1:00 AM - I miss critical thinking.all the buzz that's fit to printThere's been a lot of buzz on the line recently over new search site Cuil, which is supposed to index more sites than Google. It's clearly the death knell for Google because it indexes even more gabillions of sites and does it with fewer processors and clearly it's better and blah blah blah. Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I'm about to rain on the parade. 1. Do a sample search. Go for it. For example, doing a search for "ivorysanctuary.com" doesn't pop up the "www.ivorysanctuary.com" anywhere in the results. It does offer a few of the sub pages, and after that, it offers tons of robot-generated sites that apparently ganked my text in an effort to make their spyware installers look more like real content. 2. If I was a reporter, do you think I would do at least a couple of sample searches before going along with the start-up company's claims that they were the awesomest ever? I'm not a journalist though, this is just a blog. We all know that bloggers aren't journalists. 3. If I owned a small company, do you think I would at least do a couple of sample searches before announcing to the media that I was the awesomest ever? If you are going to compare yourself to the big guns out of the gate, you need to at least be on par with them in terms of basic spooling of search results. I think this media frenzy is a premature bubble, no one's ever going to hear of this company again. 4. That's not stopping me while I'm on a role, though. That website is fugly. I'm so over poserweb 2.0 and websites done in Trebuchet and if I see another rounded corner I am going to poke someone in the eye with a sardine. And don't even get me started on tag clouds. I wish someone would invent a tag cloud blocker, especially if it would overlay a nice cumulonimbus over the offending site. 5. Clearly I should be asleep. 6. It's actually really creepy how Cuil will take pictures and use them over and over if they are relevant to the content, even if they are not related to the site at all. In conclusion, it's been far too long since I posted rant-a-blog. Tuesday, July 15, 200812:20 PM - I'm just jealous, and I shouldn't watch television.hey, that's my lineMany of you know that I have a Puzzle Pirates character named Shantybones. Well. Look what I saw in Warcraft yesterday: someone is moving in on my style...  In other news, the finale of Celebrity Circus is tomorrow, and so I wanted to give my thoughts on this show before the season ends. Because... you all wanted to hear my cranky perspective. Yes. You did. I don't have cable, but I've been watching the whole thing go down on hulu.com, just like I do for Battlestar Galactica. Overall, I've got some problems with Celebrity Circus. The people (who aren't really household names, for the most part, at least not in my household) had only six weeks to go from being plebeians to performing full-fledged circus acts. For judges. To be honest, unless you were already a gymnast, there's no way you can get your body in performance shape in six weeks, but that hasn't stopped the network from trying. I feel that circus people push their bodies too hard anyway, but this whole show has been an exercise in unrealistic expectations. And pain. Stacey Dash (more on her in a minute) broke a rib, and Christopher Knight broke his arm in a German Wheel accident that they caught on tape. Now, come on. No one with any sense would put an untrained 50+ year old man in a German Wheel. Period. Even with all of the pushing and pushing and pain, these guys have only been able to accomplish the most basic technical achievements. Which is to be expected, really. Six weeks simply isn't enough time. Especially in weeks 2 and 3, many of the performances involved people getting hoisted in mid air, holding on for dear life and smiling nervously until they were mercifully lowered to earth again. The editors cover all of the fussy parts by having circus professionals on either side, and panning the camera away when Antonio Sabato Jr gets tied up in the fabric. Ringmaster Joey Fatone "heightens the mood" by constantly reminding us that everyone is performing without a net (they're in safety lines, bitch, stfu). When they come down, they face the worst judging panel this side of America's Best Dance Crew. (An aside to Mario Lopez-- you're supposed to stand there and look hot, not pretend you can dance. Actually, you too, Cat Deeley. Stop dancing. That's what contestants are for.) In Celebrity Circus, it's clear that the judges are deliberately trying to eliminate or boost a specific person, because often their feedback doesn't even match what the contestant did. Aurelia Cats, an aerial contortionist who judges international circus festivals, seems to delight in shredding the contestants apart, rather than supporting and encouraging them. (Personally, I watched the video on her website and I think she has fading aerialist syndrome... Don't be all catty to newbies on national TV, especially when you can't even bust out the single toe hang, sheesh.) Louie Spence is clearly hamming it up for the camera just like Carson Kressley, and I'll be happy when we can move past that as a nation. The only semi-rational one, ironically playing the straight man in this comic trio, is gymnast Mitch Gaylord. har. All that said, Stacey Dash is amazing. She's got a level of technique that no one else on the show can even approach, and frankly, I think the judges aren't giving her enough praise. To even go up on a cradle like that is really freaking hard, and you need to be strong and flexible with good technique... she nailed this show, and she should win. If everyone else is getting 10s, she should be somewhere in the 15 to 17 range... seriously. Wee-Man and Antonio Sabato Jr. are strong (good work on that Chinese Pole... that stuff is really hard too) but they look awkward and can't even point their toes. Their lines are terrible. (Also... I have a strong suspicion that Rachel Hunter got so terrified by the first couple of weeks that she became incapacitated by fright, and just waited around to be voted off.) I'm going to go back and read this again. I think that what this post really proves is that I shouldn't be watching television... it makes me much too catty. I actually hope that this show doesn't get renewed for another season, just because I don't like the level of danger and personal injury that the whole thing has been taken to. Overall, I'd rather have seen non-celebrities who had 6 months to train in a safe and encouraging environment, rather than this kind of dangerous helter-skelter to the finish line. Wednesday, July 02, 20081:38 PM - fogeymeisterAwesome 80s!While listening to Internet Radio on 181.fm: Awesome 80s, they've just played two songs in a row from my iTunes playlist. I will shamefully update this post if that number gets higher. |
