internet
Stunning Map of the Internet Allows You To Re-Trace Your Pioneering Online Days
What if the world of the world wide web were charted by explorers, mapping out all of the scattered, far flung countries and continents of these craggy, depraved darkened corners of this place we’ve come to call “The Internet”? Well, it’d probably look a little something, like this.
Originally posted on Your Daily Media
I’m not much of a world traveler. In the last several decades I’ve rarely ventured further than a couple hundred miles from home, going as far north as Black Rock City, Nevada and as far south as Tijuana, Mexico. Both for the reasons you might think. But as far as the world of the great digital frontier goes, it appears there isn’t a horizon I haven’t seen, nor a continent that hasn’t felt the weight of my boot.
Amateur graphic artist, Martin Vargic posted his “Map of the Internet 1.0” some time ago to his deviantart page without much notice, until recently when this beautiful, highly detailed representation of the internet as world map, started gaining attention.
“It was my hobby,” the Slovakian student told reporters. “And it still is my hobby, though I am planning to start selling prints of my maps on Amazon quite soon.”
And I’d certainly buy one. I’ve been pouring over it, tracing back my internet roots. Following my journey from the little town of Livejournal in the Land of Forgotten Websites, through Steve Jobs Land and across the Digital Ocean. I still think fondly of the days spent on the CD Rom Peninsula and could run you through the great valleys and chasms of the continent just off the Despicable Sea like it was the back of my hand. Or I suppose, more accurately in this case, the palm of my hand.
I’m still trying to uncover my original digital roots, all the way back to the lost city of Pipeline/Mindspring, and even, if records even still exist, the dark caves of Local BBSes.
We’re Joining the Non-Lethal Arms Race! (Warning: Potential Arm Damage)
The internet: you can find anything here, from cats wearing things to cats falling from things or even the grammatically poor ways we imagine cats are expressing their feelings for and about things. But in the approximately nine percent of the internet that ISN’T specifically devoted to feline adorableness, there are some other interesting things that pop up, like, for example, the US Military’s letters to Hippie NRA Santa about all the crazy things they wish he would invent for them to shoot at things.
Over 100 not very secret pages of non lethally imagi-bombs and make believasers were published on the internets by some busy body who doesn’t want someone to be surprised the next time they’re not subdued by a military grade hug ray. This “Non-Lethal Weapons Reference Book” which is basically being called the “Things You Never Knew Existed” catalogue of as seen on TV scuba diver tummy ache beams and crowd uncomfortabling lasers, as released by the US Department of Defense’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate. A “sales pitch for continued funding”.
Now, naturally, this got me to thinking. I can come up with awesome made up ways to shoot annoying people with imagination! And apparently, there’s not even a need for any of my crazy this to ever become reality since apparently: “A 2009 report by the US Government Accountability Office said that the JNLWD had spent at least $386 million on 50 research projects – but had failed to actually produce any new weapons.”
I can totally do that! Coming up with ideas for this that never materializes is what I’m all ABOUT!
So, with the promise of hundreds of millions of dollars to feed my madness and a bloodless lust in my heart I present to you, the VFoC Apartment of Cut-it-Outs: Rail Un-Hurty Projectile Superintendency (RUHPS)
First of all, Mister or Missus Weapon Buying Patriot, I give you our acronym: far superior to that jumble of unusable Scrabble tiles that other weapon dealer calls a name. Jinuluwud? Bullshit — Rups! Just say it “Rups” (silent h, obviously). That sticks in the mind, you know that Rups sells you your humane crowd stompers and you trust that the name “Rups” means quality invisible weaponesque “technologies”.
But you’re here to buy things to hurt people so bad they’ll wish they were dead, but legally can not be held responsible in any way for said harm. We know, and we want to sell those things to you! So allow me to present our first new harm-portunity:
The Giggle Cannon!
Directing precisely targeted “technology particles” at your victim’s most theoretically ticklish zones or “ticklish zones” ie, pits, ribblets, taint — the Giggle Canon renders assailants helpless, twitching masses of fun! And as a special added bonus, the effects of the Giggle Cannon makes even the most hardened “Death to America” lefty look innocent and care free in their uncontrollable chuckle fit.
Collateral Damage: Tough guy image, 29% Chance of Pant Be-Dampening.
But if only a three in ten chance of ruining the enemies slacks just isn’t enough retaliation for you, then RUHPS has something else that might fill your boots with “joy”. Introducing:
The Re-Crappinator!
Using future based “micro-science” technology and concussive sound wave projectiling you will fill any non-killing field with the pungent fumes of bowel dominance! With a variable control dial setting ranging from “Turtle Head” to “Ass-tastrophe” the Re-Crappinator will fill the pants of your enemies at an alarming rate, sending insurgents and collaborators scattering with chunks of their partially digested granola and tofu lunches trailing behind them!
Collateral Damage: Dignity, o-ring structural integrity.
And while those two gems of the RUHPS catalogue should be more than enough to topple any ne’erdowells that might threaten the peace in your part of God’s purple majesty, we have saved the best for last. Completely non-lethal, utterly effective and absolutely environmentally friendly:
The Controlled Crowd Fragmentalization Bags!
Essentially a paper sack filled with black powder, old bicycle gears and spent plutonium rods, the Controlled Crowd Fragmentalization Bags is the first and last word in crowd disbursement technology. Simply turn on the bag with the gentle introduction of a polite eco neutral natural elemental force, place bag amongst those you wish to no longer be where they currently are, and watch as the Controlled Crowd Fragmentalization Bag instantameously eliminates your unwanted nuisance! No muss, no fuss.
Collateral Damage: Negligible.
So in conclusion, we at Van Full of Candy’s Apartment of Cut-it-Outs: Rail Un-Hurty Projectile Superintendency (RUHPS), would like to thank you for taking the time to hear our presentation. We look forward to using your hundreds of millions of dollars to help make this world a safer, happier place for me to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts on whores and narcotics, as that money is usually spent! We’ve finally found our calling, now you better pray we never find you!
USA! USA! USA!
We're Joining the Non-Lethal Arms Race! (Warning: Potential Arm Damage)
The internet: you can find anything here, from cats wearing things to cats falling from things or even the grammatically poor ways we imagine cats are expressing their feelings for and about things. But in the approximately nine percent of the internet that ISN’T specifically devoted to feline adorableness, there are some other interesting things that pop up, like, for example, the US Military’s letters to Hippie NRA Santa about all the crazy things they wish he would invent for them to shoot at things.
Over 100 not very secret pages of non lethally imagi-bombs and make believasers were published on the internets by some busy body who doesn’t want someone to be surprised the next time they’re not subdued by a military grade hug ray. This “Non-Lethal Weapons Reference Book” which is basically being called the “Things You Never Knew Existed” catalogue of as seen on TV scuba diver tummy ache beams and crowd uncomfortabling lasers, as released by the US Department of Defense’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate. A “sales pitch for continued funding”.
Now, naturally, this got me to thinking. I can come up with awesome made up ways to shoot annoying people with imagination! And apparently, there’s not even a need for any of my crazy this to ever become reality since apparently: “A 2009 report by the US Government Accountability Office said that the JNLWD had spent at least $386 million on 50 research projects – but had failed to actually produce any new weapons.”
I can totally do that! Coming up with ideas for this that never materializes is what I’m all ABOUT!
So, with the promise of hundreds of millions of dollars to feed my madness and a bloodless lust in my heart I present to you, the VFoC Apartment of Cut-it-Outs: Rail Un-Hurty Projectile Superintendency (RUHPS)
First of all, Mister or Missus Weapon Buying Patriot, I give you our acronym: far superior to that jumble of unusable Scrabble tiles that other weapon dealer calls a name. Jinuluwud? Bullshit — Rups! Just say it “Rups” (silent h, obviously). That sticks in the mind, you know that Rups sells you your humane crowd stompers and you trust that the name “Rups” means quality invisible weaponesque “technologies”.
But you’re here to buy things to hurt people so bad they’ll wish they were dead, but legally can not be held responsible in any way for said harm. We know, and we want to sell those things to you! So allow me to present our first new harm-portunity:
The Giggle Cannon!
Directing precisely targeted “technology particles” at your victim’s most theoretically ticklish zones or “ticklish zones” ie, pits, ribblets, taint — the Giggle Canon renders assailants helpless, twitching masses of fun! And as a special added bonus, the effects of the Giggle Cannon makes even the most hardened “Death to America” lefty look innocent and care free in their uncontrollable chuckle fit.
Collateral Damage: Tough guy image, 29% Chance of Pant Be-Dampening.
But if only a three in ten chance of ruining the enemies slacks just isn’t enough retaliation for you, then RUHPS has something else that might fill your boots with “joy”. Introducing:
The Re-Crappinator!
Using future based “micro-science” technology and concussive sound wave projectiling you will fill any non-killing field with the pungent fumes of bowel dominance! With a variable control dial setting ranging from “Turtle Head” to “Ass-tastrophe” the Re-Crappinator will fill the pants of your enemies at an alarming rate, sending insurgents and collaborators scattering with chunks of their partially digested granola and tofu lunches trailing behind them!
Collateral Damage: Dignity, o-ring structural integrity.
And while those two gems of the RUHPS catalogue should be more than enough to topple any ne’erdowells that might threaten the peace in your part of God’s purple majesty, we have saved the best for last. Completely non-lethal, utterly effective and absolutely environmentally friendly:
The Controlled Crowd Fragmentalization Bags!
Essentially a paper sack filled with black powder, old bicycle gears and spent plutonium rods, the Controlled Crowd Fragmentalization Bags is the first and last word in crowd disbursement technology. Simply turn on the bag with the gentle introduction of a polite eco neutral natural elemental force, place bag amongst those you wish to no longer be where they currently are, and watch as the Controlled Crowd Fragmentalization Bag instantameously eliminates your unwanted nuisance! No muss, no fuss.
Collateral Damage: Negligible.
So in conclusion, we at Van Full of Candy’s Apartment of Cut-it-Outs: Rail Un-Hurty Projectile Superintendency (RUHPS), would like to thank you for taking the time to hear our presentation. We look forward to using your hundreds of millions of dollars to help make this world a safer, happier place for me to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts on whores and narcotics, as that money is usually spent! We’ve finally found our calling, now you better pray we never find you!
USA! USA! USA!
Get Your Digital Diddle On: It’s Only Natural
Birds do it, bees do it, even perverts in the trees do it. Let’s do it, let’s fuck online.
Chances are, if you’re on the internet (which as of this printing is still the only way that I know you could be reading this, though if you know of any others, please let us know), then you’re probably reading this with one hand in your pants, leisurely pleasuring yourself. That’s just a science fact. Because as you know, every new invention since the dawn of man has come about due to a need to advance the field of physical gratification.
Fire? Invented so cave perverts could violently flog their pre-historic, barbed procreation utensils to crude vagina wall paintings at night.
The wheel? Walking from one clubbed female’s dwelling to the next had worn out its novelty. The pre-men of yesterage also needed some way to easily signal potential mates of their remaining virility at the ripe old middle age of 14.
Sliced bread? The Manwich.
So it should come as a surprise to exactly no one that the internets too were created solely for the transmittal and reception of pornographic images, thoughts and ideas. As with bread, people have simply adapted sex technologies to be used in other walks of life. Now, a study done by a New Brunswick researcher is attempting to shed some light on the internet’s original purpose for existence: cybersex.
Krystelle Shaughnessy, (clearly a made up name, even by Canadian standards of ridiculous namery) a psychology student at the University of New Brunswick decided to research the role of cybersex in the current internet landscape while, not surprisingly, cybering her sex. Engaged in a long-distance relationship, and being a modern woman of the 21st century Krystelle did what anyone would in her position, try to justify her deviant nature with a college research paper.
Her hypothesis was that, “where her grandmother would have put pen to paper to maintain such an affair, and her mother would have picked up the phone, her natural medium was online.”
And she’s right. As I’ve explained, pen, paper and the telephone were all invented for sexual purposes. Just try not to imagine after this painstakingly detailed recounting, your beloved Nana’s penmanship gradually deteriorate as she furiously scribbled her dirtiest thoughts into a steamy letter of passion and naughtyness, then handing it to the postman with a blush, knowing just what it was that he was holding in his hands to be delivered to Peepaw so that he might feverishly pleasure himself to the naughty words of his beloved, before wondering what this harlot who could spew such filth might be doing with the rest of her time not filled with scribbling her most deviant thoughts. Basically, what I’m saying is that your grandparents were distrustful sickos who traded sex drenched letters while they were apart, and carry with them, even today, secrets that they will be buried with…
Now where was I?
Oh, that’s right, the office chair hand dance.
“A key piece in the research that I’m conducting right now is, who do you have cybersex with? One thing that is across the board — whether I’m talking to researchers, students, anybody — is this notion that cybersex is two strangers hiding from their offline partners engaging in sex online, and I don’t think that’s reality,” she said.
Here, the fine researcher and I differ in opinion. But I suppose our only difference is what percentage of which is what…
Let me clarify.
Cybersex, as it has existed since the invention of the internet, has been largely two men pretending to be lesbians having sexy chat times, sans pants. That has remained the one constant in the ever evolving intertubes. The definition of “stranger” then becomes a sticking point. Obviously there is some getting to know this person pretending to be someone else. So when do we go from fake lesbian intercourse with a stranger to fake lesbian intercourse with an acquaintance or even fake lesbian intercourse with a friend? Fewer instances of cybersex are initiated between people who have known each other before chatting online than vicey versey is what I’m saying. More people have come together with the intention to come together than because distance necessitates it.
“I think my key thing going into this was to try to normalize a behaviour I think is fairly normal,” she said.
And while noble, and understandable, there is no normal on the internet. In a place where the words “two girls” and “one cup” now mean something that we could never have previously imagined, the wild west of human sexual deviances doesn’t want to be normalized and doesn’t need to be justified. We are a creature who evolved thumbs solely so that we could encircle our tingly bits with them. It’s our teachings over the years that that impulse is bad that makes it necessary to write a paper proving what you’re instinctively drawn to do is okay.
So what I’m saying is: human beings, get over yourselves.
Birds do it, bees do it, all the sickos and the sleaze do it. Let’s do it, let’s turn on our webcams and take off our pants!
Get Your Digital Diddle On: It's Only Natural
Birds do it, bees do it, even perverts in the trees do it. Let’s do it, let’s fuck online.
Chances are, if you’re on the internet (which as of this printing is still the only way that I know you could be reading this, though if you know of any others, please let us know), then you’re probably reading this with one hand in your pants, leisurely pleasuring yourself. That’s just a science fact. Because as you know, every new invention since the dawn of man has come about due to a need to advance the field of physical gratification.
Fire? Invented so cave perverts could violently flog their pre-historic, barbed procreation utensils to crude vagina wall paintings at night.
The wheel? Walking from one clubbed female’s dwelling to the next had worn out its novelty. The pre-men of yesterage also needed some way to easily signal potential mates of their remaining virility at the ripe old middle age of 14.
Sliced bread? The Manwich.
So it should come as a surprise to exactly no one that the internets too were created solely for the transmittal and reception of pornographic images, thoughts and ideas. As with bread, people have simply adapted sex technologies to be used in other walks of life. Now, a study done by a New Brunswick researcher is attempting to shed some light on the internet’s original purpose for existence: cybersex.
Krystelle Shaughnessy, (clearly a made up name, even by Canadian standards of ridiculous namery) a psychology student at the University of New Brunswick decided to research the role of cybersex in the current internet landscape while, not surprisingly, cybering her sex. Engaged in a long-distance relationship, and being a modern woman of the 21st century Krystelle did what anyone would in her position, try to justify her deviant nature with a college research paper.
Her hypothesis was that, “where her grandmother would have put pen to paper to maintain such an affair, and her mother would have picked up the phone, her natural medium was online.”
And she’s right. As I’ve explained, pen, paper and the telephone were all invented for sexual purposes. Just try not to imagine after this painstakingly detailed recounting, your beloved Nana’s penmanship gradually deteriorate as she furiously scribbled her dirtiest thoughts into a steamy letter of passion and naughtyness, then handing it to the postman with a blush, knowing just what it was that he was holding in his hands to be delivered to Peepaw so that he might feverishly pleasure himself to the naughty words of his beloved, before wondering what this harlot who could spew such filth might be doing with the rest of her time not filled with scribbling her most deviant thoughts. Basically, what I’m saying is that your grandparents were distrustful sickos who traded sex drenched letters while they were apart, and carry with them, even today, secrets that they will be buried with…
Now where was I?
Oh, that’s right, the office chair hand dance.
“A key piece in the research that I’m conducting right now is, who do you have cybersex with? One thing that is across the board — whether I’m talking to researchers, students, anybody — is this notion that cybersex is two strangers hiding from their offline partners engaging in sex online, and I don’t think that’s reality,” she said.
Here, the fine researcher and I differ in opinion. But I suppose our only difference is what percentage of which is what…
Let me clarify.
Cybersex, as it has existed since the invention of the internet, has been largely two men pretending to be lesbians having sexy chat times, sans pants. That has remained the one constant in the ever evolving intertubes. The definition of “stranger” then becomes a sticking point. Obviously there is some getting to know this person pretending to be someone else. So when do we go from fake lesbian intercourse with a stranger to fake lesbian intercourse with an acquaintance or even fake lesbian intercourse with a friend? Fewer instances of cybersex are initiated between people who have known each other before chatting online than vicey versey is what I’m saying. More people have come together with the intention to come together than because distance necessitates it.
“I think my key thing going into this was to try to normalize a behaviour I think is fairly normal,” she said.
And while noble, and understandable, there is no normal on the internet. In a place where the words “two girls” and “one cup” now mean something that we could never have previously imagined, the wild west of human sexual deviances doesn’t want to be normalized and doesn’t need to be justified. We are a creature who evolved thumbs solely so that we could encircle our tingly bits with them. It’s our teachings over the years that that impulse is bad that makes it necessary to write a paper proving what you’re instinctively drawn to do is okay.
So what I’m saying is: human beings, get over yourselves.
Birds do it, bees do it, all the sickos and the sleaze do it. Let’s do it, let’s turn on our webcams and take off our pants!
Van Full of Candy’s Guide to Van Full of Candy
We like the internet, and judging by the fact that you’re reading this, we can safely assume that you do too. We also know that if you’re anything like us, you’re looking every day for new ways to waste your hours at work pretending to be spread sheeting or otherwise giving a fuck about what you’re being paid to give fucks about. But for us, fucking about is part of the gig. We have to make sure our pretty little faces are out there so that your pretty little faces can be entertained and eventually, we won’t have to pretend to spread sheet.
But there’s a lot of internet out there. From what I hear, it’s kind of like a web, that is very nearly world wide. So if we want to be seen in all of this big crazy land of cat videos and pornography, we have to be in lots of places. We need to be seen. We need love and confirmation of our value as persons in the form of likes or +’s or thumbs up, votes up, funny votes, re-tweets; anything that lets us know that we are in fact alive and being heard. That our long hours, hand crafting finely milled funny is not all in vain. We need you to tell ten friends, and we need those ten friends to tell ten friends and so on. And then we need all of you to send us a dollar… Or just click “like”.
So you probably know of a couple places to find us, you have somehow already, but you probably don’t know ALL of the random cracks and crevices of the internet in which we’re squirreled away, poking things with our comedy sticks to see if fan bees swarm out and sting us with their approval… No, yes, that is what I meant…
So with all of that in mind, Van Full of Candy is proud to present your guide to Van Full of Candy on the Internets!
WordPress: This is where the magic happens… Such as it is… Every weekday (excluding some holidays) we post a new something or other to WordPress which makes its way to you, the loyal reader by some other means… You could really just subscribe to the WordPress site and never have to go to any of our other crap and you’d be just fine… We wish you wouldn’t. We also wish I hadn’t just called everything that’s going to follow “crap”, but as you all know, my delete key does not work, so there’s nothing I can do to change what is…
facebook: This would be the other place of import to us. Why? Because this is where the rest of the planet goes, and we want the rest of the planet to like us. Here you can find virtual farms to tend, or virtual towns to build, pretty much anything that real people used to do in this country is represented in a virtual game form on the Book of Faces. Like interacting with other people, or having a life. All represented virtually in the one place that everyone on the planet goes to complain about what this magical meeting place has fucked up this time by changing where that one button you never used in the first place is now…
Twitter: We tweet, we’re tweeters, we twit about twat, you know, like all the other cool revolutionaries. Except we don’t really overthrow dictators or organize protests or anything, and frankly we’re tired of being made to feel like fuck ups by those that do, because we don’t. I could totally overthrow an oppressive regime if I wanted to, but I’d just rather replace words in movie titles with “Butt” or “Fart”… That’s changing the world, in a way…
YouTube: This is where you get to see and hear our “funny”. Through the magic of motion pictures, captured on digitized still images, played in quick succession in a way to fool the eye into seeing a moving image, in combination with audio capture technology which steals our voices from the air and traps it inside your computer box you are able to see into a world, long dead, as though it were happening before your very eyes. And kitties falling down makes my giggle and hug myself!
Funny or Die: Then we take those magical demon images and upload them to be judged by the public. A public, unable to create, but infinitely qualified to critique. Who’s only contribution to art and entertainment is in the tearing down of artists and entertainers! Dismissive of the time and effort put into the very thing that they are dismissing entirely out of hand! … Of Die…
Current: A couple of years ago Al Gore was everywhere. So much so, that we needed an entire television channel to contain it. And so Current TV was born. We usually share our more angry political pieces on the current community site, because that’s what they like, and we like what people like as long as what they like is us… LOVE US!
foursquare: The internet has given us an outlet to make sure the entire universe knows every time we get gas or a burrito or gas and a burrito. It is foursquare. And we want to be stalked as much, if not more than the next guy…
Comedy Whirled: Sort of what I imagine Funny or Die might have been like if it hadn’t been founded as Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s club house. Not that that’s a bad thing at all, because those guys might some day pay me to write funny things for them. So what I meant to say is, Funny or Die is awesome and I want them to give me money and exposure. Sorry Comedy Whirled, just be cool, I fucked up, you guys are awesome but you can’t destroy me yet… Kisses Billy and AMcK!
Linked In: Created, in theory, to be a place where professionals can come together and professional… ize. I don’t think it took long for the creators of Linked In to realize that’s kind of boring, but no one’s had the time to change anything about it yet because they’re too busy farming their virtual radishes. You have a linked in account because someone you worked with at one point or another let their address book be raped and added you and that was the last time both of you checked it.
klout: We all want to feel like big shots. We all want to think we matter. Us especially. This site gives you some seemingly random, mostly unattributable number representation between 1 and 100 of how much “klout” you have. No, it doesn’t make sense to us either, but we have one of these too!
Empire Avenue: A sort of social media stock market… game… thing. Because there’s nothing more fun than the stock market. But sadly, quite addicting. Another way of showing you that the time you’re wasting on all of the other sites above is actually, really, pretend paying off and increasing your value in some way. You’re not wasting your life tweeting about how Justin Bieber should come to your junior high school and play a show on the soccer field, you are strengthening your portfolio!
Google+: In case you haven’t noticed, Google is swallowing the world. And unsatisfied with simply owning everything that Apple doesn’t, they’ve decided to try to kick Zuckerburg in the pant fronts too while they’re at it. Google+ (or “The Plus” as no one has yet called it since I just coined that phrase) is supposedly the next big thing in the social medias. We don’t see it. But we’ll be damned if we’re not going to be there too just in case. Besides, Google knows everything I’m doing at all times at this point; it’s best to not fuck with someone like that.
MySpace: LOVE US JUSTIN! For the love of god, all we want is for you to notice us! We only have this stupid account so you can see us and we can hang out and maybe smell your fingers a couple times a night! WE WENT TO MYSPACE FOR YOU! MYSPACE!!!
Van Full of Candy's Guide to Van Full of Candy
We like the internet, and judging by the fact that you’re reading this, we can safely assume that you do too. We also know that if you’re anything like us, you’re looking every day for new ways to waste your hours at work pretending to be spread sheeting or otherwise giving a fuck about what you’re being paid to give fucks about. But for us, fucking about is part of the gig. We have to make sure our pretty little faces are out there so that your pretty little faces can be entertained and eventually, we won’t have to pretend to spread sheet.
But there’s a lot of internet out there. From what I hear, it’s kind of like a web, that is very nearly world wide. So if we want to be seen in all of this big crazy land of cat videos and pornography, we have to be in lots of places. We need to be seen. We need love and confirmation of our value as persons in the form of likes or +’s or thumbs up, votes up, funny votes, re-tweets; anything that lets us know that we are in fact alive and being heard. That our long hours, hand crafting finely milled funny is not all in vain. We need you to tell ten friends, and we need those ten friends to tell ten friends and so on. And then we need all of you to send us a dollar… Or just click “like”.
So you probably know of a couple places to find us, you have somehow already, but you probably don’t know ALL of the random cracks and crevices of the internet in which we’re squirreled away, poking things with our comedy sticks to see if fan bees swarm out and sting us with their approval… No, yes, that is what I meant…
So with all of that in mind, Van Full of Candy is proud to present your guide to Van Full of Candy on the Internets!
WordPress: This is where the magic happens… Such as it is… Every weekday (excluding some holidays) we post a new something or other to WordPress which makes its way to you, the loyal reader by some other means… You could really just subscribe to the WordPress site and never have to go to any of our other crap and you’d be just fine… We wish you wouldn’t. We also wish I hadn’t just called everything that’s going to follow “crap”, but as you all know, my delete key does not work, so there’s nothing I can do to change what is…
facebook: This would be the other place of import to us. Why? Because this is where the rest of the planet goes, and we want the rest of the planet to like us. Here you can find virtual farms to tend, or virtual towns to build, pretty much anything that real people used to do in this country is represented in a virtual game form on the Book of Faces. Like interacting with other people, or having a life. All represented virtually in the one place that everyone on the planet goes to complain about what this magical meeting place has fucked up this time by changing where that one button you never used in the first place is now…
Twitter: We tweet, we’re tweeters, we twit about twat, you know, like all the other cool revolutionaries. Except we don’t really overthrow dictators or organize protests or anything, and frankly we’re tired of being made to feel like fuck ups by those that do, because we don’t. I could totally overthrow an oppressive regime if I wanted to, but I’d just rather replace words in movie titles with “Butt” or “Fart”… That’s changing the world, in a way…
YouTube: This is where you get to see and hear our “funny”. Through the magic of motion pictures, captured on digitized still images, played in quick succession in a way to fool the eye into seeing a moving image, in combination with audio capture technology which steals our voices from the air and traps it inside your computer box you are able to see into a world, long dead, as though it were happening before your very eyes. And kitties falling down makes my giggle and hug myself!
Funny or Die: Then we take those magical demon images and upload them to be judged by the public. A public, unable to create, but infinitely qualified to critique. Who’s only contribution to art and entertainment is in the tearing down of artists and entertainers! Dismissive of the time and effort put into the very thing that they are dismissing entirely out of hand! … Of Die…
Current: A couple of years ago Al Gore was everywhere. So much so, that we needed an entire television channel to contain it. And so Current TV was born. We usually share our more angry political pieces on the current community site, because that’s what they like, and we like what people like as long as what they like is us… LOVE US!
foursquare: The internet has given us an outlet to make sure the entire universe knows every time we get gas or a burrito or gas and a burrito. It is foursquare. And we want to be stalked as much, if not more than the next guy…
Comedy Whirled: Sort of what I imagine Funny or Die might have been like if it hadn’t been founded as Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s club house. Not that that’s a bad thing at all, because those guys might some day pay me to write funny things for them. So what I meant to say is, Funny or Die is awesome and I want them to give me money and exposure. Sorry Comedy Whirled, just be cool, I fucked up, you guys are awesome but you can’t destroy me yet… Kisses Billy and AMcK!
Linked In: Created, in theory, to be a place where professionals can come together and professional… ize. I don’t think it took long for the creators of Linked In to realize that’s kind of boring, but no one’s had the time to change anything about it yet because they’re too busy farming their virtual radishes. You have a linked in account because someone you worked with at one point or another let their address book be raped and added you and that was the last time both of you checked it.
klout: We all want to feel like big shots. We all want to think we matter. Us especially. This site gives you some seemingly random, mostly unattributable number representation between 1 and 100 of how much “klout” you have. No, it doesn’t make sense to us either, but we have one of these too!
Empire Avenue: A sort of social media stock market… game… thing. Because there’s nothing more fun than the stock market. But sadly, quite addicting. Another way of showing you that the time you’re wasting on all of the other sites above is actually, really, pretend paying off and increasing your value in some way. You’re not wasting your life tweeting about how Justin Bieber should come to your junior high school and play a show on the soccer field, you are strengthening your portfolio!
Google+: In case you haven’t noticed, Google is swallowing the world. And unsatisfied with simply owning everything that Apple doesn’t, they’ve decided to try to kick Zuckerburg in the pant fronts too while they’re at it. Google+ (or “The Plus” as no one has yet called it since I just coined that phrase) is supposedly the next big thing in the social medias. We don’t see it. But we’ll be damned if we’re not going to be there too just in case. Besides, Google knows everything I’m doing at all times at this point; it’s best to not fuck with someone like that.
MySpace: LOVE US JUSTIN! For the love of god, all we want is for you to notice us! We only have this stupid account so you can see us and we can hang out and maybe smell your fingers a couple times a night! WE WENT TO MYSPACE FOR YOU! MYSPACE!!!
Van Full of Candy 