In the timeless words of Frank Costanza, “I’ve got a lot of problems with you people, and you’re going to hear all about it!”
So, Harvey, if you’re listening, this grievance is for you…
While it’s debatable whether or not I really invented Cake Pops, one actual claim to fame I have is that I was part of the 3-man team that built the very first U.S.D. 217/Rolla High School website. I know it’s hard to imagine, but before Mr. Taylor’s ’97-’98 Computer 3 dream team came along, www.usd217.org was nothing but a 404 Error in one’s browser, a Digital Void in the Nothingness of the Interwebs.
At first, me and my two partners in crime–my beloved brother 1SkinnyJ, and David, the captain of our Scholar’s Bowl squad–were pretty pumped. Here we were, three of the most creative minds in the school, and we were given a blank canvas on which to create the outside world’s portal to our school and community.
This was also the same year that our school had acquired it’s very first digital camera, and it’s hard to overstate the sense of limitless potential this gave the students and staff. It didn’t take but a day or two before I had convinced everyone of this potential by Photoshopping 1SkinnyJ’s head onto the body of one of the cheerleaders.
Well, maybe “convinced” isn’t quite the right term here. Turns out that the only one bemused when that picture was found mysteriously plastered all over the school was 1SkinnyJ himself. That particular cheerleader? She was pissed af. Which I didn’t get, because you couldn’t even tell it was her! And, honestly, how did the teachers not see the humor in all of this?!? But I digress…
Perturbed by the lack of appreciation for my artistic work, I decided to channel my creative energies into the school’s website instead. While boring ol’ Rolla is literally a one-stoplight town (see Figure 1), it wasn’t long before I realized that this was actually a huge opportunity to do something cool.
Digital camera + basic website navigation + small town = ???
It was the perfect idea: Why not create a virtual tour of our little hamlet?
If we wanted to show off our community to the outside world, why not literally do just that? As you can see, Rolla is roughly just a 13×8 grid. It would only take us one or two beautiful Fall afternoons to go down each street, taking 4 pictures at each intersection, and then another 4 pictures in each direction in between intersections. By my calculations, that would have been around 1000 pictures–okay maybe it would have taken 3-4 afternoons, but tractable nonetheless.
Slapping together a web page with Left/Right/Forward buttons that would navigate between the various views from the streets of Rolla was well within our technical abilities as well. This was going to be the coolest ----- thing since the invention of the internet, and it was all well within reach.
But, alas. Just like my bro’s head on a cheerleader’s bod, my genius was ahead of its time. And for someone so ahead of his time, it turns out that I’m a bit stuck on the past.
And thusly, Mr. Harvey Taylor, I hereby bestow upon you the honor once only reserved for one Mr. Howard Raff: you is about to be only the second Rolla High School teacher to be the recipient of a grievance that’s more than a couple of decades overdue.1For the record, I only air grievance against those teachers I actually was pretty fond of. Consider it an honor, if you will.
I gotta say, Mr. Taylor, you blew your chance at being a part of something revolutionary, but noooooooo. You just had to shoot down my proposal. I guess it turned out to be perfectly on brand for your vision of the website, though: the world must know that at one point you actually demanded that we make it as boring as possible because “you gotta think about who might be looking for information on the website: old people. Old people will only be confused if you make it too fancy.”
Yeah. Whatever. Well, it was bad enough to have all our great ideas–and collectively we had a lot of them–preemptively shot down in the name of being practical to a stupid degree.
Well, then, one can imagine how I felt then, when, 10 WHOLE YEARS LATER, Google launched Street View. Yeah, that’s why my idea sounded so familiar to you: it was exactly Street View–over a decade earlier, and at least a year before Google itself was even founded.
Perhaps you (Dear Reader) can’t imagine how I feel about being robbed of the glory and other trappings that would have come my way, if only that dastardly Mr. Taylor would have let this little light of mine shine. So let me try communicating in my second-favorite language I like to speak in these parts: semi-obscure pop-culture references…
In the 2003 hit movie, The Italian Job2https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317740–the one with Marky Mark Wahlberg, not the 1969 one with Alfred from Batman–the lovable and zany Seth Green plays Lyle, the hacker/computer expert of the gold-heisting team. Yes, the very same Seth Green that appeared at the end of my recent chestnut of a pop-culture reference as the son of Dr. Evil.
In what may be one of my all-time favorite completely unnecessary plotline, Lyle claims to be “the Real Napster”–the true inventor of the free music-sharing internet platform that was ubiquitous back from 1999-2001, but (likely story) his college roommate had stolen the code for it from him while he napped and received all the glory instead.
Surprisingly, I couldn’t find a great clip or two from the movie that fully expressed how big of a chip on his shoulder this was, but the first 30 seconds of this scene (which happens to be the best Seth Greene scene in movie history for entirely other reasons), will give you a taste:
[Editor’s note: the original clip that was shared here is no longer available on YouTube. If you’re curious what happens after the first 30 seconds in that clip, you can see that here. As a poor substitute, here is a clip from later in the movie which vaguely references the now-missing clip–in that clip our character had aired a grievance about how his college roommate had stolen the idea for Napster from him…while he was napping. Hope everything else after this still kinda makes sense. If not, just go watch The Italian Job (2003 version) in its entirety.]
Yeah, I feel ya buddy. So now if you’re wondering how I felt about the whole “Rolla virtual tour” thing, you can just imagine me blurting out with an air of utmost grievance to random strangers on the street: “Me! ME! I’m the real Google Mapster!”3This a direct parody of one of the scenes in the movie, I just couldn’t find a clip of it.
Anyways, the point of the story is that maybe–just maybe–you shouldn’t take yourself too seriously.
Sure, you just may rightfully be the Google Mapster, but isn’t it about time you moved on?
For more information about the wonderful holiday known as Festivus, you can start by visiting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus and/or donating to the Human Fund: “Money For People.”
Content created on: 11 November & 5 December 2020 (Weds/Sat)
Update on 21 February 2022 (Monday) to replace broken YouTube link, and to sheeplishly try to convey the humor and relevance of the original clip.
Footnotes & References:
I apologize it took me so long to find this blog and acknowledge your grievance. I do remember much of what you said, and I was stubborn in those days to follow what I understood as best practices of web design. I apologize I had not yet been exposed to the concept of innovation and allowing for creative elements to be expressed by students. I hope this disappointment did not stifle other innovation or creative pursuits your mind have had since then. I will do my part and let family, friends and the strangers know the story, “ I had this bright, creative student in a computer class once….”
Thanks again for sharing this story.
This comment absolutely made the Google Mapster’s day, lol. It took me a hot minute to understand what I was reading at first, mainly because of your use of the phrase “best practices of web design”. As the webMaster of My own Domain (that’s a Seinfeld reference for ya there), I get plenty of spam from random web developers soliciting their services, and so I totally thought that’s what your comment was for a solid 90 seconds.
But what a delight to realize that ‘Twas you, the infamous Mr. T! On a side note, when it comes to preemptively writing one’s autobiography (which is pretty much what I’m doing here), it’s also something of a horror to realize that one of the characters in my “stories” have read what I wrote about them (for example, I was mortified when it became obvious that almost all of the cheerleaders from last week’s Rah-Rah-Wrong post had read that it).
Anyways, I’m glad you were able to discover this particular story and (presumably) enjoy it–apologies accepted! Thanks for humoring my comedic over-dramatization of my petty grievances, lol.
And, as I’m guessing you already read up on my grievance with Mr. Raff, I hope it goes without saying that I reserve my public airing of my grievances for only my favorite teachers (no lie).
Lastly…I love that you’re using what I presume to be your wife’s account to leave comments. You can imagine my confusion when I saw a comment from “Needlin620” laden with corporate-speak such as “best practices” and “concept of innovation”. I can’t stop laughing about it–or as the youths these days say “I’m cryin’!”
Signed, your former student who could have been your co-C.E.O. of a massive tech firm,
–G.M.