Video Game Contradiction

Saw this at The Exchange at McKnight Road in Pittsburgh today.

Kind of amused me, so I had to share this:
















Hardly makes sense.

Chat Roulette

"The internet is a communications tool, used the world over, where people come to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another."
-Ben Affleck,
Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back

Well, the internet's come a long way since 2001, when the film was released. Don't get me wrong- it's still mostly about movies and porn, but now there's so much more. Much more of an emphasis on "communication." With Twitter, we can share articles that amuse us, tell everyone what we're doing now. MySpace and Facebook allow us to keep in touch with family and current/former classmates. Skype allows us to do so, but face-to-face. It's like The Jetsons is coming closer to reality in some ways.


















I remember when the only way to stay in touch with people on the net was ICQ. Anyone remember ICQ? Anyone still *use* ICQ? Didn't think so.

One new site takes the face-to-face communication a step beyond. The site is ChatRoulette and it's become quite popular. And with good reason. The idea is simple yet it makes the site addictive. Christ, the first time I've used this site- I was on it for two and a half hours straight.

You get paired up with a random anonymous person from any part of the world. You could engage in conversation, or reject (or be rejected). The latter is quite common. Most "conversations" on the site last about 2 seconds.

However, the problem with the site comes back to Affleck quote I threw above. More often than not, you're bound to run into a guy waxing his weasel for all to see.

Of course, it's not all about rejections and indecent exposure. Sometimes you'll see something creative. Yes, a lot of it is just guys making signs asking women to "show (them) your tits!" Sometimes people get interactive in different ways. So let's look at some of the ways I passed the time. Because really, conversation can be boring. I prefer to get a reaction from people from bizarre behavior.

Experiment #1

I've always loved the idea of a whimsical image with an offensive caption. Or an offensive image with ironic background music. I decided to take a crack at both. First was this picture:

















... set to the delightful sounds of the Ren & Stimpy soundtrack.

Reactions:

Mostly postive, oddly enough. There was a mix of laughter and many people giving me the "Hail Satan/Heavy Metal" hand gesture. The only negative was (surprise, surprise) an old man who shook his head, covering the camera and shortly disconnecting.


Experiment #2:

This one was my girlfriend's idea. Like many folks on Facebook, she likes to subscribe to weird "fan pages." Which I've always been generally against. I mean, I will re-do a high five if I screw the first up, and I enjoy sleeping in, but I wouldn't say I'm a fan. But I digress. One of the many pages she joins is for "The Face Spongebob Makes When He Realizes Squidward Likes Krabby Patties." If you've seen SpongeBob, you may know what I'm talking about.

On the Facebook page, there are some photoshop jobs done in the screen grab where he says sexual phrases such as "I Have A Boner" or "I Came." So my girlfriend and I printed one out and showed it on Chat Roulette, set to the SpongeBob SquarePants theme playing in rotation.


















Reactions:

Not as effective as "Hail Satan set to Ironic Music". Some laughs here and there, some quick rejections. The funniest, though, was an African American man going "Oh HELL naw!" then pressing "next" in haste.

I should note, the pictures above are not as they were seen on Chat Roulette. I actually held these print-outs up to the webcam.

I found this more fun than engaging in chat with people, though I did converse with some interesting people.

So what's good about Chat Roulette? Mostly the prospect of fucking with people anonymously. But not only that, but you can (if you're lucky) chat with someone from another part of the world. You can learn more about foreign culture. The creator of Chat Roulette, who is a 17-year-old kid from Russia, should seriously looking into some kind of screening process. That way you can only chat with people from certain parts of the world.

I would love that, to be able to meet new people from places like Japan or France or the UK. Mostly because I'm fascinated with the cultures (especially Japan), and I've been trying to learn French.

The negative, obviously, is the plethora of perverts you run into on the site. Definitely makes the site NSFW and NSFS(chool).

Sites like this make me curious about where else the internet can go. What will the net be like in 10 years. I remember when I started using the internet in 1997, and the only thing I really did was read about movies on IMDB. Nearly a decade later, I was able to watch movies on my computer. Now I'm in college, and there's so many things to do that I never thought were possible. Now I can chat with random strangers... or weird them the hell out.

For a humorously accurate video depicting the Chat Roulette experience, click here.

For a more serious look, click here.

New Blog.

I've decided to start over with a new blog to go with my new website.

This blog will contain articles either published or not published in the La Roche Courier, some archived stuff from Spill.com, some thoughts on current matters, and then some.

The new blog page is pretty barren, but I do plan to spruce it up a little at some point.

You can still see my older writings here.

Smoke if you got 'em.

-MIKE JM