Recall: The Operator Year in Review

As another year draws to a close, another auld lang syne as 'twere, we thought we'd revisit, in no particular order, some of our favorite posts from '06. So, pour yourself a glass of bubbly and get a little nostalgic as you click through the madness. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder why you've been reading this blog for so long.

We explored the danger of trickle down fashion trends, said adios to trans fats, and didn't get any closer to finding out why the caged bird sings. Our gay genes lusted after James McAvoy, Anderson Cooper, Bruno Schuind, and Michael Schwandt (among many, many others, le sigh).

While Fergie dominated the charts with her inspirational lyrics and divine talent, we took it upon ourselves to wonder whither Wild Orchid? We rocked out to Joan as Police Woman, the Scissor Sisters, Leslie and the Ly's, and Gregory Douglass, and we applauded the creation of a GLBT music label.

We doled out our expert advice to homophobes, closet cases, and the lesbianese, as well as offering tips on participating in a masturbate-a-thon.

We explored our artsy side with our new feature Spam Poetry and clawed our way to the C-list. We caught up with club kid-cum-killer Michael "doody pants" Alig, and gave a virtual rimjob to the performers who inspire us, like Jackie Beat, Mike Albo, Amy Sedaris, and of course, Kiki & Herb.

Naturally, we blogged about perennial favorites like monkeys, booze, bacon, bacon and booze, and hobos. Oh, and the apocalypse.

Since we want to leave on a high, we won't dwell on all the insipid things we disliked in '06. We will offer one example, though: NJ Guido. 'Nuff said.

That, dear reader(s), concludes our wholly biased tour of a year with The Operator. Guess all that hard work is why we were named Time's Person of the Year. It's a good thing we can multitask (i.e., drink and blog at the same time) or we wouldn't have gotten anything done.

If we believed in making New Year's resolutions, we'd resolve to to make our blogging in '07 bigger, better, funnier and more flagrant (and with less typos and grammatical errors). Since we don't, it's going to be the same drunken kerfuffle, a catch as catch can affair. In the immortal words of the Beverly Hillbillies, "Y'all come back now, y'hear ?"

411: Smells Like Bacon

You may know that we here at The Operator love love love bacon, but you may not know that we fear the human race will one day be destroyed when the robot army inevitably rises up to take over, which is why the following story was so disturbing. Japanese researchers at NEC System technologies and Mie University developed what they refer to as an "electromechanical sommelier." According to Wired:

"[The robot is ]capable of identifying wines, cheeses, meats and hors d'oeuvres. Upon being given a sample, he will speak up in a childlike voice and identify what he has just been fed. The idea is that wineries can tell if a wine is authentic without even opening the bottle, amongst other more obscure uses...like 'tell me what this strange grayish lump at the back of my freezer is/was.'"

Sounds good, right? Then they had to go and tempt the little mechanical foodie.

"But when some smart aleck reporter placed his hand in the robot's omnivorous clanking jaw, he was identified as bacon. A cameraman then tried and was identified as prosciutto."

Say goodbye human race, we're totally fucked. Knowing how tasty bacon is, we don't blame the robot hordes if they start devouring us immediately.

So, in the interest of preparedness, we googled "bacon, robots" and came across BaconRobots, whose company motto is "Because the only thing better than bacon is a hot animatronic lady to cook it for you." According to their history:

BaconRobots began when a lawnmower's programming malfunctioned on a cold winter day in 2038. The founders wanted a gelatinous mass that vaguely looked like what the old world referred to as "bacon".

"If only there were machines that somewhat resembled human females that would come and cook it for us," they mused. "Bacon Robots." And that is where the magic began.
Since then, the company has steadily grown from its humble beginnings to its current market dominance.

Our love of crispy pork strips and our fear of marauding robot hordes had us crippled at seeing this site. We feel like we're in "Terminator 2," when Schwarzenegger comes back to get John Connor. How do we know which future will come to pass? Will we be eaten by robots that think human flesh tastes like bacon? Or will servile robots come to our homes and cook delicious bacon for us? This, dear reader(s), is our crippling existential crisis for the day.

Robot Identifies Human Flesh As Bacon [Wired via the Rachel Maddow Show]

BaconRobots [official site]


Bacon ;Robots ;Destruction of Humanity

The Directory: Double Down Saloon

Pork and booze -- these, as the song goes -- are a few of OperatorNYC's favorite things. And lo and behold, the fine folks at the Double Down Saloon have thought to combine them. When OperatorNYC found this review on Gothamist, he about passed out. They make their bloody mary with bacon infused vodka. For the true pork enthusiast, you can get a bacon-infused vodka martini. We know right? Bacon infused vodka. Take a moment and appreciate the genius. Now, if only someone would infuse vodka with nicotine, OperatorNYC would finally achieve his much-sought-after nirvana.