Category Archives: Information Stupor Highway

Idiocy on the internet.

Hate it? Buy it!

Fashion don'ts — and how to do them

I’m not entirely sure what compelled me to click on the omg! link on my Yahoo Mail homepage leading to an “article” about the Olsen twins’ recent fashion mistakes. Exhaustion, boredom and even a surprising occasional interest in Worst Dressed features doesn’t quite explain it, but anyway. It was worth it to discover that the site will run an entire slideshow exclusively on celebrities donning hideous outfits, but still include a pop-up called “Get the Look,” calling out each item of offense and where to buy it. OMG, indeed. Morons. Readers, writers: Morons.

Reader Appreciation: Bad idea? Good call.

Thanks to the reader who found the site this week by searching “scientists to drill earth’s mantle bad idea.”

Killer movie premise, though.

A Plan for Action… I hope it sticks

This is the banner on Adhesive Squares' website. I don't know what "it" is, either.

This morning I received an email press release entitled INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY WITH ADHESIVE SQUARES BRAND ADHESIVES. I’d love to increase productivity, I thought, but how can Adhesive Squares brand adhesives help me? I opened the email and was greeted with a list of solutions provided by Adhesive Squares brand adhesive products. Aha, I see it now. I need to stick stuff to myself. So I made a list of my own. A list of things I could stick to myself to increase my productivity. Here’s what I came up with:

  • Those bills I’ve neglected and that contract I forgot to sign. Apparently acknowledgment is not a sufficient substitute for payment or signature. And that pile on my floor is not an effective “Outgoing” box.
  • My laundry. This one could be tricky (it’s really been a while and that bag is heavy). Fortunately, according to the email, the company will work with me to “create the right solution for [my] unique application … Adhesive Squares™ brand adhesives allows the customer to retain their own adhesive goals.” And what goals I have! They go on: “whether bonding foams, fabrics, or fibers to any substrate* we make them compatible.”
    *substrate = me
  • A dated sign up sheet. That way people can book me for blocks of time and see what hours I have available. This should reduce scheduling mishaps due to:
    • my own ineptitude
    • my tendency to commit to something til it’s done, whether or not I reasonably have time to complete it
    • people’s sheer disinterest in the value of my time (This is wishful thinking. Also, the value of my time varies widely depending on who’s paying)
  • A pencil (see above)
  • One of those fake clocks that one might see hanging in the window of a hardware store that says “Will return at…”
  • Snacks

Here’s hoping that my Adhesive Squares brand adhesives plan for productivity improvement works. Next week we’ll look at where everyone else can stick it.

Fox News Boobs Cover Boob-Cover Hoax

Oh, you morons.

Take it away, Slate:

A Fox News website has picked up a hoax story about an Islamic council in Pakistan protesting the use of padded and colorful bras and presented it as fact.

The story, which is still featured on Fox News’ Fox Nation website, was illustrated with a picture of a woman’s mid-section and carried the headline “Pakistan: Islamic Clerics Protest Women Wearing Padded Bras as ‘Devil’s Cushions.’” (UPDATE 9:30: Fox has now pulled the story. See the original here.)

…[T]he whole thing is an obvious Onion-style satire — a fact first pointed out by Arif Rafiq of the Pakistan Policy Blog.

The sify.com story linked by Fox cites a “report” from yet another site called Roznama Jawani.

Roznama Jawani, in turn, appears to be a Pakistani version of the Onion, featuring such stories as “Karachi Preparing a Huge Ass Bat to Beat the Shit Out of Kamran Akmal,” “Altaf Hussain Challenges Imran Khan to a Rap Battle to Settle Differences,” and “Man From Peshawar Sues Red Bull. Says he has no wings!”

Matter of fact, in my limited experience in the Muslim world, padded, colorful bras are not only acceptable, they’re everywhere. Bazars are lined with bedazzled braziers, and women with headscarves paw unabashedly through racks of neon and lace. Even midscale shops in Syria equally supply for beauty on the inside and the outside:

Reader Appreciation: Questions of degrees

Thanks to the readers who found the site yesterday by searching “medium lesbians” and “am i an escort.
I really hope I could help lead you toward some sense of reconciliation. These things can be so … nuanced.

medium lesbians 1
iphone text message screen 1
what’s up with the state farm guy 1
racial profiling funny pictures 1
women in advertising 20th century 1
rob wilco and cat 1
zune hd 1
am i an escort

The Peanut Gallery in Center Stage

Shakespeare said that life is a stage and we’re merely players. In today’s internetty world it’s still true to an extent, except that we’re all fools, online not onstage, and in the absence of adequate directorial control, the peanut gallery is the final word in our existential tragicomedy. Life is a screen and we’re simultaneously chorus and reviewer. Indeed, commenter may as well be lead actor the way people pour themselves into the role. It’s a theatrical cottage industry, as evidenced by things like this page on Amazon that equates funny product reviews with, well, products. Products like the Daddle toy saddle, or the Mountain Three Wolf Moon Short Sleeve Tee, both of which feature lengthy, creative false testimonials that must have taken an awful long time to craft and which were posted anonymously for, well, god knows what reason. Though I wonder why one would bother (I know, ironic coming from a little-read pseudonymed blogger) I’m glad they do, because some of them are pretty witty.

And this week NY Magazine gave credit to a string of comments on a recipe (above) from Paula Deen on the Food Network blog. Like the posters on Amazon, it’s unclear what their motivations are, but I raise a can of peas to other computer snarksters  who can’t resist the urge to mock the unbowing stupidity of their terrestrial costars.

Like flaklbas who put it simply: “The recipe is complicated. The health benefits make it well worth it though.”

Just click, simmer over medium heat, salt to taste and enjoy.

Reader Appreciation: A Short Follow-Up

Thank you to the readers who, within a week of my last reader appreciation post regarding jew midgets, found the site by searching for “muscley midgets” and “annoying jews.” I feel like we’re covering a lot of ground here.

Oops, I Just Spammed Myself

Fucking technology. I just spammed myself. Look down.

See that post called 19 January, 2011 22:58? I didn’t write that. My email did. My blog host, WordPress, offers posting-by-email. And YahooMail has shitty security. Put those together and you get me spamming my own blog.

I broke the link so you won’t click on it and virusize yourself, but I couldn’t resist keeping the post up. Moral of the story: Fucking technology.

Reader Appreciation: You’ve come to the right place

Thanks to the reader who found the site by searching
jew midgets.”

Reader Appreciation: Yeah! Fuck ‘em!

Thanks to the reader who found the site today by searching “fuck clouds.”

I know, right?

Thanks, also, to the readers who’ve noticed and noted my recent output decline.  I been rasslin’ with a sudden surge in work that people actually pay for and it’s done a number on my priorities. In the new year I look forward to reattaining some sort of equilibrium and in due time I’ll be back on the Superhighway honking away at oncoming traffic.

Until then, friends, I’ll leave you with this. Eat up: