theology&geometry

So we had some unscheduled downtime today. Perhaps you saw the static screens of death?! I thought I must have done something horribly wrong (like finally figure out how to get Akismet working) but it turns out that the Bluehost office dog probably just peed on my server. Thanks, puppy.

I Twittered my panic like a mofo, and several people were kind enough to chime in and offer help and support. The internet can be be so not evil sometimes that it’s great.

I’m too lazy to transfer my banner and my background pattern to Flickr, so use your imagination until Photobucket’s back up and running.

I’d fucking shoot it.

I would have tweeted this nugget of nonsense but, surprise, I haven’t been able to get it working all day.

I’m not sure where your life must go wrong to land you on a Saturday morning looking up “mammary intercourse” on Wikipedia (link NSFW), but sometimes life just rolls like that, the earth squeaks around on its axis and we just keep moving on. (Truth be told, this photo of graffiti got me to looking up Bukkake just to make sure I knew what it was.)

One thing I’d like to point out, though, is the completely creepy illustration that accompanies that entry. If you’re fortunate enough to be somewhere where you can click the link, have a look. Who wants to guess what my beef is with the picture?

I’ll give you a hint: SEX DOES NOT EQUAL PORN. And vice versa.

The lady is decked out in red lipstick and earrings, and is looking seductively, mouth agape, at the viewer — not her partner — as strings of ejaculate fly toward her. This is a classic porn pose. It is performance. It is flattery for the (default male) viewer. It is nothing more.

Obviously, this illustration is not included for education. But if they just have to include a visual aid for the entry, I don’t get why it should be this one. Other than the idea that porn=sex is so pervasive that most people don’t even notice the difference.

Now check out the unsettling edit log for the photo. There’s some back-and-forth about the racial makeup of the lovers in the illustration. Supposedly now that’s been fixed with more neutral, mixed-race skintones (the folks still look pretty white to me, but that is SO NOT THE POINT).

Kudos to the person who tried to crop out the “pornographic look into camera.” I’m laughing at the person who edited the color of the areolae to be more “realistic.”

Jesus, I don’t even think these people have any idea how hilarious that is.

I knew when NiT hadn’t been updated by 11:45 this morning, following this wank, that something was wrong. And now I see that Brittney’s turned in her resignation.

That aforementioned wank, alongside this wank and this wank, apparently pushed Brittney to do what she’d been thinking of doing for a while: Getting the heck outta MSM blogland.

It makes me sick that an entire community of reactionary psychos would purposely misunderstand the context of the offending post just to manufacture outrage, call for heads on stakes, etc. It’s especially infuriating, because it’s a community of reactionary psychos I have counted myself a part of at times in the past because we are generally ideologically aligned.

But that these people can act in such ridiculous ways — calling advertisers! calling the station manager! calling Brittney “a fatter bitch than Steve was anyway”! — because they are too fucking stupid to understand the subtleties of Brittney’s trademark snark (that, yes, relies in part on a keen understanding of her core readership) and her role as a human aggregator of local content — sacred and profane — just makes my blood boil.

Nice job, assholes.

Brittney, best of luck. Don’t let the haters get you down.

But this one’s more than just annoying and stupid.

Win a ringtone if you can click your mouse button fast enough to unravel this coy hottie’s sweater. Note how both of the unravelers look like your stereotypical unhinged, dark-alley rapist types, and marvel as (you can’t see it here, as this is just a screenshot) the rapidly exposed hottie demurely covers up her bikinied crotch as her sweater dress is removed by said unhinged rapist type.

Wrinkle your brow as you see “your” avatar kicked off the screen and proclaimed a “LOSER!” if you do not rip the sweater off your own personal coy hottie.

Scoff as the ad prompts, “Participation required.” (Yes, for fuck’s sake. We know participation in the idiotic patriarchal paradigm of dominance is required.)

Dry heave as you realize this ad, stupid and random as it may be (and, in fact, especially because of its stupidity and randomness), is indicative of the way our society feels about the accessibility of the bodies of women. If it’s there, brothers, help yourselves. UNLESS YOU’RE A LOSER.

[Who knows how long this ad will occupy the space on this page (I was looking up the lyrics to "AFK" by Pinback), but check it out if it's still there. I have not seen this ad anywhere else. Yet.

UPDATE: As of 1:20 a.m. on 5/20, it's not there anymore. If you see it pop up elsewhere, please do let me know.]

I just logged in to MySpace and got spambombed. And the hits just keep coming. In the time I’ve written this many words, two more “friend” requests have come sailing in.

There is no practical reason for me to be on MySpace; I don’t use it to network or meet people. There are several people I know who seem to prefer using MySpace mail over e-mail, so I keep in touch with them that way. But it wouldn’t send me into fits of withdrawal if I just closed up shop (again).

But I shouldn’t have to say “fukkit” just because MySpace can’t figure out how to get a handle on the spam and profile hijacking. Those seem like problems the other social networking sites just don’t have to this degree (and I guess it could be a question of market share; I don’t know). But seriously, MySpace? Use that deep News Corp. pocketbook and hire the best nerds you can find and get a handle on the spam shit or people are going to start jumping ship like they jumped ship when Blogger couldn’t get a handle on its spamulation issues.