Yahoo! Assbags

I signed up for Yahoo! Answers the other day. We're already not getting along.

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Hello The RoBeast

You have posted content to Yahoo! Answers in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. As a result, your content has been deleted. Community Guidelines help to keep Yahoo! Answers a safe and useful community, so we appreciate your consideration of its rules.

Question: should men tweeze their eye brows? Indians only please...?

Question Details:

Deleted Answer: You should tweeze your eye balls out.

Violation Reason:Community Guidelines and/or Terms Of Service Violation

If you feel this content was removed in error, please read the Community Guidelines and make sure that this content: 1. respects the question-answer format and is not chatty or personal communication; 2. does not contain non-relevant links to external sites or other questions and does not promote your own blog or website; 3. is respectful to other people and does not offend other community members. If you still believe this content has been removed in error, please contact Customer Care and tell us why.

Regards,
Yahoo! Customer Care

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I basically signed up to give smartass answers to everything, so I knew that racking up violations was inevitable. I'm not sure how exactly I violated Yahoo's policy with this one. I didn't feel that I was being particularly mean, obscene, or hateful. I also wasn't harassing or threatening this person. I didn't suggest that I personally would hurt the guy in any way--I advised him to hurt himself. Big difference! Besides, tweezing hurts anyway whether it's your eyebrow or eyeball.

I decided to appeal the deletion as this user's question was racist in the first place.

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REDFRMADV Case ID: 59003154

What are you appealing?
Subject: Answer Deletion

Enter additional information here:
I hope you understand that you flagged my inappropriate answer to
a clearly racist question.

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Little did I know that my appeal was being forwarded to Yahoo! India. Another fun fact: Yahoo! India is apparently located in Singapore. Singapore, not exactly known for their liberal sense of humor, had zero interest in my appeal. (Another fun fact: Google's Blogger has zero interest in allowing me to type without using italics anymore. Why do you think I'm angry all the time?)

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Hello,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! India.

We have reviewed your appeal request. Upon review we found that your
content was indeed in violation of the Yahoo! Answers Community
Guidelines, Yahoo! Community Guidelines or the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
As a result, your content will remain removed from Yahoo! Answers.

Please note: Questions that do not receive any answers within the 4-day
open period will expire and be deleted automatically.

Use of Yahoo! Answers is subject to the Yahoo! Answers Community
Guidelines, Yahoo! Community Guidelines, and also the Yahoo! Terms of
Service. Members who have violated the Community Guidelines are at risk
for review and possible termination of their Answers accounts. In
extreme cases, members who have also violated the Yahoo! Terms of
Service risk losing their Yahoo! ID and access to other Yahoo! services.

Please review the Yahoo! Answers Community Guidelines here:

http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/info/community_guidelines.php

Please review the Yahoo! Community Guidelines here:

http://sg.docs.yahoo.com/info/guidelines/community.html

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! India.

Regards,

Louis
Senior Customer Care Specialist
Yahoo! Singapore
http://sg.yahoo.com

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Anyway, my original appeal was sent on a form entitled "First Appeal," so I logically presume that I can appeal again. This email from "Louis" suggests otherwise. There is no additional form, no contact information... basically, no recourse other than reviewing their policy over and over. Regardless, I hit reply and gave Yahoo! India a piece o' my mind:

You consider my content inappropriate, but you don't see THE OBVIOUS RACISM IN THE QUESTION? It says "INDIANS ONLY". How is that respecting "a diverse community of people with diverse opinions" as stated in the community guide? If you don't delete that question, I'm going to tweeze my own eyeballs out in protest. You don't want that blood on your hands.

I was tempted to make the subject "Indians only," but decided against it. I never received a response back, but I also can't find the question anymore. Maybe it was deleted, I don't know. This is the RoBeast again, by the way talking in real blog time, so pretend I'm not using block quotes or italics. Blogger obviously wants you to use your imagination since they won't allow me to just fucking type over there with left justification or with plain old text or anything else I want to do. Why would I? It's their blog really. I shouldn't complain because they let me have all this free space and bandwidth for no charge at all. It's not like they track everything I do or anything in exchange for this privilege. It's not like they follow every website I go to and then throw strategic ads at me all fucking day.

Well somehow I broke out of the blockquote, but now I've got a different font that I don't want. At least it looks different. I don't know why I even fucking bother trying to make these blogs visually interesting. I would think that large quoted items such as email messages should be italicized and separated somehow. It makes it easier to read, plus I don't want anyone to think the text is to be read in my voice, but no... I can't fucking do anything I want in Blogger. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW FRUSTRATING IT IS TO CLICK ON AN ITALICS BUTTON AND NOT HAVE THE GOD DAMNED ITALICS GO AWAY. GO AWAY ITALICS. BLOGGER YOU PIECE OF SHIT, JUST DO WHAT I WANT. IF YOU KNOW ANYONE THAT WORKS ON BLOGGER, I WANT YOU TO TELL THEM TO TWEEZE THEIR FUCKING EYEBALLS OUT.

JIHAD AGAINST YAHOO AND GOOGLE. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST. I KNOW THAT'S NOT SOMETHING INDIANS DO, BUT I'VE BEEN READING A LOT ABOUT MUSLIM BATHROOM HABITS LATELY AND EVERYTHING IS SETTING ME OFF. I GOT LIKE 13 HOURS OF SLEEP LAST NIGHT AND IT'S ALL RUINED NOW. I JUST CAN'T RELAX. I WANNA GET FREE.

EDIT VEDDER

I've got a quick update to a recent post.

The Pearl Jam Unplugged DVD being released tomorrow has achieved a very disappointing trifecta--the set is edited, rearranged, and incomplete. I will most likely not be shelling out any money for that bullshit.

Here is the original set list:

01. Oceans
02. State of Love and Trust
03. Alive
04. Black
05. Jeremy
06. Porch
07. Even Flow
08. Rockin' in the Free World

Of that set, only "Alive," "Black," "Jeremy," and "Porch" made it to the original cable broadcast. "Even Flow" had also been aired a handful of times, but always separate from MTV's half-hour Unplugged broadcast. The remaining rare tracks and in-between stage banter have been passed around on the internet for years, complete with the exciting time code on the bottom of the screen.

From what I've gathered on message boards and press releases, "Oceans" and "State of Love and Trust" have been added to the DVD. "Rockin' in the Free World" has not. Also, "Even Flow" shows up out of order. It will appear super-obviously out of order as the end of "Porch" features Eddie Vedder standing up on his stool and writing "PRO-CHOICE!!!" on his arm in black marker. Now, you'll see it written on his arm earlier in the set, before he actually writes it there. I know it sounds like a ridiculous thing to get hung up on. Just bear with me, I am about to get more insane.

At the end of "Oceans," the vocals have been altered from the original recording (I would have preferred to underline the predicate to show my outrage, but alas, Blogger has decided that underlining is not such an important tool, and I don't feel like typing out the code the old school way... so you get italics instead). Eddie Vedder has a tendency to alter his own lyrics in concert, and towards the end of the MTV version of "Oceans" he amended "Ohhhhh, ohhhhhh" to "Ohhhhh, Beth," a tribute to his girlfriend at the time. Apparently on the DVD, the references to Beth are removed and replaced with a "grunt" of some sort. No edit is made to the visual portion.

I'm assuming they thought no one would notice, but someone did, and they pointed it out on the Pearl Jam Ten Club message board. To be honest, I have not heard the unplugged version of "Oceans" that many times and would probably not have noticed myself, but now that I know, I think it's lametarded. While I am 100% on board with them remixing Ten and changing the audio, they fully disclose this on the packaging and in press releases. People are going to be buying this Ten re-release expressly for the purpose of hearing an altered version of the album. There was never any mention of the Unplugged set being altered.

They should have taken a page from Alice in Chains and Nirvana, who released (as far as I know) complete versions of their Unplugged sessions. Those packages wisely included the fuck-ups and false starts. That's the shit I love, man! The charm of live sets is realism and spontaneity. Eddie Vedder screws up the lyrics to "Black" and they kept that in there (as far as I know). Why would they change anything else? Yeah, I know it's your fucking song and you can do whatever you want with it, but it's just tacky to try to change history. I sort of embarrassed by how bothered I am by this. It just doesn't seem very Rock n' Roll to me. I can't figure out the reasoning behind this. Was her name that painful to hear? Did Beth threaten to sue? Did the band complain? I just don't get it. People, stop editing shit! GO TAKE THE FUCKING HARMONICA OUT OF FOOTSTEPS AND THROW BETH BACK IN THE OCEAN!

Keep on Rocking* in the Free World, fuckers.

(* The extra g is for Greedo Shoots First.)

In other quick news, I had a dream the other night that Sean Penn died, so I apologize to his family if The Curse of The RoBeast kills him in the next few weeks. As for Natasha Richardson, I never mentioned her name here before, but I think something must have rubbed off of Liam Neeson. Sorry.

FUCKING K-ROCK

THEY CHANGED FORMATS AGAIN!!!!!!!!

I was listening to the radio on Monday morning and noticed that Opie and Anthony were gone--a step in the right direction, in my opinion. Instead of those tools, they were playing rock blocks. I was hoping they were just keeping the morning slot warm for Booker, who just moved back to the station two months ago. I should have read the newspapers, because my theory was very wrong.

On the way home from work today, I stopped at Party City (the coolest place in the world). When I went in, there was rock music playing. When I returned to my car, it was fucking Eminem coming out of my speakers. I checked to see if accidentally put Z100 on, but I was wrong again. At 5pm today, the rock was over. 92.3 "NOW" is currently playing Top 40. Apparently they are playing 10,000 songs in a row with no commercials. There don't appear to be any jocks either. WTFUCK?

Speaking of the destruction of New York City, I spotted what was obviously a C.H.U.D. attack in the Village a couple weeks ago:

Ok, well, it may have been the Wolfen. The DNA samples haven't come back from the lab yet. Either way, I'd rather be attacked by an Urban Monster than be subjected to another fucking Top 40 station.

Fortunately, Matt Pinfield is here to save us:

Hey everyone- it's Matt!

NYC just lost another rock station…the legendary K-Rock. We are sad that many people have lost jobs and that the New York rock scene just lost an outlet. We play a lot of the music that K-Rock embraced, so we would appreciate your support if K-Rock was previously your preferred station.


And, to our faithful listeners, we appreciate your help in spreading the word about 101.
9 RXP-The New York Rock Experience! Maybe you can convert some old K-Rock listeners!

We thank you deeply for your support and welcome your feedback!

Click here to read more www. 1019rxp. com/rockisalive
and email us feedback at rockisalive@1019rxp.com

Keep Rockin!
Matt Pinfield

Now that I think about it, I've seen Matt Pinfield tear up dumpster bins with his bare hands in the past. Maybe this is all part of his master plan to scare us into the hands of Alternative Radio. I'm on to you, Pinfield. I'm on to you.

QUICK PICKS FROM VACAY

Last week I went to the Dominican Republic.

But first I stopped in Nilbog and ate some of the townsfolk's homemade pasta.

Then I turned into a fish and puked green liquid everywhere.

I composed myself long enough to run directly into a large white box.

The RoBeastress and I then attempted to be that couple.


But the Canadians had us beat.

Back on the JetBlue plane, XM Radio Love Song FAIL.

Ok, JetBlue, I get it already. We're still "In The Air Tonight."

Awww, Don Not.

That wasn't funny, jerx.

Bland is the New Quirk

I feel like I've been mandated by the people today to talk about the new Snapple bottles. We've had the new Orangeade bottles for a few weeks now, but I guess nobody noticed. I think that was originally the point for the update: no one was buying the Snapple juices, so they gave them a new package and more sugar. Today, I put out several other new flavors, and it's all I've been hearing all morning. We even had a fire in the building today (well, technically, on the building) but Snapple is the only thing on people's mindz.

This blog comes just on the heels of the Great Tropicana Complaint, which resulted in Pepsico recalling the updated design. I don't anticipate Snapple doing the same thing, but it's amazing what complaining will get you. Just as a reminder, I didn't have any serious complaints about the Tropicana design, other than the color coding issues between flavors. It seems that I have the same exact complaint for this new Snapple bottle, specifically on the diet bottles. I'm not worried about telling the difference between Snapple and generic teas, but I can not tell the difference between diet flavors quick enough. Diet Peach Tea is a very similar color to the Diet Lemonade Iced Tea. I know that I have the ability to read, but I work with dozens of cases of Snapple at a time, and the lack of definitive color differences slows me down. The regular flavored tea and juice seem to have held on to their original color schemes, but the diets have been completely overhauled. I can imagine this will bother consumers.

Actually, I don't need to imagine because quite a number of them have mentioned this to me today. The other big problem the has everyone freaking out is the lack of the safety plastic around the cap. Maybe in reality, there's no real protection with those plastic things, but to consumers, they're used to the security feature and aren't too keen on giving them up. There's still the pop up cap, but it looks like that's the extent. Snapple bottles are now as unhygienic as... gasp... cans!

Other than that, the bottles are slim (and taller), smooth (non-textured glass other than the "S" logo on top), and serious (no more quirky notes in the margins). If those things keep costs from rising, then that's fine with me. Every bottle and their cute little copy is trying to flirt with me anyway and it's gotten lame. Don't they know that Bland is the new Quirk.

All right, you want pictures? You got it.

Here are two different Diet Snapple Teas. QUICK, PICK YOUR FAVORITE!

IT'S TOO LATE, YOU PICKED THE WRONG YELLOWISH BOTTLE WITH YELLOWISH FRUIT! YOU LOSE, AMERICAN ASSHOLE!

Here are two more bottles. Both are Orangeade, but has the old school green juice cap and the other has the silver robocap of the future! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!

Here's some more fun cap action. Lemonade on the left, Raspberry on the right, and the bastard child in the center. I have a feeling that with the new bottle transition, they've been putting any old cap on bottles and sending them out just to get rid of them.

Here's a closeup of the new serious bottle.

Another close-up but a little more focused now. This one reveals the odd similarities between the "Made From Green & Black Tea Leaves" and the Green & Black's organic chocolate logo.


Is this a coincidence? Dear reader? Is it?

Births & Anniversaries

First off, the Beauty's little babe joined IRL earlier this week. Maeve Lililm was born at 7:24 pm on March 3rd. No word on her Twitter name yet. Congratulations, partner.

On to the blogginating. Pearl Jam is re-releasing their debut album Ten along with a remixed version with bonus track on March 24th. I played their crazy Pearl Jam Ten Game in order to unlock tracks from the album so I could (sort of) review them for you. Personally, I've been looking forward to a remix because I think the original version is gross. My first Pearl Jam album was the much slicker Vs. and I've never really been satisfied with Ten, preferring live, remixed, and radio versions of the tracks. Hopefully now, I can stop complaining.

These were the tracks I listened to this morning:

Once - Nice mix, finally. The original Ten had way to much reverb everywhere--on snares, on vocals, on every fart recorded in the isolation booth--and I'm pleased to say that most of it is now gone. The guitars don't sound like the seventies anymore and the vocals don't sound amateur. And the bass is right up there too. I probably would have liked to see some of the mumbly background Vedder-patter removed, but I can deal with it.

Why Go - Again, most of the musical cheese here is gone, so we're just left with the corny lyrics. Yeah, it's their debut album, so they needed some aggressive stuff to go along with the purdy parts. When I personally revist Ten, I really only want to hear "Black", "Oceans", and "Release" because I'm an old pussy now I guess. When I was younger, I would listen to these "tougher, angry" tracks like "Why Go" and "Deep" because I didn't know what tough and angry was yet (Hint: it usually isn't saturated in reverb or wah-wah pedals). Ok, the song still isn't heavier, but it definitely sounds better. I noticed an extra hi-hat hit at the first "Why go home?" part that I never heard before followed by some vocal effects that are actually cornier now than they were 20 years ago. Bad Brendan O'Brien! You lose, American asshole!

Jeremy - Sounds good. I think this was remixed for the video in the first place anyway. The only major differences I hear between this mix and the already remixed remix mix are more defined background vocals throughout and some guitars cleaned up during the verses and towards the end. Actually, the drums sound better too, like they're being hit harder somehow. Improved when I didn't think there was room for improvement.

Breath - A sluggish and unnecessary take. Ok, I can hear the lyrics better, but it's still an inferior version to the one recorded for the Singles soundtrack. I know it's big deal when they do it live, but I don't care for that either. I don't want to clearly hear the line "A breath and a scream." I want to hear the line slur into the next line ("A breath and a s-Oh, reach the door...") because it simply flows better. It's not horrible, but I just can't imagine ever purposely listen to this version.

Brother - This song blows as much as it did in the 90's. I've read that band members used to fight about whether or not to ever play or record this track. This song really shouldn't have seen the light of day. I don't know why any radio stations are playing it now.

Besides "Brother" and "Breath," there are 4 other B-sides being included on the O'Brien remastered disc: "Just a Girl," "State of Love and Trust," "2,000 Mile Blues",and "Evil Little Goat." Of these, I think I'm only famililar with "State of Love and Trust" which again, I don't think can possibly be improved from the Singles movie soundtrack version. I've heard a two second snippet of "State of Love and Trust" and it sounds a little slower, but with the snare in double time. I don't know how I feel about that.

Now you may be asking "Where are the re-recorded versions of 'Alive' and 'Even Flow' I hear still on the radio that Pearl Jam already had done in the 90s for their MTV videos with drummer Dave Abruzzeze that were way better than the Ten versions"? That's what I'm asking too. I don't know the answer. I never owned those versions because they were always on expensive imports, but I thought they were so good that it ruined the album versions for me. I don't think remixes of the original will surpass those versions. They may have been on that Rearviewmirror greatest hits package that came out 5 or so years ago. I didn't buy that, so I don't know. You can do the research.

The 2-disc collection comes with the original Ten (why?) and the O'Brien remix. The Deluxe Edition comes with the MTV Unplugged DVD, which is what I'll probably be picking up. I really hope it's the complete version though, with the unaired "Even Flow," "State of Love and Trust," "Rockin' in the Free World," and "Oceans." The press release only mentions "Oceans" but the website also has "Even Flow" playing. I don't know why they wouldn't just give a complete tracklisting to appease crazies like me who are sitting here wasting precious blogspace wondering all day and night. It's nice to hear that they didn't correct Eddie Vedder's lyrical flub during "Black." Pearl Jam's Lost Dogs B-side compilation album a few years featured lots of vocal recordings on old songs and they were all awkward and inferior.

There's also a vinyl version called the Who Fucking Cares About Vinyl Edition?

The Collector's Edition has all that plus a live concert LP from Seattle entitled "You Probably Don't Need Another Pearl Jam Concert Because We Have Already Released A Thousand, But Here It Is Anyway: Live." You also get a cassette version of the original Pearl Jam demo tape called "Momma-Son." This is the one that was sent as an instrumental to Eddie Vedder and which he sang lyrics over and blah blah blah history. I've heard these tracks before. They're interesting, but like most demos, they're really nothing to ever listen to over and over again. I don't even have a cassette player. Finally, this set comes with an "Eddie Vedder style composition notebook" which I probably would've studied 20 years ago, but now I don't have any time or room for. I can't imagine that it will be as long or as personal as the Kurt Cobain diary anyway. Therefore, I have no intention of spending $125 for all that junk. Even $28 is a tough sell for the Deluxe Edition, when I don't know for sure what's on the DVD and I don't really need another copy of the original Ten mix.

I don't know what else Pearl Jam has in store: "The reissue of Ten serves as the launch of a planned two-year catalogue re-release campaign leading up to the band's 20th anniversary in 2011." Does that mean they'll be giving disc the remix and special packaging treatment? If so, it seems a little like overkill. Especially because I don't want to have to write a blog entry for each one.