Worshipping False (American) Idols

I defer to my heat of the moment Twitter posts to relay my thoughts on American Idol's finale last night. In summary, though:

Dane Cook is not funny. He and Joe Piscopo should be at a bar in the middle of the day somewhere telling chicks how famous they used to be.

Ricky Gervais bombed. Polite laughter wasn't loud enough to not be uncomfortable.

Janet Jackson looks like Jermaine, sounds (seriously, listen to her performance again) like Michael, and has Tito's gigantic ass.

I could stare at Siobahn (last name irrelevant) all fucking day. I find her looks more compelling than cable television. And I mean expanded cable; not that channels two through seventy-one bullshit.

Reuben Studdard lost some weight, and Kelly Clarkson sure as fuck found it.

Simon Cowell and Crystal Bowersox looked like they were competing for who wanted to look less like they wanted to be there.

Do you fucking mean to tell me that out of the thousands of tryouts and all of the votes, the resulting two candidates for American Idol are two chubby uncharismatic, uninspired (Bowersox tried to leave the show recently, according to reports) decent-karaoke-singers-at-best contestants? Look at them. Listen to them. That's the absolute BEST talent that America has to offer?

Gooch:Out






I'd still bang Kelly Clarkson.

Six Examples of Misleading Headlines

When I wrote for publications (all, you know, three or four in my lifetime) I took pride in my headlines. I knew that a good headline was paramount in getting people to read your stories. I tried to make them catchy and interesting, but never misleading.

I've run into a few stories lately where the headline is completely misleading. Here's some examples:

Miss USA Rima Fakih Once Won Radio Stripping Contest in 2007

Sounds like the new Miss USA took her clothes off, right?
From the actual story: "Fakih did not actually take her clothes off. She just bumped and grinded on stage with a stripper pole.

Again? MAX train leaves 4-year-old boy at station Sunday night‎
Normally, the Oregonian kisses TriMet's ass, constantly painting Portland's mass transit provider in a positive light almost as if they were a PR firm cutting out the middle man. I found this headline a bit inflammatory in that the accompanying video looked more like a 4-year-old wasn't attended to properly and ran off the MAX right before the doors closed. The next day the headline for the EXACT SAME STORY was changed to:
Distracted riding? Video shows 4-year-old darted off MAX train while dad talked on cell phone

These are the only two examples I could come up with that I'd seen recently. I guess it's important to read the full story and not judge a situation by someone's inability to convey a situation in the constraints of a short headline.

Gooch:Out

The Day the Laughter Died

I've sort of hit a bad patch. It's sort of a mixed blessing, but nonetheless whatthefuck-worthy. In some sort of Kafka-esque transformation, I've lost the ability to drink.

It started earlier this week as I tried to sip some tequila before dinner at a friend's. Within an hour of my first sip, I was finding creative ways to pour my tequila into my two friends' glasses (I'll be damned if I'm going to waste Patron).

The deterrent/obstacle to my inebriation is some sort of tension headache brought on after about two drinks' worth of booze is consumed. I can sip a beer over the course of a sporting event, but gone are the days of my normal consumption, it would seem. At least for now.

I'm also drinking about a gallon of water a day due to an unquenchable thirst. Some people have suggested that diabetes might be lingering. I argue, of course, that just because a dude is fat and drinks a lot of water and urinates a lot does not mean he might have diabetes.

It, of course, damn well could mean that. But whatever.

Anyways, knowing that alcohol makes up a good 85% of my personality, it's going to be interesting to go through the weekend with any measurable lucidity. How will I explain it to people? I haven't thought of anything interesting or dare I say 'funny' in two weeks. I blame this on my birthday somehow.

Anyways.

I'm a PC. I'm a Hack.

Mac on a PC? What kind of shenanigans are you playing, mister?

My entire computer "career" began with my desire to print to a printer on my girlfriend's printer in our apartment. This involved a lot of troubleshooting (several days' worth for what I can do now in 5 minutes), hard work, and an ethernet cable running strategically through the apartment (an implement now referred to by my now ex-girlfriend as the first 'nail in the coffin').

Now, the same type of drive to accomplish something really, really trivial had me working tirelessly to get the Macintosh operating system to work on my little Lenovo netbook. I'm now typing on this on my "Hackintosh," the term used to describe any computer running the Mac OS on hardware manufactured by someone other than Apple Inc.

Macs used to run on different hardware than PCs. In the 90s, Macs were actually better at doing some tasks than their Intel counterparts. This wasn't necesarily because they were faster, but because they could sometimes do the same amount of work with less instruction. This allowed Macs to run software that PCs weren't powerful enough at the time to run. Photoshop was released for Windows in the early days, but did not run very well, sort of a token release.

Bill Gates, posing in front of the very first Blue Screen of Death

Since Apple moved to Intel based hardware, the performance differences between Windows and Macs has dwindled. Now, it's more a personal preference of operating system. Sure, Macs don't typically get viruses, but that's primarily because no one really bothers making viruses for them.

Owning a Mac vs. a PC is analagous to owning a Mercedes vs. a Ford. The former, in both cases, is more elegant, is more expensive to service (but less likely to need service often) with its cost driven primarily by status more than functionality. However, either one will get you from point A to point B in a similar fashion.

Since Macs and PCs run on similar hardware now, hackers have created Mac distributions that you can install on non-Mac hardware. People wanting to circumvent the high price of Mac ownership can now have a Mac netbook (a form factor that Apple doesn't even provide) for around $350 (compared to about $1000 for Apple's least expensive notebook). The tradeoff is that depending on what you're installing the Mac OS on to, it's more or less difficult to get everything working. It's a trend that's catching on among the general computing community. I went onto Amazon.com and looked up the cost of a Dell Mini 10v (the most Mac-compatible PC being produced) and Amazon shows "People who bought this also bought the Mac OSX Snow Leopard operating system" offering to sell both for $343. When Amazon starts offering stuff to enable you to hack something, it just doesn't seem as cool. Like when your parents bought a Metallica CD. Leave it to Amazon and parents to rip something right out of the subculture.

It's a Mac. Otherwise, you guessed it, no relevance whatsoever.
So I did the stuff that computer guys do to get my machine to boot into either my existing Windows environment or my new Mac installation (sort of like a reverse Boot Camp, software that allows Mac users to boot into either Windows or Mac environments). My machine boots into and runs the Mac OS pretty well. I'm a Windows guy, but I like learning a new operating system and hopefully I'll start servicing Macs as a part of my computer fixing business. At least when I'm asked to work on customers' Macs, I'd like to have more of a look of confidence than scratching my head with a blank stare like I'm looking at a Rubik's Cube. Or a long division problem. I suck at both.

I have a new appreciation for the Mac OS. I'm greatly aware of its limitations with regards to corporate, or "real world" computing. It has a niche audience and at this point, I'm pretty sure at this point I could get a small office running with Macs and Snow Leopard Server (Apple's server software offering). That's more a testament to the Mac's intuitive interface and hardware-software fully tested compatibility. The same element that makes Windows environments relatively inexpensive is the same thing that makes it somewhat less reliable:  a lot of hardware vendors. By "monopolizing" hardware distribution, Apple can ensure that its operating system will work with its hardware. They can also control the price of the hardware which, by all accounts, is pretty similar to what's operating under the hood of most (less expensive) PCs.

Mac OS (like competition in any industry) is good for everyone because Microsoft Windows is certainly an example of what little competition can make a product: bloated, untested, and released with a "patch as it breaks" mentality (similar to, well, my own personal lifestyle). With Mac OS increasing in popularity and (hopefully) developing more enterprise level server offerings, Microsoft will actually have to start getting things right the first time and release software as if there's other options out there. Because there are definitely other options out there.

Don't get me started on Linux.

The only thing I care about sustaining is my buzz. High five?

British Petroleum can suck a dick. It's not that they've created the worst eco-disaster since the eradication of the dinosaurs. Rather, it's this fucking "sustainability for the sake of marketing" bullshit that makes me want to roll around in my cache of blood diamonds and secret stash of styrofoam McDonalds burger boxes from the 80s.

Earth friendliness used to be a movement of the hippies. They gardened for the sake of growing their own vegetables to save money and to avoid pesticides. They pioneered the use of less fossil fuels. It was a genuine thing. Then, like everything else, corporations figured a way to make earth friendliness "trendy" and then make money from it. The movement of "sustainability" was born the bastard son of marketing and making money out of ideas rather than doing anything. Hybrid cars were purchased for the sake of status rather than giving a shit about the environment. Seriously: Do you think a single Hybrid car would be purchased if it didn't have a "Hybrid" emblem on it? Priuses are the ugliest cars manufactured in recent history... and that's a marketing tool. Why? Because people want to stand out and show the world "hey, I have an ugly fucking car, but I paid a shit-ton for it and I'm helping the environment! Sort of!"

Then, some genius came up with LEED accreditation. That's right, you can pay some company for the right to say you are qualified to separate beer bottles from the plastic Cool Whip tubs. Now the act of putting fluorescent lights into a building is a social statement and not just something that every public school and Wal-Mart has done since the dawn of time. I replaced the lights in my condo seven years ago with compact fluorescents. Where's my patchouli smelling blow job?

There's an ocean in the picture. Otherwise, just as you guessed: no relevance whatsoever.

And to further the bullshit, you can buy green credits. Holy shit! Instead of changing your business/living habits, you can simply buy your way out of being an Earth-Enemy. I think the Catholics had something like this where you could buy your penance instead of saying some Hail Marys or whatever. I loved that Catholic business model. Can you imagine? "I've saved up enough penance money to fuck two whores this weekend. I heart Catholicism!" Anyways, I guess you figure out how big your carbon footprint is, then pay someone based on what it will take to offset your dickness-to-the-environment.

Of course, I'm sure you get a big suitable-for-framing certificate for your lobby/office, because seldom does anyone do anything for the sake of the environment without wanting credit for it. I bet people that buy Carbon offsets have no idea where the money goes, which I'm sure there's some hefty "administration" allotment taken out of that chunk of green you used to, you know, look green. People care more about certificates and "hybrid" emblems than actually doing anything for the sake of the planet.

I'm not saying that I lead the most "sustainable" existence. I recycle, and I maintain that a four-cylinder fuel-efficient car makes more sense than a hybrid in the long run. Like I said earlier, I use compact fluorescents where it works for me. I don't make a big deal out of any of it though. If you make a big deal about social element, you'd better fucking not fuck up within that element. Unclear?

People hate hypocrisy.

Elliott Spitzer was a prosecutor of all things prostitution. He shouldn't have gotten caught with a prostitute. Priests shouldn't be fucking little kids. Cops shouldn't be commiting crimes and/or road raging (like they do quite often in Portland lately). I have taken absolutely no social stand my entire life. This allows me to live a life somewhat free of contrived accolades and should I get caught doing something wrong, well go fuck yourselves. My big stance? Spelling. I hates me a typo. Should you find a misspelling in any of my writing, then give me hell.

Oh, I also like animals. However, I was told once that every time I masturbate, a kitten dies. Putting my own well being over that of the adorable animals, I single handedly (heh) thought I'd generated a Cat-Auschwitz from 1987 to the present day. Even now, very time I soil a sock, I expect to walk downstairs to find my own cat keeled over.

I digress.

From bp.com: "So a black guy and a Muslim chick walk into a green house..."
Oh yeah... hypocrisy. British Petroleum has a green looking website with stock photos of people that look like they are doing earth-friendly things. This is a result of the sustainability trend. Once you've lifted yourself up onto a big green pedestal, you look like a total fucking asshole when you fuck up the habitat of aquatic life for the next hundred years. I mean, Exxon didn't spend a lot of time holding their eco-cock up to a ruler and saying "look... look at me!" When they destroyed Alaska's coastline it was more like... "we're an oil company. Shit happens." BP set themselves up for a trickier PR task: When you've spent so much advertising in blowing your own environmental efforts horn for years, then fuck up so much of the environment... how do you recover?

BP Oil Spill, 2010

Other than cleaning up the mess, there's not much they really have to do. They're probably just getting ready to wallpaper their warehouse with freshly purchased and printed Carbon-Offset certificates. Problem solved.

Gooch:Out



I refuse to buy gas at any BP related station. Not because of the environment, but because it looks as though the price of seafood is about to skyrocket. Those motherfuckers.

Iron Gooch 2

I got nothing... I just didn't want to have an "11:11" be the last post for the weekend. Um, read the tweets to the right.

Interesting fun fact: I can't find the "Genie Columns" from way back. Not in the archives. Will have to dig up an old hard drive or two and start looking.

For the record: I can't stand Olivia Munn.

Fro the record: I'm a bit over Scarlett Johansson, but the picture fits the headline, which also has little to do with anything.

I should have drank tonight.

Peace and Good Night.

goochout

And at the 11:11... [more outtakes]

Does anyone else think that the "Blue Collar Comedy" genre is getting a little like the same joke told over and over again? I mean, quite frankly, that Foxworthy formulaic bullshit that people can't seem to get enough of drives me nuts.

[here's where I brainstormed and then got bored...]

If you've ever worn a white sheet and it's not halloween

I mean, are "Git-R-Done" stickers a standard option on all domestic trucks?

[Then I got tired. I guess thinking of one liners equating rednecks with racists wasn't on my comedic plate that late night. Fuck it... it made it to the 11:11].