Oh Taliban, Oh Taliban

From this old forum post comes a parody of Oh Tannebaum. No one gave it enough love, so I’ll put it here, with some changes to the verses to fit the meter:

Oh Taliban, Oh Taliban
How stupid are your leaders
Oh Taliban, Oh Taliban
For hiding evil deeders
The choice you made was asinine
Upon your soil, our troops will shine
Oh Taliban, Oh Taliban
The day has come for reckoning

Oh Taliban, Oh Taliban
Your final days are coming near.
Oh Taliban, Oh Taliban
You took away what we held dear.
Our troops won't rest before they're done,
When justice for our dead is won
Oh Taliban, Oh Taliban
The day has come for reckoning

Oh Taliban, Oh Taliban
Remember what our leader's said
Oh Taliban, Oh Taliban
We won't rest till Bin Laden's dead
You pick your fights and so do we
We'll fight to keep our country free.
Oh Taliban, Oh Taliban
The days has come for reckoning

Can you tell that this was written in early 2001?

The saddest forum thread ever

There are a certain breed of forum posts: the kind no one responds to. This by far tops them all:

(Thursday Oct 29) Evan: well i was born with autism and last year i decided to fight it and i did not feel at all like i was gonna drift off into m own world alot and back in march i got the feeling that it would happen again but in july it wore off me now im feeling like its gonna happen please help

(Thursday Oct 29) Evan: i mean my but um i hope it wares off me soon

(Thursday Oct 29) Evan: can anyone help i have improved

(Thursday Oct 29) Evan: im not drifting off into my own world

Updates

Major lack of optimism this week. I just haven’t been as productive as I should, I get anxiety over that, less productivity, more anxiety, et cetera et cetera ad infinitum. Then one day, some awesome piece of news comes out, some online game gets release, or someone finally releases an anticipated sequel. Then I get energized, and back on track.

So, while no one was watching this blog, I updated my Windows Live Writer version. It’s spiffier, although a bit too shiny. I wonder how shinier future software will appear. Maybe they’ll produce metallic monitors, so we can actually see the shine.

Also, I started another project. I’ve always had a love for the classic songs; the songs from the 50’s, 60’s, 80’s, and 90’s (the 70’s, not so much). So I started taking all the songs that have been number one on the Billboard Top 100 list, and arranging them into consecutively into a medley, 2 seconds for every week on top. Right now I’ve gone from August 1958, the start of the list, to April 1962; the medley is over 6 minutes long. It’s a fun listen; I shall upload it sometime to either the crazy “Windows SkyDrive” that replaced my private sharing folders, or to YouTube, where it will surely surprise all my anime-loving subscribers. If anyone asks about copyright, I will claim fair use. After all, the longest (so far) a song has been in the #1 spot is 9 weeks; I hear a song in 2005 lasted 16 weeks. I don’t know if I’ll get that far, but YouTube does a pretty good job of putting up all the #1 songs, so I’ll just keep going till I get tired.

Fad in, fad out

Well, results reveal that my YTMND is slowly creeping across the Internet, mostly by seeping through Twitter and forums. I'm betting once the week closes, and "Frodo jumps on it" gets removed from "TOP RATED THIS WEEK" on the main page, viewership will die off, and it will fade into everyone's memory.

And NO, people are NOT downvoting this; it is STILL at 4.7, and is more than likely going to retain its place in the top 2 or 3 pages of top rated YTMNDs of all time. For that reason, I'm going to predict that it's going to not be a fad, ever. Allow me to explain with my unpatented, unproven, and uncopyrighted explanation on how fads work:

Basically, a fad has to inspire people to mimic it. They must revel in it, and want to revel in it; it has to be funny, and be open-ended. Let me unnecessarily expand upon this with a metaphoric model: the Hook, Line, and Sinker model.

1. Hook: This is the level of intrigue and interest. Anything that's funny usually has a hook, being the punch-line, but anything that appeals to an audience can be a hook. For example, it's not expressly stated as a fad, but a lot of sites deal with familiar kid-friendly characters and giving them a lewd slant. The sex is the hook. Indeed, a lot of fads involve sex in some way, even when they're unfunny. That's the hook at work.

2. Line: This is the potential for being expanded upon. If there's a situation that can only be framed in one context, or if there's no possibility of adding to the original, then no one will add anything new -- no one will follow the line. If a fad has no Hook in it, then it's a forced fad; no one was intrigued by it, but the line has been drawn out. If a fad has no Line in it, then it can't even be called a fad; the meat on the Hook will just spread out and dissipate. Literally, a lack of context the fad can wrap around.

3. Sinker: It must be possible to top the original. If the original was awesome or perfect, then no one will want to imitate it, for fear of looking like a wannabe. If the original was just good, but not awesome, than it will feasible for someone to try and top it. They might fail, but there's always the possibility, right?

I may have to revise it a bit, seeing as how the current 4-chan Max fad started with a highly-rated site.

Now, if you landed on this site because you were excitedly looking for more info on frodojumpsonit.ytmnd.com, let me reward you for coming here with these exclusive jumping Frodo avatars:

50x50 75x75   100x100

What's up, YTMND?

Well, yesterday, I mentioned that I posted something to YTMND.com. Its ranking was around 4.7, and I expected it to drop even lower.

Well, no. It's stayed there. It once got down to 4.6, but now it's recovered. I was not prepared for that. By the end of the day, it's had 4000 views, 237 votes, and 75 favs. It went off the "Up and Coming" list still in second place, and still resides on second place in the Top Rated This Week (first place is a site revealing the "illicit" practices of the website's founder, and is currently the highest-rated site in the history of YTMND; unlucky timing on my part).

Well, a Google search reveals that, no, my blog is NOT one of the search results of "Frodo jump on it" (but it will now! heh heh heh). But so far, the results show that it's popped up on a Twitter account, the signature of a forum user, and Buzzfeed.com.

Now, it's also been something of a goal of mine to make something that reaches a sizeable popularity on the Internet. For the record, yes, it was partly my intention for other people to make spinoffs ("fads" in YTMND lingo) of it. It wasn't that hard for me to make, and it's pretty catchy. Right now, though, I'm a tad concerned. If my site is THIS good, then no one will want to make a spin-off and look like some attention-crazed wannabe. I mean, the both of the original Brian Peppers sites were just a picture with music (and text) on it, both garnering a rating of 4 out of 5, offering (practically inviting) others to beat that score.

But if my site stays at 4.7, then no one will attempt to best it, and it will just die. No fad. No fun.

Well, I'll throw in another update on it tomorrow. I've been spending the past day or two on YTMND, anyway, so I may as well let you in on what I've been doing. Even though I'm not doing anything.

Jump On It

Well, okay. I haven't even touched this blog since Saturday. Hey, at least I have the decency to tell you. Truth is, I've been doing things on other websites. Which websites? Well...

You may remember that on Saturday I posted a GIF of Gandalf rocking his head back and forth. I was going to use it for ytmnd.com. Well, I just made a better one.

So far, it's hovering around 4.7 out of 5. I'm waiting for the downvoters to smash it to bits. But even if it does take a nosedive, it's still the highest voted YTMND I've made so far.

The Ten Commandments of the Forum

I'm not much of a fan of forums. They irritate me beyond end. To illustrate my grudges against them, here are, in my opinion, the "ten commandments" that every forum inevitably worships:

1. You are the User, a God. Thou shalt have no other Users beside you.

• Monopolize your posts. Bulk up on posts, even if most of them are your own. Every time your threads get more then 4 hours old, add another post. You want to keep people responding to your posts and only your posts, so don't let any other wannabe users try and take over.

2. Thou shalt make for everyone graven images, whether in the likeness of a human face, or of symbolic references; thou shalt bow down and worship them.

• Put smiling emoticons, frowning emoticons, laughing emoticons, emoticons rolling in empty space, and images of beer and hearts everywhere. A good emoticon, and even a bad emoticon, can liven up any post.

3. Thou shalt make no rightful use of previous topics.

• No recycling a previous topic that was done some weeks ago, or even a few months ago. This is more than no necroposting; creating a new thread about the same subject is a no-no.

4. Forget the thread's topic and keep it holey.

• Actually, forget the whole "content" thing. Just make a joke that's barely relevant to the topic, or argue with the posts above. Do as much as you can to steer the "conversation" from the topic; leave the critical discussion for the nerds.

5. Honor thy followers only.

• Praise those who follow your twisted logic, and argue against everyone who says otherwise. Insult everyone else who tries to rebuff you with side logic; say that you were just making a point, and no one has any right to argue with you. Everyone will believe you and your comrades eventually.

6. Thou shalt murder the English language.

• talk in lower letters with wierd spelings thru out yur pst also abbr yur lang to mak it cnfsng 2 NE1 l's on teh frm lawl

7. Thou shalt commit to adult language.

• Fuck this piece of shit. Swear your ass off all over your fucking posts. Show those motherfuckers above you who can fuck the hell out of this fucking shitty excuse for a thread.

8. Thou shalt steal other people's comments.

• Say something that was already said. Say something that everyone else was already thinking. It can be brief, or you can expand it to some arbitrary length. It can be something that supposedly contributes to the forum but actually doesn't, or something that does contribute to the forum but in some obfuscatory way. Just say something that has already been said.

9. Thou shalt bear false attitudes towards the newcomers.

• Be nice to the person, but not to their posts. Be ruthless. Rip their arguments to shreds. Respond to their pleas with a "I don't mean you, you're okay, it's just your post I have trouble with". Ignore (or ridicule) the idea that perhaps some people are putting effort into their posts.

10. Thou shalt not covet your neighbors' threads.

• BORING!!!!! We've already seen this before. <groans in irritation> If I whinge about this thread long enough, maybe people will agree with me and chime in. When can we talk about something INTERESTING?

(Then again, maybe I'm empathizing with the wrong users...)

We Have a Little Addendum to Our Sermon

I've been feeling pretty bad about not including a real-life example in my post on Internet evangelism, but I just stumbled across one right now. Taken from here:

In the absence of an external standard, everyone's opinion of right and wrong is equal. So society must be permissive and tolerant. Because humanists believe they are just an advanced form of animal with no "afterlife" to consider, the meaning of life is to maximize pleasure.

But let's look at this with a very humanistic question: Are selfish people ultimately happy? Leo Tolstoy, one of history's most celebrated novelists, tried to find the meaning of life in sex, in gambling, in lavish living. He tried to find it in family, fathering 13 children. Ultimately, he found it in Christianity, saying, "Beware of everything which puts an obstacle between you and God." King Solomon, the wisest man in the Bible, lamented after years of experimentation: "I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind" (Ecclesiastes 1:13-14).

If the humanism meaning of life is ultimately bankrupt, it might make sense for us to trade humanism for theism - belief in God.

In return, we get a time-tested handbook for living - The Holy Bible. We begin to live in a world where good and evil are known quantities - not millions of competing opinions. And if we accept God, He will begin to work through us not to glorify our mediocre lives but to blah blah blah etc.

The Internet is God's Holy Pulpit

Sometimes I'll be browsing the Internet, and I come across an essay that seems like an ordinary piece, and one that I find somewhat interesting to read but then, suddenly, they sneak God in. It goes something like this:

The printing press was invented in 1440 by Gutenberg. Do you know the very first thing he printed was? It was the Bible! Yes, though there were many secular, wicked texts being written in that era, Gutenberg chose to print the Bible. He had decided to follow God's plan by spreading God's Word throughout the land. How could we follow this lesson today? When we sit down to write something, what will be our first words: words of hatred and contempt, or God's holy Word?

Ahem. Not that I find anything disreputable about evangelism, but it seems like a bait-and-switch tactic to suddenly turn in such a direction, after an otherwise secular treatise. (Actually, I don't think there were any "wicked" texts being spread back then; only monks could mass produce written works, and they would certainly not be spreading wickedness, but evangelicals tend to make up facts in order to drive home the point.)

Who invented the light bulb? If you said Thomas Edison, you would be wrong. It was actually Joseph Swan who invented the light bulb 7 years earlier. And yet, would either of them have managed to create such a spectacular device if God had not first spoken those words, "LET THERE BE LIGHT"? Who do you think the real inventor is: a human born in original sin, and God and His infinite wisdom?

By my dedication to accuracy, I'm required to say that the light bulb is a very complicated device, and there was no sole inventor. Unless you count God, the inventor of everything.

It's also unfair that I'm making up those two above examples and not citing real articles. The inspiration for this post, unfortunately, came after the seeds had been sown.

But there is one person who never forgets what he has said. Who is that person? Jesus! Jesus is God, the same God who wrote the original blog, the Bible. And Jesus came to fulfill many of His prophecies written in the Scriptures. So let's worship Him together!