[Insert obligatory summation of why the Hamster has been so quiet as of late, and please make sure the reader (you) is a least 4x less interested in the explanation than the writer (me).]

On to what really matters: the worst song of all time.  And I’m not just throwing this hyperbolic headline out there for click-throughs, only to have the actual story take a much less controversial and somewhat unrelated stance (cough CNN cough Huffpo) – this is, in all likelihood, the worst song of all time.  Where others have come up short (your Limp Bizkits, your Smash Mouths, your Tevin Campbells) Nelly has come through in spades.

I have no idea how to categorize this thing.  It’s a pop-rap cluster fuck.  It feels like what One Direction would sound like if they wore blackface.  And if the sixth member was a speak n’ spell.  It’s got it all.

For starters, he rhymes the same word with itself throughout the entire chorus and in almost every verse.  You ask a six year old what rhymes with “cat” and he would probably say “bat” or “mat.”  Nelly would say “cat.”  Technically, I guess he’s right.  But technically he’s also a moron.

In other parts of the song it feels like Nelly didn’t have enough words to fill up the space he needed, so he just kind of stretches the ones he has.  Nelly turns “Back it up, let’s roll” into “B-b-back it up, let’s roll roll roll roll.”  ‘Back’ is now three syllables.  And when he was still short he just added some more rolls at the end.  Apparently there are no rules about anything.

The whole idea behind the song is that he singing to both a girl and a car.  The girl is named Porsche; the car is a, well, yeah.  This allows Nelly to deftly craft innuendos around his premise, things that could apply to both the girl and the car, things like, “I wanna take your top off.” Or, “See how you handle while I’m cruising control.”  I can’t decide which context that one makes less sense in.

But it’s not hard to pair dumb lyrics with a dumb concept.  And dumb instrumentation.  And a dumb echo that sounds like he is skyping on the track.  But those reasons alone wouldn’t nearly be enough to put this song at the top of the bottom.  This song is the worst ever because it’s Nelly.  And this comes in two parts:

1.) Nelly has (had?) talent.  I’m not saying he was ever that insightful, but he was good, and somewhat of a pioneer in the pop-rap genre.  Not great, sure, but you can’t sit there and act like you never mumbled your way through “Country Grammar.”  This new song hurts twice as bad because it’s such a departure from what he’s capable of.

2.) Nelly himself described this single as, “’Ride Wit Me’ meets 2013.” Maybe that’s true, but it’s taking the worst of both.  [Ride Wit Me was the third single off Nelly’s first album, released in 2000.] It feels like Nelly is creating not for himself but instead for whatever he thinks will get played on the radio.  It results in this insincere, pandering, shell of something that can loosely be described as a song.  This kind of nonsense is fine for your Rebecca Blacks and your Ke$ha’s – but for your seventh album?  After you gave us ‘shimmy shimmy cocoa puffs?’  I mean that with as much sincerity as one can.

It’s not the first time this has happened – we’ve seen it with The Simpsons in trying force-incorporate the random, cheap flashbacks made so popular by Family Guy.  Or maybe even with Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace.  It’s hard to bridge changing tastes and consistently live up to an initial bar of success you’ve set for yourself – but the worst thing you can do is to create something only thinking about what the audience will want.  We don’t know what we want.  We want to hear what you want to make.  And that’s the real reason this paint by numbers radio single is the worst song ever.  If you listen to it loud enough you can actually hear the selling out.  It comes right before he gets into the “na-na’s.”

If you’ve got a better candidate I’m all ears.

Without further (though there was much) ado:

After the release of Finding Nemo 3D later this summer, the studio is going back to basics and will be re-releasing the film in 1D sometime next year.

Why 1D?

“Great question.”  That is the answer we received from John Dempsey, the man in charge of the project, during our telephone interview.

“People are all about 4D.  Saying 4D is the next big thing.  But I’ll tell you what: the technology just isn’t there.  It’s not ready.  And I’m sittin’ here like, why try and force 4D, when we haven’t even used all the dimensions we’ve got?”

John went on to describe the movie as having a very minimalist feel, with things like where characters are in relation to each other and the ability to move more than just left or right not really being that important.

When we asked John if he thought audiences might prefer an original concept, even if it’s in plain 2D, he said, “Audiences?”

The film is going to be in RealD 1D, which is good, really good, to have the D be real, because it like, adds to the effect, of, you know…the thing?

And if you’re hoping to get a break at the box office, don’t, because tickets are going to be even more expensive than a 3D showing.  We asked John why this was so and he said,  “It’s not like we charge per D.  The tickets are more expensive because you’re seeing Finding Nemo like you’ve never seen it before.”

We told him that watching it upside down would be like we’ve never seen it before, too.  John had no official comment to this, though he seemed more excited than offended, which, frankly, was concerning.

We caught up to Mr. Kaferty and asked him if it was, indeed, the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, to which he responded, “No, the other Al-Qaeda.”

When asked how he could possibly support the group that has claimed responsibility for the attacks on 9/11 he said, “You want to talk tacos, fine.  But whether or not I support Al-Qaeda?  What does it matter?  Does it change how your taco tastes?  No.  Does it mean your purchase could help put enriched uranium into the hands of a militant Islamist organization?  I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.”

Mr. Kaferty did release a statement to the public in which he stands by his donation, and urges others to donate to causes they believe in.  Finally, it’s his hope, “that we can leave politics and whether you are for or against international terrorism out of your decision on where to get a quality taco.”

While fast food customers are not known to terribly discerning, people are having a hard time stomaching this one.  There have been protests, and we stopped by one that was held yesterday afternoon at the Del Taco in Burbank, CA.  We spoke with Jake Dunleavy, a father of two, who was holding a sign that depicted a flying taco crashing into the World Trade Center.  He said, “We’re out here because people care more about what taco they’re going to eat than they do the lives of other Americans.  This is what we’ve come to.”  He did seem to have a point, as even the people who agreed with the protesters (which was everyone, literally, everyone) were still going in to purchase tacos, citing reasons like: being really hungry.  Or: only having a couple bucks.  Or: baja shrimp, man.

Later on we spoke to a man inside who had just ordered the big taco box with nachos and a large Mountain Dew.  We asked how he felt about the fact that he could be directly supporting a terrorist organization with his purchase.  He looked up at us and said matter-of-factly, “I’m sitting down to have dinner at a Del Taco, by myself, in sweats, and you think I give a shit about anything?”

To get another perspective we contacted Chick-fil-A, since they now have some experience in dealing with this type of situation.  Their spokesperson said, “You know how hard it is to talk about how much you hate Del Taco all day without feeling like eating at Del Taco?  I think they’ll be just fine.”

Mr. Kaferty hasn’t said whether or not he will donate to Al-Qaeda again this year, but as long as he keeps selling two tacos for less than a dollar, our guess is that it’s not going to matter.

Which is why it would make the perfect reality TV show.  And no, I’m not kidding.  It seems private companies are picking up where NASA has left off, and then some.  In just over ten years, the company Mars One is going to make a show about four people chosen to go live on Mars.  Like, you’re going to go live on Mars and it will take you seven months to get there but once you’re there you’ll have Internet and stuff so it probably won’t be that much different from your regular life except for the fact that there isn’t really water to drink or air to breathe or any other people besides the three you came with, but you will be on TV, so, there’s that?

And here’s the kicker: If you are one of the ‘lucky’ four to be chosen, it’s a one-way trip.  Logistically, it’s too difficult to promise a return flight, which may or may not have something to do with the fact that it’s fifty million miles away.  But, Mars One does not completely rule out people being able to come back to Earth, and state that it may be possible once the colony is setup and able to build their own rocket ship with parts sent to them from Earth.  Which is not all that different from a mother dropping off her child at school and saying, ‘Now, sweetie, I’m not going to be picking you up today but I will be sending the necessary parts for you to build your own car and drive yourself home.’

If you’re wondering what should happen if one of the astronauts goes completely off the wall and murders the other three because they were cheating at Pictionary or something…I’d say it’s not nice to wonder about things like that.  Plus, Mars One will be sending another four astronauts every two years, so the population can continue to grow, and the new astronauts will know to maybe not play Pictionary with the psycho.

As far as how they are going to afford all this, according to the Mars One website, they will be raising the necessary six billion dollars by creating the “biggest media event ever.”  Hm, okay, as long as that’s cleared up.

And for the people who say that this all sounds, at best, wildly optimistic: you’re right.  I can’t really argue with that.  But I will say this: get off your high horse.  This plan is awesome.  And if in ten years you see yourself running your own business or married to the guy/girl of your dreams or whatever that’s great.  Good for you.  But you know where I see myself?  On fucking Mars.  Colonizing.  Ridin’ around in my land rover, knockin’ back a sixer of rehydrated Bud heavy and flippin’ you the space bird.  And if you’re thinking, Jeff, you can’t even fix a cabinet why would they send you to Mars?  To that I’d say: you see any cabinets on Mars?

Along with running and hiding whenever she saw anyone or heard anything, she also enjoyed insulting people who don’t speak cat straight to their faces.

Here is the fattest picture ever taken of her. She is almost blocking out all the light from that lamp.  Her last meow roughly translates to, “Remember me as I was”, and she was very fat for most of her life.  Actually her last meow was “If you hadn’t declawed me I’d be scratching your eyes out right now” but she had been muttering this off and on for years so we tended to ignore it.

Her all time favorite activity was probably plotting to kill humans.  Her scheming didn’t usually pay off, although one time she was nearly successful.  My sister was playing around with Photo Booth on my computer and I was distracted by having to tell her which filters were the best and that she was choosing all the stupid ones.  Then, out of nowhere, Pepsi lunged at her jugular.  Luckily, as you can see below, I was able to restrain her in time and my sister came out of it with little more than a deeply-rooted hatred of cats.

The point of all this is: I love you, cat, always have.  I’m sad I didn’t get one last chance to tell you but if you have free wifi up there maybe you’ll stumble across this.  I’ve gone ahead and put ‘catnip’ and ‘free catnip’ in the keywords.

And here is a promise: I’ll come visit you.  Someday.  And then together we can chase the tiny red dot across the sky.

If my street felt ‘swept’ it would be one thing.  But it doesn’t.  As far as I can tell the street sweeper’s job is to swirl the dirt around and hand out parking tickets.  And I don’t even think the dirt is getting properly swirled.  What the hell is this contraption they’re riding?  It looks like some jackass stole a zamboni, raised it up a foot or two then bolted car wash brushes to the undercarriage, to win a bet or something.

And also, it’s the street.  Why the fuck does it need to clean?  It’s like going around and washing rocks, except you’re not really washing them so much as running them over with a giant refrigerator that has brushes for wheels.

Not to mention the schedule feeling like it was some second grader’s class project that his parents didn’t help him with.  Monday one side, Wednesday the other, but you’re coming back on Thursday?  What?  Why?  For that little section of side street?  C’mon.  You’re serious?  Just do it on Monday.  No?  Fine Wednesday.  Really?  You’re being serious right now?  So you’re actually going to be sweeping my street three days a week?  Kids are dumb.

Give me a broom and I’ll sweep my part of the street.  Will take 5 minutes and I’ll do it once a week so it’s nice and clean for when I have company over.  Now that we’re finished with the tour of the apartment might I interest you in a jaunt outside to have a look at the ground underneath your car?  I assure you it’s spotless.

So let’s put an end to the ticketing.  Seriously.  You’ve made your point I shouldn’t be parking there but I’m never going to remember so just stop it.  Plus you really don’t want to see me get all passive aggressive over this, because when I get passive aggressive I murder people.

There seems to be two main ways people view the subject of privacy on the Internet:

A.) Uncomfortable about the amount of information that is out there, maybe tightening up a few settings here or there, but other than that proceeding like it’s business as usual.

Or

B.) Thinking that Google/Apple/Microsoft is watching them, and reading this, and stroking the white cat that sits on their lap while waiting for the right moment to press the red button.

Let’s look at two examples to put things into perspective:

Example 1: Siri

For those of you unfamiliar, Siri is the “personal assistant” that comes installed on the new iPhone.  You can talk to it (her?), ask it questions, and it will respond to you in a robot voice.  Of course, since it’s a robot and there are no social ramifications to speaking your mind, it’s only natural to immediately ask if it will s*** your d***.  Or if it likes boobs.  Siri, to its credit, handles itself quite well in these scenarios, something the team behind the software obviously prepared for.  This website catalogues all such human on robot harassment: http://shitthatsirisays.tumblr.com/

But that’s not what we’re talking about.  We’re interested in the fact that over time, Siri will improve itself.  Apple is processing all of the requests and analyzing to see where problems arise, and how they can make Siri better/more useful.  Apple states that with your use of Siri they are allowed to record whatever exchange you have with Siri.  (To view the entire Siri privacy policy, click here.)  This information will, of course, be anonymous, but it is still slightly unnerving to imagine someone listening to your voice dictating text messages sent to your friends.

Siri will also scan through all your contacts, nicknames you have for people, your music collection and playlists, and probably other stuff as well (Apple doesn’t disclose the entire list of information it collects about you).

At this point, Siri has quite a lot of information about you, even if most of it is only logged anonymously.  But, this information collection is the next logical step in technological advancement.

We clamor for the newest piece of tech.  We eat it up without thinking twice, then we want more.  When we finally get a robot assistant on our phones we expect it to be able to do everything.  We berate it for being stupid.  We ask it, “What’s a fun thing I can do right now?” and get frustrated when it provides us with answers that aren’t relevant.

If we want technology to work seamlessly, we are going to have to give up some privacy.  Siri will need to know more about you: your interests, things you’ve done in the past, and your current mood to be able to suggest something you would enjoy doing.  If you want technology to act like it’s in Minority Report, then you need to be able to accept that the Precogs are going to know what you’re up to.

Example 2: Google Targeted Ads

The above may read like a suck it up and hand over your information, which isn’t how it’s meant.  I think we just need to make an effort to know what type of information is being shared, and how it can be useful, and not be so quick to put corporations into the role of Big Brother.

You’ve all probably seen the targeted ads in gmail.  Have a whole conversation about what you’re going to be for Halloween and you’ll probably get a sidebar full of links to Costume shops, Costume Ideas, or natural male enhancement (no one said it worked perfectly).  Google states in their privacy policy that they have an automated process set up to scan through every email you send, pick out key words, and display ads based on those.  Fine, automated, no big deal.

Google also categorizes you, whether you know it or not.  Check out this link: google.com/ads/preferences/.  It shows what categories you’ve been placed in, based on the sites you visit.  This is used to serve you more relevant ads across the web, and it is done completely anonymously.  So, it’s not linked to your Google account, but instead to the browser/computer that you’re on.  And, if you clear all your cookies, this information is not stored.

While not really alarming, as it is anonymous (which seems to be the free pass to collect whatever you want in the privacy world), it does show the creeping trend towards more and more information collection.

Bottom Line

The goal of any major company is to have as much information about you as possible.  And since practically everything these days happens over a network, all of what you do is tracked in one form or another (credit card purchases, calls made, pictures posted, web sites viewed, locations visited on your gps).  The information is out there, and consumer profiles will only continue to become more comprehensive, most likely linking some or all of the behaviors above.  It this concerning?  Yeah, a little.  Are we blinded so much by new technology that we don’t pay enough attention to the privacy agreement that comes with it?  Yes, probably.  But are corporations going to enslave us and confiscate our disposable income?  No.  Let’s hope not.

So we should be wary of privacy moving forward, especially since companies are still getting away with intentionally vague language about what and how much information they are collecting.  Also recognize that whatever you’re doing is probably going to a database somewhere.  But don’t destroy your computer, sell all your possessions and go off the grid.  It’s not time for that.  Plus there really isn’t a point to it, because they’d find you.

When asked how users will log out of Facebook moving forward, Zuckerberg responded simply, “Exactly.”

This is part of what Facebook is calling a “Refinement to the sign off experience.”  Other changes will include prompting the user with a series of questions whenever they wish to exit Facebook, either by closing down their web browser or the app on their phone.

There were demo versions of this setup at the conference and it’s true, when we tried to close the Facebook tab we were prompted with such questions like “Are you sure you want to leave Facebook?” followed by “You are now exiting Facebook, click Yes to continue” and then “Click OK if you don’t not want to leave Facebook.”

After confirming we still wanted to leave Facebook the questions started to get a bit more aggressive.  Things such as “Have you seen that new photo Jane just posted?” And “Still want to go?  Why?  Give me three good reasons. Just three that’s it.”  There were boxes to enter the reasons, but before we could start typing another box popped up with, “C’mon.  That photo, I’m telling you, you can almost see nipple.  Just real quick, take a look, here’s the link.  Click it.  Click that link.  You’re a bitch if you don’t click it.”

The forward nature of this approach was brought up to Zuckerberg and he had this to say, “We never ask more than ten questions after a user has initially stated they wish to leave Facebook.  At that point if you still want to leave go right ahead, after all, it’s your choice in the end.”  Many claim that Zuckerberg then muttered the word, “Unfortunately” but it was difficult to make out.

When asked what else Facebook has planned for the future Zuckerberg said, “Well, we think this is a great step, and we’re very excited about it, but currently if a user wants to skip these questions they can just get up and walk away, so that’s what we’re working on.”

When it became clear that Zuckerberg wasn’t joking, a good portion of the developers and reporters in attendance started to shift around nervously in their seats.  Many brought out their smart phones to most likely share their thoughts with their friends on Facebook.  At this point Zuckerberg was just standing there.  He appeared to be losing the attention of most of the crowd but he didn’t seem to care, in fact, he was smiling.

And I do like what you’ve done with the living room.  I always thought it was missing suitcases full of shit piled in the corner.

Oh, and the whole changing behind me while I’m watching TV?  That’s just an economical use of sight lines.  The heads up, “Hey, I’m changing back here don’t turn around” is totally appreciated and definitely allows me to focus on the show I’m watching without at all thinking of your dick slinking around directly behind my head.  And when there is a dark scene on TV you can’t really make anything out in the reflection, just outlines, so it’s totally cool and doesn’t haunt me.

And, since you’ve been allowing us to enjoy your company all day every day, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet that friend of yours who stops by to drink the beer in our fridge.  I know that some people say she looks like a muppet, but I wouldn’t really take offense to that, people love the muppets.

I do want to apologize for all the racquet this morning.  Sorry.  I know you get peevish when you aren’t able to get your 14 hours.  You asking me to keep it down was reasonable, as I was showering and having an obnoxious bowl of cereal in the dark.  I can shower the night before no problem, also I think that if I have my bowl of cereal right before I go to bed then I won’t be hungry in the morning. Or, if I am, I can just have dry cereal out of a Ziploc in my room, so I won’t have to open the fridge for the milk.  I won’t even chew, just let the cheerios sit on my tongue until they dissolve so you won’t hear any crunching.  And, I’ve been thinking, we’re only on the third floor, so I can tie some sheets together and repel out my window when I leave.  Not sure why this didn’t cross my mind earlier.  This means I won’t need to open the door to the outside world that happens to be right next to your couch bed, as I know you don’t like the reminder that there is an outside world.

I do have one small request though, if it’s not too much trouble.  Would you mind cutting back the number of times you are waking me in the middle of the night from around 4 a week, to say, maybe 2?  I understand the urgency to such questions like “Hey where do we keep the spatula” or “Hey did you move my shoes” or even “Hey are you sleeping” but it would be nice if we could assume a couple things, like: We don’t keep the spatula in my room, I didn’t move your shoes, and if it’s 3am on a Wednesday then yes, I am sleeping.

I really think we can make this work.  I’ll be less disruptive so you can continue on your quest to become an inanimate object.  You’re getting there, I swear it, don’t give up.  And if you’re only able to cut back to waking me up 3 times in the middle of the night, I can deal with that, because how else are you supposed to know that the spatula is in the drawer?  Where it always is.

This relationship is going to be a give and take, or a take and take and take and take, but I have a feeling it could last a lifetime.  Or until you get a job.  Whichever comes first.