So Blippr really annoyed some friends today

So yeah. The Internet. With the emergence of new and interesting services rises, the ability to accidentally annoy a large body of people simultaenously does as well. This is compounded by the use of mobile technologies and integration with SMS. Let me recap my accident today.

I signed up at the new web-service Blippr. It’s a neat service that allows you to “quickly” review books, movies, music, and games. “Cool.” I thought. And it had integration with Twitter. “neato!” I thought. I didn’t think things through fully.

For the next 10 minutes, I gleefully navigated around Blippr, rating movies, games, artists and the like. I probably reviewed 20, 30 things.

An hour later, I get an instant message.

Stephen: dude do you know how much your blippr spammed all your twitter followers? like <——————————this—————————–> much

dep: oops. shit!

Stephen: you’ve been relegated to my twitterific feed

Little did a realize, that on every single review, Twitter was happily updating my public feed, snappily sending SMS updates to EVERYONE on my twitter list whenever I said I liked a movie. Needless to say I felt horrible.

So, is the blame on Blippr for not making the weight of my decision a bit more clearly defined? Or is the blame solely on myself for not realizing the implications of my actions upon sign-up? Should Blippr be chastised for adding to the ever-mounting “noise of the web” ? Perhaps we’re both to blame. But most of all, I’m just really sorry for spamming everyone!

15 Candies They Should Stop Producing…

Peeps

Oh great. Talk about a delicious little treat these are. Nothing better than waking up on a warm, spring morning only to be greeted by these little yellow fellows, staring at you with their dead, listless eyes. Their insides, a marshy, unnatural blend of corn syrups and sugars. Biting in to one, the sensation of beach sand crunches between your teeth. What a fucking delight.

StarBurst

Mmm.. Starburst. Nothing better than throwing one of these in to your mouth and feeling that intense burning sensation in the depths of your jaws. That’s how you know the animal biproducts are working! Seriously, though, the only thing more pleasant than the delightful flavor is that milky saliva that forms in the back of your throat while you eat these things. A de-light!!!

Jolly Ranchers

Again, a blast of pain to the jaws is accommodated by an intense hatred for everything in the world as this burst of flavor reminds you that, yes, you are alive, and yes, you are surrounded by sadness at all times. Jolly Ranchers have been terrorizing us since 1949, and are now produced in Mexico sweat shops. Enjoy!

Atomic Fire Balls

What is more disgusting than these things? I mean seriously. Not only are they HORRIBLE, but they hurt to eat. What would possibly possess someone to want to put these in to their mouths? I remember being in grade school and watching my friends eat these, horrified. Ah, young masochists, they were. They were all killed shortly thereafter in various pick-up truck stunts.

Whoppers

Whoppers are chocolate coated “milk balls” (mmm.. this ALREADY sounds tasty) produced by the Hershey’s company. What I find odd is that they sometimes come in a milk carton-shaped box, which I find ironic, given the ingredients of these things. Now there IS malted milk, but I’m sure it’s to be off-set by the hydrogenated palm kernel oil, corn syrup solids, and sorbitan tristearate.

Milk Duds

These chalky and disgusting candies are just that. Duds. What on earth are people thinking when they buy these things? I am convinced that Milk Duds revenue consists entirely on first-time buyers, or people who don’t know any better. They’ve been around since 1928, too. I just don’t get it.

Twizzlers

Come on now. These are really gross. They’re stringy and slimey and AGAIN with the animal biproducts. As you’re chewing on horse hooves ask yourself, “Am I truly enjoying this?” — Probably not.

Mounds

Mounds. What the fuck were they thinking with these things? “Hey, I know, lets stuff a candy bar with coconut! Everyone loves Coconut. Wrong! The texture is like chewing on a baby’s dirty diaper.

Candy Corn

This is probably the most tragic of halloween candies. I am convinved people simply buy these to terrorize children with just how horrible they are… Or they are given out by some probably extremely sweet but out of touch 86 year old lady thinking the kids will “just really love these little things.” I can find absolutely no appealing value to these things. If there were a nuclear war and all that was left were Candy Corn, I’d just assume gnaw off my own arm.

Tootsie Rolls

Mmmmm… Chewy, feaux-chocolate bars of shit. Seriously. It’s almost an errand to eat these things. Someone came by my desk and handed me one of these earlier today and I’m convinced she’s just trying to get rid of them since halloween 9 months ago. Why are they still producing these? Who eats these things? Bleck.

Smarties

Yum. Little chalky tarts. And they come in those delightful little wrappers. And you don’t get just one. You get like 14 of them. They’re differentiated by color, but all taste the same: like garbage. Thanks but no thanks.

Red-Hots

Again with the candy that is unpleasant to eat. More burning sensation. It almost helps you forget how bad these taste. What is the deal with these things?

Bazooka Joe Gum

If there weren’t shitty, unfunny comics on the inside, the Bazooka Joe line of candies would’ve collapsed decades ago, but for some reason, people are drawn to their almost zen-like, fortune cookie appeal. “What zany situation will Bazooka Joe have gotten himself in to this time? Oh geez.”

Pop-Rocks

Oooooooo…. Candy that explodes in your mouth like chewing on fire crackers. Great idea. And people have actually tried to explode their stomachs by mixing mass quantities of diet soda and pop-rocks. Do we hate ourselves this much? Is this what our society has been driven to? Yes.

Firefox v3.0

Everyone be sure to go out and get the latest and greatest version of Firefox today! So far I can say it seems a LOT faster and lighter. Love it!

Get it here.

$543,236,299,998 Spent on Iraq as of 4:22 pm CST Today!

Things you can do with $543,236,299,998.

1. Give every US citizen $1.8 million.
2. Give an iPhone to 2.8 billion people.
3. Buy laptops for 452,696,916 students.
4. 2,263,484,583,300 (2.2 trillion) packets of ramen noodles
5. Buy a $140k home for 3,880,259 homeless families.
6. Pay $500 in rent for an apartment for 1,000,000 homeless persons for 90 years.
7. Feed every person in Africa (922 million people) every day for 1.6 years.
8. Donate $543,236,299,998 to cancer research centers… Or alternative fuel research… Or disease research.
9. Give every single person on the planet (6.6 billion people) $82 each.
10. Pay an average college tuition for 54,323,629 poor students.
11. Go out to the movies 67,904,537,499 times.
12. 181,684,381,270 gallons of ice cream!
13. 67,989,524,405 six-packs of beer.

Maybe we should have less war?

Technology Predictions are Coming True

“GPS will be the next big thing. once GPS integrates with the internet, you will be able to find anyone’s latitude and longitude at any time. i imagine a central website that you can sign up on. here, you register your ID number. then, you will become a dot on a map of America. you will be able to zoom in on, say, Charlotte NC. zoom in further and further on the map to see all the dots scattered across the city. click on a dot and it will show you that person’s profile. in this world where people seem so anxious to share their lives with the world, what better way to do this than by sharing exactly where you are at any present moment. I can see it now.. Right there on someones webpage…”

That was me 5 years ago. With the emergence of the new iPhone 2.0, its ability for apps extendibility and integrated GPS, a lot of my predictions are starting to come in to fruition. I wonder which of the others will start coming true?