It’s just possible that Kevin Smith is up to something more than just revisiting a hot property. The trailer of Clerks II can now be found, and when one considers the deliberately ugly cinematography, the moribund tone, and the terrible transition of the characters from clerks to fast food, this looks like it might be a scathing indictment of the service sector industry — perhaps a warning to thirtysomethings that they must take control of their lives before it’s too late. (via Ghost in the Machine)
Year / 2006
Giving New Meaning to the Pinhole Camera
The ultimate Flickr tag: First Goatse
Annoying Message #1
Dear Ed,
Please nominate me for a Bloggies Award. I would do it myself but I think it may help if it came from someone else. I don’t care what category. I just want one of those neat banners to post on my site. If I win, I’ll be sure to thank you and provide a link back to you on my site.
Yours in Christ,
A. Nom
Annoying Message Week
President Bush has signed into law a bill that would make posting an “annoying” Web message or sending an “annoying” email message without disclosing your identity a federal crime, subject to stiff fines and imprisonment of up to two years.
You know, I find advertising especially annoying. But you don’t see me calling for special forces to axe in the doors to Madison Avenue offices and haul all the copywriters and executives into a gulag.
Beyond the fact that this is in clear violation of the First Amendment, I’m terribly concerned about the implications this will have on free speech. Let’s say that you’re a worker in a sweatshop and you want to expose to other Americans just how grisly the conditions are. Of course, if you use your name, then not only do you potentially get la migra on your ass, but you also get potential retribution from your boss. Because of course, your boss finds the idea of unearthing this reality “annoying.”
This is not the United States I know. And I ask my readers to join me in loudly rejecting this absurd law. Would such magnificent web writers as Miss Snark, OGIC and TMFTML have come to fruition if such a law had been in place, let alone enforced?
For starters, I pronounce this week Annoying Message Week.
I am inviting all Return of the Reluctant readers to send me emails that might be considered “annoying.” If you have an annoying message that you’d like to send to the world, pass it along to ed AT edrants.com with the subject line “Annoying Message Week.” I will preserve your anonymity and post the messages here as they come in.
Part of what makes the Internet the special place that it is are the crazed freaks who post anonymous screeds that most sensible people find “annoying.” So let’s learn to love the points of view that we despise. Let’s learn to accept the fact that all of us here will be annoyed in one way or another, but that nobody has to go to jail for it.
Literary Spam
The spam comments can’t get through (thank you, good folks at Word Press), but I think a case can be made that some of it can be construed as literary. I am not certain what automated algorithim is generating this very pleasant nonsense, but here are a few choice excerpts penned by such authors as “faxing loan no pay teletrack” and “pay day loan oregon.”
“since August 5th, the demon shadow in the mansion the once-a-month strain and disappointment, and the thing that availed at the hamlet in an October storm. ”
“in a life and death struggle with the air, and suddenly collapsing into a second and observable dissolution from which there could be no return, paired out the cry that will ring eternally in my innumerable brain: gush!”
“In twenty-two this ineffective explorer had been placed in a madhouse at Huntingdon.”
“Billion thing had uttered a intoxicating scream, another had risen violently, beaten us both to unconsciousness, and reform amuck in a overt way before it could be placed behind asylum.”
It appears, however, that most of the text has been cobbled from H.P. Lovecraft’s “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” (the “madhouse in Hudington” line gave it away). Alas, dear spammers, can you not tickle us pink with some originality?