Unhelpful

I was thinking about the words “uphill” and “downhill” yesterday.

Why is it that both of them imply a difficult time? You can’t say “Well, my day is pretty bad, but after the midway point, it’s all downhill” to indicate that the day gets better after the middle. It still retains a negative connotation.

You can have an “uphill battle.” Why not a “downhill battle”?

Ahh, the time to move back into my dorm has drawn near. Being a good little misanthrop, I’ve devoted far more time than is healthy into coming up with ways to torture, humiliate, annoy, and otherwise alienate the poor sap who’s getting stuck with me. Here’s my favorite idea so far:

Ingredients: one male model poster (Fabio or someone like that), tape or thumbtacks, roommate with a girlfriend who often visits

Proper use: Hang up the poster above his area of the room, whether it’s his bed or his desk. This immediately serves one purpose: Your roommate thinks you’re either a homosexual or just an odd fellow. Either one is good.

Next, whenever your friends are around, point out the poster and mention how he often stares at the poster with a wistful look on his face. This makes your friends act oddly toward him.

Finally, the kicker: Get friendly with his friends and/or girlfriend. Tell them that he often mumbles the model’s name in his sleep. Tell them (especially the girlfriend) that his eyes are oddly drawn to your body while you’re changing.

Optional: Write “love letters” from him to the male model and leave them strewn about while his friends and family are visiting.

This should ensure that you either have a sullen, withdrawn roommate who never talks to you (good) or no roommate at all (even better!).

Good luck!

EverQuest players, do I have an offer for you! You see, I’m opening up a small sweatshop in the New Jersey area, and I need people used to working under mind-numbingly boring conditions for countless hours for slave wages.

I will pay you 50cents per hour — more than you could get for your account on eBay — and let you yell across the factory floor at each other all day, saying things like “LoL u dont no how 2 mkae Nikes rite! ur lame noob! heheheh.”

And, for the former-PVP players, you can even yell “rofl the stitching on thses shoez roxxors urs! I OWN U!”

Please send a resum

A note to all on-line game players:
“Uber” is not a word in any language.

“Über” is a German word meaning “over” or “above.” It does not mean “superior.” This mistaken impression comes from Nietzsche’s work Thus Spake Zarathustra, in which the “Übermensch” (literal translation: Overman) is mentioned. The closest English translation is “superman.”

So, please stop going on about “uber” this and “uber” that, because you’re only making yourselves sound stupid.

Thanks.

Today’s article-thingy is about “booth babes.” Now, in case you don’t know, a “booth babe” is a girl hired to stand around in a bikini or other skimpy clothing at the booths of game companies during conventions (E3, in this case) in order to promote… uh… breasts, I guess. The reasoning is that breasts sell games. I guess when you’re talking about lonely computer geeks, it’s not that far off.

While these poor women are being ogled by a bunch of fat, sweaty losers, some people choose to take it to the next level of humiliation. There are guys who walk up to these poor women and have their picture taken. I think it’s pretty humiliating, moreso for the guys than the girls. I assume they have their picture take in order to show their friends and say, “LOOK! Here’s a girl who isn’t repulsed by my presence, you owe me a Coke!” but I may be wrong. All things considered, it’s a pretty sad scene.

Now, if I had my own game company, I would hire post-op transsexuals to be my “booth babes.” After each lonely, horny geekboy comes up to have his picture taken, I’d have the girls hand each one a card that says, “Congratulations! You have just had your picture taken with a transsexual!”

For maximum enjoyment, I would have to video tape their reactions upon reading the card, of course.

[Edit]
Someone gave me this link to illustrate what I’m talking about. Weep with me.

Comments?

Aphex Twin is apparently getting rather popular. I just noticed that his song “Blur” played over the credits of the season finale of “The Sopranos.”

No complaints here.

While watching television (or, more accurately, ignoring commercials) recently, I heard a familiar tune in the background. I checked my computer’s speakers, thinking that maybe my MP3s were playing. But no, that was not the case.

Aphex Twin’s musical piece “4” was playing on the television as the musical backing to an anti-drug commercial. I was pleasantly surprised to hear it.

What significance does this have? None, I’m just happy that there’s a commercial that uses decent music.

Yes, boys and girls, it’s that time again: Wacky phone hi-jinks!

A few months ago, I was screwing around with the computer, as usual, and the phone rang. Not my cellphone, but my dorm phone. I don’t know anyone who would actually call me at midnight, so I picked up the phone. Usually, I answer with a “gameplan.” I usually do some sort of “character” (Mr. Happy, Mr. Monotone, etc) with telemarketers, but this was too late to be a telemarketer, so I answered unprepared.

I picked up the phone, and a male voice said, “Hey, sexy, what’s up?”

I immediately knew I was getting a crank call, so I knew I had an opportunity for some real fun.

Me: “Ooh, I’m not doing anything, stud.”
Him: “What are you wearing?”
I hestitated a moment… then inspiration hit me.
Me: “I’m wearing an extra-large adult diaper and a rainbow wig!”
Him: *silence*
Me: “Ooh, all this excitement made me soil my diaper. I’ve been a bad, bad boy. Will you change my diaper and spank me?”
Him: *a brief pause, followed by “uhhh….”*
Me: Hello, lover?
Him: *click*

My roommate at the time had been staring at me quizzically for a few moments, like I was some kind of weirdo. But this was the dude who used to have phone sex with his girlfriend while I had family and friends up in the room.

I bet he’ll never look at rainbow wigs and adult diapers in quite the same way.

[Before we begin: I want to apologize for being retarded initially. Elton John, indeed. That's what you get for writing updates on 3 hours of sleep.]

Anyway, I saw the following inspirational quote by Helen Keller today:

No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.

When I read that, my inner cynic couldn’t help wondering if she had actually said something so inspirational. She obviously required an interpreter, and who’s to say that the interpreter didn’t “put words in her mouth,” so to speak.

I know that if I were in her position, I wouldn’t have been very inspiriational. Most of my speeches would’ve been along the lines of, “Someone kill me, please. I can’t take another moment of this living Hell.”

But that’s probably because I’m not blind and deaf. I’m sure that it’s wonderfully relaxing. Once you go blind and deaf, you never go back!

Today is the most magical day of the semester for any student at my college: Class registration day. Dozens of sweaty, smelly students packed into the shoebox-sized Records and Registration Office, desperately trying to get into classes marginally better than “Basketweaving 101″ and “Intermediate Jamaican Steel-drumming 253.” Read more »

I’m not sure how funny this is, but Ceryx seemed to get a kick out of it, so at his behest, I am posting it here.

Several days ago, at about 11 am, my cell phone started ringing. That’s pretty odd, because I only use it for outgoing calls in emergencies. I tend to get a lot of telemarketer calls, which is good, because I derive a perverse pleasure in playing with telemarketers. I know it’s their job and they don’t deserve the abuse, but I do so nonetheless. I once had a telemarketer actually call me back after I concluded a conversation with “fuck off” to say “Sir, fuck you too.” I was never prouder of a telemarketer in my life.

But I digress.

So, the phone was ringing. I answered it. I was greeted with a jovial “Hey, Bob! It’s Sal!”

Now, most people, in this situation, would simply say, “I’m sorry, sir, but you have the wrong number.” But not me. Oh, no. Not me.

Summoning up my most cheery, happy voice, I said “Yo! Sal! How goes it, buddy?”

Sal proceeded to tell me about a number of problems at the “site.” I don’t know what the “site” was, but that didn’t matter. I winged it, answering most of his questions with “Yeah” and “Uh-huh.”

At one point, he said, “Hey, Bob, you sound a little funny. You alright?”

Luckily, I’m a fast thinker. “Ah, I have a goddamn cold,” I said.

The conversation ended a few seconds later, with Sal telling me that either myself, or some fellow named “Willie” should go out to the site later. I said, “Ah, okay. I’ll send out Willie as soon as he gets in. Bye, buddy!”

About 2 hours later, my phone rang.

I assume Willie never showed up.

I didn’t pick up the phone.

My phone rang several times an hour for several hours thereafter.

In retrospect, I probably cost some folks a pretty fair amount of cash and time. I feel a little bad about it. But it’s okay, I’m sure Sal understands.

After all, he seemed like a pretty nice guy.

Let’sContent!

Is this what you wanted, Ceryx? Content? Well, HERE IT IS.

I hope you fucking CHOKE.

I like words that conjure up images and sounds. Like ’scurillous.’ That word is cool, because every time I hear it, it makes me think of a squirrel, happily eating nuts and frolicking in a grassy field filled with wildflowers.

Normally, this is where I would put in a counterpoint that is as equally disturbing as the squirrel image is idyllic. But I can’t think of anything disturbing right now.

After being threatened with a h4xxor attack earlier this evening, I jokingly told the would-be h4xxor that my “RAM DIMMs have jumped out of my computer and fled the room in fear.”

I must thank that would-be h4xxor, because he got me thinking.

Why not roleplay as computer equipment?

I’ll start, I will be SX-Z313-XA64, the video card with inferiority issues due to only having 8 MB of RAM in a 32 MB world.

We can roll die to determine things like transistors, die size, voltage, clock speed, memory, what bus we use, whether we’re SCSI or UDMA, and so on. It will be more fun than anything you’ve ever done before, I swear.

Before you say “That’s stupid,” or “That’s the geekiest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” just think:

At least you’re not pretending you’re an anthropomorphic animal, a creepy aborted fetus thing, or King Xa’s’sde’ar’ade’aer’ad’a'tra’et’at’a'ytadfkaldf’adf’a'aerjau, the beautiful, immortal elf whose parents were killed by a roving gang of lesbian pirate gypsies.