Best of Where's My Jetpack - Leonardo on YouTube

Color me stupid, but I finally uncovered the not-so-secret fact that I have a Picasa account by default. I found every image I've ever uploaded to Blogger all in one place, even the duplicates, edits and changes. I've made a few of those 3,000 images public and I guess I'll let it serve as a place to piss off professional designers who cringe at my crude concepts. But that's always how I've worked: "Here's what I'm thinking. Make it better."

Found one I like. I think I did this at my last full-time gig as I was waiting for some CMO with his head up his ass to see if he could remove it. There was a lot of downtime on that job. This was just over a year ago. The point was, as I recall, that even Leonardo would find himself facing a community of clowns and critics if he were to unveil his work today.

Click for the massive

It's Hard Out There for a Pimp

I think every unpublished writer has questioned the value and necessity of the literary agent. Nathan P. Superagent is here to explain.

The Boy Who Cried Balloon

Richard Heene, father of Balloon Boy, is a new type of villain for the Reality Age, duping the world into believing that his son was swirling through the Colorado clouds in a runaway balloon.

So, here's our intrepid Lego reporter from Xtranormal to confront this jackass, a man we'd all be happy to never see again. But something tells me he's here to stay.



Crossposted to Radio Free Babylon.

Sneaker Pimps

No, not the cool kind, the other ones.


Unless you're just of the telemarketing mindset and you only care about converting 2% of your contacts, then you need to request link exchanges in a more personal style than this:

Hi,

I'm glad that I came across your site wheresmyjetpack.blogspot.com. You have some very useful and interesting content there. I will put a link to your site from my site, if this is fine with you.

I help run a store called [lame replica sneaker store dotcom] it's not really a big one, but it's getting there. Please have a look. If you could possibly place a small link of my site, that would be really great.

Have a great day and hope to hear from you.

When you start off lying to me, it will be hard for us to ever establish a good relationship. Clearly, you know nothing about this site, and you obviously sent this email to thousands of other bloggers. A more compelling way to prove to me that you really did find some "useful and interesting content here" might be to reference an actual post. Further, if I start driving traffic to you by providing a link to your cheap shoe store, what are your tracking mechanisms and how will I be compensated if one of my clickers buys your cheap, ugly knock-off shoes? Maybe I'm just one more tool to be ripped off by you, the way you're ripping off Nike and Puma and Reebok with your lookalike shoes?

You see the links over there on the right panel? Those are people with ideas and stories and content I don't mind being associated with. Maybe someday I will entertain the notion of an ad or two for a product or service that I use and appreciate, but I'm not running a link farm for your lameness.

You Have Left Your Mind

Familiar with the Left Behind series? It's a collection of pseudo-scripture written by a pair of charlatans loosely based on the last book of the Christian bible (and a word or two from Paul's letters). Those two goblins are astoundingly rich now that their books have been devoured by so many people too busy to read their bibles or talk with their God.

The premise of these books is this: All the Jesus people are taken away in The Rapture and the rest of the earthlings are left behind on the planet to suffer horrible things. Do you want to escape the horrible things? Then get yourself right with God and do it quickly. Because scaring people into loving God and doing Right (wing) is very effective. It is also a huge money-maker.

Problem with The Rapture theory is that it is pure and utter fiction created in the mid-1800s by an Irishman named John Darby. It was very easy to sell to Americans, because even then Americans were much as they are today; easy to swindle, afraid of hard times, mostly unacquainted with large-scale suffering and looking for the easy way out.

If you are a Christian and you're disagreeing with me on this, let me ask you this: Did Jesus say he was returning? OK, then how many times will he return? First time in secret, second time in the clouds for all to see? Also, I know you like to justify and support your escapism theology with passages like, "God has not appointed us unto wrath." (I love it when you speak in the King James. It makes you sound so Holy.) So maybe you can quote that phrase to the persecuted churches in Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Algeria, Eritrea, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Maldives, Sudan, Bangladesh, Gaza and the West Bank, Philippines, Syria, Belarus, India, Mauritania, Tajikistan, Bhutan, Indonesia, Morocco, Tibet, Brunei, Iran, Nepal, Tunisia, Myanmar, Iraq, Nigeria, Turkey, Jordan, North Korea, Turkmenistan, China, Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Comoros, Laos, Qatar, Vietnam, Cuba, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. You've got it pretty good here and know nothing of "wrath."

Why am I wasting my energy? Go to Wal-Mart and get the latest book in your series. Maybe you can pay for Tim LaHaye's next facelift.

ANYWAY, (I get worked up on this subject) some total tools have set up a website that will send out email alerts to those who get Left Behind! How cool! So after the world's Christians suddenly vanish, everyone can get emails saying, "You've been Left Behind! We are in Heaven and you are going to suffer some horrible shit! There's still hope! Forward this email to ten friends and throw some salt over your shoulder while spinning around in a circle thrice. Then, don't eat for 10 days and abstain from sex and maybe God will let you come join us after you get raped, tortured and killed by the Antichrist and his Army of Satan Worshipers. Bye! Love ya! Peace! :)" Spam from Heaven. And this service will only cost you $40 a year. I don't know who's behind this website, but they need to...not gonna say it.

I wish I had hacking skills.

A Guide To Cruiseology

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has been the subject of many a blog these days. I finally got around to seeing the video that will officially kill his career (we can hope) on Gawker.

It's confusing, disturbing and should do more to drive people away from Scientology than anything else. MTV has a great glossary to help you decode many of Mapother's words.

Richard Head - VP of Something

Those who know him call him "Dick."



If you run your mouse over it with your hand and then click, it will grow larger. Yes, that's the way. Yes. Nice.

Relevance: It's a Beautiful Thing

I know we can't control the idiots, but I'd encourage all bloggers to delete comments that have NOTHING to do with your post. These neo-spammers take the time to get past your word verification thingy, and yet they still give you their generic pasted bullshit like:

"Nice blog. I really like it. Please visit my blog."

I understand that one of the ways to drive traffic to your site is to comment on other blogs, but you can't treat other blogs as bulletin boards for your own blog or website. Say something that actually pertains to the post or contributes in some way to the conversation. Quit being stupid, please.