Posts tagged: Animals

My Best Worst Website Ideas

By , August 24, 2011

All the talk of late has been speculation as to whether another tech bubble is in the works. If so, there are no doubt dozens of venture capitalists running amok, eager to throw money at anyone with an idea for a website. Since I’m not the techie type, I’ll never get my hands on any of that money, but here are some ideas I’ve had of late for terrible web pages. I hereby donate them to anyone who wants them– go ahead and get rich with ’em if you can. It’s on me.

1. Bad Dating Site– Are you and your significant other constantly fighting? Beating one another? Cheating? This is the site for you! Monitor just how bad it is using our advanced in-site metrics. Share your lack of progress towards happiness with your friends using graphs and counters on your profile page. Proudly display “THIS RELATIONSHIP HAS GONE XXX DAYS WITHOUT AN INFIDELITY” and watch as the number grows each day, or resets to zero when you finally lose the will to resist your secretary’s advances.

2. Fiendbook– Are you embarrassed by your profile pic on the local law enforcement agency’s web page? Imagine Megan’s Law, but with social networking functionality! Interact with other criminals to boost your sphere of influence, and garner new partners-in-crime at the same time. Maybe you’re planning a bank heist and need a getaway driver. A simple search on our page is all you need. Or are you looking for the scoop on potential victims? Which local child is most prone to fall for the “lost puppy” scam, and which will eagerly hop into a windowless van if candy is promised? What area widow is poised to part with her former husband’s vast fortune? Does the owner of that corner market keep a gun behind the register, or can you waltz in with impunity and rob the joint? At last, a site that has the answers you seek.

3. Geolocation for Drug Dealers– If you sell illegal drugs, or merely use them, you will be interested in what we are offering. No longer will you have to stand for hours on the corner peddling heroin to junkies craving crack. Likewise, the days of being forced to smoke angel dust because you couldn’t locate the LSD you sought are over. Dealers can check in using our app on any GPS-enabled mobile phone and list what they have to offer. Users then know exactly where to go for what they need. It’s a win-win. As a built-in security feature, you have to answer the question “are you a police officer?” with a “no” before being allowed to log in.

4. Rate-A-Hooker– We borrowed some functionality from the above drug dealer app to enable prostitutes to check in at the street corner of their choice, but the real winner here is the John. Thanks to crowdsourcing, you no longer have to wonder “how much?” or “is she any good?” That’s right, once you’ve used her, you the user can rate and review her. Was she a five-star experience, or did her service seem lacking? What are her normal working hours? Does she have any diseases? No more guesswork for you, and no more disappointing “dates.” Special log-in section for pimps allows them to offer daily deals, group rates, or whatever specials they’re running, as well as track their hoes and make sure they’re out there earning that money.

5. Puppies2you.com– Everyone loves a puppy! But what’s the one problem with a puppy? That’s right, it grows up to be a dog. No one wants a dog! Puppies are so cute and funny and tiny and fluffy and omg they are just the best. Dogs are just kind of there. Worse, there are so many kinds of dogs, who wants to be stuck with just one breed for a decade or more? Fear not, for puppies2you.com is here to make everything better. Once a user signs up for our service, an adorable puppy is delivered to his or her door. A month later, we return with a new puppy of a different breed, selected by the user, to replace the old puppy. The returned puppy is taken out to our custom-built van, euthanized, and chopped into the new puppy’s first meal. That’s right, we recycle the old, unwanted puppy. We’re a green business! Everyone wins with puppies2you.com!

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Cairo, Egypt – Overview

By , December 28, 2010

If you were to take New York City, eliminate all the health, traffic, and building codes, and let it develop for 200 years, you would probably end up with a place a lot like Cairo. I cannot begin to describe this city in any way that will not read like major exaggeration, but nothing I am about to say is even slightly overstated. This is all unbiased truth. I came to Cairo with no preconceived notion about the city at all. I just knew there were pyramids and I wanted to see some.

The first thing I noticed was the driving. My hostel arranged to have a driver pick me up at the airport and bring me to the hostel for the ridiculously affordable price of $12.00, so of course I jumped at the chance, especially when they mentioned he would be waiting for me at the airport with a sign with my name on it! All my life I have disembarked planes and seen all the sign-holding drivers and felt jealous. I always look for my name, just in case, even though I know full well there will be no driver there waiting for me. One of my less-than-exciting life-long dreams has been to come out into the terminal and read my name on a sign, and at last that dream has become a reality. That was a huge digression, but it was a big deal to me, so whatever. Where was I? The driving. Jesus. Every street and freeway in Cairo feels like the Indianapolis 500 being run at 5 miles per hour. No one stays in a lane, and no one yields to anyone. Every single driver is constantly veering and cutting off every other driver, and every time there is any sort of opening, a car instantly races into it. The end result is permanent gridlock, and unending start/ stop herky-jerky driving. Every driver is also honking his horn about 10 times per minute, so the city is a ceaseless cacophony of car horns. Every single car bears evidence of multiple collisions, and you see cars hitting each other quite regularly.

No provision whatsoever has been made for pedestrians. There are no signals and no crosswalks. Well, rarely are there, and when there are it is meaningless, for no one acknowledges them, in much the same way that the painted lanes in the roads are ignored. Pedestrians cross by walking directly into moving traffic at any point in the street they wish. That is really, honestly, truly, not-lying, the ONLY way to cross a street here. You must walk directly in front of a moving car and trust that the car will stop or veer around you. They always seem to do so, sometimes at the last possible moment, and always with a honk of the horn, but crossing a busy street feels like a real-life game of Frogger. Even on the freeways, pedestrians are constantly darting in and out of traffic. Also, on freeways, pedestrians hail cabs and buses, and the cabs and buses stop for them! It is madness, and a complete and utter failure of the system, for everything is congested when it needn’t be. If drivers in Cairo drove like drivers elsewhere, traffic would flow, as it does elsewhere. Sadly, that is not the case.

The second thing I noticed was the air. Because I COULD SEE IT. And I don’t mean like in Los Angeles where you can sometimes see a bit of haze on the horizon. I mean the air in Cairo right in front of your face is visible. And taste-able. There is a permanent cloud of soot and exhaust hanging in the air around you, and I am pretty sure a day breathing the air in Cairo is about the equivalent to smoking three packs of cigarettes.

Another common event here is being approached by someone trying to sell you something you don’t want, and doing so by trying to strike up a pointless conversation with you. About three times per block someone will ask, “what is your name,” or “where are you from,” or “what are you looking for?” If you do anything other than ignore them and walk away, they will try to steer you into a friend’s perfume shop, or shoe store, or whatever, by pretending to be your best friend. They won’t say they get a kickback from the shop owner, but rather will act as if they know you must want to shop there and they are doing you a huge favor by bringing you there. It is ridiculous and transparent, but they think they are being very clever, and when you don’t respond they sometimes get upset and curse at you.

Other things– cats roam the streets the way pigeons or squirrels do in other cities. You see hundreds of scrawny, feral cats darting about. In Alexandria, one of the cats scratched me, so I may die of rabies soon. I am hoping said cat had not licked his paw just prior to lashing out at me. Speaking of the local animals, about five minutes after I began exploring downtown Cairo I saw a dead dog lying on the curb, paws up, covered in flies. I have never seen that anywhere in my life, but there it was, right in what is said to be the Times Square of Cairo. In a city that treats the street like a trash bin, I suppose it is to be expected. Speaking of which, trash cans are such a rarity here that it is common to see people of all description cavalierly tossing their trash onto the sidewalk as they walk.

The final thing I’ll point out today is the lack of a queueing system here. No one lines up or waits for anything. Whether it is to buy a subway token, a sandwich, or a ticket to an exhibit, everyone elbows and cuts in front of everyone else (much the way they drive) and unless you also push your way to the front, you will never get anywhere.

I am never one to say any item or culture or person or ideology is good or bad, better or worse, or make value judgements of that nature. I firmly believe that every culture, no matter how different from mine or anyone else’s, is neither better nor worse than another, merely different, and my lack of familiarity or understanding of it does not make it wrong or bad. But by golly, I have to say that Cairo blows. There is some neat stuff here, sure, and the exchange rate makes it ridiculously cheap for an American to visit, but, and I hate to say this, at times it feels positively uncivilized here. I’m having a blast, don’t get me wrong– I can enjoy damn near anything– but I sure as hell would never live here. Mostly, I hope I don’t have rabies.

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Watch the Monkey

By , October 28, 2004

Not that long ago, while at a local Denny’s, I happened upon a machine filled with stuffed animals, ripe for the plucking. All one need do is pop in a coin to test one’s skill, and possibly win a toy. It seems normal enough, right?

But take a look– do you notice anything unusual about the machine and/or its contents?

Curious George in a Machine

If not, take a closer look:

Curious George is Dead!

Now do you see? The animals are DEAD! Curious George has gone blue in the face, as have his stuffing-filled chums. The Denny’s folks forgot to feed the animals! Shame on them.

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Crush at First Glance?

By , May 9, 2004

Okay readers and fellow bloggers, what do we make of love at first sight? I’ll go first! Love exists on many levels, and can mean many different things. When I say that I am in love with my girlfriend, I mean something far different than when I say I love waffles, which in turn is different than the love I may profess for a close friend or relative.

When judged by the “in love with you” standard, the concept of love at first sight seems absurd. The former, the in love love as it were, is the culmination of a long process of getting to know all about another person while at the same time sharing with them your innermost workings. In other words, it’s all hella deep and stuff. Meanwhile, love at first sight is a different flavor of animal; it’s the hazelnut giraffe of the love world, if you follow my meaning. It is the perfect stranger, perhaps only seen for a few moments, but remembered years later– maybe even someone never spoken to or even met, but someone with such beauty and/ or grace that they remain a part of your heart’s history.

I’m kind of blogging out of my ass right now, because I honestly have never yet encountered a hazelnut giraffe, whatever the hell that means. Today’s Question: Have you?

(I began this blog with the intent of saying something along the lines of “love at first sight is kind of like having a crush on someone on account of they are pretty, and then you try to get to know them better,” but the hazelnut giraffe part sounded to good to delete. Plus it is almost 5:00 am.)

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The Smallest Monkeys, Ever

By , March 16, 2004

Pygmy Marmoset

As I recently pointed out in a comment to Glass Tears’ Xanga page, wee things are cute. Now, you all know how wonderful I think monkeys are. If you don’t, I’ll tell you right now that I think they are very, very wonderful. In fact, that when something strikes me as especially wonderful, I refer to it as “monkiful.”

So we’ve established that wee things are cute, and monkeys are wonderful; what, then, could be cuter then a wee monkey?

Not much, right? Look at how adorable that guy is? And in case you can’t quite gather how small he is, scroll down a bit and see another one!

Another Pygmy Marmoset

What we have here are the world’s smallest monkeys, properly known as pygmy marmosets. I saw some when I was in Victoria, Canada. I could totally ramble on and on and on here, describing cuteness and monkiness right and left, but I mean, really, what is even the point? After all, you can see for yourself.

Wee monkeys.

Monkiful!

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