Just. Stop. It.

One popular trend that has been annoying the hell out of me for quite some time is the resurgence of roller derby. I find its very existence to be an incredible joke, and I recoil every time I see a poster advertising a bunch of scantily-clad butch girls on wheels.

My knee-jerk reaction to this pseudo sport comes from the idea that it is somehow an empowering feminist movement. The women involved in roller derby have convinced themselves that this is some sort of grrrl power statement, when the reality couldn't be further from the truth.

I mean, a bunch of girls dress up in fishnets and catholic school girl skirts, skate around in circles, and try to bash the hell out of one another while a bunch of dudes swill cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and whoop from the sidelines.

Most roller derby "fans" are middle-aged boys who come for the promise of watching girls rough up one another. The sex-and-violence combo is just a new twist on the pop culture bitch fight.

Columnist Mike Seate of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review agrees. After writing a critical roller derby article, he was inundated by hate mail. He "just didn't get it" he was told--didn't see the power and promise of all this female empowerment zipping around the oval. But that wasn't the problem at all....he got it. He got it all too well:

"When I took in a modern roller derby bout in California a while back, the audience was mostly male and smiled at all the exposed female flesh. It brought to mind a visit to Daytona Beach where an entertainment promoter insisted I write a detailed, sympathetic feature on something called "Foxxy Boxxing." This, along with "Nude Cole-Slaw Wrasslin'" contests had made the promoter a very wealthy man. These "sports," if you will, also made many of the guys in Daytona very happy."

Seate's assessment of roller derby falls nicely into line with the origins of the so-called sport. The first derby was organized in 1935 by a sports promoter named Leo A. Seltzer. His intent was actually kind of cool--to skate 57,000 laps, equaling the distance across the United States. Ergo, the term "derby."

These early efforts were co-ed, with teams composed of one man and one woman. Two years later, a journalist by the name of Damon Runyon commented that roller derby's highlights were the collisions. So the game was changed to single-sex, with men and women alternating time on the rink. Rather than working in tandem, the skaters' roles shifted to offensive and defensive.

The "evolution" of roller derby continued into the seventies, where that generation took their cues from professional wrestling. This is where the goofy names and blustering talk originated, and the time frame that is being regenerated today.

During this period, roller derby was televised. It was further popularized by the film "Kansas City Bomber," starring the sexpot Raquel Welch.

While roller derby participants attempt to meld the kitsch of pro wrestling and the sex kitten appeal of Welch, in reality they tend to fall into two categories: the butch girls who enjoy a good contact sport, and the attention-whore girls who like the little costumes and the tattooed boys on the sidelines.

In either case, most of these chicks aren't people that I would necessarily want to see "scantily-clad." Let's face it: roller derby attracts some big girls.

Suffice to say that the titillating aspect of roller derby is lost on me. The girls who come to it from the side of "I want to parade around in a short skirt and have guys look up my skirt when I fall" strike me as women who, if given the chance, would feel the need to validate themselves by swinging around a pole. Except that no one is willing to proffer their dollar bills for the g-string collection.


A friend told me that trying to write an article about why roller derby annoys me would be like authoring a piece akin to "man, I'm so sick of that Huey Lewis!" And in a way, he's right. So how did this resurgence come about?

Like everything else, I blame misplaced irony. Roller derby was, at best, a fringe sport even in its heyday. This lack of popularity makes it an ideal framework for the Fatty Page crowd, a reference to the overweight girls who mistakenly identify their own bodies to the curves of '50s fetish model Bettie Page.

But I also blame a bizarrely twisted take on feminism at the root of this resurgence. Roller derby girls classify their activities as risk-taking, challenging, and some sort of fuck-you to the 'establishment.' While they vehemently argue that there are no overt sex-as-a-weapon elements, every roller derby team makes mention of its extensive use of fishnets, knee-socks, hotpants and tiny tops. Oh, and beating the hell out of other girls.


To me, this is just juvenile pussy power..."Hey, I need attention. I'm going to direct your attention to my vagina and then be offended when you notice. That's mine. MINE. Now back to my vagina."

I mean, roller derby hasn't exactly been endorsed by Gloria Steinem and plastered to the cover of Ms. magazine.

I stumbled across a fellow blogger's take on roller derby, and found some indominable truths in her words. Words that the roller derby girls found and came back to mock her as a "frigid spinster." Go go girl power!

"The “sport” is only nominally about skating....it’s actually about...sex. That’s right, sex, only not real sex, such as the kind we could all be having if Hugh Hefner hadn’t ruined it for everybody, but phony sex as defined by the horndog ideology of the pornocracy. The roller derby is an example of...a non-penetrative, G-rated, but nevertheless two-dimensional, stereotypical, and bogus picture of female sexuality generated from an amorphous plasma of cultural misogyny. It’s kindergarten burlesque."

So if you want to skate around in a sexualized version of kids' clothing while grubby dudes howl, that is surely your prerogative. But don't try to tart it up and call it something that it's not. Because tits and ass and girl fights do not a movement make.

"Fair" to Whom?

Liabilities and restrictions on property owners have been continually litigated in U.S. courts. Perhaps the most severe law that affects property owners is the so-called "Fair Housing" Act.

By definition, Fair Housing prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of dwellings, and in other housing-related transactions, based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status (including children under the age of 18 living with parents of legal custodians, pregnant women, and people securing custody of children under the age of 18), and handicap (disability)."

Last week, a friend in the midwest went to post a "for rent" ad in the local weekly. As he included the specifics of that property to the newspaper office, he included, "no pets," thinking of his expensive hardwood floors. The classifieds operator quickly corrected him, saying, "No pets except for service animals." Because, obviously, his town has decided that pet urine/feces/scratching is endemic to discriminating against the "differently abled."

Several years ago, I rented out one of our properties to a military family with two hyperactive toddlers. When they broke their lease due to an overseas transfer, I walked through the building to find the toddlers had taken a black permanent marker to no fewer than ten white walls and two wood doors.

When I deducted the re-paint (it takes three coats to cover Sharpie, BTW) and door replacement from their security deposit, I received over a dozen phone calls from a military lawyer at their overseas base, who was threatening to sue my family if his clients did not receive a full refund. Of course, I had to pay our attorney hundreds of dollars to tell me, "It's not worth it. Return the money." I was also inadvertently paying for their attorney, who, courtesy of the U.S. military system, was representing the couple on the tax dime.

Particularly offensive to me was that I couldn't get a handyman to come paint in time to rent the following month. So I spent three evenings after work doing the work myself, charging them only for the necessary materials. If I had hired someone, their deposit would not have covered the entire cost of the work.

Since then, I am loath to rent to families with children. They're hard on properties. Same with pets. But I can't come out and say that, and the whole process frustrates me so that I've offloaded that part of my obligation to a family member with more free time.

But with the numerous restrictions that property owners experience, why should we be hampered with this Fair Housing nonsense? After all, in jurisdictions around the country, property owners are held liable for gang and drug activity conducted on their premises; it is becoming increasingly common for communities to pass legislation that forbids property owners from renting to illegal immigrants.

Ironically, except for a handful of states and cities with sexual discrimination laws, it is still acceptable to print "no gays." Personally, I find this highly offensive.

While the government wants to induct us into some sort of citizen police patrol, there are no guidelines for this. How would I know if the charming "student" that I might rent to is actually planning to cook meth in the basement? How would I know if the seemingly normal young couple are gang members? If the lady with an accent is a legal citizen?

So, in reality, various governments are forcing me to discriminate against housing applicants. But I can't say that one house is "within walking distance to a prominent synagogue" because it somehow implies that I'm looking for a Jewish tenant.

Now, the left-wing nation of Kalifornia wants to expand Fair Housing to roommate and house-share situations. As of today, it is still legal for me to write an ad that says just about any damn thing if I'm looking to share my own space with another human.

Enter bureaucrats and lawsuits:

"The Fair Housing Council of the San Fernando Valley and the Fair Housing Council of San Diego are suing the popular website roommates.com for violating federal anti-discrimination law by allowing ads that express roommate preferences. The ads cited in the lawsuit—presumably the worst of the bunch—include one requesting “no drugs, kids, or animals” and one that specifies “no psychos or anyone on mental medication.” Another advertiser writes that he would “prefer a Christian male, no women allowed in home, living for Christ.'"

While a similar lawsuit against Craigslist was dismissed by the U.S. District Court in Chicago, this new suit is headed through the notoriously left-wing Ninth Circuit. So I'm guessing there's a 60-40 chance the plaintiffs will win.

Why??? WHY?!?!? I don't want to even consider sharing my home with a nineteen-year old ecstacy-popping nightclub DJ. Similarly, I don't want to rent any of our properties to crazed breeders with an overwhelming sense of entitlement.

And why should I?!?!? I'm liable for their behavior; I'm liable if they hurt themselves on the property; I'm liable for the damage and destruction they may cause. So why do the legislative and judicial branches continually hamstring property owners?

In short, rather than expanding Fair Housing, I'd prefer to see the courts strike down Fair Housing. Because this isn't a national issue. It's a homeowner issue. And, as the Ninth Circuit will decide, it's an issue of how we live our lives in peace and security behind closed doors.

The government can't have it both ways. They can't decide that those who hold legal liability, whether a homeowner or lease holder, cannot mitigate said liability.

Thank You

Some folks around the blogosphere have made me laugh when referencing this blog. To them, I'd like to extend a hearty Thank You for reading, appreciating and passing along the rants compiled in these pages.

I'm just now having some morning caffeine (and of course, still going through terrible vacation-and-rum withdrawls!) so please forgive me when I inevitably blow it and forget to include someone. I will amend this list posthaste if that's the case. (Of course, the list has been growing all day, and I'm sure will only continue to!)

In reverse chronological order, I'd like to thank the following bloggers...

DumbMonkey, for saying "The best fuckin' weblog name is the known universe: TwelveYearsOfBeingAnnoyedByChloeSevignyDotCom"

Benoit™ correctly pointed out that he waved a red cape in front of the ExUrb's, calling an early Casey post "a viciously anti-Serin blog post." Which is, of course, how I met some of the funniest folk on the internet.

There's a random mention of "The Casey Serin Project" post in the Motley Fool blog site. Not sure how I landed there, but thanks just the same!

What Casey Means to Say, remarking on my Casey Serin Primer that "I wish I could write this well." That one made me blush.

Alex, when we swapped off stories and info for posts during a crazy week, said "I've cleaned up the content a tad, as Aspeth has been known to make sailors blush." Nice!

This post at Torcie's Place mentions Twelve Years in the periphery, but it's incredibly funny, and has to be quoted: "An interesting drama is unfolding with the SerinBlogWars. Chief antagonist seems to be Nigel Swaby. As far as I can work out he's a petty little nobody that wants to be part of the cool kids. Cool kids seems to be the posters at Exurban Nation....He really reminds me of an old flatmate - aka Peabody, cus he was such a contemptible little twat. Yes twat, the worst thing about living with Peabody was the feeling of contempt you had to deal with every day."

Lucidiocy, who said that "Aspeth has a knack for investigative journalism; acerbic and sardonic, she loves to pin the bad guys to the page." Plus, she gave me the cool award emblem below, as a part of her "Five Blogs that Make Me Think."

Akubi, for playing the role of stalking paparazzi. Looks like she snapped that pic when "I" was about to eat it.

PMSPMS™©®, who kindly picked up on the fact that I am desperately challenged when it comes to taking photos of any interest and stepped in to fill the void.

Rob Dawg said this about the multi-part piece on Casey Serin's saved links: "Aspeth's sweet blog is worth a look. I'm not interested in delving into Caseyworld™ beyond whipping out my spray can and declaring the the area a dead zone. Aspeth does a great job going back and showing what we have long known; Casey is not the bumbling stooge of his IAFF persona."

Sprezzatura has labeled this blog "Aspeth's Funshack," which is making me giggle even as I type it. There's a whole world of loaded context in there that makes me want to jump with delight!

Thank you, one and all. And let me know if I missed anyone!


Now, onto Lucidiocy's meme of "Five Blogs That Make Me Think."

1. Checkraise. John's a rock star of a writer who can post a topic that will simultaneously piss off the fundies and lefties alike. He's not a troll writer...it's just that so much of what he says is so absolutely spot on.

2. Visual Samit. Samit Roy creates incredible images and designs. I do not create from a visual standpoint, but I am wowed by what people with this makeup are able to produce.

3. The Science of Apathy. Well written and funny with unique topics that range from technology to the mundane intricacies of daily life.

4. ExUrbanNation. Of course. Rob is uniquely qualified to offer insightful commentary to trends and issues that affect us all. Some of the smartest people in i-net world have found their way over there and set up a second home, while a good time is had by all.

5. While not technically a blog, I still have to include Reason. I hate to admit it, because it will make someone who reads this far too smug (you know who you are), but this is an all too rare example of good writing and astonishingly critical thinking. The subscription tagline says it all: "Offend Leftists. Annoy Conservatives." This is a mission that I admire.

(El Smuggo would like to point out that Reason's blog is "Hit and Run."

So there.

Just Wondering

It's a beautiful thing to spend some time away from media and information. But it hits you immediately upon return, thanks to the banks and banks of televisions that are bolted to airport walls these days.

A little distance from the tele always causes me to laugh for a little while upon being re-exposed. So here's what I'm wondering:

Who's grand idea was it to resurrect a former Spice Girl to hawk spaghetti sauce? This concept should have been dead in the water before it even hit the pitch table, yet somehow this dog actually got funded, created, and beamed into living rooms across the nation.

Before the advent of Ebay, where did game show contestants dump all of the schlocky "prizes" that they were sent home with? I mean, they're not exactly the type of things that one could effectively offload at a yard sale... did folks come home from their exciting trips to Hollywood and then place ads in their local paper seeking buyers for the custom-made harmonicas, light oak tables and lifetime supply of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat? Did pawn shops pick up the slack?

Which leads me to thinking about another technological revolution. Last night a twenty-some-odd year old rerun of Family Ties was playing, and the fam was having a disagreement that required fact-checking.

My brain was blinking "Google it!" until I realized they would need another ten years, conservatively, for any such mechanism. From that point on, watching the show was like watching cave men. I kept thinking about all of the items these characters didn't even know existed---they didn't even have those super-giant cell phones yet!

Damn! I completely left off the main topic of this post, which kept coming back to me as I tried to fall asleep last night. WTF is wrong with the media in this whole "Vegan Parents Murder Child" case?!?! WTF does their being vegan have fuck-all to do with them being child killers?!?!

I mean, either they starved the kid or not. There are questions here that the media should be asking, and answering, such as "was there an autopsy?" "was any sustenance found in the baby's body to support the parents claim that they were feeding it soy milk (which specifically says on the carton should NOT be substituted for infant formula) and apple juice?"

And while vegans tend to be a little wacky in their lifestyles--the woman apparently gave birth in the bathtub, for chrissake--what I really want to know is, did they not breastfeed the kid because the milk would be, technically, coming from an animal?

These are serious questions, folks. Yet every fucking news story I've seen leads with "Vegan Parents." I don't care if you're a gay left-handed box-cutter practitioner of santeria...the appropriate topic here is child murder. No other descriptor trumps that. Let's stay on target, people.

Some Things Stay the Same

While I've been away from the water cooler, the blogosphere has churned away without me. In reading various blogs, one of the ironic comments I keep coming back to is Nigel Swaby's claim that "No wonder bloggers never get taken seriously."

For someone who has repeatedly shelled out cold hard cash for paid press releases of his own myriad blogs, I find this statement highly amusing on its surface.

But in the nanosecond that follows, I can't help but think about how this is just yet another completely asinine extrapolation from the king of bullshit.

Note to Nigel Swaby, blogger extraordinnaire: Rule number one of blogging is that if you don't have anything to say, don't. If this is your ultimate wisdom on the blog format, why spend such a great deal of time registering dozens of free Blogger blogs?

(On that note, rule number two of blogging is that it's stupidly unprofessional to run a lead-generating enterprise from a freebie wysiwyg blog. But I digress...)

Obviously Nigel Swaby is so out of touch with media, technology, and well, reality, that it has escaped him that bloggers comprise a significant portion of information streams.

Once again, let's have the smart kids go ahead and do all the heavy lifting. Here is a condensed list of blogs and bloggers that are regularly quoted, sourced, and in fact scoop mainstream media:

Left-wing politics, Daily Kos

Right-wing politics, Michelle Malkin

Libertarian politics, Reason

Celebrity nonsense, TMZ

Beltway nonsense, Wonkette

Marketing, Strumpette

Environment, Treehugger

Auto industry, GM Fastlane

(ahem) Real estate, Inman

Of course, this doesn't even begin to touch on the increasing number of traditional journalists who maintain blogs in order to stay relevant in a continually shifting information marketplace.

In fact, the topic of John Edwards' campaign blogger has garnered dozens of traditional media stories in and of itself.

John Schwartz of the New York Times admitted that traditional journos were outmatched by the blogosphere in their coverage of the 2004 tsunami, saying “For vivid reporting from the enormous zone of tsunami disaster, it was hard to beat the blogs.”

J-schools have echoed the same sentiment for years. "The question now isn’t whether blogs can be journalism. They can be, sometimes. It isn’t whether bloggers “are” journalists. They apparently are, sometimes. We have to ask different questions now because events have moved the story forward. By “events” I mean things on the surface we can see...and things underneath that we have yet to discern."

Meanwhile, Nigel Swaby says, "In real journalism, a juicy tidbit like this would be thoroughly vetted before ever having a bit of ink splashed on it."

Unfortunately, Nigel, a couple of glaring exceptions immediately come springing to mind. Remember a little thing called the 2000 Election? Or a high-profile journalist by the name of Jayson Blair?

I could go on, but really, why bother? Clearly, this is just yet another example of Nigel Swaby just not getting it. Even more, I don't think he could find "it" with both hands.

With that in mind, I'll leave it at this... unless you're a blogger trying to corner the market on "smug, half-baked kook," shop those thoughts around the wide world of webs in search of information that may confirm or deny your knee-jerk lunacy.

And if you can't do that, keep your hands off the keyboard.

A New Lexicon for Crazy

Casey Serin’s more disturbed side comes out in his catalogue of favorite websites. But other links point out that Casey just might indeed recognize that all is not well in Caseybrain.

He is almost as obsessed with personality, development and psychology as he is with religion and food. He starts with “40 Developmental Assets” that create healthy, caring and responsible adults. Perhaps thinking he falls short in one or more areas, he explores the more cheerful “Everyone Can Build Assets!”

We find Casey Serin ooking to myriad sources for explanations of “personality.” Many of these seem to be hand-picked to reinforce what Casey already believes about himself. After taking a number of such tests, it then becomes necessary for Casey Serin to follow the literature.

There’s obviously a lot of reading on Casey Serin’s agenda, so it seems like a good time to explore speed reading. Or, you know, just bag it all and pursue some “goal-free” living.

In Casey Serin’s “development” folder, we see the usual guru stuff. Casey has also been reading the strangely worded “looking for a new simplicity beyond the complexity” which perhaps explains why his writing is so poor.

There is a link to “Google’s Number One Life Coach” which I hope to mean that Casey Serin was looking for help, rather than looking to actually become a life coach.

Enter the cult of “sungazing,” which requires that, “either at sunrise or sunset (when the intensity of the sun is at its minimum) stand on the earth and stare directly at the sun for 10 seconds. Adding an additional 10 seconds to the total sungazing time each consecutive day. In 6 months your hungers would be under control and understood. Stand there for 10 months you would never need food again.”

Following Casey Serin’s link list, you can heal yourself naturally or head north of the pyramids If that doesn’t work, partake of the “Energetic Matrix Church of Consciousness.” Or try some “thought field therapy.”

Apparently it is possible to change the molecular structure of your food by praying over it. Same goes for water.

Meanwhile, Casey Serin has been researching the radio frequency emissions of his cell phone. And, in a link that I’m absolutely positive reveals far too much about Casey and Galina Serin, here’s one on holistic healing for a yeast infection, courtesy of the Life Force Plan.

Care to engage your inner hippie? Try wilderdom. Feeling paranoid? Just wait ‘til the oilcrash.

Just in case that’s not wacky enough for you, step on over to “Hidden Science, the New World Order, World Wide Electronic Mind Control, Population Reduction and Possible Earth Changes.” This one is really a doozey, because you’ll get to see just how diverse Casey Serin’s interests really are.

While there are so many excellent quotes from this website, I’m going to go with this one from the main page: “In January of 2002, I posted an article to this web site titled Goodbye Chemtrails, Hello Blue Skies which described a simple, homemade invention called a Chembuster. This new invention, inspired by Wilhelm Reich's Cloudbuster, demonstrated that it was possible to disperse and break up chemtrails, allowing for a return of normal blueness to the sky, an invigoration of the air with a clean, fresh smell and the production of rain in those areas where drought is being artificially created by HAARP and other secret weather controlling technologies.”

Once you’ve read up on your technologies, follow Casey Serin’s reading list over to Illuminati. I find the site, well, curious we’ll say, as the top banner says “alchemists conceal in order to baffle the vulgar. This site exists for the sole purpose of penetrating the veil.” In other words, this site is for slack-jawed morons.

But if you’re like Casey Serin and too stupid to be insulted, I guess you’ll want to read all about things like “Environmentalism: The Religion for an Eco-theocratic Superstate?” or “Plato the Kabbalist.” Maybe you’d like to discuss “The CIA and Mind Control,” “High Frequency Vandalism in the Sky,” or “The Origins of the Overclass,” which discusses the highly secretive alliance between the CIA, millionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers, national news media and Ivy League scholars.

Holy FUCK! It’s no wonder Casey Serin doesn’t trust education!!!

Just after condensing all of this, I feel like I’ve watched a multi-day “King of the Hill” marathon, in which Dale Gribble was the only character.

Back Away From the Train Wreck, Slowly

While Casey Serin has proven to be an endless source of entertainment for millions around the globe, there is a much darker side to him. As I said in the first post in this series, we also find someone who can present as quite disturbing.

That Casey fancies himself a Christian comes as no shock to readers. But the depth of this ranges from the benign to the commercial. There are national organizations as well as worldwide ones. If you like, Casey Serin can even give you a Christian history lesson.

The fundamentalist thinking appears in saved links on “evolution propaganda”. To keep in tune with the word while enjoying himself, Casey Serin seems to enjoy Christian movie reviews . “Welcome to Hollywood Jesus!”

While God goes secular, don’t forget to accessorize. It seems like Casey Serin even found a way to confuse a semi-popular phrase, interpreting it as “juice for Jesus.”

Those mildly amusing topics take a far backseat to some of Casey Serin’s other reading materials. At first glance, I found the folder “contradictions” to be funny. And when one page promised to “preach with sound doctrine and refute those who contradict it,” I chuckled, wondering what that group of self-described hypocrite haters would do if it ever got its hands on one Casey Serin. But then I scrolled down and saw articles such as “A Sermon Denying God’s Responsibility to Save Africans” and my chuckle was replaced with a chill.

The chill grew to a shudder when I found the folder marked “conspiracies.” In here, you will find that there is “a war for your mind” and that “the earth is being turned into a prison planet.” Beware the propaganda

Casey Serin has also been reading up on an “eternal life device”, as well as investigating a “cellular enhancement program.” Considering that Casey thinks he’s going to live for eternity, it makes me wonder what is his hurry for getting rich quick.

Under the innocuous title “dictionary,” there are links to the Skeptic’s Dictionary. At first, I thought Casey Serin must be practicing for that Christian refuting that was so lauded earlier. But the topics of alternative medicine, junk science, new age beliefs and the metaphysical all seem to line up with other belief sets.

These are shown prominently in Casey Serin’s “danger” file. Here we discover “50 Reasons to Oppose Fluoridation” and “What Your Dentist isn’t Telling You About Fluoride.” Again, no stone is left unturned. We find that soy is merely a “so-called” health food, as you will see from “The Whole Soy Story.”

Water is essential, but it must be filtered. Meanwhile, “Don’t Drink Your Milk” and rage against Splenda.

One article claims to treat hypoglycemia by avoiding grains, while others urge resuming the diet of the Paleolithic Age. If all else fails, there is always “the Maker’s Diet.”

With a deep fear of nearly every type of food setting in, Casey Serin takes to labeling various folders with names like “blood” and “clean.”

Something called the “failsafe” food network comes into play, while articles on veganism sit side-by-side with articles on “nomad cows” producing the best beef to eat. Who says fundies can’t enjoy a little play on words?

To round out your knowledge, everything you’ve never wanted to know about bioterrorism to bowel movements can be found here while “safe foods” are discussed here.

I mean, really...am I the only one thinking right now that Casey Serin didn’t just *drink* the kool-aid, but that he was actually the one mixing it?!?!

NEXT: A New Lexicon for “Crazy”

Too Much Snark for One Post

What *does* a social bookmarking site reveal about a person? In Casey Serin’s case, we learn that, while in the throes of multiple foreclosures, he still likes to go off for a nice massage . There is also mention of checking road conditions for a ski trip.

And possibly in preparation for entertaining the other prison inmates, Casey Serin has been looking into both hip-hop and ballroom dancing. Casey Serin may have been facing foreclosure, but he was looking to swing!

Yes, Casey Serin is funny. “Nap” rightfully gets its own category. Which isn’t to say that it should be confused with its sister folder, “sleep.” Casey is so obsessed with sleep in fact, that he even includes an article about it in his “productivity” folder.

In the same vein, Casey Serin includes a link to Netflix in that same “productivity” file. And yet, for his inability to keep track of important dates (returning short-sale agreements to lenders, two-month forebearance contract to CashCall) Casey has saved a half-dozen different online calendars.

Living in an RV first cropped up in December of 2005. So enamored of the idea was young Casey that he researched purchasing such a vehicle.

Casey Serin also shows an interest in the “extreme sport” of Parkour. This is defined as “a physical art of French origin, the aim of which is to move from point A to point B as efficiently and quickly as possible, using principally the abilities of the human body. It is meant to help one overcome obstacles, which can be anything in the surrounding environment — from branches and rocks to rails and concrete walls.”

Hmmm...sounds like fancy talk for “walking.” I wonder if Casey was asking himself, as I was, what if *you* are the concrete wall in question?

Finally, proving that Casey Serin is inept at even the simplest task, we find that he had to keep an online bookmark in order to successfully complete this labyrinthine task.

And because there are just too many jokes to go along with that one, I’ll leave the snark in your hands...

NEXT: Back Away From the Train Wreck, Slowly

All Good Things

After a long flight, and an even longer customs line, I'm back in the States. While I catch up on work and any interesting tidbits in blogosphere that I may have missed, I'm going back to where I left off with Casey Serin's scary ass del.icio.us links. Here are the remaining (read: already written) posts on that...

This is part of a multiple post. Click here to read the first, What Could Social Bookmarking Reveal About Casey Serin?

Casey Serin’s saved “favorites” date back to 2005, and paint a much more macro picture of him than he would like the world to see. One such revelation is that, while his online beg-a-thon wouldn’t occur until March of 2007, Casey Serin was researching “panhandling” five months earlier in October.

True to the early days of his Ponzi schemes, that same link is cross-referenced as a “business idea.” Yes. To Casey Serin, panhandling equates business idea. Sadly, it still makes more sense than the folder labeled “homeless” which began in March of 2006

Casey Serin’s “business ideas” run the gamut, and are all nonsensical at best. There is the hilariously funny idea of content writing and pay-per-post blogging (in a folder appropriately labeled “moneytize.”) We also see that Casey wanted to show off his writing skills, as evidenced in his “media” folder.

Then there is some crazed thing about “naming your baby’s destiny.” From t-shirts to wacky truck toppers, Casey Serin left no virtual stone unturned in the quest for cheap and easy money.

The Million Dollar Homepage is of course rehashed, along with some work-at-home ideas.

Of course, there are also some affiliate programs thrown in the mix as well. And of course, two of their sites are listed in the annals of Rip-Off Report.

Also in October, the infamous “Save Karyn” shows up under “business idea”, “panhandling” and “book deal.” Yep, we all suspected that Casey Serin was shopping for the exposure, but there proof and the pudding.

Speaking of proof, Casey Serin’s motivation folder has obviously done him a world of good. To be similarly motivated, just click here.

In this one, I can’t actually tell if Casey Serin was researching internet trolls, or if he thought this was a real job. Considering that this was also saved, I’m leaning toward the latter.

And for those who still hold out hope that Casey Serin is not a con artist, I’m going to have to refer you to Dante and his famed disclaimer “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” For in Casey Serin’s “communication” folder, we find a link to the curiously titled “Reading People for Profit.”

NEXT: Too Much Snark for One Post

Now the Bangles are Stuck in My Head

I'm not a "vacation" kind of girl. In fact, I eschew the idea, as it takes me a week or two to even acclimate to a country; so the idea of being someplace for less than that is really a mindfuck.

As is the villa and as-yet-to-be-seen butler. I'm writing this right now because I've returned home after some seriously heady adventures today, and the silence is killing me. There's no television here; but there is i-net.

When did I become a part of the "stressed out executive needs a forced break" crowd?!? My idea of travel is to shove my Kelty into a stuffsack, throw some socks and undies into my backpack and just GO.

So as is my wont, I met up with some crazy Aussies and Brits to run amuck with. We took a boat out to some *mad* diving, followed by spectacular grub and fully-boozed nightlife...dancing on the tables and now I'm having to backspace every other word because my hand-eye is fucked.

I'll tell you the details when I'm far more sober, but just wanted to say:

dumbfounded: totally lucky, YES, and you get the murst crown!

kirk, sprezzie, dumbfounded, and anon: I'm totally fucking shite at pictures. My norm is that I'll pick up a disposable or ten at duty-free on my way out, as I don't want to be stressed about keeping track of the camera. (This is one of the only pleasure cruises with a laptop, and that was only because I ditched the office with very little notice.)

Beyond that, I always seem to blow it on having the film developed (I've got at least fifteen undevelped disposables in my posession as is)...mostly because I'm such a *crap* photog. The last disposal camera I had developed was, based on the folks in the phots, taken on a surf trip to either mainland Mex or Costa Rica a few years back. There are no distinguishing features to tell me which one it might have been.

Which brings me to kirk's comment about "can we trade clients?"....this comes full circle because this is the reason the client gifted the amazing trip. They were doing a photo shoot a few months back (in the dead-ass of winter) and at least one of the models was supposed to have been able to 'moderately' surf. They were all pissed about the cold water (later figured out that the agency had fudged thier ability to stand up on a board) and the co was screwed.

Basically, that element is outside of what we do for the client. But I had worked with that photog before, when I was putting mysefl through college. We had done similar sjoots, so he called my office... I was there, I could reschedule my day, and throw on a bikini and freeze my ass off in the Pacific.

Because we have no way of really billing for somehting like that, it falls into the category of client relations. Meaning, we don't necessarily bill for every second we spend with a firm; there's a grey area where you just do what you have to do to make a project work for them.

So the shoot fell into that. For me, it was an awesome way to escape the office and ride a board for a few hours. I was already stoked. Little did I know, they colluded with one of my assistants to find a way to repay me!!!

Back at comments.....

dumbfounded....gets props for the 'girls without bikinis' comment. That came tonight with the dancing on tables, and there's no fucking way I'm posting those :)

anon...if you think I'm going to see a sunrise, you're high! Yes, my jet lag has be a bit twisted, but that's what rum is for!!!

Akubi....you'll have to catch me up on crazyworld when I get back....I have NO idea!!! But, yes, "There is absolutely nothing better than "having no concept of time" and those occurrences are generally rare." I couldn't *ever* say it better.

Schnapps... :) Sorry. Does it help to know thta this is the first time I"ve taken even a *day* off in over a year? Plus, my weeks are regularly six days long. But, yeah, I understand...this kind of sucks to read about at home. I actually wasn't going to say anything about this, and was trying to load up on posts before I pissed off, but had too many things to do before takeoff and couldn't really make it happen.

Lucidiocy...I know, right?!?

PMSPMS....YES (lol) I read your blog! I know that you're enmeshed in incredible adventures everyday. I miss those days, and truly find myself living vicariously through your world on countless occasions. Christ, if I could be here for another four months or so, I would only start ot come back to equilibrium. Thank you for the armchair adventures in lieu :)