Meet, on your left, Mr. Brian Buck. Mr. Buck is a student at Arizona State University, and that videotape he holds is labeled “Frat Row Scavenger Hunt #3.” What type of scavenger hunt, you might ask? Why, a porn scavenger hunt, of course! What does one scavenge for in this sort of video? About what you’d expect, apparently — though no intercourse takes place. (Brian reportedly gets things started with a shower scene.)

Now, why is this worthy of my notice, or your precious time? Well, of course it isn’t. But did I mention this particular title was shot on the ASU campus? And — oh yes — Mr. Buck is the student government vice-president? Suddenly it’s newsworthy. And ASU’s attempts to lower the school’s party profile are set back a few years.

By the way, the other two guys up there are the current ISU student government execs. I’m sure they’ve been good.

For some time now, I’ve ignored the SF Gate “Morning Fix” newsletter I receive; it’s just too long. (The writer is occasionally talented, so I feel guilty about unsubscribing.)

Anyway, the Morning Fix for Monday arrived a few minutes ago. Seems their servers delayed it for a whopping 16 hours. It’s often late, but this delay was so eye catching I decided to scan through.

Under the “Oh My God Oh My God Oh My God” section (right under “And Now, Mullet Haiku”) there was a link to this product. One wonders what sort of campaign PeTA would mount. Actually, one wonders nothing of the sort, as one is too busy being amused that the very next product is a “bush cap.”

That’s the title of this New York Times Magazine piece, but I would have used it anyway.

Though the article is about the confusing iDrive system in the new BMW 745i, I was completely distracted by the accompanying photo: a long, skinny leg in fishnets with no skirt in sight. Not to make any sort of generalizations, but the first thing I thought was: “Whoa! Slut!”

Update [17:48]: Turns out the article’s good, though it has one or two editing errors.

UK-based BlackStar DVD e-mailed me a holiday spam message a few moments ago. The contents differ strikingly from what I would expect a large company to send.

They used the phrase “Merry Christmas,” which most corporations eschew in favor of some sort of neutral “holiday” reference, and they urged me to play BlackStar Sober Santa Game. (Flash required.)

I came away with 1,166 points and a bit of a shock.

Several months ago, Blockbuster gave me a complimentary upgrade to their Blockbuster Rewards Gold program. The letter accompanying the new card told me I was one of their “most valuable customers.” (To be eligible, customers must pay for at least 100 rentals in a 12 month period.)

I haven’t rented anything since they sent it to me.

Not until last night, that is. Quality time with Brandon means movies, and so we rented 5 titles (2 of which were actually in English.) Matt rented the non-subtitled selections for us on Friday, confronting a monumental hassle in the process.

He had to fill out a new customer form, provide two telephone numbers (at 11p, they wanted to call his parents to verify it was a working number!) and jump through various hoops — even though he had an account in good standing at the store across town.

By contrast, when I went to Blockbuster, the rental process went off exactly as it does at my home store, some 180 miles away. (If anything, it was smoother. The employee seemed actually helpful.)

I found the contrast interesting, and told Brandon so. He thought differently: “I’m glad Hollywood doesn’t do it that way,” he said. “I’d never be able to rent anything.”

Hmmm. A national database means late fees that follow you wherever you go. The boy has a point…

Note: Nothing in the above should be construed to mean I don’t still view Blockbuster as the Antichrist. Despite a convenient rental procedure, their idea of varied selection continues to be 40 copies of One Night at McCool’s in both VHS and DVD. I eagerly await the day when I live near a Facets.

Weird stuff seen here as well. To wit –

• On Brandon‘s feet: little tartan booties.
• On a billboard: GIVE GASOLINE THIS CHRISTMAS
• On a church slidey-letter sign: FOR A GOOD TIME CALL JOHN 3:16

These Rochesterians, I tell ya…

Wow, I’m just posting all sorts of random stuff today when I should be getting ready to drive to the Land of B-don.

I’ll do that in a moment, but first I recommend you take a look at this video, for which I have NO explanation, and then read the reviews for this CD, about which I am equally perplexed.

On the plus side, both are hilarious. (Both links shamelessly lifted from MetaFilter.)

Copyright law gives authors the sole right to benefit from their creative works for a limited time. Most players agree this function is valuable. The sticky part is: how long is limited? That was the central question of the fascinating Eldred v. Ashcroft case before the Supreme Court.

Now comes an analysis that finds (using IMDb Pro) just 6.3% of the movies released between 1927-1946 are available for purchase today. (See the e-mail linked at the bottom of Lessig‘s entry for the figures.)

Even through the use of the most generous figures (which makes the entirely unlikely assumption that those films available on DVD don’t overlap with those titles on VHS), just 9.6% are on the market.

It’s tough to make the argument that an additional 20 years of protection (bringing works-for-hire copyright to 95 years) is a necessary trade-off to motivate studios to continue this sorry record. But of course the MPAA will try.

(Note the writer’s analysis omits data on licensing agreements, but that’s likely because there’s no comprehensive public site to cull that information from.)

Seen on the slidey-letter sign for Zylstra Cycles (a Harley dealership): VISIT SANTA ON DEC 7. No word as to whether that’s targeted toward adults or kids.

Heard on the radio, minutes later: “‘Drink‘ is the Hamptons of the Midwest! You never know what celebrity you’re going to see next!” (No, I think you do.)

So I can’t tell which one frightens me more: seeing Santa at the Harley shop or a bar in Clive calling itself the Hamptons.

I like this guy‘s style. (I guessed ‘never leaves town.’) Not a bad site either.

Hmm, the heat fixit guy is here.

CDNow has merged with Amazon. Not that they call it that — it’s always “teamed with.”

I’m slightly sad because I used CDNow as an alternate interface when I couldn’t find the title (or, equally as important, sound clip/format) I wanted from Amazon. (Of course, now there is less diversity of clips as everyone just licenses from Muze.)

Sadness aside, I don’t understand why these deals are smart. Sure, Amazon will take care of “fulfillment, inventory, content and customer service” (News.com) for CDNow’s customers, but doesn’t this just do the brand in? This isn’t Borders, where you can focus your attention on the stores. This is a Web site that loses all its original look-and-feel and even its domain name as it folds into another site.

Just to confuse things, they have the CDNow Preferred Buyers Club, which is one of those buy-one-and-then-another-in-12-months deals. Bertelsmann owns CDNow and BMG Music Club, so this is no surprise. Unfortunately, it just further fragments the brand and destroys the user experience: now you have two different-looking CDNow sites, with a need for a separate username/password on each.

They should have just sold it, a la Egghead.com.

Today was the presentation of that paper I wrote a few weeks ago. (You remember.)

Everyone presented, so I learned about the other topics. The woman who went first said she was inspired in part by something I said in class (woohoo!) Her topic was how language may be affected by the prevelance of IM and its associated abbreviations, acronyms, and “emoticons.”

The prof: “Do any of you use instant messenging regularly?”

I: “Yeah, I do.”

He: “Do you use this type of writing? And ‘smileys’?”

I: “Well, I’m a purist. I feel the same toward ‘smileys’ as I do toward exclamation points: if you have to use them, your sentence isn’t well written. Of course, not all my chatting partners feel that way. I’m often sent a bunch of smiley faces… and hearts… and, well, basically I’m chatting with 11-year-old girls.”

Collective intake of breath followed by dead fucking silence.

(Yeah, you could say that joke bombed hard. Everyone got a huge laugh out of it later, but wow, I was looking like a real jackass at that moment.)

It’s cold out there.

No, really. TWC reports 15°F, and with windchill (“feels like”) 1°F. This is Brandon-approved weather.

It’s hot in here.

No, really. My thermostat is set at 68°F, and it’s reading 84°F. No joke. Last night, I slept without a comforter or even a top sheet.

The guys are supposed to come fix it today. (Of course I wanted to take a nap.)

Yesterday when I paged through the residents of my building, I was a bit surprised to see the strong international presence. (My friend Ashish: “Your building’s the U.N.!”) I was even more surprised to learn my next-door neighbor, whom I’ve never actually seen, is a guy who lived on my floor sophomore year.

But there were more surprises.

There’s a girl who often leans on the exterior wall near the building’s north door, smoking. We’re always cordial to each other in the “How are you?” generic fashion. Finally I decided to take the next step.

– I: “Hey, how are you?”
– She: “Fine, you?”
– “Good. My name’s John, by the way.”
– “I’m Sara.”
(some generic chatting, and then:)
– She: “Yeah, my boyfriend said he was your roommate his freshman year.”
– “What? No way.”
– “Yeah, his name’s Bill.”
– “Bill ——? From Omaha?”
– “Yep.”
– “Wow. Crazy. How did you find that out?”
– “You were coming back and we were leaving, and he saw you and said, ‘That guy was my roommate freshman year.’ I said I see you all the time.”

If that’s not enough, then I made the classy move of calling his previous girlfriend a bitch. I know it ain’t nice, but she called him every freaking day at 11 to ask the same question (“Are we going to lunch?”) and get the same answer (“I’m on my way over.”) At least I had the good sense not to ask “So, is he still a porn fiend?”

I was going to write a quick entry about a custom license plate generator I found via some guy’s blog.

But then I saw some plates on their Recent License Maker Licenses page. When I visited, they included:

There were several variants on that theme. The fact that someone would take the time to select Wyoming and craft this stuff causes me more sadness than I can explain.

I mean, they killed him. Jesus. They killed him.