Holiday Staff Parties

Pros
Get to stop working at 3
Free food
Convo with the pretty girl from reception
Alcoholic drinks
Holiday spirit
Probably something you can steal for that Secret Santa bullshit on Monday
Heart-to-heart with department head buys you some slack

Cons
Still at work while not working
Vegan crap
Ex-girlfriend standing next to pretty girl from reception
Drinking with assholes got old in college
Holiday spirit
Everyone knows you're a thief
Department head slowly realizing just how fucked up you are

Have a swell Thursday

Spam-Bots: An Appreciation

Within the next few weeks, one of our ideas will play out on video via our friends’ Seattle news parody show, Seattle Untimely. We don’t want to reveal too much right now, but let’s just say it involves a scene in the movie Boiler Room.

Anyway; myself and one of Seattle Untimely’s writer/actors, Charlie Stockman, were recently discussing our love of spam-bots. From your worst Viagra ad, to an old ‘friend’ notifying you of a new securities investment opportunity, to the most impassioned bots the internet has seen yet, Ron Paul supporters, spam-bots are the raging underclass of internet society. All over the place, we are seeing self-sufficient spam communities sprout up their own cultures and traditions. For example, just years ago, Myspace was the sole domain of humans. Nowadays, the spammers have moved into the neighborhood, and have caused a veritable ‘white flight’ of social networkers from Myspace to the gated community of Facebook. Although Facebook promises safety, it comes at the expense of the html pictures, the profile songs, and the seizure-inducing customizable pages of the vibrant Myspace culture. You may get mugged or even have your identity stolen by a spam-bot; but there’s soul there, man. It’s just like New York in the 1970s: You can guarantee that in thirty years, we’ll have a new generation of cultural critics who will write about spam-written Abercrombie bulletin posts in the same breath as Lou Reed, Patti E. Smith, and CBGBs. And just like those critical treatises on New York punk, you’ll want to murder someone after 10 sentences.

Spam-bots are usually considered to be inarticulate thugs trying to lure you into the ‘dark alley’ (i.e. getting you to click on their link) in order to steal your shit. Further examination, however, reveals them to be more intelligent in regards to their scheming than we initially think. Remember two years ago, where a ton of people started to post those “see who is viewing your profile!” bulletins on Myspace? In this case, the spammers turned the vanity of people against themselves by soliciting clicks on some profile tracker service that was actually spam-bot fraud.

That wasn’t all they accomplished with this scheme, however. While everyone was posting profile tracker bulletins and getting spammed, a backlash occurred when people responded with those “don’t click on the profile tracker bulletins – they are fake!”posts. Eventually, the Myspace bulletin board got so flooded with profile tracker and anti-profile tracker posts that it was extremely difficult to determine who the bigger asshole was: The tracker or the anti-tracker bulletin poster. In essence, the spam-bots turned a whole community against each under the pretense of a totally useless and narcissistic pursuit – just like real life!

So; today is the day we tip our hats to the spam-botters and demand a holiday in their honor. They’ve suffered for too long without rights in our constitution. If you have special spam-bot memories, post them in the comments.

Tomorrow: We propose the “Where’s Al Sharpton” spam-bot

The Tweener takes on the news pt. 2: Fatal Stabbing

The "Tweener Takes on the News" is a weekly series by the Tweener to perform the functions of an average internet weblog, or "blog".

Low and behold, I open up my online paper today, and those clowns at that the Inquirer are clowning again. Let's take a look at this absurd story, titled "Man Fatally Stabbed in South Philly this Morning":

A man was stabbed to death this morning in the 1900 block of South Mole Street, police said.

Whoa! Looks like someone got stabbed!

The victim, an Asian male in his 60s, was stabbed several times in the abdomen. He also had a gash on the back of his head.

As you can plainly see, this is the part of the article where the writer introduces more details of the stabbing.

The victim was pronounced dead at the scene at 7:36 a.m.

7:36? That's an interesting time...

Oh fuck, let's just use this article to talk about the following:

Michael Nutter. Stop n' Frisk. Sugarhouse Casino. Free Wi-fi. Sugarhouse Casino. Jocelyn Kirsch. Joey Vento. Free Wi-Fi. Vento. Philadelphia Weekly article on slam poetry. Joey Vento. Sugarhouse. Nutter. Free Wi-Fi. Brady or Manning? Stop n' Frisk. Jocelyn Kirsch.

Serious commentary:

With all the news going on in Philly, it's good to know that the Inquirer still has time to print 15 word stories on homicides that are completely divorced of context and any other useful information. Like most Philly murder stories, there will be little follow-up that will explore the motives, the victim, and the state of neighborhood where this murder occured.

Most murder stories in Philadelphia newspapers, as well as newspapers accross the country, suffer from fragmentation bias. They do not provide the details that allow the reader connect them to greater social and economic problems that they are linked to.

For example, most people think that the majority of city homicides are related to drugs. This is incorrect. Most homicides are the result of arguments.

What are these arguments usually about? Although the news rarely explores the point of contention that leads to murder, one could assume it would be money.

Guess what is difficult and time-consuming for a reporter to follow? Money disputes.

In the end, therefore, we hear time and time again about murder with little understanding of the motivations of the culprits. The accumulation of these stories leaves the reader with a depiction of the city as an apocolyptic hell-hole where violence is random at all times. The reality is that within these poor neighborhoods where the murders occur, the underground economy operates in more areas than just drugs. For example, an auto mechanic might fix a neighbor's shocks in exchange for that neighbor to put up a new dry wall in his house, because neither have the money to pay each other. When such an agreement breaks down, who is going to come in and mediate that dispute?

Not a lawyer, that's for sure.

Sorry to get all preachy on you, but this last line explains it all to me:

Police are trying to determine a motive and suspects.

Then why are you printing this story?

Jocelyn Kirsch and Pole-Vaulting

That last thing I want to do is attract more googlers, who have come to my site looking for info on this now nationally-known scandel and then leave without even clicking on one of the dozens of other posts that have covered something other than their klepto, boring-ass former friends from high school/college. As per usual, there are dozens of facebook groups being started so every nitwit who so much as made eye-contact with one of the perpetrators can provide some useless personal anecdote in hopes of getting a reporter to interview them. My favorites are always the ones like this: "I knew Eddie, I was on the swim team with him. This is crazy, I hope whatever happens will straighten him out". Hey broseph, why don't you just encode a spam-bot to write your post if your gonna be so generic? At least there'll be the possibility that your bot will be selling adderall.

So anyway, I'd like to commend Jocelyn Kirsch on concocting an awesome lie that raised my respect for her big-time: The tale of her being an olympic pole-vaulter. The inquirer took the article down for some reason, but Jocelyn Kirsch supposedly told everyone that she qualified for 2004 Athens olympics as a vaulter. She even posted a muddled facebook picture of her scaling an olympic height, when the person clearly wasn't her.

The reality was that Kirsch only vaulted for about a year. It is appropriate that she was a vaulter, as it fits her character perfectly in the context of track & field: Pole-vaulters are the moneyed gentry of track. They lie down on a padded mat all practice long catching a sun tan, only interrupting things for an occasional "run-through". Meanwhile, the 4 by 800 team is vomiting up their lunch after the twelfth interval.

I ain't mad at her for lying, though, because as a former pole-vaulter, I exaggerated my exploits quite a bit too. For example, I told everyone in college that my personal best was 11'6' to get laid, when in fact it was and even 11'. I also bragged about finishing third in the Maryland private school school championships of 99', making it sound extremely impressive, when in fact there were only about twelve teams competing in the whole thing, and only five of them had pole-vaulters.

Hey, high-school friends, remember when I came home from the Annapolis relays with a gold medal and a first place finish? Remember how much we were celebrating?

What I neglected to mention was that me and my two teammates finished first as a vaulting TEAM, and the only reason we won is because every other team got disqualified on the opening height. In essence, we won without even doing anything except clearing the opening height of 8'6'; a height so low that even Thom Yorke could dunk on it.

That was the first pop-culture joke of the Tweener. I pray to God it'll be the last.

In conclusion, us pole-vaulters really like to get high (ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Snaps!). Getting so high causes us to exaggerate the truth. In the end, however, Jocelyn Kirsch had the ambition not just to add six inches to her personal best (breasts), but also claim that she competed in the olympics, steal other's identities, and go wherever the hell she pleased. Meanwhile, the rest of us pole-vaulters are left to history's cruel whims, banished to a life of counseling at Lebanon, PA summer camps and high-school track & field assistant coach jobs.

Words of Advice on two topics

The miserable end to what has been a fairly decent opening semester is finally approaching. We will essentially be done on monday. Much content is to follow (but fuck that, you already have almost-daily content). Maybe there will be bells and whistles, like some sort of embedded audio "cast" that can be uploaded into your portable MP3 player, or "i-Pod" if you will.

I have some quick words of advice today.

2000-2004 Hippie Friends

Since Bonnarro went half-indie, half-jam band around the year 2006, I assume the college hippie of yesteryear has gone extinct. I don't know what the new amalgamation is like, because we don't tolerate that bullshit in Philly. I will, however, tell you of the misery of hanging out with hippies during the years referenced above.

Back in the day, you would be confronted with the possibility of hippie friends at a small liberal arts school that didn't have hipsters (aka not Oberlin. Remember, a lot has changed in three years), or a state school in a state that sucked (University of Maryland). You would have to choose between fratboys and hippies; there was really no middle ground.

Generally, it was ok to have one hippie friend. Having two was pushing it. Having a whole group where the majority are hippies caused your brain to melt. Let's go over the traits of these hippies:

-They weren't funny or witty

-They didn't read

-Most weren't athletic; the ones that were hated sports

-For all their love of music, it was limited to one genre, they could not talk about it coherently, and they could rarely can play any instruments themselves.

You probably already know about this, but I just wanted any hippie who reads this to be aware that they aren't welcome here.

Don't cry; you deserve it ten-fold. When you start talking about what songs you like by the Rolling Stones and the Talking Heads because Phish covered them, thereby making it 'permissible' to listen to them, you've pretty much indicated that you are a shell of a human being.

"Jesus Christ, I know Phish covered them, but is really ok to like these Rolling Stones people? Will this be ok with my peers?" *Reluctantly purchases Hot Rocks Volume 1*

To say everything that needs to be said about the 2000-04 hippie, we have the Bongo, or hand drum. Every hippie claims to 'play' this at some point. Is there any instrument more boring than hand drums? It's also completely asinine to play them, because Jam bands almost never used hand drums! How are you going to learn to play an instrument when you don't listen to any records that use them!?

Hand drum playing represents the hippie's lack of commitment to anything of substance. It requires the least amount of skill to fake-play. The only way you could be cool if you played hand drums is if you were in Fela Kuti's band, or Santana circa 1966-69. Hippies never listened to either group.

Thank God these people are easily avoidable now.

*Hateful post reflects author's poor life choices*

Pop Music Reviews

A pop music review is useful for two things: Telling you if the writer liked it, and telling you what the record sounds like in general.

After receiving that information, usually in the first paragraph, is there really a point to continuing? Most reviews just delve into overwrought meditations on individual songs and lyrics, which are completely useless. What do you care if you can't hear the song they're talking about? A pop music review that talks about the qualities of individual songs beyond "good/bad" and "sounds/like" is essentially a circle jerk between the writer and himself, and yet we see this all the time.

One paragraph reviews should be the norm

The stupid projects a creative marketing firm will take on to make money

I'd like to bring everyone's attention to the worst business idea of all time.

It was a client that Z*gz*g Net had picked up in the Summer of 2006. Simply visiting the Client's site these days makes me crack up at the hilariously predictable failure it is now.

The client's purpose was serve as an itunes-style online audio/video purchasing site. You know, kind of like itunes.

This media site, however, would focus on independent and unsigned artists. On this site, they could sell their music and movies to the magical people who would actually pay for them in the era of Youtube and Myspace.

On this kind of site, music sales would be the bread and butter. You know, kind of like itunes.

For those of you who don't know, this is generally how one makes it at a very basic level as a musical artist:

1.) Creates demo/makes connections with musicians or venue promoters
2.) Gets early shows on the basis of demo or connections.
3.) Success of early shows brings consistent bookings. Hopefully open for a popular local act at a big local venue or at a city nearby.
4.) Create EP to sell at shows for small fanbase. Post EP on Myspace. Play festivals, showcases etc.
5.) Continue playing until picked by local act for a tour or by a promoter for a big showcase. Repeat until signed.

This is the pattern with few exceptions. Musicians initially make money off of shows. The music they record in their early stages will be free, period, until they are signed.

Unsigned: Free recorded music
Signed: For sale

There is no demand to pay for an artist's independent music, unless they are really good. If that is the case, they will be signed by SOME label. There are tons of them out there.

This is really not that difficult to understand, yet Z*gz*g's client thought they would make money by providing an online purchasing sight for artists who have little-to-no buzz. They wanted to buy ads in mainstream hip-hop magazines like The Source, XXL, etc., not realizing that independent hip-hop artists and the minute amount of fans they have hate big-media publications like The Source and never read them.

That isn't the worst offense, however. After all this talk of an independent music purchasing site; you know, kind of like itunes for nobodies, what did they name it? WHAT DID THEY ACTUALLY NAME THIS SHIT?

iVisionLive

YOU KNOW, KIND OF LIKE iTUNES, EXCEPT A MAJOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IF APPLE COULD EVER LOCATE IT ON A GOOGLE SEARCH.

You can't find iVisionLive on the web unless you type it out exactly how it is. Not "iVision", not "i vision live", but only "iVisionLive". A sight with absolutely no major players backing it better be easy to locate via google search, but they couldn't even get this right while still ripping off the name of the most well-known file purchasing site in history.

So, a year into its launch, iVisionLive has no content except two hip-hop beats, and the movie "The Illusionist", which I doubt is actually available, and nonetheless defeats the purpose of the whole site's independent vibe. Z*gz*g Net did the website design and logo.

I invite you to take a look

The Tweener takes on the "news"

Over the weekend, a colleague of ours told us that we should tackle more current events and happenings in the Philadelphia area. This blog is a little unfocused, he told us.

You know what I say to THAT BULLSHIT?!

Fine, you win.

Each week, I will put focus to an article in the Inquirer that raises an eyebrow. Last week, it was the marijuana bust. This week, I want to shed light on a new criminal element in this city: young 20-something douchebags. Before we get to the story of these two thievin' bastards, I want to say a few things.

Now, as you know, I certainly appreciate America. But as you may not know, I think that the majority of this current young generation of Americans are pretty messed up. Like my man D'Angelo once sang, they are all out for a slice of the devil's pie. Status is the objective, and it is turning some of us into the living dead.

For men, they want to be Vinnie Chase. They believe that Entourage is something more than watchable crap that is tipping dangerously into unwatchable territory. They want the monies and the womens. Unfortunately for them, success on that level requires these pesky things called talent and passion. Today's male prep-school alumni don't really have the talent or passion for anything other than flip-cup.

Flip-cup

Flip-cup

Let me say that again...FLIP-CUP

EXCUSE ME, BUT I HAVE TO GO WORK ON MY WRIST-FLICKING SKILLS.

For most women, ambition is something that begins and ends with a nationally syndicated sex-column. What would Carrie Bradshaw do? For starters, hire better writers for her show.

So, in the article I linked to, we have the tale of a young Rittenhouse couple who perpetuated large-scale identity theft on their neighbors to buy designer clothes, Ikea furniture, and tickets to Paris, among others.

Let's take a look at the profile:

Jocelyn Kirsch, 22, and Edward Anderton, 25, both of Chestnut Street near 18th, were arrested Friday on charges of stealing some of their neighbors' identities and establishing credit lines in their names.

The duo also burglarized at least two of their neighbors' apartments and, police allege, they then faked Georgia state driver's licenses so they could open credit card accounts.

Anderton and Kirsch were charged with identity theft, conspiracy, unlawful use of a computer, forgery and a slew of other offenses, said Lt. George Ondrejka of Central Detectives.

Kirsch, a Drexel University student who is a former member of the sorority Delta Phi Epsilon, according to a Drexel Web site, and Anderton, a 2005 University of Pennsylvania graduate who was fired from his analyst job with Lubert-Adler Real Estate Funds, had just tried to pick up a lingerie package they had ordered from England.

Let me make a number of baseless extrapolations:

In this profile, we see the failures of both perpetrators that led to them to such desperate acts. For Anderton, it was being fired from his analyst job. For Kirsch, it was going to a lesser school like Drexel (I kid) and probably being part of only the 2nd-best sorority.

I feel for Anderton. Losing an analyst job is nothing to sneeze at. He must have really sucked at golf. Getting fired, however, is practically a right of passage for young men these days.

For Kirsch, what can one say? There's nothing more humiliating than having less material status than your female friends, save for about a thousand other things.

So, in the end, these people couldn't even wait a few years to get the wealth that they craved. They didn't decide to downgrade their 3,000 a-month apartment for something in the 'ghetto' like Nothern Liberties, or perhaps look for new jobs. Nope, they decided to pray on their neighbors to compete with the other Penn graduates who probably had more connections than Anderton, and thus were superior.

This is our generation. Gotta compete by any means necessary, even if the competition is rigged and there are other games out there to play and win. To people who resemble Kirtch and Anderton, I say: Look at a map. America's a big place you fucking idiot. Is it really that hard to move somewhere in which you don't feel endless social pressure? Close your Facebook profile if you are so embarrassed about getting fired.

So, in the end, embrace failure early and often, turn it into some sort of success, and forget about what other people in your generation think because they all grew up on some sort of prescription drug.

Words to live by.