So! One year! I’ve been posting here at SayNoToCrack for a whole year now, and I must say, it’s been a load of fun and I’m looking forward to more.

Lessons I’ve learned in my year at SNTC:

LOLanimals never stop being awesome to some people (like me).

Apparently there are people who, unlike me, don’t feel awesome about watching a ton of internet videos.

Disliking the Newsboys is the same as liking obscene rap music. Whaddaya know.

People may not have the time to read an entire post, but they sure as heck have the time to post a comment letting you know that they don’t have time to read your entire post.

A post about meat hats is just fashion forward enough to have people asking you to link to their fashion website.

Gday,

Noticed that this page on your site had a lot of useful resources on clothing.
[link]

Would you consider including [my fashion website] link?

It could serve as a useful link since it has some relation to the page.*

A person may post and ask me to contact them, but they’ll still give me a false e-mail address to prevent all the SPAM I’m not sending nor even know how to send.

People who read this are clever, clever fiends.

Thanks for making the year good clean fun, everybody. Happy springtime for those northern-hemisphereans out there! I have a 10 page paper to be writing!

*I haven’t written him back. Not entirely sure what to say.

To The Writers of Songs:

Hey. I’d just like to start off saying, congratulations. You do for a living what high school students everywhere fill whole notebooks with in hopes that their “deep” and “inspired” lyrics will one day make them rich, or at least cool. This, as you probably know, never works, but to be quite honest…your work isn’t much better these days. I’ve compiled a list of suggestions to help you up your game.

1. Rhymes. You should get some new ones.

Invest in one of these things maybe?

Here are a few rhymes that could use a few decade’s vacation:
“Friend” and “End.” Yeah, yeah, friends to the end. It’s bad. Stop now.
“Pain” and “Rain.” There is absolutely nothing you can add to this rhyme.
“Alone” and “My own.” It’s a rhyme that relies on redundancy. You’re better than that.
“Ever” and “Never.” Jeeeeez.
“Love” and “Above.”
“Right” and “Night.”
“Night” and “Sight.”
Let’s just leave night out of it.
“Air” and “Care” (thanks Freelanceguru for the reminder there)
“Joy” and “Boy”
“Said,” “Dead,” “Head.” Any “-ed” rhyme. They’re all washed up. Plus the English Language is pretty much cheating in your favor, what with the entire past tense ending that way.

I’m sure there are others, but I’m sure you can pick out the rest. That’s a good running start. Also, stop using assonances. You don’t do it well, you need practice. It just sounds reeeallly lazy and bad. “Girl” does not rhyme with “World” under any circumstances (thanks for that one, Kelly, can’t believe I forgot it).

Stop tacking extra words and filler phrases onto lines so that you can half-butt a rhyme. That “that’s right” or “oh yeah” or whatever…they’re all just fluff to fill up syllables and set up bad rhymes. Heck, I wouldn’t mind if you did the artsy thing and just gave up on rhyming altogether, it works for Coldplay. And please stop using the phrase “you know what I mean.” There’s no guaranteeing that. Stop stop stop. It’s cheap filler, we can tell.

2. Take a breath. You can always write another song later.

Your song should not be this crammed full of concepts.

Nowadays the fashionable song length is between three and five minutes. Any longer and the popular culture starts to get a little antsy and their minds start to wander off into green pastures and candy forests. And we understand that it’s a little hard for an artist to get the messages they need across in such a short time.

So don’t try. Pick one or two concepts. Pick one or two key phrases. Write them. The end. Nowadays songs are so wordy and full of themselves it’s hard to bear. Stay cool. Just pick a couple key messages and save the rest for other songs. I’m tired of having a thousand different cliche’s packed into one song. I mean, come on.

3. Grammar exists. Stop ignoring it.

I think this might be a pun.

Stop killing grammar. Stop it. I’m tired of those songs that uses the phrase “myself from me” just for the sake of a rhyme (in one of these songs, that rhyme is “me” and “street.” See number 1). Nothing “be” anything. I don’t be hungry. I am hungry. That lipstick does not be poppin’. It is poppin’. I don’t even know what that means. It pops? You could just say it pops, Lil’ Mama! My point is, “is” and “be” have the same number of syllables, come on!

Double negatives. Stop. Hanging prepositions. Stop them.

Hope these tips help, there are more where those came from if you ever need them (these three are free).

Sincerely Yours.

Karen at Saynotocrack.com

Once again, I have about seven projects I should be working on but am instead focused on the internet.

Don’t ask me what’s so addictive about this game, but I don’t foresee myself getting any work done tonight. Thanks, internet!

A post with words and a point ant quality and everything! Just taking a bit longer to assemble than I’d counted on.

In the mean time, I give you not a video, but a means to amuse yourself (this…may be the reason the quality posts are taking so long).

That’s right, virtual bubble wrap. Now 1/2 as satisfying as real bubble wrap!

Manic Mode!!

Once again, while I should be doing homework and getting ready to go out and seize the day, I am trapped on my computer trying desperately to keep the creeps off my desktop.

No, I’m not on drugs. Though this game is just as addictive as anything on the market.

Thanks, Hand Drawn Games!

For any of you who were jealous of the magnificent flight of the airplane last week, here’s how to make a “revolutionary” plane that will fly pretty far, assumably without a sky-scraper to help you out.

Revolutionary Long-Distance Paper Plane ! - Click here for more free videos

School starts again today for me. I should send one of these through class.

So a friend of mine from the midwest has been considering taking some cooking courses, and to find a few in his area he thought he might use one of those engines for searching things on the great information super highway.

I guess it just goes to show how horrible highways are at math.

click for full-sized image.

So remember, you future culinary students…remember the nine things. And, if you’d like, you can share your own funny search results with me in the comments. If you’ve screencapped them, post a link and maybe I’ll post the funniest ones or something.

So! This’ll be the second time in a row I’ve embedded a flash dealy…but, honest, I just thought this was cool and will not be making a habit out of this kind of thing. I just thought this was cool.

If any of you have put off to the last second your pumpkin carving (actually, a good idea if you want them to live and see Halloween, depending on the troublesomeness of your neighborhood), here’s some handy info from the DesMoines Register!

I love templates like these. Without them, I’d just carve your standard default triangles-for-everything faces.

That’s what has me shaking my head and getting a bit nervous when I look at this website.

It’s an online store for all your nuclear needs: radioactive ore, nuclear lab kits, meteorites, uranium, super magnets, and so much more.

For all you aspiring evil geniuses out there wondering how on earth you’re going to find the radioactive collectibles you need, look no further. I don’t know, maybe this stuff is harmless and I’m intimidated for no reason. However, this snip from the super magnet page really is a gem (and provides a great “who on earth would WANT this?!” moment):

“Our larger magnets can easily bruise fingers and
even break finger bones as they attempt to connect together….If you or someone in your household has a PACEMAKER or another electronic surgical implant, don’t even think of ordering these items. ”

Fun, right? Those were the little magnets. Here’s what they say about the super magnets:

If carrying one into another room, carefully plan the route you will be taking. Sensitive instruments like computers & monitors will be affected in an entire room. Loose metallic objects and other magnets may become airborne and fly considerable distances
- and at great speed - to attach themselves to this magnet.
If you get caught in between the two, you can get injured….Of all the unique items we offer for sale, we consider these items the most dangerous of all. Our normal packing & shipping personnel refuse to package these magnets - our engineers have to do it. This is no joke, and we cannot stress it strongly enough - that you must be extremely careful - and know what you’re doing with these magnets.
Two Super magnets can very easily get out of control and break fingers and even your arm if opposing poles fly at each other.”

HOLY COW. They’re selling HAND BREAKING/HOME DEBILITATING MAGNETS on the internet!? Who would want those?

…Don’t answer that.

So. Clowns are, to a number of people, completely terrifying. Understandable. I used to do a little clowning for charity now and again, and picked up a talent that, clown-fearing or not, everyone finds at least slightly awesome (even if they don’t say so out loud). Balloon twisting.

Now, I could twist your puppy, giraffe, flowers and swords, hats, monkeys climbing up little banana trees, and even ducks and humming-birds. I thought I was hot stuff…until that is, I found this (ignore the not English, it’s the pictures we care about).

CHECK THESE OUT.

You better believe I’d wear this. While holding perfectly still and avoiding friction and pointy things.

Hey! A bunny…I can do a bunny…I can…oh forget it.

So. It turns out balloons are awesome and I highly recommend learning to become awesome at balloons.