Infinte Steez

The Bag to go with The Shoes

2009-11-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

Okay, so now that I'm working and being steezy and so forth, I had to pick up some new gear- a few pairs of jeans, a polo or two, all that good shit. Anyway, a gray area purchase that I made was a pair of sneakers from Undefeated in Silver Lake. The store was great-- an all around fun experience and with a generously stocked sale rack I was able to find something even I could afford. Anyway, while I may aspire to be like Russel Simmons and fresh to death it every day with crisp, shoes shelved for a lifetime after only one wear, that isn't a possibility for me, or probably for him anymore, now that Kimora has walked off with half of his loot, and possibly all of the left foot shoes. Look at me, namedropping people I saw on MTV Cribs, what a pro.

Anyway, so the point is, Undefeated sells products that are a tough combination of long product life cycle, low necessity, and high(ish) price. Plus, the store I went to was in Silverlake, which meant that parking was an impossible bitch. Basically, they need a way to stay top of mind, when there are a thousand other cheaper places to buy shoes, many of whom have more money to spend on advertising.

They came up with a pretty simple solution. After the dude rang me up, the slipped the box into a sturdy looking bag, and sent me on my way. I was pleased to discover that the shopping bag was of the sort environmentally conscious folks use to carry their whole-foods groceries-- namely, made of durable, reusable synthetics. The first thing this did was to validate my purchase price. Nothing is worse than a shitty bag, particularly when you've just exchanged several shekels for what amounts to a luxury item. Beyond that though, I'll keep this bag, and put shit in it when I go grocery shopping or whatever. It's sweet looking, and it doesn't have a smug message about the environment on it.

Well played, Undefeated, well played.

Getting Pumped

2009-09-17T20:37:00.001-07:00

People often ask me how, facing unemployment, basement dweller status, I manage to stay so upbeat-- how I muster up the energy to tear apart my enemies and attack the day like a hungry dog. It's true that from the surface, the odds are stacked against me, and yet like a salmon swimming up against the current, I soldier bravely onward. The secret to my success isn't exercise, since I can't face that until late at night, nor do I rely upon prayer or a hearty breakfast, since I don't get hungry until around noon-- the correct time for a human being to be up. Instead I look back to the old masters for inspiration, and every morning I watch the following videos:

When I see these high levels of badassery and douchebaggery I know I can succeed as long as I turn myself into a high operating hate machine.

Love

Ace

Embrace All Things Unholy: A Plan for the Raiders

2009-09-15T11:28:00.000-07:00

So I was watching the Chargers play the raiders on Monday Night Football and the announcer was kind enough to warn me that any accounts of the game that I give without the express written permission of ESPN and the National Football League will land me in the slammer, but suffice it to say, the night did not end in a resounding defeat for the Raiders.

Growing up in So Cal, not giving a soupy green shit about sports, I don't have fond memories of watching the Raider game with my pops, or anything like that. All I remember, and all I have seen about the Raiders is a bunch of trashy fans who are pretty far down the totem poll, even for NFL fans. The team used to be epic, but now sucks. It's soft of defense, soft on offense, and plays in Oakland. In fact, in Monday's game, their pitiful stadium still had a dirty baseball diamond in the middle of the field. PA-THETIC.

Anyway, apparently the Raiders used to be good, way back when they were coached by John "Frank Caliendo is a hack" Madden. They were renowned in the NFL for punishing, dirty play. I think that, in order for the chargers to return to glory, they need to return to their roots. Now, admittedly, my plan will take some time to enact, but bear with me.

1. Draft every troubled player in the NFL:
A great start would have been making a generous offer to Michael Vick, one of the most maligned figures in the Modern NFL, and T.O, a guy who is out of his damn mind, but can still move the football better than anyone. Go ahead and google "Raiders Fans" and tell me if you think these people could give two shits about animal cruelty. When Plaxico Burress gets out of jail, give him a place to go. Every time a player is involved in a crime, let it be known that he can find a home with the Raiders. Vick and T.O are both likely to have good seasons, and the owners and coaches of teams who banned them will be kicking themselves come playoff time.

2. Send scouts to prisons looking for players:
Okay, this is MOSTLY a PR move, but imagine the buzz, "Raiders Looking for a Few Good Murderers." It's kind of like the inverse of the premise of that crappy Mark Wahlberg movie about the Eagles QB. So anyway, pick up like 5 players, on the cheap, and only play the best couple, but put them right on your O and D lines. Again, this is for buzz, but when the other guys hear that they are facing convicted murderers, its likely to have some effect.

3. Go for every fourth down inside the 40:
This is a simple one, and one that will play to the strengths of your punishing new quasi-lunatic linemen. I honestly think, from having watch USC go for so many 4ths, that it sets the other team's defense off balance, and by forcing them to play one more set of downs it will wear them down. I know the safe move is to go for the safe three, but it's not like the Raiders have been losing a lot of games by 3 points, is it?

4. Free beer to the loudest section:
At home games, let it be known that you will reward the loudest and rowdiest section with free beer. If you didn't google 'Raiders Fans' last time, go ahead and do it now to see why this is a great idea.

5. Don't worry so much about the fouls:
Budget about 50 yards of penalties into your defensive game plan and then just let them wail on the offense. This goes to my point #3 as well. The Raiders don't usually play in close games, so if your goal is to shake up and injure the other team rather than to win, then it becomes easier to accept getting a couple penalties per game for late hits. The point is, the Raiders should be content to ride out a season or two nearish the bottom, if it means establishing an identity as the scariest team to play against.

The Raiders were, I believe, second from the bottom in 2008. That means they beat the Detroit Lions, who managed to lose every game they played. When you think about the Lions you think about a bunch of sad sacks, but when you think about the Raiders, you will, if my plan goes correct, think about a bunch of savages who would rather hurt the other guy than score. If everything goes according to plan, the Raiders will either get some respect back, or be kicked out of the league, thus opening up the chance of a Pro Team coming to LA, or better yet, the NFL just bumping the USC trojans from the NCAA to pro status like they should have done years ago.

Life's not too short, it's too long

2009-09-14T11:31:00.000-07:00

I hate the expression, "life is too short." You know, some jagov is always saying, "life's to short to stay mad over the small stuff." that's bullshit. Don't get me wrong, I usually enjoy kicking around the ol' mortal coil, it's just this particular construction has always bothered me. Life isn't too short to waste on a crappy job, it's too long to spend doing something you hate. If you hate your shit job, you're still going to work about 260 days a year at it.

260 x 30 years / 365= 21 years

That sounds like a long time to me, matter of fact it sounds like like a jail sentence.

Anyway, that's an example of something that was too long for twitter, but probably too short and dull for this blog. Anyway...

Fucking Kanye

2009-09-14T10:33:00.000-07:00

It took a special and important moment to get me out of my self-imposed exile. It wasn't MJ's death, the dow passing 9000, Clinton nabbing some Chinese babes from China, or even USC's victory over Ohio State. What brought me out of my slumber was a special moment.

I felt a great disturbance in the lulz....

You know what happened. I know that my blog is far enough down the internet food chain that I can't possibly be breaking this story twelve hours after it happened. I know you know because everyone on my facebook changed their status, without having the self awareness to know that watching the VMA's is for fourteen year olds. I was off playing Madden 08 because I'm broke, but I felt the aforementioned phenomena, and knew something was afoot.

When my douche sense is tingling, I follow it, so I dropped my wiimote and I ran to the nearest internet and watched the video. I received a call during the video and as we were talking-- me keeping one eye on the action-- she suddenly says, "hang on, my roommate wants to show me something." I knew what was up, so we both watched as Kanye West, charged the stage like a heroic knight charging the castle, ready to save the princess.

George Bush didn't care about black people, and Kanye West doesn't care about white chicks. He acted like he didn't know who Taylor Swift was, which is how I would act, because I don't know who she was. I thought she may have been the high school musical chicks, but not the one who was naked twice, but that's not the case. Apparently she's just some chick. Anyway, Kanye grabs the mic and heroically starts yapping away. He probably knew it was an incredibly rude and childish thing to do, or maybe he didn't because since his mom got pwned by a bad stomach staple, he's reverted even deeper into a child. Either way, it didn't matter. Some things are bigger than manners. Kanye saw a tragedy about to happen, and he couldn't let it go on undeterred. You wouldn't think it was rude if the passengers on your flight stormed the terrorists attempting to hijack it-- would you?

Kanye saw that the entire world-- even just for a few seconds-- was being deprived of his opinion, and he couldn't let that shit go.

This is basically the idiot's version of another epic douche moment from earlier this week:

Basically, it looks like other assholes of the world are out there stepping their game up, being impossible assholes, and they've pretty much just taken the rock to the hole, and said look, Infinite Steez, it's your move. Alright internet, I got this. Hail Satan.

Nevermind, I have a few jobs lined up:

2009-06-06T18:15:00.000-07:00

Don't worry everyone, I have a few gigs in my future, all found through craigslist

Plus I found that dude whose number I lost:

Salary Expectations

2009-06-06T17:27:00.000-07:00

I love it when a job asks me what my salary expectations are. I haven't been paid for work in like ten months, and that wasn't much either. I expect to be paid, that's it. Companies should just come out and be like-- hey, we're gonna pay you like $20K a year, or whatever, and if I want to get paid that much I'll apply and if not I'll keep looking. They do this-- obviously-- so that they can take the best combination of qualified and willing to work for peanuts. If the job goes for $30 but the person will do it for $20, they can basically take advantage of the lack of knowledge of pay structure.

Then again, this might be a great strategy that people can apply to their lives, like dating for instance. On a first date, the chick can just say-- "hey, what base do you think you'll be getting to tonight," and if it were me I'd be like, uh, I think that first base is definitely reasonable, but second is not by any means out of the question..." Meanwhile, this chick was totally down for anal and now I'm getting gypped.

TL;DR-- Asking someone what they expect is a great way to make them look like an asshole.

Fuck Kobe

2009-05-31T15:12:00.000-07:00

Look, I'll be the first to admit I know nothing about basketball, and I could generally kind of give a shit about it. That said, I've been following the playoffs and have decided that, having learned to love football through sheer force of will, I can easily do the same for basketball. It's been working so far and I've been stoked to watch the Lakers kick ass, particularly after last year's disappointing loss to the Celtics. I wasn't disappointed at the time but apparently I shoulda been.

Like anything in life, mankind loves a narrative and commentators try and give that to sports, which is sort of boring otherwise. The problem with Kobe, however, is that despite being crazy talented, he's an ice cold motherfucker-- and not in the good way either. The dude is called the Black Mamba, which would imply that he's sick as shit, which he is-- but he doesn't seem to care. His play is utterly joyless.

I've been digging the epic Kobe/LeBron Most Valuable Puppet commercials. As usual, Nike is kicking the shit out of all other shoe companies in terms of ads, as exhibited below:

Here, Kobe is--unless I'm mistaken-- voiced by the crazy animated David Alan Grier who gives his puppet a lot more life than the real dude has. As a matter of fact, I pretty much prefer the puppet to the actual Kobe in every way. I'l lleave it up to you, but I think the choice is clear:

Craigslist: just another collection of jagovs.

2009-05-31T14:59:00.000-07:00

I go back and forth on how I feel about the world at large. Sometimes I think that I secretly love everyone and find beauty in everything, and sometimes-- like now, I think that everyone besides me is a fucking idiot. I've been looking for work fairly haphazardly, and also trying to sell a few things with some success. While my dream life of being a highly profile copywriter who gets paid in cash and bj's and lives upstairs from a shitty bar may seem far away, there is no reason I can't pick up a little work in the interim, right?

Wrong.

Wrong, wrong wrong.

I'm basically looking for labor at this point, because I'm a monstrous fat ass and want to be able to fit into the flossy clothes I own. I also think it's good for the soul. Fine. Here is an example of a labor gig posting on craigslist:

"SEARCHING FOR A CLEANER TO HELP ME CLEAN MY APARTMENT THOROUGHLY AND GET PAID, SOMEONE THAT WOULDN'T GO TO MY APARTMENT AND STEAL MY THINGS, I NEED SOMEONE WHO'S VERY RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY. INTERESTED CLEANER SHOULD EMAIL ME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE WITH THEIR LOCATION(NECESSARY). ALL EMAILS SHOULD BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THIS EMAIL. XXXXXXX@gmail.com(compulsory) else your application will not be PROCESSED. "

I love how pissed off this person is already, and I can tell they're pissed off because of the all-caps.

What the fuck?

I just read A Confederecy of Dunces:

Here's a pic of me reading it:

The book is about a far loser who lives with his Ma and is sent out to find work. I managed to finish it before that became my life exactly but shit, I was cutting it pretty fine. Anyway, I just wanted to update my loyal readers (google analytics tells me you fuckers are out there), and to let you know that if you need shit did, I'm lookin for work.

Fuck

2009-05-17T15:22:00.000-07:00

Okay baby, it's been a while, and I missed you. I just graduated though, and am unemployed, so I have bigger fish to fry atm. Sorry, fuckos, You'll have to wait a bit for me to dive back into the blogosteez.

What I been doing

2009-04-28T21:07:00.001-07:00

I've been busy failing at life and neglecting you, the dear IS blog, so here's some shit I've been doing:

Reading Comic Books
Boning
Drinking
BBQing
Being steezy
Listening to the Adam Carolla Podcast
Working On My Portfolio
Writing a Little
Raging
Avoiding Phonecalls
Thinking Unbreakable was awesome
Not studying
Not working
Not getting jobs
Not getting calls or e-mails returned
Feeling Insulted
Getting tired of advertising
Wallowing
Appreciating all the help I can get
Being terrified of graduating

Twitter is overexposed and useless.

2009-04-07T17:22:00.000-07:00

Every article about twitter starts the same.

"If you don't know what twitter is, it's a microblogging site, in which users (including me, har har har) are asked one simple question-- what are you doing right now. They have 140 characters to answer. Sounds simple, right? Well that's the beauty of it, and it's what has made Twitter the fastest growing social networking site of 2009"

I'll add the caveat that I'm on twitter, before I continue. I also have a facebook, two blogs, an account with fark, gamespot, opentable, Stumbleupon, and a half dozen other sites.. Sometimes I comment on 4chan too. Most of the other sites I belong to have a unique funtion, but twitter doesn't. I also only actually know about 5 or 6 of my twitter buddies in real life, so the status update is not really much of an ego-feeder for me. Roger Ebert recently wrote an article about twitter that is a mix of brilliant insight and "hey you kids, stop playin' grab ass and get off my lawn" stupidity, so you can read that and hear all about how Twitter is kind of vain and stupid and mindnumbing. That's not my beef. My real problem with twitter is that it doesn't really work for what it's supposed to do.

Facebook, by keeping wallposts, and pictures, and videos, and a hundred other things, allows you to stay in touch with people. It's a weak association, but I can still have a vague idea of what the guy I used to sit next to in algebra class is up to these days. In our increasingly fragmented society, this is I guess what passes for friendship. Twitter doesn't help with that really.

What am I doing?
sitting on my ass, getting my portfolio together, wasting time.

Same as a lot of people. A lot of the time, what I'm doing is just song lyrics. Right now I'm plugging this blog. The snapshots twitter gives you are so small as to be unrecognizable. It's like facebook for dummies, and facebook is already for dummies. It kind of reminds me of those jitterbug phones they have for seniors. That's what twitter is for social networking.

Twitter does work very well as an RSS feed, allowing you to keep up with a number of blogs in one place. The sites I follow aren't generally my favorites, just ones I tend to forget to follow up on. That way, I am alerted when lovely package or high snobiety have something new and cool.

Twitter is useless for keeping up with people, and I'm sure that if I looked into it I could find a better RSS feed compiler.

Fine, there are lots of uselss sites. Lots of them. No, like a lot.

The difference? Those sites aren't being rammed down our throats. The media, is so enamored with twitter that, if it ever was cool, it sure as shit isn't now. The problem is that they completely missed the boat on social networking, jumping on the bandwagon after the story was about three years old. They didn't want to be Ric Romero again, so when Twitter came along they reported the hell out of it. Everyday, a twitter story appears on the news, on fark, on digg. It's forced and it's false. In my marketing classes, we hear all about it, how it's the next big thing. If it were the next big thing, more than two people in a class of fifty would be on it.

Twitter kind of sucks, and it's kind of okay, and it annoys me that I have to write about it, contributing to the phenomenon that I am so irritated by. Twitter itself is not worth talking about. The yellow journalism that created it, is.

TL;DR-- fuck twitter.

(image credit: Banksy)

I Love Wikipedia Lists

2009-04-07T16:05:00.001-07:00

I love wikipedia. Not as much as love ED, but I love it a lot. One of the best parts of Wikipedia, is that it's full of crazy shit-- for example their many lists. The follow is a selection of my favorite Wikipedia Lists:

List of Common Misconceptions
List of Gay Animals
List of Bowtie Wearers --
List of People Who Said They Were Jesus
List of Hoaxes
List of Ways to Accidentally Upset the Chinese
List of Weird Units of Measurement
List of Breastfeeding Activists
List of Japanese Words That Sound Like Some Other Japanese Word
List of Things Named After Einstein
List of Unusual Deaths
List of Drag Queens
List of Murdered Popes

Of course, this won't really be complete until we have access to the ultimate list.

Please note that this is not a top 10 list, which-- as I have previously noted-- are stupid as shit. This is instead, just a bunch of things I think are rad. I spared you my opinions and meaningless rankings.

Sorry for no posts lately, I've been working pretty hard on the financial site.

The Infinite Steez Media Network is Expanding

2009-04-01T16:41:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me recently-- why should I just have one blog that nobody reads, when I could have dozens? Clearly this shit works for Gawker (except for the part about nobody reading it-- I love me some Gawker) so why not for me. So, I have kicked off my first side project: The Steezonomist. TS will be the center for all financial news. It's sort of different from IS, and the acronym is a little bit better too. Also I use acronyms now. Anyway, The Steezonomist will be taking up some more of my time now, so we'll probably drop down to like one article a month. On the other hand, by definiton, TS requires about 20 articles a month, so that's cool.

Keep your eyes peeled for future growth to the infinite steez media network, and check out The Steezonomist for the real inside view on today's turbulent financial world.

Ace Out!

Foot Candy

2009-03-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

I am in the midst of a recession, working as an unpaid intern, and as such I have been doing a lot of browser-window shopping. I haven't owned a pair of Nikes in a grip of years, but I'm thinking about changing that as soon as I come into some paper. Further intensifying this desire are the epic fucking user-designs you can put together in nike's customizing shop. As I suck at basketball, I opted for the Action Sports section, but you can do this shit to anything you want. Epic.

In honor of my Trojans kicking ass in the NCAA tourney:

And in honor of me being a steezy motherfucker:

Holy shit. Still, things could be worse, at least I'm not lusting after the Louis Vuitton Kanye West Sneaks (thanks Black Raibow):

Or else, the fucking dominating new Chinese Air Force 1s, which admittedly I mainly want for the box: PS, HighSnobiety is my new fave:

Oh god... Sorry, I'm kind of having a little fauxmosexual freak out here. Anyway, if you're broke like I am, a nice cheap compromise can be checking out this shit.

This dude Ian has assembled a ton of lacing techniques, which was something I didn't even give a shit about until I realized it was an effective way of taking my mind of my shit being in ruins. Some highlights:

This, I couldn't actually make work:

But this was pretty easy:

The Line method, coupled with some nice new red laces, have helped me to fall in love with my chucks all over again. Anyway, I'm currently twitter following a number of steez based blogs and site sand shit so I'm hoping to be blogging some more steez myself in the future.

Everyone on the internet hates you

2009-03-10T09:51:00.001-07:00

Schadenfreude, it's a synonym for lulz. It means taking joy in the pain and suffering of others. Encyclopedia Dramatica defines lulz thusly:

"Lulz is laughter at someone else's expense (from the German concept of "Schadenfreude".) This makes it inherently superior to lesser forms of humor. Just as the element of surprise transforms the physical act of love into something beautiful, the anguish of a laughed-at victim transforms lol into lulz, making it longer, girthier, and more pleasurable. Lulz is engaged in by Internet users who have witnessed one major economic/environmental/political disaster too many, and who thus view a state of voluntary, gleeful sociopathy over the world's current apocalyptic state, as superior to being continually emo." - Encyclopedia Dramatica

Anyway, even you have probably heard of Fmylife.com, which is one of the few contemporary examples of something that the mainstream (read, people I am frenemies with on facebook) enjoy, that is not complete crap. Fmylife (named that because the owner is a pussy, afraid of saying fuck? Needs verification) basically has people post a short story about something shitty that has happened to them, and then the rest of the world votes whether or not it was their fault.

Here are some gems:

The best part about this site, though, is the fact that no matter what has happened to you, somebody thinks it's your fault:

Or maybe even 2,000 people. Nice.

Shit is SO cash

2009-03-09T23:49:00.000-07:00

I never got into this game when I was little, not having much in the way of musical talent, but I can still appreciate this shit:

and my favorite:

alright, don't worry, I got like 10 more blog posts in the works, that was just the easiest. Love you.

Gut Reaction: Fuck the Dow Jones

2009-03-06T14:53:00.000-08:00

It must be nice to be in charge of a major corporation. In addition to being able to count on a government bailout when you fuck up at your job, you can also blame your fuck-ups on the government when you continue to fail at the task you are given millions of dollars to do.

John Stewart recently made an (increasingly rare) good observation on the current stock situation:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

The Dow Knows All

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

jesus christ that's a long embed code. Thanks a lot Viacom, you fucking piece of shit, as if anyone has ever wanted to hear about your shitty jokes of the day. Anyway, the point Stewart makes is that the Dow Jones isn't an indication of fucking anything. That's a solid point, but here's another, better one, from me:

The financial sector seems to be coming out to say, "People don't want to invest in our company because they have no confidence in President Obama's Stimulus Package." Why don't we apply Occam's Razor for a minute... Maybe people don't want to invest in stocks becuase most companies seem to be fucking up and because we all know that Stockbrokers are a bunch of goddamn con artists. Maybe people don't want to invest because they have less money because bullshit companies have been jacking up prices on basic items like grocery store produce, originally made more expensive due to rising gas costs, but which have remained stagnant. Maybe people don't want to invest because no matter how nice your suit is, you are all still just fucking gambling.

TL;DR-- fuck you, suit.

Ad Stuff: Holy Shit, this is amazing

2009-02-26T14:19:00.000-08:00

I have long felt that SFW porn is the greatest shit in history, and now Diesel, known for their generally cheeky attitude, has outdone themselves by embracing the internet trend in a recent ad.

Peep this shit, and prepare to be ~~amazed~~ aroused

this is really the first time I've seen an ad so good I didn't even have the heart to be jealous I didn't do it. Holy. Fucking. Shit.

If you're not familiar with SFW, you should read this article from ED, or else just read this explanation here, from me:

Basically, you take a pornographic image, and use MS paint to cover up the dirty parts, making it look like something innocuous.

Diesel's Viral Agency, creatively called the Viral Factory made the spot of vintage porn for Diesel's XXX Dirty Thirty, 30th Anniversary party... I'm sorry, this would be a longer post, but I need to go watch that clip again. Fucking amazing.

Ad Stuff: More Nut Ads Plz

2009-02-25T16:43:00.000-08:00

Nut Ad Reviews

I love nuts. I’m thinking about running to the store after class and buying some nuts. I can visualize the jar, and possibly the flavor, but I can’t call to mind a brand. I’m guessing a lot of people are kind of in that same boat, which explains why I’ve been seeing nut ads all over the damn place of late.

Why the fuck am I seeing nut ads all over the damn place?

Background for the slow learners:

the Academy Awards, which, in terms of advertising dollars, is basically the Superbowl for broads. Obviously, as the Acamdey Awards are artistically based they don’t want to have the full level of integration that you find in the Superbowl, but still, that fucking thing has gotta be a goldmine, ( By the way, Robert Downey Jr. got fucking ROBBED) While people pay more attention to (and more money for) the commercials in the Super Bowl, there is a school of thought that says you can reach a more desirable market segment through the Academy Awards.

Got it?

Anyway, so despite all that, the Academy Awards is full of weak-ass ads for some brand of nuts I’ve never even heard of. On top of all that, to quote Bill O’Reilly’s immortal words, “the fucking thing sucks.” Here it is:

Now, Adweek’s Barbara Lippert who is usually wrong about everything was wrong about this too,

“The four spots had a very Kashi-ish vibe mixed with an Obama-esque determination to make a difference, which all somehow came off without seeming overly earnest.”

Sorry , but these fucking commercials sucked. The whole thing was boring and irrelevant. I’m not enough of a client-whore to say that the product needs to be in the spot, but it should be slightly relevant, or at the very least, the ad should be interested. Talking for 30 seconds about some cutesy hobo kitchen in Chicago is a special interest piece for a 7 pm local news broadcast, not an ad campaign. As my copywriting professor was fond of saying, “It’s borrowed interest,” and as I am fond of saying, “it fucking sucked.”

Okay, so I said that at the very least it had to be interesting, but I take that back. Failing even that, at the bottom of the barrel minimum, they should’ve said something like, “True North is proud to donate $50K to this kitchen, in addition to 3 metric tons of nuts, which the hobos promptly scarfed down like filthy squirrels.”

Dear True North Nuts: I am currently looking for paid employment, and will work for a fraction of the cost of your current agency.

Oh, and as long as I’m talking about nuts, a topic I enjoy, I might as well address Emerald Nuts.

Emerald Nuts has weird, uncomfortable ads. They started a year or two ago with Robert Goulet, I think this ran during the annual advertising suckfest that is the Superbowl. Basically Emerald Nuts is here to tell you that they’re creepy. Whatever, that’s fine. They did a shit-ton of that during the bowlgames in December. I probably watched at least 20 bowl games this year, and as a result I likely saw 80-100 ads for emerald nuts. Okay, whatever. My pops hated them, and I thought they were a bit odd, but at least they have some character.

Dear Emerald Nuts: Keep being weird, but try and make it funny.

Infinite Steez's Top 5 Websites that depend entirely on Top 10 Lists

2009-02-24T13:40:00.001-08:00

Like most of you in the unwashed rabble, I have a love/hate relationship with top-10 lists. They can be fun to read, but on the other hand they're completely subjective and usually bullshit. On the other other hand, as a blogger I can see the appeal in boiling your writing down to a few bullet points. Apart from anything else, I suppose it gives your work an air of finality. It sounds better to say "Top 5 Crazy Cat Pictures" than it does to say "Here Are Some Pictures of Crazy Cats That I Found." Therefore, I'm going to give it a shot and provide you, the loyal Infinite Steez reader, with my top 5 list of sites that would be nowhere without their top 10 lists.

#5 Time Magazine.com

Time Magazine, which apparently used to engage in journalism, now relies solely on lists. This used to be the province of late night host David Letterman but Time Magazine figured it made more sense to save it's dumb as dildos readers the trouble of sifting through pages and pages of writing and instead disseminate everything into bullet points. I actually just remembered that I have already ragged on Time Magazine for this shit in a previous blog post, but whatever, here we go again.

With Time, it usually starts out something like this,

"Tom Hanks isn't the first celebrity to activate a particle collider, in honor of the famous actor being tapped to switch on the Large Hadron Collider, we take a look the top 10 ten Celebrity Particle Collider Moments."

This prevents them from providing much in the way of opinion or commentary, they just have to say that whatever it is has happened before. It's kind of like when you're watching football and the commentator says, "This is the first time a Quarterback has run in more than three touchdowns since 1965, when..." You get it, right? Time Magazine is kind of like the dipshit who passes a card with the fact on it to John Madden.

Right now, they'd be happy to tell you about Letterman's Top 10 Awkward Guests, Top 10 Celebrity Twitter Feeds (+10 pts for Celebrity inclusion), and Top 10 Pregnant Performers (+25 points for the always rewarding baby, vagina, celebrity trifecta. Fuck you, Time.

#4 AskMen.com

I actually have no real beef with AskMen.com. My original number four was College Humor.com, but that site depends entirely on videos developed by others, drawing only a small amount of it's readership from lists. Ask Men, on the other hand, is largely lists. I do have a book by them entitled, 'From the Bar to the Bedroom' which one of my roommates found out by the trash and gave to me, but other than that I've had little interaction over the years.

You see, this is the part of list formation that presents something of a challenge. You can think of three examples of something, but 'Top Three' doesn't quite have the same ring to it. Therefore, you have to spin it out and pick some subpar examples. Fortunately for me, however, Ask Men is ripe for pwnage.

Here is a list of some of there current top lists:

They also offer a list of top ten long construction projects (sounds riveting-- see what I did there? If you didn't it was a great fucking pun), top ten female spies, and a top ten list of myths about Canadians. Good work AskMen.com. The only thing worse than the inane subject matter of these lists is the staggeringly irritating format in which they proceed. You begin with a splash screen, suggesting that, before reading the article, you buzz it up, or put it on digg, then you start a tedious slideshow, and when you press the button taking you to the number one, you get some shit ad in your way. God I hate advertising... Fuck You Askmen.com. I have proved, yet again, that I can spend 5 minutes thinking about any subject and manage to get really annoyed about it.

#3 Spike.com

Spike is another one of those websites that men should feel embarrassed about. It's sort of like Ask Men except stupider, and more proudly ignorant. Spike drinks Budweiser. Spike goes to stripclubs. Spike votes Republican. Spike is dumb as shit. I don't really have time to get into the abysmal programming the network has to offer, as this article has already taken me literally minutes to write, instead I will focus on the terrible top tens.

Case in point, the article that inspired this whole blog post, a top ten list of deaths caused by video games. While I enjoy schadenfreude (lulz) as much as any other asshole, I have some serious qualms about any article that has a top ten list where two of the answers are about babies being beaten to death.

Still, I don't want to impose my prudish sense of good taste on you, so it's fortunately that in addition to finding Spike to be morally questionable, I also find to be trite and unfunny. Their Top 10 Valentine's Day Tips was peppered with the predictable included (Spend a Ton of Money, Surprise Her) as well as stupid shit (Give her a Nickname, Don't Groom). In addition to this, the topics they choose aren't even really especially interesting. They tend to favor the Ask Men formula of _______ that will get you laid, and that's pretty much the height of their creativity. Having said that, this blog has a 'Shit that will get you fucked' tag, so maybe I should hold my tongue...

Anyway, Spike would be nowhere without these lists, and the lists fucking suck. Maybe that's why Spike.com is fucking nowhere. Next.

#2 GamesRadar.com

You've got to love Games Radar, because they make no fucking effort whatsoever to make their lists coherent. It's kind of like they just sit down and go, "Alright, let's think of something bizarrely specific and then get a bunch of examples. As they say themselves, they have Top 7 lists of " everything from girl-on-girl kisses to Mario Party drinking games." The lists on Games Radar are always full of bizarre shit, and like all good lists, the order pretty much doesn't matter. Unlike the previous two entries, I dig this site because there's some creativity involved in what they do. The kind of creativity it takes to find 7 Gory Deaths in Cutesy Games, 7 Shower Scenes, 7 Enemies You Didn't Want to Kill.

Better than this, however, are the lists that aren't simply weird, but are also interesting.The 7 Worst Parts of Best Games is pretty interesting, as is their compendium of 7 worst release dates. They sort of lose it with their crazy long lists such as the top 101 best moments in gaming (part one) but on the other hand, who the fuck cares.

Now, while I dig the lists on GR, I totally hate the shit out of everything else they do. The reviews are terrible, the features are weak. All this site has is lists. Still, unlike many other sites, their lists are pretty much okay.

#1 Cracked.com

My whole life I had always considered Cracked Magazine to be a runner up to the already fairly lackluster Mad Magazine. A Pepsi to their Coke, a Penthouse to their Playboy. You get the idea. Anyway, over the summer, when I first began getting all of my news from the ~~always~~ intermittently funny news media compiler, Fark, I started reading Cracked Magazine's Top # List of Whatever. These were pretty good, as you can skim them for the gist of what they're talking about, and get your lols that way. They are pretty varied and sometimes interesting, though never particularly funny. Still, I kept reading away for a few months before I started to reflect on what bullshit this is.

I probably go to Cracked two or three times a month and I can confidently say I have never looked at anything but a list. Somehow, their lists manage to pop up on Fark every week, and people are getting a little sick of it, with "Still no Cure for Cracked lists" being a common headline ammendment. Anyway, good or bad, there's little doubt that without it's lists, Cracked.com would be a fucking ghost town.

Don't believe me? Here's their homepage-- Can you spot any lists?

Runner Up:

Digg

Prove me wrong.

Ad Stuff: Facebook is a fucking dead zone.

2009-02-23T20:34:00.000-08:00

Being that I’m an ad man, and that I’m currently sitting in a boring as balls marketing class, thinking that they should probably just have me teach this shit, I’ve decided to drop some fucking knol on you.

While this should be blindingly obvious to anyone who uses the service, I have a brilliant marketing tidbit:

facebook apps are dead as fucking dead.

I wouldn’t have thought this needed to be clarified, given the tremendous backlash against crappy zombie v. ninja games, but every time I talk to Internet marketers, they invariably suggest making a facebook app.

“I don’t know,” they say, “facebook is getting big—let’s try that.”

Sometimes this comes in a professional setting, sometimes in class, but whenever I hear it I cringe.

The much maligned, “New Facebook,” released last summer, shoved a bunch of the silly shit to the back page, which nobody fucking ever looks at. Even Burger King’s brilliant campaign came a little too late to be worthwhile. Oh fucking well., except for a few rare cases, it makes the brand look shitty and awkward.

If you wanna advertise on facebook, have them give away a ‘gift’ in the name of your product or brand. Gifts are these crappy like half-inch .gif squares that you can send to people. It’s sort of like the original facebook application, and one of the few that remains on the front page and, more importantly, everybody has access to it. Originally, facebook charged you $1 for these, later they decided it would be smarter to charge you 100 points, with each point equaling one penny. This allows them to charge 300 points, or 3 fucking dollars for something even more worthless than a greeting card. Sound like bullshit? It is, but that doesn’t matter. It’s infinitely more worthwhile.

looks like profit to me:

What the fuck is this?

2009-02-20T15:22:00.001-08:00

As you, the loyal infinte steez reader, are well aware, I am very intrested in the large hadron collider. While the Onion recently informed us of some good news on that front, Some other site has a horrifyingly terrible, new development. Tom fucking Hanks may be the dude who turns on the LHC. Now, first, I'd like to address the fact that I tried searching for this story on MSNBC and CNN and neitehr one was covering it, choosing instead to devote precious time to Octopussy, Missing White Girls, and Steroid Usage. Well done, assholes.

Tom Hanks, (pictured right) star of such films as the That Thing You Do, The Money Pit, and Volunteers, will potentially be the guy who destroys the planet earth.

Jesus fucking Christ.

It's fucking cold.

2009-02-20T15:17:00.000-08:00

Check this shit out.

What's that? You think this is a weak-ass excuse for a post after a week off? Tough shit.

Media Pro-Tip: Being Passive Aggressive is the Path to Success

2009-02-11T10:03:00.000-08:00

I was reading some article about some asshole from Las Vegas, which I was about to blog about because I figured if there's anything my blog needs it's more bullshit posts about politics that ramble on and on, possibly with extended run-on sentences but then I changed my mind.

Basically, Obama came out and said:

“We’re going to do something to strengthen the banking system. You are not going to be able to give out these big bonuses until you pay taxpayers back. You can't get corporate jets. You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime. There's got to be some accountability and some responsibility.” (emphasis added, because no one can speak in italics)

Well the crabby mayor of Vegas came out swinging, by which I mean he started crying and demanded an apology:

“That's outrageous. He owes us an apology. He owes us a retraction. What is a better place, I say, for them to come here. For them to change their mind and go someplace else and to cancel at the suggestion of the president of the United States, that is outrageous.”

I will address the issue of pretending to be offended for fun and profit in a later article, but the real genius here comes from the end of the article.

"Goodman last made national news for defending an earmark he wanted put in the stimulus package, a $50 million museum dedicated to the history of organized crime."

Boom! Headshot! Article authors Sunlen Miller and Jake Tapper aren't writing an opinion piece here, they're writing journalism. Journalism is different from the opinioneering practiced by Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olberman (what an asskicker) and myself. The difference is that 1. Journalism takes actual work, usually in the form of difficult research (as opposed to just yelling) and 2. Journalism generally requires you to feign neutrality Miller and Tapper manage to maintain their journalistic impartiality while still defending Obama. They do it by including an anectdote about Goodman, the mayor, that makes him look ridiculous and frivolous. If I were them, I would've referenced another incident I read about in which the Mayor told a room of 4th Graders all about how much he loves gin. Me too, Mayor Goodman, me too.

Good work abc, there's nothing like being passive aggressive to make others look ridiculous while still appearing reasonable yourself.

Know What I Don't Care About? Other People's Kids.

2009-02-10T11:48:00.000-08:00

Now Missing White Girl Syndrome is a well documented phenomenon, as is the MSM's fascination with shit nobody oughta care about. In the past week there have been stories alternating on the news--- The Stimulus Package, That Caylee Girl, and The Octuplets. Can you guess which one of these will have an effect on your life? Only one. It's totally sad that some crazy broad killed her adorable little girl, but tons of sad shit is happening all the time. Just because something is unpleasant doesn't make it news. The Nooz runs shit like this all the time, and then, they feel like they need to run human interest pieces to make us feel better, so we get stories about children writing letters to soldiers in Iraq, which I also don't give a shit about. Oh, and that chick who had like a hundred babies-- I don't even know how that qualifies as news. What the fuck.

Oh, I also don't care about hotel fires in China, particularly if the hotel isn't built yet and nobody was fucking hurt.

Culture: The International Kinda Sucked.

2009-02-09T11:30:00.000-08:00

Here's a tl;dr for you-- the international, that clive owen movie, kinda sucked.

I saw an advanced screening and while I was expecting to be wowed, it actually was pretty weak. Not only is this not Clive Owen's best film, it isn't even his best film about a bank. Side Note: I when I saw the trailer I was hoping it was a sequel to the brilliant inside man (but in fairness when I saw the trailer for inside man, I was hoping it was a remake of the brilliant Quick Change starring Bill Murray) and this was not the first time I was disappointed by this movie.

The acting was pretty much alright but then again I know dick about acting, I won't address that too too much. The plot was sort of convoluted and this comes from a guy who likes shit complicated. The bank didn't reall come off as sinister enough, but paradoxically at the same time they seemed to be just as ridiculously and lamely evil as a 90's era Bond villain. If this is Owen's attempt to show us why we should be grateful to have Daniel Craig as bond, mission accomplished.

It wasn't all bad though. There were a few sweet scenes including an epic shootout that I was hoping was the signal of the movie's upturn. Sadly, it was both the first and last truly balls-out epic part of a movie that should've been balls-out epic from start to finish.

TL;DR-- Seriously, kinda sucked.

Thanks google!

2009-01-30T15:21:00.000-08:00

For helping me find what I was really looking for:

For dispelling a common myth:

For putting everything I need in one place:

For answering the tough questions:

And for always knowing what I'm thinking, before I even say it:

Ad Stuff: Sea Kittens: Bawww

2009-01-29T10:28:00.000-08:00

Okay, with this, and the earlier Shark Post, I am officially creating a 'Fishies' Tag. Epic.

Alright, so the always lulzworthy PETA has launched another brilliant trolling campaign. I'll let some adweek blog explain it for me:

"In one of the most ambitious rebranding efforts ever, PETA has embarked on a plan to refer to fish as "sea kittens." Why? Because who would want to snare, gut and chow down on a sea kitten?"

Epic, right? The adweek dude thinks this is stupid, but I think it's pro as fuck. I tend to subscribe to the Maddox school of vegetarianism, but I still think this is some epic trolling. My pops is a vegetarian, yet still eats fish, and it has long been agreed that most people are simply interested in looking out for the 'cute animals.' I forget who pointed out the horrible irony of dolphin-safe tuna, but it stands true. Anyway, I don't care about that shit. What I care about is advertising and trolling, and this has both.

The website, which is a stitch and a half, has stories about sea kittens:

And you can even make your own:

Great, now I don't want to eat fish, I just want have sex with them.

I like this shit, and think it's funny, but not suprisingly, some assholes from Canada don't feel the same way. What does suprise me is that the good folks at Encylopedia Dramatica don't really like it, and have responded accordingly:

This response suprises me, since I see this as prime trolling. Peta has been annoying people about stupid shit, and arguing in favor of ridiculous shit for so long, and pissing off millions in the process. Epic. Also, from an advertising standpoint, I like the optimism to rebrand anything, even fish. A plus for effort from this unpaid intern.

In related News:

JESUS CHRIST IT'S A SEA KITTEN--- GET IN THE CAR!!!

(image credit goes to something awful, photoshop phriday )

Internets Culture: Moar Cowbell

2009-01-27T16:42:00.000-08:00

Peep this shit, fools, and be amazed.

Ad Stuff: Burger King kicks even more ass than I thought

2009-01-15T11:54:00.000-08:00

If there's anything I love it's shitty food. I also love shitty movies, but I feel like I've been scooped on that front by some dude here who reviewed the Unborn, focusing entirely on the star's epic booty. Oh, I also love epic booty. But returning to my original point, I love shitty food. As a result, I'm sort of a fan of Burger King. I don't eat there very often, but whenever I do I always think it's pretty rad. The soft drink recipes are always good for a lol, and the general demeanor (especially born out by any and all ads they run not feature that asshole Puff Daddy) is that they don't really give a shit. The stuff with The King is brilliant and a great example of when advertising enters into culture in a way that is not lame and abrasive ( See: Whassup, Got Milk, Where's the Beef etc.)

Anyway, enough silly bullshit. Burger King's agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, has taken this FGSFDS attittude to the next level, branching out from lols into lulz and pwnage. Their new(ish) facebook app allows facebook users to delete friends in exchange for Whopper gift certificates. This shit is epic. Everybody knows that facebook is crap and forces you to be friends with a bunch of people from freshman year who you don't care about anymore. Burger King helps you solve that problem. The only catch is that it informs the former friends that they have been sacrificed for what is probably a pretty lackluster burger. Oh well.

Now, Ad Week updated this story saying that facebook starting bawwing about this and forced Burger King to end their updates and blah blah blah blah. It was still an epic idea and probably the only worthwhile facebook application I have ever heard of. Props to you Burger King, for being the rare client willing to risk being a total douche. Also Props to you, Crispin.

TL;DR-- Crispin Porter + Bogusky--- please hire me when I graduate and give me lots of money to be an asshole to strangers. Love, Josh

Gut Reaction: JESUSCHRIST IT'S A SHARK-- GET IN THE SUB

2009-01-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

Apparently, sharks are coming to get us.

If this photo from the article is anything to go by, however, they are apparently straight for the knees of skinny jeans-wearing hipster scum, so there is a silver lining. I can see why this would scare some people but those of us who live every day like it's Shark Week have seen this coming for some time now and are prepared accordingly. For the rest of you, tough shit. I guess we can all take solace in the fact that it could be worse:

On the other hand, it could apparently be a lot better.

My advise? Stay out of the fucking water and don't look so much like a seal.

Steez: Fake Receipts

2009-01-09T15:40:00.000-08:00

Fake receipts, the perfect accessory for any douchebag. Some website for dickbags is offering fake receipts, one dated for every Friday of the year, each showing a massive bank balance, indicating that you are totally rich. "What," you might well ask, "would be the point of such a thing?" Well don't worry-- dear reader, the good folks at custom reciepts have tha answer for you:

"Tired of being used as a drink-dispenser? Maybe if you were rich you’d have more luck.

Ever wanted people to think you’re rich? Just casually let them see your massive bank balance on one of our fake ATM receipts, with your name right on it.

Trying to impress that hottie at the bar? Money talks. Hand out your number on the back of one of our fake ATM receipts. They’re a players dream come true."

First of all, excellent use of the quote feature by me-- yes? Second of all 'a player's dream come true"? Really? All those players with no money, for whom the missing piece in a successful aquisition of pussy is a fake piece of paper. The whole website seems like a cross between a Maxim Magazine article on picking up chicks and one of those novelty joke item descriptions in the back of old kid magazines.

I am going to have to classify this as shit that will not get you fucked. I was going to say that this would be shit that may or may not get you fucked, but that would have required me to make a new tag, and also, while I've certainly associated with broads of a more mercenary nature, ~~I find it difficult to believe that even the most financially motivated of these would be swayed by such a transparent play.~~ Disregard that, I'm sure these work like a fucking charm.

Before you even ask, Helicopter Sex

2009-01-07T13:50:00.000-08:00

So while cruising the Internets, I stumbled upon a sporadically lulzy site (more like shite, am I right?) called BeforeIDieIWantTo.org Guess what the site has users post? I feel like this is totally intrusive and epicly invasive. The standard answers are fall in love, have kids, travel the earth, and publish my novel. I feel likt if you weren't a cynical prick, you could infer that this means we're all striving towards the same goals in life. I'm in a bad mood though, so I'm in more of a mood to poke fun of these rubes. Here are some of the better entries, for the lulz.

There are the practical:

The creepy:

The stupid:
(I bet you do, horseface)

The Bawww:

And even the occasional epic win:

What I want to spend my life on.

2009-01-07T13:41:00.000-08:00

As a leading young advertising intern, I often pause to reflect upon what ads I used to enjoy as a kid, especially when, as I now am, I am working on ads for children. In that spirit, here are a few spots I remember from my youth. The colors, duke, the colors!

I really don't remember these commercials being so shitty. What's wrong with them, you ask? Everything. Everything is wrong with them.

Current Faves in Hip-Hop

2009-01-07T13:21:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged in a while because I've been busy fighting off Super Mutants and Talon Company Mercs in Fallout 3, the most epic shit in history. This isn't a game review site, but I'll just go ahead and give it an A, becuase the game is epic as balls. In any event, I have decided to drop some knowlege on you in the form of some of my current favorite rap related shizz.

"My President's Black; My Lambo's Blue"

"Get Money"

Chi-Chi-Chi-Chi-Chi-Chi-Chi-Chi!

2009-01-07T12:33:00.000-08:00

And this is what I spent my day on while at work yesterday:

Time Magazine's Top 10 Shit

2008-12-21T17:01:00.000-08:00

Anyway, Time Magazine has the top ten of everything and I have some tl;dr's for you, the faithful reader of the infinite steez blog. I had initially planned to correct all of their mistakes, but instead have opted to do so for only the most glaring errors

#1 Best Awkward Moment-- Bush Dances Awkwardly
WRONG-- the most awkward moment was actually when the self-checking machine refused to ring up something awkward that I was buying at Ralphs. Picking Something of more mass appeal... might be the already posted video where nobody will let Bush in line. ID.

#1 Best Business Deal-- Some Shit About Visa Wrong-- The best business deal was when I got a 30 pack of caguama's for $16. Booyah

#1 Best Movie Performance-- Kate Winslet is some movie you've never heard of.
Wrong again fucko! It was, of course Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder. Heath Ledger caswe a close second for Dark Knight.

#1 Best Break-Up-- Guy Ritchie & Madonna
WRONG! The right answer was the breakup between Time magazine and journalistic relevance. Although I feel like this might have happened a bit close to press time, as posting a 'best break-up' section, was the final nail in the coffin. Second place, goes to my roommate and his HEINOUS BITCH girlfriend.

#1 Best in Campaign Gaffes-- McCain's Weak Fundamentals
Wrong, the biggest Gaffe was:
Making Palin VP
Nom ~~making McCain presidential Nominee~~
The Republican Party bothering to run any candidate.

#1 Best in Science-- The Large Hadron Collider
Hell yes, in terms of science, Time magazine knows where it's it, briefly profiling the epicly important LHC.
See, The Onion knows where it's at too.

#1 Best in Video-- The Couric/ Palin Interviews
WRONG! This was by no means even the best Palin Video, that was Nailin' Paylin. (although it's MUCH better with the pr0n. No, the best video of the year was this one:

Brought to my attentnion by Raisins at The Internet is Terrible, this is probably the most haunting thing in history, and 2008's most significant vid.

#1 Best in Children's Books-- Some Shit By The Folks Who Wrote Burglar Bill

WRONG! The best children's book is this one, which teaches children of all ages about Bob Dylan. Actually I don't care.

#1 Best in Crime-- OJ gets thrown in the slammer.

WRONG! The best crime story was me getting a speeding ticket. Fuck.

#1 Best in Editorial Cartoons-- Some non lulzy shit about the bailout.

WRONG! The real best comes from Jim Kelly, over at the Onion, sticking it to those environmentalist wingnuts.

#1 Best in Election Photos: Some stupid Obama picture

Wrong. There were a shit ton of epic pictures of my fucking hero Barack Obama, I have no idea why they picked such a lame one. In my ~~opinion~~ fact the best election pictures were taken by some rando chick called Nilda Vidutis. You should probs take a look at this amazing series of photos.

#1 Best in Video Games-- GTA IV
WRONG!! The best video game of 2008 was fucking metal gear solid 4, and the fact that it doesn't even crack their top 10 shows that Time knows dick about video games. I didn't even play Metal Gear Solid and I know it was the best. I did play GTA, and I thought it was great but come on. Metal Gear is probably dank as shit.

#1 Best in Fashon Moments-- Something Lame About High Heels
WRONG-- The best moment in 2008 fashion was when I got those epic Clae Shoes. Love those fucking things.

#1 Best in Olympics-- Phelp's Phucking Photo Phinish
Wrong-- the correct answer is, "who fucking cares?" Partial credit would be given for me getting some action while the Olympics were on TV.

#1 Best in Religion-- Som e shit nobody cares about

Wrong, the correct answer is I AM A FALSE PROHPHET AND GOD IS A SUPERSTITION. NOW GIVE ME THE BLOOD ELI, LET ME GET AWAY.

#1 Best in Sports Moments-- Tiger plays through the pain.

Yeah fucking right. The best sports story of the year was when this dude playing for some no name college team broke his finger and was told he couldn't play. His response-- fuck you, cut off my finger, we're doin' it live! Maybe Tiger would top this list if he'd opted to have his goddamn leg cut off to play better. Are you fucking kidding me?

Alright, that's about all I have the attention span for. Fuck off.

Culture: Hope Poster Round-Up

2008-12-15T16:05:00.000-08:00

Politics aside, I think that Shepard Fairey's 'Hope' and 'Change' (Progress was really weak) posters were extremely important culturally speaking. Fairey, who spent the past like 10 years doing the same thing (though extremely well--Obey Giant is always cool) achieved an unprecedented level of notoriety for his iconic images of My Fucking Hero Barack Obama. In honor of that, here are a bunch of epic internets revisions. I have selected a few of my faves, not on political lines but based on creativity, humor and technical proficiency.

All images were found on encyclopedia dramatica, 4chan.org, and this place, which has a great selection of these images. That last one, poster place, has links to the original artists who did this baller work. I actually made one of that broad I get around with for her birthday, so I know the amount of effort that goes into making even a simple image, so bravo to all you internet geniuses.

Culture: Being Rich

2008-12-15T15:34:00.000-08:00

Must be great...

EVERYDAY I'M HUSTLIN'
EVERYDAY I'M HUSTLIN'
EVERYDAY I'M HUSTLIN'
EVERYDAY I'M HUSTLIN'
EVERYDAY I'M HUSTLIN'
EVERYDAY I'M HUSTLIN'
EVERYDAY I'M HUSTLIN'
EVERYDAY I'M HUSTLIN'
EVERYDAY I'M HUSTLIN'
EVERYDAY I'M HUSTLIN'

Gut Reactions: US Journalists need to step their game up.

2008-12-15T13:14:00.000-08:00

Alright, so if you haven't seen the greatest shit in history, here it is:

my fucking hero ~~Barack Obama~~ Some Iraqi Journo pitches not one but two shoes at Pres. Bush. Way to go Iraqi Journalist! We all know that Bush is a douche etc, etc, no need to get into that, but way to go. I feel like a lot of people are making this out to be a bad thing, but it isn't. America has clearly fallen down in the world's opinion to the point people think they can just throw shoes at our dignitaries, and that's kind of our bad. Actually, no, it's George Bush's bad for being such a douche.

I just changed my mind what this blog post is gonna be about. It was going to be all about how US journalists need to start being assholes if they don't want their newspapers to get shut down, but now I'm going to present you with a collection of videos of bush being pwned and disregarded.

No Handshakes for Bush:

What's that you say? This story was later debunked? WHO CARES? My point stands, moving on...

No waving for Bush:

Way to go, Keith Olberman, what an asskicker.

No space for Bush:

Good good. I mean, you can talk about America's declining stature in the world, or you can simply lol at the fact that 'The Leader of the Free World' has become such a non-entity. I advocate the lulz. Some argue that this is because Bush is a Lame ~~Duck~~ Douche President, but I disagree. I think it's because he has fucked a lot of shit up, and some people, unlike me, do not feel the constant pressure to conform to standards of politeness. We all like to think we'd have the courage to stand up to slavery or call Condi Rice a murderer to her face but in reality, most of us just want to be nice. At least I do. So bravo to people who are brave enough to be deliberately rude, or to throw shoes, or whatever the fuck this post was originally about. Okay, no more politics for at least 5 more posts.

Ace out.

PSA: Free Illegal Anime Online

2008-12-15T13:08:00.001-08:00

Apparently, you can watch all the free fucking anime online you want. Not literally fucking anime, that would be hentai, and you can probably find that free too, but you can read about that type of thing on my other site, The Niche Pornography Blog. Anywy, more importantly you can watch dragonball z for free online. If you don't like dragon ball, then fuck off, but if you do, you can see that shit, along with lots of other weird shit from overseas for free, quasi-illegally at http://animecrusade.com.

Enjoy.

Steez: Transformer Shoes versus Transformer Shoes

2008-12-12T17:27:00.001-08:00

Check this shit out!

Boom! Normally I'd write some kind of cutesy copy here but nothing I can do will top these baller shoes. Fuck. How epic. I mean, I thought this was cool:

But holy balls! I feel like the second option has the advantage of actually being shoes, but the first one is truly a robot in disguise. H-F-S! I mean, I'd have to catagorize this as shit that will not get you fucked, but only just. I feel like these kicks will at least get you some tang in the geek chick set, so you can get all the transformers tang you want. Fuck. Love me some shoes.

WHAT NOW MOTHERFUCKER?

Gut Reactions: Global Schwarming?

2008-12-10T12:40:00.001-08:00

So I didn't read some article about how Global Warming is maybe bullshit, but if I had I would have probably read about how Global Warming is maybe bullshit. First and foremost, I think that if you are going to jump in with the "Global Warming is not manmade" crowd, you should pause and think if you really want to be in the company of Sarah 'not as hot as Tina Fey, no matter what anyone says' Palin and George 'Double-Yew' Bush. If the answer is yes, then gfy, you can go diaf for all I care. The real issue here, as far as I'm concerned, is whether or not you think we oughta be taking better care of the earth. Not to sound like a hippie, but we really oughta be. The place is a mess, species are going extinct, and the quality of life is rapidly declining. Let's say global warming is a myth. If we, as a society, gather together and cooperate to lower carbon emissions, drive electric cars or whatever, recycle, stop dumping shit in the ocean, whatever, what bad shit will happen? Our air is cleaner, we use renewable sources (I defy anyone to argue taht we're not running the hell out of oil) and we generally have a planet that is a nicer place to be.

Where's the fucking harm?

This would be epic win for society, showing that we can cooperate on something that isn't a war. It reminds me of this time my parents were gonna come visit my apartment. I spent all day cleaning up and vacuming and throwing out old food. Then they called up and cancelled and my immediate reaction was like what the hell, I wasted my whole day. But then I was like, well, on the plus side, now my place is all clean. See what I mean? Epic win for me. Plus, this means that the world will be a much nicer place when the Large Hadron Collider destroys it in a few months.

TL;DR-- Even if Global Warming were bullshit, which it is NOT, we need to stop fucking trashing the place.

If the TL;DR was TL;DR-- FUCK YOU!

Dear Bill Murray, Please Come to My Next Party

2008-12-08T16:44:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I broke my longstanding habit of not reading full articles to read an amazing article about my fucking hero ~~Barack Obama~~ Bill Murray, star of every movie I retroactively loved from the 1980's, and one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies.

Well, according to a totally interesting article in the usually shitty NY Post, Bill Murray is apparently now crashing parties, apparently for the lulz.

This is great news. I understand that not everyone will be as moved as I am to read this epic article, but basically, the recently divorced ghostbuster/ international mega star is now spending his nights attending random parties and talking to strangers at bars. We're not talking random parties in the sense of random Hollywood parties. In the article, it talks about him showing up at some crappy house party at some crappy apartment in the middle of NYC, ~~the crappiest place in the world (EAT IT NY-- LA FUCKING RULES!!!!1!1!!!one) hahaha disregard that, I suck cocks, New York is actually pretty okay~~ Fuck New York.

(In related news, I just found out how to use strikethrough)

Anyway, so basically, one of my greatest heroes is apparently now just raging with strangers of my generation. The article seems to indicate that he's doing it mainly to pick up chicks, but I feel like this is not the case, since if he were looking to meet new babes, he'd probably just reenlist in the army and meet some saucy MP's. I like to think that the old guy is just looking for a good time, of the non load-busting variety. So, in the spirt of that, I would like to invite Bill Murray to attend a party at my apartment next semester. We will schedule it around his busy... schedule. Bill Murray, please message me privately so we can set this up. This would be the greatest Celebrity moment of my life, even better than seeing Neil Patrick Harris at some art show in Culver City. Please note that Bill Murray is now my most under-used tag, so I will try and incorporate more BM (Bowel Movement?) themed posts in future.

Culture: Whatever, I dig Kanye

2008-12-05T14:15:00.000-08:00

So I read part of some article about what an arrogant douche Kanye West is and I gotta say, who cares?

Kanye's not my favorite rapper, that would have to be Immortal Technique, matter of fact, Kanye isn't even my favorite mainstream rapper, (Jay-Z) but he's pretty solid and he's distinctive from the other 90% of rap which, like 90% of all music is utter garbage. Kanye and I have a lot in common: We're both young wunderkinds in field, and we both appreciate women who "got more ass than the models." Thus, when I see me friend and colleauge being hated on in the Media (pronounced Mee-juh) I feel that it is my perogative to step in.

Anyway, the way I see, it's pretty much nbd that Kanye west thinks he's such hot shit. I mean, you can look at the transverse property and see him as saying he's bigger than the beatles when lennon said the beatles were bigger than Jesus, so therefore Kanye thinks he's bigger than Jesus but the reality is, who gives a shit. Everyone thinks they're better than everyone else. Prove me wrong.

The music you choose to listen to is based on your mood, and when you put on a song in which Kanye West is rapping about what a badass he is, it isn't because you feel like listening to some braggadocio talk about how rad he is, it's because you feel like a badass.

Generally, people listening to music put themselves in place of the I in the song, not the you. When you listen to Tom Petty sing, "I won't back down," you are thinking that you, the listener will not back down, not marveling on the steadfast Mr. Petty. So too in rap. When Kanye raps, "there's a thousand you's, there's only one of me/ so how the hell could you front on me" (excellent use of rhyming me with me, btw), you don't think of yourself as one of the thousand "you's" but rather as the primary "me."

The fact that this arrogance moves from his songs to his personal life is irrelevant-- it's just part of the show. This shit goes for everyone. I think it was hugely disappointing when John Lennon retracted or clarified his statement about being bigger than Jesus. If I were him, I would've just gone with it and been like, "No, yeah, I personally am more important than Jesus Christ, and those who worship HIM as their risen Lord and saviour (he was from England so he woulda spelled it that way) should begin worshiping me instead."

TL;DR-- leeeeeeeeeeeeeeave Kanye alooooooooooone

Gut Reactions: The Big 3 Bailout

2008-12-04T10:50:00.001-08:00

Moar like the Big 3 Fail It, Am I right? Yes, I am right, and it's time for another round of Gut Reactions. This time, we'll be talking about the Big 3 Automakers who are asking for like 34 Billion Dollars to fix their broke ass companies. Now, as I recently told the tow-truck driver and my mechanic, I don't know shit about cars, nor do I really know shit about business. I'm watching C-Span right now, seeing a bunch of asshole senators and a bunch of asshole automakers jerking eachother off. Fuck that, here's my five point plan for the US Auto Industry

Give them the money-- this keeps jobs in America, and can help bolster consumer confidence
Temporarily nationalize the industries-- If they're getting our money, we're in charge.
Cut CEO Salaries-- You don't deserve millions of dollars a year if you're fucking up
Force the US auto industry to make only electric and plug-in hybrid cars, or at the very least to massively upgrade their gas mileage-- you can't sell shit without a unique selling proposition, in this case, you can lean on the government's support to bring a cheap all electric car to the marketplace, and that shit will sell like gangbusters, meaning
Only lift the oversight board, the temporary nationalization when the $34 billion is paid back with interest.

TL;DR: Use that $34 billion dollars to make America a nation of electric cars.

The Simple Things in Life

2008-12-04T01:47:00.000-08:00

I've sipped hundred dollar champagne, eaten fine Prime Rib, hobnobbed with the stars high atop the roofs of Beverly Hills. I've traveled across this land, and visited the offices of higher learning, been told by great scholars that my prose is among the best. I've walked the halls of California's greatest ad agencies as an equal, seen my work produced by billion dollar companies. I've heard crowds cheer me on as a champion athlete, scoring one for the home team. I've looked deep into the eyes of the woman I love, and seen that love, and profound longing reflected back at me, held her in my arms, stared up at a sky full of stars, and contemplated the infinite potential of man. I've stood atop mountain peaks, dwelt deep in forests, relying on myself and finding myself worthy. I have had, in quiet and reflective moments, read the works of great authors, and understood them as if they were my own. I have seen seen respect and wonder in the eyes of a child, and drunk and laughed with commoners and captains of industry. Once I saw Neil Patrick Harris at a party in Culver City. I have known the best life has to offer, and yet, there is nothing quite like popping a really spectacular zit.

Steez: Threadless

2008-12-04T01:04:00.000-08:00

Okay, This is officially my last broad steez topic. After this I'm gonna be going through my wardrobe item by item listing shit I like. This is a really good one, and I'm excited to be writing about it.
Threadless is a dank as fuck website where aspiring art n00bs post up shirt designs and they are voted upon and the cream of the crop are produced. Sounds totally stupid right? Actually not the case. Threadless does a lot of innovative stuff using puff ink, glow in the dark, shiny gold ink, all kinds of crazy shit. They rose to prominence a few years ago, propelled largely by their ever popular, ever-present 'Communist Party' (you'll know it when you see it) shirt. I have that shirt, and wear it mainly because I look good in red. Actually, I have about 10 shirts from them and all of 'em have yielded some positve reactions, thus I am rating this as shit that will get you fucked.

The shirts are distinctive, limited run (so you feel like one in a thousand, not like one in ten) and all in all pretty cheap. I have been thinking off and on and on and off for the past year or so that my T-shirt wearing days are coming to an end, and that may be the case, but I always think I'll have a place for better lookin' threadless numbers. The "Select" shirts are a little bit pricier but some of them are brilliant. The "Type" Tees are universally horrible and should be avoided at all costs. I donno, something about shirts with ironic slogans on them just rubs me the wrong way. When I hear a great joke, I can't wait to tell it maybe once or twice to the few people who really appreciate it. Wearing a slogan shirt is like commiting to one joke that you'll be telling everyone all day everytime you wear the shirt. Whenever you make eye contact with a stranger it's like you're waiting for a laugh. Fuck that shit. This coming from a guy who owns a shirt with a picture of Shakespeare reading "Prose before Ho's, but I digress...

Still, I like threadless. More wearable than T-shirtHell.com, more soul than BustedTees, and cheaper than Detroit Sprinkles, Threadless has a little something special that feels organic. It's like what shopping in Whole Foods would feel like if there were only like 20 Whole Foods and you got the impression that maybe the owners knew what was going on in every store and the little touches had some thought in them, or as much thought as they can in a chain of 20 stores, which is a lot more than in the five hundred stores.

Why, in a previous post about my dank clae shooz, I posted a drawing of myself wearing a threadless shirt, so clearly I must think they're pretty ballin if I'm drawin 'em. Looking through my self portrait collection, I find several other examples of threadless shirts, like the one above. Every three months, they put out a shirt that I pretty much need, at least at the time, so I advise you to get on the mailing list, start looking, start voting on shirts, and start upping your shirt game.

Speaking of the Game, you just lost it.

Culture: The Internet is Terrible

2008-12-04T00:47:00.001-08:00

I fucking love the Internet is terrible. I stumbled upon it last year on facebook by accident and have never looked back. Basically, it collects some of the worst shit on the internet and puts it all on one place. The author, 'Raisins', draws heavily from the chans, (which I may discuss later) and youtube and the results are great. 4chan is a little bit much to sift through, so I rely heavily on the internet is terrible when I need to find some quality weird shit to send to my friends and associates. Noted asshole, Freddy Nietzsche once said "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you," and Raisins has a simmilar quote "Sometimes the Internet changes a man." You can tell, from the contempt he clearly has for his subjects, that the dude spends a lot of time sifting through crap. I love it. Sometimes, when he posts images of disableds, I cringe a little, but mostly its lulz.

Props to you Raisins, for consistent win. Double props for censoring some of the more extreme stuff so I can surf at work. Five stars.

Gut Reaction: IFH the WSJ

2008-11-21T13:42:00.000-08:00

The Wall Stree Journal sucks cock-- prove me wrong.

Ridiculous right wing opinion columns.
Publishing articles by that fucking criminal Karl Rove.
Being assholes, blaming the poor.
Hating on my fucking Hero Barack Obama
I fucking hate the Wall Street Journal

It has excellent articles on business and economics matters, which are two examples of shit I know nothing about. It should stick to this and STFU about politics, which is one example of shit they know nothing about.

TL;DR-- More like Ball Skeet Journal, Am I right?

Culture: Conor Harrington

2008-11-17T22:40:00.000-08:00

I'll be the first to know I don't dick about art, but, as the cliche goes, I may not know art, but I know what's dank as fuck, and the paintings of Conor Harrington are dank as fucking fuck.

Since I don't know anything about art, I won't waste your time trying to pretend like I do, instead I'll waste your time with opinions. I first read about Harrington in Swindle, Shepard Fairey's monthly, (see how I just made myself look cultural by just acting like I just assumed you'd know who Shepard Fairey is-- that's an important part of looking cultural). I was immediately blown away by the amazing imagery. Anyway, here's more sweet stuff, hope you dig it.

Steez: Detroit Sprinkles

2008-11-17T13:11:00.001-08:00

Okay, so I feel like I shot my wad pretty early with those Clae Shoes. I mean, Steez is in the name of the blog, and yet I don't have much else in the way of epic steez. Therefore, I bring to you some other Stylish Steez: Detroit Sprinkles. I heard about this from a buddy of mine who I guess co-owns the place, and my guess is it's going to be blowing up any second now.

I went to some art show that I may or may not be posting about soon under the heading of Culture, since that's the most cultural shit I've done in weeks, and I basically saw hipsters as far as eye could see. I was dressed like a cross between a total asskicker and a total douche, which I guess is sort of the way to do. As my roommate commented, if we'd of had horn rim glasses we woulda fit right in. Basically, this just hammered home for me the fact that semi-ironic shirts are the way to go.

The close (deliberate, trust me) are pretty baller, and while I don't own any because I am officially out of cash, I feel qualified to inform you that you oughta. What separates these from any other shirts? I donno. Who cares? Nobody. They're probably sort of pricey, but you're probably paying for quality, or integrity, or some other intangible shit. Basically, you're paying extra so that when you go out trying to be hip and steezy, you'll be certain that nobody else is gonna be rocking the same baller shirt, and that they'll all be eyein' you up thinkin how fresh your threads is.

Gut Reaction: Whatever, Fuck That Guy

2008-11-17T01:11:00.000-08:00

So science has released a composite image of the most trustworthy face, based on some shit nobody cares about. Now, I'll admit I was hard pressed to barely read the article this time, as it was only like two sentences, but I looked at the guy, and I can emphatically state "Whatever, fuck that guy."

First off, let's get the obvious out of the way-- he's a white dude, which probably makes this racist. Second, , he's just a typical, forgettable, vanilla motherfucker who you'd only trust because you'd totally forget him after you part ways. Also, he kind of reminds me of my old ID badge for my last gig.

If I owned a newspaper, and it had a science section, every line of print would be devoted to real science, and right now that means the Large Hadron Collider, which apparently is some epic particle collider that will either turn men into gods, spin straw into gold, and enhance our understanding of the Universe, or else destroy everything ever. I don't really understand even the broad strokes of this issue, but I think that my unfounded, unreasonable, and ill-informed fears need to be constantly addressed by all media outlets so that I can subsequently ignore the articles and do my Sudoku. Instead, SCIENCE is busily at work on more silly made-up bullshit that even I don't care about.

See, this is great, now I'm all worked up, whereas in reality I could give a shit.

TL:DR-- Whatever, fuck Science, and fuck that guy, and fuck everything since the LHC is gonna fuck all our shit up.

Culture: Changeling Was Rad, But Long

2008-11-16T01:20:00.000-08:00

I went out for a hot date with that broad I get around with to go and see Changeling. Directed by that asskicker Clint Eastwood, it stars that hot broad with the pouty face. Basically, her kid gets nabbed and then the police show up with some other kid and say it's hers. She get's pissed off and lulz ensue. There's some intense shit with an ax, a trial scene, shock therapy, negative portrayls of the Irish. It's got it all.

Normally I think Jolie's a pretty so-so actress, but this time I thought she was pretty dope. I read some article in AV Club like a year ago saying she oughta give up on the whole acting gig, since she's so famous and so distinctive she's always playing herself. I was pretty much taken in by the whole thing though, and I thought she did a great job making me forget that she's actually some hot broad who's into tattoos and kinky sex.

The movie was a bummer and way intense, which means I have am going to label it as "shit that will not get you fucked." It also went on for two fucking years, which sucked. It was kind of like Zodiac, in that I kept thinking it was about to end, only to be stuck with another act. That said, it didn't feel bloated; everything seemed necessary. Visually it was really rad looking, and being that I love me some LA, I very much enjoyed seeing the old timey LA. Plus, it showed what assholes cops are, especially the notoriously douchey LAPD. On the other hand, they were pretty hard on the 'changeling' which is sort of weak. I feel like they made no effort to make the kid sympathetic, and I think it's a bold choice as a director to villify a small child. Overall though, if you've got a heart, you'll come out of the story wanting to call your mom. Which reminds me, I'm not in love with the title, since my darling Ma used to call me a changeling when I was misbehaving as a child. Okay, just give me a second to repress that memory... okay done. Anyway, the movie was really sweet and intense, but also really long.

TL;DR-- Changeling was pretty solid, but felt maybe 35 minutes too long.

PS, It also reminded me of this epic book I had to read Freshman year called City of Quartz by Mike Davis. I wasn't as brilliant as I now am, and I was also a little bit of a republican tool in my younger days, so I didn't really appreciate it at the time but it was probably pretty epic and worth a read. It's basically all about how much LA sucks, which I don't agree with but it was certainly an interesting and class conscious look at the history and culture of Los Angeles.

Steez: Clae Shooz

2008-11-14T13:04:00.000-08:00

Also, since this blog is ostensibly about steez, I think I'll share my steeziest steez, and then never return to the topic again.

Cousteau, like Jacques (they're boat shoes-- get it?), are an epic set of shoes from an epic company of shoes, Clae. I read about them over the summer and was given a pair by that broad I get around with and who now, in a fit of hypocrisy, mocks me when I wear them. Still, they're epic as shit, and make me feel like a true fucking player whenever I gad about in them. They're not the most comfortable things in the world, but that's because I'd a dude, so I'm used to wearing vans all day. They're probs about as comfortable as a standard pair of like fancy shoes or whatever. Anyway, like I said, I feel like a million fucking bucks when I wear em:

Translation: you wouldn't want to wear them if you were walking a couple miles, they're more like what you'd want to leave as part of a trail of clothes to some hot broad's bed, becuase she saw your epic taste in sneaks and immediately wanted to jump your bone.

TL:DR-- wear these shoes, get laid.

Gut Reactions: Al Gore, What A Douche

2008-11-14T12:50:00.000-08:00

Alright, so Gut Reactions are where, without reading or really thinking about an article or issue, I form an opinion based on a headline or summary, and then blog that sucker to death.

Here's an article from the Washington Times, which I won't lie, I found on Fark about Al Gore, who I normally think is pretty rad, especially after seeing that horror movie. My fucking hero Barack Obama offers Al Gore the sweet and, as yet, completely made-up White House position of Climate Czar, and Al Gore says no. I don't know if Al Gore gave a reason, that shit was below the fold so I didn't read it. In my mind, what probably happened is that he think he's hot shit and so when he was offered the gig he was probably all like "Fuck that I'm Al Gore."

Al Gore, what a douche.

So until next time, remember...