None Shall Pass

And the oppression continues – all in the name of security. The terrorists, and all bad people in general, are winning. We, the humble, good-hearted, decent citizens of the world are shackled by restrictions set forth by the paranoid rule makers, who are not so much concerned with our security or well being, so they may affirm, as they are girding themselves from being stolen from or criticized or sued. From the shaming personal space probing interrogation at airports to the infuriating blow-torch-requiring cd and dvd unwrapping struggle, our lives have become a battered polished ball in a pinball game of fear and absurdity. Woe is the talisman of abstract paranoia amidst a retention pond of wrangling. Do not heed the presage of byzantine scallywags set forth for foraging - forsaken, forlorn and formidable. Let oysters reel in a gouge of contempt. The plain obscured. Among the flippers, bumpers, plungers and slingshots are the passwords required to access the ever growing colossus of essential on-line systems in our lives – email, consumer accounts, chat rooms, CIA backdoor entrances, sex offender registrations, job related systems, bank account access, personal web sites, proprietary plastic surgery landscaping options, address databases, private blogs, education sites, and the rest, here ON GILLIGAN’S ISLAAAAAAAAAAANNNNND. Apparently we each have a lot of information to protect from the groping eyes of others.

The Doctrine of Cool deems no use for passwords. If xe is cool, xe will not peep the skivvies of others unless said peeping be permitted by the skivvy bearer. Since the Doctrine of Cool has not yet manifested itself in concrete form, it has no bearing here. Why even bring it up? I’ll tell you why, because I’m slowly writing the Doctrine of Cool in snippets strewn about the Internet, which I eventually will compile and publish while lounging on my death bed.

I don’t know the vast history of passwords. I can only speak to my experience. Passwords began as simple words or phrases that were memorable to the user, like booger. Everything was wonderful – the users’ information was protected by booger. Eventually the assholic principle of entropy kicked in, (Inconvenience = Number of Assholes times Time divided by the Steady State of Wonderfulness, or I = NA*T/SSW) when assholes throughout the world had enough time to figure out people’s passwords. This drove paranoid rule makers to invent the mandatory periodic password change. The assholes caught up quickly so we had to create more intricate passwords, like booger1, and change them constantly like a newborn after eating a pureed burrito. This pattern spiraled out of control, degrading the meaningful password generation process to a banshee of incommode.

Recently, I was instructed by the words on my computer monitor to change the password I have for a system I pretend to work on at by job. Since this is the month of November, I changed my password from booger1008 to booger1108. In response to my attempt, the words on my monitor screamed, “I THINK NOT!” I was provided a list of password creating rules to which I must adhere, else not be able to fake work in a convincing manner. Below are the rules of my password bondage:

Your password must:

have at least 8 character(s)!

not be longer than 12 characters!

have upper and lower case characters!

have no more than 8 upper-case letter(s)!

have no more than 8 lower-case letter(s)!

have at least 2 letter(s)!

have a leading letter!

have at least 1 digit(s)!

not contain a dictionary word!

not contain an exact dictionary word match!

not be your username!

not be your username backwards!

not contain your username!

not contain your username backwards!

not be your username with the letters rearranged!

not be an old password!

have no more than 1 pair(s) of repeating characters!

not have 3 occurences of the same character!

not contain three or more consecutive characters from the login ID!

I fell asleep three times while reading the list. When I finally got through it, I tried using “Joshua” as my new password, hoping the security programmers were fans of War Games and let that one go, on a lark. Nope. They’re probably Short Circuit fans. Losers. In order to come up with a valid password, I had to take off my socks, haul out my abacus and dig up my alphabetic See ‘n Say. I still couldn’t come up with a valid password. They were kind enough to offer some suggestions, like k#D9i_p&. Ordinarily, I would have thought, there’s no way I’m going to remember that! Luckily, I was drunk last week and got k#D9i_p& tattooed on the ball of my foot. That’s fine for this month, but what about next month, when I’ll have to change the password again? I can’t keep getting drunk and getting tattooed. Or can I? Naaaah.

As convoluted as these password rules are, there are some interesting features. It’s basically a behavior study in people’s password choosing habits. Nobody likes coming up with new passwords, especially in this Nurse Ratched environment of security, so they’ll take as may shortcuts as possible – reusing words, respelling words, using the username, repeating the same letter (ffffffffffff), etc. I am proud of this outpouring of laziness. It’s good to know I am not the only one. Also, why is there an exclamation point after each rule? Are they yelling at me? Did somebody in the password rule meeting think, “We better put an exclamation point at the end of each one so they know we mean business!”? I guess the suggestion to place “It better fuckin’” in front of each rule (as in “It better fuckin’ not contain a dictionary word!”) didn’t make the cut. Speaking of the dictionary word rule, the words, “I”, “a”, “an”, “it”, “in”, “me” and others are all in the dictionary. Does that mean I can’t use those? I tested it and I can! E(at_Me!3 worked! So there, password Nazis! Do you know what else is in the dictionary? The word booger. They caught that one, however. Damn. Evidently, those exclamation points aren’t as stern as they appear. Or, maybe they intentionally mislead me with that rule so I wouldn’t try eating Saganaki until the flame was put out. It seems to work as well as the banana in Ernie’s ear keeping alligators away from Sesame Street. And I haven’t burned my face since they made the rule. I’ll let that one go.

Eventually we’ll be expected to use foreign languages in our passwords, and the assholes will catch up to that. Then we’ll be expected to invent our own languages for the passwords. The assholes will follow suit. We’ll create new fonts and characters. The assholes will figure them out. Do you see where this is going? Eventually we’ll get back around to being able to use booger, only using machine language, with sounds and smells thrown in. Then, and only then, will we be safe from the bad people.

Rock Star - July 6 Moist Rub

One death show down, one less more to go. Before I get into tonight’s show, there are a couple of things I would like to get off my chest. Gibly Clarke looks like Gene Simmons’ little brother. Tommy Lee plays fellatio with the microphone. I haven’t been nude since the day I was born.

We learned tonight that Lukas has not read The Doctrine of Cool. Just because I haven’t written it yet is no excuse. Or, he may have read it, but couldn’t understand it. Maybe he only knows how to read Sanskrit. The Doctrine of Cool has not yet been translated into Sanskrit.

I know the emergence of Lukas’s scurviness occurred later in the show, but I want to address it now. I understand that these reality shows think they need controversy to attract the rabble, who will choose to make purchases based on illusions of dastardly repute in the hopes of elevating their stature in the community by adopting that perceived image for themselves, but it is these occurrences that tilt the worldly vibe into the negative realm. Like the tiny algae in all of the seas adding more oxygen into our atmosphere than the greatest forests, it is these seemingly trivial unharmonious transgressions people commit that creates the epidemic of strife in this world, which is culminated in wars and other human feats of ignominy. Tonight (as it was aired), Lukas had the audacity, and the balls, to tell the rest of the rockers that many of them sucked in their first performances. Whether that is true or not, him stating that served no purpose other than to expose him as rotten type. I’m not saying he intentionally behaved that way to help sell the show, but the editors jumped all over it. Being a jag off isn’t going to help anybody win this thing. Seems like insecurity may have been the impetus behind this assault. And I was just thinking about starting to root for the little fella, too. Then this happened. Maybe he is suffering from some Napoleonitits.

But, Moist, you may say, you are pretty much a dick when writing about this show. Isn’t that the same thing as what Lukas did? Aren’t you contributing to the universal bad karma precipitation? Yes, you might think so if you thought I was serious about any of this. But, I’m just goofing around. And the batty banter I spew forth is a necessary release for those of us trying to deal with the likes of Lukas, who is trying to bring everybody down. Yes, I am saying that Lukas, and Lukas alone, is responsible for the living hell we are all enduring. But, I’m still kinda rooting for him, the little bugger. After he told everybody they sucked, he said he loved them. I wonder if his dad used to burn him with cigarettes and then let him finish the butt.

Instead of reviewing the mindless chat between Suave Porn and the rockers (it’s the same crap they always say), I now ask you to forget about that so we can add some positive power to balance out the negativity we’ve just experienced. Take a moment to think about somebody you care about that you haven’t seen in a while. Now, think about the giant smile they’ll have when xe receives The Rat’s Ass you send to xe. Yeah, that’s it. Live the dream. You are a good person.

One thing worth noting is that Lukas, who caused all this strife by originally asking Dana who she thought the bottom three would be, finally fessed up to tell us he thought it would be Chris, Dana and Jenny. Dave respected that – the venerable Lukas. As we’ll find out, Lukas is about as good as picking the bottom three as I am. Before we can spit out the toothpaste, Tommy Lee demanded an encore. Of course, he chose Dilana, because she threatened him with a rattlesnake in the parking lot after the show last night.

Dilana chose the same sociopathic, hooded, petrified mummy approach to her performance as she did last night. This time, her outfit came equipped with Grim Reaper sleeves, which she displayed for mating purposes in the second verse. That initiated Tommy Lee’s response behavior of dousing himself in urine. If they consummated, the footage didn’t make the show. Look for it on the Internet in a couple of weeks. Again, Dilana finished the song by scurrying manic all over the stage. She used the Curly Shuffle meets Jazzercise technique. I hope she’s got some other stage moves. It’s a little embarrassing. Dilana was thoroughly enthused by the end of the song, only to be squashed by Brooke, who seemed a little jealous of her energy, by saying, “It doesn’t mean you’re not it the bottom three, you pierced hell bitch!”

Everybody stand up for the bottom three boogie
It gets kinda scary, you may need your woogie
You better hope and pray you got the votes
Or you’ll be back on the farm milking goats

You sit down,
You stand up,
You sit down,
I’m a gonna throw up…

{guitar solo}

{fade to black}

Suave Porn’s first hit single – The Bottom Three Boogie.

The bottom three were Chris, Phil and Ryan, no, Zayra, no Matt. That crazy Brooke. She got me! What a cad!

They changed the elimination show from last year by allowing the death row rockers to choose their own songs. Darn, I was looking forward to hearing Mystify again. I think this is an improvement, since it allows Suave Porn to gage where these rockers are coming from musically.

First up was Chris. He entered the stage, fresh from the stylist with a new body wave in his hair (I liked it better than the straight hair, and yes, I might be). He chose LA Woman, by The Doors. This was a pretty safe choice, because Jim Morrison wasn’t the most dynamic singer in the world (sorry Kristy), and Doors songs are easier to sing than the warbling of Sting. Chris was able to find a groove with this song. His voice provided more energy than his body did. He was a little stoic on stage. But, he sounded good, although he could have been a little louder. He’s got a nice stature up there when he’s in his element. The spitting of the bottled water on the audience seemed choreographed, if not plain rude. He was safe.

Next, Brooke called Phil to the stage, who proceed to molest her. He had gone to the same stylist as Chris, and his wavy locks gave him man-confidence. She gave him a “get your geeky, dejected hands off me” glance as they switched the camera to Suave Porn for their comments. When the shot returned to the stage, Phil had his hands to himself and a black eye.

OK, I’ll admit it, I’m old and he was mumbling, so I don’t know what song he did. He sounded better than he did last night with Cult of Personality, which he claims he didn’t suck at. That’s good, and Gibly agreed, but there are a lot of people that don’t suck, Phil. You want to strive to be the best don’t sucker. You should have told Suave Porn that. Tommy Lee would have understood it (more than he understands good English, anyway). Phil immersed himself in this song, but he was a little pouty, which is annoying. The bottom line is he is too wimpy for this band, but he performed well enough to stick around for another week. I will give him credit for a decent scream at the end of the song. And he made another play at Brooke, giving her a nose jab in the cheek. You dog, Phil. YOU DOG!

Finally, Matt doused himself with gasoline and lit a Duran Duran match. They discussed his weenie song choice from last night, although Jason dug it. But, Suave Porn demanded some meat. Some good, hard pounding, rock and roll steak. I was pleading, Foghat, Foghat, Foghat, Foghat, it’s your calling, Matt. Summon the spirit of Lonesome Dave, Foghat DAGNABBIT! A little I Just Wanna Make Love To You would have fed their rockin’ hunger. My begging was futile. Luckily, he chose the next best thing when asked to get heavy – Duran Duran. I have all of their cd’s and they are all filed in the Death Metal section of my catalog, of course. It didn’t matter. He can’t bring the rock. This boy does not have the pipes to deliver what Suave Porn needs. He pretty much blows. Bop bop bop bop ba bop bop bop bop ba bop bop bop bop ba bye. And to think, I picked him to win it all in the preseason. I must be a moron.

So, Tommy pulled out his axe and lopped off Matt. He is not Fricken Huge for our band, Suave Porn. On his way out, Matt claimed that the members of Suave Porn were his heroes growing up and that he had all of them on his wall. I guess the poster of Duran Duran was just a little bigger. I am ashamed that he claims to be from Chicago. Marty must be rolling over in his bus bunk screaming, “Give me my shoes back!!!”

It appears that Chris may have salvaged himself from the Roxanne debacle (but I liked it, sort of), and Phil saved himself to flop his arms around on stage next week. If Chris loosens up a little, he may have a shot. One disconcerting observation, however, was the site of Dilana crying when Matt got aborted. So which is it, are you a screeching, ass kicking, metal babe, or a frail flower petal cowering behind a hood? Suave Porn should take note of this behavior. Are they prepared to cope with such bipolarism? If they are all typical males, I would say not.