Radio Diatribe

Apparently, a lot of people do. According to Measure Map and Google Analytics, approximately half of visitors get here by searching some variation of “sufjan stevens gay.”

This got me wondering: why do people care if Sufjan Stevens is gay, why would they wonder if he is gay in the first place, and why do they come here?

The third one is obvious:

1. This blog is third one down from the top for “sufjan stevens gay” on Google.
2. The first two are completely spurrious hits.
3. NNDB, the most comprehensive “gay or not” database, does not have an entry for Sufjan Stevens.

I’ll try to tackle the first question, why do people care if Sufjan Stevens is gay, in the next entry.

“I get a boner just looking at this pants.”

It appears naming right to UW School of CS has been sold to a certain Dr. David R. Cheriton of Stanford, California for a meager $25 million. (According to the press release, the lowly undergraduates, as usual, will never see a cent of this $25 million.) While I definitely think the School should have got more money, but I cannot accuse Dr. Cheriton of being a cheapskate in light of this (thanks Tony for digging this up and posting it here).

A man who allegedly forced his wife (now ex-wife) to drive their kids around in “a beat-up 1970 van” and has opted not to exercise most of his stock options lest his ex-wife and kids get a piece has given his dear old alma mater a whopping $25 million. My knees shake just thinking about the kind of generosity Dr. Cheriton had to muster up, because, in light of this information, one cannot possibly think the gift was motivated by a tax law loophole or keeping his ex-wife and children from getting his precious stock option money.

Well, now, it’s not like he’s a rapist or an oil company executive. Also, remember School of CS is not the only thing in UW that’s named after questionable people.

From a MathSoc spam important announcement sent out earlier today:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

David Johnston, President, University of Waterloo, Thomas F. Coleman, Dean, Faculty of Mathematics,
and Johnny Wong, Director, School of Computer Science
invite you to attend a major gift announcement for
the School of Computer Science at University of Waterloo.

Friday November 18, 2005
12:30 p.m.
University of Waterloo
William G. Davis Computer Research Centre
Atrium
-----------------------------------------------------------
Light refreshments will be served.

Huh, hmm. What could this be? Let’s speculate a little.

1. RIM, or someone related to RIM, decides to throw us a few pennies in exchange for naming rights to pretty much everything School of CS has (chairs, doors, Frank Tompa’s forehead).
2. Microsoft, or someone related to Microsoft, decides to throw us a few pennies in exchange for banning the use of competitor products in classrooms.
3. Agents working for School of CS penetrated the upper echelon of Toronto and New York high societies and successfully manipulated wealthy widows/heiresses/whatever to donate hundreds of millions of dollars. Everyone in CS gets free plastic surgeries.

According to my beloved Measure Map tracker, the following keywords are bringing in the most visitors to this blog: “maya rudolph’s baby,” “tokion,” “sufjan stevens gay,” “is isaac brock gay?” and “michael ian black gay.”

Well, my curious visitors, here’s my take on your pertinent questions:

• Maya Rudolph’s baby

The father of Maya Rudolph’s baby daughter, Pearl, is none other than Paul Thomas Anderson, the writer/director of the movie Boogie Nights, as I mentioned previously here. While I found this to be rather surprising (when did he break up with Fiona Apple anyways?), in hindsight, something like this was bound happen.

• Tokion

According to Folio Magazine, Tokion has been sold to the private investor Larry Rosenblum. Oh, and if you are thinking of buying the current issue, the interview with Chloë Sevigny, while quite interesting, steers clear of the Vincent Gallo incident.

• Is Sufjan Stevens gay?

I going to give what I think is the answer whoever searched for this wanted: “Yes, Sufjan Stevens is totally gay and wants to fuck you, like, right now!”

• Is Isaac Brock gay?

Isaac Brock lives in Portland, Oregon. Why is this relevant to the question at all, you ask? Well, you see, Portland is home to Powells Books, one of the best bookstores in North America and also one of the continent’s gayest spot. Seriously, I think I heard totally flam guys lisping something along the line of “I lurve <insert author here>; I used to just breath in his/her writings” to each other at least ten times during the forty minutes I was there. Now, Powells is totally gay, so Portland is totally gay, which then makes Isaac Brock totally gay. Yes, dear visitor, Isaac Brock is totally gay and wants to fuck you, like, right now!

• Is Michael Ian Black gay?

See Wet Hot American Summer and Stella Shorts (You should find “Searching for Santa” the most interesting).

Now, when I can’t go to sleep because of heavy caffeine consumption, instead of playing minesweeper, I can make money (albeit about dollar an hour at most).

Finally something that’s kinda useful on this blog.

University of Waterloo off-campus housing mapper, brought to you by me.

According to Measure Map (and awstats log analyzer), only 12 out of 130 or so visitors I had in the last three days were not search engine robots. Uhh, and three of those 12 were me. I feel so alone.

But, Yahoo! Maps thinks it is.