So I’ve been searching around for a couple of new words. One is for, when you find a site on a specific subject you never thought of, the uncontrollable urge to read everything on that site. The other is for the kind of gross feeling you have when you’re done.

These isn’t just an Internet phenomenon. My grandparents used to buy The Star and the Weekly World News tabloids, so when I went to visit they`d have a stack, and I would be driven by some internal force to read them all in one sitting. (I remember an article about a killer teddy bear — replete with a freaky photo illustration — that, in addition to the breath-sucking goblin from Cat’s Eye, conspired not to let me sleep in the 80’s). Anyway, when I was done with the stack I always felt righteous naush.

This has happened to me many times with websites, and as I understand it’s happened to other people, too. I can’t seem to find a schadenfreude-type word for the desire to read `til you yarf, but I think I have one for the feeling you get when you’re done: milted.

This is from the time I followed a memepool link to The Darkest Fish, and, suffering from the unnamed impulse described above, read everything I could find on it, and subsequently felt like I just sat in an aisle seat through Star Tours (oooh, here comes my Backlot Burger…). Now, the point of this page is to show pictures of guys proud of the sick and rotten fish they’ve caught — which sometimes, in their death throes, eject milt on their captors. This site and this word once helped me win at Cranium, and now I pass the savings on to you.

Did someone say `darkest fish`? No? How about `copyrighted image`?

Some sites don’t have this effect — they have to be sort of angry, or negative, or gross. Like you can read a year of Player Vs. Player. with no adverse effect. I’ve tried to keep this site generally positive, so, should some ill-advised soul read it to the oldest, dumbest end, he won’t be punished additionally.

If you’ve never felt milted, I double dog dare you to visit the following sites and not read them from end to end:

• Awful Plastic Surgery (Some NSFW)
• Penny Arcade (Kinda NSFW)
• Make Mine a 007 (SFW)

So I was out jogging today , and I got Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” stuck in my head, because obviously I run so blindingly fast that I deserve my own inspiring theme song. And then I started thinking, are the lyrics really the lyrics I think they are? Because they don’t make sense. They sound like someone who doesn’t speak English but has Destiny’s Child’s thesaurus. To prove this, I present a sampling:

Risin` up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance now I`m back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive

So far so good, kind of. Seems like if you went the distance you`d already be on your feet, and you`d sort of… you know… be done already. But that would be a really short song. Time for a second verse.

So many times it happens too fast
You trade your passion for glory
Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive

Okay, warming up here. So he sold out and now he’s back to fight for what he really wants. Doesn’t really jive with the first verse, which seems to be more about doing what it takes to survive, but the first verse didn’t make too much sense, so I`m letting it go. But here comes the chorus:

It’s the eye of the tiger
I`m feeling so good
Rising up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor
Stalks his prey in the night
And he’s watching us all
With the eye of the tiger

Huzza wha? Let’s just forget the eye of the tiger business — It’s a metaphor, I don’t know for what, I`m not worried about it. But he’s bouncing from first person singular to first person plural to third person — and doesn’t the “last known survivor” definitively have no one left to watch? If he’s the “rival,” I daresay no one rose up to the challenge. I wouldn’t be “feeling so good” if I`d just had my ass totally tiger-eyed.

Face to face, out in the heat
Hangin` tough, stayin` hungry
They stack the odds still we take to the street
For the kill, with the skill to survive

Mmm, this verse is delicious Springsteen/New Kids on the Block hamburger. Again with the person shifts. And is this about making the kill, or surviving? I think it’s important to know what side of the food chain this is on, especially if there’s a one-eyed Sandy Duncan pirate tiger running around.

I`m skipping to the last verse:

Risin` up, straight to the top
Had the guts, got the glory
Went the distance, now I`m not gonna stop
Just a man and his will to survive

Ah, observe the subtle word shifts that bring a sense of closure to the theme. Oh wait — except for nothing happened, just a lot of hanging around in the hot street and skipping breakfast. And, need I remind you, he “went the distance” before this song even started. This song is a big bloated lyrical road trip to nowhere. Like L.A. Confidential plus pleather.

Which is not to say I don’t dig this song, or turn it up when it comes on the radio and sing along real loud and stuff.

Survivor is also responsible for “The Search is Over” (as in, “the search is oooover — you were with me a-a-a-all the whiiiiiiiiiiiile”) and “Is This Love,” both of which I was pretty sure were Journey. But “Eye of the Tiger” is the one that starts out with the same one-note guitar solo as “Edge of Seventeen” — nakka-nakka-nakka-nakka-nakka-nakka. Probably text isn’t the best way to try to convey that.

If this little treatise didn’t make your eyes roll back in your head, then you might like this essay on Gin and Juice.