Internet Time Waste #44: Fortune Cookie Chronicles

Finally, a new way to waste your time on the internet.

Tonight's internet time waste: Jennifer 8. Lee's The Fortune Cookie Chronicles.


Fortune Cookie Chronicles is one of those classic modern ideas - take something all Americans have some kind of relationship with (American Chinese food) pursue the idea to the ends of the Earth and then smear it across a plethora of mediums (book, blog, and upcoming documentary) like so much garlic sauce on so much stir-fried chicken.

Great, now I'm hungry.

Internet Time Waste #43: Photoshop Disasters

Finally, a new way to waste your time on the internet.

Today's internet time waste: Photoshop Disasters.


Here's their best of 2010.

Once you get used to these, you start looking for them everywhere. Reminds me of Jesse Epstein's "Wet Dreams and False Images."

Internet Time Waste #42: This is Why You're Fat

Finally, a new way to waste your time on the internet.

Today's internet time waste: This is Why You're Fat.


Funny story: since I started reading This is Why You're Fat, I've lost 15 pounds.

Internet Time Waste #41: Mental Floss Magazine

Finally, a new way to waste your time on the internet.


Tonight's internet time waste: Mental Floss Magazine, "Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix."

Internet Time Waste #40: The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players

Finally, a new and unique way to waste your precious time on the internet.

Today's internet time waste: the various videos, spinoffs, Facebook pages and Wikipedia entries of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players.

These guys are just a tiny bit harder to blog about then the motley bullshit I've been posting lately. They're a family of musicians (husband, wife, daughter) who mostly write songs about boxes of slides they pick up at garage sales and such like, then play along with the slideshow.

Now, in my big, secret list of personal time wasters from which I'm getting my big, public amalgamation of time wasters for you, I just have this link to the video for the Trachtenburg Family song"Mountain Trip to Old Japan" (it's even a bit higher quality than the embed below.)

Where did I find this thing? Who knows?



Now, I'd say this is a pretty representative video, but of course I started poking around. Predictable, as a kinda cute, kinda indie established mid-level act, the TFSP have a wide and diverse internet presence.

So then the question becomes, just how much do you want to know about this family? I mean, daughter Rachel has been an active musician since she was six years old. Of COURSE you're going to be able to find video of her ragging on Bloomberg in a public hearing. I'm not linking to it, though, because we are here to waste your time - not to watch other people waste theirs.

Then the issue is, what do I link to? I say, let's keep things simple. Let's Go On Tour With Kate (i.e. Nash) is my favorite TFSP song so far, so here ya go:

Internet Time Waste #39: Tane

Finally, a new, if inexplicable, way to waste your time on the internet.

This morning's internet time waste: Tane.

(Put on those headphones for this, boy.)

Internet Time Waste #38: Greatest Movie Murders

Finally, a new way to waste your time on the internet.

Tonight's internet time waste: cartoonist Stephen Notley's brother Paul's list of the 100 Greatest Movie Murders

Internet Time Waste #37: Dozens of Interviews with Nathan Fillion

Finally, a new way to waste your time on the internet.

Today's internet time waste: dozens of interviews with Nathan Fillion.

Internet Time Waste #36: Sawbuck Gamer

Finally, a new way to waste your time on the internet.

This morning's time sink: the collected Sawbuck Gamer, gathering years of AV Club columns about cheap games.


I know Sawbuck through Teti. Ages ago, Teti wrote a blog called [Blank] of the Day, which he's since largely taken down. With a lot of dedication, you can read through the archives, post by post, by following this link to a post Teti wrote where he explains why he isn't apologizing for not posting the day before and clicking the links below.

Know how I said I was here to waste your time, not mine? Well, I've read through those archives twice. Quick summary: funny.

Internet Time Waste #35: The Longest Poem in the World

Yes, this is it at long last: a new way to waste your time on the internet.

Tonight's internet time waste: The Longest Poem in the World


From the about page:

"
"The Longest Poem in the World" is composed by aggregating real-time
public twitter updates and selecting those that rhyme.

It is constantly growing at ~4000 verses / day.
"

Internet Time Waste #34: The Michael Showalter Showalter

Finally, a new way to waste time on the internet.

This afternoon's time waste: The Michael Showalter Showalter.

I saw this guy in a coffee shop in Cobble Hill very, very early one morning and freaked him out by staring at him.

ribble: the picture of class.

Internet Time Waste #33: Angry Zen Master & Monkeys for Helping

Finally, a special and unique way to fritter away lonely hours online.

This morning's internet time waster: Angry Zen Master

Angry Zen Master is a nerd entertainment aggregator blog. It kinda reminded me of Monkeys for Helping, which I've linked to before but not in this context. So I went and checked MfH again and, low and behold, both linked to this extraordinary Bollywood terminator derivative:



Enjoy.

Internet Time Waste #32: Freakonomics Blog

Finally, a new way to waste your time on the internet.

This internet time waste is The Freakonomics blog hosted by the New York Times.

Internet Time Waste #31: Eliza Skinner

Finally, a unique way to waste time online.

Today's internet time waste: the fucked-up mind of Eliza Skinner.

We showed one of Eliza's videos at Iron Mule back in the day. I picked up the DVD from her and I was all implying she should be all excited to see her short in front of an audience and she was all "yeah, I did that motherfucker on STAGE, BITCH!!"

(I'm, uh, paraphrasing.)

And then she quit her day job and went pro, so, BOY. Egg on MY face, I tells ya.

At time of writing, Eliza's latest project is Nasty Cute, in which she writes inappropriate stream-of-consciousness captions for photos of animals, from the animals' perspectives.

Here's that particular short in that I may pique your curiosity:

Internet Time Waste #30: Ukulele Lessons

Finally, a new way to kill some time on the internet.

Tonight's time waste: Learn to Play the Ukulele.

Internet Time Waste #29: The Unshelved Book Club

At long last, a new way to waste time on the internet.

Today's electronic time sink: The Unshelved Book Club.


Unshelved is a webcomic about librarians. For a long time, I thought all the book reviews were written by the author of Unshelved, Gene Ambaum. Turns out there's a whole crew.

Internet Time Waste #28: La Pulcina Piccola

Finally, a novel manner in which to fritter away your hours on the internet.

Tonight's installment: The Secret Diaries of La Pulcina Piccola (Chicken Little.)


La Pulcina is the star of an extended opera (in miniature.) You can hear the story of the opera in This American Life's 2007 Poultry Slam.

Internet Time Waste #27: Randy Cohen on McSweeney's

Finally, this, the wonderment of a way to use your internet connection in order that you may waste your own time.

Today's internet time waste: Randy Cohen week on McSweeney's.


I know Cohen from his podcast, The Ethicist, which you can find at the New York Times website.

Internet Time Waste #26: The Regret Index

Finally, the once-in-a-lifetime novelty of a new place to waste time on the internet.


Tonight's time sink: the Regret Index.

Internet Time Waste #25: The Book of Ratings

Finally, you can waste time on the internet with little research or prelude.

This afternoon's internet time waste: The Book of Ratings. These are one man's ratings of everything, with a particular focus on pop culture minutiae.


I found the Book through the TV Tropes page on The Scrappy, which refers to this page in the book of ratings.

I am ballparking now and anticipating somewhere north of 100 of these posts, BTW. With my new, two-a-day pace that's, what? Another month and a half of content?

That sounds about right.