Rubénerd!

You should sit down before reading this.

Despite what seemed like a heartening tide against services like Disqus, they're enjoying a baffling resurgence. I asked myself, why would people voluntarily make their sites slower, more convoluted for security conscious people to use, as well as less accessible, searchable, cohesive, secure and predictable? I did a bit of digging, and discovered something shocking.

Crab people. They taste like crab, talk like people, and they live underground.

Crab people are installing third party comment systems on as many blogs as they can by convincing people they're shiny and awesome. Once installed on a critical mass, they'll be able to control the blogs remotely using an undisclosed back door in the proprietary code and take back the world the Humans so cruelly stole from them.

Crab people! Crab people! Taste like crab! Comment like people!

Somewhat related posts

• 2010.03.09 The greatest CD cover of all time?
• 2009.09.20 Don’t use JavaScript to compose pages
• 2007.08.09 The Adobe Flash of the comments world

This latest Pointless Rubenerd Milestone blog post is so useless it should not be read by anyone. If you're just seeing this summary, leave it and move on. If you're subscribed in a blog reader and you can see the whole post, disregard it.

Now that's out of the way we can get down to bidness. Despite the sluggish performance issues that have been plaguing this site since the wee hours of the morning, I've finally been able to submit this post which, as I've said, is completely pointless but represents a milestone only reached three other times in the history of the site.

Still haven't got it yet? Even with the friggen enclosed picture? The post is 2666, which has the number 666 in it! Run away! Head for the hills and don't return! If you live in Singapore which has no hills other than these two tiny ones, jump into the ocean or cross over to Malaysia and head for the hills! AAAAAAAAA! Better still if you live in Adelaide, head to Hahndorf in the Hills and have some really awesome German food. :)

I know I've already said this on the WordPress 666 ID post, the 666th post and the 1666th post, but Elfen Lied scared the heck out of me.

And here's where it gets really scary. I hadn't blogged about Firefox extensions for several months, but I did this morning. When was one of the last times I did an in-depth review of a Firefox extension? The same day as post #1666. AAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Update

As I was typing up this post, I was so engrossed I forgot I'd started toasting some bread and it set off the smoke alarm! I was typing up how Elfen Lied scared me and atheist-humanist 666 mock-scared me and THAT happened, at the same friggen time! I jumped so hard out my computer chair I slammed my knees on the underside of the table! OWIES!!!

Jimbo: I'm Jimbo Kern and this here is Ned. Say Hi Ned.
Ned: Mmmmm Hi Ned
Jimbo: HA! Isn't that great?

Stan: I can't believe it! This "future self" thing is all a scam!
Butters: Yeah, I can't believe it!
Stan: They've been lying to us this whole time!
Butters: Yeah, this whole time! I wonder if my future self knows anything about this?

Investigative Reports with Bill Kurtis, a parody board game on South Park

Regular readers of my blog may have noticed that for a period of several weeks earlier this year each every single post I created had the name "Bill Kurtis" weaved into it somewhere. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if anyone would notice it and call me out on it.

Curiously, as far as I know only three people did, and one of those people was me when I was in a hazy, suggestible state having not slept for two nights and I didn't realise I was reading my own blog. I guess most of you chalked it up to my regular pointless and largely irrelevant banter. Good times!

Some people say the US government... covered it up. I'm Bill Kurtis!

For those who don't get the reference, Bill Kurtis was parodied on an earlier episode of South Park. In the show the boys are playing a conspiracy board game called "Investigative Reports with Bill Kurtis" where each turn they have the choice of covering up an event, or denying it. They then press the bust of Bill Kurtis in the centre of the board where a verdict is spoken by Bill Kurtis, with him introducing himself as Bill Kurtis at the end every time.

The South Park show title card thingy whatsit

After watching this episode you couldn't walk into our house without being greeted by someone claiming to be Bill Kurtis! An inside joke that you would have had to watch that episode to get? Absolutely! But then again I really dislike it when I read dry blogs without anything spontaneous on them, and besides. Besides what? Exactly! (Another South Park reference).

It was fun while it lasted, but no more will any of my blog posts contain a declaration that I am Bill Kurtis, or that I'm not Bill Kurtis. Which is a relief, because I'm not Bill Kurtis.

On a somewhat related note, this post will be the first to use my newly created and ridiculously verbose tag seemed like a good idea at the time. I get the feeling I would have used this much more often on many other posts over the years had it been available! The far too long tag has already been used once.

I smell cooking onions. Is someone cooking onions?

The ridiculous fun with a label printer episode!

ACT ONE: Roel247's comments on electronic voting, compulsory voting in Australia, Senator Bob Brown of the Greens meeting the Dalai Lama.

ACT TWO: My label printing obsession! The Brother PT-80, labeling CDs, boxes, magazine holders and everything in my father's home office, there's no need to write anything anymore!

ACT THREE: The growing complexity of CMSs and why I'm moving over to home brew again using Ruby and SQlite, WordPress 2.5, loudly dropping aerosol cans, Elke's gigantic honey sandwich.

ACT FOUR: Converting metric to imperial in Google, Russian mail order brides, Ruben's idea for a standardised New World Order (patent pending), seeding torrent files, too many tabs in web browsers!

ACT FIVE: Why South Park is actually a great show to watch, being able to laugh at yourself, not taking life too seriously!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 48:01, 22.0MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

The Elke Sims 2 bombardment episode!

ACT ONE: The Simpsons Bombardment, Elke's first live morning Whole Wheat Radio show, Elke on The Sims 2.

ACT TWO: Slow Singapore internet today, Microsoft gets new open source chief, Ruben rants about "shared source" nonsense, CalgaryGuru on Flickr's new video uploading service, is Yahoo's brand failing?

ACT THREE: Elke on different social networks across the world, suss people on Bebo, verbose MySpace video profiles.

ACT FOUR: Rant on people intentionally misspelling names, Ruben versus Reuben, Miss Cook adventures in primary school in Melbourne, Web 2.0 buyout baiting, Jerry Yang's haircut, Wikipedia as a drug, Yahoo Mash.

ACT FIVE: Facebook discussion including remembering 30 passwords, Elise Hopkins, The Schade Clan group, rant on how useless nationalities and patriotism are becoming, origin of the word expat, Mr Slave.

ACT SIX: Ridiculously long lists of Facebook requests, fun in my own introversion, testy-pops, 2005 was a very good year, "Liberal" meaning different things in the US and Australia, Lotus SmartSuite, Microsoft Plus 95, my OBSESSION with screeshots!

ACT SEVEN: Ruben's dad Rainer debunks mind-controlling chemtrails, huge ships near the Port of Singapore, illuminati controlling my mind as a sheeple, why it's hard to find words that rhyme with sheeple.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 1:07:00, 30.7MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

The Elke and Ruben discussing stupid news episode!

Rubenerd sister Elke joins us to discuss ridiculous news articles, stalker arguing social networking page was misleading, debating seedy MySpace profiles, gyrating at nightclubs, wasting time on Facebook and Friendster, Ruben's and Elke's Twitter pages, giving away personal details, Aussie PM John Howard trying to filter the internet, easy to stumble on sleaze online, Ted Steven's series of tubes, is there blame-shifting going on, oxymoronic fuel efficient SUVs, combatting efficient Japanese cars, hugging trees, good publicity without substance, Elke's mass communication studies course thing, actually learning nothing useful, chemistry and economics, high school friend Boyd Anderson's site is mysteriously down, friggen mouse pointers, Blackle is my new favourite search engine, lesbians in The Sims, dark background on light text, energy efficiency tips, Freddo Frogs, comparing American to British, Aussie and Belgian chocolate, Hershey's Kisses are icky, New Zealand accents, Russell Crowe on South Park and throwing phones, no breast implants in space, voting Green not Libertarian, Ruben's heterosexuality, hacker webmasters, reading Twitterrific posts from Felix and Frank Nora live, furnaces in the tropics, Japanese and Aussie expats in Singapore, friggen ang mohs, caucasian guys like being special, Elke's immaturity and unpleasantness, mysterious Champs-Élysées song discovered by surrealist, faulty Nokia phone batteries, URL redundancies, random women forcing themselves on you, Frank's QuarkXPress woes, The Sunscreen Song and John Howard's contorted facial expressions.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 51:00 minutes, 23.40MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.