gonna have a good time

May it be better than 2007.

Thought to start the year:

“The future is no more uncertain than the present.”
- Walt Whitman

National Novel Writing Month is a grassroots initiative wherein participants attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in its entirety during the month of November. 60 minutes and 37 words later, I’m giving up. Maybe next year?

i need excellent costume ideas that can be made from simple household objects

At least cigarettes are filtered.

I need a GPS for my car. The kind you stick on top of the dashboard, not in it.

Any recommendations?

Researchers Map the Sexual Network of an Entire High School: “That growth on the left top is terrifying.”

This is the best low-budget, local access CM ever made.

1. The 8-bit synth is so hot, you’d think Timbaland stole it from scene.org.
2. The awesome enthusiasm of the rapper. You can tell, he really likes those chinchillas.
3. The letters W-E-T P-E-T-S spin in time with the rap! That shows a dedication to detail and quality.
4. The fish at the start says “San Pablo”–thinks, rather, as fish can’t talk!
5. The half-hearted “emphasis” at the end of lines just makes the flow even more dope. It grabs your attention more than shouting.
6. The awesome thick bevel on the windowed pet graphics.
7. “Parakeets, rabbits, and–scorPEONS!” Look at the way the scorpion establishes dominance over the previous pets, BURSTING into the middle frame. Damn!
8. That girl is so not happy to be holding a snake around her neck.
9. Super-dramatic zoom on “food!” Nearly 20x in a split-second.
10. When the letters spin at the end, they spin out of the way of some huge eely thing.
11. WHO COMES BACK FOR MORE! (end CM)

This commercial is so much better than multi-million dollar ad campaigns that fall flat.

Wet Pets delivers!

Cars are probably the worst idea of the past 100 years. I can’t believe our country uses them. What the hell!

• Cars are extremely expensive, and money spent on worthless cars are diverted from other, actually useful pursuits. Money spent on buying a car is never recovered; cars always decrease in value. On the other hand, trains are owned by the government, and you just have to pay the price of your ticket to ride.
• You have to pay a registration fee when you buy a car. All you need to ride a train is your ticket.
• You have to pay a renewal fee every year. Trains never have a fee!
• Insurance is incredibly expensive. If the train crashes–not your fault!
• You have to pay for smog testing, too. Trains don’t produce smog!
• You have to pay for gas all the time.
• Some roads are toll roads! In case you thought you weren’t paying enough yet.
• Parking somewhere on the weekends can take up to 30-40 minutes and may require an additional fee. Train stations always stay put and are free to enter and exit.
• “Traffic” means you have no idea if it will take you 30 or 90 minutes to somewhere. Trains are always on time.
• Owning a car means you can get traffic tickets or parking tickets. No car, no tickets!
• Driving is stressful and annoying. Riding a train is an opportunity to listen to music, read a book, or play your DS.
• A car based-society means everything is incredibly spread out, impersonal, and impossible to find without foreknowledge. A train-based society means things are close by, neighborhoods have personality, and cool things you are waiting to discover are literally just around the corner.
• Driving makes you fat and lazy. Trains and walking keep you thin.
• Driving is awful for the environment. Public transportation is environmentally friendly.
• Cars are slow because you’re always stopping at stop lights. Trains, especially express trains, go straight to your destination.
• Driving means designated drivers, restrained evenings out and “sobering up.” Trains mean that everybody gets to cut loose!

In conclusion, cars are awful and people who like cars and driving are unfathomably stupid. The car is an ugly, stupid solution to an ugly, stupid problem–the fact that American cities are designed by morons, for morons, and are growing ever more moronic every year. Cars are a social cancer that actively worsen the lives of every man, woman, and child in America and OH MY GOD WHY ARE THERE SO MANY CARS. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. WHAT IS WRONG WITH AMERICA.

Thank you.

It’s 12:00 A.M., and I just literally screamed out loud at my computer after reading this from the New York Times (use bugmenot):

In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild, a NASA contractor working on a set of Web presentations about Einstein for middle-school students. The message said the word “theory” needed to be added after every mention of the Big Bang.

The Big Bang is “not proven fact; it is opinion,” Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, “It is not NASA’s place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator.”

It continued: “This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most.”

What I yelled was, “There is NO DEBATE!!“

I didn’t mean to yell. It just happened. I’m just face-punchingly mad that America has turned into a country where a willfully ignorant 24-year-old religious nut can rewrite NASA findings and policy papers at whim because boo-fucking-hoo. What the hell is wrong with people? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

Well said.

Please go vote. Please. Please go vote.

Here is a totally nonscientific ranking of Red/Blue states by average I.Q.. I don’t believe in I.Q. testing as an accurate way to measure intelligence, so I don’t really think this list means anything. I just find its … symmetry amusing.