Smart Spam
So here's another one of my ideas that I DON'T WANT to exist. But I can't help thinkin' up shit.
(And, hey, it probably already DOES exist, and I just don't know about it yet.)
The idea is Smart Spam. Imagine you're on your FB page or something, and a window pops up that kinda LOOKS like an IM window. Actually, even more insidiously, maybe it's even disguised as one of your friends. You can have an instant message conversation with this thing that actually resembles a real conversation. The "person" is responding to what you're saying (or at least seems like they are, albeit somewhat distracted or maybe drunk.) At a certain point in the conversation, the person "sells" you on some product, or encourages you to check out some website. Thinking it's your friend, you do. Just got suckered!
(And, hey, it probably already DOES exist, and I just don't know about it yet.)
The idea is Smart Spam. Imagine you're on your FB page or something, and a window pops up that kinda LOOKS like an IM window. Actually, even more insidiously, maybe it's even disguised as one of your friends. You can have an instant message conversation with this thing that actually resembles a real conversation. The "person" is responding to what you're saying (or at least seems like they are, albeit somewhat distracted or maybe drunk.) At a certain point in the conversation, the person "sells" you on some product, or encourages you to check out some website. Thinking it's your friend, you do. Just got suckered!
The whole time, behind the scenes, it's not a real person at all. It's a piece of software that's programmed to interact with and respond to what you type. A talk bot. Really simple technology that's pretty easy to program. (I even programmed one myself when I was a teenager: http://www.whimnova.com/VI.html)
Okay, there it is. Please don't blame me for it when it starts actually happening.
(Shirks in shame.)
Douché
I'm now officially using this website to claim neologisms before they enter the mainstream.
(See my article on "Take a chillaxtive!")
Kinda like the urban legend of a "Poor Man's Patent": that you can mail yourself an idea and don't open the envelope so the post date is on there, so later in court you can "prove" that you came up with it first.
...Kinda like that, I'm using my website to "prove" that I came up with certain neologisms FIRST.
The following is not my invention, but is entirely the brainchild of my best friend Josh. (And I will swear on a stack of Bibles that it was indeed him who came up with it.)
Ready for it?
So, pretend you're at a party and a really lame dude says something witty and contrarian. This is the type of situation where a person would say "Touché", right? (Which, incidentally, I read somewhere is a French term taken from fencing. It just means "touch." It's kinda like saying "nice move, you win," right?)
(See my article on "Take a chillaxtive!")
Kinda like the urban legend of a "Poor Man's Patent": that you can mail yourself an idea and don't open the envelope so the post date is on there, so later in court you can "prove" that you came up with it first.
...Kinda like that, I'm using my website to "prove" that I came up with certain neologisms FIRST.
The following is not my invention, but is entirely the brainchild of my best friend Josh. (And I will swear on a stack of Bibles that it was indeed him who came up with it.)
Ready for it?
So, pretend you're at a party and a really lame dude says something witty and contrarian. This is the type of situation where a person would say "Touché", right? (Which, incidentally, I read somewhere is a French term taken from fencing. It just means "touch." It's kinda like saying "nice move, you win," right?)
So here's the side-splitting new twist on that idea: Instead of saying "touché," you say "douché!"
AH HA HA HA! "Douché!"
(Drawing by Katie)
Awesomize old shoes
I've been meaning to post more of my crafty DIY-type projects up here. (Shoot, I've been meaning to post more up here at ALL. I've been so busy with my rain barrel company, I haven't had time to invent useless crap.)
But anyway, here's something I did a while back that I've been meaning to put up here.
I had an old pair of shoes that were kinda ugly on the outside.
[Shown are a different pair, but you get the idea]
But anyway, here's something I did a while back that I've been meaning to put up here.
I had an old pair of shoes that were kinda ugly on the outside.
[Shown are a different pair, but you get the idea]
And I wanted to awesomize them. So I got a pelt from an old green carebear doll, cut it up and I used Gorilla Glue to stick the pieces on the outside. I didn't really have a pattern for cutting out the pelt, so I just started sticking pieces on and cutting off the excess. If you try it, it's way easier than you think. (But not super easy either, I mean, it's probably an intermediate-level craft project. If crafting were a ski slope, it would be a blue square.)
When I wear them out, most people think they are slippers, and they wonder how I'm able to do such awesome dance moves in them. ("Wouldn't that require more friction?")Then I show them my soles, and they are amazed and they want to be me.
I would have never expected to fall in love with...
Ever since I started listening to music, I've gravitated towards "harder" and "harder" rock. I like fast. I like constant rhythmic variation. I like enthusiasm (not so much aggression, as enthusiasm). Screaming makes me happy.
So, as the years went on, my music path went from "mild to spicy":
1995 Weezer
1996 Smashing Pumpkins
1997 Rage Against the Machine
2000 At the Drive-In, Tool
Around 2004, Emperor took the throne for a couple of years. This is the loudest, meanest, fastest shit I've ever heard!
So, of course, when THAT got boring, I thought I'd hit rock-bottom of "hardness." I was bummed. I had no interest in music for like three years. (During this time, I started doing karaoke every night. THAT put the final nail in the coffin which read 'I hate music'.)
Then... THEN.. last year Josh laid "August Burns Red" on me.
.jpg)
I got REALLY high, and I fell in love with music again. This shit is SO FUCKING GOOD I CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE IT.
I'm listening to it right now as I write this, and I'm so bouncy inside, I can barely type.
Go to YouTube and see what I mean.
I've listened to Messengers and/or Constellations everyday for the last year, and I'm not bored of it.
It has everything I love about metal (speed, melody, screaming, virtuoso musicianship, abrupt rhythmic shifts and unusual meters), and none of what I DON'T like: extended dissonance, repetition, nihilism, leather.
Then, one day, I said "Hey, Josh, August Burns Red gives me a boner."
And he was like (wait for it....) "Yeah, August Burns Red is Christian metal from back when I was evangelical."
After throwing up in the bushes, I realized I would just have to live with the fact that my favorite band is Christian Metal. CHRISTIAN METAL!
Of all the twists and turns my life has taken, this is the one I expected least.
But, you know, I used to listen to Satanic metal, and I didn't identify as a Satanist. Why can't I just like the music for music without having ideology rear its ugly head?
Does this say anything about ME? Does it MEAN something that I like this? Probably not. It just means I like having my brain tickled from all angles by machine-gun fast polyphony. The machine gun of Christ.
So, as the years went on, my music path went from "mild to spicy":
1995 Weezer
1996 Smashing Pumpkins
1997 Rage Against the Machine
2000 At the Drive-In, Tool
Around 2004, Emperor took the throne for a couple of years. This is the loudest, meanest, fastest shit I've ever heard!
So, of course, when THAT got boring, I thought I'd hit rock-bottom of "hardness." I was bummed. I had no interest in music for like three years. (During this time, I started doing karaoke every night. THAT put the final nail in the coffin which read 'I hate music'.)
Then... THEN.. last year Josh laid "August Burns Red" on me.
I got REALLY high, and I fell in love with music again. This shit is SO FUCKING GOOD I CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE IT.
I'm listening to it right now as I write this, and I'm so bouncy inside, I can barely type.
Go to YouTube and see what I mean.
I've listened to Messengers and/or Constellations everyday for the last year, and I'm not bored of it.
It has everything I love about metal (speed, melody, screaming, virtuoso musicianship, abrupt rhythmic shifts and unusual meters), and none of what I DON'T like: extended dissonance, repetition, nihilism, leather.
Then, one day, I said "Hey, Josh, August Burns Red gives me a boner."
And he was like (wait for it....) "Yeah, August Burns Red is Christian metal from back when I was evangelical."
After throwing up in the bushes, I realized I would just have to live with the fact that my favorite band is Christian Metal. CHRISTIAN METAL!
Of all the twists and turns my life has taken, this is the one I expected least.
But, you know, I used to listen to Satanic metal, and I didn't identify as a Satanist. Why can't I just like the music for music without having ideology rear its ugly head?
Does this say anything about ME? Does it MEAN something that I like this? Probably not. It just means I like having my brain tickled from all angles by machine-gun fast polyphony. The machine gun of Christ.
Take a chillaxitive!
When the word "Chillaxitive" enters common parlance (as in "Take a chillaxitive!"), let the record show that I invented it.
No Delete Week
I read something on the Greenpeace website about this thing called the Trash Vortex which is (This is from the Greenpeace website:) an area the size of Texas in the North Pacific in which an estimated six kilos of plastic for every kilo of natural plankton, along with other slow degrading garbage, swirls slowly around like a clock, choked with dead fish, marine mammals, and birds who get snared. Some plastics in the gyre will not break down in the lifetimes of the grandchildren of the people who threw them away.
Today I got some mail. It was a big package. Inside the big box was a smaller box, wrapped in bubble wrap, and inside that box was more bubble wrap, and inside that was another box.
As I unwrapped the layers, my roommates and I all laughed about how much packaging it took to deliver the thing. We started saying "Think about how much packaging stuff comes in! It's impossible to go to the store and buy something without it coming with TRASH ATTACHED TO IT! I mean, really, think about it. Everything you buy, from a bag of rice, to a can of beans, to a piece of electronics: it all comes with packaging that essentially becomes trash the second you open it. I mean, there's NOTHING you can buy that doesn't have trash with it. Even, like, a BANANA, comes with stickers on it."
I opened the last box, and there was a brand-new mac keyboard in it.
I had forgotten that I'd ordered this a few days ago. I had been typing on my old keyboard and thinking that my fingers were going to cramp up if I kept this up. Meanwhile, Josh over heard me typing, and said "That's a really rickety old keyboard." He was right. Some of the keys would stick when you tried to push them. I needed a new keyboard. With the amount of typing I do, I needed one of those new fangled ones with the shallow, wide, springy keys. The ones that take very little effort per keystroke.
So, today, my new keyboard came in the mail.
All my roommates were impressed. I said "I'd forgotten that I sent this to myself. Sometimes I go online and order stuff, and then I forget about it. It's like an un-birthday present from past-me to present-me. Like 'I know you'll forget you ordered this. SO.. Surprise!'"
For some reason, my roommate said "What if it didn't have a backspace key?" I don't know what made him think of that, but I found it really funny. "Yeah!" I said "What if there were no backspace key, or no delete key? Life would be so different, wouldn't it? What if, just for giggles, you challenged yourself to go a WEEK without using your delete key or your backspace key? Or your undo command? Like, how would that change you?"
"I guess you'd start to be more careful," someone said. "And you'd probably have to be creative.. like if you started to spell a word wrong, you could be creative and turn it into some other word. Maybe you'd end up saying something totally different than what you were going to say in the first place, or you might end up saying the thing you were trying to say, but in a totally round-about-way.
And what if... (To connect the two frayed ends of this idea,) what if you went a week, no, a MONTH, and you weren't allowed to throw anything in the trash can? You had to take all your wrappers and packaging and everything and keep it in your room? Wow! Think about that! Your room would fill up to the brim! What would you do at that point? Probably the same thing as with the keyboard example: You'd be careful about the choices you make in the first place. And then you'd be forced to be more creative with the artifacts of those choices.
Right?
God, I'm brilliant.
Today I got some mail. It was a big package. Inside the big box was a smaller box, wrapped in bubble wrap, and inside that box was more bubble wrap, and inside that was another box.
As I unwrapped the layers, my roommates and I all laughed about how much packaging it took to deliver the thing. We started saying "Think about how much packaging stuff comes in! It's impossible to go to the store and buy something without it coming with TRASH ATTACHED TO IT! I mean, really, think about it. Everything you buy, from a bag of rice, to a can of beans, to a piece of electronics: it all comes with packaging that essentially becomes trash the second you open it. I mean, there's NOTHING you can buy that doesn't have trash with it. Even, like, a BANANA, comes with stickers on it."
I opened the last box, and there was a brand-new mac keyboard in it.
I had forgotten that I'd ordered this a few days ago. I had been typing on my old keyboard and thinking that my fingers were going to cramp up if I kept this up. Meanwhile, Josh over heard me typing, and said "That's a really rickety old keyboard." He was right. Some of the keys would stick when you tried to push them. I needed a new keyboard. With the amount of typing I do, I needed one of those new fangled ones with the shallow, wide, springy keys. The ones that take very little effort per keystroke.
So, today, my new keyboard came in the mail.
All my roommates were impressed. I said "I'd forgotten that I sent this to myself. Sometimes I go online and order stuff, and then I forget about it. It's like an un-birthday present from past-me to present-me. Like 'I know you'll forget you ordered this. SO.. Surprise!'"
For some reason, my roommate said "What if it didn't have a backspace key?" I don't know what made him think of that, but I found it really funny. "Yeah!" I said "What if there were no backspace key, or no delete key? Life would be so different, wouldn't it? What if, just for giggles, you challenged yourself to go a WEEK without using your delete key or your backspace key? Or your undo command? Like, how would that change you?"
"I guess you'd start to be more careful," someone said. "And you'd probably have to be creative.. like if you started to spell a word wrong, you could be creative and turn it into some other word. Maybe you'd end up saying something totally different than what you were going to say in the first place, or you might end up saying the thing you were trying to say, but in a totally round-about-way.
And what if... (To connect the two frayed ends of this idea,) what if you went a week, no, a MONTH, and you weren't allowed to throw anything in the trash can? You had to take all your wrappers and packaging and everything and keep it in your room? Wow! Think about that! Your room would fill up to the brim! What would you do at that point? Probably the same thing as with the keyboard example: You'd be careful about the choices you make in the first place. And then you'd be forced to be more creative with the artifacts of those choices.
Right?
God, I'm brilliant.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
