Fun with Yahoo image search

Here are the same words, and their first photographic results, on Yahoo's image search engine:

zany

madcap

pratfall

hijinks

extreme

antics

shenanigans (the same as Google)

sexy robot

Alan Alda

groin punch

horseplay

farts

slacks

mustache

I learned a lot from this exercise. A lot.

Fun with Google image search

I typed the following words into Google image search, and these are the first photos that came up for each:
zany

madcap

pratfall

hijinks

extreme

antics

shenanigans

sexy robot

Alan Alda

groin punch

horseplay

farts

slacks

mustache

That's all for now.

German toads explode

Stay away from the pond!

The return of the son of the daughter of More Referring URLs

I may end up devoting this site entirely to what people were Google searching when they ended up here. Today's winner:
Some poor slob is still searching for "smashing thumbs" but top honors today go to the class act who desperately wanted to find pages containing "gluing vaginas." He must have been disappointed to find my site. Yes, it mentions "gluing" and "vaginas" but there are no descriptions, photos, or videos of anyone applying your standard industrial adhesives or even plain old Elmer's Glue to female genitalia. Gluing vaginas? Come on, man, that's counterproductive.

Listening to: It's Classic Rock and PBR-drinking Thursday!
Black Sabbath - Vol. 4
Buffalo Springfield - self-titled

More referring URLs

It's always a treat to see what people were Google-searching when they ended up at my website. There are some real "doozies" in this latest batch, as my "grandfather" would say. But who's talking now? Here are my favorites of the week (and it's only Tuesday, for the love of God):

"Eva Mattes nude"
"let's go home and w." (I haven't w.'ed for weeks. Minutes even.)
"smashing thumbs"
"very good hints for robot rage" (I love how they included the word "very.")
"Teaneck or Sharon or Windham or Vermont or music or comic or books or Otto or Binder Louis B."
"Bono womanizing" (hey everybody, let's go bono womanizing)

Listening to: Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R
Reading: A Death in the Family by James Agee

The new pope's an asshole

He sure is.

Washbots

I was sort of half-listening to the news while looking at job listings on the Internet, and overheard a report about robots performing surgery. Then I overheard this phrase: "Robo scrub nurse." Boop. Robo Scrub Nurse ready to scrub you. Boop. Beep.

Reading: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (This book is pleasant enough, but I'm a little underwhelmed. The way people talk about this guy, I was expecting to have 200 laughgasms per page. What am I missing?)

Subconscious ridiculous

I remember nothing from the very long dream I had last night except an old man saying to me, "I hate the Spice Girls. They're so violent."

Listening to: Robert Wyatt - Cuckooland

Doppelblogger

Film-Watching Robot is up and running. More content to come.

Aw shit

Aw fuck.

Googly

I was checking the referring URLs to this site for some meager way to pass the unsatisfying minutes of my unsuccessful life, and I found some Google searches that led people to Can-Smashing Robot (soon to be C-SR: Miami, starring Chi McBride as Sgt. Lucky Fontleroy, when the retooling is finished). Here they are:
"hate Conor Oberst"
"'The Surrender' excerpts anal"
"jacqui malouf baby"
"this sucks. it's art. why does everything suck. let's go home and watch mtv"
"famous collages" (are there any?)
"moonlight towers sucks"
"Parking Garage Death Nebraska"
"robot april 2005"
"can smashing machine"

Reading: The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
Listening to: Sparklehorse - It's a Wonderful Life
I would also tell you what movies I watched, but "Film-Watching Robot," a different website containing my movie-nerd observations (thereby keeping them off this site, which should come as a relief to those of you who like this site but have healthier hobbies, such as going outside and speaking to other human beings), is coming soon, probably this week.

Let me also add that I have seen this season's "American Idol" a handful of times while eating dinner, and I think Paula Abdul is completely bonkers. I think she's either bottoming out on drugs or has been co-opted by some sort of body-snatching magical pixie with a chemical imbalance. She acts like she got trapped in an orgasm and never came back. I don't remember her acting this way on the bits and pieces I've seen from previous seasons. What do you think?

O-blog-atory

Blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog.

Listening to: John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band

I watched these movies:
On the big screen: White Collar Worker Kintaro (Takashi Miike)
On video: Alexandria Again and Forever (Youssef Chahine)
La Sentinelle (Arnaud Desplechin)
Savage Nights (Cyril Collard)
West Side Story (Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise)
Husbands and Wives (Woody Allen)

Forget the Pope, this is much more important

My favorite living songwriter, Neil Young, and my favorite living writer, Barry Hannah, both escaped near-death experiences this week. Young had a brain aneurysm but is expected to make a full recovery and Hannah was hospitalized in Austin all last week in the critical care unit (he's currently a visiting professor in San Marcos) for an undisclosed illness, but is also expected to make a full recovery. Both of these guys' entire careers are hotwired into my synapses and have had a huge influence on me. I'm glad they're still alive. What more could the Pope do? His best days are behind him. He jumped the shark in 2000 or '01. Long live Barry Hannah and Neil Young.
Currently reading: The Thanatos Syndrome by Walker Percy
Listening to: Dinosaur Jr - Bug
Elvis Costello - My Aim is True

Lapses in judgment by awesome dudes who should know better

Two of my favorite artists have disappointed me by endorsing absolute shit. I know I'm too old to care about this, but I am an immature child who wants the bands I like not to like other bands I hate. I am a baby. Let the reprimands begin:

David Byrne. I'm calling you out. I like you very much. On your website, davidbyrne.com, you have programmed your own radio station, much of it good, some great, at worst pleasant. However, you have a song by Bob Schneider on your station. Bob fuckin' Schneider. The scourge of Austin. He's so terrible. Bob fuckin Schneider. He used to date Sandra Bullock. His music sounds like the way Sandra Bullock's movies look. Why, David Byrne? Why?

Reprimand #2: Yo La Tengo. You are one of my favorite bands. Your records are great. Your live show is excellent. Every year, you do a charity benefit in Hoboken in which you invite other musicians to play cover songs with you. This year, Conor Oberst sang two songs with you. What the fuck? I feel like crying when I even vaguely think about this. It hurts me deeply. I hate Conor Oberst so much. Yo La Tengo, your years of service in my record collection count for a lot. I can't stay mad at you. But, Conor fuckin' Oberst. Bright Eyes is the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. God, Bright Eyes. Bright fuckin' Eyes. Plus, he's a humorless dick. I hate his crybaby anus voice and his self-pitying song-turds. "I'm crying right now while I sing because life is so hard. Why must I be able to do what I want, have no day job, travel the world, play with Yo La fucking Tengo, and fall ass over nuts into several vaginas. I will now brood into the camera for pictures that will soon grace the next 1200 magazine articles about me this month. Woe is me. The pain of life. The pain. The misery. Why, God, why did you burden me with success on my own terms? How horrible it is." What a bag of shit. I wish I could murder him. I hate him so much. I hate him so much. When people have heard me badmouth Conor Oberst (which I do a lot. I'm weirdly obsessive in my all-pervading hatred of the man and his music, but I've had his dung shoved down my earhole a lot more than your average person, since we're both from Nebraska and he was a local sensation while I was going to college. I was forced to hear him on college radio, at parties, and even live at my favorite local bars. I thought I had escaped him when I came to Austin, but unfortunately he became semi-famous and now it's impossible to open a magazine without seeing his precious, fragile self.), they usually say to me, "You're just jealous." You're goddamn right I'm jealous. I'm insanely jealous of the life he gets to lead. I'm guilty. You caught me. I'm jealous of Conor Oberst's life. Every Monday morning at the next shitty office job I get, I will think of that motherfucker playing with Yo La Tengo. But you know the line about "just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you." It's also true that just because you're jealous, doesn't mean his music isn't worthless. He's snowed so many people with his contrived, artificial, affected, false art. He sucks. I hate him so much. I've never hated another musician's work so much in my life. What is wrong with me? Why do I hate him so much? I need help.
In conclusion: Shame on you Yo La Tengo. Shame on you.

Collage #2: "Working"

Collage #1: "Stuff Magazine, Aug. 2004 - Jan. 2005" This one is too big and the light is too bad in our apartment to get a good photo. Still, it's a little too obvious and busy, and the target is too easy, but I had fun getting drunk and cutting and gluing shit.

Peep this

Someone peeked in our window last Thursday at 2 a.m. It was unsettling because the blinds were closed, so he was down on all fours trying to peer in. I don't know how long he'd been staring at me, but I was sitting at the computer, burning a compilation CD, and I suddenly felt the distinctly creepy sensation of being watched. I turned my head and saw another head at the corner of the window, staring right at me. I said "What the fuck" and walked toward the window, at which point the head jerked back and disappeared. What was this douchebag up to? Why was he on all fours, trying to peek into my blinds-closed window at 2 a.m. in a well-lit, heavily foot-trafficked section of the apartment complex? If he'd hung around longer than a minute, someone would have seen him. Was he an exhibitionist, a pervert, a burglar, a rapist, a murderer, a drunk who fell over and/or leaned over to puke and decided to check out the surroundings? Was he specifically targeting me or my wife, or was it a random peek? If he's smaller and/or weaker than me, I hope he comes back so I can beat the hell out of him. What did he want? It's unsettling. If he was hoping to catch me jerking off to Internet porn sites, he was sorely disappointed. I only whack off in my car as I drive pantsless past area high schools while I listen to homemade cassettes of me reading passages from the Koran on a boombox strapped into the passenger seat. So nice try, pervert, but you didn't get much of a show. Better luck next time. Jerk.
Seriously, that window-peeking shit is creepy.

Who's hot, who's not

These dudes are awesome: Mike Watt and Mark E. Smith
These dudes are not awesome: Henry Kissinger and David Schwimmer

Currently reading: Herzog on Herzog edited by Paul Cronin
I like me some Herzog movies.
Favorite paragraph from the book so far (Herzog talking about why there are so many odd, peripheral shots of animals in his films): "Years ago I was searching for the biggest rooster I could find and I heard about a guy in Petaluma, California, who had owned a rooster called Weirdo that weighed thirty pounds. Sadly Weirdo had passed away, but his offspring were alive, and guess what? They were even bigger. I went out there and found Ralph, son of Weirdo, who weighed an amazing thirty-two pounds! Then I found Frank, a special breed of miniature horse that stood less than two feet high. I told Frank's owner I wanted to film Ralph chasing Frank - with a midget riding him - around the biggest sequoia tree in the world, thirty meters in circumference. It would have been amazing because the horse and the midget together were still smaller than Ralph, the rooster. But unfortunately Frank's owner refused. He said it would make Frank, the horse, look stupid."

I watched these movies:
On the big screen: Kikoku (Takashi Miike)
On video:
The Man Who Laughs (Paul Leni)
Van Gogh (Maurice Pialat)
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (Tim Burton)
The Oak (Lucian Pintilie)

The grim reaper loves to boogie

The singer from Molly Hatchet and the guitarist from Foghat died this week. Since these things supposedly come in threes, I'm glad I was never a member of Grand Funk Railroad.

Vomit, excrement, pus, and bile

I'm so glad South by Southwest is over. I'll only have to read about it in the Chronicle for another fucking eight weeks, then a few months' reprieve before they start talking about next year's edition. A million shitty bands are back where they belong, toiling in obscurity before they finally wise up and ask for the paper route back. I love music, but there are too many bands. I will never catch up on all the old stuff I want, let alone the five million new bands a week I'll never get a chance to hear. The arteries are clogged. Unless you want to play music so badly it will destroy every fiber of your being if you don't, stop bothering everybody. You can't throw a rock in Austin without hitting a band, but I'd say less than one percent of these motherfuckers are doing anything besides licking scraps off somebody else's plate. Sometimes, I get so fucking tired of rock and roll. It seems like a huge waste of energy and terrible fashion sense. Here I am now, though, sitting in my apartment, listening to rock, loving it. Maybe I'm getting tired of seeing music live, having to sit through shitty opening bands, chatty assholes who always stand behind me, people who pump their fists constantly and shout the name of the band incessantly, people whose hair and clothes and dancing styles were all seemingly chosen specifically to enrage me. I'm too irritable in a crowd. I prefer my people in small groups. I need to just stay home and listen to records. When will I learn? Never leave the house. Never. Never ever. On that note, I attended one SXSW show on Thursday night before flying back to Nebraska the next day to attend my dad's wedding, the Guided by Voices hoot night. If you're unfamiliar with the hoot night format, it consists of lots of bands playing the music of one particular artist. Except this time, members of GBV were there in person, playing a few songs themselves, including Robert Pollard and Doug Gillard. Highlights: Calexico. I don't know how to tell you how good they were without resorting to words like "destroyed," "ruled," "blew minds," etc., but they were the best thing I saw. They did a ridiculously excellent version of "Non-Absorbing." Also, Moonlight Towers did justice to my favorite GBV song of ever, "Smothered in Hugs." Lowlights: The show was too fucking long, with too many fucking bands. I was tired and wanted to sleep. Also, too many people who decided it would be a good idea to pay ten bucks, stand in line for an hour, attend a rock show, and have a loud conversation through the entire thing. I'll never understand this behavior, though it seems these assholes are outnumbering the rest of us with each passing day. Maybe it has something to do with the cellphone culture that has poisoned every available space of our fucking country. Cell phones have done more to destroy the very fabric of our culture than every terrorist combined. We're not long for this world if we keep regressing at our present rate, and I welcome the coming apocalypse if it means every cell phone in the world will be obliterated along with us. I don't want to hear your private conversations any more than I want to watch you take a shit. How would you like it if I carried a toilet with me everywhere I went and constantly shat in public? I imagine it would wear out its novelty factor pretty goddamn fast. I'm not interested in your fucking mouth defecations, either. Use your cell phone in emergencies and when there's no one around who has to listen to your inane conversations. Otherwise, behave like a civilized human being and leave your fucking phone at home or in your car. I hate you. Also, the whole Uncle Bob/beer/drunkfest/audience-as-enabler/it's not a GBV show unless everybody's drunk thing is really annoying. Don't get me wrong. My liver's been on the W.C. Fields diet since I was 16, but my interest in GBV is based on all those great songs written by Robert Pollard and the fact that he didn't get his break until he was in his late thirties. Isn't that more interesting? Also, out of the 12 or 13 times I saw GBV live, the shows where they were trashed (and there's less of those than you might think) were by far the weakest shows they did. Alas, a beer-free GBV show would have probably gone down as well as Kiss without their makeup. But most of Kiss' songs suck, so that's not really an accurate comparison. "Rock and Roll All Night?" Heard it lately? You could put together a supergroup featuring a Capuchin monkey, a retarded child, a leaf blower, and the dug-up remains of General Robert E. Lee, and you'd get a more competent rock band. Kiss needs its makeup. Those guys are businessmen. Businessmen don't belong on the stage. They belong in hell, which is where they'll all end up if the belief system I rejected as a child actually turns out to be true. Of course, if that happens, I'll be in there with them. Business majors. What the fuck's wrong with these people? What a waste of life. Majoring in business. Have fun making that money, asshole. It's more money than I'll make, but your life is an ugly, worthless, morally bankrupt hole. Business. Yuck.
I had a few celebrity sightings last week, though nothing as exciting as Garry Shandling cruising my crotch. While standing in line at the GBV thing, David Johansen walked by. He's a pretty amazing-looking guy, with his exaggerated features and lined, craggy face. And he was in the New York Dolls. Plus. He was also Buster Poindexter. Minus. But the New York Dolls. Hell, yeah. Then, in the airport the next day, I saw Fatboy Slim and Kinky Friedman and a lot of people who were probably in some shitty band that nobody cares about except for a few random British journalists. I wasn't as excited seeing these guys as I was when I spotted David Johansen, but I'm a fan of absurdity, and there's something absurd about Fatboy Slim standing in line behind me buying a turkey sandwich at an airport sports bar. I'm going to go eat a popsicle.

Listening to: Space Needle - The Moray Eels Eat the Space Needle
I bought this for 99 cents in the cutout bin at the record store where I worked in college. I've only listened to it twice since then. I was under the mistaken impression it was mostly forgettable, generic indie rock, and I planned on selling it. I don't know why I remembered it that way. The album pleases me. I will allow it to remain in my chambers.