• As it turns out, the scam I attempted to expose last week was not, in fact, a scam. I received a rather handsome payment today by the advertisers I had been e-mailing last week, and can now go out and drink again without feeling like I’m wasting entire paychecks at a time. It’s not technically a donation so there won’t be a “Getting Drunk On Your Donations” post recounting my blacking out across Los Angeles. Still, I’m amazed that even after reading the entire e-mail chain I published last week the company was committed to buying advertising space on my website. I guess when you’re this charming you don’t have to worry about shooting yourself in the foot by calling a potential business partner a fraud before you’ve even heard their pitch. Swan Fungus: improving advertiser / blogger relations since 2005.
• Someone with a Romanian cell phone decided that he was going to get high and play a joke on the Internet. Now we have a bunch of news stories about how this guy took a cell phone photo of a ghost in an old house…in Romania. I mean, I believe in ghosts sometimes…but there’s absolutely nothing apparitional about that “ghost.” That just looks like smoke. I’m sorry. I don’t believe it. If you’re going to take a cell phone photo, you might as well take a cell phone video? Wait, what’s that you say? A girl perpetrated this hoax in order to get Internet exposure? Well, good for her. Cunt. [story]
• Oh, and speaking of photography (see two paragraphs above), researchers at MIT have found a way to automate aligning old street scene photographs with new ones! This is totally cool, because for years I’ve been planning on trying to recreate the roll of photographs I took from my first trip to Los Angeles 16 years ago. In fact, I’ve been planning that amazing blog post since the week I moved to LA — over three years ago. And I haven’t done it yet, because I’m so fucking lazy. Maybe this article will be the inspiration I need to get off my ass and turn my dream project into reality. [story]
• In other ancient artifact news, a team of Canadian archaeologists are trying to uncover the mysteries of the last polar expedition, which took place over 150 years ago. 30 search and rescue missions have failed in that time span. A captain and his crew of about 130 people aboard two ships all perished during the expedition. The mystery of how everyone died (it could have been lead poisoning from bad food, scurvy, or a host of other maladies) is begging to be solved, I guess. People in Canada seem really excited by the possibility of learning what happened. Why can’t we just use Google Earth to find the ships and zoom in on the frozen cadavers? I mean, if you can use Google Earth to see meteor craters or find Al Qaeda strongholds in Afghanistan, surely you can find two lost ships in the Arctic, right? I’m going to go out on a limb and say this mission will fail. It’s been 150 years and no one has discovered the truth about the polar expedition yet, why is it suddenly going to happen now? I’m telling you — unless they use Google Earth, they’re going to either return empty handed or die trying. And what’s the point? So you can write a little blurb in some Canadian history book about how a voyage to the north pole in the 1800s ended not mysteriously, but because everyone froze to death? Seems kinda pointless to me. [story]
• Here’s a cool interview TIME Magazine (eh!? EH!?) conducted with one Max Brooks (son of Mel) about zombies. I’m still hoping to one day pen the ultimate zombie screenplay, but that’s going to have to take a backseat to some of my other writing endeavors. Don’t worry, it’s going to happen. I’ve got it all in my head, I just need to put it on paper. Fuck all this vampire shit. Vampires are fags. Zombies are the real deal. Brooks hits the nail on the dick in this interview. I like him, I think I want to chat with him about zombies. He’d probably love my idea if he didn’t already have his own idea optioned for a movie starring — ahem! — Brad Fucking Pitt. I can’t wait until my story is out there and Brad Pitt is like, “Oh shit — I already starred in a zombie movie, and it wasn’t nearly as good as this one!” [story]
• Lastly, I’m still looking for hilarious and vulgar pub trivia team name suggestions. They’re due Wednesday. Get on it, people. Prove to me that you’re actually funny.
Six Finger Satellite – Love (Via Satellite)
Dr. Octagon – Girl Let Me Touch You
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