Rearrange All the Buttons

Why do software companies and web designers feel the need to change the lay-out of things whenever they update their websites or programs? Man, that was a terrible opening line, let me try again.

Yesterday I had to download the newest version of Firefox due to an issue with the version I had, that being that it decided it just wasn't going to start anymore. When I finally got it loaded up, it looked completely different from the previous version. Not in a bad way, really, just different. Everything works the same way, they just completely changed the design. And if you upgrade stuff often enough, you'll notice that this happens ALL THE TIME. I wouldn't really say it bothers me, it's just weird. Some guy on the development team sat everyone else down and said "Okay guys, you know the design our browser has had for the past few months, after we changed it a few months before THAT? I've decided it sucks, someone make a new one." And then they spent time doing that. Fascinating.

Now, the thing that gets the most complaints about this is Facebook. Every single bleeding time Facebook even changes anything at all, people fly off the freaking handle, screaming about how they "ruined" Facebook. Apparently, moving some icons around makes the website completely unusable. Now, I couldn't care less about it, but it's so odd that someone would just decide that these changes needed to be made, or nobody's going to use Facebook anymore. That's kind of amazing.

On the Origin of Popcorn

I wish I could've been there for the discovery of popcorn. That must have been a fun evening. Since it's not like potato chips, where we know the whole hilarious story of the discovery, I like to come up with all kinds of reasons why somebody would attempt to light a whole bunch of corn on fire to see if it would explode. Personally, I think it was one of those wacky mix-up situations, like a terrible sitcom inexplicably set in ancient South America. Like maybe everyone had had a little bit too much to drink, and they still needed to make dinner. So they got a whole bunch of corn and put it into...whatever the hell you would fry things in in those days* instead of...whatever you normally cook corn in.** And then it started popping and they were all "OH CRAP!" except not in English because that wouldn't make any sense. Then again, this is a pretty awful sitcom, so maybe they're also inexplicably speaking English. I don't know, I'm not the producer.

So then the corn is all popped. And there's always that one guy who says he's "adventurous", but he's really just kind of stupid and not very good at quantifying danger, so he decides to try some. Then he burns the inside of his mouth, stumbles backwards, trips on a rock, and plummets off a cliff. So everyone else decides to wait about while the corn cools off, discussing how much they hated that guy. Then they all ate the popcorn, had heart attacks, and died, because foods that taste good are always bad for you.

Fortunately, a band of scavengers came along later that day and looted through their stuff. They found the popcorn, and being an entire group of people who were "that guy", they decided to eat some. Luckily, they were also members of the local fitness club, so their metabolisms were able to survive. They opened up a popcorn restaurant, made millions in...ancient South American currency, and retired to Jamaica. The end.

*Don't tell me. I don't care.
**Ditto.

Hap Birt Dey

I would normally write a post today wondering why we're so keen on celebrating people's birthday. "Is it just because we're proud of someone for surviving another rotation around the sun?" I would write, in my trademark way of asking a lot of stupid questions and then never answering them. "How is it different from any other time?" And on and on with that crap. But none of you really want to hear that, do you? You've heard that sort of thing from me thousands of times. They're all really stupid questions, with really obvious answers. We celebrate those things because it is fun to celebrate those things. We enjoy it. I'm probably shooting myself in the foot here, because I'll never get to write an entry like that again, but screw it, oh well. Instead, I'm just going to talk about how awesome birthdays are today.

There are three obvious reasons that birthdays are awesome: cake, parties, and presents. I'd really like to talk about cake, because cake is delicious. But cake is one of those foods that you only really get to eat when there's something special happening, LIKE BIRTHDAYS. And if you know someone that you don't hate who's having a birthday, you're almost guaranteed to get cake at some point. Which is great, because in case this hasn't been clear, cake is delicious. If you don't like cake, get the hell off of my website.

And parties are great too. There are lots of kinds of parties, so you can pretty much do whatever the hell you want on your birthday and call it a party. It could be the standard "drink booze until you black out", or you could jump out of an airplane and call it a "skydiving party". I'm totally doing that at some point. Hell, you could just get a whole bunch of friends together on your birthday and play videogames and eat pizza til you puke like you do every day, but since it's your birthday, IT'S A PARTY. Such is the magic of birthdays.

Oh yes, and presents, of course. Presents are awesome because you get stuff for free. If you don't understand this, you're probably stupid. Birthdays are awesome. FACE.

Natas Liah

I think it would be fun to start a rock group and DELIBERATELY put evil, Satanic messages into my music. I mean, the whole "there are backwards messages in Stairway to Heaven, let's crucify Led Zeppelin" fad is kind of over, but I believe that there will always be stupid people in the world to proclaim the downfall of society, so I think it won't be too hard for it to make a comeback. And then, once they pull me into court and say that I'm corrupting their children, I whip out the first amendment and say that I can put whatever I want in MY music. Then I'll do a whole bunch of coke and get caught having sex with a car in a motel parking lot, because THAT IS THE ROCKSTAR WAY.

See, because people don't care if you're up from about being a Satan-worshiping nut-job. Bands like Mayhem, who participate in ritual sacrifice, church-burning, and generally being massive twats don't get as much attention, because everyone knows they're trying to corrupt society. Because they told us. But when you have a bunch of guys like Judas Priest, who just want to get high and play music, the moral guardians want to expose them as EVIL SATANISTS who want to TURN YOUR CHILDREN TO THE DEVIL, because there's a certain level of intrigue there. They're not outright SAYING they worship Satan, but that's just because they're so CRAFTY.

And of coure, screaming that something is evil and trying to corrupt our children is never a good idea, because that just gives it more exposure. That's why all the Grand Theft Auto games sold so well. When you stir up controversy about something, you just give it free publicity. And that's why my terrible, possibly Satan-worshipping rock band is going to be huge. Well, it would be, if anyone actually listened to rock anymore besides people who ALREADY worship Satan. Okay, new plan. Rap group that glorifies violence. That'll sell.

It's Also Kind of a Cool Title, Sadly

I'm not going to be a moron and say that Twilight "ruined vampires". Yes, we all know Twilight sucks. There really isn't a single thing for me to say about it that hasn't been said a million times before. It's stupid, yes, but you already knew that. What's really interesting to me is the fact that nobody has set out to "make vampires cool again". Or perhaps someone already has, but it was either unpopular or terrible or both, so I haven't heard of it. Despite the fact that I think there are MUCH cooler supernatural creatures than vampires, it would be pretty cool to see a deconstruction of the Twilight setting with vampires that are actually cool.

And you know, it's a shame, because the idea of taking all those old vampire and werewolf myths and placing them in a modern setting could be pretty interesting. Sure, it's been done a few times, no doubt, but it sucks that it's been sort of wasted on a subpar series. Now if anyone wanted to do something else with that premise, they'd be accused of ripping off Twilight, which is pretty lame.

But I'm not one of those crazy people. You know who you are. Screaming about how everyone who likes Twilight is "retarded" and how they should all die. Or screaming about how it's evidence of how fall society has fallen. All of you need to shut up, because you sound just as stupid as the people who claim that it's a literary masterpiece. It's neither. It's just a crappy romance novel. Get over it.

Jumping Into Boxes

I'm glad that we've reached the point where not only are we all aware of the fact that cats are essentially the patron saints of the Internet, but we've also already grown tired of people pointing out that the Internet is obsessed with cats. We've got videos of cats doing stupid things AND videos of people parodying the concept of cats doing stupid things, and everyone is apparently either so self-aware about it that they don't care, or the Internet as a whole completely lacks introspection. Honestly, I'd believe both.

So there's no point in me writing a blog post saying "Hey guys, why is the Internet so obsessed with cats?", because that question's been asked before. And every article ABOUT that subject never really gives a concrete answer for it. But I am ready to do that today. I will explain everything. I will help you to understand this obsession, and what it means about our society. I hope you're prepared for a revelation.

IT IS BECAUSE CATS ARE FUNNY. THEY DO GOOFY THINGS THAT AMUSE US.

I'm not sure why that's been so hard to figure out. Every wise-ass in the world has to make jokes about it, even I don't understand what the big deal is. We like cats because they're cute and funny. Case closed, problem solved, go home.

Discovering the Internet

I hope I never go into a coma. Not because of all the head trauma that will probably be involved,* but because I'll probably be completely terrified about everything that happened. Well actually, it would be a combination of unbelievably traumatizing and kind of cool. Every day would be an adventure! You'd be finding out new things all the time! So yeah, really scary, but at least you'd pretty much never be born anymore.

I mean, can you imagine just finding out about the Internet RIGHT NOW? You'd be occupied for months! And then you'd find out about the porn and it'd be another six! The Internet's already a black hole of productivity in the first place. If you had never even heard about it before, it'd be like discovering a whole new world. And since I'm pretty sure you'd lose your job after being absent every day for thirty years, you'd have even MORE time.

Actually, you'd be pretty screwed on this if you had crappy health insurance. You'd wake up and all of a sudden it would be like "Congratulations, you're bankrupt!" Maybe you'd get to write it off as a really, really long paid vacation. At that point, you'd probably pretend to still be in the coma just so you could stop working altogether. I'm sure no one would mind.

*Since it'll probably be my fault anyway, I'm not too worried about it. I'll probably end up giving myself a concussion just to see what it's like.