January 2009

  • Craigslist Files #6

    By msarko on 1/28/09 9:14am
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    Just when I think that maybe, just maybe, this little gimmick of mine is about to run out of steam, that indiscriminate sewer of the Internet known as craigslist keeps on delivering. If the Internet had an official slogan, it would have to be, "Given a million years and zero stress, I never would have imagined that... in a bad way." Cases in point:  



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  • Eating Them Seems Less Cruel

    By msarko on 1/26/09 10:49am
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    In one of the earliest chapters of the bible, Adam prances around naming all of the animals in the Garden of Eden. Of course, Eve hadn't been created yet, so Adam was undoubtedly bored out of his newly-minted skull. Like Adam in those passages, many people on the Internet are desperately idle virgins who spend way too much time devoted to attributing qualities to animals about which the animals themselves couldn't care less. Unfortunately for the fuzzy quadrupeds at the mercy of Internet folk, this process doesn't stop with just names. There are thousands of questionable websites for both businesses and private endeavors that involve what could easily be described as animal abuse. Well, maybe this kinda shit went unchecked during the period of inverted morals known as the Bush Administration, but we're living in a brand new age of hope and reason. I'm taking it upon myself to hunt down these horrible pet fashion sites and expose them here so we can ridicule them and bring their depravity to the attention of upright authorities.

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  • Stars of the Internet: Australian MPD Case

    By msarko on 1/23/09 9:19pm
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    I have a dilemma. No, this time it has nothing to do with those handicapped kids I allegedly robbed on Earth Day. This one is Internet-related. That is, it's more of a dilemma than the general discomfort of having to deal with this technology's crap several times a week. What do we do with Internet people who toe the line of competence yet remain so, so annoying? Thus is the case of one vlogger called communitychannel.

    CC occupies what I can only imagine is the Australian equivalent of the Valley Girl. She makes extensively scripted videos of herself riffing on whatever topic happens to have caught her ire/interest. I know, this could describe any one of a thousand lousy bloggers on youtube alone, but that's not all there is to this unusually attractive denizen of the Internet.

    For you see, this particular Asian-descended Aussie doesn't just talk to herself, she talks with herself. CC constructs her youtube vids as dramatic re-enactments of the topic at hand.

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  • Craigslist Files #5

    By msarko on 1/21/09 9:41pm
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    I would like to conduct an experiment and I need some volunteers. Before I go into the details, I want to reassure you that, despite my reputation, I am 100% serious about this. For all of the following craigslist postings, I would like one volunteer to take the text, verbatim, and shout it on a busy street corner. The purpose of this experiment, which I promise isn't just to embarrass a stranger in public, is to compare and contrast the results-getting potential of free online personals listings and actual interaction with flesh and blood, however absurd. Here are your options:



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  • I Heart Tabuckabee's

    By msarko on 1/20/09 10:03pm
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    There are many kinds of insanity in this world. Some of it is horrifying, like the kind that compels people to make jewelry from the severed minor appendages of foreigners. Some is sad, like the kind that one kid from elementary school had that made him crap his pants and bite me. Still others are annoying, like the kind all of our parents coincidentally had since we were born.

    Ah, but then there is that rarest kind of insanity, the kind that is not scary, just a little unsettling. It's the kind that isn't sad because it makes those afflicted so happy. It's not even annoying, so long as you don't live with the bearer of the disease. Yes, I'm talking about amusing insanity. Sure, I could just call it "eccentricity", but that word is really hard to spell. The Internet is home to a great many amusingly insane people. Thanks to my dear brother who lives in the epicenter of all American insanity (Los Angeles), I have been introduced to some of the web's finest unintentional jesters.

    Ladies and gentlemen and cretins and slobs, I give you ilovetab.

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  • Craigslist Files #4- Quickies

    By msarko on 1/14/09 3:14pm
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    Ya know what, sometimes it's just not worth it to go on a long diatribe against the maddening absurdities of the World Wide Web. There comes a time when a few quick jabs trump the complicated ninjitsu of acid-tongued satire. Just like many of the not-so-good folks at craigslist have found, I'm going to resort to small, barely sufficient summations of why these people ought not to be involved with public life. All my responses will be only as long as they need to be.  



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  • Return to the Land of Awful Games

    By msarko on 1/12/09 6:09pm
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    Sometimes I think I secretly hate myself. Other times I think that a cabal of Internet people hate me overtly. Either one could be the reason I've played the following flash games. Another possibility is head trauma.



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  • Stars of the Internet: Another Political Jerk

    By msarko on 1/11/09 9:28pm
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    I may have mentioned a few times before how upsetting it is to me that the Internet allows everyone and anyone with the time and meager resources so prevalent in modern society to make a presence in a public space. They film themselves talking into a stationary camera, which is a lot like watching somebody converse with a wall. Some of the more industrious ones make their own graphics in an unfortunate mimicry of TV news programs, while others put together interminable skits that are about as funny as the jokes told by five-year-olds minus any mitigating cuteness.

    But the worst vloggers of all are the ones who take themselves way too seriously, which is to say seriously at all. Which brings me to the subject of today's post. I found this clown on that media scrap heap called youtube, where apparently it's impossible to go two clicks without running into some jerk and his opinions.

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  • Craiglist Files #3

    By msarko on 1/7/09 3:22pm
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    Sometimes I wonder if I'm starting to sympathize with my captors. And by "captors" I mean the ridiculous people who lead ridiculous lives on the most ridiculous end of the Internet. Underneath all of the bad grammar and rampant fantasy is a genuine loneliness and personal darkness. So, for today's Craigslist Files, I'm going to try to understand my subjects instead of just mocking them. I'll try. I'm not promising anything, though.



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  • Stars of the Internet: Steve Sutton

    By msarko on 1/4/09 2:39pm
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    Alright, I'll admit it from the very beginning so no one has a chance to get all upiddy- I'm far from the first person to write about Steve Sutton, let alone the first person to take notice of his splendor. I don't care. See, it's usually my job to find stupid, horrible, or just plain crazy stuff in the dusty, lawless Wild West of the Internet. The vast majority of the stuff I have to consume and analyze, I can't stand and usually I wish it didn't even exist. Steven Sutton and his entire Internet presence is the exception.

    That's right, I'm coming out to all of you five readers today. I am an unironic fan of the works of Steve Sutton, or as the denizens of the Internet have come to know him, Suttsteve. I don't think he's pathetic and I don't enjoy his work as a way to boost my own self-worth. I am a fan of Suttsteve because he is quintessentially Internet-y while at the same time acting as an inverse to everything that makes Internet-ness insufferable.

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