Today's silly geekfest comes to you via a post by Ken Scholes and created by someone with too much time on his hands and a delirious sense of humor:
You sometimes wonder what the actors themselves think when they see things like this.
This morning, a friend directed me, amid her chagrin, to the L.A. Weekly geek blog Topless Robot. It's sort of my counterpart to L.A. Weekly, which means it gets nifty graphics.
Today, however, Topless Robot took a break from "The 10 Lames Superheroes in Cartoon History" and "The 10 Most Disturbing Smurfs" to detail "The Six Kinds of Fat Chicks."
It was just as offensive and disgusting as you might imagine. Setting aside the fact that geek boys aren't necessarily any more svelte than geek girls, the shallow and revolting run-down that passed for humor was decidedly mean-spirited and offended just as many men as women. It reinforces the old stereotypes that a) women are to be evaluated solely on their bodies, both by themselves and others; and b) men are only interested in thin hotties with empty heads.
As always, the proliferation of links led scads of people - men AND women - to comment on the blog itself and email the editors at L.A. Weekly. By midafternoon, the post had been pulled, along with the scantily-clad 300-pound woman at the top.
Now before anyone yells "censorship," I'd like to point out that this is not censorship at all. Only the government can censor someone, and for once it was busy doing other things. This is the information industry, of which Yours Truly is a part, correcting itself and responding to what the consumers (that would be you) truly want. And I find it refreshing.
This is how the ebb and flow of the 'net is supposed to work. When blatant racism, sexism and other unpleasant isms rear up, all the hit counts in the world aren't going to stop L.A. Weekly from pulling the plug when it makes its paying customers scream and shout. I guarantee if I started mocking a particular segment of the population and generated massive protests, you might not see a CultureGeek any longer.
Oh, I have the right to say it. So did the author of "Six Kinds of Fat Chicks." So does anyone in this grand old country. You can stand on a public street corner and shout at the top of your lungs. You can make a sign as big as your head and wave it at passing traffic. You can get yourself a free blog and yammer about any stupid piece of [CENSORED] that so moves you. Go First Amendment.
But nobody says the radio station, newspaper or L.A. Weekly has to pay for the space for you to do it. And nobody says we the consumers have to sit back and take it, shaking our heads at how stupid some people are and move on. Silence is a form of consent. Ignore the isms and you are presumed to agree. And sometimes that reflects on issues far more important than acceptance of women's body types.
At any rate, I'm glad to see that 'net-gnashing does, sometimes, have a positive effect. Now if only it worked on the guys who make movies...
There are times when I think YouTube may be the cruelest invention in history. Forget the rack, the iron maiden or Britney Spears' maternal statue: YouTube perpetuates moments that I'm sure the perpetrators would like to forget.
Case in point: "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins," in which Leonard Nimoy romps with the rejects from "Beach Blanket Bingo" to sing of the tales of our favorite hobbit. Just let that sink in for a moment.
Courtesy (sort of) of regular CultureGeek reader J.T., I give you the absolute height of geekiness:
After receiving this link, I declared that I might have found something too geeky to put on this blog. This might actually reach the limit of ultimate geekiness. But then J.T. reminded me that there are go-go dancers, and I think that kicked it over into a level of bizarre that must be shared with you, my kind and gentle readers.
The phrase "what were they SMOKING?" comes to mind. And if anyone can explain the giant buttons to me, I'd be ever so pleased.
Part of pop culture is "weird things on the internet," and today, the 'net is buzzing about the MacBook Air.
Less than one inch thick. So skinny my nine-year-old could use it for an incredibly expensive Frisbee. Wait, 
the Frisbee is thicker. It's exactly three pounds, and suddenly my G4 iBook isn't so stunningly beautiful. In fact, next to the Air, my G4 looks like a Yugo next to a DeLorean. (Yes, I am stuck in the '80s, wanna make somethin' of it?)
Here's the thing, though. As much as I worship at the Altar of Jobs (Steve, that is), I need a reason to spend $1,800 on a laptop. Yes, the Air is a lovely advance in computer technology. But what will it do for me that my two-year-old iBook won't?
Amazingly, CultureGeek was not invited to the Macworld Expo to find out in person. (Shocking, that.) I had to stick with the guided tour on Apple.com.
The first thing I thought of was, "Dell is weeping." The MacBook Air really is a marvel of design, slim and elegant as only Mac can design them. Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote a column years ago about the real artwork in Apple's design work, and while I can't aspire to Morford's metaphors (or run-on sentences, of which he is king), I can appreciate the elegance in a computer that doesn't look like a box.
That said, I got bored with the guided tour very quickly. I really don't care about the pinch and swipe use of the trackpad, guys. Tell me what's new besides being thin, light, pretty and worth a ton of money, which of course is a top priority for me in life.*
It has a backlit LED display without mercury or arsenic, which is power-efficient and greener. It has an iSight camera, which mine lacks, but the current MacBook has. Same battery power, same chip, same memory. It has the top-of-the-line wi-fi and Bluetooth capabilities, which is nice.
Uh oh. It has no optical drive. That means no CD-ROMS. "MacBook Air is built for the wireless world," it crows. "So instead of watching DVDs, you can rent movies wirelessly from the iTunes store!" But wait, all my software comes on CD-ROMs! What about the DVDs I already own! Well, it has a new feature called Remote Disc, which lets me connect to any Mac or PC in the area and use ITS optical drive.
Sorry boys, here's where you lost me. Suddenly the MacBook Air doesn't seem like a prize. It seems like a machine designed to keep me from uploading my legally-purchased CD collection into my computer. As I look around, I see the install disks for Photoshop and Final Draft and my ginormous collection of clip-art CDs, all of which I need to access regularly. To my left, I see the press kit I received at a public hearing today. Guess how they gave me the documents for the improvements on Ilinois 157? You guessed it - CD.
What? I can buy an external drive for $99? So, I save all this weight by buying a shiny skinny new laptop, and I have to add this external drive to my briefcase anyway?
It pains me deeply to turn away from a shiny new toy from Apple. My new iPod Touch (thanks Dad!) is my latest toy, and one I adore to the depths a woman can love a computer, at least when I haven't lost the stinking recharger/sync cable again. The MacBook Air is indeed a marvel of technological design. But once again, Apple has forgotten that some of us cannot live on iTunes alone, even if we will be able to rent movies now without even having to wait for Netflix.**
We still have to operate in the real world. And for the moment, at least, the real world needs an optical drive. Whew, I just saved myself $1,800.
* Sarcasm.
** I am honestly more excited about this than I should be.
No motivational movement has been mocked as much as those inspirational black-framed posters that gave us pithy encouragement with lovely nature photography.
Sometimes people just don't want to be uplifted.
Instead, we have the Star Trek Inspirational Posters, obviously written by fans with a bit of perspective on the funny of the original series. I chose my two favorites, but honestly, they're all hilarious. Warning: some are a little naughty!
As the posters point out, not every episode could be "City on the Edge of Forever." And any satire that can find the funny in "The Way To Eden" is a positive for me. Then again, there's a lot that's funny about "The Way To Eden." You know, the space hippies that sucker Spock into jamming with them? And they're all wearing fried eggs on their shoulders? You gotta know the creators were indulging in 1960s recreational chemicals.
I freely admit a few evenings of college geekiness, in which my friends and I indulged in adult beverages and watched old Trek to make fun of it. These things go down easier with alcohol, folks. I recall my friend David T. watching "The Way to Eden" as Spock asks to join the jam session, throwing himself to his knees in my living room and shouting, "No, Spock, don't do it!"
Ahem. What are you looking at?
Please refer to the title of this blog. It doesn't say CultureGEEK for nothin', folks.
Recently, I was invited to join Shelfari, a social networking site oriented around books. You join, list your favorite books and connect with other readers - a high-tech book club.
It seemed like a neat idea, so I signed up. I forgot about it until months later, when another friend was looking for me on Shelfari and sent me a friend request. So I signed on, accepted the request...
And accidentally pressed the wrong button. Somehow, I authorized Shelfari to send an email to MY ENTIRE ADDRESS BOOK.
I'm familiar with this insidious form of marketing, of course. I always deselect. When I join a site, I join it because I'M interested in it. If it makes me drag in other people, I add my own addresses. Not random friends. We all have quite enough spam, thank you.
I can't imagine how I missed that part of the process, but there it went. My address book has nearly four hundred names on it. I try to add everyone to my address book so that their replies don't go to my spam filter. I am regretting that policy.
Co-workers.
My bosses at the newspaper.
Editors at my various publishers.
The site meter for my web site.
Members of my Relay for Life team.
Magazine editors.
Listservs to which I belong.
Organizers of pop-culture conventions.
Members of my church.
My son's teacher.
Fellow authors.
My ex-husband and his wife.
Last year's secret Santa list from Shocklines.
The entire Cub Scout den to which my son belongs.
The company from which I special-ordered T-shirts last year.
An ex-boyfriend or three.
My entire family.
Thank goodness this was my personal address book. If I had been using my work account, it would have gone to everyone from the governor's press secretary to the superintendents of 10 local districts.
I started seeing bounce-backs from email addresses that had gone dead. Then my friends began signing up and I realized what was happening, to my complete humiliation.
"I can't believe this," I bemoaned to Jeff Strand, a friend and fellow writer who was on the fabled list. "I can never show my face on the internet again. I'm a spammer!"
"Yup, it's over for you," he replied. "You'll have to pack up your books and douse your keyboard with whiskey."
"I've got a better use for the whiskey," I said.
First, I changed my profile on Shelfari to read, "Elizabeth is absolutely horrified that by pressing a wrong button, Shelfari has invited her ENTIRE ADDRESS BOOK. It was not intentional. It's a great site, but she apologizes deeply to her friends, co-workers and professional contacts for the spam."
And it is a good site. I like seeing what other people are reading. I'm a big fan of (most) networking sites, as long as you play fair and don't get stupid. I like any site that orients around books, and this one is stable, pleasant, devoid of the overwhelming "special features" that bog down Facebook and nowhere near as uuuuugly as Myspace.
Then something surprised me. By my unofficial count, at least 30 of the people I unintentionally spammed have joined Shelfari. Clearly, this technique works. But its invasiveness has spurred many bloggers wiser than I to slam it.
In June, it tricked New York Observer writer Jesse Wegman into doing exactly what I did: inviting his entire address book, some 1,500 names. "If you’re reading this, you’ve probably received my recent personal invitation to join Shelfari.com. In fact, even if you’re not reading this, you’ve probably received my recent personal invitation to join Shelfari.com," he wrote.
Shelfari has quite loudly proclaimed that it's a simple thing to uncheck the boxes and not spam your entire world. If it's a simple thing, it's apparently so simple that I missed it. As I bemoaned my stupidity, a friend directed me to LibraryThing, which is a far, far superior book site that is generally kind to its competitiors... except Shelfari. At least 50 users have posted in fury about Shelfari spamming their address book.
And that, in turn, directed me to Gadgetopia, which wonders when "usability flaw" becomes "unethical spam machine." The author on Gadgetopia actually protested to Shelfari, which responded that we authorized them to do it. We clicked "yes"! I honestly cannot recall clicking anything that said "invite my entire address book," but I'm afraid to go look at that page again. It might repeat the performance.
We only send emails on behalf of users who have explicitly authorized us to do so. The invite friends page clearly lists your friends in the system and all the email address of friends from your address book who from which you are given the opportunity to invite. If you don’t want to send emails to your friends there is an unselect button above each section. We have actually evaluated numerous designs for this process and have chosen one that we felt was extremely clear explaining the process and what is happening. This is apparently the response one gets if one slams Shelfari online. Let's see if they find me!
At any rate, the humiliation was compounded today as I received a slew of emails - it seems Shelfari sent a repeat email to everyone I know, AGAIN, reminding them to join me on Shelfari! Face, meet palms. Their FAQ claims they only send one follow-up email. I sure hope so, or I might have to move to Bangladesh.
"Leave me alone I don't read books stop spamming me woman!" Jeff complained, an amusing statement for a Stoker-nominated author. He was cackling as he typed, I'm quite sure. HE didn't turn HIS entire address book over to a spammer. I'm thinking of sending him a copy of LISEY'S STORY in revenge. My emailed response... is best left off a blog for a family newspaper.
In their defense, Shelfari's blog claims they are listening to complaints and will address them. "In June we looked at a number of different designs with the goal of creating something easy to use as well as clear. Recent feedback has been clear that our current design is not clear enough," they write. Ya think?
In a last-ditch effort to save face, I tried to get Yahoo to send an email to my entire address book apologizing for my accidental spamming.
It wouldn't let me.
It doesn't want me to... spam.
P.S. Save yourself! You can opt out of Shelfari invite spam here.
In the category of Time Wasters Deluxe, I give you this.
And this. One is much harder than the other.
Okay, in all fairness, I got 49 of the 50 states in four and a half minutes. But then I got stuck on Delaware. I thought it was the District of Columbia, or Washington D.C., and since you have to spell everything right I worked on it forever.
I won't lie - I wasn't even close on Asia. I gave up after my ninth try at spelling Kazakhstan and cheated. Just a little! I knew the country, I just needed to know how to spell it! In the end, I got 26 and missed 27. I forgot that Hong Kong is technically a country.
I am, however, quite embarrassed at missing Bahrain, since my brother-in-law was stationed there for six months. And there's no excuse for missing Thailand. I give myself a free pass on Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
Go on, give it a shot. No cheating with Google Maps! Anyone who gets "counties of England" is automatically rendered a Geography Geek.
Brought to you by blogger Donna Bell, Nintendo has finally figured out that women play video games too.
I realize the shock may be overwhelming you, so please, sit down and breathe before you continue.
Okay, I don't have much room to talk, because the last video game I was nuts for had words instead of pictures. Zork, anyone? *crickets chirp*
But surprise! I have geek friends. I have WOMEN geek friends. And just about all of them play some form of video game. Just this past weekend, I watched amusedly as my friend Kori out-rocked both the guys on Guitar Hero II. Not just for kids. Not just for boys, either.
So we should be cheering the fact that the large number of Japanese women - outnumbering men - who use Nintendo's Wii and DS machines is forcing the game industry to take notice, right? After all, it seems women comprise 51 percent of Wii users in Japan, and I'd bet the numbers are close in the U.S.
Um.
Nintendo's response, in order to pitch to a predominantly female audience for Christmas?
"Wii Fit, which uses an innovative floor-based sensor to register body movement, takes players through a daily regimen of yoga, balancing exercises and other fat-fighting activities."
As Ms. Bell says, "Uh. Yeah. That's why I bought my DS. *headdesks repeatedly*"
Despite women's fondness for Wii Sports, apparently Nintendo focuses on "lifestyle" titles for women, teaching cookery, healthy eating and makeup tips. And it's not nearly as offensive as Ubisoft's Imagine line of games for girls, focusing on taking care of babies, fashion design and "happy cooking."
I'll be headdesking beside Ms. Bell.
Perhaps that's the real reason why I gave up games when they went to graphics. I prefer a good fight to all this sneakin' around. And the very last thing I want to do with a computer game is EXERCISE AND LEARN MAKEUP TIPS. But games have been a boys' treehouse for so long - when women show up, they're usually pseudo-porn figures like Lara Croft's improbable figure - that it's really not worth the effort.
I think I may just go back into the Great Underground Empire. Wake me when Nintendo takes the NO GURLZ sign off the treehouse.
Let's start the day with some silliness, shall we?
Inspired by a popular stick-figure web comic, a bunch of people decided to try playing chess on a roller-coaster. No, I am not making this up.
It's one of my goals as CultureGeek to bring you the very best in examples of People With Too Much Time On Their Hands. And honestly, now you want to go do it, don't you? The Boss at Six Flags takes your picture on the third right turn just before the end.
Hey, it beats Stuff On My Cat.
You only have one more day to vote for one of the new Seven Wonders of World!
Yes, they're doing the vote online. The official declaration will be on Saturday, July 7, 2007, in Lisbon, Portugal. Yes, that's the 7 Wonders at 7-07-07. Ha. Ha.
Interestingly, the Pyramids of Giza have been removed from the list, granting them their own honorary status. The reason for this is not entirely clear. Heaven knows they were at the top of my list.
You have to give them your email address, but if you're like me, you've got a junk email address you use for such things. Go for it! How often do you get to pick from so many cool world sites, anyway?
(For the record, my choices were:
• The Acropolis (the Sacred Rock of Athens)
• Petra (former capital of the Nabataean Empire, you know it as "that cool place Indiana Jones invaded in THE LAST CRUSADE")
• The Colosseum (Rome, duh)
• Chichen Itza (famous Mayan temple city)
• Statue of Liberty (if I need to identify it, you need to go back to school)
• Stonehenge (world's biggest calendar, plus is it haunted?)
• The Great Wall of China (you can see that thing from space without a telescope)
No, this is not just another internet poll. It's for real: The Washington Post says so.