"..."

Starting with this entry you will find the answers to the previous entries at the end of the entry instead of at the top. I think I like it better that way because the entries will start out with what I actually want to say and I won't have to worry about how I'm going to end an entry.

So here I am, still at work. It's Saturday night at 11:25 and here I am sitting at a desk making a blog entry. But don't think my life is all excitement. Oh no. I go through boring patches too.

Things should pick up tonight though when I go home. That's when I'll start playing my latest computer game I've decided to start playing again, Planescape: Torment. This is another RPG kinda like Fallout sort of. Or at least in the way you control every thing it is very similar. But beyond that it is nothing like Fallout. All I've done so far in this Planescape (can't play it on Mac ;-) ) is make my character and go through some of the initial stages. For instance I learned something of the characters background, met my first party member: a sarcastic floating skull who talks too much, talked to some mysterious "scribe" who gave my some ambiguous clues, got dressed up as a zombie so I could pass off as similar to all the other zombies and found a conversation with a mysterious specter-like woman who seemed angry I never call. At least that's all I got out of a really long conversation.

Only 20 minutes of work left...

Now I hope I really stick with this game this time and really finish it. This attempt I am going to be a mage, which is different from what I usually pick. In most games I'm always a "warrior" or a "barbarian" or whatever. But I read somewhere you have the best experience in this game if you play as a mage so that is what I am.

Now I just want to complain about various news items. I won't be going into Kobi Bryant, the murdered basketball player, or any of the other stuff so prevalent in the news these days. I find that really annoying. So how about Iraq?

Now I'll point something out I haven't seen or heard any other place. And that's this constant reference to the "elite" troops of Iraq. Who are these mysterious "elite" soldiers anyway? Where did they come from? Have they really been training under the gun of the UN the past 12 years to really qualify them as "elite"? Are the elite ones easily recognizable as the ones wearing the soup bowls on their heads?! I can't really peeved when I hear a reporter still after all this time refer to "elite" Iraqi troops. I'm telling you there are NO elite troops in Iraq. Got it?

Now how about this California thing? What now the rest of the country notices we don't like the asshole we have for governor? It was too much to ask for a little coverage of the asshole last election cycle but NOW you notice. Son of a bitch.

Ten minutes left!

I was so angry none of the news channels or radio talk shows would spend any time on this and draw attention to the situation. But oh yeah now sure there's going to be a special recall election and all of sudden the media is like "oh...that California". Pffff. Well fine then. Stupid media. I hope that asshole gets kicked out too. The biggest defense anyone has in favor of him is "the recall election will cost too much". Not "don't recall him because he's a great governor and has all these accomplishments..." or "the recall ballot only barely had enough signatures so it may not be the real will of the people" but simply "it will cost too much". As opposed to say further socialized medicine and the whole armada of body guards and CHP officers that follow him around where ever he goes. Doing anything himself to save any money? I don't think so. So what a load of crap. Costs too much.

Oh look time to go home.

Of course it won't be so easy once the new governor is in office. After all should a "normal" (read: real) Republican get elected he won't have too much going for him. Within (or possibly less than) 24 hours of being sworn in the entire California mess will be blamed on this new governor. And he won't be able to get anything passed either. Unless the legislature decides to do some cooperating which seems doubtful. Of course if they knew what was good for them they would cooperate with the new govenor so as to pacify any left animosity left over from the voters come the next election term.

Now what I don't really understand is how anyone can possibly point to the current governor’s education policy. I mean California has THE worst educaiton system in the entire country. So how can he say "vote me out and the education system will get worse"? This making sense to anyone? HOW CAN THE EDUCATION SYSTEM GET ANY WORSE?! I hope that wasn't a subtle question.

Oh and according to this story Gary Condit is being urged to run for governor. Wait wait wait wait. Condit? For govenor? Insert your own expletive and sarcastic remark here. Just thinking about what I may want to think about this makes my head hurt and is exhausting. Well I don't feel like writing any more so here's the answer the last entry's title and good night.

The title of the last entry, "Woody Allen's Wife", is once again from Whose Line is it Anyway?. In this episode the cast was playing this game in which one cast member is supposed to be a party host while the others have unusual personality traits or whatever and the host tries to guess what each cast member is pretending to be. Well this one time one of the "guests" was supposed to be Jar Jar Binx. But the "host" just didn't get it even though it seemed rather obvious. Finally she just guesses "Woody Allen's wife" which makes every body just explode with laughter and Drew Carey says "no...but that is a really good guess". I think that was one of the better skits really (or you had to be there).

___  ¶ 11:33 PM 0 Comments

 

"Woody Allen's Wife"

The title of the last entry, "The answer is Volvo...", is from a special Showtime version of Whose Line also starring Drew Carey also. Now I'm not actually going to try and explain what the punch line is to this joke, as I don't think I want to go there. I'll give you a few clues though. First of all there was this game where they ask the audience for a car company which came back Volvo. Then the host says "ok the answer is Volvo, what is the question?" to which a female cast member came up with a special answer. But I won't repeat it here. You'll have to watch an episode of Seinfeld. The Deloris one *wink* *wink*. Yessss...Now you get it don't you? Ok so there doesn't seem to be any rhyme-or-reason to my entry titles. But there never was really so I guess it's ok. And if you see the show in question it's extremely funny.

Well for somebody who has never had a 40 hours a week kinda job I think I'm actually doing remarkably well, thank you. I mean sure sometimes a customer calls up and is really pissed off about e-mail not working and/or his connection getting stalled in the middle of an e-bay bid and sure I as a simple barley-above-minimum-wage tech support employee can really do a lot to help this but...that's mostly the exception. Actually just about all the customers I talk to seem to be really pissed off and tell me how they've called five times in a day to have no one ever call them back. It's not like I can really blame them for being pissed off about having so much trouble with the e-mail system. And I understand how frustrating it must be and all. But again there's really nothing I can do to help them or rectify the situation. Now I hope this blog doesn't turn into "the other perspective" when it comes to those frustrating tech support experiences I know everyone of all skill levels has had to go through. But please what I am I to do? It's not like I can offer them a "free gift" or something. No I mean I really can't offer them a free gift. Trust me if I could I would offer them the free gift. Not sure what that would be really. Free speakers or whatever. Oh and another thing...

Now I'm writing this half out of utter shock something like could happen and half out of I hope Justin Blanton finds this entertaining as I surely do not.

In a past entry, can't remember which one, I went on and on about the greatness of MS Windows 2000. So how is it I've become the goto-guy when it comes to Macintosh calls?!? Now there used to be this one anointed "Mac guy" that I never even really met someone just kinda pointed at him and mentioned his name and I immediately forgot it. Turns out this mysterious "Mac guy" hasn't come in for work this whole week. Now look I don't even have a Mac nor do I want one. I just took this ONE Mac call. I think the user was using version 8 of the OS and having trouble with the dial-up settings. So what do I do? I go to Google and type in "Mac OS 8 dial up settings walk through" and start progressing through the links trying to find a guide with screenshots along with the steps. I do a couple successful calls and now I'm the new "Mac guy". I hope someone finds this funny and/or ironic. Now why can't the other tech support do that? Don't they know how to search Google? Now this other caller on Mac OS X was having trouble getting her mail. It was obvious she was using an e-mail program as opposed to web mail so I kept asking her what her mail program was called but she didn't know and then proceeded to describe all these menus and preferences and crap. And I was like "wait!" I don't know which program you're using. Ok so it turns out Apple's incredibly creative name for the new e-mail client is "Mail" or "Mail.app" or something like that. How was I to know? And why doesn't it say this across the title bar like in Windows? Well I finally found a guide and managed to walk her through it.

Well I hope someone is laughing at me. Now my co-workers seem really apathetic. I'm beginning to think there is some sort of apathy formula or something. Kinda like Moore's Law pertaining to processor speed double every 12 to 18 months. Well the Law of Apathy is something like

current apathy = current apathy * #of months working as tech support * (10% of #of callers fielded)

Pfff. What am I a math major? I don't think so. Now before you think this is improper algebra let me defend myself by saying it's more like something you would find in programming code than in algebra class. And I like programming more than algebra, much more.

So how is my life different now with the full-time job as compared to what it was before with out a job? Well it's hard remember way back then when I didn't have the full-time job. A week ago. Well all the days just kind of run together into one continuous blur like before, only now I talk on the phone a lot more and I drive places and stuff. Well only one place followed by back home. I've only worked three days thus far how monotonous could it be by now anyway? I do think I am getting better though. Now at my help desk job I had a few years ago I didn't work nearly the number hours I work now and I had long stretches between semesters but I don't think I ever really became as apathetic as a lot of my co-workers. And I did work there for 18 months.

Looks like I have to leave now. Seems my entries are getting shorter and shorter. What's up with that?

  ¶ 3:32 PM 0 Comments

 

"The answer is Volvo..."

The title of the last entry, "I'm not nearly so think as you drunk I am", is for once not from Futurama, Family Guy, The Simpsons, or Whose Line is it Anyway?. This time I got the quote from an episode of M*A*S*H. The one where Margaret decides she wants to transfer out but ends up getting drunk and eventually decides to stay (surprise). I could think of any good quotes. If nothing else I thought that was quite a memorable quote.

Today I guess I'll discuss my new job. I think I mentioned it before. I got a full-time dead end tech support job, like people do... Well yesterday was my first day. To say it wasn't quite what I expected is to put it mildly. For instance I would have expected someone may have actually been expecting me. Pah! No one was expecting me. Wouldn't you think it reasonable for someone to be prepared and expecting a new employee on a first day? No, of course not. That is completely unreasonable. I sit down and get a little guidance from another tech for a little while and try taking a call. Well this being my first call I don't think it did that well. It's been a while since I did that sort of tech support by phone so it takes a while to "get my groove back" so-to-speak. So I had to hand off the phone to other tech a couple times when I felt like I was getting in trouble. Eventually I'm informed I need some kind of network login but the guy who does that wasn't there at the time. So I sit there in the unheated section of the building for a while longer and the other tech goes down stairs. I guess I should have known he was leaving as he didn't come back and I just sat there not doing any thing for quite a while. So I realize I should go down there too. Hey the other tech could have mentioned a minor detail like he's not coming back. I mean what the hell do I know? It's my first day. So I go down to this other room and look over the shoulder of some other techs kinda trying to get the whole vibe of the environment and learn something about my new co-workers.

This night at least all my co-workers were early to mid-20 year old guys always joking and stuff like that. Had I ever gone to a college fraternity it would have reminded me of one. Apparently there's not really a supervisor or anybody in charge of anything in this little tech support office. There's a separate room, you see, separate from the whole of the building. This is because the ISP I work for is upstairs from another business (computer store) and so when the computer store closes at 7pm there's not supposed to be any way to get out so the techs work out of this little room on the side of the building. This room has only one entrance/exit, is really dirty, small and doesn't have a bathroom. No, this is what I've come down to. Working at a place that requires using a porta-potty as a bathroom. And no place to wash my hands. Well that's just great. It's very frustrating knowing so little and not having anyone of any sort of authority to get information from. I also found out that since I'm supposed to be working until 12am I am naturally supposed to look up; naturally this requires a "key". Now I was never made aware of this whole "key" requirement thing. So I couldn't stay until 12am to "lock-up" now could I? Pfff I don't need no stinking key. So I left at 11:30 instead of 12:00. I hear I may get deducted off my time card anything over 6 hours of work anyway. I don't know what the hell that's all about.

So finally I take another call quite a bit letter after I was feeling a little more settled in. I think this was about 9:30. I must have talked to that guy for about 45 minutes, describing how to set up an Internet connection manually. I tried to be as polite and nice and possible, and very patient too. Even when he started to describe some sort of application that he couldn't use with AOL but could with a regular Internet connection and IE 6 for whatever reason. I didn't really have any idea what he was talking about but I just listened to him and tried to understanding. Now sure maybe there is a way to use IE via AOL but as I'm a member of the tech support staff for a competing company it's hardly my job to try and help with that. He seemed to quite happy with the situation by the end of the call and even ask my name so he could ask for me again. According to my co-workers this is obviously a really easy job, supposedly. And I suppose it is going to be.

If this current schedule doesn't change there's a good chance I won't be taking any more classes for a while. I am going to try and take at least one class, the MCSE first couple classes. I think this should be fun if not very exhausting.

I'm watching this commercial right now. The product is called Dermabond, the "liquid stitch". The ad ends with the narrator saying "ask the emergency room doctor if Dermabond is right for you". Riiiiightuh. So something impales me or I get shot, I go to the emergency room and in the throws of pain and agony as I'm being drugged and injected I'm supposed to just say "oh, by the way, is dermabond right for me?". Sure right. That should work nicely. Seems like such a stupid statement. How the fuck am I gonna ask for a specific product when I'm in the emergency room?! Stupid people.

This just in: smoke coming out of Eiffel Tower in Paris France. Maybe I'll just hold my tongue on this for now...

  ¶ 12:03 PM 0 Comments

 

"I'm not nearly so think as you drunk I am"

The title for the last entry, "The land fills were full...New Jersey was full...", is as if we needed it, is again from Futurama. This is the episode where this giant ball of trash from the 20th century (the show takes place in the year 3000) was about the crash into the city of New New York. As an introduction a short clip was shown explaining how the trash ball formed. Eventually all the local landfills around New York were full, and also New Jersey was full, showing similar landfill-looking backdrops for the both of them. I don't know why there seems to be so many jokes about New Jersey. Hey why isn't New Jersey "New New Jersey" in Futurama like "New New York"?

Lets talk about movies. Right now I'm watching Training Day again on a premium cable channel. Now I have seen it before, I rented the DVD and thoroughly enjoyed it. For example the amazing coincidence involving saving the girl from an attack, saving the protagonist more towards the end of the film. And that end of the film, boy does that protagonist go through a big change in mindset. From "green" bright eyed rookie to a vengeance-filled man bent on taking down the villain. Such perfect purpose and drive in his eyes and face. I really liked that movie because for once the bad guy really got what he deserved. It gets you in the whole mind set in the beginning of a veteran cop who really "knows" how it "really works" in the "real world" teach the new green just out of the academy rookie the ropes. This real world of course means any number of money laundering, blackmail, bribery, and murdering people who aren't the right people any more. I'm sure if I watched this movie a bunch of times I would start to see all the subtle nuances and things. For instance I'm sure there's several stages through which the rookie must travel to get from the innocent rookie at the beginning to the twisted character out for blood he is by the end. The breakfast, smoking the drugs, saving the girl, the "three wise men", the special police unit, are all incremental steps. And if I were to go even deeper I'm sure there's lots of sophisticated symbolism. For instance when the villain and protagonist are both calling to this little kid to come to each of them at the same time. One is the evil side, and is the good side, the child the innocence...or something. What am I an expert?

Ok let’s look at another movie. See there's one thing about movies that really fascinate me that I am sure few other people even notice or care to think about. For instance as I was growing I would notice when I watched a movie at say age 10 it would look like and mean one thing, then I saw the same movie again at another age, like 15, and I noticed things I didn't see the first time. Then maybe I see it again at age 20 and I see and notice yet more things in this same movie. Is any of this making sense?!



That movie Platoon is a good example. Now to the largest portion of the populace this is only a classic movie about Vietnam and not much more. And after all that sells tickets and get directors awards so why not. Then there's a few people who could kind-of tell there was some symbolism there probably and could sort of tell with two groups of soldiers and good versus evil sergeants and the one guy being killed with his arms out like he was could possibly be a biblical reference. I'm probably in that second group. Then the very small sized rest-of-the-people who see all the subtle meanings and metaphors and various layers and symbols. So in essence you could say Platoon is at least three distinctively different movies in one. It's a regular Vietnam War movie made to entertain the masses, something to give people who think too much something more to think too much about and a significant communication from a writer/director trying to say something very specific to the world in an expression of art. Now that last one really doesn't have anything to do with all that violence and drug what-not, that was simply the medium chosen to express something someone wanted to say. Now I just hope any of that really made sense.

Now there are other movies I've seen and not talked about that did have an effect on me. The two that come to mind are About Schmidt and Adaptation.

Now About Schmidt is about this old guy who finally retires after who knows the number of years working for an insurance company. Not long after his wife of many years’ dies suddenly leaving him to try and fend for himself. Slowly the movie reveals the reality of the main characters life as directly compared to how the main character sees it. Actually he isn't nearly as useful as he assumes he is. But the main reason I enjoyed the movie as much as I did is how much close to reality it seemed to come. Everything in that movie I felt "that could really happen" or "I know of people who really look and act like that". And all the events seem quite plausible too. Sure there were many open possibilities to turn it into a typical movie. Like when he stays at the RV park and meets the nice couple he's staying next to. Sure they could have been people who just got some sympathy but end up robbing him or kidnapping him. But nope they're just normal every day people impressed with the model of his RV. Then of course there's the symbolism. Now it's not like you have to be real up on movie symbolism and/or anything to do with "Frued" and his psychology to take some subtle hints on the psychology. Sometimes movies like this really make me wish I never learned any of that psychology/movie symbolism stuff so I could just sit there and enjoy the movie in blissful ignorance of any of the significance of it all and not worry about it. But oh no, I had to go and take those classes didn't I. Now come on now. Characters and various what-not entering tunnels of various sizes and shapes. What could this symbolize in the mind of Frued? Oh yeah, think about that one for a real long time. Jeeze. I'm not going into it. And a topless Kathy Bates? There's something I couldn't have live without seeing for any longer. Many am I glad I saw that.

Now Adaptation I really believe I should have watched again with the commentary turned on in the DVD version. Now I definately know there was lots of stuff going on in that movie, with the symbolism. And I enjoyed for all that joy-of-writing...if nothing else. I did enjoy the various layers and levels of this movie, the way it was effectively thought provoking without explaining every little detail for you. For instance...

were they the same people...

I could think of lots of instances in the move implying for and against this. I don't want to give anything away though. Maybe this is just left to the viewer to interpret as seen fit to do so.

On a much lighter not I would mention a movie I'm sure very few people have even heard of never mind seen. The movie I'm talking about is Lake Placid. Now why do I mention this B-movie? Well it is a little funny and has a little bit of redeeming entertainment value, but mostly it's for Betty White. Now I'm not sure you "older" people (all you over 30 raise your hand ;-) ) realize this but people for example my age and younger (about 24) only know Betty White from her role on The Golden Girls as a sweet, lovable, infinitely wholesome character you can only imagine your ideal grandmother to be. Of course she has been in other lesser wholesome roles than that long before the Golden Girls but for people like this is all I ever knew her as. So when she says the things she says and does the things she does in Lake Placid well lets just say I almost fell off the couch it utmost shock and surprise that sweet, wholesome old Betty White was actually capable of such thoughts and actions. If it wasn't for her in that movie a lousy movie would have been a really lousy movie. If for no other reason I recommend that movie as a rental for a lazy afternoon (don't bother with the TV version as it's horribly butchered and censored to the point of obscurity).

Well this isn't nearly the entry I was hoping for as I didn't even cover anything I was thinking about writing about. But I hope it was fairly well written anyway.

  ¶ 12:33 AM 0 Comments

 

"The land fills were full...New Jersey was full..."

The title for the last entry, "I have to go to some BS charity for some knocked up teenage sluts", is once again from Futurama. In this case this character Mom (I talked about her in my entry from July 7th) had just been introduced as "the world's most huggable industrialist." After she got done being lovable on camera to everyone as soon as she was out of the public eye she sheds this giant costume dress to reveal a much more anorexic figure and immediately lights up a cigarette and eventually leaves via this quote. I think I'm running out titles for my blog entries. Good thing I got Futurama to watch now. As mentioned last time I do enjoy exploring the subtleties of writing and re-arranging words. I know not all people enjoy this. In fact some may call it dull (or whatever). In Futurama, for example, is this character called Bender, a robot. Now he officially exists as a bender, who "bends girders". In other words he's made to actually bend stuff. But also he drinks lots and lots of booze (he says) to help keep his batteries charged. So essentially he's on one long continuous bender. A bender, as in a long drinking binge. So there's a subtle pun. I didn't even notice this until yesterday. So he IS a bender who is ON a bender. Doesn't anyone else find this amusing? I suppose not.

Firstly I want to mention I have now read the first three books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I think I really do like this series. In some ways I find it similar to the sitcom Third Rock From the Sun insofar as not taking itself that seriously or having any pretenses of realistic sci-fi travels around the galaxy. For example starting from the first book is this new space ship propelled by the "infinite improbability drive". Via this things that infinitely unlikely to happen will happen. For example at one point they were entering the atmosphere of a planet and some missiles were fired and bearing down on the ship. The infinite improbability drive was activated, turning one of the incoming missiles into a whale. This is of course infinitely improbable, that an incoming missile would spontaneously transform into a whale. So the whale realizes its' existence, asks itself a few philosophical questions like where he came from what's up with all the wind before finally hitting the ground and going splat.

Now to talk about a couple things controversial thus alienating what audience I have...

First of all I'm trying to figure out this Marijuana thing. Now right now I feel like I'm about the last one in the greater western hemisphere area that doesn't use it or rant on and on about how it should be legalized. Now the only thing I find inconsistent in these highly pro-dope people is their same breath gross villainization of cigarettes/tobacco companies. So a legal product, made and produced by legitimate, tax paying corporations who are subsidized by the federal government only cares about money and is the worst thing in the history of the universe...while an illegal product that is produced by criminals, sold by drug dealers and distributed by ruthless, murdering drug cartels is completely harmless and the best thing ever created and distributed in the history of the universe. I'm the only one that "doesn't get it" though. I'm required to hate all tobacco companies at all times no matter what while promoting under all circumstances the amazing cancer curing amazingness of marijuana. That's the rule. I stray from that and I'm some weird Mormon or something' I guess. Some kinda monk who doesn't have any fun. By the way there is apparent evidence that this illicit product produced in Hawaii in fact has some mercury in it which when taken into the bloodstream will have very, very negative side effects. But this is "science" and "factual" so you see it makes no difference. It's not pro-marijuana and is therefore merely right-wing propaganda. So be sure not to believe it or look it up or anything.

Now I'm gonna take-it-up-a-notch. This will be really, really controversial. For you see I believe otherwise inanimate, relatively irrelevant bodily organs should be charged separately in manslaughter and murder cases. For example a drunk driver hitting a pedestrian, killing him instantly. Now this isn't one case of manslaughter ya see, it's two. One for the pedestrian and one for his spleen for instance. And why not? The spleen is a very important organ. After all a fetus is nothing more than an irrelevant organ in body not any more relevant than a spleen yet if a drunk driver kills a woman with a fetus the driver is charged with a double homicide yet the same fetus and electively be removed without incident. So as with the fetus we need spleen rights now. After all, all laws are consistent are they not? So it's no problem. When you a drunk driver kills a person the driver is charged once for the murder of the person and again for the spleen. Hey I said this would be controversial. Some radical people don't want spleen rights. Maybe a political movement will start up and some day the spleen will enjoy the rights it so deserves.

Aren't you glad I stopped talking politics? What? That was political? Pfffff. Ok now I'll talk it more overtly. For example this whole third party presidential candidacy. I realize few have heard of the Libertarian Party or if they have, know it still exists. But it does. The libertarians (the party members that is) always complain about the about the two major parties' candidates and yet push their own candidate despite what I would call a lack of qualifications and/or experience. I mean wouldn't you want a qualified candidate with adequate experience for any job you were interviewing someone for? Has anyone noticed the number presidents who came off of successful governorships or as a vice president? I think there's a reason for this. Mainly that these people are obviously in some manner or another at least qualified-looking if nothing else. Very few senators seem to win the presidency. And yet these third parties including but not limited to the Libertarians continue to run people who haven't even been in elected office period never mind a governor or senator or whatever. So why not concentrate on getting a party member into a governor's office, show off some successes and advantages to this third party and only then run this candidate as for president? Or am I the only one thinking of this?



  ¶ 6:11 PM 0 Comments

 

"I have to go to some BS charity for some knocked up teenage sluts"

The title for the last entry, "I can't teach...I'm a professor!", is once again from Futurama. In this case "The Professor" character was returning to teach a semester at Mars University. Only he chose to title his class with something as complicated as possible so he didn't actually have to teach anyone. As he explained, he couldn't teach...he was a professor. What a great line. That's the thing about those Simpsons writers. They're really good at memorable one-liners. Maybe some of the episodes aren't that good (may or may not be) but in almost all cases you find a memorable one-liner. Now for someone like me who is fascinated by clever writing and how words can be manipulated in different orders to mean something subtly different I really pay attention to this.

Did you ever have one of those times where a random body part just starts bleeding for no apparent reason at an annoying time? Well in my case the body part is my fingernail, or rather the nail/skin surrounding the nail. All the way around the nail on the pointer finger of my right hand was starting to bleed. I don't know why. Either it's a lack of protein/vitamins, I have Ebola or maybe stress. Probably not stress though. The situation was a job interview. Didn't get to a bathroom to try and stop it either. Pffff. I don't think this has ever happened to me before. So why did it happen now of all times? I just don't know. Of course having essentially landed this job my laugh will be significantly different now. I mean I've been going to college every semester for an extremely long time now. And thanks to this job I may not be any more. I'm going to try and work it out so I can though. I still need to work on that MCSE after all. It'll be fun! I just hope it works into my schedule.

So here I am, so far as I know having a job as of tomorrow. And probably 40 hours a week. Ok this is a little embarrassing but I've never had a full time job like this. I did work one 8-hour day a week in one job. Actually that was illegal on a whole host of levels but I didn't have much choice. And since when does anyone in California's government actually follow a law anyway? Their's is to pick and choose however much or little they feel like following any particular law.

The job actually is the kind of job I've always wanted. At least I think it's the job I think I've always wanted. It's a tech support job at an ISP, writing trouble tickets, and answering the phone (with a headset!). I'm so excited. Why shouldn't I be excited? I'm starting a low-paying, full time dead-end tech support position in a semi-major city; like people do. Now sure some people wouldn’t be looking forward to this. But I am. Do I have low expectations of myself or something? Nahhh. I need experience ya see. So if I can swing I'd like to work there at least 12 to 18 months. Maybe I can get a better job after. At least I should hope so. Or maybe I'll get ahead at this job. Not sure how though really as there's not much room "for upward mobility". The existing people seem fairly happy though.

Ya see I remember my first job. I was in the broadcast control room at this low-budget college broadcast room. It's worse and lower budget that it sounds. Anyway even though it was about 15 hours a week and paid next to nothing I still took it as seriously as if I was a friggin CEO and paid a lot or something. This was my first job what did I know? I didn't even know I was doing anything particularly out of the ordinary by taking my low paid community college broadcast room job seriously. But I came to find out through other people that my immediate supervisor (in name only, she was very, very nice) actually though extremely highly of me and my apparent infatuation with taking a low paying no-matter temporary job at a community college so seriously. I really had absolutely no idea of this as like I said I thought I was doing a merely competent job at best on a good day never mind so incredibly high on a supervisor’s opinion.

Well that thing happened again. You know that one where I have something to write in a blog entry but by the time I sit down to actually write the blog entry I don't remember that thing I was going to write about. And I have to go to bed. So this is it for today. Man, my entries are getting shorter. You should ask for your money back...

  ¶ 10:44 PM 0 Comments

 

"I can't teach...I'm a professor!"

The title to the last entry, "I've got my pants off so it's hard to hear!", is again from Whose Line is it Anyway? which is still one of my favorite shows. This line was from Colin Mochary who was doing a skit with a member of the audience. The audience member had a list of lines to read on queue, on of which was "why don't you have any pants on?". And I think Colin misunderstood something or something and came up with that line about not hear well without pants. I think that's a funny line. And a very good show.

You ever have one of those days where you obsessively think about something specific for an entire day and think "hey I'll write in this in that blog thing I got" but then when you sit down to write in the blog you can't think of the thing you were obsessing over? What do ya mean no and that's weird? Pffff. Well that happens to me like everyday. Ok other weird things happen. Like trying to come up with the title for this entry. I had two quotes in mind. First I wrote in the first then I erased it and wrote in the second. Then I wanted to go back to the first but couldn't remember what it was. All the while it was obsessively "looping" in my head that whole time. Now how can I be obsessively trying to remember a quote for a blog entry while at the same time obsessively repeating it in my head over and over?

Maybe it's like making the hiccups go away. You just stop thinking about it and there it is right in front of you. Or in the case of the hiccups it's always seemed to me they go away the instance you can manage to no notice you have them. Like some sort of "blind spot".

I do remember one thing I wanted to write though. Sometimes when I start to feel a little depressed by mind will automatically load up random images of events from early child hood that involves me being funny to several or more people at once.

Now lets just pause a moment here before getting on to the mostly-entertaining anecdotal stories. Did you see what I did in that last sentence? I related myself directly to a computer. I didn't personify an inanimate object to a human, I objectified myself directly to the inanimate object. Why don't I think that's healthy? Ok maybe you didn't even notice as it seems fairly common use-wise these days. Back to the entertaining anecdotes...

One that some how randomly popped into my mind one way was from the second grade or so. I don't remember all the details exactly. I know as a small child I was rather quiet and shy but also did these abnormally loud sounding sneezes. Maybe I was quiet but still wanted attention. Which you'd think would be a contradiction but there it is. So one day, for whatever reason, the class as a whole (about 30 to 35 students) was being scolded for some reason. I have no idea why. I think this because I just remember the entire class was extremely quiet to point of you could hear a pin drop and couldn't even hear any breathing. At this point, I remember, I let out this extremely loud gigantic sneeze. Obviously someone had just got through saying how the class needed to be quiet and shut up already (not too much to ask of 35 eight-year olds) because the entire class just burst into hysterical laughter. I remember in particular my best friend at the time just doing this slow turn around to look at me as he's hysterically laughing. That's all I remember. Too bad I can't remember any more than this.

Another anecdotal story? Well you get one anyway. This time I remember a lot more and I was about 13 in the 8th grade. The family was flying off to Hawaii for a week. I was supposed to mention this to all my teachers before we left to get any possible substitute assignments to do over the week. I also gave the student's office a few notes from my mom explaining it whatever mom's detail that I would be gone for a week and this is excused etc. But I forgot one class, which was this "peer tutoring" class. Actually it was me and some other 8th graders helping out some mentally handicapped kids to do whatever. But I didn't tell that teacher. And she never found out from the office for some reason. So the first day I got back from Hawaii and go to this class the teacher says "so where were you last week? were you sick?" and she takes a sip of some coffee (at the time coffee at 2:30 in the afternoon seemed odd to me for some reason but good thing, heh) and I say, not knowing any better, "no, I was in Hawaii". She does one of those famous spit-takes/spitting out her mouth full of coffee and yells

"HAWAII!?!"

I guess she didn't get the memo from the office. For not letting her know I could only get a B in that class, which I think is what I got but I'm not sure.

Ok one last story. This time it was just a few months ago in an English class. I was sitting in this group of students trying to discuss a reading assignment. Ok so I didn't actually do the reading assignment. This is relevant actually as I was deflecting the questions from the group about the assignment semi-successfully. This one group member who liked that whole sound-of-his-own-voice thing kept going on and on and on. Eventually for reason I can't quite remember the topic, actually his topic, turned to socialism and people's views on it. He was saying how ya socialism is good in some way but he didn't want to get off on a tangent and on and on about the socialism, blah-blah-blah. So then he turns to me and says "now what do you have to say" or "now what's your opinion" to which I reply "what about socialism?" as a subtle smirk creeps across my face. This results in the several girls and other members laughing with me as I laughed at my own joke. Of course the guy the infatuation-of-the-voice didn't laugh, he was back to "no we don't want to get off on a tangent about hour opinions of socialism". I was funny and witty in class so pffffff.

Ok this was fun. Anecdotal memories from me that brings a subtle smirk to my face despite. Despite what? I dunno.

Well this was a close call today. It seems the web space provider decided to do some server maintenance which brought down my server. Not knowing this I figured I must have just lost my entire blog, which wasn't a very appealing prospect. But it was only maintenance so I didn't lose everything. Which I for one am glad for. This just reminded me I of what I should have been doing to begin with this blog: backing up every entry for later reference. I knew I should have been doing this all a long anyway.

On the subject of this blog I have been told about this program called Movable Type. I thought it was only a competitor to blogger that simply provided a friendly interface to making entries for a blog and uploading the information to an FTP site. But actually, so far as I can tell, it's a server-side program you must install. That provides a friendly interface to making entries for a blog and uploading the information to an FTP site. So I can't use it. For you see I am not paying for this site, it is owned by a member of my online game clan. The clan, if it's not already obvious, is called The Continuum. A member was nice enough to hook me up with this sub domain. I have no access to install anything. At least I don't think I do. But it doesn't matter. I want to buy my own domain and get my own hosting so I can try making money at it. Even though the odds of that aren't very good. Point is I can't use Movable Type.

I hope someone found this entry entertaining. It was a little more writing it. I'm sure all the readers appreciate knowing such a thing. That this entry was a little more fun to write.

  ¶ 12:13 AM 0 Comments

 

"I've got my pants off so it's hard to hear!"

The title of the last entry, "Rolling Stones: Steel Wheelchair Tour", is from an episode of The Simpsons. I don't think it's a very popular episode really, it's one of those future-flash-forward episodes showing Lisa in college. In her dorm room is poster with this caption and an image of steel wheelchair. Somehow it always stuck with me. That or I've seen that episode too many times.

I touched a little on "logic" in the last entry. So I'll talk about "logic" once again. Now I wish I had saved the URL to the blog in question as it was very, very funny. One of these left-wing blogs that blame all the worlds problems on George W. Bush. Apparently children and starving to death and kids aren't being educated only because of Bush in the past 2 1/2 years. Local state jurisdictions? Teacher unions? A department of education that's been broken since the 60s? None of these things are to blame for the status of education system. It's George W. Bush and only George W. Bush. Oh and the budgeting for the public schools. Now there was this one episode of The Simpsons which had this joke. The teacher hands out this state aptitude test and tells the children something to the effect of "now children remember: the worse you do on this test the more money the school gets. So don't knock yourselves out! heh." Ironic that this blog author actually advocated giving the worst scoring schools more money. As in the worse they are the more money they should get. Right! Keep expectations lower, blindly throw more money at a problem, create more bureaucracy with little to no accountability! That'll fix the broken public schools!! What do ya mean that's stupid and illogical? Pffffffff.....

Still find it ironic a person would practice and apply a joke from The Simpsons.

Is it possible I'm running out of stuff to write? Nahhh. How about another person I admirer? I now admirer Dennis Miller. Actually I've mentioned him before and you if you read one of my prior postings you'll note the apparently inspired-by sound to it (it was a paraphrase of a response to some environmentalists). I admirer Dennis Miller because he tells-it-like-it-is and isn't afraid to be pro-Bush which seems not that common from the public never mind celebrities. And the anit-French thing. That was awesome :-). You can see what I'm talking about in his latest HBO special.

I am currently watching this show called Big O. It's a new show on Cartoon Network. The only reason I mention is because something backwards has happened. This show obviously has a heavy influence on it from the Batman Animated Series show. So a Japanese animated show has now been influenced by an American show. Normally it's the other way around. The Japanese seem to love the Anime. And this Big O has all kinds of similarities with that Batman series. The Batman series was very, very well done in case you missed it. Has some sort of cult following (and not just kids either).

It's been since June 18th since I last wrote and discussed LiteStep so I think I should write about it again. To catch up on this "LiteStep" see my entry from June 18th, found in this archive (you'll have to page down a bit, it starts with "*Step").

*Step: The Sequel "This time it's personalized"

Whilst last we left off LiteStep is a program you can use as your "shell" for all versions of MS Windows. No more Start menu or perty desktop icons or convenient My Computer conveniently located where it is on everybody else's desktop.

So how do you install LiteStep?

A good question. If you happen to have Windows 2000 (any version) or Windows XP Pro (or later, not home) you happen to be in luck as you don't even have to look at a text file. For Windows 95/98/Me users you will have to do some text editing. But it won't take more than 5 seconds. NT 4 users will have to do some fancy registry editing.

Fortunately there's a special "shell loader" that makes all this unnecessary. This program is called "ShellOnV2" and is located at the web site dx 1 3 (new window). Full instructions are included both on the site and with the program but it still has some what of learning curve so I will go over briefly.

Get your ShellOn

ShellOn is like a menu system. You use ShellOn to prompt you for the shell you want to load when you first logon to Windows and after a few seconds (or whatever depending on your options) it loads your default shell for you. So essentially instead of Windows loading, finding Explorer.exe and popping it open, Windows finds ShellOn.exe and executes it instead. You then have a choice of which shell you'd like to load.

To install it all you need to do is download it to a particular location like c:\ and double-click to extract. There's no setup program or system changes that take place. Next bring the folder you extracted to, if you followed above this is c:\shellonv2 and open config.exe, giving you a screen similar to the following:



First you want to make ShellOn your shell using this icon:

As you'll notice you didn't have to do much work this way :-)

Second you'll want to add a shell using the + sign icon right above the "name" column header (). This will bring up an "Add shell" dialog with a space for Name and Path and a "capture shell crashes" check box. The first thing to do is to add Explorer.exe because inevitably you will have to go back to it at least every so often. So enter Explorer as the name (you can enter anything you want but Explorer would seem to the most accurate and descriptive) and use the little folder icon to bring up a browse dialog and find your Explorer.exe. Depending on where you installed Windows this may vary but the most common locations are C:\Windows\Explorer.exe and C:\WinNT\Explorer.exe.

Now let me slow down a moment. It occurs to me at this point this article may be way over the head of some people. If you find yourself struggling to "browse" to the Windows folder and a file called "Explorer.exe" you're most likely not advanced to use LiteStep. If you you're following a long anyway you obviously have enough drive to learn it though and I commend you. However this probably the easiest part of the whole process as we haven't even got to the LiteStep part yet. If you do know enough you've successfully found Explorer.exe and added it to ShellOn please keep reading.

Once you've found Explorer.exe click the "Open" button and the path to Explorer will appear in the path box of ShellOn. I highly recommend checking "Capture shell crashes" as it is a very useful feature for any shell including Explorer.

I should also mention here if should ever decide to go back to Explorer.exe and forget all this ShellOn/LiteStep stuff there's a handy icon for doing so. Simply select Explorer in the list and click the icon right next to the "Set as Shell" icon named above. Explorer will now be your shell (after a relog/reboot) and ShellOn should never bother you again (it can safely be deleted without any consequence).

Now the main reason for ShellOn, for me at least, is so I can always go back to Explorer if I need to for some reason. But it does have other features like loading a particular shell based on user name. For example if you share your computer with some one else and you both have different user names under your user name ShellOn will come up and load your default shell for you and under the other user name ShellOn won't even load and Explorer will simply pop-up so the other person(s) won't even be able to tell LiteStep or ShellOn is even installed. Or you maybe your room mate uses some other "alternative shell" out there. This and the other ShellOn features are very great and useful but beyond the scope of my little blog article. You can find all that useful information in the help file.

There's two places in ShellOn to set preferences and settings. One is the icon all the way on the left at the bottom of the screen, the screen tip says "Profile Options...". Instead of trying to explain the options I'll show you an pic of mine:



Keeping in mind I'm the only user on my computer and have only one profile.

One last thing you may want to do is set Explorer.exe as your default shell. You'll note the option right there on the main screen. Actually this is a fairly incomplete article and I suggest visiting LiteStep.info for further information before continuing.

Stay tuned for further articles.

  ¶ 3:02 PM 0 Comments

 

"Rolling Stones: Steel Wheelchair Tour"

The title for the last entry, "I can fluff your Garfield, if you know what I mean... (No, I don't know what you mean)", is again from Whose Line is it Anyway?. The cast was doing this game involving "clichés and over used statements". I think it's called "If you know what I mean". They come with stupid lines that don't really mean anything followed by "if you know what I mean". Well Colin came up with the Garfield thing. You can attach whatever innuendo you like to it :-)

Today I received a Network+ book and the third book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I don't know if I'll ever get around to finishing reading either one of them but I definitely needed them. Network+ is similar to an A+ certification only obviously has to do with networking. I need that certification to help in getting a job. Which I still haven't found yet. So many books I'd like to read, so many games I'd like to finish and only a little while left in the summer. What a boring person I am! All the ambition I have is to read several books and finish several PC games? That's a successful summer? Besides getting a job that is. Of course I could do other things for money. I was going to really develop a website, get enough visitors and try out an Amazon affiliate and maybe make some money. But do I really want to pay for a domain and hosting if I don't know I can at least make that much back from it? I'm not one of these people who's just going to pay for the hosting and do the website for the fun of it.

Now I'd like to slightly correct something from the last entry. Apparently this Justin Blanton of who was nice enough to link me from his visited blog informs me he is in fact (or was in fact) a Linux enthusiast, as described in this blog entry of his (new window) (oh look he's obsessive compulsive too!).

For a moment I'd like to talk more about MS Windows. Specifically Windows 2000 Professional is simply a fantastic operating system by an standards. Actually I should mention I got addicted to NT 4.0 and am currently using Windows XP Pro (2k is 5.0, XP is NT 5.1) but I'm still going to spout the wonderfulness of Windows 2000. NT 4.0 I had to use on my home computer because when I built a computer I didn't have an operating system and a friend of mine who used Linux happened to have a cop of NT 4. That operating system is so incredibly stable and can take so much abuse. I just loved it! Had I had access to 2000 I would have installed it but I didn't feel like spending the $130US over at E-bay for it so I stuck with my NT 4. Windows 2k on the other hand is just as stable but has all the nice Windows features of Plug-and-Play, DirectX 8+, USB, as well as features that should have been in NT 4 from the beginning like mounting new partitions in subdirectories, encrypting individual folders, not to mention all the new incredibly useful network features. In fact I used to know some one who actually switched from Linux to Windows 2000 (he was at least as anti-Windows/Microsoft as Justin. The main thing about 2000 is how everything actually works, the compatibility both with hardware and software both new old and yet the incredible power, flexibility and stability. It is literally the first and last operating system you could ever ask for.

But I'm using XP. Why? I figured it would be supported by Microsoft that much longer and the differences are so relatively slight XP essentially is Windows 2000, just with that annoying Luna fisher-price interface attached (which I always turn off immediately). In fact I turn off EVERY stupid feature like that. You can find a list of settings in the System Properties Advanced tab in the Performance settings. I unchecked every check box. I turned off all my stupid event sounds too. Hey this is the perfect saigway to...

Changes to Settings Windows Users Should Make as Soon as Possible!

First of all there is one feature I will be officially dubbing ... Eeeee-vul...

The feature I am referring to is called "hide extensions of known file types" and can be found in the Folder Options of the Tools menu in Windows Explorer or My Computer. ALL WINDOWS USERS SHOULD UNCHECK THIS. There is absolutely no reason for this stupid setting beside which it's very dangerous. This was just a stupid feature Microsoft put in Windows 95 to make Windows more like Mac OS. Only it doesn't work because so many file types have different icons, icons that change when you install a new program that doesn't ask if you'd like it to change the association or not and it's very annoying not really knowing what type a particular file really is.

Here is an image of what the option looks like:



But most of all mere normal computer users who (for some reason) use Outlook or Outlook Express may see an attachment that looks like a plain text file which is supposed to be safe to open but actually it's .txt.vbs or .txt.js which are both executable file extensions. You click those and you just infected your computer and probably sent the virus to everyone in your address book.

This is actually a neat little-known feature. I think Microsoft came up with this as kind of a mimic of AppleScript or any number of graphical shell scripting found in UNIX/X-Windows. But no one seems to know about this feature, called Windows Script Host. And since it installs by default and scripts with .vbs and .js execute by default they can do a lot of damage. Many of the recent Windows viruses spread via Outlook and file attachments have propagated this way. And it's due in large part to hiding file extensions and Window Script Host. Now you can do a lot of neat stuff with Windows Script Host if you are a system administrator and want to automate repetitive tasks. It's sort of like QBasic from back in the DOS days. JS stand for JScript by the way, VBS is VBScript. Very similar to the client side browser scripting languages but with functions and facilities specifically for dealing with folders and modify the registry.

Well I guess this is all for today's entry.

  ¶ 1:45 AM 0 Comments

 

I can fluff your Garfield, if you know what I mean... (No, I don't know what you mean)

Last entry's title, "Great for parties...if you don't have any chicks or booz", is often uttered by Drew Carey on his show Whose Line is it Anyway? when describing the various games the cast members play from time to time. And often it's true the games played would only be fun in a more family-friendly kind of setting.

Since I may be having actual visitors beside myself maybe in the near future I should perhaps explain about the titles to the entries of this blog. I like coming up with creative/humorous/weird titles to things. I like the funny ones most of the time but sometimes I'll get a serious one because I couldn't think of a funny one that time. So the "game" I have is to try and figure out the obscure pop-culture origin of the title of the blog entry, which I will reveal at the top of the next entry.

Now some other notes about his blog perhaps. I started this blog for myself and because I some what enjoy writing and not for any other reason. So I write long blog entries about weird the weird things that happen to be traveling through my mind at the type. So the entries are usually pretty long. I wasn't even reading blogs when I started this blog and I still don't really read blogs all that much (unless slashdot really counts). So I don't do like other blogs and have real short blogs and I don't usually talk about relationships and really personal stuff. This may be un-blogish but this is the way I am doing this.

By the way I would like to mention my first reciprocal link thanks to Justin Blanton dot com (new window). I immediately received two hits after I noticed he had posted me as a link. So I can only assume those came from him. Now sure he is a Mac user, but I'm not holding that against him :-).

Generally speaking I am not really fond of the Mac. Now I realize it has a really dedicated user base and everything is all easy on it and the interface is all pretty and blah-blah-blah but I start to think some users are a little too dependant on all that "usability". For instance a few years back I was talking to a Mac user who didn't like Windows because the mouse had a second button. The second button freaked her out because it made her feel like something was being hidden from her. I tried to explain the right-click in Windows is identical to the "click-and-hold" in Mac OS but she didn't seem to get it. I also don't like the hold ctrl+click, alt+click, shift+click, ctrl+alt+click+drag stuff you get stuck in on the Mac but maybe I'm just old-fashioned.

Now none of that was very specific. Personally I just really do like Windows. It just has so much software all over the place. You can change the interface to look completely with LiteStep, change the look with WindowBlinds, download UNIX command shells and emulators. Keep in mind I'm talking about the NT derivative versions of Windows (NT4, 2k, XP) not that Me edition or 98. And if there's a cool program for Linux there's probably a port of it in development for Windows too leaving me little reason to switch to Linux or anything else. And I really can't think of any reason to by a Macintosh. Cruising the Internet I very rarely come across a website with a piece of software that also has a Mac version. Often it's Windows-only or Windows and Linux but rarely also for Mac. I already know how to do everything on Windows to the ease of use thing isn't really an issue either. There is no piece of software just for Mac that makes me want one. A lot of the stuff touted as a feature of Mac, like the .Mac Justin talks about in a recent entry of his can actually be done on Windows via third-party software (again not as integrated or as easy to use).

Now this isn't to say I'd like to see the Mac go away. As it exists any time I hear some whiner complain about the "Microsoft monopoly" I can say "buy a !@#$!ing Mac!!". After all ask any Mac user: it's way superior to Windows anyway ; )

I would like to complain about that now that I think about it. Apple started including an icon on the MacOS 7 (I think it was) desktop much like the way Microsoft included an MSN icon and the Windows95 desktop, and yet the justice department never raised an eye brow (the online service soon sank there after anyhow). Later apple saw start-up BeOS released for the Mac's PowerPC processor and decided it was worth purchasing. So Apple purchases BeOS and then shuts it down and doesn't even allow the source code to be opened up. So see a possible competitor, gobble it up and kill it eh? That's a lot like what it looks like to me. Any images of Apple CEOs dressed as Borg on the web? Any Justice department investigations? No? And now Apple ships a their own web browser with every copy of OS X much like Microsoft did with IE. Any complaints? Hello? Why do I only hear an echo?! Bah.

I may also point out MS doesn't really have a monopoly. In the OS market there's OS X and Linux. With Linux you get the advantage of horribly bugged windowing systems, a horribly convoluted and unorganized software installation system and new features that never quite work the way they're supposed to. Outside the OS market we have Microsoft actually losing in quite a few categories. For example MSN has lost to AOL, MS Money has lost to Quicken, MS Publisher has lost to Adobe PageMaker, X-Box is currently losing to PS2, and Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 losing out to Linux and other alternatives along with Apache dominating the web server market over MS IIS. My point being obviously competing with MS is not impossible, in fact it seems rather common. There are even several free and low-cost alternatives to MS office.

Now I'd like to comment on censorship. Or more specifically "mandated voluntary" rating systems and "broadcast standards".

Now first of all lets go back to the 80s. You remember the 80s right? Well I was only a little kid trying to see an episode of G.I. Joe because every 8-year-old boy in America was trying to see an episode of G.I. Joe. Many at the time complained of it being "too violent" so it was always altered so as to be appropriate for 8 year olds. One rule was about people dieing. No characters were ever allowed to die nor was there any blood of any kind. I believe this is the wrong way to approach violence. Consequences should be expressed for acts of violence. Every time a jet was destroyed or a building blown up all the people inside would eject and safely land on the ground or get out just in the nick of time. And never any blood. Seems like it would be healthier to have people die and collateral damages from explosions and consequences. You can say this about any kid's show out there. Lots of machine gun fire, never but no one ever gets hit because of it. This should be the opposite of what's appropriate for kids.

Next is about the mandated/voluntary rating systems for TV and video games. I happen to know wholly and fully why the rating system was forced on video games. In the early 1990s a few games like Mortal Kombat and the infamous SegaCD game Night Trap were too violent for just anybody like little kids. So that rating system was imposed under threat of government regulation. Ironically with the rating system in place the developers felt much freer to put in much more adult content then ever would have been inserted without a rating. Grand Theft Auto for example might never have been made or at least not existed as it now does with that all-familiar M rating. A rating parents don't even seem to notice for some reason. I mean it's right there on the bloomin' box! How can you miss it? If the box has an M on it DON'T BUY IT FOR YOUR 8 YEAR OLD doesn't seem that complicated to me.

The same can be said of the TV ratings. I some how doubt I would have seen the edited, f-word filled presentation of the South Park movie, albeit at 1am, on basic cable this week had it not been for the rating system on TV.

So essentially this mandated voluntary rating system has yielded the inverse results of what it was intended to do. Although I guess kids now I have to actually take 10 seconds to read a VCR manual to be corrupted by the South Park movie as opposed to renting it or seeing it on one of the premium channels or downloading it off the Internet.

Well I guess this is the end of this entry. And here I thought I had so much to write about and I go and write about a bunch of other stuff I wasn't even thinking about... : )

  ¶ 1:48 AM 0 Comments

 

"Great for parties...if you don't have any chicks or booze"

The title for the last entry, "Cheese it!", was once again from a catch-phrase of Futurama. And once again it can be heard from this character Bender. I don't know if this line is supposed to just be a popular catch phrase or a subtle advertisement for a snack product. Strangely it fits when it is used. The character uses it when it's time to run away from something. Lets do a further exploration of this show, Futurama. There's this character, "the world's most lovable industrialist" named simply "Mom". She sells, among many other things "Mom's old fashioned robot oil" and is very lovable in front of the camera. But off camera she's very abusive and horrible especially to her three sons whom she's always calling an idiot and slapping. Here's a profile of her:



Now the other favorite show the grew on me, Cowboy Bebop, has this character named Twinkle Maria Murdock who also heads up an evil organization and abuses her four sons in a similiar fashion, she has the following image:



Between the similar images and strikingly similar personalities does anybody else find this more than a coincidence? I'm not sure which character came first. I think the Bebop character first which means some one at Futurama must like Bebop. Too bad the Bebop version only lasted the one episode.

Now I'd like to complain about the Governor Davis people. I can't believe I read a posting about a Davis getting elected "overwhelmingly". Ok here's the map of the Democrat/Republican counties in California for the 2002 Governor race (new window). Ok look at all the red!! Does that blue look "overwhelming" to anyone?!?! That's a rhetorical question. Of course it doesn't!! So shut the fuck up about Davis winning by such a land slide. Ok? Also lets look at the numbers. That's 3,394,917 for Davis and 3,039,021 for the Republican (Simon), a difference of 355,896. Not very much I'd say! I mean California only has about 30 million people! 3.3 million vote for Davis for some reason and all of sudden it's "overwhelming"!? Pffff. I'd call those "overwhelming" people apparently mentally handicapped but I don't want to offend the mentally handicapped. But apparently these people have an intelligence no greater than that of a three year old. Overwhelming. Right.

Lately I've been playing a lot of computer games. Namely the free version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein called Enemy Territory. It's an online-only game and is really quite fun I think. It's easy to play that game for hours and hours without realizing it. I also started playing the old classic StarCraft for some reason. I always had trouble beating the last Terran mission. And I still have much trouble beating the last Terran mission. So finally I used a cheat and beat it. I beat all the other missions with little trouble but can't seem to make that last one for some reason. Speaking of games...

I finally started Neocron again last night. That game, although fun at times, can be annoying sometimes also. At least there's stuff to do now unlike before when it was just you, your gun and as many Warbots and Giant Lizards as you see fit to kill. Now however there are these "Epics" in which you go from one mission to the next gaining much money and experience and special items. Of course despite this game being a "massive online role playing game" the epics are one player only. Which doesn't make much sense to me. I mean sure give players something they can do on their own but why not a option to accomplish a goal as a group? You could even have advantages and disadvantages to both going it alone and doing so in a group. I'll never understand the logic used by the developer. And speaking of Neocron...

The clan had an IRC meeting last night, which was fun. I haven't talked to Perminator in quite a while on account of doing other stuff and playing Enemy Territory instead. I have posted the chat log but I'm not sharing the link with the blog :-) sorry.

I almost forgot. I saw Terminator 3 yesterday. And I have to say as someone family and friends often complain about as "hating everything" I did actually enjoy this movie. Now maybe the hardcore "The first Terminator was the best!!" people may or may not like it but I enjoyed it.

It even has a subtle reference to the Stanley Kubrik masterpiece Dr. Strangelove. Which I think is really cool. I highly recommend renting Dr. Strangelove by the way, you'll find it in the comedy section of the rental place. It's very, VERY dark comedy. Even though it was made before the 70s it's still a good movie. Even though it's in black and white. I'm telling you it's a good movie! See the thing about black and white movies is they're like color movies but they don't have as many colors. But this doesn't make a bad movie though ya see. Just a different style of looking at it and can actually be quite effective in some instances in setting the mood and stuff like that.

Now where was I? Oh right Terminator 3. Arnold does a good job of acting, his best movie in many years. Not quite as deep as Terminator 2 maybe. Still very well done though. There's a little bit of that heavy philosophy about choosing your own destiny and inevitabilities, but not as much as the previous movie. I will say one thing though: more effective than Jurassic Park 3! :-) I would try and describe it but I don't want to give anything away. It didn't seem too long or too short, I was never bored through the whole thing and despite the lead-in ending (or is that a "lead out" ending?) I didn't feel ripped by it like I was with Matrix 2 or Episode Two or X-Men 2 or Planet of the Apes or... well you get the idea. And I liked the site gag jokes and subtle references. Actually there was one little bonus reference to the second movie via this psychologist who was taking care of Sarah Conner in the mental institution. He was the one who saw the molten metal terminator walk through some metal bars in the second movie and in this one he was talking about how it had taken him years to get over the crazy, crazy things he'd seen. Then he sees Arnold's terminator and freaks. Such a minor thing but I think it added cool little extra. I highly recommend Terminator 3! (Also the attraction and Universal Studios Hollywood is great.)

I guess this is it for today's entry. I hope it wasn't too bad.

  ¶ 1:21 PM 0 Comments

 

"Cheese it!"

The title from the list entry, "The Clamp!", is again from the show Futurama. This is the "catch phrase" uttered often by one of the members of the "robot mafia". You would recognize the robot mafia buy the fat robot with the mouse necklace and mouse pad around his neck and of course "Clamps" the robot with clamps for hands who is always eager to use his clamps what with his continuous rattling of "the clamps?" followed by "the clamps!!". I guess that's his shtick or something. I tells ya that show is growin' on me. And the constant social security jokes are funny too.

For some reason when blogger decided to change around the interface and "back end" system all my settings got screwed up. So I couldn't publish my entry entitled "The Clamp!" until today when I finally got the stupid settings to work. I was starting to get pissed off and I really really didn't want to switch to another "blog engine" or whatever they call it. But I'm glad I got the damn thing to work. And apparently there's some sort of size limit on the entries now. Which is really annoying. So I'll just divide up my entries, which isn't that much of a problem.

For this entry I would like to discuss economics, socialized medicine, social security and a few people I now file under "people I admirer".

First there's economics. I am starting to enjoy this subject some amount. Economics, believe it or not, is a very fascinating subject that isn't really taught in elementary school or much at all in high school. At least not where I grew up. Of course the schools have been taken over by the liberal-minded, every grade from kindergarten to the university is completely saturated with a liberal bias. But you can hardly have a college without this subject so they have to teach it. In Economics you would learn such things as economics is just basic nature that just happens without any referees or traffic directors so to speak. Example? Lets say you're trying to get home during rush hour and you know the normal surface streets are going to be backed with traffic. But you know a short cut so through some back neighborhood streets. So you're doing something for yourself that will benefit you but if you think about it you're also benefiting the other people on the road that much more. By not taking the normal surface streets you're one less car on the road and the roads are that much lesser backed up. So you've "indirectly" benefited a lot of other people by not taking the surface streets. You see? Companies, by specializing in one area specifically trying to make money are providing needed services and products to the population. The companies are only doing what they're doing to make money, that's the only reason for their existence. Ever heard of a corporation doing something that will not benefit them in any way? I don't think so. So they're making money, you're getting a the needed products and services all via, for lack of a better term, "selfishness". I could go on but I'm probably boring whatever reader I have and I am operating on a stupid character limit here.

Now what about this "socialized medicine"? Or the code euphemism for this, "universal health care" which really does mean the exact same thing. The taxes to pay for such a system are astronomical (while landing a president on an aircraft carrier apparently costs a lot more). Not to mention taking away the freedom to choose your source of health care and the choice of whether or not you even want health care for that matter. When you mandate socailized medicine you take away a lot people's freedoms. Of course you can always look at Canada's system. For some reason that whole series of events leading to Canada's system of socialized medicine isn't very well publicized. But I read about in a book so I will share it. Apparently in the mid-1960s Britain decided they were going to "give" Canada socialized medicine whether the populace wanted it or not by trying to force it on them. The population and doctors of Canada tried to resist but Britain sent in their own doctors to replace the striking doctors and won out over them. So no vote was ever taken, no politician legitimately elected by the people of Canada actually passed as the will of the people. It took Britain FORCING it on Canada. Not all Canadians like the system either. Apparently a lot of Canadians come across the border to use the private American doctors in place of the Canadian ones. This makes sense since all medicine/health care in Canada is "free" so a "queue" forms resulting in many people waiting a really, really long time to get care for much of anything from a bad cough to open-heart surgery.

Now a certain president did try to impose such a system on the U.S. in the early 1990s, often dubbed "Hillary-care". But that time it would have been a little more legitimate in that the representatives of the people would have voted on it but the president didn't bother telling the population or trying to sell it to them or anything like that. He was just trying to pass it without any discussion whatsoever. Fortunately the bill never passed and that party never recovered in the House of Representatives.

Now I would like to rant about Social Security. First of all this is a mandatory program that's taken out of every paycheck whether you want it or not. There is no opt-out (unless you're elected to political office then you're conveniently taken out of the system and put in a privately funded one). So this program takes money from some people and gives it to some other people who may or may not need it. Of course with the baby boom people becoming 65 in a few years I have absolutely no faith that this program will still be there by the time I reach retirement age so this is money that is being taken away from that I will never see again. So the government is stealing from me. That's what I'm saying. Also if you think about it this program is quite racist. For example black people usually start working at a much younger age and usually die at 65 which is the very age they would be eligible to receive social security so essentially the program is exploiting black people's labor to give money to long-living white people. Of course a Democrat passed the program in the 1930s and they do have a history of racism. I have no idea if this was a consideration when the program was originally passed. It's not like anybody predicted a baby boom in the 1930s, right?


And now about those people I admirer. I do actually admirer Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense. Unlike most my age who mention him I am actually not being sarcastic. I really do admirer his absolute straight-forwardness and direct approach to answering questions in issuing statements.

  ¶ 7:02 PM 0 Comments

 

The Clamp!

Last entry's title, "We're boned", was from an episode of Futurama. Actually it's one of those catch phrases the character Bender says in about every episode. I've started to watch that show more lately since Cartoon Network now re-runs it every night. I enjoy all the various classic sci-fi references and in-jokes for the uber-geeks out there. The fry and Lela characters annoy me though. But the other characters are fun. Every time I hear the classic Star Trek tri-corder sound or see the dot matrix printer or a character using a Macintosh from 1984 I just like that show a little more. Now most people I'm sure don't even notice a lot of those things. But I do and often the first time seeing an episode. In one episode they even had the whole original cast of the original Star Trek doing a voices and themselves. It was such a clever parody of the series. For example there was one explanation from bender on whether he went to college: "Of course. I'm a bender. I went to bending college. I majored in bending." For some reason I just find that really humorous. There are also the various Professor jokes about social security. I have a feeling all the more conservative thinking writers moved over from The Simpsons to Futurama. The Simpsons is now hippie-central and Futurama while still never meeting the Simpson's golden age still manages some decent "street cred" at least in my eyes if no one else's.

I would like to talk further politics. Because, as I said in the last post, there aren't nearly enough blogs written by idiots who think they know something about politics. I can pretend to be more convincing then some though because I'm not your typical mindless automaton blankly repeating the mantra of "Bush is a Nazi", "The Iraq war was illegal", and "the United States is taking over the world". I only want to write about this because for some reason I read this blurb about the new Terminator movie and in the user commentary everybody started talking politics. Actually only a few people talked politics the rest stuck to the commentary on the movie which is what it is supposed to be about. I think it only started because there's a small chance good old Arnold will be running for governor once that son-of-a-bitch gets recalled (I hate that guy). So maybe politics was almost on subject. What does the legitimacy of the war in Iraq have to do with the governor of California or Terminator 3? I have no idea what so ever.

There was a lot of back-and-forth in the movie commentary. Most of it was about the "illegal war" in Iraq and how it was an invasion and not a liberation. I don't know all those celebrating Iraqis looked pretty happy for a populace that just got invaded. And the legitimacy? Actually the war was validated by a UN provision back in 1991 and again in November 2002. Not to mention the Democrats wholly endorsing the idea of taking out Sadam when it was there president proposing it in 1998. But all this is lost on the mantra-repeating automatons posting off-subject commentary on a message board related to the latest Terminator movie. Do they really matter? Oh yes, very much so.

Of course the counter-commentary was also there. And I thought most of those posts did a pretty good job of responding to these mindless automatons repeating their anti-American, anti-Bush, anti-anything-having-to-do-with-what-Bush-has-done posts. Now I guess an argument could be made that although I am deeply offended by a comment such as "...bombing the Iraqi children who aren't white enough in the quest to take more oil and take over the world..." (actually I'm paraphrasing) I guess some people would be just as offended by the mantra of "shut the fuck up you dope smoking hippie mother fuckers go fuck a tree and let the grown ups run the world you stupid fucks" (again a paraphrase). All I know is the anti-American rhetoric is getting really, really old. And it's about time someone stood up and argued back to these damn hippies. As you may have guessed by the waving flag I'm an American and proud of it. We (Americans) are not evil organization bent on world domination. We were bombed, we decided to respond accordingly and let the world know we are no longer lead by the dope-smoking, draft dodging hippies who happened to be elected in the 1990s. The way some talk you'd think the Americans were the assholes. Well guess what: the terrorists are the assholes. They bombed us, remember? It's in America's best interest to do what we can to try and prevent future damages to our property.

Now lets look at this logically. If you were in charge of responding to a horrible terrorist attack and trying to decide if you wanted eliminate future threats from "rogue states" like Iraq you may get out a piece of paper and a pen and start listing the advantages and disadvantages of such an operation. For example the advantages might include sending a not-so-subtle message to the rest of world about not messing with us, we're under new management and you can expect something different from us from now on, the elimination of a possible future threat, not to mention uprooting a ruthless murdering despot that even the rest of the region hates never mind his own citizens and the rest of world (outside of the French). Disadvantages? All the anti-war rhetoric, the always-present risk of it not working out the they hoped, the Iraqi citizenry not accepting the their new status and of course that degree of doubt about the legitimacy. Of course ultimately this is all academic of course since the war is over but also the fact still remains this war was absolutely necessary. Everything else is just the PR to sell it to the public. And by the way it was not about oil, as spouted by so many mindless, rhetoric-spilling automatons out there. Why would the US go all the way to Iraq just for oil? I mean there's plenty of local countries in the western hemisphere that have lots of oil, not to mention several unexplored areas in Alaska and off the various coasts. Not to mention all the troops that are already in Kuwait which also has lots of oil. So why "invade" Iraq "just for the oil"? It makes no sense to spend all that money and time preparing just to go into Iraq for the oil. Wouldn't all that money take away from the bottom line when say Mexico or Venezuela is right there in the back yard? Of course this requires some actually logical thought which is too much to ask of many people apparently.


Well what an exciting and entertaining blog entry. I think I'll stop now.

  ¶ 5:03 PM 0 Comments