathetic

ML: no, this game is on

i just need more of what my body needs to combat the caffeine

i'm in it to win it

RM: you better be

i'm going to make a fresh pot

ML: do it

Sent at 12:18 PM on Friday

ML: posting

Sent at 12:22 PM on Friday

RM: ddue

another pot is on

but man

i think we're in too deep. over our heads

ML: we were in a sprint before

now it's a marathon

this is an endurance race

RM: we can't stop

you have any idea how bad the fall-out is goign to be?

ML: pretty bad

food should help

RM: yea, suppose

another cup of coffee first

ML: ya

and a piss

12:18pm ML: in the time that has passed since my last post jack has posted and i have decided not to be a wuss and stay in the great coffee drink-off until i win it. we're done with pot #1 and are moving on to pot #2. this is truly an epic day for competitive coffee drinking.

but as for jack's post, he concedes that he is not a particle physicist. this is true. he however fails to also concede that he is a booger eater. now it may not be appropriate to pass judgement in a post like this, but this is a liveblog and i'm jacked up on caffeine so anything goes. i read his post and skipped large swaths of it because i don't want to spoil my appetite with all those boogers. apparently the world may or may not end at the hands of a black hole that may or may not be microscopic? i suggest skipping it and only watching the monkey video at the end. speaking of monkeys, there has been a flurry of monkey coverage on tbdcdcdcdbdc recently, covering everything from drunk monkeys to robot monkeys to the ethical dilemma we face when we make monkeys pet owners. example #1. example #2. example #3.

11:58 ML: preparing for my 4th cup i had to give in and take a shit. that's my second shit since 9:30ish. that's much above my average for just two hours--the caffeine is taking hold. i've noticed other effects too, including but not limited to office anxiety. example: after finishing up in the bathroom i heard several people speaking outside the bathroom door. i patiently waited inside the bathroom until the coast was clear to make my exit. the last thing i need is contact with any person for any reason. we'll see how cup #4 goes but today's contest may be going to rooftop.

11:37 RM: I'm moving onto cup 4. My chest is kinda starting to hurt and I find myself drinking more and more seltzer for every sip of coffee. My stomach has calmed down a little, still some rumbles, but so far so good. Can't wait to get deep into this 4th cup though. The coffee's still hot.

On another note, I found out that I'm not a good typer earlier this week. How you ask? Typeracer. Thank you Rozas. Anyway, I can only type like 60 words per minute, max. I got to 70 twice. I keep trying to beat that...attempt after attempt after attempt. Failure fail fail. Then...I hate myself because I've just spent the last 30 mins typing quotes from Clockwork Orange and Fight Club and Pink Floyd. Oh well...I still suck at typing. I blame the sausage fingers.

http://play.typeracer.com/

11:29am ML: i will not be faulted for this. RM can not throw allegations around like this. this is neither a gin drunk stupor nor nam, there are rules here. this how the events in question transpired:

ML: i did some liveblogging

RM: you deleted my shit!

ML: what? how?

RM: i don't know. you did it!

ML: were we live blogging at the same time?

RM: i dunno! you bastard!

ML: dont blame me. blame the interwebs

RM: you did it! it was there!

ML: well, i dont know how to bring it back

as you can see, while i wasn't very apologetic i also wasn't very at fault so what the fuck is there to apologize for? nothing. that's what.

11:15am RM: Rooftop disagrees that ML is mastering his coffee buzz. He just "inadvertently" deleted my hilarious post from 11:01. Asshole.

So, to summarize. I'm on my third cup as well and am feeling, ya know, caffinated. My stomach is doing summersaults and I'm trying to hold off going to the bathroom till this cup is finished. I've also opened up a seltzer. I feel that it is important to remain hydrated whilst drinking massive amounts of coffee, otherwise it'll burn when you pee.

Also, my fingers are starting to get cold and I can feel a headache coming on. Is this what it's like to have Raynaud's?

Anyway, speaking of Germans, this video came out awhile ago and is hilarious. Other variations have to do with the Dallas Cowboys.

11:08 ML: moving onto cup 3 things have slowed down. i think i'm getting on top of the buzz.

10:56 MC Lean: after only two cups things are starting to get weird. i can feel my pulse increasing and my thoughts are becoming erratic at best. i just watched this video, pretty clever. also, stupid germans.

Should monkeys have puppies?

2008-06-05T07:20:00.000-07:00

This is interesting:

A mother monkey, while morning the loss of her child, adopts a puppy and raises it as her own. This is awesome for a number of reasons. For one, look at the picture, it's a monkey holding a puppy in a tree. Can't beat that.
Now, at least once a week I have to tell my girlfriend that if she gets a dog, I can't help her take care of it. There's a lot of reasons for this, the first is that every time she sees a dog her voice goes up a hundred decibels and she blabbers to the dog like it's the second coming. I hate it. Second, you can't go out of town without tricking someone into taking care of the dog. Inconvenient. Third, I know people with dogs and every time you're out drinking, they have to go home and walk the dog. Intolerable. It's not that I don't like dogs, I do like dogs. I'd be pretty psyched to have a dog that could catch a frisbee.
Fact: while these are valid reasons why I don't have a puppy, none of these are valid reasons to stop a monkey from having a puppy **(see foot note)
Think about it. What better way to train a puppy to not shit on your stuff then (assuming you are a mother monkey) to shit in your hand and throw it at the puppy? Don't waste your time thinking of an answer to that, it's a rhetorical, there is NO better way. Monkeys do that all the time, it's one of the things that make them awesome.
OK so, yeah, puppies can't climb trees. Good point. But that just means that the mother monkey has to spend time on the ground. And mark my words, if a mother monkey spends a lot of time on the ground with her puppy, someday that puppy is gonna be a full sized dog, and when that day comes, the mother monkey is gonna add 2 and 2 together, and she's gonna ride that dog like a horse. There is simply no great triumph in the animal kingdom then riding another species around like a horse. Awesome.
And mark my words again. Monkeys are smart. If a monkey is riding a dog around for long enough, that monkey's gonna figure out how to dress up like a cowboy. It's evolution at it's finest.

Conclusion: Monkeys are awesome puppy owners. Furthermore, if my girlfriend wants a dog so bad, the only way to get me on board is by getting a monkey to fling shit at the dog when he's bad, and ride him around the park like an awesome little cowboy while I'm at happy hour.

**Yes I am well aware of the alcoholic monkeys who live by the beach and steal drinks from tourists. This could be seen as a possible argument against me going out drinking while my monkey, Chet, has to take care of the dog. However, I feel this would add a great deal of motivation to my alcoholic monkey, Chet, to train and ride that dog like an awesome getaway car for a monkey drink stealing bandit.

Spoof Trailers

2008-06-04T08:38:00.001-07:00

now that the summer blockbuster season is fully upon us, it's time for us to take a step back and admire the absurdity of it all. blockbusters are obviously thebombdotcom.com, no one is disputing that. but some blockbusters have become so tbdcdcdcdbdc that they reach audiences that are literally incomprehensible. the purpose of these films should be to entertain, but in the spirit of efficiency we need to dig deeper, find a way to accomplish more with these audience.

so let's ask ourselves, what do studio executives love more than anything? right, money. but what do they love almost as much as money? right again, more money.

now imagine knowing that every summer you'll have hundreds of millions of impressionable minds sitting in a dark room giving their undivided attention to whatever is on the screen? it's a dream come true. and i'm happy to say, the studio execs have not squandered the opportunity.we all know all know that the fastest road to an impressionable consumer's heart is advertising. consumers eat this shit up, it's practically free entertainment. so combining the studio exec's love for money and the consumer's love for advertisements, summer blockbusters provide a perfect storm for film advertisements.

enter movie trailers. movie trailers, i'm willing to guess, have operating budgets somewhere in the area of the GDPs of azerbaijan, djibouti, and kazakhstan combined. they're films unto themselves and have come to occupy their own place in pop culture as a result of it. and as with every other meaningful pop culture phenomenon, trailers have become the object of imitation and satire, thus the spoof trailer.

spoof trailers are thebombdotcom.com as much if not more than trailers themselves. they take a movie you like--or maybe even a movie that doesn't exist--and present it to you in a hilarious and exciting fashion. they make you ask yourself, "why don't they make that into a feature length film? i'd go see it."

i don't know what it is about oscar winning films, but for some reason they are at the epicenter of spoof trailer success. one of the finest spoof trailers to come out in recent memory is--not surprisingly--based on one of the finest films to come out in the last year. this spoof has everything... well actually, it's just one big pot reference but it's expertly executed.

please take this moment to put your cell phones on silent, refill your sodas or visit the restroom, the film will last a couple of minutes.

Drunk Monkeys

2008-05-30T08:38:00.001-07:00

there are few things we here at tbdcdcdcdbdc appreciate more than cold drink. well, maybe a cold drink and a frosty cigarette, but i think the cigarette is implied. we distinguish between wine drunk, blind drunk, SPARKS drunk, and of course, gin drunk. we regularly complete the gin switch and even occasionally the reverse-gin switch.

but all along we had assumed drinking and getting drunk were strictly human endeavors. fortunately, we were wrong. apparently our monkey cousins separated by just 50,000 years of evolution share our same tastes.

some people think this is a travesty, but i personally can't blame these monkeys at all. first of all, they don't know any better; they're like drunk children. what are you supposed to do? yell at them? ha! i'd like to see it. they're monkeys, stupid! and more importantly, booze is good for the body and the soul. look how much fun those little critters are having! knocking tables over, rolling around on the ground... if only they had a shot of one booting by a tree. that would be the bees knees, i'll tell you what.

thankfully drunk monkey have penetrated human culture in more ways than just documentary-style youtube videos. (sorry, i can't embed this video. go to @radical.media move your cursor to the left, click on 'Commercials,' scroll down to 'Barton Landsman' then watch the first ad--the thumbnail is the top one to the right of the video. i know it sounds hard, but you won't regret it.) now granted this ad received its fair share of flack from animals rights groups, but i say we need to put our differences behind us.

our globe has been divided for far too long into human and non-human groups and these arbitrary distinctions need to end. clearly these monkeys have more going for them than we would like to admit. by getting trashed do they not embody the great dr. johnson quote, "he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man"? they're clearly not making beasts of themselves to get rid of the pain of being beasts. that just doesn't make any sense. these drunk monkeys are experiencing a dark, existential crisis and it's time we came to recognize it. let us not focus on our differences any longer, let us instead focus on that which brings us together: booze.

cheers, monkeys!

Konnichiwa, bitches

2008-05-30T02:52:00.000-07:00

What up from Japan! I write from the future, where they drive on the wrong side of the road and can't pronounce "L". My friend Joe is doing a great job of improving the locals' English, however, as I witnessed when we were out drinking with his friends and one yelled at me, "Moshi moshi bitch!" Good to know that all of Joe's friends will make it to the States swearing like sailors, but will still yell "Herro!" on the streets and write things like this:

See you guys in a week!

Minor league pitcher traded for 10 bats

2008-05-29T07:25:00.000-07:00

I saw this article couple days ago about a minor league pitcher that got traded to another team for 10 bats. I thought, really? They traded a human pitcher for 10 bats? Is that legal? Apparently it is, but that's not the problem.
The problem starts here....
Consider the life of a minor league baseball player, lets start with triple A player: Player AAA has been playing baseball all his life. Probably has a college degree, maybe a BS in nothing important, from Nowhere University. But he has dreams of the big leagues, an 18thousand dollar a year contract, he lives at various Holiday Inns out by the airport, eats most of his meals at McDonalds, supersized of course, and maybe, just maybe, someone in the big leagues will break a pinky sliding into second base and he gets called up to ride the bench for two weeks. But he's happy just to be playing ball.
That's a great life compared to the AA Player, who's not good enough to play in front of the 2000 fans of the AAAclub, but he is making 12grand a year, and seeing the beautiful countryside of rural Pennsylvania from the window of a second hand greyhound bus while he eats what ever 6inch sub was on sale at subway that day, with the medium soda and bag o' chips. His dreams of making the big leagues are hindered by the fact that like ten guy ahead of him would have to get injured for him to sit on the bench in the big leagues. But he's happy just to be playing ball.
That's a pretty great life compared to the Single A kid who's playing at the bottom tear of the affiliated team, pulling in 9grand a year, living in a trailer park behind the Holiday Inn by the airport, sharing a six inch sub with one of his six roommates, no soda, no chips, But he's happy just to be playing ball.

Now here's the problem. This guy starts the season by getting dropped by the San Fransisco Giants at spring training. He doesn't even get sent down to AAA to work on his pitching. He doesn't even get sent down to AA, or single A because the Giants think he sucks too much to ever develop. AND the other 29 teams think he's so hopeless that they won't drop the 9grand to send him to the trailer park. Nope. He's in the independent league in Canada, yes Canada, with zero hopes of making the big leagues, and the team is so strapped for cash that they trade him for 10 bats.

the interview
http://sports.espn.go.com/minorlbb/news/story?id=3409864
or here,

OK, so it is a story that people will check out just because it's weird. I did. But what the hell is wrong with this chick? Really? Is it that much fun rubbing salt in the wounds of a guy who just got traded for equipment? Is she trying to somehow, break through the rock bottom this kid woke up in, just to see if she can make him cry? Is she trying to get him to kill himself ON CAMERA?
Who was the drunk/high intern who came up with those hard hitting questions?
"How many bats would A-rod be worth?" Seriously? Is that a question you ask a guy who probably had to trade hand jobs for gas money from meth-addict truckers just to make it to his new team?
"What's the weirdest thing you could be traded for?" What the hell kind of question is that? He just got traded for WOOD!
And finally, this question will show how many seconds of research was put into this interview, "How's your season going?" What. The. Fuck.
Quite obviously, the season is going very, very badly.
Seriously, who the hell does she think she is? She works for ESPN, ok, so she has a job that presumably pays well even though we have never seen her before. We have never seen her before, presumably because she conducts the most asinine, irrelevant, and uninformed interviews out side of a third grade science fair. Is she really doing that well, that she gets assigned the "Guy gets traded for bats" interview? Is she so great that she gets to laugh her ass off at this poor kid on TV?
The level of schadenfreude this lady gets from interviewing this poor bastard is so reprehensible, so deplorable, that I can only hope that when this kid offs himself, that he has the bus fair to get to wherever she is for a good old murder/suicide.

Lying to CNN

2008-05-27T11:35:00.002-07:00

The article is here, but I'm more writing about the caption on the above picture.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/27/lifestyle.change.irpt/index.html

Check it. She kinda looks like MIA. That' what got me to click, I frankly didn't care too much about the upswing of bikers due to rising fuel costs. although that's pretty important, I suppose. However, the point of the post is that she lied...rather exaggerated to get on CNN.com.

No way that bike cost $100.

I don' think CNN would have been so keen on featuring her if she had been like, oh yeah, my handlebars were $100, and the frame another $400, and then the rest of the components got me in at a cool seven-hundo....

Who does she think she's kidding? Not us. Everyone here (with exception of myself) has a bike and therefore knows what one costs...I am assuming knowledge from having been to Brooklyn, even living there for a period of time.

Nonetheless, I'd still make out with her, I'd just expect her to exaggerate proportionally when she tells her friends about my performance...

Super Bowl Spin-off Bowls

2008-05-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

january is an interesting time in america. fresh off the consumerist binge lasting from halloween straight through new years day, most americans are reeling in more ways than one. however, thanks to the NFL and some marketing geniuses, we don't have to wait long to satisfy our consumption withdrawal.

some time in late january or early february comes the super bowl. the super bowl is no doubt thebombdotcom.com not just because of its own over-indulgence but because of the over-indulgence it inspires in almost every breathing american. people who haven't watched a single game of football all season will buy 40 bags of super-bowl-theme-doritos and sit and watch some football like every other sucker in the country. in 100 years, some booger-eaters will study this phenomenon with utter amazement.

but this is not all the super bowl offers. oh no. the super bowl is such a monumental event its half time (ie, the least important part of the game) is also a catalyst for countless equally fantastic entertainment options. you can stay in the stadium and watch aged-rockers struggle, not-so-aged rockers rock, or pretty-aged-but-not-too-aged R&B diva s get their clothes ripped off. on the other hand, you can switch the channel and watch one of the countless "_____ bowl" spin offs. mtv used to host the a bowl that i can't remember the name of that was dope in middle school. budweiser used to host the "bud bowl" during which cans of beer would compete in a game of faux-football. yes, i can tell you're thinking it: genius! but these two bowls paled in comparison to the two most prestigious super-bowl-spin-off-bowls: the puppy bowl and the bikini bowl.

these two bowls' lock on super-bowl-spin-off-bowl control, however, is waning. recently, i discovered a bowl that truly resonates with the consumption that is the super bowl. i present to you, The Wing Bowl.

i would argue that there is nothing more american than eating contests except eating contests that are also super-bowl-spin-off-bowls. i would list highlights from the video, but the truth is, this video is the youtube equivalent of Neon Deion "Prime Time" Sanders... the human highlight reel. this video has everything: strange eating analogies, the meat sweats, and MEEEEAAAAT.

personally, i can't wait until Wing Bowl 2009.

King me!

2008-05-21T12:10:00.000-07:00

As the NE DC correspondent for the tbdcdcdbdc, at times I draw blank looks when I tell people where I live. Rosedale, son. Generally speaking, I hope they've heard of The Rock 'n Roll hotel. If that doesn't work as a frame of reference, I surrender.

Some time ago, an acquaintance not familiar with the area asked me what it was like. This was clearly code for "do you see people get shot?"/"are there white people there?", but I played dumb and painted a very nice - and I think fairly accurate - picture of the environs. So this girl goes on to ask my cross streets again, and then says "oh... is that near the Checkers ?

My affirmative reply elicited a great deal of concern for my safety. Checkers, I soon found out, is roughly on par with the chicken/fish/pizza/Chinese food/Phillys/munchers carryouts and check cashing establishments as indicators of hood.

Well, if the condos and white folks weren't sign enough, good old Rosedale is now officially coming up.

Maryland Avenue Checkers, RIP.

Jon Stewart (and by association, Comedy Central)

2008-05-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

three of my favorite things in the network of tubes are 1) tbdcdcdcdbdc 2) mlb.com and also 3) Jon Stewart's full archive of streaming clips.

seriously: FULL ARCHIVE. i can't stress this enough. there are clips on this site dating back to 1999. that's last millennium?!?! if you had told me that in the future i'd be able to watch television programs from the previous millennium, i would have called you a liar to your face. luckily for me, though, i would have been wrong.

so without further ado, and to avoid boring you further, i present you this clip from 2004 (ya, when we were still in college! if someone had told me that in the future i'd be able to watch television programs from when i was still in college, i would have called you a liar to your face). this is not only an entertaining clip but also topical since it relates to a thebombdotcom.com post written many moons ago.

Better than mangoes

2008-05-13T15:00:00.000-07:00

I really can't add anything to this, except that if your work is quite sensitive about things, it might be nsfw.

Really, there should be something snarky to say. A better man than I could find it. But my mind's a little blown right now.

Lyrics of Fury

2008-04-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

Now, far be it from tbdcdcdbdc to disrespect the dead. All condolences to the friends and family of this gentleman who was killed as a result of freestyle beef. That said, no such compunction is needed when addressing the hilariously oblivious proofer who let this headline pass.

Detroiter Killed In Rap Battle

Anyone who knows what a rap battle actually is would have to wonder if, like Cappadonna of the Wu, this deadly emcee's paragraphs contain cyanide (@2:50):

I'll admit, I wanted to hear this emcee with verses so ill, so malignant, that he can slaughter his hip-hop adversaries at the drop of a sick stanza. Years ago, Monty Python jested about a JMD (Joke of Mass Destruction), so funny that it took lives. Perhaps hip-hop had finally been refined down to it's purest form of rhyming sarin. I was disappointed upon clicking through to find out after the jump that not only does he not slay wack emcees lyrically, but in fact, unlike Inspectah Deck (above @1:00), he doesn't even lyrically commit armed robbery.

He just gets pissed off and grabs a gun.

Come on. That's just not impressive.

Let The Eagle Soar

2008-04-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

Eagles, natch, are like totally best. See below.

And goats? I guess they're totally alright.

But when are eagles and goats better then the sum of their parts? When they form like Voltron, and the eagles are the head. Let me put it in layman's terms - when the eagles are throwing the goats off of the mountains. That's when they cease being eagles, and start being the bombdotcom (dotcom.blogspot.com).

For the impatient, the good bits are at 0:35, 5:00, and 6:30

It took all the energy I had not to bring up this guy:

But it just didn't seem appropriate for this time of affirmation and renewal - my maiden post, and the 100th here at TBDC. All the same, you need to brush up on this. All about Eagle-Eye Lanoo Cherry.

Friday = Funky

2008-03-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

I feel like one has an obligation to share devastating funk jams, and so I post this Bar-Kays track via this cat's blog out of Ballard/Seattle (Armed Snobbery).

Saul Williams

2008-03-11T14:21:00.000-07:00

i've known about the rapper-poet-philosopher Saul Williams for a while now but never actually listened to his music. after hearing that he released his album for $free.99 a-la radiohead i clearly downloaded but never actually listened to it. well, long story short i finally listened to it.

i got tipped off to him the second time by a new nike ad that features a track of his. the spot is bomb and so is the track. the video is under the song.

Luchini pourin from the sky

2008-02-29T09:31:00.000-08:00

So we're not all hip-hop heads, but I encourage ya'll to listen to this song once and then twice and tell me you don't find yourself humming to yourself, "This is it what, Luchini pourin from the sky, let's get rich what..."

Extra Detail:
The original of this song was Camp Lo's only real single and managed to climb to 5th on the rap singles chart (though it is still frequently referenced in the hip-hop community - check WALE's mixtape!). What's fascinating about this track is that if you listen to the lyrics very closely you can tell that they make absolutely no sense.

It's just like...a mini...mall!

2008-02-13T17:37:00.000-08:00

"Oh yeah!" goes the refrain. I'm not going to mince words: this fool can lay down a rhyme. As some of you know, I occasionally listen to the hippity-hop, but rarely do I come across an MC so funky fresh as the proprietor of Flea Market Montgomery. My fresh-to-death colleague Brad put me onto this rhymesayer - you won't be disappointed.

Methinks a visit to Alabama is in order.

Blue Scholars

2008-02-08T09:56:00.000-08:00

growing up in spokane and portland, two cities that will always be relegated to runner-up status to king of the mountain seattle, i feel just a little animosity towards the town on the sound. seattle is a little too caught up with itself to be considered healthy.

that's why it comes as no surprise that a seattle hip-hop group would want to remix not just any sell-out indie band, but a seattle indie band.

More Ghostland Observatory

2008-02-07T11:12:00.000-08:00

like Al Green below, Ghostland brings it with the soul. this is all the more amazing since they make their music mostly with lifeless Casio or maybe even KORG keyboards. i've never been one to object to synth. in fact, a lot of synth usually isn't enough for me. but this isn't a problem, because Ghostland uses a metric-fuck-ton of synth.

Comment Sections

2008-02-01T08:36:00.000-08:00

fear not, this is not a departure of BDCDCDBDC's new found function as a music blog. we just have some other thoughts to share.

this track is off Ghostland Observatory's new album coming out March 4. why do i know that? because i'm actually really excited about this album. the last album i marked on the calendar was Radiohead’s In Rainbows. the one before that was Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible and before that, TV on the Radio’s Return to Cookie Mountain. i say this because Ghostland has suddenly found themselves in some pretty illustrious company—in my mind at least.

the point of this post is comments, though. while riding the interwebs 3.0 infobahn we absorb a very different experience than we did in the day’s of napster and yahoo’s dominance. We no longer simply consume the internet, nor do we simply subscribe to it. In this the-future-is-now era, we create the internet. this post is itself an example of that. But everyone has a role to play in the future, not just bloggers, thus the comments section.

comments sections are often the best part of a blog post or news article. google recognized this early with blogger and recently even The Economist caught on to the magic (sorry, no link, but it is announced on page 17 of the print edition, jan 25-feb 1). comments allow people to speak their minds and often times their minds are hilarious and honest. the comments section of a DCist post from last year on crime in Columbia Heights had one of the best documented discussions of gentrification I have ever seen. over 220 people voiced their frustrated, frightened and concerned minds by the time it was all said and done. comments ranged from defensive to accusatory to passive. I don’t think anyone would argue that this comment section was much, much better than the actual article to which everyone was responding.

but not all comments sections need to be serious. another one of the best comments sections I’ve ever seen was in response to a WK12 project. WK12 is an advertising school within wieden+kennedy’s portland studio. in 2006 these students were approached by GOOD Magazine to create a spread on “I *heart* America.” the project was interesting and I enjoyed the video they made documenting it. but it was the adweek blog post sharing the video really got it going. the commenters on this post had nothing but hate for these kids. some gems include, “It was like the cast of 'The Real World--Williamsburg, Brooklyn'" and “Good for that girl who got fed up with advertising. Way to put your foot down, walk away from it all, and enroll in advertising school. At an advertising agency. That makes ads.” people expressed their cynicism with advertising, their frustration with their careers and the industry and (dare I say it?!) their jealousy of w+k.

now, you can argue that the purpose of these stories is to get these dialogues going and I wouldn’t disagree. news and advertising are both forms of communication and communication really shouldn’t be a one way street. and that's why comments sections are the bombdotcom.com. comments sections make the dialogue we’ve come to love possible.

The Other Side of the Room

2008-01-24T16:18:00.001-08:00

Elvis

2008-01-09T08:35:00.000-08:00

elvis has such a ubiquitous presence that i think most of our generation fails to realize he at one point rocked. when i think of elvis the first think i think of are the flying elvises. second, i think of crappy, fat elvis. and third, i think of blelvis, who is a crazy homeless guy (pictured) in DC but knows every elvis song by heart.

simply put, this is wrong. elvis rocked and there's a reason why a google search of his name returns more than twice as many results as a search of "the beatles." his face may be on countless plates and he may have died on a toilet, but we can't discount his contributions to music. he did after all bring blues to the mainstream... or was that clapton? i can't remember, but that's not important.

yesterday was elvis' birthday (i think) so let's celebrate graceland with a jam in his honor.

Daft Punk

2008-01-07T13:45:00.000-08:00

occasionally in our daily life we have the opportunity to witness something amazing. we usually have an idea going in that what we're about to experience will be incredible, but sometimes what we see is so spectacular that just knowing we were lucky enough to be there at that moment in time seems miraculous.

on august 9, 2007, just such a moment occurred.

We Are Human

Where is everyone?

2007-10-31T09:36:00.000-07:00

Don't Taser Me Bro

2007-09-19T14:43:00.000-07:00

These Colors Don't Run
These Colors Don't Run
These Colors Don't Run
These Colors Don't Run
These Colors Don't Run
These Colors Don't Run
These Colors Don't Run

2007-09-14T11:10:00.000-07:00

In Defense of the XFL

Although Colin did not explicitly deride the XFL, I feel the need to defend its better qualities. The league implemented at least a few policies that the NFL could benefit from, the first and most frivolous being the camera in the cheerleaders changing rooms. I do not even know where NFL cheerleaders go to get dressed, let alone what it looks like! Valuable insight into an appreciated aspect of any game.
More importantly, the XFL put microphones on almost every player of significance during the game. This seems obvious to me. Players are always talking while on the field and I want to know what they are saying. Sure it would not be appropriate for network TV, but make it available to the satellite crowd. I am way to stingy to actually pay for satellite TV, but I would greatly value showing up to work each Monday morning and perusing lists of the better quotes. Who's with me?

I have said this before, but I will say it again. The XFL could have adopted one single gameplay rule and it would not be remembered as a fad now, but continually cherished much in the same way that kindergarten is. Each team should have been allowed one designated "tosser" and one designated "small person" on the roster. The small person need not be in the midget/dwarf category, although it might be beneficial. This combo of players could be used on one defensive play per drive, whether it be a regular down, or a special teams situation. Once the ball is in the play, the tosser is allowed to throw the midget as many times as possible. The throw play could be used with any motivation, but I foresee sacking the QB and deflecting kicks to be the most common applications. I have been told that this may be seen as a controversial rule by many people, but I think it is beyond question that it would have made the XFL the most popular alternative sport for fans.

Fads

2007-09-11T10:22:00.000-07:00

fads are the thebombdotcom.com. what's so great about them is that they are so non-committal. it becomes popular, you like it for a bit, then it passes and basically no one remembers it ever happened.

look at the great fads that have come and gone in our lifetime: hammer pants, the XFL, and this very blog. if you don't agree, put your money where your mouth is and post something.

Personal Unwindings

2007-09-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

One time, I unknowingly stumbled into the Dominican Day Parade - that was certainly shocking. On a recent weekend, I walked into K-Mart at Astor Place, on the weekend NYU freshman arrived - I was horrified. If the pretending-to-be serious faces, poorly applied make-up, wishful eyes, and non-New York-but-trying-really-hard-to-be chic wardrobes didn't get me down enough, the accompanying nervous faced parents, whose worst fears were very much about to be realized, put me over the edge.

New York City ruins people. I will note that I don't necessarily think this ruining is a bad thing, but a person who arrives in New York is not the same person who leaves it. Some people might be jaded, others will be enlightened, and in the case of these girls at K-mart, most of them will try coke and fuck sketch-balls they meet at bars (and think that they are more "new york" for doing so (and furthermore not understand why their high school friends don't like them anymore when they come home for Thanksgiving)).

My roommate thinks that I could help ease my anxiety if we start selling drugs and start a webcam, thus ensuring that we have full control over the downfall of these girls. In a sick way, I agree with the motives of his idea. Unfortunately, chinatownwebcam.com is taken. Oh wait, fuck, no it isn't...

Writing Well

2007-08-31T06:29:00.000-07:00

i have been mulling over this post for a while now. in fact, i believe i told Rooftop Media i wanted to write a post on this--this being good writing--a little more than a week ago. but i can't lie. good writing being the bombdotcom.com is just a distraction from my actual motivation: haterating on the over-use of the exclamation point.

i've been on a one-man crusade to destroy the exclamation point since my writing class in high school. as my teacher put it, "your writing should be enough to convey excitement, exclamations points are in themselves superfluous." this statement may be slightly aggressive, but the first half is undoubtedly true. it is the job of the writer and the function of the words to convey excitement or suspense or relief. during college i came to the conclusion that society agreed with me and my mormon high school teacher. i thought the exclamation point was dead and rightfully so. but in the last year i've discovered the exclamation point is not dead. the exclamation point has invaded our offices and taken over e-mail communications.

what finally inspired me write this piece after so many years of frustration was a Slate article. the article is about a book about e-mail communications. the authors of the book staunchly support the use--nay, the abuse--of exclamation points for adding spice or some such shit to e-mails.

the authors correctly point out that exclamations points are more often than not used to give the illusion of enthusiasm or politeness. but people need to realize (as the authors did not) that they're not fooling anyone when they write, "Can someone please send me the TPS report for this week, i assume it is similar from last week's... Thanks!" this person doesn't even have motivation or enthusiasm to properly punctuate the end of their request. yet somehow they're really fucking excited by the end? don't feed me this shit and don't pretend like a piece of punctuation is helping anyone hide their disdain for me and/or their job.

another sort of exclamation point abuse is what i call the torrent effect. this can occur when what you're writing is so pointless you have to spice it up with a shit load of exclamation points and various emoticons to give it the illusion of value. example: "Good Morning Everyone!!!! Happy Thursday! Can you all please tell me who’s not going to be in today???? Thanks a ton! :)" this e-mail also contained a clip art image of the sun smiling, which i consider an emoticon. counting only actual punctuation, this e-mail boasts a 2.1:1 word to punctuation ratio. shocking. including the two emoticons, there are fewer than two words for every piece of punctuation (1.75:1). i didn't know what to say when i first read this e-mail and i don't know what to say now. it's just fucking ridiculous.

unjustified abuses of punctuation such as this are the reason why writing well is the bombdotcom.com. if you're able to choose your words appropriately and convey your message accurately, you won't feel the need to spice up your shit e-mails with exclamation points and emoticons. no one will think that you hate your job ;-) because you don't use emoticons. no one will think you're rude because you don't say thanks! at the end of every e-mail.

but sitting here, writing this, i realize that my frustration is not with the exclamation point itself but rather with many people's use of the exclamation point to cover the truth. so on that note, i leave you with one of the most brilliantly punctuated pieces of writing i have read in a long time:

The Pranksters named her Sensuous X, glowing girl friend resolutely going...Further...Kesey laid eyes on the Sensuous horizon--loved it! On the bus. Next, she became Zonker's sensuous X--lost her! One the bus. At first Zonker's mad, feels he's been had--affront! But then thanks to his feeling for the Prankster expiriment, he sees nothing to resent. There can be no hard feelings when one is dealing totally out front on the bus.

-The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe

Summer Beverages

2007-08-30T10:53:00.001-07:00

23.5 ounces of Arnold Palmer, available at most local bodegas and gas stations, is the Citizen Kane of nonalcoholic canned beverages. It is truly the bomb.com.

I fail again

2007-08-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up on my couch, naked, with my laptop at the splash page of xtube. I fell asleep while waiting for the page to load. My roommate said he was weirded out when he came home and found me. At least I didn't hurt myself...

Neck Pains - A Story

2007-08-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

**I don't find this story that funny, because I lived most of it. Hopefully you find amusement in my misfortune. And sorry to write about my whacking off tendencies - I know it's gross, but the story might be funny to you.**

Before I went to bed the other night, I thought I might have better chance of getting to sleep if I relieved a little tension. Unfortunately, things seriously backfired...

I went to my favorite site these days: xtube.com, navigating my with my left hand, because my right hand was covered in Aveeno Positively Radiant lotion. When I had moved into my current apartment, the girl who lived there before left five bottles of lotion. The Aveeno was my favorite one. She also left a large tub of petroleum jelly. I thought about using the Vaseline as my lube, but then I remembered that she had a raging cold sole, which is probably what she used the Vaseline for, and I didn't want to risk having her cold sore germs festering in the lube for me to slather all over my junk - I threw it away so I wouldn't be temped to use it when I was drunk. To this day, I've never jerked off with petroleum jelly.

I sat on the edge of my bed with my computer set up on the edge of my desk. I was already pretty hard from seeing all of the teaser pics while navigating to my favorite video: "college hidden cam sex." It was 11:00 pm, and I think a lot of people needed to blow off some tension that night. It was a Tuesday and the video was taking fucking forever to download. I used this time to adjust the tilt of the screen of my white iBook that I had got for Christmas two years earlier. With the screen finally tilted I tried to get comfortable as the video started to play.

Sitting straight up, I realized that my whole genital area was sunk into my stomach. What was certainly a full on boner was reduced to three inches past the creases in my midriff's skin.

I paused the video; I had a solution. Using my free hand, I pulled my futon from couch to bed position - holding my right hand high in the air so as to avoid accidentally sullying my comforter. I picked up my laptop, swung it onto the bed and adjusted the screen. Laying down, I couldn't get a good angle; the contrast was all off. I managed to get a good picture by laying in a semi-supine position with the screen tilted in an acute angle. While in my stance, which reminded me of an ab exercise the girl's squash team used to do after practice, which made me a little bit harder, I suddenly noticed that my socks were still on. I thought about that scene in the movie Mallrats where they talk about making woopie when the girl has her socks still on. I think of Brodie, the character played by Jason Lee. I think of Scientology. I am less hard.

I take off my socks using the pinky of my left hand. I return to my awkward position, glad that I have strong enough abs to hold myself up, and also somewhat embarrassed that I know that I'll get myself off before I am even close to getting tired. The movie is six minutes and twenty two seconds long. I've never made it through the whole thing without stopping to gather myself. That night, I was really into the video; I wanted to see it all the way through. I repeatedly stopped myself on the verge of climax to take long, deep breaths, to think about Kevin Smith movies, to wonder whether when I start having sex again, my stamina will continue to be a problem. The latter thought is the one that really calms the stallion within. Very quickly after I resume the video do I have to start wondering when I am going to need to pause again. That night I stopped and started 8 times.

When the time had come, I was starting to feel a little burn in my stomach, I held my breath as long as I could and when I finally exhaled, my neck snapped backwards in my brief seizure. After a few long breaths, I returned to consciousness, to find that now both of my hands were unavailable to close my computer screen should my roommate come home while I took my requisite shower. I leaned up and felt a sharp pain in my neck. I tried to move my head around to stretch the muscles, but they were so stiff, I couldn't look up. I was forced to look down at the mess I had just made.

The next day my neck still hurt. People at work asked why I turned my head weird. I lied to each and every one of them (with exception to the tech guy who owns slutfuck.tv - he naturally related to my misfortune). Each time I told someone that I had slept wrong, I felt a little more guilty. I started to get angry at people who asked why my neck hurt, because it seemed like the only logical answer was that I slept wrong. When the questions didn't stop, I started to think my confidant had sold me out. From then on, each person that walked by my desk and smiled, I was convinced was drawing up an image of me covered in Positively Radiant, slightly paralyzed in the neck, hoping my roommate doesn't walk in.

I was able to overcome my paranoia by coming up with a lie to tell people. Nobody else asked why my neck was stiff for the rest of the day, but if they had, I would have recited the quote: "her legs were pressing against my ears so tightly that I didn't hear her father come into the room. He grabbed my hair and he pulled me way back, hard."

Washington State

2007-08-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

i am, in may ways, a product of Portland. Portland was my home during those defining years of 4th grade through high school. i experienced many of the great "firsts" in Portland and navigated the streets of the city as i simultaneously navigated the streets of adolescence and young adulthood. despite these formative experiences, however, a large part of me is still a washingtonian and an eastern washingtonian to be specific. it takes a lot of courage to say something like that given the stigma that goes along with Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho and Western Montana. these places are home to some of the remaining vestiges that could be considered "the wild west." this region--the Inland Empire to those who know it--is home to radical isolationists, some of the most stunning territory in the united states, but also a more subtle culture--a culture that is the bombdotcom.com.

recently for work i read through the opinion pages of most newspapers with a daily circulation over 20,000 in the Western United States. while looking through these i came upon an interesting article in the Tacoma News Tribune. now, maybe to all of you this is not such a big deal, but to me it is. granted, this is but a single tree in the forest, but this particular tree is very indicative of the forest in question. things are, for the most part, different "out west" than they are "back east" (which we actually say) and i think this woman's experiences and the attention they received in the local press is a sign of that. the comments section is also fascinating (but i warn you, it takes a wild and unpredictable turn circa comment #4).

now, some of you may say, "but colin, you're talking about the Inland Empire but you're including an article from Tacoma which is just south of Seattle in the west. what gives?" you have a good point, but this perfectly illustrates just how the culture is different. things are slowed down, a little more old fashioned, and a little closer to, well, nature. the entire state hasn't yet boarded the train for the 21st century and that article is a sign of just how far the "modernized" areas have to go.

In Case You Were Wondering

2007-08-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

I'll stop waxing about people and places you all don't know after this, but having mentioned him in my last two blog posts, I thought I'd share this story I had written for my writing group about the time I met Eduardo.

***

Every ball seemed to pop out of the pocket that night. I tried to blame it on the dim lighting. I pretended I was distracted by the discolored projection of the NBA finals game splayed eight feet tall on the wall behind the table making each Black player a shade of purple and each White player a shade of green as they coursed down a red court. I had begun to profess an illogical argument that took attention away from the game of pool that I was losing and onto what race relations in Mars might be like. I think that's when my opponents thought I might have just been too drunk, it turned out might have just been too sober.

I lost my first game against Eduardo game sinking only one ball, the cue ball off the break. Even the ever-flexible canon known as "bar rules" says that's the end of the game. Luckily my friend Alex was failing in his pledge to quit cigarettes, so the NYC smoking ban worked in my favor. Skip Alex (both an addict and a sucker), it was my turn again. Alex wasn't even done with his cigarette when Eduardo, my opponent, only had two balls left against my full set. At my next turn, my leave was perfect. A 45 degree angle from the pocket, cue and 5-ball in-line, each a mere two diamonds apart and three to the pocket. This shot would be gimme for most players on any night, for me on that night, I decided that it would be the barometer of whether I should crawl into a corner commit seppuku for shaming my family with my terrible pool prowess. Eduardo had moved past being bored with the game, to feeling pity on me, the ultimate insult in barroom pool.

In his slurred speech that was a mixture of him being very drunk, and him having a accent, he declared 'IF you make this shot, I'll buy you a shot of Wild Tomurkey"

I wasn't sure if Tomurkey was a strange shooter from some country of which his accent I had been trying to decipher, so I simply stared at him as if he were an inebriated foreigner acting erratically.

"That's what we call Wild Turkey in Baltimore"

pause as I thought to myself "Baltimore?"

"Actually, that's what I call Wild Turkey in Baltimore, if you ordered a Wild Tomurky down there, the bartender will probably fuck you up."

I nod as I lean down to take the shot that would lead to so many more. I gently pushed the cue stick into the cue ball, and waited until the 5 disappeared into the pocket. You'd have thought that Eduardo just won the U.S. open of every applicable sport simultaneously, he was so excited.

"A round of Tomurkey!"

I was proud of myself, and Eduardo reinforced it. We did our shots, and then went to take my next shot. With the burn of Tomurky still choking my esophagus, I dropped the blue two ball, then the green six, the three and then the four. I missed at my first attempt at the seven. Still celebrating my comeback with eager fist pumps and exclamations in what I later learn to be Portugeuse, Eduardo hastily took his shot missing the fourteen with the cue ball landing on the far side of the table where my last was only one diamond from the end-rail. I leaned over, and then Eduardo leaned over me, his beard wet with sweat and whiskey grazing my neck as he told me where to aim the cue. I had known the man four minutes and I was already comfortable with this intimacy.

Doing exactly as my opponent has recommended, I kissed the seven on the left edge with a lightning hard shot, and stepped back as my last ball rolled where the correct application of vectors would have it. I walked around the table to where the cue was waiting for me, and finished the game by sinking the 8-ball, corner pocket.

Alex finished his cigarette as Eduardo was holding me against his chest, bobbing me up and down.

"Have you met my friend Alex?" I say with a wavering inflection caused by my crushed diaphragm.

"Nice to meet you Alex, Tomurkey for everyone."

Somehow, I haven't lost my job because of Wild Tomurkey. I will knock on wood for now, but I will be in the clear in mid-September when Eduardo moves back to England with his family, a fact that not only leaves me stunned that I am already losing one of my favorite new friends, but also, more confused about his regional identity as a British-Brazilian-Baltimorian.

"I wish we had met over a less expensive whiskey" I said the most recent time I saw him.

"I agree, but that's what fate gave us, so let's just be glad it wasn't Jameson or even some terrible Zambuca based shot or something," he aptly noted

Palais Royal

2007-08-24T06:03:00.001-07:00

I actually almost cried at the bar last night. No, I didn't have my heart broken by a girl, but instead I was living the nostalgia of a place that has defined my New York experience. It's often difficult to pin point why a bar is better than another bar, but this one definitely better than its peers, even despite the fact that the music is never loud enough for me to dance. By the way, it's closing within a month.

The most obvious thing that makes Palais different than most other places is that there is a free pool table. What I don't understand about it though, is that almost no one plays it. Mind you, it is the most fucked up pool table I've ever played on in terms of a warped slate, but since it's my table I have adjusted my game to accommodate for the 30º slant to the far right corner. I usually win again people who are just stopping by for a drink. They don't know what hit them.

However, I rarely play against people just stopping by. It seems like everyone there is a regular of sort. It's uncommon that anyone on the table doesn't know the names of the bartenders, and have some story about some guy they met while playing pool there (and about half the time, that guy is Eduardo). There is no beef on this table, just a lot of Wild Turkey.

Palais has over 30 bottles of bourbon. They only have 1 beer on tap (Bud Light). I have not ventured too far into bourbon land, I stick to the Wild Turkey. That shit fucks me up. Due to the impended closing, when they ran out of the normal 80 proof stuff, they didn't order anymore. 101 Turkey hurts so good.

Tonight is Sammy's last night. She works at Palais six nights a week. I once thought saw her at a party in Brooklyn, but it turns out it was her twin sister. We've been cool ever since. I know the next bar Sammy is going to work at, but I don't think it will have the same vibe. I'm sure a lot of Palais regulars will follow her to King-Size, but I checked the place out - they play the music too loud.

These reviews of the place echo my sentiments perfectly.

I Drink Too Much Whisky

2007-08-23T10:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Colin, Eduardo, Julia, Ian, Carter, Mike z, Evan, Pam, and Michele:

You are my post-college new friends and you are very important to me. You are within a group of people that I have not met because we grew up in the same small town or because you we took a class that time together, we became friends through mutual close friends, or I met you in a bar where, out of the hundred other people in the place, we started talking, and we have made it a point to see each other again. Or in the case of Michele, we worked together, and developed a bond by joking about smoking crack.

You all bring out the best in me. You are spontaneous, absurd, outgoing, smart and generally have pretty good taste in music. I often wonder why any of you are my friends, I only strive to be the things that I just described you by, and I think I only achieve those qualities on my best days - and rarely all at once. Frankly, most of the time, I think I'm love-obsessed over-analyzing prick akin to Woody Allen during those years when he made shitty movies.

So thanks everyone for being you. We have a long life to live and even if I don't see you for five years at a time, I think our friendship will always remain very strong. Sounds cheesy, but hey good friends are hard to come by.

To all my friends that I've known for a long time. If we've talked in the past 2 months, I think that says something about keeping friendships alive, and there is something there. To all those I haven't talked to in two months, I guess I'll see you at the reunion of whatever thing we are reuniting for.

Local Brews

2007-08-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

I'm not talking micro-brews or some 90 minute IPA with a picture on the label of a bear riding a salmon down Niagara Falls while a caricature of a brewmaster (some bearded man in thick glasses and a flannel shirt) holds one of his testicles with a French Glove and cools the other with a Chinese fan. Yeah, I'm not gonna hate on those, they have their place, and I'll drink'em if there's a special. But when I talk about local brews, I mean something different.

Chicago has its Old Style, Pittsburgh has Iron City, and Milwaukee has, well, where to start? These beers are cheap, they taste like water with a hop thrown in, and they get you drunk on the real. These drinks, they're uniters. The hipsters drain'em along with the union guys. The Camel smokers along with the Newport Smokers. Local Brews, you are the bomb.com.com.

Bashing Democrats

2007-08-22T12:55:00.000-07:00

partisanship is for suckers. democrat, republican, you're all the same. washington is an ugly place with ugly people and it's only getting worse. that's why i think intelligent critiques of democratic leadership is the bombdotcom.com.

too often do we accept our fate, our shotgun wedding with the democratic party. as intelligent, progressive individuals they really are our only option for legitimate political participation in this country. and this is a fucking shame. who else are we going to vote for? nader for the twelfth year? probably not. after all, he's the "reason" the republicans won in 2000 and also the reason Lincoln was assassinated and the reason bad things happen to good people and the reason puppies die. so if not nader, then who? these fools? they were cool in high school, but i don't think they'll cut it.

the problem with democrats is that they have been playing a losing game of catch up for as long as i can remember and probably longer. republicans are good at what they do--namely hating mexicans and controlling southerners and midwesterners. the democrats are losing because they're not fighting back. as a reactionary party you'd expect them to come out of their shells and lob a few tomahawk cruise missiles (not literally, of course) at the republicans. but they haven't. instead, nancy pelosi--aka, skeletor--has given bush the green light by being too much of a wuss to impeach him or cheney (article here).

bashing democrats is the bombdotcom.com not only because it is satisfying, but also because it's necessary. these suckers need to be reminded why they got elected and what's more, they need to be told that if they don't do the job they were hired to do, they'll get fired. there are too many moderates and swing votes who are ready to jump back on the "R" band wagon and start some wars.

let's do this thing. no more of this bi-partisan bullshit. how about some action. the time is now.

9/11 Mayhem

2007-08-22T11:12:00.001-07:00

This 9/11, shit is going to blow up. I am not posting any sort of conspiracy theory and even implying that there will be new attacks on US Soil (nor am I making a poorly masked acknowledgment of the fact that shit is blowing up in Baghdad every single day), I am talking about the simultaneous releases of both Kanye West's new album, Graduation, and 50 Cent's new album, Curtis.

With Paris, and Lindsay and Nicole "cleaning up their act" (emphasis on the "act") the tabloid news has been slow. All I can pray for is a Tupac and Biggie style feud with smart-ass Kanye up against legitimate thug $0.50.

While Bushie-poo and Turd-blossom didn't know about what was coming their way in 2001, the shit is already hitting the fan as x [where $1.00/2=x] has declared to quit his solo career if Kanye outsells him on the release date.

I am guessing that as the polls close, 57.3131591 ¥ is going to fake his own death or maybe even actually kill himself as a way to ensure that his album sales will pull ahead of Kanye's. If Kanye still outsells him, the artist formerly known as Curtis Jackson will be relagated to releasing a series of duets with other best selling posthumous musicians such as, Ray Charles and Tupac, though it's possible that he may be featured on Britney Spear's new album which might already be dead.

Mass Transit

2007-08-22T05:51:00.000-07:00

The Oregonian published an article yesterday citing a study that found mass transit and shorter commute times save the local economy $2.6b. much of this savings is due to the use of mass transit--which, by the way, is the bombdotcom.com.

mass transit is the bombdotcom.com for numerous reasons. first and foremost, you don't have to drive/walk. this allows you infinite freedoms, most notably, being able to get stinking drunk and and get home quickly while not risking a DUI or near-fatal car accident on the drive home. mass transit is also a much, much more efficient mode of transportation. it is efficient in production and in operation. cars are legit, don't get me wrong, but each person being moved around in their own 3-ton vehicle is fucking ridiculous. fuck people and fuck steel too. not only does this take up absurd swathes of land for roads/highways/junkyards but it requires more energy too, and that totally sucks. so transit is not only awesome for being able to get shitfaced, it's also more efficient and, apparently, able to save an economy billions of dollars that would either go into the pockets of houston cowboy beverly hillbillies or detroit. this money is better spent in oregon--on hemp ponchos, of course--or in your home town, wherever that may be.

Enrico Fermi: Watch me, haters

2007-08-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

" About 40 seconds after the explosion the air blast reached me. I tried to estimate its strength by dropping from about six feet small pieces of paper before, during and after the passage of the blast wave. Since at the time, there was no wind I could observe very distinctly and actually measure the displacement of the pieces of paper that were in the process of falling while the blast was passing. The shift was about 2 1/2 meters, which, at the time, I estimated to correspond to the blast that would be produced by ten thousand tons of T.N.T."

Diary of Enrico Fermi, July 16 1945, discussing first atom bomb test in Socorro, NM.

Hair Cuts

2007-08-20T07:23:00.000-07:00

In old fashioned times, barbers performed minor surgeries, attached leaches, and bled customers to release "vapors". But hey, I don't go to a pastry-chef to get my car fixed - just buzz the jew-fro.

...01.18.08 (cont.)

2007-08-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

I want to see the movie. That is basically where the genius of that movie lies. JJ + crew have made a concept movie and accompanying marketing campaign designed to make a shitload of money. While I don't think that this movie is going to be half as good as a Pirates, or Spiderman, those movies cost a ton of money - yet earned a ton of money as well. However movies like The Island cost a ton of money, and did not make a ton back - largely because of a sucky movie with a sucky ad campaign.

Who knows if 01.18.08 is going to be any good - based on the trailer I bet I'll be throwing up from motion sickness, however, by filming with unknown actors, and with all consumer handheld cameras - this special effects driven movie was made for $30 million. A pittance of what big-action films usually cost. And most importantly to the men whom I hope to someday become - suckers like me are will to shell out $10.50 to see it.

I am sure that the second this concept was pitched, it was greenlighted. There was no way this movie wasn't going to make a ton of money...and my god is this movie going to make a ton of money. I guess the point of this post is that 01.18.08 might be the most business minded film made since that one about camping.

I need to come up with something brilliant like this to make me feel better about myself.

The Phone Hasn't Rang

2007-08-17T08:59:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know this is the poster for the untitled JJ Abram's project codenamed 01.18.08 - the date of release. Cool and intriguing poster, but far more impressive is the trailer of the film.

Ill hang out and wait while you watch it...

ok b bak latr kthanxbai!

Http://automatedbeacon.net/

2007-08-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

http://automatedbeacon.net/

check it.

The words displayed are actually being searched for at that moment. There is a program projecting the same feed in 12" letters across a wall in my office.

When it first started, we knew we were in for something terrible when "flappy granny pussy" was splayed across the wall. Like the website, our office has now censored the searches. While we now have less insight into how truly sick people are on the internet and thus, in real life (or IRL which is a webism that is picking up steam), there are still plenty of poignant opportunities to peek into the otherwise private Global Village. My favorite searches include "Abortion Clinic in Austin" "Symptoms of Gonnaria" [sic] and "Why do my parents hate me?" At that moment, someone was ashamed and wanted answers. Google is the new Jesus. Automated Beacon is the Birdie in the Priest's Confessional Booth.

I'm so proud

2007-08-17T08:30:00.000-07:00

Stasis

2007-08-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

It's a slow morning, so I've had the opportunity to click...wait...click...wait, open new window, click...wait...

I decided that if I made more windows open trying to load up the US News and World Report website, I would have a better chance of getting the page to load - kind of like buying tickets on ticket master, you want as many of your friends calling at the same time, so someone will get through - I'm not sure if the same logic works on the internet, but all I know is that I finally got through...

I can't be happy, nor can I be disappointed. #11. Again. Therefore there can be no sense of loss, nor can there be any sense of accomplishment. I guess I don't really care if Wes ranks above Vassar or something, I guess all that I care about is that Vassar sure as fuck isn't ahead of the Tech.

Well Wesleyan is in a 4-way tie for #11. Vassar is in there too. While I still think that they are a bunch of pussies, at least they can't say they are better than us. And that's fine with me. So to friends in the top 10 liberal arts college ahead Wesleyan...I never like you anyways, and I think you should go to hell, and frankly, I don't want to talk to you anymore...at least until I have a job that is equally as good as yours.

Sci Fi Art

2007-08-17T07:07:00.000-07:00

The tragicomedy of a capacitor;
charges flash naturally towards the other
the spin of their particles
on a level impossible to seperate matter and energy
the perfect compliments
blocked by the physicality of a non-conductor.

But that energy dissipates only into the universe
powering man-made suns and high-velocity particle accelerators
like the one in Switzerland
that also crosses into France.

I saw you from my spaceship
a Nebula that exists only in the seeing.
In truth, you are only gas and particles
reflecting the spectrum of deflected wavelengths and stuff.

The Onion News Network

2007-08-17T06:31:00.000-07:00

The Onion came out with a video news network. as you would expect from The Onion, they abide by only the highest journalistic standards of fucking hilarious and the bombdotcom.com.

Time Releases Annual List Of Least Influential Americans

USNews and World Report: Get Your Shit Together

2007-08-17T06:12:00.000-07:00

The us news and world report gets a F in my book. I worked my ass off through highschool for this very day of the year. I want to know what my alma mater is ranked goddammit. While wesleyan was already voted the most obnoxious college in the country, I need more more more gratification. I hate the suspense. The little spinny thing in my browser has been just what it's name implies, spinning, for like 5 minutes. I am sure that other people are as insecure about their education as I am and are also trying to make themselves feel better about their lives by remembering that they went to a relatively good school and that at one point in time, they had some sense of accomplishment other than being able to jerk off without hurting themselves (post about this coming later).

update: the page has officially timed out - i'm considering calling my school's alumni office or sending an intern to the story across the street to check it out for me.

Does anyone know when the grad school listings are coming out, I'm considering taking the GRE's, but I need to know where to apply, so I can be sure to not have the same sisyphusian crisis of graduating and still feeling worthless...

The Economist

2007-08-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

i am pretty busy at work. i don't have a lot of time to spend wasting. i also, however, have a subscription to The Economist. now you would think that this would create a problem with no solution. thankfully, i also have to shit.

reading The Economist on the can is the bombdotcom.com. i frequently take 20-30 minute shits just so i can read about global market trends, the trials and tribulations of Shinzo Abe's presidency, or what George Bush should do for the Palestinians in the final term of his presidency.

i value this time. i enjoy this time. and it's the bombdotcom.com.

Keeping them honest

2007-08-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

The man currently suing Michael Vick for several billion dollars has also filed suit against President Bush. Here is an excerpt from the filing: (highlights highlighted)

(2) the plaintiff “seeks 299,000,000,000,000.00 Trillion dollars backed by gold or silver delivered by United States Postal Service to Federal Correctional Institution, Salters, South Carolina,” from the defendant; (3) President George W. Bush “is in a vast conspiracy of Uniform Commercial Code ‘UCC’ followers[,]” which include President Bush, the Queen of England, Chubby Checker, the Dalai Lama, Hillary Clinton, Bloods and Crips of Detroit, the trench coat mafia, Senator Arlen Specter, the Gambino crime family, Senator Trent Lott, RFID tracking devices, and radioactive chemicals released into the air by airline pilots; (4) the Federal Reserve System is a fraud and federal reserve notes “are backed by nothing of substance[;]” (5) President Bush has failed to build an anti-UFO defense system around FCI-Williamsburg and has released staph infections into the water system at FCI-Williamsburg; (6) the plaintiff has been subjected to microwave testing on a daily basis; (7) President Bush is secretly selling prisoners’ DNA to the Hitler Socialist Party; (8) President Bush is a “voodoo witch doctor involved with transforming Humans to Animals sometimes plants[;]” (9) FCI-Williamsburg has “robotic guards” made from President Bush’s NASA partners; (10) on January 4, 2003, President Bush stole the plaintiff’s identity; (11) on “April 20th 2002, George Bush Joined alliance to Al qaeda[;]” (12) “October 31 2001 George Bush is spelled hsub egroeG backwards[;]” (13) the Fourteenth Amendment was not ratified properly; (14) President George W. Bush is a “time traveler” who conspired with the Duke of Normandy at the Battle of Hastings in 1066;1 and (15) “George H. W. Bush is his front father [who] contracted with secret Wiccan’s [sic] to pervert America citizens via www world wide web.” In his prayer for relief, the plaintiff seeks a restraining order against President Bush because he (the plaintiff) comes in peace. The plaintiff also seeks a restraining order against “air force one.”

Maakies!

2007-08-15T18:30:00.002-07:00

Thank you, Tony Millionaire. We are all better people for your vision.

Objectives and capabilities

2007-08-15T12:37:00.001-07:00

12. Life in the oceans must be sheer hell. A vast, merciless hell of permanent and immediate danger. So much of a hell that during evolution some species - including man - crawled, fled onto some small continents of solid land, where the Lessons of Darkness continue.

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota April 30, 1999 Werner Herzog

Caller ID

2007-08-15T12:34:00.001-07:00

i'm not going to lie. i screen probably 60% of my calls. not because i don't want to talk to the person who is calling. oh no. i screen calls for reasons of propriety and respect. i don't like answering phones calls when i know i have bad service. who wants to go through those painful 20 seconds when you just really hope the network will come through? i also don't answer my phone in bars, where there is noise, or when i am with a group of friends. i consider this rude.

thanks to Caller ID, i can know exactly who i am inconveniencing and i can decide to politely excuse myself from conversation and call them back, wait to call the next day, or disregard it completely depending on the situation. this is a gift that is so great i never could have contemplated its stupendessness before i had it. Caller ID is undoubtedly the bombdotcom.com.

O-Bomb-a.com

2007-08-15T12:12:00.001-07:00

It was only a matter of time.

Myspace antics

2007-08-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

I fought the Myspace craze for ages. I'm judgemental and wholeheartedly convinced that my preferences should dictate the way that other people live their lives. Myspace was stupid no matter who was doing it. Having since become a space junky, I have no idea why I ever resisted. It facilitates a lot of relationships and arrangements that are easily classified as the bomb.com.

Try this on. Here's a message I got from an girl on myspace this morning.

Date: Aug 14, 2007 3:46 PM

"So, look, I'm gonna make this really simple. I work way too long of hours these days and I haven't been in town on a weekend for over a month to go out and find other options if you will. So... I just want plain and simple sex. I know you, it's close and it's easy. So if you have a spare hour, let me know. Is that straightforward enough? :O)"

You've gotta respect the gangster.

It's definitely the bomb.com that things like myspace have cleared a space where even the most reserved of us can craft totally edgy, sexual and fairly streamlined relationships around whatever our needs may be. We can vet people we find attractive without ever even meeting them in person and define the terms of the relationship without ever having to navigate that awkward moment when you're looking at someone across a dinner table.

We should all, guys and girls, be more selectively slutty. As long as we're careful, I think we'd all be a lot happier.

That's undoubtedly the bomb.com.

TV Links

2007-08-15T10:24:00.001-07:00

for when netflix just isn't fast enough. or for that matter, when you don't have an account.

TV Links' motto is "better than a remote control." you know what? they're right.

and what does being better than a remote control make them? the bomb.com.com, of course.

Mirror

2007-08-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

Khalil Gibran

bomb/not bomb

2007-08-15T06:39:00.000-07:00

KFC/Taco Bell amalgam on 14th street. In the heady hours of Saturday night, I couldn't imagine a more delicious confluence of flavors.

Passing it on Tuesday afternoon was like running into a bad one-night-stand 3 weeks later.