November 17, 2006

One of my several projects I’m just not getting done is probably my most commercially viable. It would be basically an aggregator of the proliferating content on the Web set up as Top X or Best X or Worst X lists (To be housed at TopSeveral.com where I am currently just testing the blogware and formatting; nothing to see there). At this point, I am seriously considering recruiting Associate Webmasters to help me run this as well as the currently-existing ArmageddonOrNot.com, the not-yet-fully-functional FactsAboutYOU.com (the ultimate response to Chuck Norris Facts), ThePortableHole.com (to be a site about animation) and OxyPedia.com (to house my 2000 collected oxymorons), and several other cool domain names which could become cool sites someday. Some other domains I’m keeping all for myself. No wonder I’m not getting any of them done. Or my laundry. But I digress. If you are ever-so-slightly interested in partnering with a procrastinating perfectionist on things that should be fun and might be profitable, contact me at wendell (AT) oneswellfoop (DOT) com. No need to hurry, I have to go to the DMV first, and you know how long that can take.

Here’s a list that just cries out for TopSeveral.com: PC World’s 13 Most Embarrassing Web Moments.

#13 The Gold Paint Guy on Smoking Gun, #4 The Star Wars Kid and other iconic Things People Wish They’d Never Done. Never mind that #10 was a text-messaging embarrassment, #5 and #2 were embarrassing video TAPES and #9, #6 and #3 were embarrassing on Live TV before the Interweb got a hold of them. Should we add my small print paragraph above to this Hall of Shame?

xkcd is a single-panel stick-figure webcomic with a strongly pro-scientific-method attitude, so I’m not surprised that its creator would do something to try to quantify the emotional. And that something is three comparative ratings sites (each of which has the visitor choose between two things at a time):

The purely text-based BestThing.info. (The webmaster warns us that, since all content is user-submitted and non-filtered, some may be Not Safe For Workplaces, Children, Censors, Weak Stomachs, Spelling Purists or People With Good Taste. This is especially true here, because it is so easy to just type something in. Also, the site has a problem with the ‘ character that really becomes annoying after a while.) At this exact moment, the Top 20 Best Things are 50% magic-and-or-super powers, 30% ideal romantic situations and 20% everything else including “Same as the other option, plus $50″ (sne-e-eaky!)

The image-based TheFairest.info has some naked and half-naked women in its database, but it’s Top 20 Prettiest Images are all scenery, 80% large-scale and only 25% showing anything man-made (and nothing dominated by man-made).

TheFunniest.info has almost everything you expect considered ‘funny’ on the Internet, but in fact, is surprisingly low in offensiveness. The Top 20 Funniest Images has had the same #1 since I discovered the site:

…which oddly enough, looks like but is not a xkcd comic panel.

My other favorites among the popular favorites are…

and, at risk of self-Godwinization:

This one recently fell off the Top 20 and deserves to return:

Among those I voted for AND liked enough to download for my own evil purposes:

(for those of you needing captions, that was THE COMMUNIST PARTY.) And especially this one:

…which I already had, it being one my favorite gag images for months, maybe more than a year. And the web-savvy gang at BoingBoing only discovered it this week? What’s with that?

Anyway, to conclude my statistical analysis of these sites, 20-25% of the Top 20 Funniest Images had kittens and captions. This is not a healthy trend.

Years ago, I suggested that somebody should hire both Bo Schembechler and Ara Parseghian as co-coaches in order to counter the popular “Shotgun Offense” with a “Bo and Ara Offense”. I’m sorry I’ll never get to use that pun again. I’m even sorrier I used it now.

I don’t know if just before one of the biggest Michigan vs. Ohio State games ever (#1 vs. #2) makes it the most untimely death ever, or, if his memory drives his old team to victory, an rare-and-very-eerie case of a ‘timely death’. Stay tuned. I suspect I may want to delete that previous sentence this entire post later. Who says American Football brings out the worst in people?