Daily Internet Rituals

stolen from Sophia.

Wherein I tell you my favourite haunts on the Interwebs, regardless of whether you wanted to know in the first place.

1. ONTD_twatlight.
Currently, this Livejournal community is my biggest time waster on the Web. It's a community that's devoted to mocking and bagging the hell out of the most craptastic book since the time of A.D. The book is called Twilight, the community is _twatlight and the members are lovingly called twatfaxers. It's basically one big inside joke and it brings the LOLs in massive amounts. It's great to be part of a community that have little baggage and awesome personalities. And gosh, the inside jokes... I now smirk at the mention of the weather, maize, bacon, duct tape, sous vide, umbrellas, Chris Hansen and a zillion other innocuous things. This site has also completely won me over the prettiness of Robert Pattinson, whom I pic-spammed about two posts ago.

2. ONTD.
ONTD is the best gossip site in existence. It's just a fact. There's no draggy add-on life story like PinkIsTheNewBlog, and neither does it promote inbred-neanderthalness as exhibited on PerezHilton.com. Because all the contents are user generated, you get celebrity news from members who come from all over the world. Add to that magazine scans, newspaper articles, and industry insight, it adds up to a really comprehensive coverage of news from the celebrity realm, all for your easy access from one site! If you google "best communities on Livejournal", this site is the first one on the list. Yes, seriously.

3. Pajiba and by association, Webster's Is My Bitch.
Pajiba is my favourite and most trusted movie review website ever. The reviews are usually spot on, the comments very clever and the snark and wit invokes the essence of Television Without Pity, but without the excessive bitchiness. Webster's is a subdivision of Pajiba, or more accurately the gossip arm of the parent company. I really like the format they use in presenting posts, where they utilize a word or phrase and explain the meaning as well as attach it to the celebrity gossip. See for example, the explanation for the word worthless, and the phrase, I've made a huge mistake.

4. AV Club.
The AV Club deals with all things pop culture-related. Music, TV, movies, art... their articles are well-written and covers a very diverse range of topics. The only thing that shits me up the wall about the site are the commenters. Commenters on pop culture sites as a whole, are generally predisposed to having an inflated sense of self-worth that often translates to bitchiness and wit that run the gamut from genuinely funny to bucketloads of fail. Go ahead, ask me how I know this. For whatever reason, the AV Club seems to be the proverbial trailer park for the trailer trash of the commenting world. Although to be fair, their trashniess doesn't even come close to the commenters found at IMDb.

5.. Gala Darling, Fashion is Spinach and Fops and Dandies.
I've put these three blogs together because they mostly talk about the same subject, fashion and to a lesser extent, lifestyle issues.

6. All the links on both my blogs and my Livejournal friends-list, which is basically made up of communities and Sophia.
I might not always comment, but please know that I'm lurking in the corner watching every post you make. Wow, I sound about as lame-stalker as that reads.

7. Quaintly.net.
I don't remember how I stumbled across this blog, but ever since, there's been no regret and constant lurker action. Su Ann is a really intelligent girl who writes like a dream. She describes her feelings very succinctly without relying on flowery prose and the impact is that much more overwhelming because of the underwhelming way it's been conveyed. Does that make sense? Probably not. Just know that she is very, very ridiculously articulate and her command as well as usage of the language makes for a fantastic read.

8. Karen Cheng.
Look Sophia, I read her too! I'm not usually a big fan of 'mommy-bloggers' because most of the time, I'm not nearly as fascinated as they are about their self-described cute kids who also most of the time, are about as cute as a new born pug, which is to say, not very cute. At all. Holy run-on sentence, Batman! (I really need to stop doing that). Anyway, Karen bucks the trend, not simply because we share the same first name, or because she's got two very adorable sons, but because she conveys the ups and downs of being a stay-at-home mum with lots of grace and dignity. Often times we get hints of her frustration, but there's always an awareness of her good fortunes with the life she's chosen.

That concludes the top 8 sites I frequent everyday. I'm a little ashamed to admit that I don't go to news sites much, but I read the paper and watch the 6.30 pm SBS World news, which for me, is sufficient consumption of daily news.

Number 9 and 10 shouldn't technically be included because they've both shut down and stop producing new material, but back when they did, I was a constant visitor to the sites. Even now, I troll the archives re-reading the articles. Please know that if I had my way, they wouldn't have stopped and instead lived forever, thus making themselves number #1 and #2 respectively on this list.

The would-have-been number #1 but now is number #9: Stylus.
Stylus was this beautiful slice of perfection when it came to news reporting from the realm of popular culture. There was the obligatory coverage of movies and music, but what sold it best was the diverse topics Stylus wasn't afraid to cover. Unlike one certain music website that is all about the hipster wankery music -rolls eyes-, Stylus didn't shun popular music and often wrote really introspective articles of the state of pop. The movies reviewed covered art house flicks, cult movies, foreign films and big Hollywood blockbusters. Discussions were passionate but never rude. And the Staff Top 10 lists as well as features, were always an excellent read. It's a shame this site had to die for I have yet to find an equal to it.

Would-have-been number #2 but now, number #10: Fametracker.
Fametracker was the absolute shiznit when it came to talking about celebrities. I believe it's from the same people/company who brought you Television without Pity, so there was the inbuilt snark from the get go. Their 'Hey! It's That Guy!' feature covers the plethora of actors who you often find yourself saying, "Hey! It's that guy from _____". To put it simply, the site was complete and utter brilliance.

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When I am really, really, really bored and am looking to waste more time on the Internet, I go to eBay and Flickr. I also stalk famous people on the Internet, namely James Gunn's MySpace blog, Jason Mraz's blog and the people who run and work or created College Humor.com. Well, I did say "waste more time" and I never do a half-assed job if I can help it. I also go to Cracked for the occasional laughs. Oh, and Nintendo 8 to play old-school Mario and Galaga.

I suppose it's easier to say that the Internet becomes a free for all when I'm looking to kill time.

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Sites that I loathe
1. Perez Hilton
Ugh. The shameless self-promotion, the childish picture scrawling, the irrepressible need to plaster his goddamn ugly mug on every third post.. How do I loathe thee, let me count the ways. I honestly lose respect for people when they say they frequent this site. True fact. I overheard this one girl in my tute talking about it in a tone that wasn't derogatory and we never became friends. I don't think it's my loss.

2. TwoP
I used to go to TwoP a lot but the insane amounts of fanwank got to me after a while. Look, the third season of Veronica Mars sucks. It really does. Accept it and deal with it. No amount of explanation or fanwankery will make others see otherwise. Fuck, season 2 wasn't even all that great. Blame CW all you want, but ultimately Rob Thomas CHOSE to subvert the formula that make Season 1 such a critical success. He chose to end season 3 without a proper ending knowing full well, that there was a very big chance the show won't be coming back. Get over it or I'll sick the wahhhmbulance on you.
/end rant.

Honestly, I still frequent the Mondo Extras bit. It's content that would have ended up on Fametracker anyway.

3. IMDb
Ditto for IMDb. It's very hard trying to present an articulate argument because whatever you say, asswipes are just going to come back with a "If you don't like it, get the fuck off the boards" type comment. And regardless of how you tell them you're just trying to have a discussion, they call you a troll and the whole boards deteriorate into a name-calling session. Goddamn wankers. These days I get my information off Wikipedia. It's a lot easier and makes me less prone to stabbing people with a blunt fork.

4. Pitchfork
I sincerely want to smack every self-congratulatory bastard on this site for their self-deluded thoughts on being music maestros of the music universe just because they frequent this oh-so-exclusive website. Wake up and smell the green grass, because there's so much more to music than Indie Rock. You're so much worse than those 14 year old die hard My Chemical Romance fans, because they at the very least, do not have age and experience on their side. Fuck you for giving the genre a bad name with your self-wankery.

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This post ended up a lot longer than I expected. Sorry, Sophia! And as a treat for reading all that, here is a great interview by Complex magazine with both James McAvoy and Common for the upcoming movie, Wanted. Yes, that's the actor from Scotland and rapper from USA. It's a bizarre match but both of them seem to have a good rapport and the interview is a fun read. Here's a snippet:

Common: ...I was just excited to work with James. I seen James in Last King of Scotland, I’m one of them people like, if I see somebody and I think they got something, I become a fan and follow they stuff. So when I seen James, after that, what was that movie you did with “ten?”
James McAvoy: Starter for 10? I can’t believe you watched that.
Common: [Laughs.] I wanted to see that just because I liked James. So I was excited to work with him. Going back to the whole classical training, whatever he was bringing was just right, and he’s like that in every movie I seen him do.
James McAvoy: Thank you, man.

Part 1.
Part 2.

via, where else, the fabulous ONTD.

Things that have crossed my mind lately

- I hate shopping sites that don't readily put out the price of their products and only reveal it during the check out bit. Price plays a big factor in my decision to purchase something so not having the price readily available annoys me muchly.

- My grammar and spelling is deteriorating at a shockingly high rate. I wonder if that has anything to do with my growing fluency at Net speak.

- Consequently, what are the odds that future employers would be impressed if I added 1337 and LOLcat to 'languages I speak' in my resume?

- Thanks to Net speak, the term 'serious business' elicits giggles that confounds my conversation partner. Trufax. I had to explain to someone about the importance of the correct brand of toilet paper and he said not ironically, "This is serious business." I guffawed like a donkey on fire.

- Additionally, Zoolander made me forget that the correct term for 'investigatory journalist' is actually really 'investigative journalist'. The former came out in conversation the other day and I was completely stumped as to what the correct term was till Google informed me.

- Why is it that movies seem to run much longer than they really should these days? Indy Jones 4 was 2 hours and 2 minutes of total abomination and 21 could have been 21 times better if 21 minutes was cut from its total length of 2 hours and 3 minutes (clap, clap, clap). What happened to exercising some control in the editing room? Tighten up the script and cut the flab, script writers! Which leads me to my next thought.

- What could possibly go on in the Sex and the City movie to warrant a run time of 2 hours and 22 friggin' minutes?! I imagine the movie is made to stoke the fire of fangirls all across the nation but Christ on a stick, that's one long exercise in movie masturbation for a series that frankly wasn't all that good that people made it out to be.

- SatC is one of those things that people confess to liking as a guilty pleasure. Or if they like it, they'll say they like it best because of the strong friendship between the four leads or the fashion. Kind of like Gossip Girl. And how people only like it because of the relationships and wardrobe eye-candy. I have nothing else to add to this observation. I think there's something worth investigating there but it's not immediately obvious and I'm in a couldn't-be-arsed mood to think or formulate some kind of theory.

- There is this guy I know who I introduce as my cousin. We share the same last name and were born on the very same day a year apart. He too is a middle child and we both lack 20/20 vision. Character wise, we're as polar opposites as positive and negative come. One time, a mutual friend said, "Call your cousin to come out with us." And I was all, "What cousin?" I'm starting to forget which person I've told the lie too which is bad. We're now trying to push the fraternal twins angle because we roll that way. Stay tuned for more mischief and mayhem of the LAME-you're-the-only-one-laughing kind.

- I used to wonder why people believe the bullshit I make up. Every other person I meet I call cousin and depending on where people guess my (non)accent is from, I create a fake identity accordingly. Then I realized that it's because when we first meet people we take everything they say at face value. We don't stop to question their name and true identity because we assume they're telling the truth. This realization made me feel terrible for abusing people's trust, wonder how many people lie as well and what this compulsive lying says about my character. I think I'll stop lying when telling people that I'm Betty from a town called Riverdale, California stops being amusing. Which should be about, oh, never.

- A while ago I told Chaz that before I die, I would want to get blazed out of my mind with illegal substances so that I can experience the high without the consequences. Now, I think I'd be happy to go out in an edible orgy of egg-related food items. Bulls-eye, hardboiled, scrambled, hard boiled, cheese cakes, brownies, souffles, omelettes, chawan mushis... ahh. I'd be the most swollen and blotchy cremated body ever, but it would be complete and total eggstacy (clap).

Offline death in an online world.

When people die in real life, what happens to their online identity? I understand email accounts self-delete after a certain period of inactivity, but what about Facebook and Myspace accounts? If someone puts up a profile you on MyDeathSpace after your death, is that suppose to be enough to alert the online world about your demise? What happens to your eBay account if you have one? Especially if you were selling/bidding on things? And say you keep a blog? What happens to it?

I want to know the answers to these questions. I also want to know if it's considered too lame or of bad taste to engrave 'FAIL' or any of it's derivatives ('aboard the failboat'/'fail at life' etc) on a dead person's tombstone.

This post is dedicated to The Charmmeister

Otherwise titled, 'Boys who I think are hot but Charm does not, but let's dedicate this post to her anyway for shits and giggles.'

How can you not love a man who works the hell out of Blue Steel?
Although I suppose to be fair, I'm more in love with Dean Winchester than the actual Jensen Ackles. Which is why I think you must watch Supernatural. Seriously, Dean is the shiznit, Chaz. We're talking witty banter, (one) good looking brother, decent enough mythology and the icky-est fanfiction in the history of fan created fiction ever. Need I say more?


One of my best friend is infatuated with Mr Sturgess here. And he's lacking the double Xs in his chromosome buildup that you have, Chaz. Jim Sturgess is so adorable, he makes young golden retriever puppies cry. Trufax.


DJ/Producer extraordinaire: Mark Ronson. No need to know his music, just know he's adorable.
Honestly, this guy confuses me. Sometimes he looks super-diggly adorable like in this pic. And other times, he looks like this:


which isn't nearly half as interesting as the former. It's in pictures like this that you can finally see the resemblance to his twin sister, Samantha Ronson. So I suppose this guy's hotness is questionable.



If there's one good thing that came out of Iron Man, is the fact that the greater movie-going audience and Chaz is finally privy to the hotness and male perfection that is Robert Downey, Jr. He is one of the finest working actors in the industry and it's fantastic to see him get back on track after all that shenanigans with the illegal substances.



And you've made it very clear that you don't find Frank Iero in anyway relatable to the word 'cute'. But for chrissake's woman, HE'S HUGGING A GIGANTIC GREEN DINOSAUR AND LOOKING GLEEFUL ABOUT IT. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?!?!?

And finally, you've had to see this coming considering the recent discussions we've had about dazzle and sparkle. I'm going to illustrate to you why I think you too should be obsessed with Robert Pattinson, henceforth known as RPattz.

Look at that hair. Hardest working hair in Hollywood, I tell ya. Besides the fair that he's got the best hair I've ever seen on a guy, he also looks high as hell in 3/4 of the pictures that exist of him on the Internet. Observe Exhibit A:

So high, the Chicago Space Tower ain't got nothing on him.
and Exhibit B:


Yeah, maybe he doesn't look that high here. But take note of his outfit because you get to see it in it's entire glory in the next picture.

sparkles!!~~
Who wears a velvet jacket and leather pants to a premiere? Oh, I don't know. RPATTZ WOULD!


And any mere mortal would have looked horrible in that dazzling ensemble. But guess who ends up rocking the velvet/leather combo while looking really, really smarmy and hot? RPATTZ, THAT'S WHO.


See Dean Winchester (above) about hot guys rocking the Blue Steel look.

And when he cleans up,

So hot that the temperature meter system has been changed from Kelvin to RPattz

Oh hell yeah, he cleans up good. He also has a very versatile look, not necessarily always dazzling in the dreamboat kinda way.

Here's him being a (dreamy) nerd.


And him looking like a (dreamy) homeless person.


And him looking (dreamily) blazed out of his mind.


But seriously though, he's got such a great smile. And an even better side profile. Plus in pictures, he always looks like he's having fun (comes with being highhhhhh) so I imagine that in real life, he would be all sorts of dazzling.


Here's him in one of your favourite colours. See him here? Rocking the Mills&Boons romance book cover look. That's what we call versatility. Otherwise spelled as H-O-T.

So dear Chaz, this post is dedicated to you. Thank you for putting up with my childish ways, like tagging you on Facebook pictures when you're not even fucking in them, or hearing me ramble on about the best community on Livejournal, _twatlight, and entertaining SMSes that talk about bringing 'freedom' back to food. Also thank you for not judging me when I gulp down a jug of Coke and not smacking me in my face when I pimp you out to my other friends. Finally thank you for having such a high bullshit tolerance level and continuing to be my friend, although I have given you many reasons not to. You're the best. For your birthday this year, I'm giving you bacon and gaffer tape and a cookbook on cooking sous vide style.

Also, you should probably know that all the above italicized words are inside jokes at _twatlight. You have no idea how much fun I had making this post. Please join _twatlight already so I can stop giggling to myself while making blog posts that no one understands. If this plea isn't enough to move you, here's a macro that hopefully will.

All credits go to ink-faerie at _twatlight

Psst, I got sidetracked because of this.

Eugoogly: Mr Robbins of Baskin-Robbins

"Frankly, I never met a flavour I didn't like."
-Irvine Robbins, co-founder of Baskin-Robbins

via Baltimore Sun

Thank you for Jamoca Almond Fudge and Peanut Butter & Chocolate, sir. Your ice cream is really quite expensive but those two flavours make the five bucks go a long way in taste and quality.

[addendum]
This is post #200!

Links Almighty!

This is one of the funniest videos I've seen in a while.

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

CollegeHumor, I think, is fast becoming one of the best websites for producing good comedy on the Internet. The rest of the site may be more male-orientated with the running frat-boy theme amongst the articles and the pictures, but I'm particularly enamored by their original videos. It's a combination of having good writers, decent enough means of production ie. sound/video editing, photogenic crew (seriously, there is no unattractive person working there) and buckloads of creativity. Most of the people working there end up creating such fantastic on-line personas that I get curious enough to start finding more information by means of stalking them on their blogs and Flickr account. Thank goodness that most of them have utilized the powers of Web 2.0 that their company banks upon.

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In unrelated news, visit Faildogs.com.



Proving that cats aren't the only animal in the animal kingdom who bring the massive FAILs.

Oh.

More, you say?








Although that last one doesn't actually have anything to do with the dog.

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In even more unrelated news, I really like Mondays and Wednesdays because in the mornings, this really adorable guy from one of the meat shops at Victoria Market comes by to get coffee for his shop. Before I knew he existed, his elder brother came in, and even then I was already slightly perving. Since he looks almost exactly like his brother, it's much easier on my conscience to ogle at said guy. Oh, and he gives the most spastic winks. Whenever I greet him, he says hi and winks, and I have to stifle a smirk. He probably thinks I have a weird-ass cheek-biting condition that prevents me from meeting his eyes. But he's seriously spastic! His whole face contorts and I think both eyes actually close when the supposed wink happen but that just simply adds to his level of adorability. Naturally. Gotta love cute guys with spastic winks at 6 am in the morning.

Incoherency

- A weekend with the family at Queensland just isn't enough. My family is one of those disgustingly Brady-like family with weekends scheduled for 'family time'. And rage against it I may have once, but my stance changed after realizing that acting like an idiot negates my right of making fun of other (worser) idiots. This past weekend at Surfer's Paradise also marks the first time the 5 of us have been away together since 2003 with no possibility for a recurrence in the near future. Hence with the added momentum of the weekend away, it was especially hard to walk away from the embrace of the doofuses + Mum that make up the Wongs. Still, the world turns on its axis, and life moves on.

- I'm not prone to grand hyperbolic statements. So when I say that I believe Surfer's Paradise to be the arsehole of the universe, it probably is.

And yeah, it really, totally is.

- Over the weekend, I read this book below.

The book started out really well, laying out the historical evidence of cannibalism throughout the centuries. Covering most of the different historical periods from the early Egyptians to the current century, the different reasonings behind the act of consuming the flesh was examined. But then in choosing to devote the majority of the book to profiling different cannibals, the tone of the book went from BBC-History-Channel documentary to schlocky E!-True-Hollywood-Story exposé . The similarities between the psyche of these cannibals was very informative to the reader, however the in depth, and we're talking 'the-thighs-and-calves-make-for-the-best-meat' kind-of-depths detail, of the murders and actual consumption was a bit much to take. I suppose at the end of the day, that was partly why I bought the book anyway. I mean, one doesn't pick up a book titled 'Eat Thy Neighbour' expecting a story about Care Bears with the disposition of Elmo, right? I did feel really queasy after finishing the book, more queasy than I felt after watching movies of the supposed torture porn genre. But then I ended the night eating raw salmon fish, so there's that.

- This book I also read over the weekend.

I had been meaning to read the book after experiencing the massively insane fandom, so it was with much excitement that I started the book. Going into it, all I knew that it involved a love story between a human and a vampire who meet at high school. Before starting it, I gleaned off the paper that in the Top Five Best-Selling Australian Sci-Fi/Fantasy, this book and its consequent sequels scored #1, #4 and number #5 respectively. Which, frankly, is both ridiculous and spectacular enough to warrant disbelief and curiosity. I wanted to know what the hype was all about and why the people on the LiveJournal community I frequent applied the massive sparkle effects in posts. And oh boy is the reveal friggin' hilarious and so worth the read. Can I just admit right now that I am hopelessly addicted to ONTD?

Anyway, the book as a whole makes for an entertaining read. Personally, I have found another to be more superior when it comes to the Young Adult fantasy/romance fiction genre that Stephanie Meyers based her book upon. And I think the comparisons between Harry Potter and this book is completely unfounded, especially with the existence of the Night World series. Twilight was great at the start as the tension between the two protagonists build, but past the reveal and the common understanding, the story moves toward the kind of fluff that serves to whet the emotions and fire of dedicated fans. It's all dreamy prose of everlasting love, wants, needs and haves that defies reason. Which, you know, isn't bad, but pales in comparison to the other author my allegiance lies with, because she at least doesn't let the story degenerate into fluffy fanfiction.

- I sound really obsessive about Night World but that probably is because I am.

- If I could go back to Twilight for a bit though; after completing the book, I'm not sure that it will translate well to the film medium. There are only so many things CGI can do, but if and when the SPARKLE happens (sniggers), the film could potentially degenerate into one long LOL-lercoaster ride. I suppose I'm only expressing this issue because ONTD has ruined me.

- I've had the startling realization that James McAvoy is in fact, a Scottish version of Diego Luna! Or perhaps, Diego Luna a Mexican version of McAvoy? The point is besides both actors bearing a resemblance to each other, both are also incredibly talented and are slowly getting the limelight they deserve. They both have a very alluring appeal that isn't immediately obvious at first glance. And superficially, what they lack in height, they make up for in hotness. You heard it here first!