OK: A Translation
By Will O'Neill | July 24, 2008
I will now attempt to explain what the hell I was talking about last night in this entry. First of all, I have removed the purely gratuitous swearing. That done, allow me to attempt (and I do mean attempt) to explain the entry by re-writing it on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis:
Pay attention to me.
I hate rich people who get laid all the time.
(I won’t discuss what I am alluding to here.)
I always obey coin tosses because I am scared that you invite vengeance from the fates if you do not. As such, I went home, despite wanting to continue to stay out.
I am unsure as to at what point do quality of life issues outweigh survival possibilities with regards to serious illnesses; I am concerned that such things are difficult to speak about with family members.
I continue to be obsessed with “Another Day in Paradise” and am overanalyzing.
Who you care about does not determine who cares about you.
‘Cancer’ deconstructs into ‘can care’
I don’t like super-white-people bars, but I go to them anyways. Celtic fiddle music just sounds like one continuous song squeaking through itself, and I question its artistry.
I really don’t like “Home for a Rest” by Great Big Sea, mostly because it makes people think they are cool when they are not cool.
I question what my associations imply about me, even as perceived externally.
(I don’t know what the whole community thing is supposed to be about)
I don’t like that other people are also writing and taking attention which I believe should be mine.
I believe my life will be forgotten.
Porno.
Topics: Moralnykac, Shame | No Comments »
OK
By Will O'Neill | July 24, 2008
Wait - follow me.
Who gets laid in the suburbs, imagined or actual? Who feels a/c ducts blow cold onto their skin, scrubbing their genitals into perfection? What makes one way un-another, turns boredom into life?
I know what other people should do; once I know it, it doesn’t matter whether they do it or not; they’ve already done it. Everything I think ends in semicolon; molecule bop.
I was at a bar, and it’s like: OK, we’ll flip a coin to see if we go to some other bar. And I’ll live by that. But it doesn’t matter.
I know this girl with cancer - she won’t get undone like crazy, I think like OK: I support some conditional thanatos. But you don’t know until you’re there. What if you’re talking about it at some family barbecue with people who aren’t weighed by such thoughts; people who watch television? Do you say “I support some conditional thanatos”…? Do you do it to show off? Do you do it for all the a/c ducts you never got laid under?
For whom is it just another day in the paradise which I imagine? Who lives my ideal life? Whose do I live?
I try to think twice, but I think all the same shit.
Ya na na na na na na.
I’m in love with all the same people, what’s it matter? They’ve got to go on being who they are.
Cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer cancaer aancacnaesceio cnn canc cancer ncare can care can care can care can care.
We were sitting outside and then my friend was like “Oh, the sun is getting in my eyes.” and so we went ubsudem, and then it was like this SUPER IRISH MUSIC at thiS SUPER IRISH PUB, and doo nanoo nanoo, what garbage, it’s like this fiddle solo that goes on forever and ever.
Oh, it’s more than one song - yeah, whatever. I need home for a rest - oh I love this song, yeah sure you love this song… Yeah yeah you’re a drunk, so now you love this song.
Frattttttttt boy.
Wananana.
OK
So, what else is going on? What creates a community?
I was reading some other figures
It’s like
0600000000000 people in China update their blogs every 3 seconds
You think you’re like, Samuel Peeps
I used to work at this company that was like “Content is king”
Must be a lot of fucking kings out there
You die any maybe three people hear about it
You make a way bigger impact on the people who take your apartment
Porno
Pornos pronosfioaegkreghrghrghdndfn/dflndfklndkln/klnv/lv/kn
Topics: Drunk | 1 Comment »
Highly Irregular
By Will O'Neill | July 22, 2008
Something very unusual has come over my head tonight.
It started about 10:30 p.m. - I ate cheese and a few minutes later realized that I loved, needed and had to have as many cover versions of “Another Day In Paradise” by Phil Collins as I could find.
They’re out there!
I should feel like I’ve gotten what I wanted, but I don’t.
They say that when you get something for nothing, you ought to realize what it’s really worth.
I said that, anyways.
I’m saying it.
To those who have given me such things, I’d like to say: I see what you’re doing.
It’s working.
Today a friend of mine was talking about how much we’ve all changed over the past few years - me, I’ve seen some situations. People? None.
Never.
I feel the edges of a million thoughts right now; there’s no way I can go anywhere with any of all of them at once.
My next video won’t be intelligent. I feel a deep thirst for something crass.
“Another Day in Paradise” is an amazing song which was ruined for me when we had to sing it at music night in grade school; that was the music night I decided to not sing any of the songs and, instead, make stupid faces at the audience to impress a girl in the 7th grade that I had a crush on. Afterwards, when I got into all of the trouble that I did, the experience formed my earliest memory of apologizing without really being sorry.
I mean, what am I supposed to do? Sing this homeless guy song like the rest of these suckers, or take a shot at this broad?
But looking back at it now, I realize the song is pretty good. That girl, who knows what happened to her? Time went on, she changed, she forgot all about whatever I did - not that it worked in the first place - and probably forgot about that night and maybe even that school.
I should’ve said to myself, you know, that in sixteen years, she’ll be somewhere else, but this song? It’ll be right here.
If I’ve been better to art than people in my life, I think the returning proportions have been about right.
I tried to strike a conversation with my ex-girlfriend the other day - she was a dodgy bitch. She’s fucked in the head. She loves bullshit and hates reality too much to do much of anything. I can see why I came yey-close to marrying her, but thank God I didn’t.
Because in the last few years, I think I’ve grown.
Ah, no - maybe just my situation.
But I’ve been fair enough.
Topics: Confusion | No Comments »
An Important Announcement About Someone Else
By Will O'Neill | July 11, 2008
In case you weren’t aware, the CBC is hosting a contest allowing people to submit entries for the new “Hockey Night in Canada” theme song.
Not that I was not aware of it, mind you, until I got tipped off about this particular entry -
http://anthemchallenge.cbc.ca/mediadetail/257425?sort=rating+DESC&moderationstatus=1&offset=1
I don’t personally know the guy who did this, but there is something I want to say: I have not laughed this hard in months. Possibly years. Tears - literal tears - of laughter stream down my face every single time I play this. It’s uncontrollable. I think the juxtaposition of the song with the official CBC video makes it all the more funny, but even just the song itself is so sublimely ridiculous that I’m scared to play it again because last time I almost stopped breathing.
I am asking that you register with CBC and give this song the full 5-star vote it deserves.
Oh God - the end of it. The huge horn!
Imagine Don Cherry’s face.
Oh God, I gotta go to bed.
I’ve laid all the traps for tomorrow’s online media uptake of the iPhone that I could think of.
Initially, it has done poorly, but it just has to find a little bit of traction somewhere, and things can go.
But if you want to do me a favour, don’t watch my video - go vote for this. Tomorrow is another day, but this goddamn thing is about fifty billion times funnier than mine is.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
The iPhone in Canada - a Guide
By Will O'Neill | July 10, 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUK2X3HK0i8
My Canada Day video got a lot of traffic from people pissed off about the iPhone situation in Canada - I am also pissed off about this situation, and so I thought I might make a video dedicated entirely to it.
We’ll see what kind of play it gets - I’m getting it out there a day before the phone launches in Canada tomorrow, so that maybe it’ll have some lead time and get picked up on some online media outlet or another.
I also had to get it done a day early because, tomorrow morning, a monkey might get on my back and I might actually start thinking that I should go out and actually line up for an iPhone.
No, I won’t do it.
No.
I don’t even know how early you’d have to go. There are rumours that Apple has diverted most of our intended supply because they’re pissed off at Rogers for being such gouging jerkoffs.
It doesn’t even matter; I need a new cellular phone like I need a hole in the head. Who do I even call? Who even calls me? You know, the whole thing is a waste of time, and if I’m not going to get any real value out of it, it could be construed as harmful to the environment, as well as unethical in that it deprives someone who really will use it of its greater collective value.
…
I would bet against me on this.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Intransitivity
By Will O'Neill | July 3, 2008
Today, my creative comrade Stacey Bowman of Tornlake suggested to me that I ought to put her on my blogroll wherever it would get the most clicks - I feel bad about this, because I think she may be under the impression that anyone reads this blog.
To be honest, though, I myself am sometimes under the impression that people read this blog! And yet, a funny thing has happened on the internet as content has become more quickly accessible and less attention intensive (see: watching videos instead of reading text) - namely, traffic in one place does not make for traffic elsewhere, even if there is a direct relation.
I am not complaining about this. There’s very little to gain regardless. But it is interesting. Consider that:
1. In the past two days, the Canada Day video was viewed 7,894 times.
2. It was rated 174 times.
3. It was commented on 95 times.
4. This blog (advertised in large type at the end of the video) was visited 63 times.
5. The number of subscriptions increased by about 10 as a result of this video.
6. The blog entry was commented on 1 time.
7. The number of people who went from the blog to the Facebook page was 0.
Now, think about the order - each one, quantitatively declining as it goes along, represents a clear ‘next step’ of effort (or, in the case of the subscriptions, commitment) from somebody exposed to the initial media in step 1.
So, in other words, even for a very highly rated YouTube video, it is roughly true that:
1 in 45 people will perform one mouse click to rate it.
1 in 83 people will type out a comment.
1 in 125 people will follow an instruction to go to another site.
1 in 789 people will actually subscribe to your videos.
1 in 7894 people will go to the blog where the video leads them and comment there.
0 in 7894 people will go video > blog > Facebook page.
And yet, if you asked me honestly, I would still say that this is still probably a far superior way of getting your name and your work out there than doing stand-up in a comedy club is.
Even if barely anybody is really paying attention, at least:
1. They’re not drunk, and are biologically capable of remembering anything.
2. You have a chance to clearly identify yourself, which is something for them to remember in the first place.
3. It’s you, just you, and it exists beyond the single moment in time in which you do it.
I read an interview last week with Steve Conrad, who directed The Promotion, and he said something that describes the way that I think most creative people today feel all the time:
SC: The people around whom I’ve lived most of my life, they’re similar. They have these expectations of life that aren’t exaggerated, they could be accomplished, they could get what they want. But they could not, too. It’s not to be taken for granted. Even getting by, and being satisfied, barely, is hard. It’s so hard.
It is. It is so hard. Life, in such a greater sense, is this thing where you start with 7894 of something, and you take a expectation from that which isn’t exaggerated, and then you find out that it is exagerrated - wildly so - and that what you really have is 95 of something or 63 of it or 10 or 1 or 0. And there’s nothing to cry foul about: It’s fair enough, when you really think about it, and you just have to deal with it.
There’s just so much. You go out there, today, and you’re up against everyone and everything, not as a matter of perspective but merely, by way of the internet, as a matter of fact.
What is true? This is true.
Topics: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Beyond Injustice
By Will O'Neill | July 3, 2008
Who is the winner, YouTube? Is it the talking heads you put on your front page with all this asinine webcam bullshit, and the zero-content subscription baiters, or the “Hey guyyyyyyys” girls? No, those are not the winners.
Not today. Today is a day made of hustle.
Where’s your LeBaron, Freddy? I don’t see two LeBarons.
Thanks again to all of you who watched the Canada Day video, and thanks to everyone who rated and commented.
There’s more to do.
My life, lately, is at a pace that feels broken-fast - there is so/too much going on. I wish I had somebody to talk to, but I’m somehow overjoyed that I don’t.
So what if you’re misunderstood? So what? At 27, I’ll tell you: It’s nothing.
Just hold on.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
#1, Baby!
By Will O'Neill | July 1, 2008
Exciting news! My Canada Day YouTube video was the #1 top rated comedy video today on all of YouTube, and also the #1 top favourited.
If you haven’t yet seen it, check it out at: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=DJMtRSwZSrQ
Of course, its appeal is fairly limited to just today, so it’s nice to receive such a nice YouTube honour during its brief, sparking life.
If it’d had some media coverage like the TTC video one had, there’s no question in my mind that it would have been even more successful.
Unfortunately, part of the problem with Canada Day is that nobody out there is, you know, working.
Still - thanks to all of you who took the time to watch it!
The only question I have now, frankly, is this: What exactly do you have to do to warrant being a damn front page featured video on YouTube? I mean, the one they chose was just some guy… Talking. About Canada.
Kind of.
I’m just saying: I kind of feel like I earned that spot. I mean, if you can’t earn it, if it’s just sheer, dumb, lazy luck, just say so.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Happy Canada Day! The History of Canada…
By Will O'Neill | July 1, 2008
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=DJMtRSwZSrQ
Happy Canada Day, friends.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
In Honour of the End of Exams
By Will O'Neill | June 25, 2008
An expanded, alternate version of Descartes’ ontological argument:
(P1) A supremely perfect porno has all perfections.
(P2) A supremely perfect amount of money has all perfections.
(P3) Existence is a perfection.
—-
(C1) Both a supremely perfect porno and amount of money exist.
(P4) A supremely perfect porno would cost a supremely perfect amount of money.
(P5) I have $7.36.
—-
(C1) Shit.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »