The Eleventh Annual Valentine of Hate!

Post any appropriate (or inappropriate) song suggestions in the comments, should you so desire.

I LOVE YOU ALL, OK.

Is it wrong to be a 99%-consumer of ponies?  Literal mental imagery aside, shouldn’t I be providing at least as much pony output as pony input?  Am I really writing this so I can type the word “pony” a bunch of times?  Should I just enjoy the ponies and be on my way?

Some back-story, perhaps.  That’s what this post needs.  Of course!  (I’m just getting warmed up here…)

The Backstory

It was a dark, foreboding night.  I sat alone in the sad light, which nearly refused to travel from the battered lamp from which it was emitted.  A pickaxe, gritty bottle of whiskey and three-legged stool were my only companions.

Amid hours of contemplation and inaction, deep within my consciousness loomed a dull yet somehow incensing image of what I knew was about to befall me.  Maybe I had internalized the task at hand more than most would consider healthy.  Maybe I was befalling it.

The floor groaned as I shifted my weight off of the stool and lumbered toward the door, pickaxe firmly gripped beneath battered knuckles.  I paused for a moment, glancing toward the small, flickering flame of my under-powered light source.

To say I grinned would be a lie.  Perhaps I grimaced less as I gently nudged the axe head across the floor toward the lamp.  A small tip, a slosh of oil, and the room was suddenly much warmer.  It was not the type of warmth a man seeks out, but one he finds himself engulfed in.  A warmth that could raze the past, given the opportunity.

I was feeling charitable.

I turned back toward the door, opening and moving through it as flames nipped at my heels.  A few more paces would allow darkness to replace the menacing warmth.  A few beyond that would solidify my determination.  A few more …

… would allow me to watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic on YouTube.

Well, this is awkward.

Okay, so maybe my introduction to My Little Pony was a little bit less dramatic than I have let on thus far.

The Game & The Friend

There is a particularly atrociously wonderfully magical map the game osu! that I sort of fell in love with:

After playing this map (about 9 million times, give or take), I wondered what the heck was up:

• Why is there some wacky-ass remix of the My Little Pony theme song?
• Why is there a rainbow-haired pony saluting?
• Why in the ball-sack is the song titled “Rainbow Dash Likes Girls (Stay Gay Pony Girl)”!?!

It was befuddling yet enjoyable.  The pony spark had planted itself in my brain.

One of my osu! friends, bedabeda, seemed to have a dedicated interest in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  This guy is around my age, likes ponies.  Got it – I had heard somewhat of the show’s “brony” following — people outside the target demographic; grown-ass dudes (and dudettes … to keep with my ridiculous writing style) instead of little girls in frilly pink dresses.  No offense, little girls.

The thing is, bedabeda’s pony shenanigans continued to draw me in.  I kept seeing images of characters from the show, having no idea in which context they were to be taken.  I appreciate a good internet meme or inside joke as much as anyone, as long as I understand it.  I think maybe I was starting to feel out of the loop.  Everywhere online I saw ponies — bizarre youtube videos, a seemingly endless supply of vectorized artwork, pony-related music.

The Revelation

Eventually I consulted with bedabeda (consulting sounds official, doesn’t it?) and decided to try watching the show.  For the next few days, I watched a couple episodes at night before falling asleep.  I was really enjoying it.  Then, one morning I had some kind of pony-powered revelation.  Perhaps I had reached the state of pony-nirvana.

That day I wrote my friend a message.  Here’s an excerpt:

This morning I felt awesome — not like, “whoa, I just slept 12 hours!” awesome (because I didn’t, arg), but mentally awesome, positive. As I was getting ready for work, I just felt more appreciative, just happy that I have a job, a place to live, friends — appreciative for everything I have.

So, at first I was thinking, “wait a minute — this is like one of those weirdo brony stories that people post on reddit.” Perhaps ponies didn’t “save my life” as some people have stated, but I think they are actively improving it, as silly (to me) as that sounds. There is something about this show, maybe just the simplicity of the lessons and experiences in the episodes. Maybe on a primal level, after a healthy dose of pre-sleep ponies, my brain had something motivational to latch onto and mull over while I slept. Maybe I relate with the characters.. I don’t know.

The true length of this message rivaled this ridiculous blog post.

The Truth & What I Love

I am a brony.

I generally don’t give a lot of credence to labels as such, but I want to stand behind this one.  I have been pleasantly amazed at the kindness and generosity I have seen in the communities that have formed in support of My Little Pony.  That alone would make me stick around, but I also love the fan-generated content, the art, the music.

I also love that Hasbro, who owns the pony franchise, has generally played nicely with regard to copyright versus the brony community.

I love that the show’s creators have included references to The Big Lebowski, and more.

What’s also amazing is that I actually had more I wanted to include in this post.  I’m saving it.  I have excess content.  This site may never be the same.

I hope you all like ponies.  I know I do.

Thanks, “anonymous singer.”

Why not make a list of every piece of software I install, for no particular reason? It might give some insight that will be… insightful.

1. Google Chrome – It even synced my theme!
2. puush - File hosting/sharing utility & site.
3. Digsby - Omni-chats du jour.
4. Fences - Organize your desktop and hide your icons for pure bliss.
5. Microsoft Security Essentials - Been using AVG and Avast for years, but MSE is more lightweight so I’m giving it a shot.
6. osu! - Rhythm game.  You click circles.  So delicious.  This should have been #1.
7. OpenOffice.org - A free, open-source, full-featured office suite.  This is a great option unless you specifically need Microsoft Office products.
8. Dropbox - Synchronize files across multiple computers, your phone, the web.  Also good for sharing!
9. Adobe Reader – Don’t want it, but I need it.  I’ve never been satisfied with other free alternatives.  No link for you!
10. Steam – The repository for all the games I never touch but always intend to.

And so, I’m going to review the movie as though it was a car accident, albeit one that you pay good money to be a part of.

Imagine you’re pulling out of your driveway. The car you drive in has been said to be a very safe vehicle. You live in a city that has a low accident rate, and everybody is a safe driver. The birds are chirping, your neighbor is out and watering the lawn. It’s going to be a good day. You’ve driven along this same route before, it went well. You get your coffee as usual, and drive off.

Then some asshole gets in the passenger seat. You’ve seen this guy before, never met him really, and he’s just a bitch. He acts like you’re late even though you know nothing about him. But you’re already on your way, so you give him a lift.

The guy begins swinging his arms in your face, taking your coffee and putting dirt in it, and overall making you upset. All while you’re driving, trying to fit the social norm of not exploding in a multi-car pileup in the middle of an intersection and having a helicopter crash in the middle of it.

But you see it coming at this point. The drive starts getting worse. Suddenly everyone seems oblivious to their surroundings, people are driving on the curbs, through supermarkets, running alongside their car. Shit is hitting proverbial fan.

You don’t realize when a car ran the intersection or when it hit you, but suddenly you’re flipping through the air and there’s really no stopping what is coming. The guy in the seat next to you is blaming you for something, he’s speaking some other language that vaguely resembles English but might be French.

Your car explodes mid air, and it lands on a car and rolls across four others. You are flung from the seat, and land safely in the grass, thankful to be alive. A helicopter begins yelling morse-code for SOS over a bull horn, along with countless dick jokes. It lands at full speed and explodes, almost as if nobody is at the wheel and nobody is making any informed decisions whatsoever. It was just anything goes… “Yes, LETS land the helicopter in the middle of an intersection on top of a seven car pileup, at full speed. It will go as every other helicopter landing in history has gone.”

Carnage everywhere. You’re luckily to make it out unscathed. Then someone comes up to you and charges you 12 dollars for the ticket and 10 dollars for popcorn and soda.

That is my review of Hangover 2. Have a good day.

As the internets have evolved, many things have ended up in many places. One such thing is the common image file. Images can convey a spectrum of emotions, from lulz to bawws to d’awws (and perhaps even some in between these well-defined and well-known examples of emotions).

Occasionally, we come across an image so right, an image so unbelievable and worth living for that we must know where it came from. Across the land message board,people cup their hands to their mouths and shout, “PARDON ME, GENTLEMEN AND LADIES. I WISH TO INQUIRE FROM WHENCE THIS PICTORIAL HAS BEEN DELIVERED! FOR I, BEING A MAN OF GOD, MUST SEEK IT TRULY, AS MY LIFE-MISSION!” people clickity-clack with their fat fingers, “SAUCE PLZ!”

Well fear not friends and demon hunters, we now have salvation.

TinEye

Luckily, I chose an absolutely worthless example to search for, but MARK MY WORDS:   You can find where things come form here, be it obscure Japanese anime porn or less-obscure Japanese anime porn.  Oh, and other images too.

TinEye probably has some crazy-ass advanced techniques to spider the multiwebs and detect this and that, etc, etc.  I honestly have no idea how it works and have been ignorantly happy to use it time and time again!  In fact, I’ve never clicked any of the links or ventured beyond the main page — I am (mentally) forced to search for an image when I’m there; there are no other options.

Perhaps I will continue this enthralling expose on TinEye and actually learn something about it.  Until then, just use it and thank me later.

Update:

Well, post-post (lolol) I thought I should probably also mention SauceNAO, which has also enjoyed a spattering of my searches.  Well, after starting every sentence with “Well,” I decided that I should maybe take a little screenshot to show the minimalism.  Well, The results were actually pretty awesome, so here they are (say nothing of my source image!):

I’d say SauceNAO wins this round, hands down.

On safari in the desolate and putrid jungles of Norcross, GA.  How long will it take me to get home?  Can I even get there?

Time will tell.

Er, actually, I took some time to WIDGETIZE all my old crap in the sidebar. This means I can arbitrarily change to silly themes at the drop of a hat, huzzah!

This makes my site look so professional that the (anti-?)gobs of useless (non-?)content is almost a non-issue! Here’s a few more parentheses: )((())()())))(

Internets, ilu.

This is, though.

I’m not as angry now, Bryan.

Class act, that gonad.org!

OK MOTHERFUCKER, HERE’S SOME FUNNY ASS SHIT:

A LINK!

IT’S GOATS — MY PEOPLE, AS PREVIOUS DISCUSSED IN IM WINDOW. BEING THAT I’M TYPING IN CAPS I WANT TO EXPLICITLY EXPLAIN THAT BY “IM” I MEAN INSTANT MESSAGE.