balding angrily

It’s rare that I’m blown away by YouTube because, in general, I’m not interested in what everyone else is interested in. Usually, I discover things that were viral three years ago. That’s my M.O.

So, imagine my surprise at finding the most awesomest thing at the top of You Tube’s Featured Videos.

Here’s the description:

Two girls find a mysterious radio left at their doorstep. They unleash a six armed goddess who seduces them with promises of wealth. They trade their souls for money and, in turn, become the goddess’ dancing elephant slaves.

I don’t know if this is The Heavy’s official video to “Coleen,” but it should be.

Relax and enjoy. (A warning. It’s a big file.)

Like my internet? I changed it. For you!

I goatse’d [Don’t worry; link completely safe.] Jerry yesterday; it was the highlight of my weekend. I didn’t actually show him my own personal version of the offending picture; I found the original on the internets and made him look at it. If you’ve never seen the original picture, click around; you’ll find it. You’ll lose your immortal soul upon viewing it, but that’s the price you pay. There’s also this helpful Wikipedia article.

Oh. And mom, please for the love of God, do not try to find the original goatse. You will be horrified and, as I said, lose your immortal soul.

I wish I had taken a picture of his reaction, but I just so badly wanted him to experience that instantaneous gut-punch that I didn’t think ahead. He screamed at me, and was genuinely angry at me until he saw me bent over in my chair with tears coming out of my eyes from laughing at him. Then he came around.

Which gets me to thinking, can you call yourself a true user of the internets if you haven’t been goatse’d? Or is it more of a rite of passage like sticking a bone through your nose or chasing a tiger? Can we classify people into pre-goatse and post-goatse?

And further, is this the new goatse?

For anyone that missed the Scary Hillary photo that’s being passed around the internet like a drunken coed at a frat party, the Something Awful forum goons have been hard at work celebrating via photoshop their right to free, yet delightfully retarted, speech. The original photo leads the forum thread, and someone smarter than me should look up where it came from.

I strongly suggest you scroll quickly through the thread. It will cause less damage to your brain that way.

I love the idea of rating something that, in the mainstream, escapes needed critique, something everyday. I also love ice cream, especially Ben & Jerry’s. Combine these two loves, add Cinnabon, and you get the 27 Second Review (via The Sound of Young America).

For more ratings goodness, also check out the Brunching Shuttlecocks Archives and Lore’s print version of The Book of Ratings, which you can buy for me by clicking on my wishlist in the sidebar.

A warning about this post. It’s not funny or meant to be, and it’s pretty specific to the U.S. However the issues behind the specifics are being discussed in other parts of the world.

I’ve been rolling Rights (with a capital R because it’s big and important) around in my head the last couple of days because of Gizmodo’s RIAA Boycott. I got interested in fair use, copyright law, and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) when I bought my iPod video last year and tried to put my purchased DVDs on it. I wondered why iTunes comes with a “Import CD” button but not a “Import DVD” button. That’s when I discovered that unlike CDs, DVDs come encrypted. In order to download the electronic file stored on the DVD, a person must remove the encryption. (I’m sorry if this elementary to you. I’m taking you through my process to show you how I got interested in this subject.) Then I found out that if iTunes were to include an “Import DVD” button, they would be breaking the law because according to the DMCA, it is illegal for Apple to sell or provide software that makes it possible to remove encryption. Further, it is illegal for me to remove encryption using software legally available outside of the U.S.

Then I remembered hearing somewhere that it was considered legal, back in the days of vinyl and cassette tapes, to copy an album or CD for your own personal use onto a cassette tape. It was illegal to sell the cassette, but it was legal to make the cassette to use on your Walkman. This, under copyright law, was called fair use. Fair use protects certain instances in which people that do not have permission to copy copyrighted material. As in the example with the cassette tape and CD, it protects, among other things, educators who wish to excerpt material for their students, critics who wish to review a book, movie, piece of music, or game, and anyone who wishes to parody a copyrighted work.

Hopefully, you see where I’m going. It is illegal to remove encryption from a DVD, but it is legal to make a copy of copyrighted material for your own personal use. So, I’m fucked with my DVD-to-iPod situation, if I wish to not break the law…but fair use says that I wouldn’t be breaking the law. To me, this is a conflict between my consumer rights and greedy movie studios, companies who wish to re-sell the same material to me in a different format.

So, I’m asking you to write your congressperson to support any legislation that will allow me to watch my legally purchased movies on my iPod on a long flight to Sundance. I should also ask you to write your congressperson to support my right to marry Jerry, but, you know…one step at a time. Today: watching O Brother, Where Art Thou on a 2 1/2″ screen; tomorrow: my right to inherit Jerry’s Social Security should he fall down a mountain in Sundance.

Oh. And sorry for the lack of funny.

Hey kids! Look what I can do! The latest Scissor Sisters video. (via BoyzBlog)

Bear with me while I learn new things. This is usually the purview of watchthisvid, but I wanted to see if I could join the YouTube group of cool kids one year too late. This little vid takes quite a bit from that Matrix ping-pong dealy that your mom, who usually gets onto the computer to send you the latest kitties-in-hats powerpoint, sent you last year.

This is an illustration in one of my reference guides to ensure we architects don’t discriminate against the disabled or differently-abled (I’m not sure what the PC term is supposed to be.) through our building design.

Not many people know that Dr. Spock worked for The Disability Lobby and Fair Housing Office after his service to Starfleet. Or that he spent five nights a week, three hours a night at the gym to get the V he couldn’t get on the bridge of the Enterprise.

Architecture-Nerd Humor. You don’t get that kind of sub-sub-culture mirth from just any website. Only right here at balding angrily. Tell your friends.

I spend more time than some people looking up the correct usage of a word or phrase. That’s not to say I’m all intellectually curious like John Cusack’s would-be girlfriend in Say Anything. It’s more like I’m a little obsessive/compulsive about being right. My favorite look-up concerns the Alanis Morisette/Irony debate. I typed in “irony +Alanis Morissette” to Google and I got directed to any number of message boards and essays that attempt to either call Alanis on her sloppy use of language or argue that Alanis’s writing is brilliant. Many people have tried to give me examples of what true irony is, but still I get lost, or at least I’m going to pretend to be lost for the purpose of this sentence. Irony is a slippery concept to me. Don’t try to explain it to me again; you will fail in the attempt, and I will hate you for it.

I got called out on some boards about my use of the word “morals.” The person said I should be using the word “ethics.” I’ve looked up the two words, and I’m still confused because they still seem more or less interchangeable to me. Again, please don’t explain it to me. You will fail; I will hate you.

Why is this important? I was trying to think through what Dr. Laura would call a “moral dilemma” the other day, and got caught at the semantics. Was what I was trying to work through really an “ethical dilemma?” Is Dr. Laura misspeaking when she continues to ask about callers’ “moral dilemmas?” Is this one more reason why I should hate Dr. Laura? If “ethics” are the rules that attempt to codify “morals,” is it “ethics” or “morals” that prevent me from exposing my bare ass to the nearest Republican?

Here’s the ethical or moral dilemma that started this whole messed-up, confused line of thinking. I’m having a hard time figuring out when forced castration becomes a “should.” This is what I’m thinking about while I’m walking to Tin Star for lunch.