Categories
Puzzled Over

Lynchian

“An academic definition of Lynchian might be that the term “refers to a particular kind of irony where the very macabre and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former’s perpetual containment within the latter.” But like postmodern or pornographic, Lynchian is one of those Potter Stewart-type words that’s definable only ostensively – i.e., we know it when we see it. Ted Bundy wasn’t particularly Lynchian, but good old Jeffrey Dahmer, with his victim’s various anatomies neatly separated and stored in his fridge alongside his chocolate milk and Shedd Spread, was thoroughgoingly Lynchian. A recent homicide in Boston, where the deacon of a South Shore church gave chase to a vehicle that had cut him off, forced the car off the road, and shot the driver with a high-powered crossbow, was borderline-Lynchian.

A domestic-type homicide, on the other hand, could fall on various points along the continuum of Lynchianism. Some guy killing his wife in and of itself doesn’t have much of a Lynchian tang to it, though if it turns out the guy killed his wife over something like a persistent failure to refill the ice-cube tray after taking the last ice cube or an obdurate refusal to buy the particular brand of peanut butter the guy was devoted to, the homicide could be described as having Lynchian elements. And if the guy, sitting over the mutilated corpse of his wife (whose retrograde ’50s bouffant is, however, weirdly unmussed) with the first cops on the scene as they all wait for the boys from Homicide and the M.E.’s office, begins defending his actions by giving an involved analysis of the comparative merits of Jif and Skippy, and if the beat cops, however repelled by the carnage on the floor, have to admit that the guy’s got a point, that if you’ve developed a sophisticated peanut-butter palate and that palate prefers Jif there’s simply no way Skippy’s going to be anything like an acceptable facsimile, and that a wife who fails repeatedly to grasp the importance of Jif is making some very significant and troubling statements about her empathy for and commitment to the sacrament of marriage as a bond between two bodies, minds, spirits, and palates…you get the idea.”

(from David Foster Wallace’s fantastic 1997 compilation A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again)

I discovered something strange today, and it’s made me curious.

Categories
Best Of Happened Puzzled Over

“Like A Gay Porn Site With A Mac Bent”

Oh dear. This one is going to haunt me for years.

Google recently introduced some neat free stats for webmasters, and being the eager webmaster I am, I decided to sign up and enable myself.

What I found is that while many of my top search terms are reasonable (“quicksilver os x”, “play asia”, “ny1”), my #5 Top Search Query and my #1 and #2 Top Search Query Clicks are, in the words of Rob Huebel, “un-savory”. And the problem is, I know why – at least partially.

This one is potentially not safe for work. You’re going to have to click through for the rest of the story.

Categories
Puzzled Over

Pengo The Pimp

I think T-Mobile is having an identity crisis when trying to market the Sidekick. There’s three main market groups that the Sidekick appeals to – geeks, gossip girls, and hip-hoppers. Geeks get stuff like the SSH app and the new spreadsheet app. Gossip girls get the Juicy Couture Sidekick and the like. The hip hop fans get a lot of ringtones.

But sometimes the marketing gets way too ambitious.

Over the last few days, a port of the 1982 Sega arcade game [PENGO](http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=P&game_id=8989) has appeared in the Sidekick App Catalog. The description is drop dead funny, and it reads as follows (boldface is mine):

> Fujin brings you PENGO; Sega Mobile’s sharp-dressed penguin. The arcade hit from 1982 returns from the deep freeze. This is the **most accurate penguin simulator** Sega has ever produced. Variable difficulty settings let you sling ice at your own pace. Pengo was leading the good life, **just cold chillin’** in his red tux. That is, until the Sno-bees appeared. These **haters** are **out to front** on Pengo’s **lavish lifestyle**, and **that just won’t fly with this bird**. Now Pengo’s got to **defend his crib** by squashing the Sno-bees with blocks of ice on each level. And then there’s another kind of ice on the board — the diamond blocks, which add some **serious bling-bling** to your score when lined up. And speaking of score, Pengo saves your top score, so you can **show your crew** just what you’re worth. For old-school gaming on your new-school Sidekick, go with the king — Pengo.

Wow, who knew Pengo was such a pimp? Also, the “most accurate penguin simulator” line cracks me up way too much.

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