Crushtor's Guide to Annoying Everyone You Know on Facebook, Part II

Crushtor's Guide to Annoying Everyone You Know on Facebook, Part II

Only the chart is doin it rite

If there's a second-string guide to casually stirring that barely noticeable irritation that you feel every time you see something you irrationally yet unashamedly dislike on Facebook, this would be it. If hell seems like sharing this planet with other people, then Facebook is where those people project themselves digitally; together with all their bullshit tendencies that annoy the fuck out of you.

Worst Photos Taken with Ugliest Camera

First off, apologies to the closest thing we have to Oscar Wilde with a WACOM tablet, Mr. C. Onstad, for the appropration of his witticism. If you are unattractive, then you have no place on Facebook. At all. Please do not disgrace it with photos of your grotesque person, you are not suited for having images of yourself for consumption on any medium that can broadcast itself to more than three people simultaneously. The test: If you tend to smile and your face still appears rude to most others, then you just know.

Smug RSVP Regrets

OK. The event function on Facebook can often be a convenient tool for informing friends and potential business contacts about functions, parties and often times, "meta-events" such as "Hugs for Slurpees" day which makes next to little sense to me. However, the potential for RSVP abuse runs rife; selecting "Maybe" tends to result in a "No" (admittedly I have elected - once - to go to an event I said I'd "maybe" show up to out of possibly scores or even hundreds) and "No" requires a believable and perfunctory excuse - one that reflects a genuine-sounding lament for your non-attendance while aggrandizing oneself at the same time. "Oh sorry," most people write, "i'll be overseas." Yes, of course you are. Because your shitty travelogues and awkwardly framed pictures of downtown Stuttgart aren't reminder enough of your woefully generic adventures.

Complaining "to" Facebook about Facebook

I'm sure many users on Facebook are seldom satisfied with the layout of Facebook; any opportunity to complain about something using the service about the service will be seized more quickly than FREE MONEY NOW!!11 or WORK FROM HOME? EARN $92 AN HR!!! - likewise these users are terribly concerned for their privacy, fearing that monetization means the wholesale pillage of their credit card details and porn fetishes, all sinisterly uploaded to a waiting cabal of Indian data-entry operators that have little regard for calling you about a "free prize" just as you were about to tuck into a hearty bowl of Mac & Cheese.
Complaining about Facebook in the vain hope that Facebook (in this instance, the admins and mods of the service, not the seemingly self-aware robot that we thought operated the site) will somehow take heed and whimsically repair such gross crimes against intuitive web design for them is like the internet equivalent of saying "Get your stinking government hands off my Medicare!!!" Irony, unconsciously uttered on the internet? That's unpossible. Is Joseph Heller still alive? Someone should tell him about this, probably.

---
I should really blog about something I'm doing at some point. Oh well.

---

http://twitter.com/crushtor

Crushtor's Guide to Boring Everyone You Know on Facebook

Pasta: Good to eat, terrible to watch as a static image

Crushtor's Guide to Boring Everyone You Know on Facebook

Good afternoon Blogosphere, Twitterverse and Facebooktopia: here I am, back from the dead (no, not literally) ready to blog about more inane topics rather inanely. During my stint at a never to be disclosed technology based "firm", I probably buggerized around on Facebook more than ever before in such a compressed amount of time. Pouring through lists of websites and other boring shit made marginally less boring shit more appealing to indulge around in. (It probably explains my strange and larger than should be following on Twitter.) But some of this slightly less boring shit actually exceeded the boringness of the shit I was trying to avoid - (que pasa?); hence the rationale behind this post.

Taking Photos of Inanimate Objects at Parties and then Posting them
You've all seen them. Hell, some of you are culprits to this heinous crime. Most of them are just ridiculous over-reportage of the mundane; the pasta someone half-ate, a balloon that looks slightly askew to one in a bunch, an unattended DJ desk; all wastes of people's precious time. You do realize we all die at some point, right?

Groups Started in the Aid of Three Dudes Going Overseas for No Apparent Reason
Yeah, Facebook is sort of like Twitter, LiveJournal and Flickr; but not. In the event all three websites merged all of their servers in some kind of T-1000 absorbancy process which would look fucking awesome if filmed, they unfortunately shall never be.

What's shit about having a group for these things is that if you join it one of the nerdier dudes that comprise the traveling triumvirate who manages to stumble into the downstairs Internet Cafe of their backpacker hostel after another night on the piss can write up a lame and elongated post littered with bad spelling and the liberal use of the word "awesome" to describe the ridiculous and the sublime encountered on their trip.

The kicker is they then force you to read their mangled prose, because you'd feel like an arsehole if you didn't and it'd be awkward once they came back and asked "so dude, did you read my Facebook post?" and all you could produce is a half-hearted "Ahh, yeah man, it was cool" even though both of you know you're lying.

Re-Posting of Internet Memes Well Past their Use-By
Some people take some adjusting to the "new" way of the world and the immediacy of the Internet; because that's how it works; Zeno's Arrow is wherever you see it as at that particular moment; the past on the internet is meant to be forgotten. Like Strong Bad says - the internet is a place where absolutely nothing happens. Why ruin it by wasting time with time wasters everyone has already wasted their time watching? Benny Lava, I'm On A Boat, Beached Kiwi Whale; they are dead. To everyone. FOREVER. Let them rest in peace. Please. (Signed, the internet.)

There you have it fan(s), another worthless rant in an overcrowded world of worthless ranting. If only I could condense this to 140 characters...

---

http://twitter.com/crushtor

Crushtor.net's Guide to Crap Metal Videos

I don't know about you, but ever since the rise and dominance of the Live DVD, the need and want for metal music videos - especially those with a deficit of creativity - has sharply declined. Who gets excited over a metal music video any more, unless it's completely awesome? Here's a basic guide to metal videos which will save you time; once you get 30 seconds into a video, you'll instantly recognize it as part of one the genres below. Once identified, turn off your television, put on the record it came off and figure out the rest. Alternatively, you can imagine a much cooler video in your head.

Band Playing in Disused Warehouse/Old Church/Ruins
The old standard. Helloween used it, Iron Maiden used it, Judas Priest used it; it's good enough for any metal band on a strict budget that just have to release a video. Features nifty cuts and close ups of shredding, odd panning or steadicam work and the band pulling tough faces so the director can prove that he is able to operate the equipment to an acceptable standard. Occasionally the director might throw in some weird shots of buildings, children crying, forest running or other creepy shit for shits and giggles. Also: the thrashier the band, the crazier the camerawork.

Examples: Arsis - We are the Nightmare, Children of Bodom - Trashed, Lost and Strungout; Mercenary - My World is Ending

Band Playing Gig
Did you know Motorhead faked an entire live set for their first home video? Well, taking cues from that wonderful premise, bands also save heaps of cash by sticking some cameras in amongst a wild gig. They splice together the footage, forming a perfectly releasable video. Occasionally there's some narrative thrown in; but it's getting in the way of the shredding! Isn't that why we're still watching?!

The greatest cash saver I've ever seen was the In Flames/Soilwork "rivalry" videos: It featured them both insult one another out on the snowy streets of Gothenburg and having them both show up at each other's gigs (contrived of course) to cause all sorts of mischief! In the same venue! With the same crowd! Genius. You can also have a gig in a warehouse, which fulfils both wishes simulteneously.

Examples: In Flames - Jotun, Amon Amarth - Death in Fire, Soilwork - Rejection Role

Band Playing in Fantasy Setting
If the director's pitches of "in a warehouse" and "one of your gigs" falls short, the ultimate fallback has the band playing in some weird fantasy land that sort of doesn't look like a warehouse (even though nine times out of ten, it sort of is.) Castles, clouds, Middle-Earth, snow-capped tundras; they're all not warehouses, therefore fulfilling the band and director's objective of not having the video filmed in a warehouse.

Examples: Helloween - If I Could Fly, Nightwish - Nemo, Rhapsody - Unholy Warcry

Actually Cool Videos
If you're actually up at 4am after a huge night out and you decide to turn on Rage, you may indeed win the proverbial metal video lottery by actually witnessing one with a skerrick of inventiveness. Granted it doesn't happen very often and even the better ones are merely variations on a theme (such as Sentenced's Ever-Frost which has them at a gig not actually playing the gig). The truly great ones abandon conventions and dig up ideas further afield from the obvious, such as the David Lynch inspired ThereIn by Dark Tranquillity or the slick detective story (with them playing in a warehouse; but dressed up in rather dapper duds) from Blind Guardian in Another Stranger Me. The only completely awesome video I've ever seen would probably have to be the one for Trollhammaren by Finntroll because it depicts a troll party and troll parties are awesome.

---

In actual news: Interviewed Andrew Craighan from My Dying Bride. He. was. epic.

---

http://twitter.com/crushtor