Hump Day Helper -- Arthropoda Edition

Because it's Wednesday, and we all need a pick-me-up to make it through the rest of the week in our respective hells, WDR is providing some fun.

There really shouldn't be a specific reason that I post an awesome song like this. And there really isn't. My iTunes put on White Pony in its infinite ShuffleWisdom, and I was reminded once again how brilliant an album that really was. It's what metal should have been post-'95, but unfortunately it wasn't. And "Change" was the magnum opus of that album, topping even other great highlights ("Digital Bath", "Passenger").

Too bad that the video is a shortened version of the song--I don't think you get the fantastic drumfill that Abe throws in near the end that shows his ridiculous skills, for example. But you do get a nicely shot video with plenty of lasting images that strike the right chord between familiarity and unease.

I've watched you change
it's like you never had...

Hump Day Helper -- In Retrograde Edition

Because it's Wednesday, and we all need a pick-me-up to make it through the rest of the week in our respective hells, WDR is providing some fun.

So last week Bloc Party decided to do the whole "drop an album as soon as we finish it" gambit that has proven popular for many artists (see: Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails for great success, Raconteurs, Beck for perhaps not as great success). Sure, it gets them some attention for the maneuver, but without the run-up in promotion, will it kill the eventual sales tally? I'll guess yes, considering that Bloc Party doesn't have the same built-in fanbase that Radiohead or NIN have. Then again, Bloc Party might need all the good news they can get; plus first releasing the album on iTunes, followed by a physical release (with extra tracks!) a month later might have the same effect of promotion. We'll see if it pays off.

People were pretty split on A Weekend In The City, mainly in that it wasn't Silent Alarm Part II. I enjoyed it however, maybe because I realized it was a concept album--the anticipation yet realization of futility of partying in the beginning of the weekend, followed by throwing yourself into the scene, and capped by the eventual regret. If you didn't get that, the fact that a track called "Sunday" is the penultimate track should have given you a clue. While other people may not have enjoyed it, I'll take my heart-pumping "Song for Clay" AND my redemptive "SRXT" any day of the week.

As for the new material...well, it's different. "Mercury" is not really an indication of the entirety of the new album, though once heard with the rest of it, you can make sense of it. But it's a fast-paced electrodance kind of thing, so it definitely fits the bill of the HDH. Plus, the video is goofy. Always a plus.

This is not the time, the time to start a new love
This is not the time, the time to sign a lease
Try not to worry about what's forgotten
Try not to worry about what's been missed...

Honey Bunches of Oats is the Worst Cereal Ever Made

Yet I eat it just about every day.

You may ask yourself, why would I continue to eat a cereal that I clearly have little regard for? That's simply the wrong question to ask. A better question might be "Do BMX riders realize that you can't be badass when you're riding what amounts to be a bike for a six year-old?", though it would probably not be pertinent to the question at hand. Then again, if being relevant was your only concern, then yes, I guess, your initial question was fine.

The problem isn't with the taste of the cereal itself--no, it's the context beyond the cereal. That's because when you're eating "Honey Bunches of Oats", you're now eating "Old Man Cereal". Remember when you were young, the crazy shit you'd eat in your cereal? Shit, they put in fucking Oreo cookies and jelly beans and probably little chocolate donuts in cereals these days. But the day you stop eating Froot Loops is the day that you're called things like "mature" or people refer to you as "sir", like "Sir, that is not appropriate clothing for the Roadside Steak Shack, we must ask you to leave." I mean, since when did the Steak Shack have standards, any way?

And Honey Bunches of Oats doesn't help itself with their advertising. "With Almonds!" is a terrible selling point. Only old dudes get excited about nuts in their food, further cementing your reputation as an old man cereal. Plus, your cereal gets soggy as shit when I put milk in it, further destroying my mood and turning me into the old man that I apparently am.



However, Honey Bunches of Oats apparently now realizes that the only good thing about their cereal is the bunches. I don't know why it took them so long to realize that the one sweet part of the cereal was way better than soggy fucking cornflakes, but I'm guessing there aren't many geniuses at the Cereal Plant. So they've now decided to release a cereal called "Just Bunches". Color me excited--that's going to get me through the terror of 1L, I'll tell you that much (I'm being totally serious, you guys).

I remember I had a good joke about "Just Bunches", but I forgot it. If Mr. Zhuang or Joe decide to ever find this blog again, maybe they'll chime in with their answer.

Hump Day Helper--Halloween Scary Video Spectacular

Because it's Wednesday, and we all need a pick-me-up to make it through the rest of the week in our respective hells, WDR is providing some fun.

WDR loves Halloween so much, that it would like to take it back behind the middle school and get it pregnant, despite the obvious constraints of Halloween not being an actual entity, but merely a concept. We of course laugh at such constraints, because we are not tied down by the laws of physics or logic. We exist beyond that crap. The point is, today we're going to combine two of our loves, music videos and Halloween (or, in other words, "weird shit").

In the past, we've showcased in our Hump Day Helper some strange videos, like Interpol's "Evil", and last week, we gave you a taste of the scary with a kickass song from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Now it's time for the main course, as we pick random videos that we enjoy as a collective whole and attempt poor commentary on why they make such worthy Halloween choices.

The Underrated Creepy Video Band
We all know that Queens of the Stone Age has produced some of the most badass rock of the past decade (you will find their albums in constant rotation at WDR headquarters, especially R), but what has been overlooked is the crazy videos that these guys make. People remember the goofy Deer-Comes-Alive video of "No One Knows", but little else. What they're neglecting is stuff like the twisted cannibal horror of "Sick Sick Sick", the legitimately creepy violence of "Burn The Witch", and the terror that is a tranny scorned of this video, "Monsters In The Parasol".

Unfortunately, the scariest video of them all, "Everybody Knows That You're Insane", seems to be absent from the Interwebs. That being said, if you ever saw the original video with the deranged naked Japanese guy running around an apartment, you'd probably be scarred for some time.

The Ironic Scare
Back in the day, this video seemed to scare people a lot. But these days, if they shot the video without all the makeup, but just as the performer is now, people would literally crap their pants in fear. That's all I'm going to say.


The Hipster Horror Video
This song gets me pumped, and the video has a great style to it, from the grainy video quality to the ridiculous stop-motion attackers. Plus, the ending title cracks me up.

Gotta bust that box, gotta gut that fish!

The Video That Shows The Downfall Of The Second Album
I'm including this video because it shows everything that went wrong with Sam's Town--overindulgence (see: giant gospel choirs and horns?!?!) and no sense of style. Plus, retardedly creepy lyrics--"Don't you wanna feel my bones on your bones" defies all previously held conceptions of terrible writing.


The Category for "I Know Too Much About Horror"
We all know about Rob Zombie and his deal, and though I would much rather have a White Zombie video instead, we have to realize that this video was quite creepy to come across at 3 in the morning. Who said that a knowledge of horror movies was useless?


The "I Just Watched This A Minute Ago and I Had To Post It" Video
Daft Punk are awesome, and though they venture quite often into the realm of the strange, they never had a video as terrifying as this one.


This is actually a Snuff Film
Nine Inch Nails is of course very well known for their videos, though there was one set of videos that was deemed unworthy of airplay. Instead, it was sold on home video, where one could enjoy torture scenes and a trip down a toilet pipe in peace, with the fantastic ability to rewind. I'm only going to link to it, because frankly I don't want our blog to be investigated for anything. Mr. Zhuang has business contacts that the government DOES NOT NEED TO KNOW ABOUT.

Instead, let's just watch the perfectly stylized horror that is "The Perfect Drug".

Trent Reznor has stated that he is not a fan of his video, but dammit, it's sweet. Plus, we didn't want to go with the obvious choice of "Closer", even in all of its uncensored glory--though strangely enough, I appreciated the "Scene Missing" titles for giving it an even more mysterious air)

The "Holy shit, what happened to our instruments" Video
I will never turn down an opportunity to post this video.


Yes, it was only a dream. But Steve Perry's crotch has been the stuff of nightmares for years.

The WTF Video
Thanks for the heads-up in the comments section for this one. Glowing eyes, Urine-soaked fencing masks, SPEEDOS AND GYMNASTS--Good Christ, this video is terrifying.


We'll need the Dan Band to clean up after that one.

The Known Known
Tool is world-famous for their horrific, yet brilliant videos. The only problem was choosing which one to feature--do you go with the psychological trauma of "Prison Sex" or the purgatorial angst of "Sober"? You can't go wrong with the out-and-out weirdness of "Ænema". Well, I'm going to have to go with the videos which might be described as "Fun With Tumors" with naked people.


Mr. Zhuang's Choice
Well, he's a connoisseur of the Manson, so this choice is all his. I remember "Sweet Dreams" terrifying me as a child, and though it was responsible for one of the 3 funny things that David Spade has ever said ("Satan called, and said your videos are giving him nightmares"), this one is truly creepy.

(Note from Mr. Zhuang: This song and video are based off of Marilyn Manson's recurring nightmares. This should explain why it's pretty damn creepy)


Joe Reefer's Choice
Joe has led a terrifying life.


The Indisputable Champ
There is one man to turn to when it comes for the scares, and it's a guy that lives in a hollowed out former bank and drives a tank (at least that's what I hear). While "Windowlicker" has its own special kind of horror, I'm going with the video that has a demon shouting at me that he will eat my soul, and evil midgets terrorizing old ladies. Now that's fucking scary.


Well, enjoy your Halloween, everybody. And please, feel free to let us know what we missed in the comments.

Inside Our Website Traffic

Or: How the hell you got here, you dirty perv.

We started WDR with minimal hopes and dreams, because, as Republicans have taught us, we know that in order to succeed in life one must work hard. And we're just not committed at all to doing that. No bootstraps for us--we're fine in our flip-flops and sneakers (though no Birkenstocks--get the hell away from us, you damn dirty hippy). We're content to wallow in filth and drink delicious delicious alcoholic beverages.

In other words, we didn't really expect much from this little corner of the TubedWeb. We were grateful for any spare visitor that happened upon our humble little site, realizing full well that they mainly came from friends and family who we badgered into taking a look (though strangely enough, my friends have proven that they have better taste than I've given them credit for and haven't visited). And our initial traffic statistics reflect this reality.



Gradually, as the content here grew, we began to get a more consistent flow of visitors. Habitual consumers of The Report became more commonplace, as they learned to rid themselves of the shame of visiting such a terrible site and instead began to semi-revel in it. We love you guys--don't ever change. I mean it. If you change your hair, we're disowning you.

Then all of a sudden we got a sudden surge in traffic. The number of visits increased like 900%, man. It was totally ridiculous. Our blog had finally broken through, in some sense.



What caused this sudden spurt in popularity? Well, I've been sifting through the data and cracking some numbers, and here is the stimulus for our growth.



You sick fucks. Seriously.

We realized this was caused by a random "perfect storm" post. I had suggested to the other co-authors to randomly toss in a tag of "hentai tentacle rape porn" in their posts to help boost traffic. Plus, it is a great way to call attention to the fact that the Japanese are seriously fucked up. I mean, Do Not Click This. I mean, I've been friends with Japanese people, but good god damn.

Well Joe Reefer decided to include that tag in his brilliant Harry Potter parody post. The combination of "Harry Potter", "porn", "tentacle rape", and "hentai" unleashed something, because these were the terms that were drawing people to us. All it took was a Google Image Search with those terms, and people would come.

Now I'm talking to these people who came to us through these means. Here we are, mano e mano.



Knock it the fuck out. Seriously. That's fucking disgusting.

I mean, tentacle rape porn is ridiculous, but to throw in Harry Potter? We're talking children here! We all have our fetishes (I hear Zhuang enjoys cacti, and Reefer is a known licorice-freak), but that is awful. Please don't come round here no more.

I Did Not Know That

Did you know that you can't bring Ninja Throwing Stars on a plane? Unfortunately, I did not.


Damn, I'll have to look for a better opportunity to showcase my awesome ninja skills. But what could've been better than a captive airplane audience?