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Thursday, July 10th, 2008
wtf, hannah montana candy.
hannah montana's bag of


So you're saying I have to chew on this uh, sour microphone... if i want to be a 'special secret rock star,' is that what you're saying -- is that correct? And none of my friends will know about this, because I can't tell them. Got it.

(31 comments | comment on this)

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
I'd say Carlin was God, but Carlin existed.
"I'm happy to tell you there is very little in this world that I believe in. Listening to the comedians who comment on political, social, and cultural issues, I notice most of their material reflects an underlying belief that somehow things were better once and that with just a little effort we could set them right again. They're looking for solutions, and rooting for particular results, and I think that necessarily limits the tone and substance of what they say. They're talented and funny people, but they're nothing more than cheerleaders attached to a specific, wished-for outcome.

I don't feel so confined. I frankly don't give a fuck how it all turns out in this country - or anywhere else, for that matter. I think the human game was up a long time ago (when the high priests and traders took over), and now we're just playing out the string. And that is, of course, precisely what I find so amusing: the slow circling of the drain by a once promising species, and the sappy, ever-more-desperate belief in this country that there is actually some sort of "American Dream," which has merely been misplaced.

The decay and disintegration of this culture is astonishingly amusing if you are emotionally detached from it. I have always viewed it from a safe distance, knowing I don't belong; it doesn't include me, and it never has. No matter how you care to define it, I do not identify with the local group. Planet, species, race, nation, state, religion, party, union, club, association, neighborhood, improvement committee; I have no interest in any of it. I love and treasure individuals as I meet them, I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to.

So, if you read something in this book that sounds like advocacy of a particular political point of view, please reject the notion. My interest in "issues" is merely to point out how badly we're doing, not to suggest a way we might do better. Don't confuse me with those who cling to hope. I enjoy describing how things are, I have no interest in how they "ought to be." And I certainly have no interest in fixing them. I sincerely believe that if you think there's a solution, you're part of the problem. My motto: Fuck Hope.

P.S. Lest you wonder, personally, I am a joyful individual with a long, happy marriage and a close and loving family. My career has turned out better than I ever dreamed, and continues to expand. I am a personal optimist but skeptic about all else. What may sound to some like anger is really nothing more than sympathetic contempt. I view my species with a combination of wonder and pity, and I root for its destruction. And please don't confuse my point of view with cynicism; the real cynics are the ones who tell you everything's gonna be all right.

P.P.S. By the way, if, by chance, you folks do manage to straighten things out and make everything better, I still don't wish to be included."

-George Carlin

(11 comments | comment on this)

Monday, June 2nd, 2008
y'all don't even KNOW me
Whenever I post to twitter, an assortment of super douchey guys who don't even care what I just said start 'following' me. This must be what it feels like to be a hot girl ALL THE TIME.

(27 comments | comment on this)

Friday, May 30th, 2008
HELP - I CAN'T STOP INJECTING THIS METHAMPHETAMINE, maybe it's time that I see a podiatrist.
I like it when CNN has a story where they're trying to communicate to you that the whole story that they are reporting to you is bullshit, but they can't tell you the actual truth because they don't have any evidence. In place of news, you get non-news that hints at actual reality with quote marks.



http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/05/30/steven.tyler.rehab.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview


Steven Tyler wanted a "safe environment" to recover from his foot surgery. Because you know, when you're a decamillionaire, the only way you can pull off having some space to yourself 'cause your FUCKIN' FOOT HURTS is to check yourself into rehab. IT'S THE ONLY WAY! I mean, what other recourse do you have? There aren't that many other options for you out there.

current music: NOT AEROSMITH

(21 comments | comment on this)

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
nervous habits
Poll #1194673 nervous habits
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

I'm a

View Answers

leg shaker
123 (60.3%)

cheek / lip biter
110 (53.9%)

finger eater
52 (25.5%)

knuckle cracker
81 (39.7%)

nail biter
70 (34.3%)

finger drummer
48 (23.5%)

whistler / hummer
31 (15.2%)

body rocker
35 (17.2%)

hair twirler
66 (32.4%)

ice crusher (with straw)
33 (16.2%)

gum snapper
18 (8.8%)

Other habit of note:

(30 comments | comment on this)

Thursday, May 8th, 2008
our love clock
The other day I got one of those val-pak coupon packet things you get in the mail, you know the one that has all those ads for removing toxic mold and gutter cleaning and stuff? Well, inside that packet was an ad for this:


Our Love Clock(tm)


You see, it's.. a clock. And I think, what one of you do is, you set the hands according to your mood, or, wait, no, they do? I guess one of you is the long hand and one of you is the short hand, and then -- well, I guess you, you establish this of course, beforehand -- with a system. You've got to iron that out. Someone has got to be the long hand and someone else the short hand.

So, okay, let's start over.

You establish a system where each person has a hand, and then, each day, each of you in secrecy sets the hands of the clock to communicate to the other person whether or not you're going to have sex, and then each of you, in secrecy, views the clock and sees what the diagnosis is. And this helps you with communication in your relationship.

But wait, also, the battery is not included -- but it can use batteries? Which is confusing, because let's say it's ASAP and NOW, well, if you wait five minutes, then it's ASAP and SICK and OH SNAP, you missed your window. Cape Canaveral to White Sands, we missed our window, over.

But, forget all of that, because instead, what I am currently believing is that there is no way that this thing can possibly, actually exist, and rather, it's some avant garde artistic statement, or better yet, an experiment to see if anyone would actually buy one. But the experiment doesn't end there! No. The plan is, that if anyone does actually buy one, agents will be dispatched to the delivery address who will then capture the purchasing party and return them to a laboratory for further analysis and dissection.

See, that's how I deal with a lot of stuff. I mean, that COULD be true, right? I'm not saying it is, but it's a possibility, however remote. If I can conceive of something like that, someone else could too. It could happen. It could. It might.

It could.

(25 comments | comment on this)

Monday, May 5th, 2008
I NEED THIS, FOR ME
Things that are wrong today:

1. CNN.com keeps referring to that guy who kept his daughter hostage in his basement to sexually assault her and force her to have his babies as "Incest Dad". That's a rather brief shorthand, isn't it? For whatever reason, this has made me switch around the lyrics to Pavement's 1994 song "Silence Kid" to "Incest Dad" in my head, and I'm probably never going to be able to switch them back because the song still works.

2. CNN now also allows you to order shirts of specific news story titles? But not other ones. I wonder whose job it is to decide which headlines can be put on tee shirts and which headlines cannot? They never let you put Incest Dad headlines on tee shirts, though they DO allow you, at least today... for a limited time only, to get "Bleeding, greasy man stuck in vent" put on a shirt, because apparently, fuck that guy.

The selling point of these shirts, as far as I can see, is that CNN knows it has mostly lost any semblance of journalistic integrity and now they are trying to make money on the fact that you have realized this also.

3. Last week they did a series of stories on what they call "Man Caves," special rooms that dudes (who have wives/girlfriends) have set up in their houses full of things that "dudes" enjoy, like beer, pool tables, posters, video games and crying softly to themselves behind the water heater clutching a pez dispenser wondering what the fuck happened to their lives. You know, guy stuff - no women allowed! A place to pretend that people who ride motorcycles are cool and not old, fat and sad. GUY STUFF. Lets play cards!

As far as I can tell, Man Caves are akin to what Indian Reservations are to the United States. The large powerful entity who actually controls things throws you a bone and tells you that you are permitted to do whatever you want on this sucky patch of land that nobody else wants. Hey, go crazy! What a great deal! Step outside that land though, and you are subject to the real and actual laws of the United States and you must also use a coaster and remove your shoes before walking on the good carpet.

NEWSFLASH: The Indians lost, and so did you. Plus, T-rex was right.

4. Of course, points 1-3 signify that I am partially responsible for CNN's rapid journalistic decline. And I know this, maaan.

current music: pavement - incest dad

(44 comments | comment on this)

Thursday, April 24th, 2008
if hot() { wtf_just_happened++; }
When the public finds out that a male teacher has been sleeping with a young teenage female student, we want this predator prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for taking advantage of an innocent young girl.

When the public finds out that a female teacher has been sleeping with a young teenage male student, we would like to know how hot she is.

(38 comments | comment on this)

Thursday, February 21st, 2008
squinty


I was in a sushi place the other day with my girlfriend. We were on the subject of squinting, and how it's weird that when you squint, to a degree it actually works -- you can actually see more clearly! That's weird, I know how it works, but it's weird. I mentioned that pulling on the sides of your eyes also works if you forget your glasses...

"but it would probably be a bad idea to do that here."

I of course, said this about a second before her hands immediately went up to the sides of her face.

"Why not?" she said, pulling back on the sides of her eyes, looking around the restaurant.

"Think about where you are right now" I said.

"What?"

"..."

"It will come to you!"

"WHAT?"

"Oh! ohhhhh."

And so I decided not order the blowfish after all, etc etc.

*** I had a poll here where I asked "Which is more offensive -- being called a racial slur, or being called the WRONG racial slur. It was broken though, so no poll for you. ***

my take on this question )

(56 comments | comment on this)

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
tipping


Anna: that is a totally ridiculous way of doing it. just move the decimal point over one place and double it!

2.7 + 2.7 = 5.4!

The lady has point. I was unaware of either of these things until about an hour ago.

Edit: There is a tipping battle going on in the comments over here. COME ON, FIGHT ME.

(96 comments | comment on this)

Monday, November 26th, 2007
A puzzle
An MC5 MD5 (lowercase, comma, exclamation point)

hash: 2ddb003be273e7123c8256c9e32faf80

(16 comments | comment on this)

Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
losing the house, beating the house
Hello! I am going to start posting more dorky stuff, which means much less quality for you. But, what can you do.

I was just messing around with Google Trends, which I am sure will be my eventual downfall. Basically, it gives you popularity graphs of things being searched for and can break them down by geographic location and time period.


Google Trends - "Bankruptcy" and "Foreclosure"


According to my little Google Trends experiment, the state of Nevada, in particular, Las Vegas Nevada has the most searches for both "bankruptcy" and "foreclosure" of any location in the United States. My hypothesis is that people are taking what meager funds they have left and gambling them in a last ditch effort to hold on to their property in the face of the subprime loan crisis (although they probably do this when there is no crisis as well).

It is interesting, and somewhat unfortunate, that the same people who fail to scrutinize the ramifications of a deal they are getting when signing the papers for a mortgage are also the people who are not able to fully grasp the unlikelihood of beating the house in Vegas.

Other discoveries:

Salt Lake City, Utah is the location that searches for "Pregnancy" the most, as well as "Ovulation." Initially I thought this was because Mormons are all about reproduction, but, my new hypothesis is that Mormons are also all about NOT reproduction, but due to their cultural restrictions against the use of contraception they are doing Google searches to learn how to Hax0r the uterus with TIMING. They are also #1 for searches involving "World of Warcraft", which, in my opinion, is its own form of contraception, so I call shenanigans on you, Salt Lake City.

Quickies:

New York, New York is winning at Tax Fraud. Irvine, California is winning at Irony. Charlotte, North Carolina is winning at NASCAR. Austin, Texas is winning at Monkeys? Boston, Massachusetts is winning at Rehab (and also Nausea).

The yearly graph of "diet" is also pretty funny.

(46 comments | comment on this)

Monday, November 19th, 2007
Fitness Blackmail
http://blogs.ft.com/undercover/2007/11/you-bet-my-comm.html

Remember Fitness Blackmail? I snooze, I lose

(14 comments | comment on this)

Friday, November 9th, 2007
mind control
Have you ever had a dream about someone, and when you woke up you found that you had changed your opinion about them completely, even though absolutely no facts had changed?

I bet that's pretty common.

I hate it. If you can't control what you dream about and what the subsequent effects are, who exactly is running the show here?

(52 comments | comment on this)

Saturday, September 15th, 2007
myspace marital status take 2
Removing your marital status from MySpace suddenly doesn't work anymore. They fixed it and now do form validation. It's all like 1994 over there now. Crazy. I wonder if they fixed it because I discovered and basically publicized the fact that they didn't? My site was getting a ton of hits.

For any of you out there who use MySpace, I think everyone can agree that it sucks and is broken and has always been. That's fine.

What I have a hard time wrapping my mind around is the fact that it was bought for 580 million dollars (really, 580 million dollars, that is not some number I just made up) a year or two ago and it looks like Tom is still running the thing out of his mom's basement. What the hell is going on over there? Are they trying to maintain some sort of "indie cred" by keeping the site as shitty as possible? I also want to know: When "Tom" posts those emergency bulletins about scams and software bugs that might be occurring on the site, is it actually him, or is it someone else who is trying to emulate the completely retarded way he puts together a sentence lol?

TELL ME.

(38 comments | comment on this)

Friday, September 14th, 2007
out of our medicine, out of our minds and we want in yours
The other day outside there was a squirrel sitting up in the tree on a low branch making the 'upset squirrel noise'. You know, the one that goes something like "ret ret ret, reeehh?'. The last part ends up being a squirrel question because the squirrel seems to make a sentence with his anger. At the very end it gets higher, just like a question does?

You can turn statements into questions in English by changing the pitch of your voice at the end? Are you doing that in your head? Or maybe you just started, because you can read without imagining what the words sound like until you start thinking about it, and then it's very difficult to eradicate the sounds of the words that you're reading because you're thinking about them, just like it's hard to get back to involuntary breathing and blinking once you start thinking about those. I've written about that before, but, for a moment, think about blinking and breathing. You don't do it very often, but when you do, it's hard to turn the reigns back over to the involuntary process that normally regulates such things, because they just happen and you don't really tend to focus on it. So, you're all thinkin' bout blinkin' and your eyes are getting watery because you don't even KNOW how much you normally blink. You're probably over-blinking right now, actually. I'M ALL UP IN YOUR HEAD, MAN.

Anyway.

That a question is a thing with a pitch that gets higher at the end is obvious, but it's not obvious. You do it, but you may not know that that is what makes a question a question -- it's an intuitive language rule you probably just picked up on.

Anyway 2, back to our squirrel friend. He's yelling. Sort of at me, actually. And he's angry. So I assume he's saying "Do you want to fight me?" "Do YOU want to fight ME?"

So I walked over the tree and said "I DON'T KNOW, DO YOU WANT TO FIGHT ME?"

It was at this point I noticed a coworker walk around the corner, with me threatening and pointing at the squirrel in the tree. I think someone else would be embarrassed, but it's a completely valid question. Maybe the squirrel wants to fight me. Maybe it will finally come down to fisticuffs today. This aggression will not stand.

(46 comments | comment on this)

Sunday, September 2nd, 2007
voice poll
Here is an mp3 from a radio show I did a couple weeks ago (some of you may have heard it already):

Second Radio Break [8.3 megabyte mp3 file]

It has some funny non-reading-titles-of-songs near the end, but anyway, THE QUESTION:

Poll #1048939 his master's voice
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Do I sound anything like you thought I might sound like before hearing my voice?

View Answers

yes
34 (58.6%)

no
24 (41.4%)



EDIT )

(24 comments | comment on this)

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007
crossing the streams
I keep hearing "When You Were Young" by The Killers on the radio. It's the song where the guy sings "Heee doesn't look a thing like Jeeeesus" in it somewhere. I refuse to look his name up. Weirdly, this song reminds me of Big Country's song "Big Country," as does a new Smashing Pumpkins song I keep hearing on the radio. Neither of them are my thing, I just wonder when everybody went and decided to start sounding like Big Country.

EDIT: I edited together the two tracks, you tell me:
The Big Country Killers - When You Were A Young Big Country [mp3 clip]

In my imagination, this happened like in Back to the Future where writer/director Robert Zemeckis steals the invention of Rock and Roll from Chuck Berry/black people with time travel -- except it's some guy slightly off stage at a Big Country concert who calls up The Killers and Billy Corgan on threeway:

"Hello! This is your cousin? Cousin EXPOSITION? You know that NEW SOUND you're looking for, well LISTEN to THIS."

I had an idea a while back that a good way to hurry along the coming apocalypse would be to host a concert featuring Big Country and Bad Company called BC2. The entire concert would consist of 45 minute renditions of two songs-whose-title-and-chorus-are-also-the-name-of-the-band: "Big Country" and "Bad Company."



Only, Big Country would play "Bad Company" and Bad Company would play "Big Country". Maybe Big Country could rename themselves Bad Country, and Bad Company could become Big Company? I don't know. I do know that the occurrence of this event would alter the fundamental properties of the universe, sending it hurtling into a state of chaos the likes of which are unable to be conceived by the human mind. And that we should do it.

current music: 3 people know who bad company & big country are BUT I DON'T CARE

(34 comments | comment on this)

Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
underweight
Poll #1035086 underweight
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

when women point out that other women are underweight, on average, do you think this is more:

View Answers

concern for the person
29 (14.7%)

anger/disgust or jealousy masked as concern, but not actual concern
168 (85.3%)

(58 comments | comment on this)

Monday, August 6th, 2007
some stuff
you like things/people:

a) because they reflect something inherent in your character that you feel positively about
b) because they could help you in some way or are related to things/people that have helped you in the past

you dislike things/people:

a) because they reflect something inherent in your character that you feel negatively about
b) because they represent the antithesis of something (or everything) that you like
c) because they seek to harm you or are related to things that have harmed you in the past
d) that give you the strange sensation that your entire worldview/philosophy/Reality Coping Mechanism is bullshit (they all are)
e) that exclude you by default

you grow to hate things:

a) that affect you negatively but you have no control over (whether or not this is true is irrelevant)
b) that you are threatened by

hatred == weakness


oh, and:

Poll #1034344 which is cuter
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

which is cuter

View Answers

kittens and puppies
175 (91.1%)

human babies
17 (8.9%)

(54 comments | comment on this)

Wednesday, August 1st, 2007
today is my birthday
You don't have to, but as a birthday present to me, I would like you to draw something (ms paint, photoshop, pen/pencil, it doesn't matter) and post it here. It doesn't have to be about my birthday. I will then print it out and put it on my refrigerator.

Talent is not required.

Thank you.

(116 comments | comment on this)

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
Did you know...



My website is the fourth result on google for anyone who searches for "jerking off dogs"





My website is ranked #7 for searches involving "marky mark's third nipple"



Please, try and contain your jealousy. I put my pants on one leg at a time, just like you do.

(23 comments | comment on this)

Thursday, July 19th, 2007
we need to have a talk
Hi! I love you, but we need to have a talk.

You know on MySpace or in e-mail when you get a bulletin/message/fuckin' whatever from someone that says something like:
"If you do not post this with the subject 'bye-bye myspace!!!' within 5 minutes your myspace account will be deleted!"

Or you get something that says:
"Send this thing to 10 people and you will get to see a hilarious video, oh my god! It's so FUNNY"

So of course they fuckin' post it? 'Cause they don't bother to sit down and think for two seconds about the specifics of how in that hell that shit is going to even HAPPEN, or if they have ever personally seen any evidence that this is true?

That's exactly how religion works! Religion is basically the equivalent of a thousands-of-years-old myspace bulletin from some dudes with beards who decided to get together and troll everybody*. AND SO HEY, how about you stop forwarding it, 'cause it makes you look retarded, and it's fucking bullshit.

Your Pal,
Jay Barnes

*(Not to be confused with "Brooklyn" which is some dudes with beards who got together to... have... beards?)

(99 comments | comment on this)

Friday, July 13th, 2007
Credit card debt of my friends list
Yesterday I made a friends-only post with a poll (results only viewable to me) asking how much credit card debt people were in. The secondary question was "how fucked are you?". I promised to post the results today at 3, so let's begin.

Results As of 2:00pm July 13, 2007

155 people responded, which is more than I thought would due to the sensitivity of the subject. Of the 155:

65 people carry zero credit card debt
90 people carry greater than zero credit card debt

The average (mean) debt of everyone who responded (even people with no credit card debt) is: $4123.67
The average (mean) debt of the 90 who have any credit card debt whatsoever is: $7223.69
The median debt of the 90 who have credit card debt is: $2924.17

The largest 5 credit card debts are:

[ $50,000 | $38,000 | $37,000 | $35,000 | $30,000 ]

Scatter:



My favorite 10 ways people are fucked (or unfucked) are:
  1. Totally fucked until I fucking sold out
  2. I'm only kinda fucked
  3. I have not allowed myself to be fucked
  4. Mortgage company fucks me, but it helps my taxes
  5. Not even remotely as fucked as I'd like to be
  6. Fucked? Not all all, kind sir. Not fucked yet! (who let the wealthy top hat sportin' monacle wearin' industrialist answer my poll?)
  7. Not fucked up the wazooo- Yet
  8. I'm so fucked I've stopped caring how fucked I am
  9. I haven't been fucked in about four years
  10. Unfucked, a debt-virgin

The total owed for all respondents is $639169.41

I must stress that these numbers are just for the people who responded. You're likely to have a situation where people with no credit card debt will happily share this information, and people with a lot of credit card debt want to tell someone how fucked they are, but the gray area is probably where the participation of the poll truly suffers. There isn't a really accurate way to do an optional poll on a subject that some people might not want to reveal and then make conclusions with the aggregate data.

But hey, more than a half million between 90 people. Not bad, my friends, not bad.

(45 comments | comment on this)

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007
an aim conversation about zombies, werewolves and marriage with a random person on aim i do not know
an aim conversation about zombies, werewolves and marriage with a random person on aim i do not know )

(26 comments | comment on this)