Foot Candy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.