What's Your Color IQ?

Mine's 20 (whatever that means), but after staring at this test for three minutes, my googly-eyed walleye vision rating is off the charts.

Happens to everybody. Nobody gets out of life alive.

Dang, man. Tonight, rent Hud and pour out a little of your Pearl for Paul Newman, the baddest motherfucker who ever lived.

Each Howl, I Get Bigger

This weekend I'll be in Omaha for the (downtown) omaha lit fest. Keen eyes will notice how that poster up there fits this year's theme, "Plagiarism, Fraud, and Other Literary Inspiration," like bodypaint swimsuits fit Heidi Klum.

RantBlogariumVille

Or, Fixing What's Wrong With NameThis.

For the last few weeks, I've been playing with NameThis, a website that uses crowdsourcing to name new products and services. Basically, someone plunks down $99 and provides a description of the product, service, or company they want named and the members of NameThis have 48 hours to submit and vote for their favorite names. If you voted for the name that ends up the winner, you get a little money. Be the submitter of the winning name and you get a lot of money. (Relatively speaking.)

The idea behind NameThis is new companies get real-world-approved brands delivered to them for less than a C-note and the people who helped name the brands get a little scratch in their pockets. Everyone wins, right?

Not necessarily.

You know those online logo design companies that promise professionally-designed logos in four days for something like $129? You know how actual designers hate these services because they churn out shitastic work and collectively lower clients' standards and expectations of real designers while making it harder for those designers—people who give a shit about their profession and have worked and studied for years in order to do what they do—to charge clients what their work is worth? Well, NameThis is basically the branding version of that. I'm sure that folks who make their living getting to know individual clients and their businesses personally in order to develop a uniquely tailored branding and marketing strategy love that cheapasses can now pay NameThis $99 and have some bored housewife name their new line of bedazzled dog leashes. NameThis is basically an idea vulture whose raison de etre is fleecing those who don't know any better and fucking those who can't beat its price and instant-gratification turnaround.

But whatever. Judging from the growing number of members and activity on the site, I don't think anyone gives two shits about jobs being snaked from professionals—not when they've got more important matters like Sarah Palin's 80s hairstyle to get hysterical about. So since I can't make NameThis any less evil, I'll settle for making it more functional. To wit:

#1. Blind submissions. Anyone who's watched the voting and tabulation of winners can see that the same dude wins almost every time. And since you get rewarded with cold hard cash if your horse places, the smart thing to do is to back that dude, no matter how retarded his submissions are. It's a strategy I've employed for a minute now and others have admitted to doing the same. All of a sudden the voting (NameThis calls it "investing") is tainted and the best names rarely come out on top. (See recent winners Advantain, SheilData, Off the Beaten Snack, and SheJuvenate.) Good for me and my bank account; not so good for the sucker who dropped $99 only to be stuck with "Connectroniks."

#2. Demarcate the submission and voting processes. As it stands now, users have 48 hours to proffer names and vote on their favorites. When the clock hits zero, NameThis runs a top-secret algorithm factoring the uniqueness of the name, the investments in it, and some other flim-flam hoo-ha, and announces a winner less than a minute later. But what if the most perfect name in the whole contest wasn't submitted until hour 47 of the alloted time? It's simply not possible to accrue enough votes in an hour to overtake an inferior name that's been collecting that'll-do investments for nearly two days. Simple fix, this one. Cap the naming at 24 hours, then open the voting for 24 hours. Everything's square, everything's fair. Just like in life!

#3. Take down this video. (Let the page load, then click on "what happened here" to watch. If you dare.) Look, kid in the video, you fucking chief, I admire your enthusiasm but the douche act has got to go. That's a real Grade-A, piece of shit, loudmouth gasbag of a douche performance there. We don't need any more of that in the world. You look to be about 14, so maybe it's not too late to change your ways. Here's how: The guy who shot the video? The filmschool dropout who thought it would be so cutting fucking edge to blend the cinéma vérité of fucking Friday Night Lights with the gritty urban milieu of The Departed and do it in—get this—black and white? That guy? Fuck him. He's a bigger tool than you are. Second, go back to your loft in Bushwick or wherever and flush all your coke. All of it. Right now, right down the toilet. You need to chiiiiiill for a sec, mkay? They could light Shea for a month if they could somehow harness the energy generated by the grinding of your teeth. Lastly, pay a visit to your folks, who you probably haven't seen in a while. Surprise them. Buy some flowers for your mom and give dad a great big hug as soon as he opens the door. Then, greeting pleasantries fulfilled, I want you kick them as hard as you can. First in the back of the knee to get them on the ground and then just go ape. Kick 'em in the neck, the spine, their fat asses for comedic effect, and lastly, right square in the face. Clearly those two did some grave disservice to you as a child, as your fuckstick behavior can only be the result of prolonged sexual abuse or never hearing the word "no" once in your spoiled, wretched life.

Too much? Too mean? Pointless sour grapes? Fine, here's that Palin mullet thing. Go nuts, 'tards.