The Million Word Year

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Archive for category Websites

LOL : Hipster Hitler

Aug 27

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What’s the latest instant web hit? Why it’s indie webcomic sensation Hipster Hitler

There’s only one strip so far, but it’s pretty funny, and you have to admit, just the phrase Hipster Hitler instantly makes you want to know more. It is not just a funny concept but pleasing to the ear as well.

For some reason, every time I read Hipster Hitler , I hear it to the tune of Velvet Elvis by the almighty Weird Al.

It’s funny, but from a comedy point of view, I can’t see it getting too far as a webcomic. It does not seem to be an idea with “legs”, as we say in the business I feverishly imagine myself to be in. I mean, I am sure there is more to do with the premise, but I am guessing that it will peter out after six or seven strips. I can’t see it making it past ten, unless they develop another leg for the concept, like a plotline or more wacky characters or the like.

So if I was them (and I wish I was, lucky bastards, not that I am bitter), I would not be a slowpoke when it comes to putting up merch for the strip. A T-shirt with Hipster Hitler on the front and the full strip on the back would probably sell quite well.

Get it while you’re hot, folks!

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LOL : The Saddest IMDB Entry Ever

Jun 18

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She’s only ever done one role.

But it was one with dignity, range, and depth.

Just kidding. It was as “woman who urinates herself”.

It’s the part she was born to play, baby!

Oh, and it was an uncredited role.

Oddly enough, she was not eager to collect the fame, fortune, and accolades due the woman who WAS “woman who urinates herself”.

Do you suppose she carefully studied the part and crafted her performance based on all the best acting techniques of the traditional British theatre? Or did she drink eight cups of decaf and reach deep inside herself for a true Method performance?

According to the IMDB, the movie she was in, Threads, is about the effects of a nuclear holocaust. Which is a damned good reason to urinate yourself, if you ask me. If they had dropped the bomb back in 1984, people would have been evacuating more than just buildings, if you get my drift.

In all fairness, she was probably just someone’s friend who was on set with them that day when they needed someone for a certain special role and she volunteered. It’s highly unlikely that she was a small town gal with stars in her eyes hoping for her big break and this was it.

And hey, she’s in the IMDB and I’m not, which makes her a million times more famous than I am.

But sometimes, it might be better to not be known at all.

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Product : Adult Sized Propeller Beanie Cap

Jun 11

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If you truly want to show your old-old-old school geek cred, you just have to show up at your next WoW clan party in one of these.

I have to admit, I’m tempted. It’s only $13 American and I think it would be hilarious to have one. Show the world that you’re not just a geek, you’re a propellerhead!

Add some dorky suspenders, a sailor cap with ribbons, a yo-yo or paddle ball, and a giant lollipop, and you’re not just a geek, you’re a cartoon geek from the 1940s.

And then, well, just sidestep the little bits of history repeating.

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Onion : Massive Flow Of Bullshit From BP

Jun 9

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Once more, The Onion hit the nail right on its ugly little head.

I’m not a regular Onion reader, for reasons bizarre and personal and artistic and illogical. Basically, I got to the point where I wanted to write for them so badly that my inability to do so became so painful to me that I just can’t go there any more.

I know that makes no sense. All I can say is, hey, it’s tough to be an artist. We artistic types have all kinds of crazy emotions that only make sense to us and it’s part of the price we pay for being open to and guided by our own inner vision, the pilot light of our entire creativity.

You should see how exercised I get over the shitty writing on SNL some time.

Indeed, I have this artistic fantasy of suddenly being in charge of SNL as head writer and calling all the current writers in for The Meeting, where I lecture them about how much they SUCK and what they are doing WRONG and how from now on we’re going to write things which are…. FUNNY! Yes, genuinely funny, not just Comedy Like Substance with inane catchphrases and random topicality. Actual comedy!

I mean seriously guys… who the fuck is minding the store over there? Who greenlights this crap? You know, it’s acceptable to say to people “None of these are good enough. Start over. ” You don’t have to just produce whatever is the best of the scripts you get past a certain deadline. That hardly encourages quality, does it? If none of them are good enough, make those hacks work around the clock making them better. Put their feet to the fucking fire for once!

Meh, don’t get me started.

And yeah, I know there is theoretically a path to getting to be an Onion writer by writing on their forums or some such, but I have little faith in my ability to shoulder past a million other wannabe satirists trying the same thing. Perhaps that’s my problem, but if it is, hey, that’s my PROBLEM.

I’m still searching for a focus for my writing abilities. Or if not a focus, then a way to separate various streams of wordage instead of having it all glopped together there. I’m pondering investing in some more domain names and starting a sub-blog family, kind of like all the icanhascheezburger.com sites. One blog for comedy and satire, another for my fiction, another for the political commentary, and another for my bloggy personal stuff.

I’m a multifaceted and complex person (or, alternately, indecisive and fucked in the head) so it’s hard to just pick a facet and go with it exclusively. It’s just not that simple.

So perhaps each facet gets its own blog. It could work, who knows?

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Geek : When Was Donald Duck Born?

May 30

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You know, there’s your common, every day geekery, idles thoughts and casual chats about the theoreticals implicit in works of fiction, and then… there’s the people who elevate it to something beyond mere idle speculation and pull off dazzling feats of geekery that make the rest of us humble and proud.

Ladies and Gentle Men, I give you : When Was Donald Duck Born?

Not for the author of that article the simple answer that Donald was born when Walt created him. Oh no. Such answers are simply unacceptable to the refined mine of a true scholar.

He actually manages, through very thorough knowledge and research, to deduce Donald’s true birthday through citing references and consulting calendars and making calculations.

That’s the sort of fannish wizardry that makes me want to take off an imaginary hat in respect.

Consider it doffed.

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Website : A slice of Heaven on the Internet

May 20

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I’m not sure if I’ve plugged this site on here yet or not, so here goes.

I recently Stumbled Upon (capitals intention) an amazing website called Documentary Heaven. For an intellectual like me, it lives up to that name in spades. And clubs. The whole damn deck, really, jokers, blank cards, and poker hands included.

It has links to a simply staggering number of documentaries, sorted by subject area. It’s like having a whole massive buffet of Food for your Brain (again deliberate, as that’s their motto) at your fingertips all day, every day. The psychology section alone is going to keep my busy for a very long time. All this brilliant BBC produced stuff, for free, at my whim.

It honestly makes me a little giddy with anticipation.

Despite my obesity, food for thought is by far my favorite kind of food. Intellectual stimulation is my lifeblood. It’s when my mind is stimulated to peak capacity and I am abuzz with thoughts, ideas, opinions, and considerations that I feel truly, fully alive. Some of the peak moments of my life have been interesting conversations. If I could find a way to do that for a living, I would be one happy naked beach ape.

Blogging, then, is my half-blind and stumbling attempt to do that.

I’ve got the writing part down. That, I can do. The making money off it, I’m working on.

But if I had to choose between a boring site that makes me money or a site that doesn’t make me a dime but has a big user base of interesting, thoughtful people who engage in extremely high level conversations about the topics I bring up, and ones they bring up themselves, I would not even have to think once. The latter, please, and Super Size that for me.

So for me, a site like Documentary Heaven. is an amazing find. I may indulge in a little “live blogging” of some of these documentaries. I realize that runs the strong risk of creating content that is useless unless you watch the documentary too, and I am going to link the video obviously, but I’ll also try to include enough context in the live blog to make sense of what I am saying.

I just want to capture some of this amazing mental stimulation smorgasbord in text before it fades back into the rich intellectual bouillabaisse of my mind.

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Website : Steampunk Desk and Command Center

May 10

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And today’s example of INSTANT WANT is : this completely awesome steampunk computer desk/command center from The Steampunk Workshop.

It’s just so awesome looking. It was a great idea to style it after an era-appropriate organ. It makes me imagine sitting down in front of it and typing/composing mad songs with alien harmonics that summon a bunch of extradimensional baddies to menace Doctor Who.

I’m thinking, the Peter Davidson one.

It’s sad that by the time I can afford it, steampunk will likely be completely out of style. But I also like the “plugpunk” stuff I see some of the millennial kids sporting today, stuff with modern computer guts but with casings that look all quadraphonic era. Silver faceplates, big silver dials and knobs, brushed steel and huge plugs, things that hum when you plug them in. Marshall stacks and synthesizer racks. Kickass.

Someone should totally start the steampunk equivalent of Hot Topic/Sharper Image/Bombay Company. A one-stop shop for all your steampunk needs, from snuff boxes to parasols to entire Victorian era bedroom sets, as well as all the gears, knife switches, frilly lace addons, and other accoutrement that you could possibly need to steampunk up existing things.

And of course, there would also be an extensive clothing section, for your greatcoat, pea-coat, riding coat, and of course petticoat needs.

I bet it would take off like a rocket in no time, especially if you got the word out to all the steampunk aficionados in your area ahead of time. Soon, there would be one in every mall in North America. They’d be as successful and ubiquitous as The Gap, and way more hip.

I know I’d want to shop there.

And if they were looking for designers to sign, they could do a lot worse than the fellow behind the Steampunk Workshop. If you click around on the website, you’ll see that he has done many more equally impressive feats of steampunkery. He’d be a great person to design products for said store.

There’s a lot of money to be made out there, for the right people with the right store.

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Web Classics : Fuck the South

May 10

Posted by MegaWordMan in Links, Websites | 1 Comment

Came across a link to one of the all time greatest rants ever, and thought I’d share.

If everything in that rant is true, it’s an amazingly damning attack on the South and the religious right. I know the things about the have-not states being almost universally conservative Southern states is true. I’d love to go to a Tea Party rally and suggest that the Federal Government cease any and all handouts to the state for any reason. You know, in order to put itself out of business. We’ll just see how eager the “libertarians” in the Tea Party are to see those “real America” shitholes WITHOUT massive federal spending propping them up.

I don’t know about the divorce business, though.

I think all right-thinking left-wingers should memorize the facts in the rant. I have no idea how a modern Tea PArty wingnut could possibly respond to the fact that it’s the red states that are the most dependent on Federal money that comes from largely blue states. Presumably, all they could do is deny it.

Otherwise, I have absolutely no idea what their counter would be.

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Link : The Humble Indie Bundle

May 6

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Want to get five awesome critically-acclaimed award-winning Penny Arcade-endorsed games for your PC, Mac, or Linux, worth $80 in retail, for whatever the heck you feel like paying?

Sure ya do. So hop on over and grab the Humble Indie Bundle and get them before the offer ends.

Not only are these all games that get mad props from the whole world of gaming, but by buying them this way, you completely cut out all middlemen. No retailers, no publishers, no distributors, just you, the people who made the games, and the Internet. How cool is that?

Read the rest of this entry »

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Product : The coolest hoodie EVER!

May 3

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You know you know a kid who wants this. on Twitpic

That freaking ROCKS. Whoever thought of this product was a genius. It’s cool enough to have a hoodie with a big mean dinosaur on it, but to have it also do a trick like that…. kick ASS.

It seems to be another brilliantly kid-friendly product from the folks over at the Discovery Store. If you want one for your little dinosaur, click the link and buy one now. Have your little monster be the first at his school to have the hoodie-shirt that every other kid will instantly want.

No, I don’t work for Discovery. I just like rewarding awesome things with attention.

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