Color bars are the bane of my existence. If you’re unfamiliar with them, they’re these stupid theme graphics that sad little teenage girls use to decorate their MySpace profiles and LiveJournal user info pages and they look like this:
 
 

Linday Lohan is love.

Labyrinth is love.

      As you can see, the name “color bar” is derived from the fact that they use several themed graphics in a red-orange-yellow-green-blue-purple progression of colors. Each one is also accompanied by a sentence that contains the phrase “is love”. Some of the more pretentious ones include additional adjectives, for example a Boy Meets World color bar might be chaperoned by this phrase: “Boy Meets World is Feenyfied love.” The damn things make no fucking sense whatsoever; very few of the images ever have anything to do with love. I have spared you the horror of the absolute worst ones, which are just rainbow montages of shirtless Johnny Depps and Orlando Blooms.

      I really don’t see the point of this crap. Labyrinth is one of my all-time favorite movies, but I would never feel the need to display a retarded little graphic in my profile promoting it and if by some chance I did, I still wouldn’t try to classify the movie as the embodiment of love. There’s something dreadfully creepy and Orwellian about throwing around the word “love” for no good reason. Being a realist, I know that I can never fully destroy these stupid fucking IS LOVE color bars, but I *can* wage war against theme with a NEW line of color bars. To replace the pussy ass bullshit color bars that plague the internet, let me introduce my line of IS MURDER color bars:
 
 

Scanners is telepathic exploding head murder.

To use this color bar, copy and paste the following code onto your page:
<center><a href="http://www.sydlexia.com/news/?p=127" target=_blank><img src="http://www.sydlexia.com/blogstuff/scannersmurder.png" alt="Fear Darryl Revok" border="0"/><br /></a>Scanners is telepathic exploding head murder.</center>

Ford Fairlane is sexist murder.

To use this color bar, copy and paste the following code onto your page:
<center><a href="http://www.sydlexia.com/news/?p=127" target=_blank><img src="http://www.sydlexia.com/blogstuff/fordfairlaneismurder.png" alt="Here's to you... sucking my dick!" border="0"/><br /></a>Ford Fairlane is sexist murder.</center>

Mario is murder.

To use this color bar, copy and paste the following code onto your page:
<center><a href="http://www.sydlexia.com/news/?p=127" target=_blank><img src="http://www.sydlexia.com/blogstuff/mario_is_murder.png" alt="Hosted by SydLexia.com" border="0"/><br /></a>Mario is murder.</center>

 
      I might make some more, but until then, I implore everyone out there to make their own. Please note that just like the IS LOVE color bars, your color bar is not required to actually depict any sort of murder; my Ford Fairlane bar is an example of this. Anyone can get free image hosting through Photobucket, so you really don’t have any excuse not to make some. In addition to fighting gayness, this campaign strives to bring meaning back to the phrase “IS MURDER”. Whiny little animal rights activists and war protesters have had been bandying these words about like there’s no tomorrow. It’s time for REAL men to finally take them back. Murder isn’t something as trivial as fur, meat, or oil; it’s Freddy Fucking Krueger. Now get to work.

      I have added my brother, Dr. Jeebus, as adjunct faculty for the site. Subsequently, his first article is now up. Read it or he’s fired.

      So I am back once again with yet another installment of Fun With Search Engines. This, the 35th episode, will cover the week from September 18th – 24th. For readers unfamiliar with FWSE, it is a weekly report where I review some of the keywords that visitors to my site typed into search engines. What, you thought that information was private? Fuck no! So if your IP is 69.33.233.130, I’d just like everyone to know that you were searching for Blaze Fielding hentai, you fucking jackass. And now, on with the show:

1. the real rob zombie – The “real” Rob Zombie, what the fuck does that mean? He’s not Eminem, motherfucker.

2. prehistoric cavemen – Isn’t this phrase sort of redundant? There are no posthistoric cavemen, are there? Ted Nugent does *not* count.

3. 20 best nes games – Well, here’s the exact opposite of that. So if you want to play one of the absolute best NES games out there, you simply have to figure out what game is the total opposite of Friday the 13th. Sunday Funday, maybe? Wait, that’s not any good either.

4. hey hey ho lyrics – That could be anything, you stupid fuck. There’s only about A BILLION FUCKING SONGS that use hey and ho as lyrics, the most famous one being The Ramones’ Blitzkrieg Bop. Hey! Ho! Let’s move on!

5. dominatrixes in massachusetts – Dear God… I had blocked this search out my head after FWSE #17 and now it’s back. Fan-fucking-tastic!

6. longest video on mtv – The longest video ever to run on MTV is called “Total Shit”. It started running sometime before the year 2000 and it hasn’t ended yet.

7. mortal kombat whomp ‘em – Hmmm… A Soaring Eagle/Nightwolf comparison might be a worthwhile endeavor, but I’m not up for it right now.

      Well, that’s that. See you next week, unless I don’t.

      Long before I finally got off my ass and founded SydLexia.com, there was a site called Seanbaby.com that provided web surfers with hilarious pop culture content. I would hope that it comes as no surprise when I say that his NES articles were one of my primary sources of inspiration to finally put together a site and share my take on various things. Back when it was updated regularly, Seanbaby’s site was one of the best around. Unfortunately for us, Seanbaby has moved on to other projects such as writing for EGM and appearing on G4TV. If by some sad chance you’ve only seen Seanbaby on the video game channel, you have seen a boring and largely unfunny PG-13 version of a guy who has written some of the best video game commentary ever. The classic content is all still up, but the lack of updates has really hurt his site. And today, for the first time in history, SydLexia.com has overtaken Seanbaby.com in the Alexa site rankings:
 

 
      Come back, Seanbaby. Come back.

      You know what I absolutely fucking hate? When I’m watching Comedy Central or a rerun of The Simpsons and some a PSA comes on showing me pictures of some little kid or teenage girl that got murdered by a drunk driver. It’s sad and all, but IT’S NOT MY FUCKING PROBLEM. I had turned on the TV so that I could be amused, but some self-righteous asshole decided to buy ad time during my favorite shows and hit me with that shit. It’s pretty damn hard to enjoy a comedy when you have to deal with depressing crap like that during the commercial breaks. You know, there should be laws against running PSAs during comedy programming because it’s not fucking fair to the viewers. There are a lot of people in the world who are irresponsible assholes, but I’m not one of them. We shouldn’t have to see all this preachy shit about drunk driving on TV, because the vast majority of people who watch TV aren’t worthless piles of dog turd who do Jell-O shots and then decide to get behind the wheel of a car. And the people who *are* that stupid probably don’t really give a shit. I’m sick of MADD and these other assholes trying to lay guilt trips on me when a) it’s not my fucking fault and b) there’s nothing I can do about these dead kids. As much as I hate animal rights activists, the drunk driving groups could learn a lot from them. How often do you see PETA on your TV whining about animal cruelty during your favorite shows? If the answer isn’t “never”, then it’s “almost never”. That’s because PETA is better organized than that. Rather than yell at the general public over the airwaves, they go down to burger joints or slaughterhouses and harass people there. That’s called TARGETING. If MADD, SADD, and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America want to help their cause, they should bring their message to rehab centers, AA meetings, and bars. Unfortunately, they’re too goddam stupid to do that.

      As much as I hate seeing dead kids on my TV for no good reason, I hate drunk drivers even more. The laws in place to punish drunk drivers are nowhere near harsh enough. I propose that we institute a law called “Three Strikes And No Balls”. Here’s how it works: if you are caught driving under the influence three times, the government gets to forcibly sterilize you. I think that’s fair and reasonable. As a repeat drunk driver, you don’t really deserve to live, but you haven’t done anything that warrants death either. But you definitely don’t deserve to ever have children because if you can’t figure out that drinking and driving is a terrible combination, then you certainly won’t be able to figure out all the nuances of raising a healthy, happy, socially responsible child. No, you’re gonna raise a fuck-up and the world doesn’t need any more of those. And if you already have children, you will never get to see them again. Ever. In fact, if you even say the word “children” after you’ve been sterilized for your dangeroulsy retarded behavior, anyone who hears you say it gets to punch you in the face as hard as they can. Note that up until this point, I have just been talking about people who commit standard DUI infractions. If you actually kill someone while driving drunk, I have concocted a special living hell for you. As it stands, the law is far too lax in this instance. I live in a state where we didn’t punish the man responsible for our most infamous drunk driving death at all; we made him a U.S. Senator. Most drunk drivers who kill only get charged with vehicular manslaughter. I think there should be a mandatory minimum charge of second degree murder in cases where drunk driving is involved. I would also argue that it should be considered first degree murder. Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, knows that if you drink and drive, you are absolutely not safe behind the wheel of a vehicle. So if you go to a bar, club, or party with the express intent of getting smashed and without a clear plan of how you will safely get yourself home, then your drunk driving is premeditated. Since you know that death is a possible, if not likely, outcome of drunk driving, then any life that you take is also premeditated. So in most cases, murder one should be the charge and with it comes the possibility of the death penalty. Do I support the death penalty for drunk driving deaths? Hell yes, I do. And none of that lethal injection shit, that’s for pussies. The punishment shall be death by a firing squad comprised entirely of the seeing impaired. I’m not saying they have to be blind, but if they can read the lower lines on an eye chart, they can’t be on the squad. Imagine, some murderous drunk could be tied to the shooting post for as long as an hour while near-blind executioners keep missing his vital organs. That would be absolutely glorious. The family of your victim would also have the chance to maim you 24 hours before your execution. If you somehow only get charged with second degree murder, I have a special punishment for you as well. The average lifespan is what, 85 years? I propose that however many years you took from your victim, you lose that many off of your life. So if you kill someone who’s 20, you lose 65 years and I’m not talking about a jail sentence here. Remember the torture machine from The Princess Bride? I think we need something like that. Science has found ways to prolong our lives and defy the aging process; I bet it could be used to do the opposite as well. Also, there would be a minimum punishment of 10 years. So if you kill some old lady who’s like 90, you don’t beat the system. And if you injure but do not kill someone, you get the business end of Hammurabi’s Code, the old “an eye for an eye” treatment. There have been people who have been horribly burned or scarred in car crashes because of drunk drivers, I can think of no better punishment than exact retribution. So that’s my plan. If you disagree, you’re wrong.

      The reason that drunk driving PSAs don’t stop drunk drivers is because they attempt to use guilt and human suffering to shame people into doing the right thing. While that sort of emotional appeal will have an effect on any decent human being, most alcoholics are too fucking busy feeling sorry for themselves to cry over some dead kid that they don’t know. No, if you really want to reach these bastards, you have to threaten them. You have to instill them with a terror so deep that it supercedes their genetic impulses. A terror like my Italian switchblade knife. With its 7″ handle and 6″ stiletto blade, it is definitely not something to be fucked with. If you want to teach Johnny Fratboy not to drink and drive, this is the type of poster that you should hang up on campus:

I think that gets the point across nicely, don’t you?

      That’s right, it’s time once again for Fun With Search Engines. Unlike other recent editions of FWSE, this one isn’t coming to you a week or more after the primary data was collected. So that’s nice, right? For anyone currently unaware of Fun With Search Engines, it’s a weekly SydLexia.com where I review some of the keywords that visitors to this site typed into search engines such as Google and Yahoo. This report is for the week starting 9/11/05 and ending 9/17/05. As always, these are all real searches; I have not made them up.

1. kristin cavalleri naked – Maybe someday. That is the only proper use for her.

2. tmnt iv movie – Dear Christ, please no. TMNT3 was really, really not good. I don’t know where they could possibly go for IV and I don’t want to see Ninja Turtles doing stuff that doesn’t involve living in sewers and fighting Shredder ever again. Anyway, the heroes on the halfshell aren’t popular enough that they’d do another live action movie. If there was a feature length TMNT adventure, it would be a direct-to-video animated movie based on the more recent series.

3. mario fucking peach for 1 up – Yes, yes, we’ve all seen it. Har dee fucking har. I wouldn’t even really call that fucking, it’s more like dry humping.

4. preteens fucking preteens – As if this search wasn’t vile enough on its own, it came on September 11th. That’s right, when most people were remembering one of the worst terrorist attacks in history, some asshole was looking for highly illegal and disgusting porn. If you’re out reading this, you goddam son of a bitch, I want you to consider this: the crazed Islam fundamentalists who attacked America on 09/11/01 find Britney Spears videos to be inappropriate to the point of vulgarity. Can you even begin to imagine what they’d do if they got their hands on YOU?

5. jill valentine hentai – Much like Phoebe Cates in Gremlins, Jill Valentine does not have time to get nude and lewd because she’s too busy running for her life. Also, she has to conserve ammo. I don’t know how that’s relevant to what I was just talking about, but it’s true nonetheless.

6. elecman hitler – Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks that Elecman is giving the ol’ Seig Heil.

 
7. how to gemini man – Let’s pretend for a minute that Gemini Man is a verb. OK, I can solve this problem. In order to properly Gemini Man, one must split himself into two copies, one real and one fake, and then run around like a fucking retard until someone kills you with Search Snakes.

      FWSE #34 has ended, so the time has come again for us to say goodbye. Tune in next week when Fun With Search Engines might suck just a little less. In the meantime, here’s a comic.

      Another new comic is up and it stars Hurricane Katrina, President Bush, and Hurricane Katrina. Also, Hurricane Katrina is mentioned. Unlike President Bush, I will not apologize for my delayed response to Hurricane Katrina. Well, unless I get flamed.

      Before I start with Fun With Search Engines, I have two quick news updates:

      A new comic went up Friday. Those of you on MySpace may already be aware of this.

      The Whomp ‘Em article that went up last week is actually finished now: captions, conclusions, everything. Well, except for the proofreading part.

      And now, without further delay, welcome to the 33rd installment of Fun With Search Engines. For anyone reading this who is as of yet unfamiliar with FWSE, it is a weekly report that I do where I review some of keywords that visitors to my site typed into search engines. This report is for the week starting September 4th and ending September 10th. As always, none of these keywords have been faked. And now, it’s go time:

1. kristin cavalleri – Despite there being absolutely NO CONTENT involving her on the site, Kristin Cavallari has become one of my most popular search terms. I feel kinda bad for the fucking retards who come here looking for information on Kristin Cavallari only to find that there is, in fact, no information on Kristin Cavallari to be found here. I feel like the witch from Hansel and Gretel, luring unsuspecting teenage girls to my website made of gingerbread. Only when the girls get here, there’s no gingerbread and no Kristin Cavallari, and then I eat them. And no, not in the way that they might enjoy.

2. wizards and warriors sprites nes – What a silly internet user. I researched this extensively, and Sprite never did a promotion involving Wizards & Warriors or any other Nintendo game. That’s not particularly surprising though, because, like, how could you even ATTEMPT to fit an NES cartridge into a Sprite can?

3. skinnamarink motions – Make up your own, no one will ever know the difference. But the one key movement that I remember from it is when you make an ‘L’ with your hands by resting your elbow in the palm of your other hand.

4. unsafe nickelodeon’s – Unless this person was referring to the Nickelodeon Moon Shoes, I have no idea what the fuck this means.

5. hulk hogan’s wife – is kind of annoying. She came off as a total bitch in that episode of Hogan Knows Best where they found out they had more pets than the town allowed.

6. gifs snk index php – That ain’t no way to search, son. That ain’t no way to search.

a boy and his blob plot – OK, here: an albino blob with the unfortunately cheesy name of Blobert who leaves his home planet of Blobonia in hopes of finding someone who can supply him with the weapons necessary to overthrow the planet’s evil emperor. He comes to Earth where he meets a young Nicolas Cage who just begun dealing both guns and jellybeans. Together Blobert and the Lord of War

      As you may have heard, incompetent city workers caused a major power outage in LA earlier today… and it turns out that the company who I pay to host my site, Dreamhost, are located in the Los Angeles area. So if you tried to visit the site earlier and it was down, that’s why. But I’m back. Rejoice.

      Sorry for the lack of new content on the main page, I’m working on two articles right now and if all goes well then one will be up tomorrow and the other one will be up Saturday. Unfortunately, my progress has been slowed by problems with my network adapter. Earlier this week, my adapter decided to stop connecting to connecting to the wireless network that I’m actually paying for and started connecting to one of my neighbor’s wireless networks instead. So while I have internet access, it is unnecessarily slow and that slows down the entire process. Uploading images for articles and saving my drafts sometimes takes minutes instead of seconds and when that happens I start to lose my focus and desire to write.

      But as I said, I’m toughing it out and I’ll have something for you sometime tomorrow. Thank you for your patience in this matter.

      Welcome to a very special double episode of Fun With Search Engines. And what makes it special? How about the fact that I’m a lazy ass and I skipped a week. So this edition of FWSE will cover from the two weeks between August 21st and September 3rd. For anyone just joining us, FWSE is a (usually) weekly feature where I review some of the queries that visitors to my site typed into search engines. Some of them are funny, some of them are weird, and some of them are both. Some of them are also very mundane. I try and pick out some of the best ones to share, but going through hundreds of search engines queries takes forever, so that doesn’t always happen. Anyway, let’s go. Are you excited? I’m excited.

1. mousetrap game example unnecessarily complicated machine – It’s an example of a Rube Goldberg device. Other famous examples include Doc Brown’s dog-feeding machine from Back To The Future or Pee Wee’s breakfast machine from Peewee’s Big Adventure. There was probably also at least one Rube Goldberg device in Chairman of the Bored, but fuck you if you think I’m gonna watch it again to confirm.

2. japanese schoolgirls like candy – NEWS FLASH: Everyone fucking likes candy. Even diabetics, that’s why so many of them die. And if anime is any indication of the truth, then Japanese schoolgirls like many other things besides candy. Like getting penetrated in every orifice at once with candy. And that’s why I hate the Japanese; they can take two awesome things (candy, hot girls in short skirts) and turn it into a scary ball of awfulness.

3. hulk yell low – Maybe I’m mistaken to think this, but when I see those words, I think of famed wrestler Hulk Hogan whose tradmark colors were red and YELLOW. If so, that is the absolute saddest attempt to spell yellow since Coca-Cola’s Mountain Dew rip-off

4. cleaning 8 bit games – Back in the day, the classic method for cleaning games was blowing into the cartridge. This is actually bad for them and Nintendo later warned against it in N64 instruction manuals. The correct method for cleaning cartridges involves Q-Tips and rubbing alcohol. Or you can buy the official NES cleaning kit which is just a more expensive version of the method above. So uh, don’t buy it.

5. samus aran hentai – How would tell be able to tell it was Samus if she wasn’t wearing her trademark suit? You know, the one that covers all her naughty bulbous areas?

6. scientology sucks – I agree (with apologies to Tom Cruise and John Travolta).

7. moonwalker is a video game – False! I mean true! It’s true! Fuck, I always get this question wrong.

8. emo band names – It amuses me that a random joke that has very little to do with the site is now scoring me some hits.

9. make a ninja mask not from a t shirt – Uh, WHAT!? I was unaware that you make t-shirts into ninja masks at all. Apparently you can and this search query seems to imply that it is such a predominat source of ninja masks that one needs to specifically search for ninja masks NOT made from them. I’m scared and confused by this search. No wait, I’m largely apathetic to it.

10. strawberries smell – Lots of things smell, you dumbass.

      And I’m done with this. Tune in next week when I just might smash my keyboard in disgust. If that happens, expect pictures and a PayPal link to follow.