As much as we all respect the quality and originality of work emerging from that bastion of down to earth sensibility Hollywood, we must admit that the geniuses that live there are prone to latch on to easy to reach fads and rinse them for all they’re worth (and beyond). Recent examples of this are Parkour (Die Hard 4, Casino Royale), Cyber-terrorism (Die Hard 4, Eagle Eye), Patriotism (Die Hard 4, Spiderman) and Hacking (included as a plot device in every film featuring computers since the dawn of time, and Die Hard 4).

Despite their apparent enthusiasm for such popular crazes, film producers rarely get the opportunity to fully understand the theme they’re shamelessly raping for profit. It’s not really their fault. Their minds are so fucked up through a dangerous cocktail of cocaine, casting couch blowjobs and listening to Michael Bay talk shit all the time, they’re totally adrift in an ocean of opulence and ignorance. Poor buggers.

Nevertheless, it’s a symbol of acceptance to have your passion (cyber-terrorism?) exploited by big white guys in suits. Which makes it strange that social media has yet to be substantially misconceived by any big budget Hollywood shitefest. Fuck, even the Nintendo Power Glove got turned into a film starring kids with freakily big heads!

Possibly, Hollywood’s reluctant to turn the spotlight on something that frequently tears their shitty business practices to pieces (other than making the internet in some way responsible for almost destroying the world - Die Hard 4). Alternatively, they may be simply unaware that social media even exists (coke, head, bay, remember?).

To make it easy for them, I’ve taken five popular uses of social media and built plots based around them using some of the industry’s favourite storylines. Evil Hollywood producer, I’d like my royalties paid for in casting couch head and hard drugs please. Keep Bay at bay.

1 - eBay

Title - Best Match

(That’s an obscure eBay reference picked up on the eBay glossary)

Tagline - “This Fall, make a bid for love”

The Plot - Seth Grogan (playing a lovable loser who’s recently broken up with his girlfriend) winds up getting put up for sale on eBay by his hilariously whacky housemate to make some weed money. At first reluctant, Grogan agrees thinking he has nothing to lose. As a bidding war erupts between a hottie and an older woman (who keeps asking questions that cause Grogan to do that facial expression he knows), the audience know who’s gonna win in the end (they’ve seen the trailer). Long story short, our hero winds up as the love bitch of some sugar momma (possibly played by silver vixen Helen Mirren) while his ex-girlfriend (umm…Katherine Heigl?) tries to win him back.

The Twist - Seeing how he’s making his girlfriend jealous, Grogan starts playing up to Mirren only to realise (after much comedy) that she’s really the one for him. Chicks love this shit.

Best line - Grogan after being told about the eBay offer:

Grogan - (Angrily) I can’t believe this! (Pause) (Asks timidly) So how much is the minimum bid?

Housemate - Five bucks.

Grogan - Five bucks!! Five bucks!! You’re selling my body to desperate, lonely women and all you’re asking for is five lousy bucks!?

Housemate - Dude, this is eBay! People don’t buy any old crap!

(Yep, that’s the best line…)

Best scene - Easter Egg during the credits: Mirren and Grogan kissing and cheering after succesfully bidding for a child on eBay.

Why it’s ridiculously Hollywood - Selling people on eBay is strictly off limits sadly.

2. Twitter

Title - Runaway911

Tagline - “What are YOU doing?”

The Plot - Six Twitterers are simultaneously contacted by a mysterious user (Runaway911) pleading for their help. At first most of the Twitter people ignore the messages but soon they are drawn in by the frequent tweets that describe brutal and frequent torture. Led by a widower social worker (Jodie Foster) the six tweeters have to find out who this person is, where they are and why they are the ones who’ve been contacted. As the story unfolds, they start to find themselves picked off one by one by an unknown killer…

The Twist - The contacted Twitter users ARE connected! Unknown to them, they were all together a year ago on the 9th November and ignored the pleas of a desperate and rough-looking street-walker who cried for their help. They didn’t care and that woman ended up tortured and killed that very night. Runaway911 (911 - 9th November, get it?) is the sister of that woman exacting a brutal and ironic revenge on the people who refused to help her sister because of her appearance (Runaway - double meaning alert! Not only does it relate to the streetwalker who ran away from home and ended up murdered but it also could be read as Run Away… a hidden warning to the tweeterers! Wow! Layered!). Jodie Foster finds out too late and the movie ends with a new tweet popping up on her account simply echoing the supposed torture victimes first message: ‘help me’.

The Deep Message - Blah blah blah it’s all about how we judge appearances in real life and how the relative anonymity offered by social media blah blah blah. Can we get closer to people we’ve never met? That’s a shitty tagline in waiting.

Best Scene - Probably the thrilling trailer (the film will, of course, be a disappointment). Though the epic montage/flashback scene when Foster figures everything out will be pretty ace. Mix in a couple of slanty, zoomed-in shots on Twitter messages while echoy voices repeat some of the more obvious clues over a crescendo-reaching soundtrack.

Why it’s ridiculously Hollywood - Who the fuck would use Twitter to ask for help!? And how did the sister ever find out who was on that street? Why do they all use Twitter? Ridiculous. Would/could never happen. Perfect film fodder.

3. Crowdsourcing

Title - ineedyourhelp.com

(That is an offensively awful title - quick post a booby pic to make people forget it…)

A bittersweet tale of a beautiful American girl (played by Scarlett Johansson - seriously, someone that hot should have a name I can spell in search engines) who moved to London with the dreams of becoming a model. One year later she’s a drug addicted prostitute (noticing a worrying theme in my material here) who’s beaten, abused and ignored by polite society. Online however, she’s the most respected and beloved figure on a crowdsourcing site (ineedyourhelp.com) offering help, advice and support to others in need. We follow her misery in the real world while catching glimpses of the joy she gives to others as her life intersects with her better off helpees across the city.

The Tragic Ending - She dies after a savage beating and nobody cares or notices except other users of that terribly named website. The nurse who describes her as “just another roughed up junkie whore” when they wheel her dead body away is revealed to be a woman Scarlett has spent much of the movie helping.

The Ambiguity - Our heroine died with a smile on her face. Was that because someone had finally helped her (by ending her persistently miserable existence) or was the joy she gave others enough to make her feel her life was worth living? We’ll never know. Well, I know. Maybe.

The Best Scene - To be honest, I’m getting really depressed just thinking about this film so I think I’ll forget which wrist-slittingly depressing scene is best and move onto the next plot which stars Megan Fox and no dead hookers.

4. YouTube

Title - Stream2Scream

The Plot - Jamie Bell is an just an ordinary American teenager. He’s got a ridiculously hot girlfriend (played by Megan Fox) and a bunch of stereotypical friends (these come as standard in the suburbs). They start to watch this YouTube meme of an apparent serial killer posting videos of him threatening murder and then posting the videos of the deed being committed. The killer (Stream2Scream - yes, another username title but that is how a cliche becomes tired) wears a gas mask with a mohawk made from forks and speaks in iambic pentameter. The channel receives comments and video messages of people cheering him on or criticising him (in that inane video response way). Bell and buddies join in the fun until one of them is targeted! His own girlfriend! Now it’s a race against time for him to find and stop the killer before his girlfriend becomes just another viral vid.

The Best Scene - Megan Fox dancing around in her underwear to The Divinyls I Touch Myself. I did write a pretty good justification for that scene but I figured it’s not really necessary.

The Twist - Bell races to save her but she’s already been killed - the video is pre-recorded! (Fuck, Saw II beat me to that). The killer was Bell all along! (Fuck, done to death). Megan Fox is the killer! (Not bad - to a relative standard of bad). Umm…aliens?

Why it’ll be cool and cause controversy - Copycat videos on YouTube of people imitating the killer.

Why it is ridiculously Hollywood - Obviously, YouTube wouldn’t let anyone post videos of them murdering people. And they could be tracked easily via IP and arrested so it isn’t the most intelligent form of serial killering gimmickry. Also, to make this film even remotely entertaining and “chilling”, most of the killers actions would be mostly impossible - unless you take into account the twist ending. Which is ridiculous in itself. Still, Hollywood would love this. Activists will be screaming for YouTube to be shutdown following the premiere.

5. Blogging

Title - Blogged

- (Obvious title, but that fits - it’ll use a digitalish font and probably be green though, which is COOL - Unlike this weird picture below)

Tagline - “Free speech never cost so much”

Bah. This is so painfully unoriginal I’m throwing up on myself whilst writing it. Seriously.

The Plot - Shia LeBeouf (who else, really?) plays the same character he always does but this time is a blogger. He’s a big name in the blogosphere and enjoys his edgy rep. Note that this movie puts blogging as the new hacking, so LeBeouf goes to trendy underground clubs filled with models and dresses like he has something against living cows. Regardless, he’s happy and trying to hit on the love interest (another blogger, played by Mila Kunis) until (da-dum) he somehow gets access to something that could bring down someone. Ahem. Seriously, that shit just writes itself after that point. He’s now in a race for his life against some shadowy agency (with a duo of semi-useless agents who offer light comedic relief) while being helped by an anonymous blog legend: DNQ/DNP (pronounced Dink-Donp).

Cue some overcool scenes of him updating his blog, uploading pics (”come on! come on!”), and generally being a social media sorcerer. Stuff happens until he gets the girl and saves the day. Yawn. Highlights below:

Agency hacks his online life and ruins everything (”Dude, this is serious. Your secondlife avatar washed up dead this morning. They made it look like virtual suicide”).

There’s one shot when you think Mila Kunis might be more than just quite cute, but then it passes.

Stuff blows up and there’s a nail-biting snowmobile chase through New York (don’t ask me how or why) that is followed by bloggers using Google Maps (artistic license!)

Beoufo eventually eludes them long enough to post the full account of what happened (after the edge-of-your-seat drama of trying to find free wireless). Nailbiting scene of him trying to finish typing as the bad guys run up the stairs. They destroy the computer. “Too late, this shit isn’t on my computer man! This is in the blogosphere now! Half the world’s already seen it!”

The Twist - Underground blog legend, DNQ/DNP is 13 years old. But he’s mean with a pair of nunchucks.

Geek Money Shot - Shia LeBuff has been captured by the bad guys but was first able to post his account online. Epic montage scene of bloggers across the world reading the post and passing it on. Within minutes the FBI arrive and rescue our hero. The power of the blogosphere! Seconds later Shia’s blogging buddy phones him: “Dude, your story is on the front page of Digg!”

Why it is ridiculously Hollywood - Because it’s the worst idea for a film ever. To be honest, I probably didn’t misrepresent bloggers enough with this one to make it suitable for the suits. Anyway, Hollywood will probably go with a “true story” about some blogger going to prison. Then the tagline I came up with would work better. Did you notice it didn’t make much sense? Bah, pay attention.

You might have noticed that I haven’t been posting much lately. Partly, this is because most of the cool stuff I happen upon can be easily found on my friendly Friendfeed feed (shown under My Crunklets to the right) - but it’s also because I don’t like anyone who makes a habit of looking at this site. Seriously. You suck. Most of you only land on this site just to check out Katie Price’s minge.

Every now and again, however, I come across a pelican eating a dog’s face. No further explanation is needed.

You might have noticed that I haven’t been posting much lately. Partly, this is because most of the cool stuff I happen upon can be easily found on my friendly Friendfeed feed (shown under My Crunklets to the right) - but it’s also because I don’t like anyone who makes a habit of looking at this site. Seriously. You suck. Most of you only land on this site just to check out Katie Price’s minge.

Every now and again, however, I come across something that is truly, hilariously brilliant, inspiring and original and I can’t help but spread it about as much as possible. This literal version of A-Ha’s 80s classic Take On Me is one such something.

Discovered snuffling about Drawn!

21:25pm - Have been here for about half an hour. The young blonde at reception seemed pissed off with me for disrupting her flirtage with emo kitchen boy. Despite the room being paid for, had to debit fifty squids onto my card. Possibly will get refunded in the morning.

21:28pm - Still writing this post. Didn’t bother arguing with blonde receptionist. Just wanted to go straight up to my room. Why was she still asking me questions? Can’t she just fuck off?

21:29pm - Listening to Queen ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ though I’m not having a good time.

21:30pm - My hotel room was tiny and had no mini bar! Rubbish. Shower looked good.

21:35pm - Had to move from my spot in the bar as a huge wedding party stormed in. Started chatting to a friendly Irish lady. Got mistaken for part of the family. I’m beginning to fear that I may end up staying here forever.

21:36pm - Lost wireless connection, having to connect via my 3 Skypephone. Missed call from the missus. Listening to Eason Drive by Apologies I Have None. Vodka, lemonade and lime: greatest drink in the world. Thanks Jim.

21:39pm - Feeling very uncomfortable. Surrounded by wedding guests. Listening to Dire Straits, Money to Nothing on an eardrum-bursting volume. My only hope is that it’s so loud I’m annoying people.

21:42pm - My TV didn’t work either. They had one of the guide books in the hotel room. Proper fancy little thing - the typically dull sort with a deep maroon cover. Flipped through to the back pages. It listed the TV channels. 1: BBC One, 2: BBC Two, 3: ITV, 4: Channel Four, 5: Channel Five. What a waste of paper. After speaking to the missus, I ventured downstairs for a drink and to waste some time on the net. (see 21:25pm for details)

21:46pm - Drink was very expensive. Crisps were rubbish.

21:47pm - Listening to Gaslight Anthem, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. Almost finished my drink.

21:48pm - Finished my drink. I’m going back up to my room.

22:01pm - Instead opted to get another drink. Moved to a far more comfortable position away from the infectious joviality of the wedding crowd. The only thing I want to get infected by while away for a night in a hotel is an STD. Wireless is back up.

22:04pm - Everyone here is way too old. What’s happened to all the young people? You don’t as many as you used to. Are they all sat inside writing their blogs and updating their Facebook statuses?

22:06pm - Wireless failed again. Connection here goes down more often than your mum. pWnd.

22:10pm - Watching Kevin Costner movie on the TV in the corner. I think he’s just beaten up a kid. Watching Kevin Costner movies without the sound on is a fun game. You have to work out from the context of his surroundings what emotion he’s currently failing to project. I think he’s trying to seduce the kid. The kid’s pointing a gun at him. I think Kevin Costner’s pensive.

21:13pm - Jesus. Some guy’s explaining the movie to another guy. He’s asking if it’s a thriller or a black comedy. Apparently it’s much better than having this all the time. He pointed at a woman wearing a stupid hat in a wheelchair when he said that. I have no idea what the fuck is going on.

22:16pm - Holy shit. The guy just started agressing the woman in the wheelchair. This place is getting nasty, definitely going back up to my room before everything kicks off. Good night.

This may surprise you but I don’t spend all of my time sitting around thinking of cynical sentences to string together into senseless articles for the purpose of publishing on this blog. I made a decision a while ago not to use Crunkfish as a link dump. This was mostly because I enjoy banging on too much in these posts to find the time to present the entire multitude of awesome stuff I encounter daily on teh ‘netz. Therefore random (and frankly brilliant) rants from the frenetic maelstrom that is my imagination end up on these pages while articles, videos, images, and other stuff I find across the web go elsewhere.

One of these channels which I only just latched on to relatively recently but instantly lurved is Tumblr, which I use as a sort of inspiration dump/mood board. My tumblog (Deadlamb’s Giblets, as I’ve termed it for reasons that aren’t entirely important) is almost wholly free of troublesome words and is instead populated mostly by images I happen upon. Don’t read into it too much that the majority of these pics are of scantily-clad women - so’s the rest of the internet, it’s just proportionately representative that’s all…

Hit and follow Deadlamb’s Giblets; it’s definitely worth it.

To whet your appetite, here’s a sample of images taken from the blog:

Plenty more where those came from. Hope you enjoy it.

Watching the US presidential debate on More4 earlier this evening momentarily reignited my interest in the whole election thing. After a few half-assed searches guaging the media’s reaction to the debate (unanimously regarded as a draw, so it seems), I found myself reading about Republican Vice-Presidential candidate and Alaskan moose-skinning hockey mom (which, from what I can tell, is like a normal mom - which in itself is like a British mum, but with added democracy - only more kick-ass, in your face, balls to the wall Vice-Presidential than, for example, a mom whose children hate sports and prefer to pursue academic interests - aka communist moms), Sarah Palin.

Despite being treated rather generously by the the American media, all the news articles I read about this “young, charming maverick” gave the overriding impression that, on top of her obvious inexperience and annoying demeanour, she may also be stupid. Not necessarily in the rather refined and perfected sense that George W. Bush has turned into an art form. What Palin projects is a sort of generalised and far less inspiring level of latent ignorance; which is more cringe-worthy than funny.

So is Sarah Palin an idiot? It would seem so but I can’t simply rely on my judgement alone, as skimming through a few articles does not an expert of American dim-wittedness make. Is there anywhere out there in internetland where I can dive into a sea of US doltishness and bathe in the anti-knowledge therein? Of course there is. It’s the fucking internet.

As asked on Yahoo! Answers: Is Sarah Palin an idiot?

Best answer (as chosen by voters):

“Yes, she is.
Sarah Palin doesn’t believe in evolution and thinks that creationism should be taught in every classroom. She has said she does not believe in global warming and wants to take polar bears off the endangered species list because she assumes that they are fine because the polar ice caps are, in her mind, not melting.
She is currently under investigation for abuse of power after trying to get her sisters ex husband fired after a bad divorce.
She was once asked if she was angered by the addition of “under god” to the pledge of allegiance and her response was “if its good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me”, which might seem like a decent answer until you realize that the pledge of allegiance was written by a socialist named Bellamy about 100 years after the founding fathers founded anything and it wasn’t until the cold war that “under god” was added.
she wants to drill for oil in alaska and stands for the aerial slaughter of wolves and bears in the wild.
prior to her candidacy she announced that she did not think the idea of her being the vice president is realistic.
after her candidacy was announced she announced she didn’t know what a vice president does from day to day and also didn’t know what john mccains stance on the war was because, as she said, she doesn’t pay attention to iraq. (keep in mind her own son is being sent to iraq this september)

if she isn’t an idiot, then neither is george w bush for leading us into a criminally unjust war and neither is john mccain for horribly misrepresenting the middle class americans that make up the majority of this country. republicans should be ashamed for ruining this great country. vote obama.”

The sly, roguish, rugged-looking hyena has fascinated me since long before Mufasa’s treacherous brother warned them to be prepared (damn, another Disney reference; Megatron was right!). Mainly because of the almost instinctive way they’re dismissed as ‘baddie’ animals. At least that’s the way I always perceived it. Whenever the hyena pack appeared on a BBC wildlife documentary, warily confronting Lionesses’ses in the African savanna with David Attenborough’s emollient tones representing the most fitting of soundtracks, you couldn’t help but favour the feline - even though the poor, stumpy-legged hyena’s were probably starving to death and the greedy bastard lion mother-fuckers could spare a gazelle rib or two. Is this a modern aspect of the cultural consciousness or does this distaste go deeper? I don’t know, but what I do know is that if I was wandering about Nigeria and saw a group of well-muscled men walking along with a huge hyena on the end of a needlessly intimidating chain, I’d also want to stop and take a few photos. Possibly. Fortunately, someone else has done something like this for me so I don’t have to prove my cojones.

Via - Sub Studio Design Blog

In this, the seventh edition of the ‘blimey, that’s bloody clever’ series, I present to you, inferior reader, reCaptcha, which turns those annoying “are you human” anti-spam Captcha forms into something mildly useful.

I picked this up on ReadWriteWeb and if you want to actually know what the concept is I suggest you hit the link to find out. In brief however, the project takes the fact that roughly 100 million Captcha forms are filled in daily and aims to direct otherwise wasted time and effort into transcribing an estimated 160 books a day. That’s a whopping one Tom Clancy novel a week. It’s at times like this when my faith in humanity is restored. That freshly rediscovered faith is quickly lost, however, when I happen upon comments such as the one below, deposited following a BBC article about the Hadron Collider…

What a waste, indeed.

This is what porn would look like if it was sketched on the pavement by Dick Van Dyke doing a poor impression of some sort of London-dwelling Australian. Mary Poppins reference, anyone? Y’know, when Julie Andrews and the kids dive in and experience that supercalafragelisticexpialadocious blend of animation and real-life? I guess that’s not a cool comparison to make. Still, at least I didn’t mention Diagnosis Murder. Oh, bollocks. Did you know that was actually Dick Van Dyke’s son in that series? Did you care?

Sorry if this post is a bit of a mess. I’m trying really hard. Emo-child Megatron reliably informed me that I suck and should eat balls, so I’m making a real effort to not suck and eat something cool. Like bagels. Though I guess they’re kinda so 2007 or something. Megatron would know what’s cool to eat. He probably doesn’t even eat he’s so down with it. He simply draws sustenance from the whirling maelstrom of feeling that constantly threatens to overwhelm his sense of being. Carving ISOL8D into his forearm with a compass is his pie and mash. I just wish his parents understood him like Bert McCracken does.

Anyways, here’s the video:

Via - Geekologie

There are many benefits to dating a Eastern European immigrant. Least of all because their standards appear to be significantly lower than those of British women. However, the pluses must be measured in consideration of the minuses. With over a year’s worth of experience dating a lovely foreign divku, I feel moved to share some of the lessons I’ve picked up with you guys.

Lesson one: never underestimate the language barrier.

I recently underwent surgery to heal my twisted gut after a particularly unpleasant bout of Crohn’s disease. The good news is that I now feel better than I have done in years. The bad is that roughly a foot’s worth of my intestine had to be taken out. That may not seem like much of a loss and, to be honest, it’s not like I miss it.

The problem lies with my Czech girlfriend’s inclination for a particularly embarrassing malapropism whereby she replaces intestines for testicles.

I only found out tonight that my loving, caring girlfriend has been letting just about everyone know that her poor boyfriend had to go into hospital to have his testicles removed.

For anyone reading this who may have been told otherwise: my balls are perfectly intact and exactly where they’re supposed to be.