Emotracks

If there is one piece of photographic knowledge that everyone on earth knows, it’s that taking pictures of people on railroad tracks automatically makes said people way cooler. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve seen Facebook pictures of angst-y teens taking dramatic pictures of themselves walking down the local railroad tracks all ‘lost in their own thoughts’, I would have enough nickels to fill a pillowcase and break one of the Ten Commandments. I’m not sure what makes these metal transportation pathways so goddamn iconic and edgy. Perhaps it’s because they are dangerous. Kids are rebellious these days. They would like nothing more than to put back a couple 0.5% beers, get buzzed off white board markers, then go waltzing across literal deathtraps with the camera they got for their 14th birthday clutched in-hand.

“Okay, you just go down there and I’ll stay here, then you just like… look over into that direction and pretend that you’re thinking.”

One press of the shutter button and one brain-dead teenager becomes a figurative Nostradamus in the eyes of all his peers. It’s not enough to just take the picture, oh no. One would be so severely ridiculed that the next trip to the train-tracks would be a messy, messy suicide. Aforementioned picture must first go through the grueling transformations of no less than six different pirated-Photoshop filters, accompanied by a coloured font that must be quoting mildly relevant song lyrics as well as miscellaneous punctuation that seems to be accidentally added onto the end.

There you have it. Through the magic of Photoshop and the total lack of design knowledge, millions of teens around the world have turned angsty amateur teen photos that suck into angsty amateur teen photos that suck even more.

I am mindblowingly behind on the news

So, just discovered that early in 2008,we saw a star explode. That alone is not the crazy part.

Get this:

• The star set the world record for furthest object that can be seen from earth with the naked eye.
• The star was 40 times as big as the Sun.
• The star was 7.5 billion light years away.
• 7.5 billion lightyears is roughly halfway to the edge of the universe.
• For reference, one billion seconds ago, it was 1977.
• One light year equals 5.9 trillion miles.
• So, standing on earth, we are capable of seeing something 46610000000000000000000 miles away.
• The star’s explosion occurred when the universe was about half its current age.

I don’t know about you, but I am reeling in collosal amazement. Seriously, HOLY FUCK.

(If your brain is still partially intact, finish it off with this video: The Most Important Image Ever Taken)

Wikipedia For Dumbasses: The ‘How Not To Get Expelled’ Edition

Wikipedia is a literal treasure trove of information. In this day and age, where the internet is chock full of porn, meme’s, and photos of Barack Obama skateboarding and holding nunchucks in-front of a helicopter exploding , it’s a nice change to have somewhere where you can go and learn about millions and millions of things that you are actually interested in, instead of having mostly useless information force fed to you at school. However, like any hero, whether it’s human or technological, there are always haters. If I had a nickel for every authority figure that has ever told me not to use Wikipedia because it is Satan reincarnated in pure HTML form, I would have a satchel full of nickels both large and heavy enough to seriously kill someone if I was to swing it around and around in a violent manner above my head. Who would hate on Wikipedia? you might ask. Why would they try and bring down such a wonderful and knowledgeable website? Well, the answer is very simple. They are d-bags. And the d, if you didn’t know, stands for douche.

The hater’s main argument, and only real argument, is that Wikipedia is not a ‘respectable’ information source, or that it’s ‘full of lies’ simply because anyone can edit it. Well I’m here to prove them wrong, and give you the upper hand when you are doing any sort of online research assignment. Firstly, I want to show you a picture that will quite obviously both blow and boggle your mind at the same time:

You see that? Those conveniently highlighted superscript numbers enclosed in square brackets are called references, and they are here to help you! You see, it’s sad to say it, but Wikipedia isn’t 100% accurate. There are millions of stunned children around the world that can throw up any kind of crack-speak into Wikipedia, and although the Wikipedian moderators try their best to keep these garbage spewing kids out, there is undoubtedly some false information that seeps through. However, there is a surefire way to double check for this legitimacy, and it’s called references! You see, those itsy bitsy numbers are actually links. If you were to click on them, they will bring you to the very bottom of the page where you can see another link. This link, however, goes straight to a source!

That’s right folks, a source. This six-lettered ‘S’ word is something that teachers everywhere can appreciate. Basically, it gives you direct access to the article or website that the user took the information from. In other words, it’s your portal to a legit bibliography! Instead of putting down Wikipedia as your source of information, you can simply put down this other link and BAM, your teacher/professor is content.

There, that was easy wasn’t it? Now stop bitching that you failed your English paper because your teacher didn’t like that you used Wikipedia’s list of zombie films when describing the past and present Canadian funeral rites and customs.

 

This smell is a ruse!

Why is there such thing as ‘new car’ scented air fresheners? Firstly, new cars don’t smell very good – it’s like a combination of factory and robots. Secondly, why would you want to make your old car smell like it’s new? It’s obvious that you did not just buy your car, so making it smell like you did is pretty much calling yourself both a liar and an unskilled hoodwinker.

It’s like a nasty old lady wearing a skirt and fishnets. We can all see past your little tricks.

Oh, Merry Sound!

Today I saw someone run down the hallway at school. Normally an event like this wouldn’t even deserve a second thought, much less a post on one of the most esteemed blogs on the internet. However, this dude running down the hall wasn’t a normal dude, he was ULTIMATE-DEATH-METAL-FAN-DUDE!

He looked sort of like these fellows, except way more hardcore and scary. One of the differences was that the dude I saw was wearing approximately 20lbs of chains on, about, or near his body. He simply loved them! They covered his pants, his jacket, and his Cradle of Filth t-shirt. Even his big black boots were covered in chains! I would have approached him and called him Alice (link to Alice in chains), but he unfortunately ran away.

The remarkable thing about him running was that it sounded totally unlike the music he most likely enjoyed listening to. All those chains were clinking and clanging together so wonderfully that it sounded like there was no less than a DOZEN horse-drawn sleighs covered in jingle bells being pulled down the street on Christmas Eve as snow lightly powdered the ground. You can image his obvious embarrassment when he realized that his badass appearance, instead of spreading depression and moshpit tenancies, instead produced beautiful Christmas music.

I would have yelled out “Play ‘Deck the Halls’!”, but I was very afraid that he would stomp me with his giant black army boots.