The Agrinautica

   There are literally tens of thousands of official livejournal communities. About ninety percent of these are probably "ratings communities" -- communities where one must submit an application and subject themselves to the ratings and harsh criticism of existing members before being accepted (or rejected) to become one of these members ... for the sole purpose of doing it to others.
   I got this idea about a year ago -- what if one creates a community where one rates communities. That will give one a chance to tell all the lame ones what-for!
   And the "business model" makes sense -- many of the ratings communities have a requirement that applicants promote them in another community, so if one were to name-drop this one in another promo community (yeah there are communities dedicated to promotion of communities), people will flock to it to promo their own by being rated.
   And so ratecommunities was born. The picture above is of our expert tribunal in session.

   12 communities have been rated so far:

( Let the judgement begin! )

   If anyone else would like to get involved in this brilliant project we currently need some more judges.

   New project coming soon!

Picture of the Day / Year Ago Today

Epic Roadtrip 2007: Day 2 - We temporarily fill the "Cornucopia Van" with friends we caught up with at Vegas!
This day we nearly died in the desert; bought gratuitous amounts of energy drinks; frolicked in Vegas for a few hours but then continued on our way; drove across the Hoover Dam and on into the night (right through Flagstaff, incidently, but thats the next day by then)

Rating the Ratings Communities
   As a quiz I posted a year ago yesterday so astutely pointed out, stupid people piss me off. And few places can one find higher concentrations of stupid people than ratings communities - along, of course, with vanity, pettiness and wholly unwarranted elitism (not that warranted elitism is a good thing, but unwarranted elitism is elitism coupled with stupidity to create really offensive stupidity). Its like someone is spawning an army of roxymartinis; and there simply can be no more odious undertaking than that.
   But this is not an essay on why I don't like ratings communities. As far as I'm concerned, if you don't already see them for the foolishness that they are, you're not worth converting. This is an essay on my new and brilliant plan for vengeance upon them.
   Now this in itself creates a minor philosophical problem because normally I don't condone spitefulness; but I think a case can be made that it would do their miserable wretched souls a little good to have the point driven home that their "approved" or "stamped" elite status is only lauded by their ignorant confederates, while the rest of the world regards them with utter contempt and derision.

   So I set about plotting a brilliant plan for vengeance upon these nefarious communities. I brooded, and I evilticulated my fingers as Mr Burns does, I wiffled through the tulgey would (and burbled as I did), and stood there on christmas eve hating the whos ratists. And then I got a brilliant idea, a wonderful brilliant awful idea.

   And it is this: create a "community rating" community, with a lenghty application to be filled out on behalf of communities for them to be approved as rightious chosen communities worthy of elitism. And then we mention this to numerous ratings communities.. and you see.. they're all big on promotion, positively oozing with greed for plugs, so they'll rush off to fill out our officious application. And then.. well then of course we soundly reject them all and tell them what for!!¹
   Is this not brilliant? Is the revolution not at hand? The only hitch is that I think I may loathe rating communities too much to even participate in rating them. But if there are others out there who think this is a glorious idea I think I could be compelled to participate in it.. for a spiteful saucy plot I think it actually seems quite do-able.

   ¹And I suppose to give it some credence of legitimacy of something one can aspire to get approved by, I think we should approve truly enlightened communities, like jerryisahero or say 211.


In Other News
   I burnt a CD yesterday, because I didn't bring my speakers back home with me so I wanted to be able to play my music on my primitive radio rather than my neanderthal laptop speakers. I titled the CD Music You Can Blog To. Kristy then announced that I am a "bignerd." I think I'll post the discography in a comment to this entry so as not to take up space in the entry itself with a long list, but its pretty awesome if I do say so myself. Next I think I'm going to burn an emo CD titled "Emo Trogdor" and one with lots of Tiger Army and Flogging Molly titled "Music You Can Maraud To."


Pictures of the Day - Village in Decline
( Oakbrook Village )

Related
   Year Ago Friday: Memories of My First Steel Reserve
   Year Ago Satuday: Complaining about certain lifeguards
   Year Ago Today: "A really effed up double rescue" - and verious other things
   Everyone's favourite Sharon Zimmerman (ooorabiesooo) gets invited to apply for a ratings community.
      ...And her twin sister Amy applies! (as a joke) - actually there were more, I think Sharon might have applies, at least their other sister did, but both of them got deleted and banned from the community. Other entries are friends-only. But the best part of the entry is the comments.