Nov 22
LiveJournal fads are a dime a dozen, and if you’re somewhat new to the Internet then replace LiveJournal with MySpace, and if you’re still greener than that then replace MySpace with FaceBook, and if you’re still confused as to what I am talking about then just go away because there is no possible way you will take anything funny away with you after reading this article. Seriously, just go back to Google and idle at the wonders of what the Internet may have in store for you. Go on, click “SEARCH”; don’t be afraid it won’t bite, it’s only Google. “Only Google”, you know, since they can probably see what you’re doing right now with their satellites and Google Maps vans that have taken about 30 pictures of your house with their cameras; they know more about you than the CIA does. Get out your tinfoil hats.
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Tagged with: internet • livejournal • memes • music
Nov 17
Last time on “Don’t Put That In Your Mouth” I defied my own intuition in regards to Chocolate Mix Skittles and went ahead and put them in my mouth. That was a bad move, and clearly I do not learn from my mistakes; this time around I will be putting the Jelly Belly “Bean Boozled” jelly beans to the test. Compared to Jelly Belly the Skittles are small potatoes because when Jelly Belly makes purposefully bad flavors they do it with a precision unrivaled by anybody else on the face of the Earth (keep in mind I said “on purpose” there, otherwise virtually every single candy that comes out of Mexico would be on this list – it’s not their fault they substitute sugar with chili powder, I think). I have formerly gone toe to toe with some of Jelly Belly’s off-key flavors when they had those special Harry Potter beans, and much to my horror they have seen new life as Bean Boozled beans; beans with the ability to hide amongst the good flavored beans and bite you when you least expect it. Dear God, these are V beans!!
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Tagged with: candy • crap • don't put that in your mouth • jelly belly
Nov 12
vaporware (vay – poor – where) n. A term used to describe massively hyped or advertised software that is excessively delayed and ultimately never released.
Game not included.
Yes this is an article about a dragon-related computer game, and yes I am actually satirizing it. Just because my name is “Dracophile” doesn’t mean that anything with dragons in it instantly gets five gold stars and a Dracophile Seal of Approval. Quite the contrary, actually; I have taste in what I like. Simply dropping a bunch of random dragons in front of me actually won’t keep me occupied unless you managed to find what I like. DragonPlay, a game that can best be described as “a complete Club Penguin rip-off with dragons” and worst described as “Yahtzee with letters on all the dice”, does not fall into the category of things that I find pleasing.
Of course, I would be lying to you if I said I wasn’t originally on the game’s development team at one point in time. When the project was announced in 2006 by the dev team they also asked me if I’d like to hop aboard and do graphic design work for the game which I agreed to do and also offered to design the website and host it on my own servers. Normally I’d charge for a service like that (because graphic and web design is my job) but I waived all of those fees because “hey, dragons!” They kicked me out about two weeks later because it was readily apparent I was the only developer with a head on my shoulders and a generous helping of common sense and Internet business practices.
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Tagged with: crap • dragon pr0nz • dragonplay • duke nukem • vaporware • video games
Nov 08
Outside screening of the documentary Chops.
I like film. I like working with film. I like watching films. Most importantly though, I like film. The Rockport Film Festival is, like the name implies, a film festival that is held in Rockport, TX. For the past two years I’ve been one of the event photographers which lets me into all of the receptions as well as screenings so I can lurk about and take pictures of people doing things as well as good shots of the drinks and hors d’oeuvres and other refreshments. It’s a great experience because basically I get in for free (after I’ve done my job of course) and have an opportunity to see lots of films I otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to see. People tend to underestimate how cool festivals are, which is a shame. Just because it’s not Sundance doesn’t mean it sucks.
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Tagged with: film festival • movies • trip report
Nov 06
Author’s Note: Portions of this article were originally written as a part of RFSHQ.com’s lineup on December 10th, 2004 (”Humpy Humpy Dinos”). Excerpts have been modified and new content has been added to it since its original posting.
Furries. I say one word and instantly you are either intrigued or disgusted (or other words not appropriate for this article). “Furry” is a subculture of the Internet that has an innocent side that is completely overshadowed by the overwhelmingly gargantuan portion of the fandom that is riddled with bizarre fetishes and costumes with holes in very peculiar places. I can tell you with a straight face that I know some of the cleaner furries and I know just as many if not more of the “darker” ones – and frankly I don’t care either way. Whatever floats your boat, yeah? Lots of furs like to claim that “it’s not about the adult stuff” but, yeah, it kind of is. Saying that furry isn’t about the adult artwork is like saying you go to McDonalds just because you like the napkins; you aren’t fooling anybody. I don’t have a problem with furries, some of them are pretty nice – but it’s the socially awkward ones you have to watch out for.
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Tagged with: dinosaur pr0nz • furries • internet • school
Oct 31
Author’s Note: Portions of this article were originally written as a part of RFSHQ.com’s lineup on May 15th, 2006 (“Afterlife TV”). Excerpts have been modified and new content has been added to it since its original posting.
It’s Halloween and I’d like to be the first writer on VitalViper.com to usher in the holiday and wish you all the best, and by “all the best” I mean don’t eat razor blade apples and if you see Michael Jackson in his Thriller get up then he is actually a zombie and you should RUN. Halloween is that time of the year when everybody fawns over spooky stuff and television networks air all of their scary programming. Nickelodeon is airing special “Spooktacular” episodes of Spongebob Squarepants, Cartoon Network is beating Goosebumps into the ground (which is not even a cartoon great job), American Movie Classics is showing their stock of so-bad-it’s-great horror flicks, and C-SPAN is… well they are just doing business as-is because on any given day watching the American government system self destruct is scary in its own right.
Perhaps the most recognizable facet of Halloween, though, is Syfy’s annual marathon of their Ghost Hunters show, one of many shows on television that manage to never actually produce anything worthwhile but still get greenlit for second, third, and fourth seasons. Do I believe in spirits and ghosts? Well to some extent yes, that’s debatable, but that’s not the main idea of this article. Television shows like Travel Channel’s Most Haunted and Syfy’s Ghost Hunters are so poorly faked that they essentially become programming that would be better suited as late night drunken frat boy fodder on Comedy Central.
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Tagged with: crap • ghost hunters • syfy channel • television
Oct 28
Skittles are a classic candy that date back quite a ways (to 1979) and have enjoyed a modest amount of success through actually not being that bad of a confectionery as well as having outright bizarre and/or terrifying ad campaigns to support their product. Seriously who hasn’t dreamed of planting a bag of Skittles into the ground in hopes that a giant rainbow would erupt from the Earth and rain candy on you? That’s seriously a wet dream for some people out there (Jared the Subway Guy, pre-Subway diet). Speaking of rainbows the fact that their slogan “Taste the Rainbow” sounds moderately homosexual is funny and I mean that in a tasteful way. Taste. Rainbow. Tasteful. Weiners. Hah. Back on subject, though, Skittles have come in a variety of flavors so awesome that I can only summarize Wild Berry by saying “holy crap I am freaking out”; and Tropical Mix is a close second. Sour Skittles are amazing, and for that short period of time when Green Apple and Watermelon were flavors I enjoyed a few extra handfuls of the candies just because. In fact as I type this article I have a few “Fun Size” bags of Skittles tucked away in my desk… even though there is nothing “fun” about a bag of candy that only has somewhere around 8 Skittles in it.
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Tagged with: candy • chocolate skittles • crap • don't put that in your mouth • food
Oct 23
Seeing as how I am largely a byproduct of the 1990’s I had the opportunity to grow up enjoying a lot of wondrous things such as MC Hammer making a zillion dollars off of one song and subsequently spending it all on the randomest crap ever (2 Legit 2 Pay My Bills), a time when Nickelodeon didn’t suck copious amounts of things I cannot say on this blog, and the awesome green version of Gator Golf (seriously the new orange one is terrifying). Also in the nineties (in 1993 specifically) this virtually unknown Swedish pop band called Ace of Base released their debut album Happy Nation. If you don’t know who Ace of Base is, then you might recognize this song anyways, because it’s terribly catchy in a godawful “this is why some people hated the 90’s” kind of way. Here is, arguably, their biggest hit single ever, The Sign.
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Tagged with: 10 years after • ace of base • bands • crap • music
Oct 20
I was going to originally wait until next month to publish this article, but once the true weight of this piece made its presence clear in my head and wouldn’t LEAVE I decided it would be best to go ahead and write it. On Friday November 12th, 1999 a very peculiar event took place. A movie came out, actually – and no – I’m sorry Kevin Smith, this article is not about your movie Dogma even though it is quite hilarious; this article is about none other than Pokemon: The First Movie.
It won the Academy Award for Best Movie Ever Made (in 1999).
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Tagged with: 10 years after • movies • nostalgia • pokemon • video games
Oct 15
If you follow me around often enough you may have come across me trying to hawk out invites to this exemplary piece of viral marketing gone awry. I’m willing to look past Lockerz’s reputation of spamming up a boatload of websites in the name of “viral marketing” because frankly, it worked. People got angry (and people still are, just ask /i/nsurgency) but other folks wanted to know more about this company that was making an attempt to fit in on 4chan (and failed miserably, I bet they were using Tripcodes on /b/)… because HEY free video games and other trendy nonsense!
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Tagged with: lockerz • viral marketing • websites
