Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Is Louie Vito a Dwarf? And some other things we learned from Google Instant

 
A few years back Google Instant was launched, the feature that tries to anticipate what you're trying to search for while you type. When it launched the Google marketeers promoted it with three key benefits; faster searches, smarter predictions and instant results. What they didn't mention is that it also has some downsides; 1. if you write a blog called Illicit Snowboarding you'll spend the next few years being exposed to some of the most heinous shit on the internet every time you start searching for the site, and 2. it consistently feeds you unwanted insights into the squalid mind of the internet. This week we used Google Instant to find the questions that the internet is asking about snowboarding and here's what we learned...

Not too bad a start, that's three good things and one bad thing. Strangely the main culprits behind the 'snowboarders are douchebags' results are a company making bags for skiers. Douchebags are the brainchild of prime ski douchebagger Jon Olsson, the one man on the internet who regrets the naming of his site more than I do. It's the naming equivalent of a dad joke; it's mildly funny the first time you hear it, but after the same joke is repeated incessantly it quickly loses it's mirth and just becomes an implement of mental torture.
Douchebags - So you can become the lonely front-half of a pantomime horse.

Like snowboarders, skiers have a three to one result, just with an additional bit of internet homophobia thrown in for good measure. I'd be pretty happy with that result if is wasn't for that damned last point. If you're reading this article and you're a crappy lover go away immediately and start practising, you're letting down the team. If on the other hand your are already a sexual god please feel free to proceed.

The existential question
'Are skis faster than snowboarders?' ... Depends how well coached the skis are.

For anyone with any other existential questions perhaps this is the answer
Jesus Christ is good at search engine optimisation, but oddly not the best. 
There's a niche I hadn't anticipated needed filling, but into the apparent moral breach step the organisation Snowboarders & Skiers for Christ, or SFC for short if you want to use their worryingly dyslexic acronym. Here's their reason to exist:

There are millions of teens and young adults in the ski and snowboard industry who long for acceptance, community, and ultimately identity. Unfortunately, many of these young people search for these things in all the wrong places: in ever-passing trends, the glamour of being a “pro” rider, parties and one-night-stands. Inevitably, many run into a variety of problems—substance addictions, STDs, abortions, poverty, physical injury, loneliness and depression—that are often the result of trying to find meaning and purpose in an unsustainable lifestyle. We at SFC USA recognize that there a lot of hurting “shredders” in our ski towns. In response, we desire to turn skiing and snowboarding—a selfish pastime for many—into a powerful tool to reach these young people with the life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ.


Wow, if I'd only known about this Jesus Christ fella before, I wouldn't be the lonely, broken, homeless, STD-riddled-depressive that I am today. I'd still have all these illegitimate kids though, so it wouldn't have been the complete solution.

While we're on a downer how's about this...
This one is in no way funny, it's just a completely insane story I've only just come across thank's to this search  Have a read of the white label.
Picture via Vintage Ski
The case is infamous for the National Enquirer's sensationalist coverage which included the headline "I Cut Out Her Heart And Stomped On It" and featured a picture of Sonja McCaskie's corpse. Stay classy.

Let's move onto something a lot less murdery

'Why do skiers get sunburned on their chins?' ... They all have upside-down faces.

'Why are snowboarders called knuckle draggers?' ... It's probably Kim Kircher's fault.

'Snowboarding isn't cool it's awesome.' ... In one foul swoop Burton manage to destroy any credibility snowboarding had left after the revelation that we're a bit crap in bed.

Burton is the villain

Next up let's take a look at what Google Instant tells us about some of those glamorous "pro" riders that are leading us all astray.
People seem to be obsessed with whether snowboarders are married or dead. I guess that either its stalky girls wanting to find out what their chances are in hooking up with a pro snowboarder, or is stalky blokes checking on the status of the snowboarders so they know when they can have a crack at the stalky girls.


Female snowboarders don't seem to get the same type of attention.

People also seen to be interested in whether Travis Rice and Shaun White are having a carnal relationship

Shaun White is exposed to the same stalking that pretty much every other male pro-snowboarder receives  but with a bit of additional hate thrown in for good measure
Art of Flight is probably his pet name for Travis Rice

Why does Shaun White cover his face? ...

... Is it because everyone thinks he's ugly?

To test this theory in scientific detail we clicked on the first results for 'Shaun White is ugly', which turned out to be a Perez Hilton post on his Rolling Stone torso nudity photos...

and here's what the terrifying audience of that site thought about the matter...

YECH!

Finally we get to the big questions...

'Is Louie Vito a little person?'
Again we relied on our scientific methodology of clicking on the first link to solve these problems. For this question we were directed towards the ever reliable Yahoo Answers.

No Morgan, it's not just you.

'Is Louie Vito a dwarf?'
This time the first result came from some huge muggy internet site no one would choose to visit on purpose called Topix.

Bellecenter Mama spends a lot of her time searching Google to see if Louie Vito is married or dead.

This time though we actually went to the trouble of doing a little bit more research, something Curious could have done their damned self, and took a look at Wikipedia. Turns out that to be classified as a dwarf you have to be under 147cm tall and Louie Vito is 165cm tall, so that's a couple of cigars away from close.

So to summarise our findings; the world is full of crazy and Louie Vito is definitively not a dwarf, although we haven't been able to disprove the Oompa Loompa theory.


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