SlashDot informed me that a new search engine which searches based on graphic input, as opposed to text input, is now in beta.
    One can only assume that the rest of the article tells how TinEye will help the illiterate masses browse the internet without having to assemble ‘letters’ into ‘words.’
    I’m not actually sure, though; I grew so excited that I recklessly pounded the first link out of that article without reading past the first sentance. I almost never regret that sort of clicky impetuousness… well, except for the time I got Rick Rolled and ended up spending the next three hours screaming incoherently from a fetal position, cuddling my kitchen mop and flashing back to that summer of ‘87 spent portering at Dunkin’ Donuts.
    Time to make the donuts my ass. That Bulgarian Nazi of a store manager continuously muttered threatening imprecations with the voice of a helium bath and I still hear his cruel, squealing laughter every time I catch myself entertaining antisemitic thoughts.

    For once, Dunkin’ Donuts prevented a young man from becoming a white-supremacist.

    Anyway, upon landing at the promised TinEye website, I was prompted to either upload or paste in the URL of an image for the search to begin.
    First, if this is supposed to help the illiterate masses browse the web without typing, they should have a sketch-pad or Flash-based paintbrush type application instead an upload button and a text box. How many illiterate masses do you know that have an inkling of what a ‘URL’ is, let alone might know where to find an actual image file on their virus riddled hard drive to ‘Upload’?
    Secondly, shouldn’t the instructions for the site be entirely in anagrams or mime-speak? TinEye’s ridiculously complex interface features nothing but confusing sentences and an alarming number of polysyllabic words and phrases.

    I determined to continue with the test anyway. I loaded up Gimp* and quickly doodled me up a set of boobies and a jaunty thumbs-up. For good measure, I added some radial lines to indicate that both the thumb and the breasts were wiggling and I then proceeded to upload this carefully crafted request for topless porn into TinEye.

    For comparison, let me first tell you that a similarly structured, old-fashioned text request entered into Google such as, “naked breasts, thumbs up!” yielded no less than 2,270,000 results. TinEye took one look at my pictogram and told me that there were zero results. Either my boobies were unconvincing–you be the judge on that one, gentles–or TinEye isn’t worth the money it costs to use it.
    But even if my breasts aren’t very good–a matter I consider by no means decided!–I’m still certain they match the quality of output you can reasonably expect from the pornographic doodles of the illiterate masses. So if johnny-no-words tries to get at his sweet breasty porn by sketching his desires into TinEye he can just forget about it. Back to the lingerie section of the J.C.Penny catalog, Johnny. If you squint real hard those panty-hose will look enough like bare flesh to get the job done. That’s a tip from your old uncle Joe.

    For a final test I figured I’d look for some violent candy, the sadistic consumption of which is another of my hobbies. Instead of a sloppy doodle, however, I selected a photograph I took several years ago of a Gummi bear impaled with a piece of broken drinking glass**. After uploading it TinEye did NOT give me the list of violent comestibles I was looking for. Instead, it showed me the same picture twice. And there must’ve been some malfunction, because while this is my private photo which I took myself on my kitchen counter none of the referenced web sites belonged to me!
    One of which, http://www.marketasuchanova.estranky.cz/stranka/gumaci, seemed to be a compilation of Gummi Bears In Distress. Entertaining, but not satisfying.

    Ultimately, if you are looking for a web site that will help you search the web without the inconvenience of letters and thinkery, don’t look to TinEye to help you. The best you might get is a list of places on the internet from which you can get another copy of the picture you already have.
    Since this seems redundant at best, SafeTinspector gives TinEye the StinkEye, and that’s what.

* you may safely substitute ‘paintbrush’ if you are a member of the illiterate masses and not as hoity toi as I.
** Shanks the Bear

(scroll down)

    Oh good! I’ll have to stop in later.

Cat started off the show with a stat-dump before sending us through the opening credits to catch up with the reunited top twenty, assembled into their original couples, do the dance-in.
As I watch them prance about I find myself sadly wondering: Am I the only one who can’t remember some of these peoples?

Cat’s flapper-hippie dress looked like it had been attacked by a bedazzler. If I could only forget the last time that happened to me.

Lo and behold, a big pile of judges are crammed behind the table including my new fav, Li’l C. Mia’s hair, an Annie Lennox affair, seemed quite cool.

So lets talk about the dancing and the amazing assortment of mixed fillers, including a pop-off and Nauseating CG Bear Happy Dance Time…

Continue reading ‘SYTYCD, Season Finale, the Boneless Poppers and Mixed Fillers’

Cat’s dress, shiney with goldiness, made me think of a snake’s tummy. Or like some kind of Incan armor. The wife says it looks like one of those collapsible camp cups. YOU decide!

Favorite line I’m going to try to fit into a conversation tomorrow: “Brought to you by our friends at Snuggle!” -Cat

I must also take this moment to tell you all something I’ve noticed: Mia Michaele is huge and gigantic. She is so huge that she might be a massive world-consuming galactic visitor*. She could easily fit me into her mouth along with a forkload of pasta.

Judges

Mandy Moore fills the guest seat this evening. Mandy had some pretty good dances this year, and I kinda fink I like her better than Mia sometimes. Her judging? Not nearly as entertainingly bitchy.
Mary was very easy on the lot of them this evening, showing no obvious favoritism.
And Nigel continually harped on Joshua’s supposed lack of training, which I’m pretty sure EVERYONE knows isn’t true. What agenda does this crazy bastard have?!?

Now lets talk about the dances…

Continue reading ‘SYTYCD, Top Four Perform and Mia Micheals is HUGE’

Group Dance

    Synchronized Contortional Contemporary by Mandy Moore, danced to The Rose, Bette Midler
I found it interesting that Mandy Moore chose to have Chelsie start the piece, as the style seemed more Courtney or Katee. But, as always, the group dance was great.
Cat’s delight in the stage-fan was infectious; I just might place a box fan in each room of my house in order to provide me with constant recreational dramatic entrances. Oh… wait, I’m bald. Its really hard to tell if I’m being blown upon just by watching me.

Hey, does it seem wierd that Cat and Nigel, both very English, are pimping the US election? They have this whole Gordon Brown thing to deal with back home, don’t they?

Nigel says that the vote count was a little secret, and that he loves the finalists. I can only assume this means he hates everyone else and can’t keep a secret, both of which are a relief to me as I can relax and stop worrying about disappointing him.

Mary used the old roller-coaster metaphor, which nearly fills out my bingo card. All I need is “cinderella story” or “he/she shouldn’t be able to do this” for the win.

Continue reading ‘SYTYCD, Elimination, Suspender Masks and Lady Ga-Ga’

    Only six dancers left this week, the show is down to one hour again, Mark’s wearing a backwards hat, Joshua is making me dislike him with his insistence on demonstrating that he is “4-real”, and Cat Deeley is apparently a filth fetishist. Good to know, hard to prove.

Judges

Hooray! The guest judge is Adam Shankman! Even with the unfortunate Paula Abdul pimping, I like this guy alot.
Speaking of pimping, there were far altogether too many audience call-outs from the judges tonight.

• Nigel:”And we have my second grade music teacher in the audience tonight–take a bow. Aggie!”
• Adam:”We have a special person in the house. Give it up for my personal assistant, Benardo!”
• Mary:”I’d like you all to meet my special friend, Blue Jar of Barbisol! There he is! Stand up, Blue Jar of Barbisol!”

Continue reading ‘SYTYCD, Top Six Perform and Cat Deeley borrows a Grill’

    You may have heard the good news: the restaurant that popularized if not actually originated the Crap-On-The-Walls style of theme restaurant is out of business.

    You are probably at least as happy about this as I am. But, unfortunately, my plans to celebrate this happy occasion were cut short as I learned yet another reason Michigan is a depressed state:

“The trickle-down is that half of the Bennigan’s in the country close - that’s the bad news,” Hansen said. “The bad news is thousands of people lost their jobs today. The only good news is that none of them were in Michigan.”
-Tri-Cities Business Review

    So franchise owners are free to continue operating as Bennigan’s, polluting the food supply with deep fried ham sandwiches covered in jam, while all of the corporate-owned establishments are mercifully closed, increasing the nutritional quality of the American foodscape by default.

    Sucks for us, but still a good day to be an American on the whole.

    I used Google maps to locate my nearest Bennigan’s. I won’t eat there, no, but I’ll drive by and wonder where they’ll get replacement crap for their walls.

Also From the Desk of Arthbard:

For everyone who’s been waiting in eager excitement–which, to be fair, is very few of you–Arthbard’s premiere novel-writing effort is totally available. For more information about how to order or–more likely–download the bugger completely for free, you should click the following link to learn more about … The Kanteron Chronicles

    The opening group dance, which featured our dancers playing the part of a colony of lycra wearing morlocks, was quite entertaining. Even Toni Basil going on and on about how frickin’ great she was didn’t bring me down. I ran upstairs, found my lycra shirt, and fondled it for the rest of the night. So… so very stretchy.

    Cat was apparently dressed as a Greek goddess while Nigel wore an actual leather jacket, both of which pleased me. I wrung my lycra shirt and waited patiently for the bloody eliminations to begin…

Continue reading ‘SYTYCD, Elimination and LYCRA, LYCRA, LYCRA!’

From the Desk of Arthbard:

    Yes. I’m very lazy. Hopefully, this announcement might make up for it to a certain degree.
    Well, I’m kind of excited about it, anyway.
    What you may not know about dear, old Arthbard is that before I was blogging, or even using the name Arthbard, I wrote a book. Approximately 60,000 words worth of book. Okay, it’s not War and Peace, but a lot of work went into those 60,000 words, and, while I did make some effort to have it traditionally published, that never happened, and it’s been more or less sitting there, taking up space on my hard drive ever since.
    But, hey, wouldn’t you know it, print-on-demand technology (as employed by, say, CafePress and Lulu.com) has made self-publishing as affordable as masturbation–perhaps even more so, depending on your particular kinks. This, of course, means that every pathetic loser with more enthusiasm than talent now has the opportunity to see their poorly plotted, badly spelled, childishly written manuscript in print. Including me!
    So, you will soon (very, very soon) have the opportunity, if you so choose, to own, like, a real, damn book written by me.
    “But,” you may ask, “Arthbard, I’m extremely cheap, poor, and/or illiterate. What about me?!?”

Continue reading ‘Coming Soon to an Internet Near You’