AOL Eats Babies

People still pay for AOL?

@Dodgerblue: Yup…

The company still gets eighty per cent of its profits from subscribers.

And who are those subscribers? Old people who don’t realize they don’t need it. That’s AOL’s Dirty Secret, which the New Yorker exposed a few weeks ago. They’re going away sooner or later, but if teabaggers turn it into a campaign, it might be sooner than later.

Sorry Allen. According to you guys almost everything threatens Teabaggers. Including change, hope, human decency and sock puppets.

“Captain! We’ve lost all contact with America Online yet their billing continues!”

– B’Elanna Torres reacting to a red alert in a long-time favorite Mad Magazine spoof of Star Trek: Voyager from the late 90s.

Slayer did “World Painted Blood” for AOL Sessions. That tune was running through my head all last week.

http://music.aol.com/sessions/slayer-world-painted-blood-sessions/

/ headbanging at my desk

Speed Fucking Metal

Is it just me, or is today’s Gawker Political Sex Scandal not worth the attention? Seems even hypocrisy should have standards, and this one doesn’t meet them.

@ManchuCandidate:

I always find it funny that the same people who are consistently scared of pretty much everything are typically the ones on forums going, “OMG I’M H4RDC0R3 AND GOT 2ND AMENDMENT REMEDIES”. Schoolyard bullies writ large, I guess.

@nojo: The question is how many salesman hold onto these accounts as you-never-know back-ups that they let ride on the company credit cards. I finally let go of an ISP account I kept in part because they had an almost undocumented service that was occasionally hand on the road: dial-up access to all the old UUNET modem racks. And that was only a couple of years ago.

Hey, don’t laugh. AOL is making a tidy bundle fleecing scared old people.

@nojo:
I give it 2 diapers.

It’s embarrassing, but lacks wife having cancer, bondage gear, poopy diapers, sex tape etc.

@nojo: Ugh. Can’t be much longer until Aaron Schock ends up on Guys with iPhones.

Setting aside his reprehensible politics, and the fact that he’s likely a serial cheater since a first-timer isn’t gonna be e-mailing out shirtless pix to random Craigslist posters, I hope I look that damn good at 46. I’d hit it twice. Someone’s gotta fuck some sense into him.

@FlyingChainSaw: Interesting question. Let’s run some numbers…

AOL 2010 Q4 subscription revenue: $235.9 million. Divided by, let’s say, $10/month per subscriber (I have no clue), that’s about 7.8 million accounts. I don’t think there are enough traveling salesmen to put a dent in that number.

@nojo: There’s Jets QB Mark Sanchez and a 17-year old girl hooking up over at deadspin, but given the low age of consent in CT and NY, looks like they can do whatever they want.

http://deadspin.com/#!5755011/the-somewhat-romantic-story-of-mark-sanchez-and-a-17+year+old-girl

@al2o3cr:
Pretty much.

@ManchuCandidate: Here’s what annoys me: The best Gawker can say about him is that he supports DADT and opposes abortion funding. Poking around quickly, I can’t find any immediate references to family values or (more importantly) Defense of Marriage. His campaign website doesn’t even mention social issues.

So: Where’s the, er, beef? I don’t require diapers in all my sex scandals, but this doesn’t really rate in the Actions v. Words department. If anything, it makes out Gawker as a prude.

@nojo:
Yeah, it’s pretty weak.

@nojo: If he had been sending the topless (nekkid?) photos in the M4M section of Craig’s List, it might be diaper-worthy.

@redmanlaw: I’ve been reading some fascinating background info about those newfangled hash-bang (#!) URLs now favored by Gawker and Twitter, but it’s wayyyyyy too geeky for family consumption.

Let’s try it in something approximating English: Gawker is now all-Javascript. And if the Javascript breaks, the site goes south. Which is what happened for a few hours Monday.

@SanFranLefty: Yes. M4M + DADT = News.

@redmanlaw: And to your point:

Mark Sanchez is 24. Banging a 17-year-old may not be entirely cool (depending on your local laws), but it’s not outright disgusting.

In other words: He’s no Favre.

@redmanlaw: how bout some wolfmother
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86UxgNiH7sU&feature=related
i was going through old unlistened to cds this weekend to trade for new ones and decided to keep wolfmother.

@redmanlaw: old high school favorite,
the green manilishi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRW-qrEHZjE&feature=related
i used to torture my parents with this tune. today i can’t understand why they didn’t kick me out for playing it so loud. maybe they liked it.

@nojo: Here’s my question — what kind of high schooler has unfettered access to an NFL player outside of, you know, volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, or whatever it is they do these days for charity, and what kind of parents of a high schooler see no problem with that?

OMG LADY GaGa OMG!!!!!!!!!!1!!!

Sorry, I thought this needed Serious Gay Input.

@¡Andrew!: My first thought too was ‘he’s got a nice body’.

And I would have banged Mark Sanchez when I was 17. Just sayin’.

These ‘scandals’ don’t even deserve a half a adult sanitary wipe. Mark Kirk, won’t you PLEASE come through for us?????

The “scandal” just got weirder.

Rep Blackberry Hotbod just resigned. Who does he think he is? A Demrat?

@ManchuCandidate: Where have all the real GOP scandals gone? Long time passing, I say.

@ManchuCandidate: Dang. Beat me to it.

@ManchuCandidate: Resigned to spend time with his family?

This is interesting, though, because as you point out only DemRats resign. So are there other shoes to drop/tap?

And when are we getting our Aaron Schock sex scandal?

@ManchuCandidate: Well, congrats to Gawker for the notch. But I still can’t get all uppity about it.

I had to close a bank account years ago as it was the only way to stop AOL from billing me. (Even if it was only $4.95 a month.) I wonder how much of their revenue comes from people who are dead or institutionalized yet they continue to bill?

@mellbell: The story implied that she was an upper class sophisticate who gets into cool Manhattan clubs on NYE, so it’s not like she showed up for her hookup in her pigtails, book bag and uniform skirt on her way to tutor younger kids at the library.

Even Slayer singer Tom Ayara says you need to monitor what your kids do. And, if I may say so, you have good parenting instincts.

@jwmcsame: Here’s the Danish “Elvis metal” band Volbeat, “Hallelujah Goat”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irTv9olWcxg&feature=related

@redmanlaw: Thank you. It remains to be seen whether they’ll ever be put to use, but you never know.

@redmanlaw: book bag and uniform skirt on her way to tutor younger kids at the library

Shit. Back in five.

@jaycubed: An on-topic comment? That’s not how we roll here. Bienvenidos, by the way. I hope you’ve prepared yourself for liberal doses of TMI.

@FlyingChainSaw:

And the object of his lust is a fully-conscious, adult, human female. Pleez.

Back in my day (2006) Congressman Soloflex would’ve been laughed out of the Congressional locker room. No pole-vaulting or pole-smoking? No handguns, blackmail, 12-inch black dildos, and amyl nitrate? zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Facebook status updated to “it’s complicated.”

@SanFranLefty:
It certainly sounds like it. Otherwise I can’t figure, but then again Vitter still hangs on despite his penchant for diaper duty.

I am a lucky beneficiary AOL’s efforts. Patch is providing me with some extra freelance cheddar. Mind you, the news I’m writing is more akin to a small town community paper, but it’s extra cash in my pocket, albeit small.

Mind you, my editor just had her freelance budget cut, coinciding with the HuffPo announcement, so the spigot is turning into a few drips now.

@nojo: “Five Minutes Alone,” Pantera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3Txvt6tTKo