Ben Wasser

Desirable

Fri, 21 May 2010 23:26:54 +0100

I’m no stranger to instant meals, especially those of the just-add-water variety. I’ve noticed that most of these advise you not to drain the excess water after cooking, as this water is desirable. Incidentally, when I used to edit journal submissions written by ESL students, I would often come across the very same word. Stuff like, “It is desirable that businesses be able to analyze customer purchases to allow for targeted advertising”. Whether I would agree with these assertions or not, I’d try to rewrite it to avoid this sort of language that I didn’t expect to fly well with peer reviewers. Academic writing needs to be objective and reasoned. Use of the term desirable is not only subjective, but completely unqualified. What they’d mean to say is “I’ve been forced to explain why we’re doing all these algorithms and equations so I’m going to take this opportunity to insult your intelligence by telling you what I think people, in general, want and how it loosely relates to the following ten pages of technical writing”.

I find myself using a lot of similarly insulting terms in my writing, like “it turns out”, ”in truth”, and “actually” to introduce things I either can’t or am too lazy to qualify. Herein lies a massive fault of knowledge-gathering. Assertions are considered valid if you reference someone else making the assertion, but at some point, someone has to bite the bullet and say all the stuff people will reference. If they’re convincing enough, nobody will worry about the qualifications.

If you ask enough questions to a devout Christian, they’ll fall upon the reasoning that the Bible says so. Some ordinary folks like you and me got together to write the Bible in much the same way people wrote the DSM-IV, The Secret, The Ego and the Id, Dianetics, all our laws, and any of your text books and encyclopedias. A physicist recently discovered that every single dictionary he found, including the Oxford English Dictionary, listed a simple scientific error regarding how siphons work. It’s not so surprising that misinformation like this is bandied about throughout our society when we still don’t have a firm grasp of what reality is. The details, even if understood, aren’t known by many. Just ask someone (or yourself) about how many spiders we’re said to swallow each year, whether anyways is a word, what color Jesus’s skin was, which direction toilets on different sides of the equator flush, what Henry Ford invented, or anything about modern politics. Thank God for Snopes, but most people aren’t that concerned with their lack of accurate information.

Television, early education, and academia are excellent vehicles for wrongheadedness and perpetuation of mistakes. I said in my first paragraph that academia relies on objective and qualified arguments, but I was just being duplicitous. I remember when I officially became disenchanted with academia: I was under the assumption, given that I was in a class on the subject, that terrorism was a thing. When I naively tried to find a comprehensive database of terrorist attacks, I quickly realized that it was impossible for anyone to agree on what terrorism was, and while half of terrorism researchers busy themselves with arguing over definitions, the other half ignore the fact that they’re writing about a completely subjective phenomenon and offer data and findings on the subject. They might as well be writing about the dietary habits of Bigfoot while people are citing these sources and making foreign policy decisions based on this research. For a quick primer in how convoluted and absurd International Relations is, I advise you to start with these simple descriptions of the “Great Debates”.

So anyway, sometimes I do drain the excess water, and sometimes, when I’m feeling particularly disruptive, I’ll even add more.

There’s only one thing I dislike more than religious fundamentalism, and that’s fascist...

Mon, 10 May 2010 23:03:00 +0100

There’s only one thing I dislike more than religious fundamentalism, and that’s fascist authoritarianism. A good rule of thumb to determine if you’ve crossed the line into fascist authoritarianism is if you detain people based on what type of watch they are wearing.

The argument is that these Casio watches are often used in making bombs, so wearing one is grounds for being detained or denied release from prison. Obviously the Casio evidence is taken in conjunction with possession of dark skin and a Muslim name, but just because we’re currently in a round of cyclical violence with Middle Easterners doesn’t mean this isn’t going to eventually be used against us.

This sort of exception to rationality, decency, fairness, and justice is how terrorism succeeds in manipulating us. The US constitution has already been repealed for 2/3rds of the population, our president has sanctioned the assassination of US citizens, we torture detainees, airport indignities have reached ridiculous levels, and we’re starting to see an increase in Orwellian “report suspicious neighbors” propaganda.

Right now it’s being Muslim and wearing a Casio watch, but tomorrow it could be some other ethnic, religious, or political group and wearing the wrong flag lapel or something. I’d like to say we won’t know how bad it is until it’s too late, but it honestly seems bad enough right now that it is already too late. We’re living in a time that people in the future will hopefully learn from so as to not repeat our mistakes.

This is so much better than when we thought he didn’t know...

Wed, 05 May 2010 07:34:00 +0100

This is so much better than when we thought he didn’t know what German was.

Wikipedia green lit this section of the domain name article but...

Mon, 03 May 2010 06:02:18 +0100

Wikipedia green lit this section of the domain name article but wouldn’t give Boxxy her own page?

“Of course they are screaming ‘socialism’. They’ve been doing that since the...

Sat, 01 May 2010 19:42:09 +0100

“Of course they are screaming ‘socialism’. They’ve been doing that since the 50s at least. They’re not talking about economic redistribution of wealth - they never have been. They’ve been talking about redistribution of privilege this whole time. They called MLK a communist because he wanted blacks to have the same rights as whites, and to them that was a redistribution of the privilege that whites had ‘earned’.” -A reader (presumably not a reader of history)

This is why the Democrats can’t have nice things. When liberals position themselves outside the realm of facts and reason, they cultivate the political and cultural environment where individuals can find the same egregious faults in either major political party or ideology.

From the Wikipedia article on King: “In one speech, he stated that ‘something is wrong with capitalism’ and claimed, ‘There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.’”

The push by Obama for universal healthcare is also necessarily socialist. There’s no getting around it. Claiming that social conservatives or others are/were evil, incorrect, and insane by calling Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. socialists is the sort of aversion to reality that is so often attributed to social conservatives. I understand that it might be harder to debate the merits of socialism with so many unfortunate case studies on the subject, but you can’t just blindly pretend you’re not arguing for socialist objectives when you clearly are. Debate shouldn’t be about who can fool the most people through sophistry, so own up to your positions and be prepared to defend them if you want to be taken seriously.

Assorted comments on Sarah Palin's Facebook note relishing the ruined life of her email hacker

Sat, 01 May 2010 05:23:46 +0100

Jared Hersh: “The Mob” supports you!

Robert Knewstub: TAKE THE CREEP AND HANG SOME SALMON ON HIM IN BEAR COUNTRY GOVERNOR AND LET HIM SEE WHAT REAL HACKING IS (;>)!!

Tom Tesmar: Unfortunately, there really cannot be any justice in this case. These wrongs cannot be undone. In the final analysis, this case contributed to the outrageous situation we have brewing at the top of this country’s administration. This perpetrator is no better than an assasin, or a political terrorist.

Bonnie J.Prince: Amen and Congrats Sarah, we are all relieved because of security concerns .

Jay Upton: If Alaska was a seprate country, I know who’d be our presedent !!

“Violating the law, or simply invading someone’s privacy for political gain, has long been...

Sat, 01 May 2010 05:18:54 +0100

“Violating the law, or simply invading someone’s privacy for political gain, has long been repugnant to Americans’ sense of fair play. As Watergate taught us, we rightfully reject illegally breaking into candidates’ private communications for political intrigue in an attempt to derail an election.” -Sarah Palin

One of the worst repercussions of the growing stupidity of the general population is that manipulative people have learned that they can say whatever they want knowing that being proven wrong or opposed to by common sense is less powerful than the original message. Sarah Palin can claim that some kid who guessed the security questions of her email account represents some sort of unfair trickery used by the Democrats to steal the election from her (on par with Watergate of all things) and any voices proclaiming how utterly (fucking) retarded such a statement is will go largely unheard.

Let’s not forget that during the trial over this email hacking matter, Sarah Palin perjured herself by claiming she didn’t use her personal email accounts for gubernatorial business. I normally say allegedly or may have when accusing people of crimes they haven’t been found guilty of yet, but I wouldn’t mind proving to a court that she casually lied through her teeth.

This whole thing just reaffirms my position that justice in this country is a complete farce. In my opinion, this kid did nothing wrong, nor would it have been offensive to my sensibilities had he gotten into Obama’s or Biden’s email accounts. I’d rather our politicians had absolutely no privacy whatsoever. Did the kid break some laws, though? Sure, but so did you when you exceeded the speed limit, smoked a bowl, drank before you turned 21, downloaded a song, played poker at home, and jaywalked. Laws don’t really have much in common with what we as humans understand as justice. What the courts choose to go after is more important than the law, and as rational humans we should be able to tell when something is just or not. Sending a kid to prison for guessing some simple security questions is a travesty. Sarah Palin makes a constant mockery of America and is awarded millions of dollars in the process. That’s wrong. It shouldn’t take a Democrat to recognize this. In fact, it shouldn’t be a partisan issue at all. We should recognize as rational, educated humans that Sarah Palin is a despicable fool, Obama and Co. aren’t much better, and we’re all the dumber for picking sides in these epic popularity contests between criminals.

“To be frank, if you’re a man older than 16 and you don’t know how to tie a necktie, you’re an...

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:59:00 +0100

“To be frank, if you’re a man older than 16 and you don’t know how to tie a necktie, you’re an embarrassment. Seriously: there’s no excuse.” -Jesse Thorn

Sentiments like the above passage, espoused by a disc jockey claiming to represent young America, are at the heart of what’s wrong with the world. Honestly, if you’re writing with authority about something on your blog in the 21st century and don’t have a clue about social constructivism, you’re an embarrassment. One might even go so far as to say there’s no excuse.

Let me give you a quick primer: Almost all the stuff you do and talk about and worry about is manufactured bullshit that’s only propagated by people buying into it. Why do we tie pieces of unnecessary fabric around our necks? Because small-minded people like Jesse Thorn needlessly mandate it. This unwavering confidence in the most ridiculous constructs of society is the source of authoritarianism, bigotry, religious fanaticism, bad music, and our dreary life expectations to go to school, get a job, retire, and die.

I’m not advocating eschewing societal norms altogether, but we must critically examine which ones are actually useful or meaningful to us on a personal basis. For example, do you derive pleasure or fulfillment from tying neckties? If not, go learn something you’re interested in, like post-Byzantine agricultural trends or how to make sounds by blowing on blades of grass. They’re all equally crucial in the scheme of things.

staff: Guys. WTF is this? Can you help us out?? I know it makes...

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:52:09 +0100

staff:

Guys. WTF is this? Can you help us out??

I know it makes you register, but it’s quick. And this is a big f’ing deal.

Sign up

Vote here

Please don’t take away our accounts, Dropbox!

I’m a user of both Dropbox and Tumblr. Only one of these services had to sink low enough to beg its users to vote for them on some (of all things) AOL poll.

I used the helpful links David Karp provided to sign up and vote for Dropbox for the following reasons:

Dropbox hadn’t been done before. It’s not the hipster clone of some other service. It was a new and clever method of online storage.
Dropbox is actually useful.
Everything about Dropbox works. They’re not so mismanaged and unskilled to screw up things like hyperlinks (I would link to what I’m talking about, but therein lies the problem),
tags, security (remember when I took over Karp’s domain through Tumblr?), and PR (not only does Gawker rip Tumblr to shreds constantly, but even the NYTimes got in on the action).
Dropbox is good to its users. I haven’t heard of any censorship, preferential treatment, or shady business practices. They don’t publicly try to embarrass or insult their users. They haven’t had massive backlashes for the use of ethnic slurs by their founder.
They know how to run a business. They don’t rely on selling the equivalent of e-cards, pixel ads, or website templates. I don’t know what sort of investors keep the Tumblr experiment running knowing they’re never going to see a return. They must have figured out a way to make the investments tax deductible or they’re philanthropists who would hate to see the extinction of photographs of cupcakes and cats taken by people with more money than creativity.
Dropbox isn’t likely to end its free service when its founders’ trust funds start running dry. It’s always a good idea to know how to port your blog over to Wordpress for when the bottom inevitably falls out.
Supporting Dropbox doesn’t mean supporting a vapid and ego-driven social culture.

“Be an individual, step out and away from the flow of the crowd. Take a time out, open up ya...

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 02:29:38 +0100

“Be an individual, step out and away from the flow of the crowd. Take a time out, open up ya mind and then peep the giraffe.”

-Violent J, The Happy Clown Serial Killer

I’m not sure what has caused it, but lately, it feels as...

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:56:17 +0100

I’m not sure what has caused it, but lately, it feels as if my blood is constantly on simmer. My foul mood could be due to the throat and ear infection I’m slowly recovering from.

I went to this recessionista clinic called “Medi-Help” where they made me wait an hour to see a doctor. I told the doctor I have tonsillitis because I’ve had tonsillitis before and it felt a whole lot like what I’ve been going through. He did a swab and came back and told me I didn’t have strep. I was like yeah I know that’s why when I walked in I didn’t say I had strep. He said he was sending the culture to the lab and I should call back in seven days. He prescribed me a 5 day treatment of antibiotics in the meantime. The antibiotics didn’t do much, and it’s day eight and I’m still feeling a bit shitty so I called up to see if the lab would say I had AIDS or whatever and I was put on hold for three minutes so I hung up and called again. They put me on hold again so I hung up again. I called back a few hours later and the nurse told me, get this, that I didn’t have strep throat.

Interesting aside: When I was looking up their number, I found an online white pages listing that had some reviews of their establishment. Here are the titles of the reviews:

“HORRIBLE! DO NOT GO TO MEDI HELP”

“Billing more inportant than ethics”

“Come Here only if you WANT TO BE SICK !”

“Worst Medical Place on Earth”

“The physician I was seen by was horrible”

One person apparently took issue with one of the doctors preaching religion to them. Another patient had the gaul to take issue with a UTI diagnosis that turned out to be a baby (“Cons: they almost killed my baby”).

I vaguely remember one of my high school English teachers saying my writing style was a lot like Hunter S. Thompson’s. He seemed far too populist for my tastes at the time, so I was like ya whateva teetch, but seeing this contract he “signed” makes me think my teacher was on to something. I really feel like telling everyone I interact with lately to “Fuck off Balls”.

I was trying to prove to my friend that her baby looks like a...

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 22:42:47 +0100

I was trying to prove to my friend that her baby looks like a Klingon Alan Alda when I found this amazing site. I checked out the baby album to find more samples of Maury’s magical baby maker than I could ever have hoped for. Social conservatives could learn a thing or two about teaching abstinence from Maury.

Would you be surprised that twenty of this guy’s clients...

Sun, 04 Apr 2010 06:26:09 +0100

Would you be surprised that twenty of this guy’s clients got the death penalty?

The Daily Mail has an article about one of Jerry Guerinot’s hapless clients, Linda Carty, who will probably die under draconian American laws in very short order.

As an idealist, I don’t take legal success ratios very seriously, so when I first read the Daily Mail’s apparent hatchet job against this poor lawyer, I felt the need to hear his side of the story. His website is testament enough as to whether he really is inept or not (as pictured in the above screenshot).

Some gems from the article:

“As part of my research, I tried to interview Guerinot but his office said he was uncontactable because he was taking a break from legal work in order to run a rodeo.”

“He claimed the reason he didn’t spend more time with her before the trial was that she was ‘uncooperative’ and had to be ‘bribed’ with a bar of chocolate to talk to him at all. In fact, Carty suffers from a severe chocolate allergy - one bite would make her go into anaphylactic shock.”

Tumblr must have made literally hundreds of dollars today.

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 22:23:31 +0100

Tumblr must have made literally hundreds of dollars today.

“GOD I HATE IT WHEN YOU GUYS CALL ME A DONKEY.” -Julia Allison

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:15:00 +0100

“GOD I HATE IT WHEN YOU GUYS CALL ME A DONKEY.” -Julia Allison

Shame

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 02:49:00 +0100

“In answer to the discussion of whether these people, who are innocent until proven guilty, deserve the additional punishment of having their names and pictures spread online, creating a lasting record to be Googled by some future prospective employer or date, I say absolutely yes… Aside from the appropriate symmetry to their own actions, which involved public shaming of an innocent girl…” -Peter Feld

I keep getting confused about what irony is (rain, on my wedding day?) but I’m pretty sure something needs to be said of this sentiment and all those parroting it.

I spoke to Becky about how I woke up to an email asking me for my take on the Phoebe Prince story (another girl hung herself due to bullying). Becky seemed to find it a bit absurd how much attention the media pays to stories like this while ignoring all the equally or much more disturbing stories that just happen to involve black victims. It’s a bit beside my point, but everyone who is here copying these kids’ pictures and names before any verdicts have been made obviously need to do it now because by the time any legal conclusions have been made, they’ll all have lost interest (which they wouldn’t have had in the first place had she been black).

From the news reports, the bullying was due to Phoebe Prince dating a senior. Two of the kids arrested are being charged with statutory rape, meaning they’re most likely the ones who went out with Prince, and are not necessarily related to any of the bullying. So think about that as you post their names and pictures everywhere. Peter Feld and company, you’re bullying these kids with very little evidence to support your hatred. You’re going to (as you’ve said) try to ruin their lives based on what little information you have. To me, that sounds just as ridiculous and petty as bullying someone for dating a senior. Peter, aren’t you a bit old for this sort of thing?

If you do a Twitter search for Phoebe Prince, you’ll find hundreds of people exclaiming how angry they are about her death and that they had to deal with bullying too, so they know how bad it is. It’s amazing they’re all alive to tweet about it, eh? That’s my first problem with all the reactions to this story. Suicide is not murder. Should we start publicly shaming people who dumped someone who then ended their life? Peter Feld says that when you drive someone to suicide, you’re playing for keeps and should be aware of the consequences. Unless these kids tied a noose around her neck, I can’t fathom how Feld, as an educated man, could come to this conclusion. First and foremost, as much as we don’t want to come to terms with it, Phoebe Prince’s death is the fault of Phoebe Prince. I’ve been bullied, you’ve been bullied, we didn’t kill ourselves. We all know kids can be cruel. They’re not acclimated to our society just yet, so when left to their own devices, you get Lord of the Flies situations. We mold children into functioning, behaving adults through our behavior and our responses to their behavior. If we consider Phoebe Prince as a rational actor, there was clearly a lack of responsible adults present if she couldn’t turn to her parents or teachers for support. The reports say her parents contacted the school to report the bullying and that teachers witnessed the bullying but did nothing.

I see things like this story and that of Megan Meier as directing people to clamp down on some sort of perceived manifestation of bullying. That will lead to more of the zero-tolerance policies we see persecuting children for drawing pictures of guns and carrying Tylenol. Why do we seem to forget that our legal system already has established means to handle these situations? Harassment and assault are punishable under criminal law. From the sounds of the reports, there were numerous witnesses to continued harassment and assault of Phoebe Prince with no police reports or lawsuits filed until after she killed herself. Ignoring what legal options that existed to handle this, why didn’t any of the adults aware of the situation act responsibly?

There’s a reason why we have age limits on alcohol, cigarettes, and driving, different legal punishments for minors, and laws regarding statutory rape: We don’t consider children worthy of making rational decisions. The adults present were irresponsible and so are the people now using their blogs to ruin the lives of these nine teenagers. It’s disgusting.

"One day when I get a boyfriend or husband or whatever I am going to make him take me on a drive and we will sing this song!!!!!" - Christy, Palm Springs, CA

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 02:51:50 +0000

"One day when I get a boyfriend or husband or whatever I am going to make him take me on a drive and we will sing this song!!!!!" - Christy, Palm Springs, CA

March 24, A date which will live in infamy (until she comes back in a couple weeks)

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:02:37 +0000

March 24, A date which will live in infamy (until she comes back in a couple weeks):

Back in my day, children, TSA agents couldn’t see through our clothes, hamsters danced relentlessly, 1500 was a great SAT score, and we were forced to hear about Julia Allison all the time.

Julia has injected herself into the worst possible venue for her character, so it’s good to see her possibly taking a different approach. The shilling, insincerity, lies, flubs, embarrassing lack of self-esteem, and entire contrived caricature she’s molded for herself could go largely unquestioned if she had sought an audience similar to that targeted by Glenn Beck, Tila Tequila, Ke$ha, and similar affronts to basic intelligence. Instead of resting her conscience on the acceptance of her peers, she could have all the detractions drowned out by the sound of all the money pouring into her bank account.

Let me proffer a strategy for success to anyone finding themselves in Julia’s position: Move out of New York, adopt a radical political ideology, and trade in your blog for a radio show.

British people respond to DailyMail's story, "Russian roulette shock as wedding guest shoots himself in party trick gone wrong"

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:38:28 +0000

Who are we to criticise another culture? It is RUSSIAN ROULETTE, and Russian’s enjoy it. So leave the Russians alone.

-Gregor from Glasgow

PROVED HIMSELF TO BE AN IDIOT, THATS ALL !!!!

-Amanda Marie, Basildon, Essex

Russian roulette with a pistol, How Dum do you have to be!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Andy, UK

Greg@03.45. ABSOLUTE NONSENSE. The is NO chance of killing yourself. (NO I’m not going to try)

If you spin the chamber of a 6 shot revolver with one bullet in it, the natural weight always will fall to the bottom thus the top chamber will ALWAYS be empty.

You have been watching too much TV…..

-Victor M, Cricklewood, London

I’d like to know why YouTube still have this horrific scene in their archives. Suicides and videos that show harm shouldn’t even get through the first round of censors. Very distressing!

-Ian, Birmingham

PEOPLE DONT REALISE THE GUN LOOKS EMPTY BUT A BULLET/ PELLET MAY BE IN THE CHAMBER ALREADY, ESP WITH AIR PISTOLS / RIFELS, NEVER HAVE ONE OF THESE THINGS IN THE HOUSE IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN, GET RID OF IT NOW THEY ARE SERIOUSLY DANGEROUS, GO ON SMASH IT NOW SMASH IT TO PIECES!!!!

-dave

Playing this game with an automatic is stupid anyway.

-Adam, Dorset

The above, a French interview of The Beatles, is a product of my...

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:47:28 +0000

The above, a French interview of The Beatles, is a product of my night’s profitless endeavors. Among other things, we learn that Napoleon had a Beatles haircut and that Americans have more babies than anyone else.

I’m ugly but nice. They’re beautiful but terrible and I’m ugly but nice. -Ringo Starr

It started with a song stuck in my head. “Song of Love” is an unfinished shard of a song by The Beatles on the Thirty Days bootleg. As I’m always on the lookout for simple piano songs to learn, I figured this would be perfect. Unfortunately, its obscurity creates a problem. No sheet music or chord listing exists for the song, and I am not very good at figuring things out by ear, especially when considering that my piano is moderately-to-severely out of tune. With a bit of research, I found out they used the same chord progression as Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance No. 4”. Googling “Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 4 chords” unsurprisingly failed to yield the desired results, and I’m dreading the prospect of deigning easily-digestible chords from classical sheet music.

In my search for how to play this obscure song, I stumbled upon a YouTube commenter who claimed that a second recording of this song exists that is “even more bizarre and goofy” which prompted my quest to attain said second recording. Since undertaking this search, my music library has become three bootleg albums en plus yet remains sans second supposedly bizarre and goofy take of “Song of Love”. I returned to the YouTube comment to find that my unwitting taskmaster is a fellow Pittsburgher with a similarly unhealthy fascination with The Beatles. I can’t say I share his fascinations with Scooby Doo fan fiction and the pink-haired girl from some kid’s television show, though. To each their own. I’ve e-mailed him inquiring about the whereabouts of this elusive second take.

They really shouldn’t put related videos on YouTube because I ended up finding more songs that weren’t in my collection, like an impromptu cover of “Positively 4th Street” during the Let It Be recordings. I was tickled by the description:

Note: this version was not meant to be released or even necessarily to be recorded, it is just the beatles mucking around while the tapes were still rolling. If you want to be a wang and say that Dylan’s release was better, go ahead, but realize this wasn’t their best effort or in any way meant as competition.

This caveat didn’t prevent the outbreak of fighting within the comments, the following product of which similarly brightened my tattered spirits (taken mid-fracas):

Barf69, the sole thing you “see” is that which no one would deign to invest in, i.e. a “relationship” with you. Given your proclivities for erring on the side of the mentally challenged, “remedial school” and “village” are to you what the École Normale Supérieure and Paris are to any student of talent: a distant possibility. Droll is the tragedy of your yearnings, as your low mental acumen puts both “remediation” and “miracles” beyond your reach, or “so” you should have “heard.” -MrAngemystere

I find myself posting a lot of vaguely self-referential jibes to see whether I can get away with them, and I just assume every lost subscriber is just another person who has caught on. One of the reasons I’ve stepped back from my previously precocious blogging habits is what I see as the erosion of community and intelligent audience participation. I mean, not a single person called me out on my (second) obviously fake Vonnegut passage. Who am I kidding? I collected aggrieved emails from Karp, Marco, and Lodwick, thereby ending the game. Seriously, though, I think my most cherished memory of blogging, which can never be surpassed, was Taragate. It had all the elements of a masterpiece. Tara, and I speak of her now as an entity disconnected from the poor confused girl who created her, was a glorious shibboleth for the idiocy that was beating at the gates of our community. She took all of your superficiality, hierarchy, and vapidness and spat it back in your faces. It was one pure moment of opposition before all of Tumblr was engulfed by the broader internet. None of this will make any sense to most of the people reading it.

On a whim, I just typed “Song of Love” into my iTunes library to find that I have, in fact, had the second take all along. It’s not all that bizarre or goofy. Now that I’ve spent my night poring over YouTube comments, invading some random person’s life, buying poorly-recorded albums, and philosophizing over meaningless bloggy-things, I cannot help but be faced with a few lessons learned from all of this: The first is that droll is the tragedy of our yearnings. The second is that der mensch ist was er ißt when it comes to blogging. The third and most important lesson is that Die Antwoord is the herald of the forthcoming renaissance and I’m not sure I can do this blogging thing anymore without making them the subject of each and every one of my posts.