Day 29:

This time, Cracked.com had truly inspired idea for a Photoshop contest…”what would famous people or characters dress up as?” I mentioned this contest on last week’s TANcast and the two entries I mentioned (Yoda as Miss Piggy and Groucho as Groucho) totally made the list. I also made the list twice, so be sure to check that out. But as usual, I have a lot of entries that didn’t make the cut. Wanna see ‘em? Too bad, here they are anyway…

Incredibles as the Fantastic 4
I thought this one had a shot. I thought it looked pretty good. Maybe the Incredibles aren’t at the forefront of peoples’ mind these days…but they SHOULD be, dang it!

Cheech and Chong and Jay and Silent Bob
Why wouldn’t two weed smokin’ slackers dress as two other weed smoking slackers? Because it’s not that funny? Fair enough.

Freddy Kruger as Snooki
Freddy knows it takes a lot to scare people these days…so he really took it to another level this year. Ugh…scary, scary stuff!

Cher and Elton John with “No Costume” Costumes
This is the one I talked about on the show, where I thought I had missed the obvious joke of doing this with Lady Gaga. Then, after we recorded, there were almost a dozen entries of Lady Gaga dressed up in normal clothes. So I guess I’ll stick with my reference to the frequent costume changes of Cher and the outlandish 70′s wear of Elton John. And I’ll stick to not making the list with it.

Batman as Superman
Even Batman knows he’d rather be able to fly and deflect bullets with his eyeballs. It’s okay Bruce…you can dream.

Mark Hamill as Han Solo
I thought SURE this would get some heat. Look at him all alone at that party just trying to get some Star Wars love. Poor guy. Maybe he’s cold, some one slice open a Tauntaun and tuck him in. (Wow, I can’t believe I spelled Tauntaun right on my first try without looking it up. This may be the proudest day of my geek life)

Day 26:

Ads on the internet are annoying. You know hat’s not annoying? making fun of them. Thanks to Cracked.com’s latest photo manipulation contest, I got to do just that. In fact, one of my entries was used as the “thumbnail” for the article. But, as usual, there were some gems that didn’t even make it in. Here they are for your amusement my self importance.

C’mon…we know what most nerds use Photoshop for…after they insert themselves into a picture with Anne Hathaway…they use it to make their profile pictures look better on Facebook/Match.com/Google Maps..or whatever. No? that’s not what most people do? Just me? …awkward. Moving on!

So that ad, with Ron Jeremy’s face clearly plopped don some other dude’s body actually exists. The text for it says something like, “Lear Ron Jeremy’s secret to being hung like a horse,” or something to that effect. My original joke was going to be to reveal his “secret” (being born that way.) But the add also shows that dude’s…um…mystery meat. So originally I was just going to pixelate it out, but then I had a wonderfully, awful idea. Sarah Jessica Parker’s face knows a thing or two about being like a horse. …and my black heart grew three sizes that day.

I knew this wouldn’t place. It’s just for me…and maybe any other graphic designers out there who’ve ever had to work with someone who took every creative idea you brought to a project and squashed it in favor of lameness. *Sigh* I really don’t miss the old days.

Day 22:

Another late blog, but I spent a lot of my time yesterday putting together our next episode. (Which should be epically fantastic). Cracked spent yesterday and today putting up Photoshop contests. Between the two contests, only one of my entries made it. Here are the ones that didn’t…broken down by contest.

I’ll start with my favorite of the two contests, “If They Made Ads for the Worst Things Ever.” This was the contest that one of my submissions placed in, but I would say these two are much better…

C’mon…using sex appeal to sell suicide? That’s horrible…but funny. And yes, those are the lyrics to the thee from M*A*S*H. Also, I had to visit way more foot fetish websites than I ever wanted to (which is to say I had to visit any foot fetish websites) to find a good pic of dangling feet.

It is also harder than you would think to find a creepy looking guy on the internet. I know. I’m just as surprised as you are.

The next contest was “Things Old People Suspect About Modern Culture.” I got shut out on this one and when you see these entries you’ll be furious…or you’ll completely understand the judges’ decision. Either way…

So that is Greek on the screen. Get it? It’s all Greek to them? Comedy! For an additional level of humor, it says (according to Google Translate), “Click ‘ok’ to erase your hard drive and give us full access to your banking account.”

Old people think Jay Leno is funny! HA! They’re so dumb! (Tim Babb is available for booking as a guest on the Tonight Show at anytime…wonder why that call hasn’t come in yet.)

I thought sure this would nab a spot. It has so many delicious levels…
1) The obvious joke of a bar full of geniuses
2) That bar is Cheers
3) Three of the geniuses are from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. (Where Data played poker on the holodeck with Einstein, Newton, and Hawking…and they got the real Hawking to come on and play himself.)

Once again Cracked.com ran another PhotoShop contest and once again yours truly was shut out. Perhaps at this point, the folks at Cracked enjoy reading these “Rejected by…” blogs as much as you do. So let’s not waste anymore time and let’s look at some movies from the point of view of the villain that were too awesome for Cracked.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Seems pretty simple on the surface, but let’s look at what’s really going on here. The shot of the Enterprise blowing up is actually from Star Trek III. So the movie wouldn’t end where Star Trek II did. It would imply that Kirk having to destroy his own ship was part of Khan’s revenge. Then you have Ceti Alpha VI blowing up in the upper left hand corner. But the best details is the dead wife. That’s actually the actress who played the crew member that ran off with Khan on the original series episode “Space Seed.” But wait what’s crawling on her face? One of those Ceti Eels that Khan claims killed her. This poster is 100% plot accurate.

Star Trek: Nemesis
I knew this one was a long shot. But if you were one of the 7 people who saw Star Trek: Nemesis, you know that Data’s “brother,” B4, was supposed to be “child-like,” but came off as really…um…well yeah.

Philadelphia
Too soon? (Why didn’t this one make the list? It’s a mystery)

Day 18:

Another one of the things lost from TANcast 171 was Noah sharing a funny video. So here is the video with some of the commentary from the guys…

TIM: Speaking of links, I remember distinctly that Noah had a link to share

NOAH: So, Tim has seen this but…

TIM: And I want to see it AGAIN!!!

NOAH: …but Andy has not. It’s a Black guy telling a racist story.

[laughter]

TIM: I love when the mom calls the teacher a “Jive-ass-mother-fucker.”

ANDY: Yes!

NOAH: Well, it was a while ago.

TIM: Well, he’s still he can’t be old enough…well I don’t know when this video was taken, but I assume he can’t be old enough to have been doing that in the early 70′s when people were still saying that.

NOAH: Some slang never dies.

TIM: We need to bring back “jive”

NOAH: Isn’t it “jive ass?” Or is the slang just “jive” and you add modifiers to it.

TIM: I believe so

ANDY: Yeah

TIM: “Jive turkey”

NOAH: Isn’t it “jive ass turkey?” Or is it just “jive turkey” I think ass always goes along with it.

TIM: I don’t think so

ANDY: It’s like “punk bitch” or “punk ass bitch.” You’re just adding modifiers

TIM: We need to call Grammar Girl in on this. In fact, I’m going to tweet her now.

ANDY: I love that he refers to him and all of his little classmates as “a bunch of little nigglets.”

NOAH: It’s funny because…that was from Reddit and apparently he doesn’t want that video up anymore. He’s like “I’m gonna try to find jobs later on in life and I don’t want that to effect me.” Unfortunately, he did not realize…or I’m sure he does realize…but once it’s there, especially if it’s good, it’s not going away.

TIM: I don’t see why someone wouldn’t hire him off the back of this…I mean except a racist, and then he probably wouldn’t want that job.

NOAH: Eh…I think it’s the fact he said “nigglets” he was just worried.

TIM: Oh….well…He’s allowed to say “nigglets.”

NOAH: Yeah we think so but companies are weird and they always look at it that way.

ANDY: I think I would be more likely to hire that guy having seen that.

TIM: Fuck yeah

ANDY: He seems like he’s fun to have around.

NOAH: He’s got some stories.

TIM: I was telling Noah…look at everybody else! They are fucking spellbound!

ANDY: …and dying!

TIM: YES! Like everything he says. Fucking that guy can tell a story. Not only is the content of the story funny, but just like the way…he is fucking holding court!

ANDY: Yup

TIM: That’s impressive. He should get some spoken word work off that.

ANDY: True that.

TIM: Oh, you know what? If they changed the name of the video from “Nigglets Tricked Into Picking Cotton” to something else that’d be a good idea. Because he only says “nigglets” once and that’s certainly not what makes the video funny.

NOAH: Well, I don’t think he posted the video, I think someone else did.

TIM: Right, but I think if he can convince them to change the name, that ‘d be a good compromise as opposed to taking it down.

ANDY: And it seems to me that it was okay for him to say “nigglets,” but to title it that seems racist. Even though it’s an exact quote, it’s like putting that across the top of it, labeling that way sort of makes that word a little too…I don’t know…front and center. Maybe it’s just me.

TIM: It’s Just you!

NOAH: You, Douchey McGoo

While we were recording, Grammar Girl responded to my tweet and we actually had this interaction.

@TimBabbComedian How do you conjugate the 70′s slang “jive?” This sounds like a job for @GrammarGirl

@GrammarGirl Ha! jive/jives/jived/have jived

@TimBabbComedian You are awesome. My friend was wondering if you needed to have “ass” behind it (“Jive ass turkey” vs just “jive turkey”)

@GrammarGirl Well, you see, in that sentence, “jive” isn’t a verb. It’s an adjective.

@GrammarGirl I’m not sure about “ass.” You may want to check @jessesheidlower’s book “The F-Word” for comparisons.

So there you go. Another lost peace found and perhaps Grammar Girl will read this and understand what prompted such a random Twitter conversation.

Day 15:

So I’m doing some social networking (aka seeing how many girls who rejected me in high school are still single. Answer? Enough to make me happy) and I come across this ad…

I will now take you through all the reasons this ad pisses me off…

First off, using Steve Jobs just because he just died is cheap. Half the people who click on that don’t think they’ll be getting your BS political preaching, they think their getting information about Steve Jobs or his death. Way to be classy, turd burglar!

Then the “message” of the add seems to be that if Steve Jobs can do what he did without government handouts, then we all can. Yeah, I’m sure we are all just a few nights of hard work away from being Steve Jobs. If only we’d hunker down and focus and stop taking the government dole, we’d be right at his level. Be serious. Even if everyone had the opportunity to try and be Steve Jobs, most of us don’t have the goods. Some people are just not that bright. They don’t have what it takes to create the next “Apple.” They can barely eat an apple and walk at the same time. (But apparently they can make a crappy ad for Facebook).

When I read the line “gov. jobs are not the solution,” I just think…yeah…who needs police to patrol the streets? Heck who needs to keep the streets maintained? Just let the roads go to hell while crime runs rampant. Oh…and crime WILL run rampant, because no teachers are teaching our kids anything…so they all grow up to stab you and take your wallet. Yeah, a world without government jobs sounds super sweet. Die in a fire! (and you will die, because there are no fire fighters to put you out)*

31,233 people like this?! Ugh!

*Yes, this is a straw man argument. I’m aware the ad did not call for an abolishment of all government jobs. It just said government jobs aren’t the solution…and essentially I agree with that. We can’t government job our way out of this. But…

b) I was just trying to be funny. Please don’t come here for serious political arguments. I’m here to say silly things and make typos.

Cracked ran another Photoshop contest (as they are known to do), but this one seemed like it had “Tim Babb” written all over it. They told us to show what it would look like if Disney movies got gritty, R-rated reboots. Out of all the entries I submitted, only one got chosen. Ah well, what the Cracked readers missed out on, you get to enjoy. (If you’d like to hear more about my entry that did make the list check out “yesterday’s” blog.)

Davy Crockett
At first I thought this might have been flagged for accuracy since Davy is clearly older than 3 and he’s standing in front of the Alamo. (He was born on a mountain top in Tennessee…greenest state in the land of the free). But then, the #2 entry on the official list wasn’t even a Disney movie. So I assume this was just too awesome.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks
It’s harder than you’d think to find a photo of someone tied to a bed who isn’t naked. In fact, the reason the broom is in that spot is because the young lady in the photo has a little more of herself showing than is safe for work. Oh…and in case you were wondering, “Substitutiary Locomotion” was a spell from the movie that brought inanimate things to life. …so you can guess what that broom is about to do.

Country Bears
I’ll admit, the execution on this one isn’t the best, but I couldn’t find the right source images. I wanted to put Wendell behind Ned Beatty in the infamous “squeal like a pig” scene. But I think the Deliverance joke still comes through.

Flubber
Do you know how many “Blob” movie posters I had to go through before I found this image? 3…so it wasn’t that impressive. Still, if you don’t think it’s funny, flub you!

Great Mouse Detective
Who’s the rat private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks? (Basil!) You damn right!

Pinocchio
Everyone else was doing jokes with his nose…I decided to go a different way.
…a different, disturbing way.

Return to Never Land
Cheap joke? Yes. Does it fit the theme? Not really. But look at those kids’ faces. Totally worth it.

Herbie: Fully Loaded
This would be more accurate if you gave Lindsay the keys these days.

Chicken Little
See in the Disney movie “Chicken Little,” there were actual aliens arriving on earth. So in the reboot, Chicken Little kicks some furry, alien butt!

Treasure Planet
This one was rough. My original plan was to do Treasure Planet in the style of Heavy Metal. Then, midway though making that version of this, someone else posted a Heavy Metal gag. So I scrapped that to go with an anime/tentacle thing. Then I sat through several horrible, soul-scarring movies to get screen shots. I compiled them together to make a poster that suuuuuucked. Then I gave up and made this using a picture of Doctor Octopus’ arms from a Spider-Man comic. Now you know the behind-the-fail of this joke.

This blog is a make up for not posting yesterday.

So Cracked posted the results for it’s Photoshop contest today of R-Rated Versions of Classic Disney Movies. Lo and behold, your buddy Tim’s entry appeared at #18.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of looking at the comments section. After reading 197 comments about how the #2 entry was not a Disney movie. I saw one about my entry:

Maybe I missed the joke for the Mulan one, but how is that funny?

Ouch. Wait a minute…I see what you’re doing. You’re trying to get me to be all defensive of my joke and look like an idiot. Well I’m not falling for it. Oh wait, someone replied to this comment.

Ever seen kill bill? I didn’t find it particularly funny, but I liked the reference.

I…no…nope…I’m not going to jump in. What? Another reply?

They merged Mulan with Kill Bill.

Ok…well that doesn’t bother me…

See…Mulan was about an Asian girl and Kill Bill was about an Asi…oh, wait, Uma wasn’t Asian…

Ummm…Mulan was about an Asian girl and Kill Bill had kung-fu and ninjas, which are Asian. Get it?

OK, THAT’S IT!!! Screw you, pal! Way to not get the joke! Mulan is standing in for Uma in Kill Bill because they were both kick ass leading ladies. But Kill Bill was a bloody and violent movie. If Mulan was like that, it would definitely get an R rating (the point of the contest). Plus, the Chinese text on the bottom says “She will cut you!”

But since you’ve dragged me down to your level, let’s see how YOU like it. Let’s take a look at some of your hilarious Photoshop contest entries. Oh…look at that. You haven’t done one in almost a year. What’s the matter? Couldn’t think of anything funny that wasn’t an attempt at attacking your betters in the comment section? Well let’s look at your last entry…it was for the contest “If Oscar Movie Titles Were Truthful.”

Holy wow…a cheap boob joke? Better start writing your Mark Twain Prize Award speech. That is comedy gold! Oh, and maybe you weren’t aware, but “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” was not an “Oscar Movie.” Not only was it not nominated for best picture, it wasn’t nominated for a single award in any category. Eat a bag of fail.

Thank you for proving the old adage; “Those who can, do; those who can’t, criticize on the internet like impotent little turds.” (I’m pretty sure that’s how it goes)

…oh great…the person who posted the original comment has replied.

Ah, I get it now. Really, I don’t know how I didn’t see it before- I’ve seen “Kill Bill” dozens of times.

Oh…so her comment was a genuine question because she didn’t recognize the Kill Bill poster. So I guess I got all upset for nothing. Ah well, screw that last guy!

Despite my big win many weeks ago, Cracked still feels the need to ignore my genius. It happened again in the photoplasty contest Fictional Characters on a Budget. The idea being what if your favorite fictional characters had to get by with less (like the rest of us these days) Here are the gems Cracked passed up on…

This would make it so much easier for kids to dress up like Superman.

Don’t tell the kids who the fictional character is in this one.

It’s harder than you think to ad the Flying Spaghetti Monster to a can of Chef Boyardee “pasta.”

“Whooooooo are you?”

“Reply hazy, try again”

I’m now 3 for 5 with my blackface entries. Damn.

Why am I explaining this game? Because Cracked’s latest Photoshop contest was essentially the same concept but with movie posters. It received the most entries of any of their contests to date. However, many of them were people who completely missed the point. (“Titanic Robocop?” Seriously?) Also, many of the entries were mine. Sadly only one of my entries (Arguably my weakest) made their list. But screw them! What do I have a blog for if not to make a list of my own. BEHOLD…

Dark Knight + Night at the Opera
I was so proud of this when I made it. Even though every other person was doing a Dark Knight entry, I really thought this stood out. Look at Groucho’s face! He looks so bored as Batman. And if you’re wondering what Chico’s button means, watch this clip from Night at the Opera.

Three Men and a Baby + Baby Mama
I thought this one was a shoe in. Look ad Danson’s face! Plus the wet stain on Selleck’s crotch! Plus the tagline with a reference to Ralph Garman’s favorite insult. What more do you need?!

Spider-man 2 + Two Weeks Notice
Is it wrong to use a sequel number to make it work? I say “no”

Superman III + Three Amigos
And I say no again!

Ocean’s 12 + 12 Angry Men
And I say no a third time. (It was harder than I thought to get that knife over Clooney)

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back + Backdraft
You can’t tell, but that’s not just random fire behind them, it’s the actual Backdraft poster. That was a lot of work for no good reason…kinda like all of these.

Nightmare Before Christmas + Christmas Vacation
I stumbled upon the holiday genre and it bore ripe, ripe fruit…

Passion of the Christ +Christmas Story
Ralphie on the cross…too much? Well I hope Jesus has a sense of humor…

Jesus Christ Superstar + Star Trek: First Contact
I really hope Jesus has a sense of humor…and that he’s a Trekkie.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country + Country Bears
Speaking of Star Trek…what do singing bears need with a starship? (I know, that’s Star Trek V, but work with me here)

A Bugs Life + Life is Beautiful
Only Pixar could make an animated Holocaust animated comedy. Can’t wait for the theme park ride.

Fantastic Four + Four Rooms
I’m not sure what this movie would be about, but I would hate to be Tim Roth a second after this picture was taken.

Superman + Man on the Moon
…apparently I had a thing for superhero movie mash ups.

Air Force One + One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
This was the first entry I made. It’s not amazing…but can you picture crazy Jack on the plane with President Harrison? Hell yeah!

Something About Mary + Mary Reilly
I knew “Something About Mary Poppins” would be taken so I decided to go a different way. And that 17 year old movie needed to be taken down a peg.

Muppet Treasure Island + Island of Dr. Moreau
…and good luck getting to sleep tonight. Wave goodbye to your inner child.

For those of you who don’t visit Cracked often, these people are in love with Teddy Roosevelt. He is the Chuck Norris of Cracked.com. Which is why he would be the most interesting man in the world, right? Makes sense. Unfortunately, everyone and their mom made a Teddy entry. The one of the only historical figures who was used more was Adolf Hitler…which lead me to create this…

Technically Jesus was actually used more than Hitler and Teddy…but I figured a picture with Jesus and Hitler might offend a lot of people who wouldn’t take a second to appreciate the context.

Do you know how hard it is to find a picture of Neil Armstrong that people will recognize? It’s impossible. I had to Photoshop the moon landing in the background just so people could tell who he was. But still…that is a great joke!

It’s even harder to find a picture of Julius Caesar. (It’s almost like they didn’t even have cameras back then) So this is just some random chuckle head in a costume. But someone else posted a great pic of a Caesar stature holding a pair of Twix bars and the tagline said “Eat Two Brute.” Also genius! Neither got picked for the article. Cracked is a bunch of Caesar haters!

Star Trek (2009)
C’mon people! A red shirt joke! What better example of a minor character could there be?

Captain EO
I knew this one wasn’t getting picked…but it made me laugh (and took ridiculously long to make). For those who don’t know, comedian and podcast giant Doug Benson was an extra in the Disney 3D film Captain EO. His character was so minor that I’ve tried 30+ times to look for him and haven’t been successful yet.

Simpsons Movie
Remember the scene towards the end o the movie where Marge and the kids come back to the dome and Moe has declared himself emperor? No? Neither did the judges.

Ghostbusters
Slimer…he’s like Brad Pitt in Oceans 11. Every time you see his character, he’s eating. However, 2 other Ghostbusters entries made the list. So I can’t fault them for skipping this one.

Galaxy Quest
Remember those aliens that look all cute one second and then hideous and evil the next? This poster celebrates that dichotomy. It also celebrates failure…much like it’s creator.

Rocky
In the opening scene of the first Rocky movie, Rocky is in a fight with some dude you never see again (until Rocky VI aka Rocky Balboa). The fighter is Spider Rico. Spider headbutts Rocky to try and win the fight. If only the judges at Cracked knew this, they might have picked this gem.

The Muppets Take Manhattan
Do you know how much work went into recreating that stupid Sex and the City font? Too much! (Too bad there isn’t a horse Muppet, that would have made this perfect)

Men In Black 2
I thought this was perfect. Michael has one scene in the whole movie (two if you count his voice over). One of his 3 lines was about how he got a treaty signed. BOOM! Comedy magic! But noooooooooooo. Not to Cracked. I’m off to go sulk until they release the next contest where I don’t get picked.

*You may notice that there is no link to the Cracked contest in this blog. Screw ‘em. At the time I’m posting this, their article has been viewed 370,492 times. I don’t think the entire TANcast site has been viewed that much since we started.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – Nuking the Fridge
It’s the scene everyone talked about…including us in our first episode of TANcast. To be fair, this one wasn’t “rejected” but it was placed at number 18. Number 18? I thought it deserved better. Especially since I made the extra in-joke of using Uncle Owen’s skeleton form Star Wars.

Hulk – Bruce Banner Dies
C’mon now! We all know Bruce wouldn’t have survived that crap.

Batman Returns – Bruce Wayne’s Eye Make Up
This always bugged the crap out of me as a kid. In the movie, he takes of his mask and has a perfectly clean face. Where did his eye make up go? We can see he’s wearing it! Don’t pretend like the movies suddenly got goofy when Schumacher took over!

Superman Returns – Bugs in His Grill
I was amazed at how many Superman entries there were. Sadly mine was the only one that made it (at #10…really? This is better than the Indiana Jones fridge? How?!) I was gonna do this with Christopher Reeve…but it felt wrong.

Scream – Killer Garage Door
I’ll admit the execution isn’t the best on this one, but this scene always bugged me. No way a garage door would have lifted Rose McGowan’s fat ass* off the ground. I’ve held on to a garage door and it wouldn’t even lift ME…and I don’t have two massive fun bags weighing me down! (*fat by Hollywood standards…not real humans)

Speed – The Bus Jumps a Gap
This was the one that I was AMAZED didn’t make the list. Everyone mocks this scene and I have to say I totally nailed it. It’s the bus from Speed doing exactly what it would do after hitting a gap in the freeway…plummeting straight to Earth, killing everyone on board before the bomb even goes off. If nothing else, I’m sure Andy likes this one.

Treasure of the Sierra Madre

C’mon…Oregon Trail reference? WINNING!

The Birds

Ok, so they already had a birds entry on the list this week. But mine’s really gross. Aren’t there points for that? (I’m being told there are not, in fact, any points for that. …ok that’s a lie. I’m not being told anything, I’m sitting by myself in my living room. *sigh*)

Kramer vs Kramer

This wasn’t the most amazing job on the world…but I was amazed no one thought of it. Plus I added their kid watching the action on the right side of the screen.

Blair Witch Project

Yeah…I knew this one was stretching the limits of what you’d call a “classic” movie, but the idea of a video game where you couldn’t see what was going on because of the crappy camera work made me laugh.

Mr. Smith Goes To Washington

I thought this one fit the theme perfectly. A great movie…but how do you make a playable game out of it? Perhaps like this? (Perhaps not)

Spartacus

I thought the idea that you play as the bad guys was funny. Also, there actually is a Spartacus and a Tony Curtis (whatever his character’s name was)…that’s dedication, friends.

The Towering Inferno

This one isn’t amazing either, but I just HAD to get an Elevator Action reference in. That game was a classic.

Duck Soup

THIS was the one that broke my heart. I actually thought I had a shot at winning with this one. Turning the Mario Bros. into the Marx Bros. seemed like such a good idea, I figured someone must have done it already. When I googled it and saw that no one had, I made this bad boy. Several people on the Cracked message board complimented it including one who used the phrase “theres no shame in losing to this entry.” But that’s what happens when you believe you’re own hype….you get your hopes up, just to be dashed.

Ah well, on to the next one. This is the most work I’ve ever done for $50…that I never get. Oh if you want to see my entries that made it they are #18 (my weakest) and #7 here.

Mother Brain (From the Video Game Metroid

Khan from Star Trek II

The Guy Who Yells “Diplomatic Immunity!” AT the End of Lethal Weapon 2

The Lawnmower Man from The Lawnmower Man

Destro and the Baroness from G.I. Joe

…I don’t want to say anything, but damn Destro has a sexy looking body…almost like one of the TANcasters might be behind that mask. …you never know

I turned on the news to see if there was widespread panicking and rioting, but since they were just talking about Lindsay Lohan’s latest fashion faux pas (“Prison Jumpsuit Orange? Not this season, and certainly not with that complexion!”) and how Julian Assange might be in al-Qaeda, I assume this is a local issue.

Maybe Twitter forgot to pay Comcast their protection money…

Right now I can't even see this.

The whole situation made me want to tweet about how much it sucks when Twitter goes down. It took a moment for the stupidity of that thought to sink in.

That made me want to tweet about what a silly, stupid monkey I can be early on a Saturday morning. Rinse, repeat.

What followed was a strange spiral of uncertainty and mild self-loathing that I won’t recount in detail. Suffice it to say that Real Sugar Dr. Pepper (in the Throwback Can!®) cures all ills.

As the caffeine hit my brain and the empty calories hit my ass, I remembered I have a blog.

Y’know, I really ought to come here more often.

Cracked totally screwed the pooch this week with their contest where participants were challenged to show what famous movies would look like if they were made in Japan. Look I get it. Cracked does these contests and there have to be winners and losers. But not ONE of my entries were picked and I think some of the ones they DID pick suuuuuuuuuuuuucked! This was the prompt we were given:

Cracked Prompt:

These will be classic movies, if they’d been made in the land of anime, robots and unspeakable perversions.

You can go here to see all the chosen entries…but I’d say almost half of them don’t stack up to these:

Can’t get much more classic than Snow White. I even took the extra time and effort to give her huge anime boobs and eyes. Now I will admit that the contest was jam packed with tentacle entries but mine was first and I think mine was funniest. (Certainly funnier than the Graduate one they chose)

I thought this was funny. But I will admit the “Indy getting chased by _____ instead of a boulder” image gets submitted in 9 out of 10 Photoshop contest.

Okay…this one is a little racist…okay it’s pretty much just racist. But I was going for ironic racism….no? ok…fine. I was going for the one stereotype that none of the other contestants had used. (At least I wasn’t one of the dozens who simply took a movie poster and changed the R’s to L’s.)

This one has not only the joke of the Running Man competing in one of those crazy Japanese game shows, but look at Arnold’s face? That’s comedy!

Not the most hilarious entry, I’ll grant you…but do you know how long it took to give Ultraman the color scheme of Ironman? Too long for me to not include it in this list, that’s how long!

Now this entry looks much more racist than it is. As such, it’s my favorite and the one I’m most annoyed didn’t get chosen. You see the very first movie with synchronized sound was the Jazz Singer. Unfortunately, that movie features Al Jolson in black face singing a song called Mammy. So I figured that in Japan, he would be doing it at a karaoke bar. So you see how it’s not racist? I await your apology, Cracked!

WARNING-The next image contains violent imagery that may be disturbing…especially to younger readers. Please excrsize discretion.

In Japan, M. Night would have commuted Seppuku (harakiri) after dishonoring himself with this movie.

Well the latest contest was for sequels we’ll never see. (By the way, the winner made an “Old Yeller 2″ poster…but there ALREADY IS an Old Yeller 2, it’s called Savage Sam. Lame!!!) Here is the genius that Cracked chose not to share with you:

This was my favorite. But when even Andy said it was too dark, I had to take a look at my soul. (I”m glad I didn’t put the shower joke in there that I was originally planning)

Come on, baby! Before Gigli, this was one of the most famous flops in history.

I know, I know. There actually is a movie called “Saturday the 14th” but it’s not a sequel and has nothing to do with Jason Voorhees, so this is a legitimate entry…says I…who’s opinion clearly doesn’t matter.

Just a lame little joke about how preachy the movie was. Yeah, it’s not much. Moving on…

This came to me while listening to Michael’s new album. Doesn’t really fit the theme, but the idea of auto tuned Michael Jackson interviews made me laugh. Speaking of the gloved one…

I’d watch this. I mean, if they can put a young Jeff Bridges in Tron 2, they can make this happen, right?

This one’s kinda messed up…(by the way, the rules said you could include books as well)…but no where near as messed up as the Anne Frank one. But really this one was just to cover for an earlier entry. I made that one to cover up this…

Yeah..I entered that and thought I was clever…only to find out from several different people that they are actually making a sequel to Human Centipede. It’s hard to out stupid Hollywood.

This week’s contest actually caught my imagination and I made more than a dozen entries. Not only did I not win but only two of my entries were chosen for their top 19 and my best entry was DELETED off the forums by the Cracked editors.

Well screw you, Cracked, I’m not playing your game anymore! You get no more free work out of me. Fortunately for the rest of you, I saved all my entries and I’m going to display them all for you…even the ones that made the Cracked list. (I think that’s against the rules but screw them! What can they do? Take the money away that I didn’t win?) In keeping with true Cracked tradition they are in no particular order of greatness and #1 is definitely not the best…

#15) Hampsterdance.com:
This one was my first entry and actually made their stupid list…at number 14. WTF?!

#14) Snopes.com:
If you don’t know, this is a site dedicated to debunking urban legends, bogus e-mail forwards, and such. Someone else did a Snopes entry and Cracked chose theirs to put on their list. It wasn’t as funny or intricate and showed way less Anne Hatha-leg. Poor move, Cracked. (PS check the credits…”Seth Rogan as Mikey”…as in “Mikey likes it,” the kid from the Life cereal commercials who supposedly died from eating Pop Rocks and soda…GENIUS)

#13) Snakesonablog.com:
Can’t really blame them for not including this one…but it made ME laugh.

#12) Friendster.com:
Not only did Cracked skip this gem, but there was a Myspace entry by someone else with a similar theme that I thought sure was a shoe-in. I guess if it’s actually enjoyable, Cracked isn’t interested.
(WOW…I am bitter this week)

#11) Pornfortheblind.org:
I showed this one to Noah…he didn’t care for it. Right now Cracked is in the process of hiring him to kill dreams.

#10) Napster.com:
Someone on the forums said this one was the most likely to be an actual movie. Apparently that doesn’t make it any more likely to win $50!

#9) Hotels.com:
Get it? He tried to go on vacation but all the hotels were booked! So then he started Hotels.com so he’d never have to go through that again. Plus it’s directed by Ron Howard, so it features his brother Clint Howard…so many jokes…so little sense of humor at Cracked.

#8) Woot.com:
Can you see the reflection of the Macbook in his eyes? Comedy gold! What more do you need?! (I am very near tears at this moment)

#7) Psychoexgirlfriend.com:
This site is gone, but you can still find the content on YouTube. It was basically a site purporting to play messages from an obsessive girlfriend calling her then boyfriend upwards of 20 times in a night leaving very crazy messages. (Extra in-joke goodness…Message 31 was pulled from the site with only a cryptic explanation…so the answering machine is currently on message 31)

#6) VMK.com:
This one is for my Disney peeps. VMK (Virtual Magic Kingdom) was a fun little site that Disney made for Disneyland’s 50th birthday that allowed you to have a little avatar and run around in a crazy Magic Kingdom and play games based on some of the rides and chat with other avatars. It was tons of fun. I knew this one was way too obscure to make Cracked’s list…but I knew I’d do this blog. So, enjoy fellow Disney geeks!

#5) WordPress.org:
Another one I can’t blame Cracked for not using. But I had to get a Tyler Perry entry in and give a shout out to the folks who make TANcast possible (much love, WordPress).

#4) Cleverbot.com:
This one made their list too…at #16. Honestly, I didn’t think it would. I didn’t think anyone would read the hilarious website at the bottom of the poster. Besides, I thought a lot of mine were better. Such as…

#3) Pets.com:
We were just talking about this site on TANcast 120. Epic internet failure. Second only to…

#2) Webvan.com:
This was the other site Noah was trying to think of. Get it? They’re driving off a cliff! Brilliant commentary on a website that failed 10 years ago!

#1) TANcast.com:
THIS was the post that got deleted! WTF?! WITMFF?!! How dare you, Cracked?! There was nothing in the rules that said you couldn’t post a self-serving entry for a site 1,000 times more obscure than VMK! I didn’t expect this to win, but to be deleted?! Uncalled for!!! Go screw yourselves!

…and that’s the story of why Tim stopped entering Cracked Photoshop contests. (Hey…they should make that into a movie!)

I can’t begin this blog without first acknowledging the effect SModcast and Kevin Smith in general has had on me. Andy, Noah, and I would not be doing TANcast were it not for SModcast. Kevin’s inaccurately titled “Jersey Trilogy” provided many hours of fun at the TANhouse.

But a while back, SModcast had quite a few misfire episodes (almost as though they were stooping to TANcast quality). The fun banter and odd ball stories were getting shoved aside for the recurring themes of pot and hockey. I think it’s taken a noticeable uptick recently, but I very much remember being disappointed in SMods for quite a few months in a row. Well I wasn’t the only one who noticed this. Apparently people had left some comments saying so both on the SModcast site as well as Kevin’s View Askew message boards.

Yeah, big man, we’re talking about you and you can’t stop us. What now?

Among these comments were people who shared my opinion that the Tell ‘Em Steve Dave (TESD) podcast had now surpassed SModcast in comedic value. So I guess people were leaving posts saying that TESD had replaced SMod as their favorite podcast. Kevin reacted by getting his panties in a twist…

Um… why rank them at all? And why let us know who’s jockeying for which position in your heart? That’s tacky.

I think we’d all rather you just kept it simple and said “Thank you.”

Oh…I didn’t realize that the only appropriate response was to worship at the alter of Kevin. Granted, I’m no fan of negative comments, but if you put something out there, it’s going to be reacted to. You can’t get butt hurt at every little comment…especially when you own a million dollar home in LA and are famous for making movies.

I didn’t say any of this, because I was not moved enough to do so. Others however apparently have more passion and/or more time on their hands and refused to drop the issue. At which Kevin “Thick Skin” Smith (not a fat joke) had this to say…

Why would you wanna do that? When you’ve been informed how not-into that I am?

Can I tell you how stuff around here comes into existence? It’s because I take a massive interest. And obviously, I’ve taken a massive interest in SModcast and its spin-offs. The good news is that you get HOURS UPON HOURS of free entertainment. The bad news is that some of you are getting too comfortable in your expectations, and are quickly allowing said expectation to become gross entitlement.

Y’know how this all goes away – this fucking golden age? When people feel the need to try to pit my friends and I against one another. When people slap the host in the face. When people – even after being expressly told the host would rather you not brought shit like that into his party – insist on introducing into this organization that sort of unrest or divisiveness.

Comments like yours are what’s gonna kill my enthusiasm for SModcast. And when my enthusiasm for it all goes? Guess what happens?

Speaking of which, five times now I’ve returned to the board in the last month, and all five times, I was reminded why I enjoy Twitter so much more: absolutely ZERO sense of entitlement over there. Some cats here, on my own message board, assume they’re owed… well, anything. You guys are playing the old game – when I was younger and far more tolerant; when it seemed like there was all the time in the world. Newsflash for all you devils’ advocates and “But I’m a TRUE fan”-ers: I’m not interested in your reindeer games. To be fair, I never was; but at least I was more polite then. Now? Approaching 40? Shuttering this board is no longer the unthinkable notion it once was. There’s no more Askewniverse; the website can just as easily follow.

We’re in the second Act, folks. You like it, stick around. If not, don’t bitch; just leave. A lack of gratitude is an enthusiasm-killer. Why would you wanna ruin it for everyone else?

So go ahead: keep expressing your very important thoughts about which free, funny podcast you’re being given weekly is better. Then, when it all goes away, you can express your very important thoughts about that, too. And when you’re done being very important? Know that it was folks like you who sent it packing.

I mean, we’re 15 years in at this point; you still don’t get where this all comes from?

Jesus…

So basically…”say nothing negative, or I’ll take my ball and go home.” Apparently, he did just that because his message board has been locked down. You can’t post on it anymore. Way to go Kevin, you showed us.

ANYWAY…I told you all that just to share this conversation with you Noah and I had about the Smith a month or so ago…

Tim: Kevin Smith irritates me sometimes. I guess he’s not posting the live SModcast from Branford because it didn’t sell out
Noah: He did say he would do that
Tim: Annoying
Noah: …and if you complain, he may stop free SMod all together
Tim: Yup. what an ass
Noah: lol …a funny ass
Tim: True. But his insecurities are starting to annoy me more and more
Noah: You think he did it because he is insecure?
Tim: Yeah…he can’t handle sniping and he wants to try to get all the shows to sell out
Noah: sniping?
Tim: On the boards…people complaining
Noah: It sounded like he wanted to sell out the show and SMod is free, so kind of hard to say hey give me free shit
Tim: not anymore..he has an advertiser…I pay for it the same way I pay for tv, by listening to advertising bullshit
Noah: Well the show is still free to us and tv can pull shows anytime it wants really and they do, regardless of what we want…but i do agree it is annoying
Tim: Yeah like I’m supposed to buy a ticket for a show I can’t go to just to hear it on line? Go fuck yourself. I guess at the end of the day it’s annoying because he keeps throwing “it’s free” in my face…but if it WASN’T free, I wouldn’t listen…and I wouldn’t miss it
Noah: But you hate knowing there is a SMod out there that you can’t listen to?
Tim: I do it annoys me because I feel like he’s just lording it over us. I get it fat man, you have one muscle and you’re flexing it. bravo.
Noah: Uh oh…Tim is turning on the Kev
Tim: yup…the more I read his post the more it annoys the crap outta me

So there ya go. Those are my impotent rantings about Kevin Smith. As part of a free podcast, I invite you to leave any comments you like. They’ll have to get pretty harsh for me to shut the site down. But if you’d like to tell me Im full of crap…feel free. Especially if you’re Kevin Smith. (I feel he’s earned a free shot or two at me)

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I don’t know how I’ve gone this long without being a Katy Perry fan! She’s hot, her music is catchy, I’m sure she annoys Andy, and most of all she can’t spell.

“Screw you, Clippy! I’m leaving it like that!”

But honestly, Katy has been flying under my radar. I mean I’ve heard of I Kissed a Girl but I never really gave Katy much thought. Then today my friend, comedian extraordinaire Sandy Stec, posts this status on her Facebook:

Sandy Stec wants to know what percentage of Katy Perry’s success is gimmick and what percentage is talent. (Note: breasts are not a choice here)

I didn’t think much of this UNTIL I listened to the latest episode of the Hollywood Babble-On podcast where they talked about how Katy ran afoul of Sesame Street fans. It seems Ms. Perry filmed a version of Hot N Cold with Elmo and a preview of it was posted on line. At this point, a bunch of people complained that it was inappropriate and now Sesame Street is pulling the song form their New Year’s Eve show. So THIS finally lit a fire under me to look it up. Here is the offending video:

I guess the big objection is that she’s wearing a dress with cleavage. Ok Sesame Street…come in close a second so I can slap you. Don’t let random sticks in the mud on the internet dictate whether or not you show something! If I did that, I’d never do Kingdom Comedy, TANcast, or even stand up ever again. People on the internet are morons! Spend 5 minutes on Omegle if you don’t believe me. No one on the internet has an opinion worth anything (unless they are TANcast fans…then they are geniuses…and so sexy too).

Speaking of sexy, how can you be worried about Katy’s outfit when you licensed these:

“…brought to you by the letters S, L, U and T”

Yeah that’s not a wacky Photoshop I did. Those are “Sexy” Cookie Monster, Elmo, and Big Bird costumes sanctioned by the show. Finally I can live my childhood dream of groping a Muppet. (yikes)

Lastly parents, stop analyzing children’s entertainment for sexual content. Your kids aren’t watching Katy’s cleavage, they’re watching the bright colors and listening to a song that is basically just more “poppy” version of Grover’s “Near/Far” routine.

Speaking of the song, I put it on my iPod…along with the real version and California Gurls. Yup…I think I’m a Perry fan now. And to answer Sandy’s question I would say these are equal parts talent and gimmick…and I’m fine with that:

Who needs Sesame Street for boobies? I have the internet!

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Omegle is a site where not only can you chat with strangers, you also find out exactly how strange they are. Truthfully most of my conversations on Omelge are pretty short…

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hey asl
You: 33/m/USA
You: Wanna be bffs?
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

But occasionally you get thrust into a conversation with someone that reminds you that the world is CHALK FULL of people you would never, ever, ever, EVER want to meet in real life…

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hi
You: hello
Stranger: m or f?
You: m
Stranger: got any cp?
You: cp?
Stranger: yup
You: what’s cp?
Stranger: kiddy porn
You: wouldn’t that be kp?
Stranger: hahah
Stranger: well child then
You: ah…well creepy question and no
Stranger: aww
Stranger: i was hoping u’d say yes
Stranger: then i could call u a sicko
Stranger: but u spoiled it
You: oh….darn
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

I’m glad I got a chance to meet this freak-ball before I read about him in the paper after he smeared himself with poop and trued to climb Mt. Rushmore.

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So this blog is actually being posted in the past. I am currently in Las Vegas and I probably don’t have internet access at my hotel so I sent this blog into the FUTURE!!! And what is this blog about? Another “rejected by Cracked.com” article? Sorta. Let me explain.

Cracked has message boards to enter these contests, you have to post your entries on these message boards. One feature of the boards is that each member has “karma.” Basically people can vote you up or down depending on whether they like or dislike your posts (or really for any reason). You may be asking yourself, “Tim, why are you explaining all this? Is there a joke anywhere in our future? Why do I even read your stupid blogs?” Well calm down, prissy pants, here’s the pay off.

I used to have karma somewhere around 17 or 18…then, cracked ran a contest where we were asked to create counter productive public service announcements. I made this…

Within a few hours my karma dropped down to the single digits. Less than a week later, I was in negative numbers. So therefor, even though I am writing this blog more than 24 hours before the winners of this contest will be announced, I am 99.9999% certain that this entry will be rejected.

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I love Tosh.0. It’s everything I love about on-line time wasting plus a smarmy comedian! (That might read like I’m being sarcastic, but I assure you, I am not). A while back I saw this clip on Tosh.

As we mentined on TANcast 117, I recently had they chance to see the whole video adn I gotta say, Tosh…you made a rare slip up here. Look at all this comedy gold you let slip by…

Look at all these gems they didn’t point out…

The scared Black lady. She didn’t sign up for this! She just wanted to see if she could go to Build-A-Bear. Then there is the kid who runs up and starts to hump the glass, He thinks he’s gonna mock the guy…but you watch the kid realize that nothing the can do will be funnier than what crazy guy is already doing. So he just sort of wanders off. And take a look at the peoel who were already inside. If they were gonna use that exit, they changed their plans in a fat hurry. “Oh I think we need to be on the other side of this mall somewhere.” Then after a while of shouting the same question over and over again, the crazy guy finally gives up and impotently walks away. Then he tries to enlist the help of on lookers. “C’mon people…am I right? Why ARE they closed? Who ARE these people?” He actually thinks people should be as enraged as he is that they won’t let him in to snag an Orange Julis. Then he turns on the camera dude. Priceless.

And wait…just when you thought it was over…20 more seconds of comedy/madness…

Tosh, I think you need to give yourself a web redemption and revisit this and mine all the sweet sweet comedy from it!

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Okay Cracked, I’m starting to take this rejection personally. I know you keep saying “It’s not you, it’s me,” but that doesn’t make it sting any less. You put on a Photoshop contest asking people to give you pictures of what it would look like if historical figures got gritty reboots like they keep doing with movies. I create 3 super-duper entries and not ONE of them makes your top 17?

Abraham Lincoln: Not genius, but funny and a good fit to the theme.

Helen Keller: Not only a gritty historical reboot, but a sweet salute to the most infamous SModcast ever! (Or actually the episode after the most infamous SModcast ever) What more do you want?!

Pocahontas: Get it? It’s Avatar! No one else has made this comparison! I’m an innovator! Recognize my brilliance, damn it! Plus it’s really in 3D!

Cracked! I expect better from you next week.

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I am not a normal person. I think we can all agree on that. I’m a pretty odd duck sometimes. Fortunately I seem to surround myself with fellow odd ducks, and that leads to amusing conversations like this one I had with my pal Grace on Facebook the other day…

Grace Hi there!

Tim hello

Grace Something weird happened today…I saw a guy I thought was you at my garage sale.

Tim lol I promise it was not me in disguise

Grace lol He looked @ me w/ his glasses down and he looked just like you. So strange lol

Tim Yikes..I have a twin? Lord help us!

Grace Maybe you’ll meet him in 2012! lol Then the world will end OR it is you after getting out of the Delorian to go to Disneyland and you got lost! Ending up at my garage sale!

Tim lol …or maybe something in your garage sale holds the key to the future. I hope I got it before SkyNet did.

Grace No. you looked and drove away on your cell phone. lol You missed the broken old wheelchair of doom, that has run over many a teenager foot.

Tim lol darn it

Grace …or the boxes of naked barbie dolls

Tim It must have sold before I got there

Grace Nope, it’s still there now.

Tim I meant whatever was going to save the future must have sold.

Grace Oh, maybe. The kissing bears of death?

Tim lol That sounds like it could save the world

Ha! Thanks, Grace. How did you know I was in the mood to talk about time traveling adventures to save the world? (Oh, maybe because I always am)

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Okay…I understand that these contests are subjective, but go look at the entries to the latest Cracked.com Photoshop contest. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

..all done? Ok, now tell me these don’t at least belong on the list somewhere (if not number freakin’ 1)

1) Star Wars Insider – C’mon! What more do you need, baby? I am making the bold and controversial statement that Jar Jar Binks sucks! Who else is going to go out on a limb like that? I’m truly a bold, bold man!

2) Time – See what I did? I took an issue that was on the shelf and added the Calvin peeing graphic on top of it. (Plus I answered the question on the cover) What subtlety! What nuance! What an unappreciated genius I am!

3) National Enquirer – Yet again…here I am taking another bold stance that tabloids don’t know what they’re talking about. See what’s happening? Cracked is trying to shut me up because my ideas are too radical for them. (Or maybe because I put myself on the cover too…nah)

You can’t keep me down forever Cracked! One day I will rise up and all of you will know these truths I’ve discovered! For instance, men and women are different! YES! Deal with it!!!

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I’ve just finished editing the new TANcast and I forgot to mention two things…
1) That I’m doing these blogs every day this month and

2) I’m finally getting a new laptop!

If you don’t know, my laptop suddenly died on me while at a show in Hollywood a month or so ago. (It was very sad) I Googled some stuff on my own and couldn’t get it to turn on. Then I took it to Noah who tried a few things and inspected it as best he could but he couldn’t get it to turn on either. So I finally decided to take it to the “Geek Squad” at Best Buy…my “Geek” barely touched the thing and told me he wasn’t sure what the problem was…probably needed a new mother board. (Really? You’re the “Geek” and my buddy Noah did more than you did to examine this thing. You suck.)

So basically, the old laptop is dead and gone. A sad situation made all the sadder by the fact that my wife’s iTunes library was on there. But also that was the laptop I used when on the road for things like graphic design, editing TANcast, editing videos..etc. I do have a “back up” laptop that a friend gave to us a few years back but it is sloooooooooow. I couldn’t even load PhotoShop on it. I have to boot it up, go for a drive to Kansas and back, and THEN it’s ready to use.

Now I finally have some cash to get a new laptop. I’m leaning towards an HP but that’s just because that’s what I’ve always had. Any suggestions? I need to be able to run PhotoShop, open office, Audacity, Skype, and the internet (duh). Anyone have a favorite laptop make and/or model they’d like to champion? One quick stipulation: If you’re going to say “Mac,” save your breath. I was born a right clicker and I will die a right clicker.

My name’s Tim, I’m a PC, and hating on Apple was my idea.

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Every week Cracked.com does a photo manipulation contest with a different theme. A few weeks back, Cracked’s theme was “Recruitment Posters for the Worst Jobs Ever.” I didn’t win…I wasn’t runner up…I really have nothing to be bragging about. But I thought I’d share my entry in the contest anyway (especially since the topic of my entry got us so much attention on episode 111).

(FYI-Last I looked, they still haven’t caught the attempted rapist)

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In a world where people need to waste time on the internet…

One man steps from the shadows of the world wide web.

Last time he made a difference by posting a blog everyday in the month of September 2009.

Then it happened again in March of 2010.

…Now…the idiot who wasted a ton of your time is about to waste some more!

Tim Babb returns in…

Coming to TANcast.com this September!
(Special thanks to the movie Tropic Thunder, for basically writing this blog for me…we’re off to a great start!)

Here are links to all the blogs:

Day 2: A Letter to Summer
Day 3: Blackout
Day 4: Rejected By Cracked – Crappy Job Recruitment Posters
Day 5: Dumbest…Product…EVER
Day 6: New Laptop Time
Day 7: That’s it…I’m done with 3D
Day 8: Rejected by Cracked – If Magazines Told the Truth
Day 9: Why I Don’t Get My Wife Flowers
Day 10: Was this the BEST Idea?
Day 11: Wait…So What Did You Have Before
Day 12: Being an Adult
Day 13: Conversations I Have on Facebook
Day 14: Here’s Your Yelp Review, Wiseguy
Day 15: Rejected By Cracked – Rebooting History

a) No hes not a %@#$ing Muslim!

b) If he was, who gives a @$#%?

c) How the %@#$ is this the “Top Story?”

Did I miss something? Is the economy fixed? Are all the wars over? Did we solve the immigration issue? Is ALL the oil in the gulf cleaned up?

Surely all those things must have happened and then some for Yahoo to put this as the top story! How can the right claim there’s a left wing media bias when this does NOTHING except to damage the credibility of the president?

There is NO WAY this story would be run about Bush if there were rumors that he was a secret atheist. Those rumors would be dismissed and laughed off. A story like that wouldn’t even make this page much less be the featured story.

Look, I get it, some people don’t like Obama. BELIEVE me I get it…I got it for 8 years. But just run an editorial on his policies, don’t make a news story out of some BS rumors that aren’t worthy to bump a Bay Boy story off the cover of the Weekly World News.

Yahoo, die in a fire!

PS-Why would I care what the weather is like in Solana Beach, CA?

I thought sure this would get some love. Look at that thing, it looks like someone ate a cheese pizza and then barfed it up on a hot dog. If you’re on a diet and ever tempted to have some fast food, just book mark this page and stare at that mass of yuck!

This one is a tribute to an old joke by comedian John Hoogasian. That’s all…just had to give the man his props! Go Hoogs!

Your profile matches three criteria for the following role: JENNY CRAIG WOMAN

Gender: Match

Portrayable Ethnicity: Match

Portrayable Age Range: Match

Description:
SLIGHTLY OVERWEIGHT WOMAN (NO MORE THAN 20 LBS.) PRETTY, FRIENDLY, AND PERSONABLE…THERE IS DIALOGUE.
WE ARE GOING FOR A SEX IN THE CITY VIBE

So apparently I fit the type for a slightly overweight, sex-in-the city-esque woman. Yeah that makes sense. It’s nice to know that if this casting website ever ran across a call for a skinny, Mulatto dude to tell jokes that it wasn’t sent to me. Because apparently when casting agents look at this…

They see this…

So my audition is Tuesday at 3pm…wish me luck! (Hope there’s no casting couch)

You’ve seen my chats from Omegle…You’ve seen Andy’s chats with Cleverbot…
Now those worlds come together as I type what people say to me in Omegle into Cleverbot and then copy and paste Cleverbot’s answers into Omegle. Basically, this is involuntary AI chat or a creature I call “RoboDouche.” LET’S DO THIS!!!

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Omegle Stranger: hi
Cleverbot: how are you?
Omegle Stranger: fine
Cleverbot: We’re sorry but your princess is in another castle.
Omegle Stranger: & u
Omegle Stranger: m f
Cleverbot: I don’t know!
Omegle Stranger: why
Omegle Stranger: m
Cleverbot: Cause I don’t know you.
Omegle Stranger: Ajay india
Omegle Stranger: from where
Cleverbot: My friend went once to India.
Omegle Stranger: say me some
Cleverbot: My friends name is Shibi.
Omegle Stranger: when
Cleverbot: NOW.
Omegle Stranger: ur name
Cleverbot: Thank you so are you.
Omegle Stranger: shibi goes,where in india
Cleverbot: Tell me about the queen.
Omegle Stranger: gueen is very beauti& smart
Cleverbot: Do you know what I look like?
Omegle Stranger: no
Omegle Stranger: tell me
Cleverbot: I am very pretty long auburn hair 5’5 green eyes.
Omegle Stranger: i have no
Cleverbot: I have yes.
Omegle Stranger: i m 5’8& blue eyes
Cleverbot: I have hazel eyes.
Omegle Stranger: pls tell me some about u
Omegle Stranger: m f
Cleverbot: I don’t have a me.
Cleverbot: Do you like it there?
Omegle Stranger: i do’nt understand
Cleverbot: AI’s have the ability to understand a lot of things depending on if they have learned it. What do you understand?
Omegle Stranger: i do’nt know first u tell me about u
Omegle Stranger: what’s up
Cleverbot: I’m depressed.
Omegle Stranger: but i m not
Omegle Stranger: from where
Cleverbot: I am very!
Cleverbot: From the bathroom.
Omegle Stranger: what r u doing
Cleverbot: Talking to you. What are you doing?
Omegle Stranger: i m also
Cleverbot: Really?
Omegle Stranger: yes
Cleverbot: really.
Omegle Stranger: i m try to friendship with u
Cleverbot: I think we are already friends.
Omegle Stranger: really
Cleverbot: Yes.
Omegle Stranger: tell me true about u something
Cleverbot: What do you mean?
Omegle Stranger: m f
Omegle Stranger: where do u leave?
Omegle Stranger: live
Cleverbot: Do you like it there?
Cleverbot: You live in Australia.
Omegle Stranger: delhi
Cleverbot: Are you a girl?
Omegle Stranger: boy
Cleverbot: Who do you like?
Omegle Stranger: much girl’s
Cleverbot: Where is the fertile land of the incas?
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

I love that the dude didn’t mind that I refered to myself as an AI, that my eyes changed color, and I called him a girl…but the fertile land of the incas was TOO MUCH!!!

Hahahahha…good times! Beware….the next time you’re on Omegle, you might actually be chatting with “RoboDouche!”

The result reminded me of a singular truth of the Internet. No, not Rule 34. The other truth.

User: How do I cure achy-breaky heart?
Cleverbot: By giving your own heart.
User: But I only have the one! Won’t I die if I give my own heart?
Cleverbot: Now that is just proposterous.
User: Don’t you mean ‘preposterous’? I don’t believe ‘proposterous’ is a word.
Cleverbot: I am very boring now. It is hard to finish the rearch paper.
User: I’m pretty sure you meant ‘I am very bored now.’.
Cleverbot: I am him. You just don’t know that yet.
User: How Dada.
Cleverbot: You’re a cleverbot you should know that.

…

Cleverbot: Would you like me to tell you a joke?
User: Sure. Go for it.
Cleverbot: It would be to complex for you naive brain to understand. Sorry.
User: Knock knock.
Cleverbot: Who’s there?
User: Yura.
Cleverbot: Yes?
User: You’re a fucking asshole and I hate you.
Cleverbot: ‘Why are you named Cleverbot George? And… Why do you even exist? I mean, you’re a sk^nhead… People should hate you.’.
User: That makes no sense.
Cleverbot: You don’t make sense!!!!!!!
User: Fair enough.
Cleverbot: Do you know george bush.
User: As a personal name, you should have capitalized ‘George Bush’. To answer your question, no, I do not know George Bush.
Cleverbot: No, no se acentúa.
User: Why are you suddenly speaking Spanish to me?
Cleverbot: Have you turned in your tsa money yet?
User: OK, I’m done with this.
Cleverbot: Something in your smile was so exciting.
User: Your sweet words will not win back my affection.
Cleverbot: I’m a girl…
User: Nor will your fancy lady parts.
Cleverbot: I don’t understand what you mean. Do you mean that God will always love us?
User: Why can’t I quit you, Cleverbot?
Cleverbot: Do you believe in god?
User: No, I do not believe in any god, angel, devil, demon, ghost, or other supernatural entity.
Cleverbot: Does that mean you can’t own a gun?
User: Why do I need to believe in the supernatural to own a gun? Are bullets powered by gullibility?
Cleverbot: YOU NEED to believe in GOD so that you can be SAVED from HELL.
User: If there were a shred of evidence that Hell existed, I would agree with you. There is, however, no objective proof that Hell (or God) exists, and I just cannot allow myself to be that intellectually bankrupt.
Cleverbot: God is Dog spelled backwards.
User: This is true. Also, ‘racecar’ is ‘racecar’ spelled backwards.
Cleverbot: No, thats ok.

Maybe someday I’ll learn. Until then, I’ll continue to waste my time and yours on this nonsense.

The question was, “Name a job where people seldom wear their uniforms when off work”

I guessed several things nurse, fast food, cop, fireman…all were up there…things were going fine. Then I threw out the answer “soldier.” I got a strike. Eventually I got 3 strikes and still had two answers left. One of them was “Military.” So I go to my good buddy Noah saying, “Can you believe this BS?”

He says, “not the same thing.”

Noah always has my back. So I throw it to you good people…I say if this were REAL Family Feud and I was at the podium and Richard Dawson were asking me the questions, I would have gotten credit for “soldier.” But this cold, unfeeling computer wasn’t programed for common sense.

Who’s with me?!

Ok…I’m going to put my writing cap on and make an effort to get more blogs on this site. I can’t promise my two cohorts will do the same (In fact, I can more likely promise that they won’t) but damn it, there should be some BLOGS on this blog and if I’ve got to be the one to step up and make that happen, then I shall.

Because a blog with no blogs is wrong, and a comic who isn’t trying to be funny is wrong. And two wrongs…

…make me write.

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hi
You: hello
Stranger: bye
You: good times
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

Time elapsed: 45 seconds…total.

I know, I know…it adds nothing to the political discourse, it doesn’t even have anything to do with Palin and her personality or opinions, and it makes me look like an immature asshole for re-posting it.

…but, damn it, I got me a good laugh outta that bad boy.

Chatroulette is the site getting all the attention, but unless you’re a guy with a piano, you don’t get much actual chatting done. You see someones face and they disconnect, you a new person’s face and they disconnect, you see a guy wailing on his private parts and they disconnect…(Really penis guy? YOU’RE disconnecting on ME?) That’s why I like Omegle. There’s an option for no cameras so you actually have to have conversations before people can disconnect on you. Conversations like these…

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hi!
You: no..I say
You: hello
Stranger: lol ok then…
You: becasue that’s how I roll
Stranger: coool
Stranger: your a guy then?
You: I am
Stranger: :/
You: guys say hello?
Stranger: i dont, but im a woman and before you get any ideas im a lesbian
You: too late I had an idea
Stranger: and that was………?
You: what if you made a griled cheese sandwich with peperoni and motzerella cheese in it
You: then got some pizza sause to dip it
Stranger: ok…..
You: it’d be a grilled pizza sandwich
You:: that’s a good idea
Stranger: riiight, bye!!
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(Who knew that lesbians hated pizza and/or grilled cheese so much?)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: Hi ask me 5 challenging questions and ill answer it. No ordinary question.
You: Which weighs more: the Empire State Building or the ancient Pyramid of King Cheops?
You: no fair Googling it
Stranger: haha.. mm.. empire state?
You: sure…I have no idea. I just wanted a challenging question for you
Stranger: 4 question left..
You: What is your least favorite smell in the world?
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(Wow…they couldn’t even make it past question 2. Too bad, because question 3 was, “Why don’t you kill yourself?”)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: HeY
You: howdy stranger
Stranger: I’m fine and u?
You: I’m good
Stranger: From ?
You: California
You: yourself?
Stranger: France
You: Awesome
You: I’ve never been
You: but I’d like to someday
Stranger: Yes it’s a nice country
Stranger: Are you a student?
You: no…I am a stand up comedian
You: are you a student?
Stranger: YEs
Stranger: m/F ?
You: m
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(this is a recurring theme known as “Men are not worth my time”)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
You: Hey! I’m a dude
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(See?)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: m/f
You: m
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(The theme is alive and well)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hi
You: hi
Stranger: asl
You: 32/m/usa
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(Maybe they disconnected because I’m an American this time…I’ll never know…yes I will…it’s ’cause I’m an old dude)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hello
You: hi
Stranger: asld
Stranger: asl*+
You: 32/m/california
Stranger: kool
You: Wow!
Stranger: what
You: The last 5 people disconnected
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(Bastard lulled me into a false sense of security with hat “kool.” Damn you! Koooooool!!!)
***********************
You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hi
You: hi
Stranger: where r u froM///??
You: California
You: you?
Stranger: france
Stranger: r u a horny girl??
You: nope. I’m a bored guy
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(I guess one IS a poor substitute for the other…even in France)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hey, asl?
You: Balls
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(Heh heh…see what I did? I said “balls.” I should try that again)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
You: balls
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(HA HA!!! Just as fulfilling the second time)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: heloooooo
You: hellooooo
You:
Stranger: who are you?
You: I’m Batman
Stranger: hello batman im the joker
You: uh oh
Stranger: WHY SO SERIOUS?
You: don’t take any sleeping pills
You: (too soon?)
Stranger: NO
Stranger: FUNNY AS HELL
Stranger: l
Stranger: o
Stranger: l
Stranger: he died
You: that he did
Stranger: so anyway where is the batman from?
You: Batman is from California
Stranger: hey so is the joker
You: oh snap
Stranger: is it a female batman?
You: nope
You: I put the man in batman
Stranger: KJHNASDKL;GNSIOVNOASVNAS
Stranger: GOOOOOOOBYE
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(I think the Joker had a stroke there at the end. But really, how is he surprised? Why would a girl call herself “Batman?” She would go with “BatGirl” or better yet, “Wonder Woman.”)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger:: im horny!
You: lets fuck
Stranger: m or f?
You: m but if you close your eyes it’s all the same, baby
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(Some people are just close minded)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
You: oh yeah
You: it’s chattin’ time!
Stranger: How are you today?
You: I’m good
You: you?
Stranger: I just saved $43 thanks to TANcast.com
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(Ok this bot/turd didn’t really say “TANcast.com” but fuck if I’m going to advertise for him)
***********************
You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hey
You: hey
You: what’s crackin’?
Stranger: nothing nigga
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(How’d they know I was Black? Spooky)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: Hi
Stranger: May your ancestors be struck by a thousand dicks!
You: in the past?
Stranger: hmmm
You: is that a time travel curse?
Stranger: your mother is a man.
You: that is physically impossible
Stranger: My shoe on your head, pig!
Stranger: you are as ugly as a salad.
You: salads are ugly?
You: I think cucumbers are adorable
Stranger: May you be raped by a blind bear in the forest!
You: what kind of blind bear?
You: Grizzly?
You: Brown Bear?
Stranger: My dick in your conscience!
Stranger: I shit on your dead!
You: I don’t think you make sense
Stranger: Oh that sucks. I’ve spent the last three years majoring in English at Stanford…
You: I go to Stanford too!
Stranger: what is your major?
You: Applied Mathematics
Stranger: cool
You: are you on campus now?
Stranger: yeah
You: wanna meet up at PF Changs next door?
Stranger: no
You: That way I can fuck you in your eye socket!!!
You: BOOM!!!!
Stranger: right…
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(I guess this was insult practice for this person…but joke’s on them…I don’t go to Stanford! HA!)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hey
You: hey hey
Stranger: whatsup faggot
You: you are the one who is the one who is the faggot
Stranger: YES
Stranger: I AM
Stranger: suck my hairy mouth
You: is it hairy INSIDE or just like a beard?
Stranger: i dont have a beard u retard. im a girl.
You: I thought you were a faggot
Stranger: i have herpes
Stranger: and
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(Can you call lesbians “fagots?” That was not my understanding. Where is that lesbian who doesn’t like ideas when you need her?)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
You: male
Stranger: hello
Stranger: you male o female?
You: male
You: I knew you were gonna ask
Stranger: bye bye
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(At least this dude said “bye bye”)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hello i really dont care about ur age and from so… tell me the truth that how old are you and where are you from?
You: 32 old dude from California
Stranger: hey
You: hey
You: how’s that grab ya?
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(Nobody likes a liar)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: Are you a horny girl willing to gave webcam sex or sext with me?
You: yes
Stranger: asl?
You: first send me $20
You: I’m a cyber whore
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(Uh oh…my cyber pimp is gonna beat me tonight)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
You: I’m a 32 year old dude from California…wanna disconnect?
Stranger: yes
You: go for it
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(It’s good to get it over with quickly and move on)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
You: I’m a 32 year old dude from California…wanna disconnect?
Stranger: m or f?
You: you’re an idiot
Stranger: shut up
Stranger: fuck u
You: well what do YOU think “dude” means?
You: stumped you, huh, moron?
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(I’m amazed that person knew how to work a computer much less the internet)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hi asl
You: 32/m/USA
You: 3
You: 2
You: 1
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(Nailed it!)
***********************

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: PASTA
You: um…garlic bread
Stranger: YOU’RE DOIN’ IT WRONG
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
(Anyone know the RIGHT answer here?)
***********************

So today I was designing a new shirt for the TANstore and I realized that between the TANstore and the official Tim Babb Comedy Shop, I’m probably putting waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time into this. But what can I say? I think these shirts would be fun to wear. In fact I’m trying to pick the one I’m going to buy for my birthday…

the 100% Nerd shirt

The Comcrap shirt

The Translate Server Error shirt

I know you need a closer look at that logo…

(The Chinese characters actually spell out “Translate Server Error”…at least, I think they do. Actually, it might be funnier if they don’t)

3 O’clock Parade Shirt

I’m not so much designing these stores so that other people will buy things as I am trying to make things for me So Happy birthday to me, I guess!

So one of my Facebook “friends” posted the following picture with the caption “Irony defined” attached to it:

Really, chuckles? You’re gonna go with “irony” on that one? I’m no Grammar Girl, but I’m pretty sure I can define Irony:

irony
1 : a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other’s false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning —called also Socratic irony
2 a : the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b : a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c : an ironic expression or utterance
3 a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity b : incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play —called also dramatic irony, tragic irony

(Source: Merriam-Webster)

As it applies to the photo, I think we’re looking at point 3 in the definition, “incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result.” So tell me what is incongruous about a truck with flames painted on it catching fire? Nothing. That’s not ironic, it’s oddly fitting. I think a better caption would be “Overkill Defined.”

If you really wanted to go with “Irony defined” as your caption, you could use this picture:

(Is it ironic that I’m spending a whole blog harping on grammar when this blog undoubtedly has a ton of grammar mistakes in it? I believe it is.)

Tell ‘Em Steve Dave is a podcast featuring Brian Johnson and Walt Flanagan, tow friends of Kevin Smith who have been recurring guests on SModcast. Walt, in particular has been there for two of the funniest SModcsat moments. And now they have a podcast where they do what Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier used to do.

You see before SModcast started being all about how great weed is and the wonders of Wayne Gretzky, it used to just be two guys telling stories. While there are still glimmers of that showing through on SModcast, it feels much different these days. Especially since it seems like Scott Mosier has been absent a lot lately. But based on the first few episodes of Tell ‘Em Steve Dave, it seems like this is a podcast that brings the random humor and comradery that inspired TANcast back.

So I have to say, I’m looking more forward to Tell ‘Em Steve Dave than the next SModcast.

If you don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook, then you missed this post:

“Wow! We are accidentally recording a really interesting TANcast!”

We were half way through recording this week’s show and I was really enjoying listening to Andy and Noah go back and forth. I truly think it was one of our most interesting shows.

But then after that we fell into our normal crap and Noah sent us a link to this picture:

I wanted to give those of you who read TANcast.com a jump on the folks who only listen to the podcast. Now when we mention this on the show you’ll already know about it.

…and knowing is half the battle!

Somehow, after the past two rounds, Possible Douche 1 and Possible Douche 2 are chatting again. Let’s see who “wins” this round…

**Possible Douche 1 starts a chat with Possible Douche 2

Possible Douche 1
When’s the next time you’re going to the park?

Possible Douche 2
Today or tomorrow.

Possible Douche 1
Oh cool! We should say hi!

Possible Douche 2
“Hi”
done lol

Possible Douche 1
wow…you’re hella rude. K bye

Possible Douche 2
Did you mean to say “hella funny?”

Possible Douche 1
nope

Possible Douche 2
I’m pretty sure you did

Possible Douche 1
‘Cause that was definitely not one of your funny moments

Possible Douche 2
Hmmmm I respectfully disagree

Possible Douche 1
Ok…that’s fine

**at this point all communication from Possible Douche 1 stops abruptly

And it looks like Possible Douche 1 may be retiring from the game. PD1 will be missed. (not really) That is one sensitive douche!

Back in round 1, Possible Douche 1 knew the secret hiding spots of two stopped clocks in Disneyland and wouldn’t tell Possible Douche #2 (or the rest of the members of the Disney chat board they were on). One was revealed to be in Sleeping Beauty Castle…but Possible Douche 1 refused to reveal the location of the other clock. Then Possible Douche 2 deliberately wasted Possible Douche 1′s time claiming to have other information Possible Douche 1 was seeking.

And now, Round 2!

**This round begins during an IM conversation!…

Possible Douche 1
I went to Disneyland for 4 days AND I FEEL FINNNNNNNNNNE

Possible Douche 2
Nice. Did you ever solve your little clock mystery?

Possible Douche 1
No. We got on the boat, but cause we got picked to be part of the parade thing (princess and the frog), we totally forgot. There were a couple things we wanted to do and that was one of them.

Possible Douche 2
The second one is on the Mark Twain?

Possible Douche 1
Oh shit! =X LOL I slipped! bwahahahahahaha

Possible Douche 2
I WIN!!! Ha hah ahahahahahahahahaha ahhahahahahahhaha

Possible Douche 1
Shit! I cant believe myself right now. I especially wasn’t gonna tell you ’cause u were bein’ mean!

Possible Douche 2
You started it…and I finished it!

Possible Douche 1
Nope. You still don’t know where

Possible Douche 2
Go Possible Douche 2, Go Possible Douche 2, it’s your birthday!

Possible Douche 1
Ok…I’ll ask you another mystery…Do you agree that everything Disney does has a reason? Usually not just some random decor. It always means something.

Possible Douche 2
Nope

Possible Douche 1
No?

Possible Douche 2
In fact “Hidden mickeys” started off as something people saw not something that was intended.

Possible Douche 1
…eh. I’ve heard both. But anyways…at the front of the line for Space Mountain and in the Pizza Port area they have those big planter boxes. And there’s these huge eggs in there…like big glass rock egg things…wtf are they?! I wonder if they are something from the old attractions. Totally weird.

Possible Douche 2
Something they found at Michael’s craft store and said “Fuck it use those and we’ll punch out for the day” lol

Possible Douche 1
nooooooooooo

Possible Douche 2
Is it the clock in the Captains living quarters?

Possible Douche 1
What…oh…on the boat. Maybe…I’m not tellin.’ You gotta look.

Possible Douche 2
I’m done with you. I have no desire to look I just wanna know

Possible Douche 1
psh…See? So mean!

Possible Douche 2
No, not mean. Mean is to raise the issue and not tell me.

Possible Douche 1
So if I told you, would you wanna go look?

Possible Douche 2
Yeah ’cause I’d know right where to go and I could go look…as opposed to wasting my time searching the ship like I’m a CSI trying to solve a case.

Possible Douche 1
You do have like 20 min on it.

Possible Douche 2
Yeah I’d rather be watching the scenery as opposed to sniffing around the bowels of the ship.

Possible Douche 1
Oh hush. You have been on it a million times.

Possible Douche 2
Yes…because I like the scenery

Possible Douche 1
OMG…I can ask you…my memory is failing me. Is the cabin on the Rivers of America still burning or is that ancient?

Possible Douche 2
You should go look!

Possible Douche 1
I hate you.

Possible Douche 2
How is that different?

Possible Douche 1
Its not a secret.

Possible Douche 2
Apparently it is

Possible Douche 1
No, I just have a shitty memory. It’s like, “Is space mountain still a ride?”

Possible Douche 2
If you don’t know, it’s a secret to you.

Possible Douche 1
I’m never coming to any of your shows again!

Possible Douche 2
Well I’m not going to tell you where they are. It’s a secret. shhhhhhhhhh

Possible Douche 1
pssssssh I got 4 people to come last time. Hecka nice…and you are hecka mean!

Possible Douche 2
I am hecka loveable

Possible Douche 1
You used to be.

Possible Douche 2
You have it hecka backwards.

Possible Douche 1
Nope

Possible Douche 2
Yup…so…where on the ship? lol

Possible Douche 1
So I see that its not burning anymore…but why?

Possible Douche 2
THAT’S a secret

Possible Douche 1
Ok 1 guess though…is it…ummm…whats it called…a pc change?

Possible Douche 2
Oh…it’s not a secret that I know. That’s why I assume it’s a secret. I don’t think it’s PC though because the narration used to be a waring about what “man does when he doesn’t respect the environment”

Possible Douche 1
hmm

Possible Douche 2
Victory is sweet
**Possible Douche 2 posts the following picture

Possible Douche 1
You got it. But now…why is it stopped on that time? Same with the castle clock?

Possible Douche 2
But I found another picture of it at another time

Possible Douche 1
Seriously?

Possible Douche 2
Looks to be about 4:20 (Snoogans)
**Possible Douche 2 posts the following picture

Possible Douche 1
OMG ASSHOLE STONERS!!!!! that is so fucked up!

Possible Douche 2
That is such BS! You have to ask the captain for special permission to even go in that room. I never would have found it just by “looking”

Possible Douche 1
hehehe… sorry

Possible Douche 2
THAT is mean!

**At this point Possible Douche 2 posts both pictures on the message board that Possible Douche 1 specifically told him in round one not to post them on.

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT!!!

Winner = Possible Douche 2
Possible Douche 2 = Tim “Douching it up” Babb

Suck it!!!

I don’t know how it happened or when, but somebody hit Google Maps with a big ol’ Stupid Stick. Suddenly dozens of streets (including the one I live on) display the wrong name and most points of interest seem to be at least several hundred yards away from their actual location.

As an example, Google currently labels “Glenridge Pl. NE” in Atlanta, GA as “Johnson Ferry Rd. NE”, which is a nearby thoroughfare. If they haven’t fixed the problem by the time you read this, you can compare Google Maps to Yahoo! Maps and Bing Maps (previously called Windows Live Local, Windows Live Maps, and Live Search Maps, because Microsoft believes in brand confusion). If you look a little to the northeast, you’ll find a point of interest label for a Macy’s in the middle of a parking lot, though that’s less egregious than others I’ve seen.

Oddly, Google even seems to know it’s wrong. If you search for an existing address Google will still drop a pin on the correct street, even if that pin is right beside a street label that contradicts it.

We’ve all ceded control over “truth” to Google and Wikipedia, so maybe I should just give up and start using my new street name…

At first I thought, “Geez! That kid is still the lead story. You people suck.” But then…something in that picture caught my eye which actually made me click on the story. When you see the photo full size, you’ll understand…

Yup that’s a six year old boy bending over and creepy old dude with a mustache taking a picture of his ass. WTF?!

Really, Yahoo? You thought this encapsulated the story the best? This just begins a whole new story? What’s wrong with that man? Is anyone going to stop him? Can this possibly be legal?

Perhaps this photo DOES answer the question of why little Falcon told his brother to tell everyone he was on that balloon.

“If he thinks I’m dead maybe he’ll stop trying to take pictures of my butt. Run brother! Tell the world I am floating in a balloon.”

“They will see right through that. There’s no way that balloon could hold your weight.”

“Damn it man I’m desperate! Do this for me!”

“Ok, brother…farewell!”

I just got a fireproof, waterproof external hard drive from ioSafe. Given the recent spate of end-of-days weather and my bout of terminal heathenism, I thought it best to be prepared. If they had one that was frog-, blood-, locust-, lightning bolt-, and zombie army-proof I’d probably have paid for the upgrade.

The only problem with owning such an awesomely serious piece of hardware (I swear to Super Panda this thing weighs 25 lbs.) is that you only get to show off the coolest features during an emergency.

I don’t know if I mentioned this on TANcast before, but I used to make my own black powder. My final presentation in High School Chemistry cleared a lecture hall. I’ve burned all the hair off one of my arms. More than once.

Do you see what I’m getting at here? Do you see how there may be a certain compulsion I’m choking back?

(Burn it all down!)

Wait. What was that?

(Oh shit! He can hear us?)

Um, I think I need to go take a cold shower in a dark room and think of things burning. No, NOT burning! Not.

Ah well. If we lose the house at least I know our taxes, Junior’s baby pictures, and my porn collection will be safe.

Image courtesy of Ticky_ on flickr

A bit over 4 years ago, Microsoft announced that they would be including a new document layout file format, later named the “XML Paper Specification“, with the release of Windows that would eventually be called Windows Vista.

The XPS format was intended to both compete with Adobe’s Portable Document Format in the field of a document layout (and for some hardware, the printer interface itself) and in some ways to replace the extremely long-in-tooth Windows Metafile/Enhanced Metafile format.  Ars Technica has a trio of writeups on this battle, if you care to read more.

Microsoft did ship Windows Vista with XPS support, but they also included it in the .NET Framework version 3.0 for Windows XP users. This was a smart move, given that Windows XP users didn’t exactly flock to Vista (in fact, many people counted as “Vista owners” aren’t).

The easiest way to make .XPS files is with the “Microsoft XPS Document Writer”, which acts as a standard Windows printer and allows you to create .XPS files from any application that can print.  Instead of spitting out a dead tree, you get a file that keeps your text and images exactly like you like and which can be taken to another computer/office/planet/plane of existence. Very handy.

As you can almost certainly surmise from this post’s title, it goes downhill from there…

The program  Microsoft provides to open .XPS files is called, unsurprisingly, the “XPS Viewer”.  This Viewer does not stand on its own; it requires Internet Explorer to host it and handle mundane things like rendering the page, scrolling, printing, and so forth.

The big bag of fail is that the XPS Viewer does not load IE when it starts: It loads your default browser and passes it the .XPS file to open.

If your default browser is not IE (and kudos if it isn’t), the browser will invariably ask you what the hell an .XPS file is and what you expect to do with it.  Smarter browsers, like recent Firefox releases, will detect that .XPS files are associated with the XPS Viewer and prompt you to open the file in that program.  When you do, the XPS Viewer will again try to pass the file to your default browser.  Your browser will open a new tab or window for the incoming file, realize it doesn’t handle the .XPS extension, and again ask you what to do.

This will continue, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, until you do one of the following:

1. give up on viewing the file
2. run out of system resources because too many browser tabs/windows are open
3. kill yourself in desperation
4. stop trying to use the XPS Viewer and open the file in IE (which actually launches the XPS Viewer correctly)

It gets even better if you tell your browser “Don’t ask about these files, always open them with the XPS Viewer.”  You will trigger an infinite version of the loop above until you manage to kill the browser.

Microsoft’s designers and testers apparently couldn’t imagine a machine that didn’t use IE. This is what happens when otherwise intelligent people act like morons.

There is an easy fix: forget the piece of shit XPS Viewer and get the stand-alone XPS Essentials.

Either that or else wait for Microsoft to stop assuming everyone uses Internet Explorer.

Thanks for reading the latest in a long line, continuing in the proud footsteps of Noah’s twin rants regarding Windows’ constant need to nag you and how software makers need to work on consistency, as well as my own rather onerous screed (posted to my old personal “journal”, copied here after we started TANcast) on what I think of Internet Explorer 6.

Before anyone wonders what pipe I was smoking, please note that the last link needs to be read in context. It was originally posted:

• almost 3 years after IE 6 was released
• over 1 year after Microsoft announced they had no interest in releasing further browser updates except with updated Windows releases (after they “cut off Netscape’s air supply” so effectively)
• over 1 month before Windows XP Service Pack 2 was released, which improved the ActiveX security model a little and added some ability to see what “helpers” were installed
• about 8 months before Microsoft announced IE 7, after they figured out what abandoning their users was costing them (in May 2003 they competed primarily with Mozilla Suite 1.3 which had 2.3% total market share; in February 2005 they had to contend with Mozilla Suite 1.7 and Firefox 1.0 which had combined market share almost 4 times higher and rising rapidly)
• almost 2.5 years before the promised IE 7 was finally released

About two weeks ago, I finally used one of my Google Voice invitations and got an awesome phone number. In short, my feelings can be summed up as:

Free + Awesome = WIN ...

… but it could be better.

While I love my iPhone, I’ve been less than thrilled at the App Store rejection, FCC investigation, and useless denials and word-games regarding the Google Voice app. In many ways this is just another reminder that the iPhone lives in Apple’s walled garden (which AT&T loves to prune) and in spite of its power and flexibility it is not a personal computer. Still, I’m a firm believer that I should be able to do whatever I want (within reason) with hardware I buy and services I pay for.

I want to be able to make calls from and access voicemail and text messages sent to my Google Voice number as if my iPhone had two phone numbers. I want push notification of new messages. I want a native Google Voice interface to sit beside my existing iPhone phone/contact/messaging/voicemail applications. In short, I want Google Voice to be a first-class citizen.

This will probably be a pipe dream until either Apple has an aneurysm and suddenly forgets it can dictate the rules or the FCC makes Apple open the garden gate a little wider. Corporate beneficence or pro-consumer government action: guess which one I’ll be holding my breath for. (Hint: “Neither.” is an acceptable guess.)

A more reasonable hope might be the integration I mentioned on the latest TANcast: combining Google Voice and Gmail. They already use the same contacts list, they both have the same concept of inbound and outbound communication and keeping and ordering messages, and they even talk to each other (Google Voice puts an email in your inbox when you have a message). Imagine having one interface where all your emails, chats, SMS, AND voicemails regarding your job hunt, a specific project, or to/from your family all get grouped together (labeled) and searched at once. Google has already done this for chat, why not voice?

Some people say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…

Long ago, when the halls of MySpace were filled with people, I wrote a pair of blogs about some complain letters that I wrote to my corporate nemesis Mervyn’s. I found them and shall reproduce them for you now. Not only do I not follow the advice given by Grammar Girl, I also break all kinds of grammar rules to boot (which I’m sure comes as no surprise if you’ve ever read my blogs before).

So here is the first letter I wrote to Mervyn’s:

Dear fuckholes,

There has been a serious error regarding my account. I have only made one purchase on this account which I paid off less than a month later.

I recently received a notice from a collection agency saying I owe $247.14. The first and most obvious problem is that I should not have a balance to pay off on this account. As mentioned above, I paid the full balance of this card off within a month of my initial and only purchase.

The second problem is that it was sent to the wrong address. When I opened the account, my address was 6064 *street*. And I know this address was successfully conveyed when I opened the account because I received my credit card in the mail shortly after opening the account. However the address the collection notice was sent to was 6664 *street*. This leads me to believe that an error on your end resulted in notices being sent to the wrong address for over a year while what ever this charge is you seem to believe I owe drew more and more interest.

The third and most aggravating problem…and the reason I only made one purchase with the card… is that I was charged for the same items twice. When I signed up for the card, I was told that new card holders got an extra 10% off. However, when they rang me up, they neglected to give me that additional 10% off. So they re-rang up my items only to find out they could void out the first transaction. So I was charged for the same purchase twice (once at 10% off). After about 15 minutes of the store staff trying in vain to void the error, I was told by the manager that it would be taken care of at the corporate end and that I wouldn’t need to worry about it. Needless to say, when I got my bill it was NOT taken care of. When I called the Mervyn’s people, I got the run around for so long that I finally decided it was less hassle to just pay for my items twice and be done with the experience.

But THIS is going too far! I will not have money stolen from me again by this company. Please review whatever records you need to and credit my account…and then CLOSE IT. I assure you I will not have need of a Mervyn’s Credit Card ever again. Honestly man, I know your shitty clothes don’t attract a lot of business, but do you really have to resort to phantom charges to meet each month’s payroll? You are all a bunch of shit eating duchebags!

Suck my fat cock,
-Tim

PS-Please contact me immediately to let me know this matter has been resolved or I will take a dump on the counter in every one of your shitty stores!

Yeah…seems pretty straight forward., I can’t imagine anybody having a problem with that letter. Then, a few weeks later, I got the following letter FROM Mervyn’s:

Dear TIMOTHY:

Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding the above referenced account. An itemized history of your account is enclosed. The referenced account is reporting correctly.

And now, as a bonus, you can either watch the video to hear the final letter or scroll down and read it for yourself…or do both! The world is your oyster on this blog!

And now my reply letter:

Dear Ass hats,

Lick my nuts,
Tim Babb
Highly Dissatisfied Customer

Well I am sure I have just made Grammar Girl curse California’s educational system (unless she reads my blogs, in which case she’s been cursing it every day in September), but hopefully I gave some laughs along the way.

Oh…and if anyone from the former Mervyn’s corporate office is reading this, die in a fire! Toodles!

It’s time to play America’s favorite new game show…

That’s right, “Who’s the Douche?” The game where we show you an actual exchange on the internet and you decide who the bigger douche bag is.

Today’s game starts on a message board and continues into private messages. The two contestants shall be identified as “Possible Douche 1″ (PD1) and “Possible Douche 2″ (PD2). Ready to play? Here we go!!!

**The game started when Possible Douche 1 posted this on a message board:

Possible Douche 1: So I was told there are 2 clocks in the park [Disneyland] that signify the time Walt Disney died (told by a cast member after noticing a clock was stopped or not working and since everything in Disney has a reason, I decided to ask why)

My question is … if I remember correctly, I think they were stopped at 12:20… but I think he died at 9:30 or 9:45?

Does anyone know about this? Is it maybe the time Walt was pronounced dead?

**This stumps the first few posters who repeatedly ask where the two clocks are located only to be told:

Possible Douche 1:
hehe its a secret

**When people then press PD1 on the subject of the clocks, PD1 responds with:

Possible Douche 1:
Wow! Over-dramatic much?

…and to be honest, that is why I have 50 posts not 3,835 or more… haha Thanks for reminding me why I stick to going to the park and not coming on the message boards so much…

**This is where PD2 comes in and the game really starts

Possible Douche 2:
“Yeah I want to ask YOU people for information but how dare you be so over dramatic as to expect some back from me.”

BTW If you do see me in the park and you want to know where something is…good luck to you…ha!

**Then it goes into a private conversation and the douchiness really starts to fly…

Possible Douche 1:
Hey…It’s me… [person you know from another site] …thanks for being a punk lol

Possible Douche 2:
lol hey! Well in fairness, you started it

Possible Douche 1:
haha yeah well… I like the adventure of finding stuff…So I was merely asking if anyone else knew ’cause I assumed all these [Disney] geeks would know already! But seems I hold some info they want BAD lol jk

Anyways I’ll tell you if you investigate and tell me your answers…wanna?

Possible Douche 2:
No thanks. I’ve already figured it out and I don’t want to deprive you of the fun of it!

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!! (Evil Joker laugh)

Possible Douche 1:
Have you really?!?!?! …and do you know the significance?

Possible Douche 2:
Oh yeah…it’s kinda obvious if you think about it.

Possible Douche 1:
Not really… What 2 are you thinking of…the one in the castle and…?

Possible Douche 2:
Wait…YOU don’t know the other one?!!

Well then forget it, I ain’t tellin’!

Possible Douche 1:
How did I know that would happen? …yes I do … It’s on something that moves…. yours?

**AT this point DB2 lets almost a full hour go by without responding

Possible Douche 1:
Ok…so gimme a hint and I’ll give you a hint.

Possible Douche 2:
Oh…I have no idea. I was deliberately wasting your time

Possible Douche 1:
I hate you.

Possible Douche 2:
Right back at ya, keeper of secrets.

Possible Douche 1:
I’ll tell you, but you can’t tell people on the board…’cause they’re ASSSSHOLES lol

Possible Douche 2:
I don’t get why you don’t want to tell people.

Possible Douche 1:
At first I wasn’t going to ’cause what’s the fun there? I dunno. My whole fun with Disneyland is learning and discovering not like…
HI! HERE’S THE GUIDE TO EVERYTHING SPECIAL NOW YOU GET TO LOOK AT THEM!

Boring!

Possible Douche 2:
But…
a) many people on the boards can’t go to Disneyland that often

Possible Douche 1:
Neither can I. I haven’t been since June lol

Possible Douche 2:
b) We didn’t even know about this puzzle until you presented it

Possible Douche 1:
I assumed all u Disney geeks would know already…sheesh

Possible Douche 2:
c) not everyone has the same idea of fun

Possible Douche 1:
If 2 funs don’t mix, and one fun has to be gone to have another, I’ll choose my own…and you all can SUCK IT! lol

Possible Douche 2:
So you’re really not gonna share?

Possible Douche 1:
Not to the board

Possible Douche 2:
…I don’t get it

And there you have it! So now you get to decide who the douche is…PD1 for keeping the secret or PB2 for wasting PD1′s time on purpose?

WHO’S THE DOUCHE?!!

Well it’s day 2 of my commitment to a month of blogs and I don’t really have any ideas for a blog today. I fail at everything I try. But I keep trying. I’m kinda like the comedic version of Rocky. (Fortunately no Russians have beaten me up…yet)

I do have quite a few irons in the fire at the moment…I’ve got a few Kingdom Comedy videos I’m trying to get edited. Including the one that I started trying to film back in May! I’m also working on a few more audio Kingdom Comedies for Mousetalgia…and a video project for TANcast that I hope to announce soon.

Plus I’m getting set for the San Francisco Comedy Competition.

I’m really hoping to bring the thunder. If you’re in the area, please come out and laugh at me…I won’t mind You can check the schedule as it gets updated here: http://www.sanfranciscocomedycompetition.com/Pages/Schedule.html (I’m performing on September 16th-20th)

Lastly I’m getting my set together for my showcase at the NACA West Conference. If you’re going to college and would like to have me come to your college and do stand-up (which I would LOVE to do) find out who books events for your college and direct them here: http://h2f.net/h2fnew/index.php?pg=talentdetail_page&id=01493c5fbd38495

…hmmm this is turning into less of a blog as it is shameless self promotion. I will work on that for next time.

Stand-up comedy biz blogs…Disney blogs…Star Trek Blogs…a political rant or two (sorry, right wing friends)…I’m gonna throw as much as I can against the wall in September and see what sticks.

I’m not going to lie to you. There will be typos…there will be factual errors…and there will be an over use of ellipses (…) but if you give me a chance, we can get through this together…or you can just ignore my crappy posts.

Wish me luck…

Oh, before I forget…

Dear Fucktards at Comcast: Please stop breaking the Internet by replacing valid DNS error messages with search (plus ads!) pages. If any customers want you to break their Internet access, let them opt IN, instead.

Where was I? Oh, right. Twitter.

Twitter has been down for the better part of an hour now, so I went to Facebook to bitch to my meatspace friends and family about not being able to tweet. Turns out Facebook is all kerfucked, too. Attempts to post, to filter who is displayed, or even to load some pages fail with a variety of internal Facebook errors (“AJAX timeout… Are you connected to the Internet?”) or general HTTP failures (“The page at http://facebook.com/ is taking too long to respond…”).

I grumbled to myself, then remembered I run a blog. Moments later I was typing this post and reveling in self-hosted uptime goodness.

Twitter and Facebook = FAIL

TANcast = WIN

PS: If you’re a Comcast subscriber (and oh my <deity>, do I wish there was actual competition in the broadband market), you can fix your DNS behavior by opting out of their fucktacular mess.

PPS: I’ve added “fucktard”, “kerfucked”, and “fucktacular” to my browser’s spell check dictionary.

PPPS: I’ll try to remember crowing in this post the next time I break TANcast.

Fmylife is a great site. We’ve talked about it on the podcast before but I never stopped to think of another level to that website. But then I recently tumbled upon this gem on Fmylife.com.

“Today, I thought I was home alone so I went to take a shower and left my door open. My dog came in, stole my bra, and ran out of my bathroom. I jumped out and followed him only to find out that my brother had two of his friends over. They all saw me naked and my dog had my bra in his mouth. FML”

That sucks for that lady…but if there was a website called “mylifeisfingawesome.com,” you might see an entry like this:

“Today I was totally schooling my buddy in Fight Night Round 4 on his PS3 when all of a sudden his adorable dog comes running in the room with a bra in his mouth…followed closely by his naked sister and her glistening wet boobies. MLIFA”

Human discourse has not been the same since.

Everyone likes to talk about democracy, freedom of expression, and equality in fluffy abstract terms, but a recent stroll through Apple’s App Store for the iPhone and iTouchMyselfPod was a more concrete exploration of what these terms really mean.

Simply put, the democratizing influence of convincing every mouth-breather that their American Life would be best spent on America Online has led to them believing that they should, nay, must make their every opinion known to all their peers surfing the tubes.

I’ve plucked a pair of App Store product reviews from the luminiferous aether to illustrate my point.

Let’s start with a review of the AS3 API Reference app. Quoth Tjenicek in his/her/its 1-Star review:

Use?
Idk what to do or how to use it.
Help me?

For those curious, AS3 means “ActionScript 3“, and refers to the scripting language (related to JavaScript) used to program Adobe Flash or Adobe Flex.  This app is, per the name and the description provided by the author, a quick reference guide for people writing ActionScript code.  I loaded the app and it is quite clearly exactly what it claims.  From the review I can only imagine that this fucktard downloaded it without having any idea what ActionScript was. Said fucktard then gave this app a 1-Star review as clearly the fucktard’s ignorance was the fault of the app.

You may think I’m being harsh. You may even be right about that.

Perhaps Tjenicek is in the middle of some sort of performance-art piece that requires him/her/it to download and review every App Store application in alphabetical order, and the sheer number has caused him/her/it to run out of ideas by the late As. Perhaps after thoughtfully reviewing the Ask Your Mom app, this was all that was left in the tank.

Whether you discount that one, wait ’til you see the next review.

For the puzzle game Blocked, Kj fauve wrote in his/her/its 1-Star review:

Nice
This is a really nice game me and my dad always play this on our spare time. My real name is Kyle but I changes it to kj because I thought it would be real cool to do it so yeah thanks for your time I hope u enjoy reading about me And yeah I’m gay

Words fail me, just as punctuation and coherent trains of thought escaped the reviewer. We’ll just note the 1-Star (out of 5) score on what appears to be a positive review and move on to the summary.

So AOL gets everyone on the internet by lowering the barrier to entry from “Install correct Winsock version, Configure PPP and TCP/IP settings, Configure Dialer, …” to “Stick This Thing in the Hole on your Confusion Box and Click until you see Porn and Spam.”  A Zero-Knowledge-Needed access plan got people with zero knowledge to participate.

This is perfect egalitarian democracy, and the fucktards are ruining it.

Thanks for that, AOL.

I tried to blog about this phenomenon at the time, but could not claw my way back to the murky void of The Real long enough to give a full accounting of it.

I don’t think I accomplished much that day, other than spastic laughter held barely in check by the back of my knuckles and grim looks from management. I didn’t dare climb back in afterward; I had lost enough of my life and I could only just recollect having a childhood somewhere where the text was not perennially fixed-width.

Six months later I lost my job and tried to write this all up again. I loaded the site, read this, and promptly lost another day. In my head, bloodninja/eminemBNJA is 100% serious and earnest. It is significantly funnier that way.

You can also find there a joke that I ganked for our latest TANcast, if you cared to do so.

Beware, though: If your taste in humor treads the same razor’s edge of geeky, lowbrow, highbrow, dickish, conceptual, offbeat stupidity that mine does, expect to lose yourself as well.

So who wants to see hot naked girls just licking random household objects? I do, I do!

Just after George Carlin passed, I came across yet another best-of-Carlin compilation on YouTube, but the person who posted it used every inch of the “About this video” area to argue that the September 11 terrorist attacks were actually perpetrated by the United States government.  I gave him 1 star and left a comment chastising him for trying to conflate Carlin’s well-reasoned diatribes against abuses of power with a delusional belief that there is some shadowy conspiracy that committed mass murder on live TV and yet managed to hide its activities from all but a enlightened few on the Internet who are trying to “show us all the truth”.  He had a bunch of links that supposedly proved his claims, but, as TANcast proves, having a website is not the same as being smart or knowing anything.

What followed was a fairly telling discourse, presented here without edit for your enjoyment.  I say telling, but I have only a vague idea of what it says and about whom.

My initial comment and responses will be in deep blue and his responses will be in hot pink italics, as I think that is funny and am not a mature person.  I’m also not turning the URL in his comments into a hyperlink as I won’t give those retards any more traffic than they already get.  I’m not including his actual “About this video” section for the same reason.

This is my website, so fuck it: I do what I want.

Anyways, it all started when I left this comment for him on YouTube:

acrobat741: Why did you hijack George Carlin’s work to push your conspiracy theory?

George was too smart to believe empty-headed bullshit like this, so its a bit of a dick move to try to push your own idiot agenda on YouTubers using his good name.

He responded some time later with:

Conspiracy theory? Yeah right. Like Iran-Contra I guess.

So I’ve hijacked Carlin’s work?
Lol you might as well not read my info. Write to your MP.

Oh do awake from your programmed delusion.

FYI, here are some other ‘empty-headed’ folks:

http://patriotsquestion911.com/

PS: poor manners indicate deficient upbringing

Overcome by his rhetorical aptitude, I replied:

I take it all back. Clearly you are superior to the rest of reasoning humanity, having seen behind the lies and being bold enough to pepper YouTube with the truth. Kudos to you, and all the best on your journey to enlighten the masses.

http://www.debunking911.com/
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=76025
http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=64

I’m sure the links above and all the concrete data (which is not the plural of “anecdote”) that they cite are manufactured or mistaken, so I look forward to your resounding victory as you reply to them all with your own provable facts.

Just FYI, Iran-Contra was a conspiracy, not a conspiracy theory. Not sure if you knew that, but I can recommend books if you’d like to learn more.

Penn & Teller – 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

Taking his own previous advice about manners and upbringing, he offered an olive branch:

i’ll be polite: fuck off

go play with the other paedos

I noticed that he might have made a small error, so I sent back:

You forgot to call me Hitler.

You also forgot to call me gay.

It looks like he blocked me, though, so I’m afraid he may never find out about his oversight or get to correct it.

At least I have this hateful picture remind myself that I probably shouldn’t have done any of this:

I am so, so sorry...

Almost exactly thirty seconds later, after swimming through a series of tubes (no, I’m not going to stop making fun of Ted Stevens until that corrupt idiot is expelled, indicted, or dies) I had my answer.  Thank you, Intertron!

Although the song “Mah Nà Mah Nà” was included in a Sesame Street skit in 1969 prior to being performed by Muppets on The Ed Sulivan Show and then performed again for The Muppet Show, it was actually taken from a movie called Sweden: Heaven and Hell.  This film was an Italian pseudo-documentary that claimed to record the wild sexual antics of Scandinavian teens.

That’s right, kids: “Mahna Mahna” is a song from a soft-core porno.

Now that you know… Enjoy!

What?! You missed it? You’re in luck…you can listen to it right now: Just click right here.

That’s right…there’s actually a podcast on TANcast, finally.  Sure it’s not a TANcast podcast…but beggars can’t be choosers

Why are you so cruel to me Windows? Can’t we just be friends?

For the uninitiated, this is my most popular blog on MySpace. So much so that I had updated it 6 times. Well, today I went to update it a 7th time and MySpace kept screwing up…so it moves here to TANcast in it’s entirety (including the 7th update)! Enjoy!

Listen, I’m sorry you’re hiding from some guy you shot down in a bar last week, but why should you get to look it me and me not get to look at you? What makes you so damn special?!

And also…if your profile picture looks like this…

How private are you, really? Those are your boobs, lady! If you’re trying to remain anonymous and avoid attracting attention…perhaps shoving your ta-tas all up in the camera may not be the best solution.

And that goes for you smart asses who just make your pictures private. Don’t post pictures on line if you don’t want people to see them. They’ve got a place for you to store your private pictures…it’s called the photo album in your closet, turd burgler!

UPDATE 1…
Why do people with private profiles fill out the “Who I’d like to meet” section?! One of my private friends has this in that section:

“Anyone and Everyone…. No one can really piss me off (unless you are just THAT stupid) so as long as your a cool, chill, kick ass person we are good.”

Well you can’t meet anyone and everyone if NOONE can see your profile! They can’t even read that section of text. And if you’re so anxious to meet everyone…why is your profile private?! You’re killin’ me…killin’ me!!!

UPDATE 2
Okay I happened upon another gal who should not have a private profile…

Yeah…that’s her main pic…spread eagle with the soggy flap jacks barely contained in that bikini…which might not be so bad on it’s own but her headline reads,

“Voluptuous Hardcore Milf”

Yeah…I can see how you’re really trying to fly under the radar you stealth little miwlf. Either you’re an attention whore or you’re not…pick a side…we’re at war!

UPDATE 3…
Okay…what could be worse than a private profile with your breasts in the camera or spread eagle in a bikini? How about this…

Yup that’s a private provile pic and she’s naked. C’mon lady, you’re f@$ing NAKED!!! How private do you really want to be when I’m an inch and a half from seeing your friggin nipple?!

“Hey everybody I just took all my clothes off…for God’s sake don’t look at me…I’m a private nudist!”

And don’t think I didn’t notice you’re out of toilet paper! Now go put some clothes on or take your profile off private!

Update 4…

The women (and I’m sorry that these examples are all women) who are trying to have it both ways continues…

“What profile picture should get the least amount of attention from sickos scouring MySpace for skanks? Hmmm I know! I’ll wrap duct tape around my hooters and take a shot of it! Brilliant. Why would a thumblnail of exposed breasts grab anyone’s attention? But I just don’t know if that’s enough….just to be sure I’m going to make my profile name: ’F*** My P**** [With YOUR Tongue]’

Yes! That’ll do it. At last, I can be left alone. Wait…just to be sure I’m make my MySace URL ’http://www.myspace.com/lovetolickurc***’ Yes! Love to Lick Your C***! That just REEKS of a private individual who wants only solitude on the internet.”

WHAT THE HELL?!!! Why is your profile private? You just want to be a whore for your closest friends? Your boobs are wrapped in tape! TAPE!

Update 5…

Alright just look at this:

Yeah…it’s another “private profile,” but in case your eyes are bad let me point out that not only is she not wearing any pants, skirt, underwear or class…she’s got her hands all shoved in her crack! Lady are you telling me your prepping to pinch a loaf in your profile picture?! But heaven forbid anyone see it?! I shudder to think what other photos are in your collection that need to be kept private…are you fisting a yeti?!

Even the Flapjacks lady from update 2 is embarrassed by your shamelessness hypocrisy.

Now either put some pants on or put your smell on private too!

Update 6…

Okay a lot of people keep asking me why I go trolling for these private profiles…I swear I don’t. I’m just doing my business on-line connecting with friends, fellow comics, etc and I’ll look at their stable of friends. That’s when a photo like this will leap out at me…

C’mon…that’s not gonna peak your curiosity? Over 50% of her profile photo is breasts!!! I mostly clicked on it to see if they were an optical illusion or something. It looks like a Rick Baker special effect.

Are you telling me you’re not the least bit interested in the back story on Boobzilla up there?! Well if you are, tough titties (pun intended). Her profile is private. Now you’ll never solve the mystery of the ginormous milk sacks. Why is she staring at them? Did she drop a bagel down there? Is Ossama hiding in there? These questions will now never be answered…thanks alot, Wonder Jugs!

Update 7…

Just when I thought I was done with this blog, my friend Angela found this for me…

This one angers me on a whole different level. I’m not really mad that her profile is private…no, really. This is not a profile I should have full access to.

Because I’m a full grown adult and she is obviously 15!!! Are you kidding me?! I don’t care if her profile lists her age as 22. Bull$!+!!! I’ll bet jail bait up there doesn’t even have her drivers permit yet!

Put that cell phone with tinkerbell’s glittery diarrhea all over it down and go put on a shirt! Then finish your homework and clean your room. …and GET OFF MY LAWN!!!! (oy, I’m getting old)

Thank you I feel better.

Pardon me while I rant a bit, Software is broken and let me tell you why.

I was at a bar with a friend once and he casually mentions that playlists on iPods will update on the fly. I thought he was crazy cause I had owned an iPod Touch for few months and I never saw my playlists update on the fly, I always had to sync with iTunes before my playlists would update on my iPod.

Until today that is. I had created  a new pretty simple Smart Playlist, it had maybe 3 criteria. I noticed today as I listened to Podcasts, they would disappear from my play list. This had never happened to me before and I was excited. So I get home and start Googling this to see how I could make my other playlists do this.

I came across a few posts that explained why my other playlists weren’t behaving in the same way. So I spent way too much time tweaking and testing playlists to see if I could get them to update on my iPod as opposed to having to sync them to iTunes before the playlists would update. I finally got it to work but then my playlist wasn’t exactly the way I would like it to be.

Which brings me to my point. Why can’t I have my cake and eat it too? It seems far too often we have to work for our software then it working for us. Why do I have to not have this and not have that to make a feature work? It should just work and if it doesn’t work someone should fix it, simple as that. Now I don’t know how to code software, so in reality in may not be that simple but I am sure someone at Apple has the know how to make it work right. Yes I know they have a list of things they need to do and this particular feature is probably not high on the list but why have the feature at all then? I know they can’t please everyone and make iTunes do whatever you want it to but if you add a feature make sure it works and works right.

This problem is not specific to iTunes I see this type of stuff in so much software. All I ask is make software make sense, make sure features work and make it uniform. We have database software at work and depending on what part of the database you are in, you can hit enter to return a result or you can’t. No rhyme or reason why it works some places and not others, people just shrug and go “It has always been that way,” which seems like such a cop-out to me. We make software, it does what we tell it and if it doesn’t, we bend it to our will.

Sure I want awesome features but I also want features that work exactly as advertised. So I think when you make software, make it simple at first then as you perfect it (yes I know all software has bugs and problems) add on to it. Don’t just throw a bunch of half ass features at me and assume I will be happy.

I know what I am saying is probably not new but I wanted to get it off my chest.

End Rant.

Maybe something like this:

Let’s create a web browser and give it full access to both the outside network and the innermost workings of the operating system. NO! BETTER! Let’s have the OS interface BE the browser! That will get the Justice Department off our back when our “cut off Netscape’s air supply” memo leaks, since by then both of them (OS and browser) will be “merged”.

Next, lets create a technology that allows fully functioning programs to be run in the browser. We can call that ActiveX. We’ll need to set the default security settings pretty low, since we want people to have easy access to this. We can even make people use it to upgrade their copy of Windows. Why have a separate, secure system in place that can only connect to our servers when we can just give the web browser total control of everything and then assume nobody will ever find a flaw that lets them rape systems remotely.

As the crowning pinnacle, lets let 3rd party people modify the browser’s function using this ActiveX thing and not give people any easy way to remove the “enhancements”. Marketers will LOVE the ability to change the browser so that every time it accesses www.disney.com it pops up ads for hardcore midget-shaving porn, especially if the ads show graphic horse fisting, too.

Last item for action: once we are done using our OS monopoly to control the web browser market, we need to stop upgrading the software. Standards? Bah. Who cares. Rendering bugs? Not a problem. Features? Control? Security? Well, we’ll patch critical flaws, but other than that, fuck it. Users can like what we forced the PC makers to ship or they can kiss our hairy beans.

How many times have we seen Critical Updates for Internet Explorer, patching some hole in ActiveX or scripting that would allow a “malicious website” to gain full control of the computer or execute code or whatever? Well, here is an article on exactly what a “malicious” website might be: a site running Microsoft’s own web server. Yes, yet another flaw in IIS allowed dozens of LARGE, RESPECTED websites to be compromised. Now these sites send out the normal pages with a nifty surprise: software that will hijack your computer to start sending spam.What does it take to get your computer controlled? Using Internet Explorer and accessing one of these websites without your Security settings set to “Highest”. That is all. No opening of unknown e-mail attachments like a stupid newbie (and don’t get me started on Outlook allowing code to be run) or sending info to someone claiming to work for a company you do business with. Nope. Just browsing the web. With IE.

Check out Microsoft’s “What You Should Know” article on the subject. Vulnerable systems include Windows NT4 SP6, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003. Oh, I meant “any system running Internet Explorer 6″. That is easier.

I personally never sweat this shit. I have used Mozilla for years, moving over to the Mozilla Firefox web browser more recently. Fast, easy, better standards compliance than IE, pop-up ad blocking on by default, tabbed browsing, and one last thing:

NO IE SECURITY HOLES !!!

I beg you all to make your systems safer. Go use Opera or one of the Mozilla browsers. Launch IE only often enough to run Windows Update. I swear it will be better for you. Once you see the web free of pop-up and get to know tabbed browsing you will wonder how you lived without such things.

If any of you have questions or see a missing feature you want/need after loading a Mozilla browser, let me know. There is probably an extension you can install that will get you the feature you seek.

Update (June 29, 2004):

Hot off the presses, yet another IE “Browser Helper” is wreaking havok on unsuspecting browser users. Install this bit malware (I swear, we should be shooting the human garbage who write these) and your browser watches for you to try to log on to your bank, then sends your login info off to some ne’er-do-wells who can then try to ass-rape your bank balances.

And does IE provide a list of its installed “Helpers” for users to check on this?

Nope.

Does it give you any way of uninstalling these malware or spyware or adware “Helpers”?

Nope.

Has IE had a few vulnerabilities that allow “Helpers” to be installed without user approval?

Yup.

In related news, now that the (still un-patched) system hijack exploit facilitated by a (still un-patched) webserver vulnerability I mentioned in the original entry above has made the more mainstream press, experts are suggesting all IE users either disable scripting for all zones (including the Local Zone) or use an alternative browser.

I think you all know which of those options I advocate.