tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1087445265562344662024-03-14T03:37:14.544-04:00ChupporitosLes jeux sont faits. Translation: the game is up. Your ass is mine.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-12354935289285028162009-08-24T13:57:00.003-04:002009-08-24T14:01:20.368-04:00Feeding her addiction / thwarting intervention<span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >me:</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> This is news? http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/08/24/chubby.ankles.cankles/index.html</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >Artemis:</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> you know what</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">those aren't even canks in the pic</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">she just has pudgy legs, but ther'es a noticiable dent between her calf and feet</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">which would constitute ankles.</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >me:</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> eugh</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">"news"</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >Artemis:</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> i just spent 5 mins on the internet looking for a good picture of canckl;es.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">wtf.</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >me:</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> oh. </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://thenycshuttle.blogspot.com/2009/08/dont-stop-i-love-it-when-you-bombard-me.html">what i have I done</a><span style="font-family:arial;">.</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >Artemis:</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> haha</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">well believe it or not</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">there are NO GOOD PICS of them online.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">so i stopped.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-19086489226511611002009-08-20T10:12:00.002-04:002009-08-20T15:23:17.428-04:00The Coffee Non-Effect, in 3 CupsIt's 9:45AM on a Saturday. After a 1.75 hour trip out to LonGisland (yeah it's one word; ask Chuck), 24 Marathon XVIII is set to begin, and as is tradition, we have a Box O' Joe from Dunkin' Donuts waiting for our imbibe-itude. For normal humans, coffee usually provides a much-needed morning boost, and seeing as the typical 24 Marathon runs from 10AM one morning to 4:30AM the next, drinking the sacred bean excrement is an almost necessary ritual to keep one's energy levels up in order to survive the onslaught of awesome that only Jack Bauer and his cohorts can provide.<br /><br />David, who is our host (as the Marathons take place in his father's awesomeness I mean house), and who also looks like the only 11-year-old on the planet who can grow a full beard, has in the past displayed the effect that coffee is supposed to have on the aforementioned "normal" human, even though--like me--he is as far from a normal human as you can possibly get. Once, when Alex--one of our staple attendees--was delayed by a burning house and his mandatory police duty to stop and help the would-be victims not be victims, the combination of caffeine and impatience within David conspired to create a beast the likes of which Earthlings have ever seen. It's impossible, with mere words, to describe Hyper David, who--despite his Napoleonic stature (barely 5'5", 125 pounds)--is already more boisterous than most; this is a task that requires some sort of alien holographic language. All I can hope to provide here are a select few bullet points from witnessing the Jewtalian hopped up on coffee:<br /><br />* Power-walking in circles around the kitchen counter at quite possibly 4.5 miles per hour--literally...<br /><br />* ...while rapidly tossing his cellphone from hand to hand as if speeding up his rate of tossing will somehow make Alex call him with an update sooner...<br /><br />* ...while yelping, every 11 seconds, "Where the FUCK is Alex?"...<br /><br />* ...while yelping, every 50 seconds, "Hey, hey! Does anyone want to play pool?" (There's a pool table in the basement of his father's house.)<br /><br />* Every so often, the yelping and pacing are punctuated by an impromptu energetic, and almost balletic, leap over the couch...and then a speedy power-walk back to the kitchen counter. (Sidenote: Dave almost always has some sort of sports injury, and it's frequently of the leg-ankle-foot variety. Maybe some of them are coffee-related.)<br /><br />This goes on for about 33 minutes until Alex finally arrives. That Marathon, as it turns out, ended up being one of the most disastrous in history.<br /><br />Marathon XVIII went pretty well, despite a snag with the home theatre in the basement during an early episode, but we're here to talk about why coffee and I remain fiendish enemies. Now, every Marathon, I down a cup of coffee in hopes that I attain the lofty energy nirvana that Dave seems to reach. Every Marathon, here's what happens:<br /><br />a) 80% Coffee, 13% milk, 7% sugar (yes, I measured it; no, not really) are mixed into a cup, which--as I'm told--is typically the vessel of choice for drinking beverages<br /><br />2) The contents of said cup are consumed by my person<br /><br />iii) I lie on the couch and within the first two episodes, feel my eyes drooping<br /><br />What the fuck?<br /><br />Now, mind you, I have never fallen asleep during a 24 Marathon. I suffer from prolonged blinking during the last four episodes, but I never miss a beat (as someone who's seen every season prior to actually seeing it at a Marathon, I'd have known if I missed something). This is not attributed to the coffee, or at least, I am not willing to attribute it to the coffee. If I can start fading within the first 84 minutes AFTER drinking coffee, which I otherwise NEVER drink, then there's something that the coffee is not doing that it's supposed to be doing but it's not doing to me because I'm not a normal human which I've determined due to the fact that, for some reason, what the coffee is supposed to be doing to me is not happening to me. (Actually, maybe it is. I did drink a cup of coffee before writing this to remember the awful feelings I'm about to describe, so perhaps that ill-conceived sentence was borne out of my ill-advised and unwarranted consumption of the beverage.)<br /><br />During Marathon XVIII, I again went down the droopy path, though I didn't fully droop. But hours later, at around 9PM, I thought it prudent to brew more coffee in order to speed up my metabolism that my body would use to break down all the delicious and gorge-ful red meat that I had eaten throughout the day. (Fact of Earth: After reducing your red meat intake from about 30% of your diet to 5% over the course of five months and dropping 23 pounds within that span of time, going to a barbecue is nothing short of trauma. Delicious, juicy, tender trauma, but trauma nonetheless. Hence my desire to figure out a way to speed up my metabolism in any way I could. I also did Renegade Rows and bicycle crunches in the basement after a few beers. Not a good idea.) (By the way, I know I'm in trouble when the parenthetical statement in a paragraph is longer than the non-parenthetical statement.) (I know I'm in even more trouble when I make three consecutive parentheticals.) (Maybe I should just make all of them one parenthetical. Shut up.)<br /><br />Coffee #2 sent my abdomen into spirals. Remember that time you woke up and two gremlins were having a prizefight in the nether regions of your large intestine? This kind of felt like that. Instead of energizing me or my soul, the coffee energized the food imprisoned within my gastric prison, brought it to life, and caused them to do battle. Braveheart comes to mind. And no, at that point, I would not have consumed the English with bolts of lightning from my arse. That's Robs' job. I have better control over my bowels, thank you. (Yes, "Robs"--Dave made the sage observation that he counts as two people. He is large.)<br /><br />A smart man would have stopped then and there, maybe vomited out the coffee or just downed a reservoir's worth of water, and sworn off coffee for the rest of the weekend--staying awake for the whole Marathon be damned.<br /><br />I am not a smart man.<br /><br />Coffee #3 sent my head reeling. So now I was not only fatigued and in the throes of stomach pain, I was also battling a headache. Not a Scottie Pippen migraine, mind you, but enough of a headache to make me wonder why I drink not one, not two, but THREE cups of coffee. Remember that the one cup of coffee in the morning before the Marathon starts never, ever, ever works. And yet I still have it. (Remember also that I am not a smart man.) By midnight, I was alternating between leaning my head against the table in front of the couch and leaning back and exhaling violently. It was a contest to see which was more emo: my head or my gut, as they were both whining for attention and affection (and playing guitar without any semblance of talent or skill).<br /><br />I once looked at my Blackberry and saw a Facebook status update from my friend Maurice stating that he was on coffee #9 for the day, at around 4PM. I then checked his status the next day and he claimed illness, saying that he was drinking gallons of water to counter the effects of the prior day's bean juice. That was nine--NINE--cups. I got sickly after THREE. And yet my lack of intellect will dictate that I will drink the traditional morning coffee at Marathon XIX, which will likely come in three months' time. It doesn't matter that whatever intellect I do have in my brain will remind me that the coffee will fail to have its desired effect--again.<br /><br />Moral? When it comes to a fight between the lack of intellect and the presence of intellect, Lackey always wins.<br /><br />I hate you, coffee, and I hope you rot in hell.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-48694076970886959192009-08-19T15:07:00.005-04:002009-08-20T10:45:54.184-04:00Musicology and Plastic Guitars<style title="owaParaStyle">P { MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px } BODY { SCROLLBAR-HIGHLIGHT-COLOR: #cecfce; SCROLLBAR-ARROW-COLOR: #3f52b8; SCROLLBAR-TRACK-COLOR: #fffbff; SCROLLBAR-DARKSHADOW-COLOR: #fafafa; SCROLLBAR-BASE-COLOR: #f7f7f7 } </style><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">My sister once asked me if she thought I played Guitar Hero better than I did the cello. I thought this was pretty amusing at the time; this was at the height of my Guitar Heroics, when my friends <a href="http://xlm2k.blogspot.com/">Al</a>, <a href="http://www.cybercircuit.net/2009/08/3-mutts-and-pure-breed.html">Megu, Maurice and Sneezy</a> would throw the little plastic fisher-price guitars behind their heads with me as we competed, playing through riffs on Expert without skipping a beat (until my arms tired out and I had to descend to earth once again). This was when Al and I were fresh off of participating in a forum-based impromptu league set up by another friend of mine, where we strived not only for that five-star ranking on each and every song but also attempted to close in on perfection: hitting every single note without over-strumming (i.e. strumming when there was no note to be played). This was when "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock" was just around the corner, and I'd be soon mastering Living Colour's "Cult of Personality" and its newly-recorded (and deviously insane) solo without needing to use Star Power as a crutch to avoid failing out.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">For reference, I played the cello for 13 years seriously and two more off and on. Though I was notoriously undisciplined, preferring to play by ear and without practicing technique as much as I should have, I'll go out on a limb and say that my playing was good enough to be pleasing to the human ear, if not the canine ear. I never quite reached the heights I would have needed to in order to play something like Dvorak's cello concerto in B minor, but hey, come on. It's the fucking Dvorak we're talking about, and I was merely decent; I wasn't a prodigy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">To entertain myself, I took these two separate worlds and attempted to answer my sister's question. 15 years of playing cello, 75% by ear and 25% by discipline, versus hitting five buttons in rapid succession and odd combinations in order to rack up a high score at a videogame that just happened to be based on playing music--but didn't involve actually playing music. What was I better at? If I reached the conclusion that I was indeed better at Guitar Hero than I was at playing cello (the former of which I have spent--to date--four years playing as a form entertainment), would this be a "sad" thing? That all the time and effort (ahem) put into refining skills at creating music were trumped by a few leisurely years spent learning how to mimic the solo to a heavy metal song that was compressed to five buttons?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In truth, this is a question that can't really be answered properly--at least, not with regards to the context in which people ask it. Usually they make the understandable mistake of intending the question to be a musical one, implying or thinking that the musical skills required to be proficient at Guitar Hero are the same or similar to those required for a real instrument. This mistake, sadly, is at the root of why music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band have been scoffed at (sometimes lightly, sometimes scornfully) by some in the music community. A few months ago, when asked if he'd like to contribute his songs to Guitar Hero, the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince (now currently known as Prince, in case you forgot) politely declined, stating his desire that children learn to play the "real thing."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I don't particularly have an issue with Prince wanting children to really learn how to play music. Done correctly, encouraging kids--hell, anyone-- to play music can result in joy for the would-be musicians, as well as those around them. Playing music is simply fun, and there's a fantastic sense of achievement and satisfaction when you finally master a piece or write a song of your own (...and all of you narcissists would have something else to brag about, another reason to look in the mirror, or whatever).</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">What perturbs me slightly, though, is the inappropriate correlation between this segment of interactive entertainment and "the real thing." There certainly is a link between playing music games and playing music itself, but again, I feel that most people get the context wrong. Specifically: “Practicing Guitar Hero is going to stop you or your child from practicing a real musical instrument.” Listen--let's look at Guitar Hero, Rock Band and other music games for what they are: videogames. A form of entertainment. A pastime. A leisurely activity. Theoretically, you could be arguing that you'd rather your kids learn how to play their instrument than playing videogames. From there, you could theoretically argue that you'd rather your kids learn how to play their instrument than watching television or movies; going to the mall with their friends; listening to music on the radio (now isn’t that interesting?). Sure, I will concede to the view that mastering a song in Guitar Hero provides the instant gratification of "playing" a piece of music that can’t be achieved from practicing a passage or a set of riffs, for hours on end (unless you’re a virtuoso). However, most forms of leisurely, mainstream entertainment are designed to provide instant gratification.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Does this mean that Prince is entirely "wrong" to say what he did? Not necessarily. I'm not saying that he should amend his statement and lambaste all videogames instead of just Guitar Hero. In the grand scheme of things, though, I do think that music games don't warrant being singled out from any other form of entertainment. As with all entertainment, they should simply be a part of anyone's checklist on what to balance in one's life. For youths, do your chores; do your homework; study and practice what you're supposed to practice; reward yourself, have fun and enjoy life. For adults, do your job; run your errands; take care of the people in your life; reward yourself, have fun and enjoy life. Just like anything else we do for fun, something like Guitar Hero is a perfectly acceptable pastime for those who know how to balance their lives, and more importantly, understand the difference between playing music games and playing real music.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">For all of us “grown-ups” (though I’m really 12 years old inside), let's put it this way: If someone came up to me and said, "You know, the time you spent playing Guitar Hero could have been spent revitalizing your cello-playing ability," my response would be, "Had I the desire to spend time revitalizing my cello-playing ability, I would have simply done so. Guitar Hero has nothing to do with it." The sad truth of the matter is that I played Guitar Hero--or read books, or played basketball, or did whatever else I did these past few years--over playing the cello simply because I didn't feel like playing the cello at those particular times. (Note: Kids, you're out of luck; when you asked your parents for that guitar and to spend money on lessons for you, you'd better damn well feel like playing it.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Let's flip the script and look at this situation from another angle. For all of the negative things people can "learn" or become "desensitized to" thanks to videogames--or movies, or music, or books (are you listening, politicians?)--there are plenty of positive influences that can be gleaned from them. (The key for parents, of course, is knowing how to teach their kids right from wrong, and fantasy from reality, at the outset. I know--duh, right? You'd think.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I serve only as anecdotal evidence, but I like to think that I’m a passable example. Until around 2005, I almost exclusively listened to hip hop and classical music. December of 2005 is when I brought home the original Guitar Hero. From there, my music library slowly increased to include music--both good and bad--from any number of rock genres. I entered, and am still in, an experimental phase with finding new music that I can appreciate. Why did Guitar Hero, Rock Band and their sequels spark this interest? If you think about it, I was being exposed to music I never really cared for before, contextualized in an environment that I did care for: videogames. The effect is not entirely different from what you'd get when, say, watching a biopic about a musician (e.g. “Ray” or “Walk The Line” might make you curious enough to check out the work of Ray Charles or Johnny Cash), but because these music games (a) were all music all the time, and (2) exposed me to some compressed, faux inkling of the technique required to play these songs, it was easier for me to appreciate the music contained in those games.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">So, sure, playing music games got me to appreciate and enjoy "new" music. I'll tell you something else though: My desire to start practicing the cello again has increased noticeably. That's right. After saying that people shouldn't negatively correlate playing Guitar Hero and playing a real musical instrument, I'm turning on my heel and am now suggesting that playing Guitar Hero and its ilk were responsible for me wanting to play my real instrument again. The reason is simple. I want to be able to answer my sister's question, however apples-to-oranges the correlation between the two activities may be, by saying, "No--I believe I can play the cello far better than I can this guitar game." When seeing insane streams of colored notes on the screen and actually being able to play them, it reminded me ever so slightly of the breathtaking sensation I got from playing a run or crazy-ass chord passages using thumb position and other techniques on my cello. It was fun to score points in a videogame through the sheer speed of my fingers--but I wanted to play for real.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">This is where the most important distinction between playing a music game, and playing real music, comes in. In a music game, you're not playing music; you're simply activating it. The music is pre-recorded and comes from cover bands or licensed master tracks. It's already in the game. At its core, all the game is doing is waiting for you to press the right buttons, and strum at the right time; with all that done, the notes will play. It'll be as in tune as it ever could be given the recording. The body--the feel--of the note will be exactly what it was when the original was recorded. You are not really making any music, and that's okay, because all you really need to do in order to get the most out of Guitar Hero is to have a good time. That's why you don't, and shouldn't, have to worry about bow or picking techniques or playing the notes at the right dynamics. You can fantasize about being a rock star with ease, just like how a fan of the football sim "Madden 10" can fantasize about being Randy Moss. Playing a music game, and most videogames for that matter, is about the fantasy and the entertainment.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Playing a musical instrument is about discipline, technique and perseverance. You do have to worry about when your foot hits the pedal as you practice Chopin. You do have to make sure that your bow hand is appropriately light or heavy, and you sure as hell have to be cognizant of where your finger hits to make sure you're in tune if you're a string player. You can fantasize all you want, but the results of your playing are your own, and they're real. When the cat screeches and scratches at your foot; when the dog yelps and scampers away; when your sister comes into your room and laughs at you because you hit the harmonic the wrong way, it's your own fault. If you aren't willing--and will never be willing--to handle the reality of the dedication required to play a musical instrument, you're simply not going to partake in it--whether or not Guitar Hero ever existed.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">So, to Prince I say this: There are young'uns who dutifully practice their instruments; who dip into Guitar Hero or Rock Band just for a bit when they need a 15-minute break; who would enjoy rocking out to your music with their plastic instruments. Accept the check and give them a taste of the fantasy of being you. You won't do a disservice to their talents by giving them some entertainment. And for the people who'd be inclined to play Guitar Hero over a real guitar, they were probably never going to pick up a guitar anyway. At the very least, by exposing your music to them through their pastime, maybe they’ll buy more of your albums.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-30487260037222283062009-08-04T17:16:00.003-04:002009-08-04T18:11:43.950-04:00Bruno: Head in Your FaceWho remembers Da Ali G show? The short-lived but eye-opening comedy series which came to the United States via HBO long after Sascha Baron Cohen originally conceived its three principal characters, Borat, Bruno and the titular Ali G, was particularly good at disarming, confusing and exposing human beings, cynically painting them as contradictory, hypocritical and bigoted creatures. It was the perfect show for those of us who viewed our fellow man in a cynical light--at least in the United States, anyway (I've never seen Baron Cohen's work across the pond)--showing us how dumb, misguided and ignorant the lot of us can be. Ali G frequently twisted his interviewees' words against them, or just outright made innocent funny with the more benevolent of his victims (such as when he asked "my man, Boutros, Boutros, BOUTROS Gali" why Disney World wasn't represented in the United Nations, reasoning that it has its own currency). Borat got unsuspecting people to show just how anti-Semitic they were, and Bruno pulled some healthy "Zoolander" schtick by slamming all things pretentious, using the fashion industry as his victim. Oh yeah, he also revealed how sadly homophobic we still are.<br /><br />Well, maybe Baron Cohen is trying to tell <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">me</span> that I'm a huge homophobe (which I'm not), because I sure as hell cringed away from the screen when the surprising image of a flaccid, swinging penis popped up at random intervals during one sequence in his third character film, "Bruno".<br /><br />If you've not seen "Bruno" then consider yourself foreskinned--I mean, forewarned: Johnson McSwing pops up on the screen at least three times within a one-minute span. Or something like it. I don't know, I didn't count, and it was too long already. Listen: The male flaccid member isn't a pretty thing ("Says you!" Bro, trust me, yours isn't either), and for all the possible subtext behind Baron Cohen's decision to throw it up on a huge ass movie screen, you and I both know he did it primarily for cock value. Shock value. Ahem.<br /><br />Let's talk about this seriously for a second. While I readily admit that I'm uncomfortable with bare elephant trunk on the screen, this fact is not the issue. Rather, the motivation behind flapping the earthworm speaks for a lot of the "humor" present in "Bruno": "Hey, let's shock the shit out of the audience. It's going to be so outrageous!" Well, shock someone too hard and too many times with your tazer, and he or she might just fall unconscious and MISS ALL OF YOUR GODDAMN JOKES.<br /><br />Many of the jokes in "Bruno" degrade to the sexual equivalent of potty humor. Oh, look--his partner is pleasuring him with an exercise bike designed to plunge a dildo into his bum. Hey check this out--he's getting whipped by a completely naked dominatrix. This is funny--he and his male assistant just had some earth-shattering sex, and now they're trapped in some overdone bondage suit. There are moments when Bruno's homosexuality creates the sort of quiet, awkward situations (asking a martial arts instructor how to defend against a dildo attack) that we've come to know, love and expect from Baron Cohen, but in most cases, he simply pushes way too hard. No pun intended.<br /><br />What's most disappointing about this is the fact that, for all of its heinous and outrageous humor, "Borat" still packed enough satire into its story that exposed those of us not familiar with Da Ali G show to anti-Semitism, nonsensical jingoism, antiqiuated sexism and just the general stupidity that humanity has to offer. (Is there an "ism" for that?) "Bruno" sports a main character who might almost be as rich in opportunities for satire--as mentioned, Zoolander did a good job in ridiculing the fashion industry's pretense--and the exposure of America's homophobic tendencies. This is sadly scarce from much of the film's 82 minutes.<br /><br />Through his familiar twisted yet intellectual methods, Baron Cohen does hit the nail on the head in rare instances. I thought I was in for a good show when Bruno quizzes a model on how difficult her life is, having to remember how to walk properly ("...left foot, then right foot..."). And, in the last pre-credits scene, he comes out as "Straight Dave" and lures thousands of America's homophobes into a UFC-style arena, to rousing cheers and adulation, only to make out passionately with his male assistant to Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On". (Have you ever seen a redneck cry? I highly recommend it.) Now, where was shit like this for the entire middle hour of the movie?!<br /><br />"Bruno" is simply a missed opportunity, and unfortunately, will probably lead people to think that all of Baron Cohen's material is nothing more than potty slop. Though if this is the best he can do with the Bruno character, maybe it's a good thing that he has to retire every character who stars in a feature film.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-14430463519850967562009-06-29T19:01:00.017-04:002009-06-30T14:04:09.452-04:00Transformers: Revenge Of Shitty Camerawork<span style="font-style: italic;">Disclaimer: This is not a well-planned "review." I get paid to do those <a href="http://gamespot.com/">elsewhere</a>. Rather, I saw this movie with the full intent of lambasting it because I was pretty sure I'd hate it. So I am, because I did.<br /><br /></span>The day before I saw "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1055369/">Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen</a>" with my friend Dave, I went out on a dinner date and, well, kinda let it slip that Michael Bay and I have issues. I more or less confessed that Mikey and I had an overly dramatic fistfight in a back alley--complete with wide panning shots and rotating camera shots around our heads--and, because she was both fantastic and hella pretty, I peacocked a little bit and told her that I handily won that fight.<br /><br />The truth of the matter is, Michael Bay has won almost every single fight against me and my sensibilities. (Sorry I lied. I'll make it up to you.) In the war against my sanity, I've only come out on top twice, escaping <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112442/">Bad Boys</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117500/">The Rock</a> without any mental scarring. In fact, because I actually enjoyed those movies, I'd be willing to say that Bay inadvertently contributed positively to my sanity.<br /><br />Then I saw <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/">Armaggeddon</a>, and it became apparent that Bay's strategy would be to butcher me in the face with the same tactics over and over again. The slow-motion line shot, in which several principal actors walk slowly towards the camera in a horizontal line. The high-speed head orbit, in which the camera circles around one or two actors' heads--around and around and around. The overblown chin sweep, in which the camera starts under an actor's chin on one side of his body and swivels upwards around to the other side of his chin, primarily when said actor is stepping out of a car or getting up from a fall.<br /><br />It's a very smart strategy, that being repetition of incessantly <span style="font-style: italic;">nauseating </span>camera work. Immediately, Bay gained the upper hand with Armaggeddon and has been just fucking relentless ever since. He turned "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172156/">Bad Boys II</a>," the sequel of my first victory, into an overdrawn trip to goddamn Cuba that ended 45 minutes after it really should have. Then we took a trip to "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399201/">The Island</a>" which actually probably did nearly as much good as it did harm by exposing <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0424060/">Scarlett Johansson</a> as a complete fraud of an actress (babe, do you really think your husky voice is going to carry you to a SAG award, or even an Oscar?), and gave us the iconic shot of randomly-cast <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005023/">Djimon Hounsou</a>--dressed in black--walking in the opposite direction of a whole bunch of white-clad pale-skinned celebrity clones. It was almost as poignant as when he shot that scene of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000191/">Ewan McGregor</a> and Scarlett sparring as if they were inside a game of Street Fighter... complete with freaking life bars and avatars on a screen behind them. (Just to be clear, I'm being sarcastic. I'm pretty sure that "The Island" is responsible for the accelerated growth of that big-ass pimple on McGregor's forehead.)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3eoQyZXfPIw/SklX4b-15RI/AAAAAAAAAEs/SCicW-95KuQ/s1600-h/ewan_pimple.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 177px; height: 187px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3eoQyZXfPIw/SklX4b-15RI/AAAAAAAAAEs/SCicW-95KuQ/s320/ewan_pimple.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352906259202172178" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">"I'm Michael Bay's fault!"</span><br /></div><br />Nothing has destroyed my mind, however, as much as the two "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418279/">Transformers</a>" films Bay directed. "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1055369/">Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen</a>" is the worst offender of the two, clocking in at seven hours and eighty-nine fucking minutes. First there was the nausea. The camera spun around heads with reckless abandon--whenever Megatron was addressing someone outdoors, whenever two people were involved in heated conversation, even during as vapid a conversation as the one between Megan "<a href="http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BOTU3Njg3ODkyMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMzAxNjM0Mg@@._V1._SX292_SY400_.jpg">Stripperface</a>" Fox (I'll credit Dave's witty repartee for that one) and <a href="http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTQ5MDY2OTIxNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwNjU0MDYz._V1._SX285_SY400_.jpg">Shia TheBeef</a> where they argue about who should say "I love you" first. Here's a hint, douchebags: <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">I</span> sure don't love you, and in fact I HATE BOTH OF YOU, so who fucking cares!?<br /><br />Oh, I get the genius here. Bay and writers Kruger, Orci and Kurtzman are masters of metaphor and showed it with that aforementioned scene tactfully. By combining Bay's cock-slicing camera work with that "I love you" dialogue, clearly they want us to know that there is a fine line between love and nausea. (Only, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000469/">James Earl Jones</a> taught us that <a href="http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0011112/quotes">first</a>, assholes.) They left in another metaphor for our youth to absorb--only it wasn't so much a metaphor as much as it was a blatant insult to black people all over. Mudflap and Skids, complete with buck teeth, full of <span style="font-style: italic;">hood</span> jargon and fist pounds cuz they be wannabe thugz n' shit, <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/25458013/review/28840142/transformers_revenge_of_the_fallen">rightfully criticized by Peter Travers in his review</a> as "the most offensive bots in screen history," pretty much admit that they, uh, don't read much yo. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bril-fucking-liant! "</span>Black people don't read!" Oh, we get the message <span style="font-style: italic;">loud and clear</span>. Good job alienating like 50% of your captive audience.<br /><br />When "Transformers: Revenge Of The Bullshit" isn't assaulting our senses with miserable camerawork, empty dialogue or subtle racism or stereotyping, it somehow magically manages to steal imagery, moments and motifs from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181852/">Terminator 3</a> (so how did the T-X make it into this movie!?), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/">The Shawshank Redemption</a> (throw the chess piece at the poster for the answer), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0370263/">Aliens Vs. Predator</a> (though admittedly, that movie crawled out of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0027271/">Paul W.S. Anderson</a>'s ass, so who really cares), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099582/">Flatliners</a> (<span style="font-style: italic;">ghosts</span> have been watching and will bring him back from death!), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/">The Matrix</a> ("I love you!"), and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368891/">National Treasure</a> (hey here's a cryptic riddle--let's decipher it!). I guess Bay and the writers bought that new-fangled iPhone 3GS (wow, "copy and paste"--finally available after years of incompetence). Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but that only works when the final product doesn't make me want to vomit in the popcorn bucket belonging to the nice gentleman sitting to my right. Fortunately for that gentleman, he was twice my size and looked like a boxer so I found it in my <s>esophagus</s> heart to hold it in.<br /><br />I'll be fair here. There were scattered moments of enjoyment to be found. I could actually see what the fuck was going on when the big-ass robots were making big-ass explosions--well, at least half of the time. We all know that robots and explosions are awesome. Aaron Pierce and The Jesus made big appearances here (played by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0607703/">Glenn Morshower</a> of "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285331/">24</a>" fame and the immortal <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001806/">John Turturro</a> from "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/">The Big Lebowski</a>" respectively; listen, anything related to "24" and "The Big Lebowski" gets <span style="font-style: italic;">some </span>kind of credit). <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">EDIT: I forgot to mention: Soundwave. The fact that he was in the movie at all, with his creepy-ass voice, and the way they faithfully recreated his Communications Officer role as a sneaky satellite dude in space, was legitimately awesome.</span> </span>And, amidst the rubble of terrible slapstick jokes (robots and people tripping over each other, slamming into walls comically, et cetera--oh how funny; welcome to what Looney Toons did DECADES ago), there were some decent non-racist quips at opportune moments along with more than competent special effects. In fact, I'm willing to rent the DVD just to splice together the scenes that I liked, which by my estimation would take up about 20 minutes in total. But before you counter-attack my back-handed compliment, I <span style="font-style: italic;">know</span> that this movie is insanely popular and brings in the mad $crilla. I get it I get it I get it. Travers called this out already, but it bears repeating for this reason alone: Not everything that's popular is actually <span style="font-style: italic;">good.</span> (For Chrissakes, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickelback">Dickelsack</a> is an award-winning band. Figure that shit out.)<br /><br />In the interests of full disclosure, the only reason I went to see "Transformers: Revenge of Ineptitude" is because of Travers' review, linked above. That critique is so masterfully brutal (<span style="font-weight: bold;">no </span>stars out of 5! Holy shit!) that I had to see what kind of a turd floated to the top of Bay's squat-hole. I was fully ready, willing and able to be pleasantly surprised, as I was with Iron Man, but ultimately the real entertainment value simply came from the several times during which I cringed, face-palmed, rolled my eyes, frowned, cradled my head in my hands, laughed blatantly at what were <span style="font-style: italic;">supposed </span>to be sentimental moments, and counted out the many ways in which this movie could turn into a drinking game ("There's a head-orbiting camera shot! Drink!" or "That's another movie they ripped off! Drink!" or "Look how shitty this movie is! Drink!"). So, for all the emotional and psychological pain Michael Bay has caused me over his career, I'm beginning to recognize that with the enjoyment of ridiculing this "film" while I was in the theatre came an overwhelming sense of victory.<br /><br />I win this round, bitch. Bring on Transformers 3.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-48615953923860021222009-05-13T17:11:00.005-04:002009-05-13T18:56:04.544-04:00Fishing For Seats, Running For FlightsThis past weekend was a somewhat serendipitous affair. The big hoopla was that I was flying down to Atlanta to visit my best friend Matthew, his <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">loverly</span> wife <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Taz</span> (Latashia), and their newborn son Zach. Our long-time friend Mark--the three of us have known each other since we were three-year-old <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">pissants</span> in nursery school pissing in diapers and on ants--was also down for the ride, though our trips only intersected on Friday and half of Saturday.<br /><br />Saturday, the 9<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">th</span> of May, was supposed to be the big event: We were going to drive down to Philips Arena to watch <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">LeBron</span> James and the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Cavs</span> take on Joe Johnson/Josh Smith/Mike Bibby and their Atlanta Hawks in Game 3 of the NBA Eastern Conference Semi-finals. Let's rewind a bit to Sunday, when I was having dinner with my folks for my dad's 37<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">th</span> birthday (yes, we like to make our parents feel young). I get a message from Matt to get my tickets for the game ASAP--they had gotten two tickets in Section 109, Row Q. I panicked and started Blackberrying Ticketmaster, trying to procure a sacred, precious golden ticket. After numerous failed attempts and a dash to my PC after returning home from dinner, I finally found one that wouldn't break my wallet (at least, relative to the other ticket prices I had been seeing) in Section 109, Row K. Great--at least we would be near each other.<br /><br />Flash forward to Saturday. We make it through the crawling Atlanta traffic and come to find out that the tickets which had been sent to Matt were for Atlanta Hawks Home Game 3... instead of just plain old Game 3... which means that he had been given tickets for Game 6.<br /><br />Well shit, let's confuse our customers by mixing and matching game numbers. Caveat <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">emptor</span>: When buying tickets for sporting events online, and the event is one in a multi-game series that involves different locations, such as the NBA Playoffs in which each round lasts a maximum of seven games and each of the games is played in one of two locations each of which is home to one of the two teams involved, MAKE SURE THE TICKETS ARE FOR THE CORRECT GAME. If they say "Home Game 3", ask them, "Which game overall?" They probably relish the fact that they can confuse consumers this way and rile you up. I swear, companies just like to throw random obstacles your way even though they know that they'd probably make more money if you had just made things easier. Seriously, the iPhone doesn't have a landscape keyboard? Really? Then again, Apple's making money hand over fist already... but I digest.<br /><br />So we're standing outside the arena like a bunch of wilted asparagus as Matt first tries to plead his case with the unrepentant customer service rep, then with the disembodied voice at the other end of the phone representing stubhub.com (from where he procured his tickets), to finally hear that, yes, he would be getting his money back. So what to do now? I'm sitting here with a $85 ticket ($100 after Uncle Sam and the Internet Surcharge Monster gang-raped my credit card), not willing to sell it because my name's on it (yeah, I'm paranoid, but do you know how much random information someone can get by entering your full name into websites that really should not know or give out the information that they do?). Unrepentant Customer Service Rep (yes, I've turned him into a proper noun) is selling "standing room only" tickets, which means that, for $30 per person, you may be escorted to the back of a section where you may stand and watch the game from high up. The added benefit is that you're in the heavens, and the farther you get from hell, the better, I suppose.<br /><br />(That's right: Commit all the sins you want, and for $30, you can still get into heaven as long as it's during the NBA Playoffs. Unless you're an atheist or something else. Then I suppose all you get is a shitty view of a landmark basketball game. Which is likely what I would have gotten, except maybe Buddhism has a similar concept to heaven that I don't know about or forgot because I'm not very religious sorry mom and my memory measures somewhere between a brick and a goldfish, but again I digress.)<br /><br />In any event, I said that as long as we're here, we might as well buy two standing room tickets and Taz could have my ticket and seat. The lady just bore child; you think she deserves to stand on her feet for 2.5 hours straight when she's not even supposed to be jogging yet, even a little? Shame on you. In any event, the idea was sold, and we got onto the Chinese line. Read: not really a line, but a mess of people who try to funnel into a single door and usually end up pushing and shoving to get in--ever been in the NYC Subway?--except this isn't China so instead of pushing and shoving, everyone just slowly merged and tried to inch past each other... somebody probably had his ass groped, and the person groping his ass probably thought he was a she, and the gropee probably thought the groper was a she, but ha ha, isn't the joke on them. Anyway. We separated and vowed to meet each other again, in this life or the next. (Name that movie. Hint: I had to Google it because I forgot where it was from. Well that wasn't much of a hint, was it...) Taz went to the fabled seat of 109 Row K, and Matt and I headed up K7 to watch LeBron execute actions that we wouldn't quite be able to make out because we were standing in the back behind people with bigass heads and a self-serving sense of pride at not having to be a "standing room only" plebe.<br /><br />Then it happened. We were looking cross-court at Section 109, where Taz was sitting, trying to scope out seats, when we saw an entire half-row of seats waiting to be stolen one section over in 108. She then sent us a text message, saying, "Whole lotta seats down here." I, with beer in hand, followed Matt with--well--nothing, since he actually takes care of his body while I'm a slug, and we head down and around the arena to the fabled emptiness. We walk in but waited a bit too long to make our right turn, though I have an excuse in that I simply had no goddamn idea where to go, and the result was that Friendly Seat Guardian guy asked us, "Excuse me, where are your seats?"<br /><br />Foresight rules, though original intent doesn't reflect actual use. Basically: I had printed an extra copy of my ticket in case I misplaced the first one. So, while I had given Taz the original printout, I had the Xerox (ok nerds, I know the correct term is "photocopy" because "Xerox" is a brand name, just like it's "tissue" and not "Kleenex", but "Xerox" is faster to type than "photocopy" so I guess this whole parenthetical was counter-intuitive to my goals; just shoot me now). This magical XEROX was used for a purpose for which it was not originally made: It was shown to Friendly Seat Guardian guy, who deemed me worthy of entry. Since Matt was with me, he assumed that we were together, which was a correct assumption. We made our way to Section 109, went across the stairs to 108, and claimed our rightful spots in the half-row free in 108, around 100 feet away from the basket. Taz later joined us, and though my head darted around looking for security or the "true" owners of those seats we were in, we were able to sit through the entire game as LeBron James made a whole shitload of what would normally be ugly jumpers en route to a 47-point, 12-rebound and 8-assist thrashing of the Hawks. Zaza Pachulia got thrown out for menacing the refs, and even though the Hawks tried to play him (and the team) up to be Rocky Balboa (clips of Rocky followed by Zaza in a hoodie quoting Rocky with his charmingly/disgustingly [depending on whether you love or hate him] crooked Slavic accent), people apparently forgot that Rocky actually loses in the first movie. But all that is irrelevant. This was about the great seats.<br /><br />Score.<br /><br />If you know me on Facebook, you can see some (shitty) action shots I got. If you don't, well, too bad.<br /><br />In any event, Monday was a sad day as I had to leave Matt, Taz and little baby Zachary Austin (yeah bitches, I was honored and you weren't, which also means that if I gave the entire family Swine Fl- oh, I'm sorry, H1N1, then I'm the most rottenest person in the world, but I'm already qualified for that moniker so the joke's on you) and head back to New York City for Episode 22 of 24 (the television show 24, not 24 total episodes, even though 24 the show does have 24 total episodes a season--so I guess that works out).<br /><br />My flight was at 2:40 PM.<br /><br />Matt and I left the house at 1:37PM.<br /><br />Now, when you go to the airport, there are numerous obstacles that could cause you to miss your flight and look like an idiot with your pants pulled down at the terminal because you tried to run past security and then they found that you forgot to take the screwdriver out of your messenger bag so now they're patting you down for drugs and threatening a Rob Lowe in Wayne's World-style enema. But none of that happened to me that day. It was just your usual mundane bullshit: tires needed air; the Kia needed a full gas tank; the Atlanta traffic stunk; and at 2:21 when I bolted into airport security, the line was slow; yadda yadda.<br /><br />When I finally got out of security because slow-ass air travelers who are slow-ass asshats at the retrieval line where you're supposed to quickly put on your shoes and shove your shit into your luggage and then put on your belt later or at least just wait until you're off the line, but oh no I dropped my ziplock bag with all my makeup in it or I forgot to drink all my water so now I have to drink it or throw it away, but hey I paid $1.50 for that water and I can't drink all of it right on the spot or I'll throw it up and the water's like $4.79 in the goddamn Hudson News in the airport, no liquids my ass, it was already 2:37. By the time I reached the appropriate concourse, it was 2:42.<br /><br />Flight missed.<br /><br />FAILBLOG.<br /><br />So I grumpily stomped towards my gate, likely scaring people in the process with my crude language and backwards hat, only to find that my flight had been delayed.<br /><br />Until 3PM.<br /><br />It was 2:49.<br /><br />Score.<br /><br />Now that I'm recalling all of this good fortune, I've got a nasty feeling that karma is a sumbitch and that I've got a really rude weekend waiting for me. I'll let you know how many times I get peed on by a drunk guy using his window as a urinal.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-27515030462163436782009-01-22T16:03:00.002-05:002009-01-22T16:07:11.504-05:00The Fun Size Twix<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> I am vehemently opposed to this "fun size" Twix. When you unwrap a normal-sized pack of Twix, you get two sticks of delicious chocolate, caramel, graham cracker and cardiotoxic bliss. When you unwrap the "fun size" Twix, you get one stick.<br /><br />I was operating under the assumption that "Twix" was a clever, edgy way of naming "Twin Sticks" of choco-graham-ness. With only one stick in the pack, how does the name apply? "Twick?" "Tick?" "Single Portioned Chocolate Graham Caramel Crunchy Dessert For Obesity"?<br /><br />This will not stand, and it really doesn't matter whether or not my assumption is correct, because as is customary on the internet, MY assumption is all that matters. Therefore, I dema- *bites into fun size Twix bar*... ...oh, I can't stay mad at you, Twick.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">I withdraw my statement. More Twix please.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-56116749993528640992008-12-17T15:26:00.006-05:002008-12-17T15:48:37.312-05:00You and IBlogging without editorial checks and balances has resulted in the internet's perpetual butchering of the English language. Sometimes, that heinous shit creeps into non-blog articles as well. It. Pisses. Me. Off. (Never mind instant messages and chats for a second, because I don't consider those as any manner of "published works" the same way I do high-profile blog entries.)<br /><br />First of all, "You and I" is not always the correct way to phrase that concept. So your second grade teacher taught you that it was wrong to say, "Me and Jack went to sniff paint." Big friggin' whoop. How on Earth does that make, "Here's what happens when you interview Bob and I" a correct sentence? Blargh! <a href="http://kotaku.com/5112391/adam-sessler-gets-the-boot-up-to-editor+in-chief">Reading something like that from a high-profile blogger who HAPPENS to write for a newspaper -- someone who even happens to be someone I respect</a> -- is even worse.<br /><br />What's the strategy Ms. Smith taught you in second grade? Take away the other person and say the sentence as if you were the only subject. "Me went to sniff paint" sounds dickish, right? Right. So what about, "Here's what happens when you interview I"? Yeah. Run that through that brain of yours.<br /><br />While I'm at it, "<a href="http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2336959,00.asp">on accident</a>" is shit. If you happen to be one of those people who are 100 times smarter than me (I think that's about 98.237% of Earth's population), but still say "on accident," well, I don't care how much smarter than me you are because at the very least you *sound* stupider than I do when you say it. I don't care that your editor let the error pass through the QA process. I don't care what Grammar Girl's "studies" show -- she's just humoring you. It's "by accident" and you're wrong. Deal.<br /><br />I'm only freaking out because this is really easy shit. It's not like you need Diana Hacker's Pocket Style Manual (go buy it, writers) to know this.<br /><br />Yeah. Word to yo mama. And stuff.<br /><br />*turns down the snob dial before getting hit by a food coma*Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-13258719629910785352008-10-14T11:13:00.001-04:002008-10-14T11:16:13.183-04:00"Judgement" is now a word in the dictionary.Apparently, Merriam-Webster <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/judgement">updated its dictionary to include "judgement"</a> as an appropriate spelling of the word "judgment".<br /><br />Fuck. <a href="http://mrchupon.blogspot.com/2008/04/unsorted-and-tangential-terminator.html">My post is destroyed</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-91994471851015461012008-10-07T21:34:00.000-04:002008-10-07T21:36:29.821-04:00The Presidential Debate, In Reductive Fashion<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">McCain: "Yakity yak. We're Americans, and that's why we can get it done. It's also how we can get it done."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Obama: "Blibbidy blah. We need to do something. And that something is whatever it is we need to do."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Tom: "Dudes, please stop ignoring the minute-long time limit imposed at your behest."</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-8532439475466938892008-09-21T20:35:00.002-04:002008-09-21T20:44:09.882-04:00I hope it was echo.<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">While I was packing / doing my rudimentary workout of curls, sit-ups and being in pain, my dad had the television set to the YES network where they were showing the ceremony for The Last Game At Yankee Stadium. After they trotted out all the big name historical Yankees, it was time for the game's starting lineup and the National Anthem.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Here's a tip: If you're in a band and you're playing the National Anthem on television for thousands of cheering fans at the last game in an historic stadium that housed perhaps the greatest team in baseball history (I'm not a fan of baseball, so I don't care for nor want to hear your arguments about them sucking; if they're not the greatest, fine by me, I don't care, now shut up), I cannot stress the following enough.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">PLAY THE FUCK ON BEAT.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">By the end of the song, you know, at, "The Land of the FreeEeEEEeeeEEEe" part, the half the horns were on "The Land" and the other half were already onto "the FreEee-". You know who that guy is in the front? The guy with the hat and the little skinny needle looking thing that he's waving around in the air to some obscure rhythm that you probably have no idea about? HE'S THE CONDUCTOR. HE CONDUCTS THE SONG. THUSFORTH, HE KEEPS THE BEAT. YOU *FOLLOW* HIM.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Tone deaf pricks.*</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">In sum, that was one of the WORST "normal" renditions of the National Anthem I've heard (not counting the crazy stunts and gimmicks that people have pulled off in the past; Roseanne Barr Pentland Barr Arnold Barr Thomas Barr, I'm pointing a finger in your direction since it hurts to look at you). I really, really just hope it was the echo in the stadium.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">*I'm fully aware that pitch has nothing to do with the ability to count and follow a conductor. Bite my ass.</span><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-28503735047444245022008-09-16T19:04:00.003-04:002008-09-16T19:19:24.882-04:00The Art of Urinal Usage<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Dear members of the male gender, my fellow cohorts in life's pursuit to sit on the couch, get fat and watch football (well, this IS the United States):</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">I have a few requests. Now, don't be scared. They're nothing Earth-shattering. These should be easy for you to follow. Furthermore, they all involve that thing you base your life principles on -- you know, your dangle. Third leg. One-eyed snake. Whatever.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Today's topic? URINAL USAGE!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">- When using the urinal, please ensure that Dangle's eye is looking straight into the center of the porcelain bowl.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">- When using the urinal, please ensure that you're not standing more than four feet away from it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">- When using the urinal, please make sure to FACE the urinal.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">This is all common sense, right? Right.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">THEN WHY THE FUXORS DO I WALK INTO ANY GIVEN MEN'S RESTROOM ONLY TO SEE A FRIENDLY PATCH OF MOISTURE UNDERNEATH THE URINAL? Here's a tip: Bathroom tiles are not alive. They are inanimate, soulless, non-biological objects. That means they don't need watering. Stop spraying your lemonade all over the goddamn floor. They make lower urinals specifically for douchebags like you who can't aim. If you are not blind, handicapped, a small person, a four-year-old or a female, you have absolutely NO excuse whatsoever to not know how to keep your spray in the tray.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Oh, and if you want to feel worse about yourself, watch Step Brothers and fast forward to the scene where a girl uses the urinal. She does it better than you do. Asshole.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">And may I close with a Haiku:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Went to the toilet.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Looks like you left gifts for me!</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Flush next time, jerk-off.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Thank you very much for your time. Go run into a wall or something.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Signed,</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Civilization</span><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-1310379152468187342008-07-22T18:51:00.002-04:002008-07-22T18:55:51.697-04:00Zune's Virtual Trackball<span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I've had my 80GB Zune for just over a week now, and so far I'm pleased with my purchase. Not all is perfect, of course, but it's filling its role as a worthy successor to Gigabutt. One thing I like about it is what I personally call the "virtual trackball" that's used for navigation. The Zune uses a four-way directional click-pad that looks like a square with very, very rounded corners, almost to the point of it being a circle. To select a choice, you click down on the center of the pad. You can scroll through lists of songs by holding up or down on the pad, with the scroll-speed accelerating the longer you hold it down. Initially, there's nothing really extraordinary about this; it's the same mechanic used by many devices, including the Creative Zen and my old Gigabutt.</span><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center; font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.zune.net/NR/rdonlyres/901E596B-A835-4677-98EC-02DDD64B5AD6/0/family_devices_708x300.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://www.zune.net/NR/rdonlyres/901E596B-A835-4677-98EC-02DDD64B5AD6/0/family_devices_708x300.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /></span></div><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">The fun comes in when you actually discover its touch-pad nature. The pad responds to the motion of your finger in the four cardinal directions. So, if you're navigating a list of songs and you slide your thumb down slightly, you'll scroll down a few songs. If you start your thumb at the top of the pad and briskly swipe it downwards, the list starts scrolling at a high velocity before grinding to a slow halt after a second or two. This feels remarkably like a trackball, so if you then start thinking about the pad as if it were a trackball (limited to four directions, of course), you'll begin to understand intuitively how to scroll through your lists.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">For instance, if you roll a trackball downwards multiple times in succession, the ball will end up rolling for a good while without your assistance as a result of the momentum. These "physics" are applied to the touch-scrolling too: Swipe your thumb from top to bottom multiple times, and your song list will start scrolling incredibly fast -- with quick, subsequent swipes adding momentum -- before slowly stopping. So how do you keep yourself from overshooting where you want to be? Well, how would you stop a trackball? That's right -- put your hand on it. Likewise, as your songs are scrolling happily on their own, you can stop the scrolling just by laying your thumb on the pad. This is great, mostly "thumbs-off" approach for people scrolling through a small chunk who don't want to hold their thumb down or keep twirling it in a circle (a la the iPod's clickwheel) the entire time.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">The flipside to this is that once in awhile, when you mean to click down on the center of the pad, your thumb ever-so-slightly moves in a direction. The pad could pick this up and inadvertently scroll to and select the item above or below the one you actually meant to click. It takes a little getting used to in order to over come this little snare.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">It also would have been nice if the touch-pad registered diagonal directions for browsing photographs. When browsing by folder, the Zune spits out thumbnails of every picture in the folder in a grid format where you're free to navigate and choose. If you swipe in a diagonal direction, though, the cursor does this clumsy two-step -- "down, then right" -- instead of skipping diagonally to the picture. While this is functionally the same thing, it doesn't even always do that; it'll soemtimes stop after the first vertical or horizontal direction. Not a big deal by any means at all -- just a minor quibble, given how cool the "trackball" feel of the pad is.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Finally, I know some people like scrolling with the iPod's wheel. For those who don't mind keeping their thumb in constant motion, it offers the best control over your scroll speed. You can scroll precisely as fast as you want, and stop exactly when you want to. Seeing as the touch-pad on the Zune is so rounded, wouldn't it be cool if it emulated the scroll wheel -- for those who wanted such an option -- by responding accordingly to thumb movement around the perimeter (or circumference, if you please) of the pad? That might make it the most versatile input device for an MP3 player yet. As it is, however, it's still a lot of fun to use.</span><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-58144192654022506342008-07-21T20:53:00.004-04:002008-07-23T01:05:45.207-04:00The Dark Knight belongs to Aaron Eckhart [SPOILER-FILLED discussion]<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">READER BEWARE: THIS DARK KNIGHT DISCUSSION (NOT A REVIEW!!!) IS FILLED WITH SPOILERS.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The Dark Knight is Harvey Dent's movie.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">We can ballyhoo about the magnificence of the late Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker. We can continue to heap praises on Christian Bale being the best Batman-slash-Bruce Wayne since Michael Keaton. Neither of these actions would be inappropriate. But in watching The Dark Knight to its conclusion, eyes glued to action, ass on edge of seat, mouth slightly agape, it became startlingly clear that Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent -- briefly known as Two Face -- was the the big message, the key idea, behind this film.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">It all starts with what is actually the bottom of Gotham City's food chain. Joe Chill was part of the lowest of the low, a mere mugger partially created by Gotham's depression. In murdering Bruce Wayne's parents, he was partially responsible for the savage vigilante -- Batman -- that the young heir would soon become. In Batman's crusade to stamp out crime, however, he unwittingly unleashes the fury of the psychotic -- no -- bat-shit insane Joker who sneers, "[Gotham] deserves a better class of criminal." Alfred makes this clear as Wayne contends that the mob -- in enlisting The Joker's help -- crossed the line: "You crossed the line first, sir. You hammered them. And in their desperation they turned to a man they didn't fully understand." This is no less than the escalation -- the arms race -- that Jim Gordon spoke of at the conclusion of Batman Begins. "We start carrying semiautomatics, they buy automatics. We start wearing Kevlar, they buy armor-piercing rounds." And so it follows: Batman assails crime with destructive resolve, and crime turns to The Joker.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Enter the hero -- the "White Knight" -- whom Wayne, whom Batman, contends is the key to Gotham's ascension from its criminal rubble. Harvey Dent, District Attorney, is a bold figure who can put guilty men behind bars without breaking laws and disrupting order. He doesn't fear an assassin's bullet, and he's determined to bring the dawn -- "It's always darkest before the dawn" he implores his desperate, angry citizens to realize -- to a city that's been mired in darkness.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">It's Dent, not the imposter Batmen who put on hockey pads and try to play vigilante along with their inspiration, who represents Bruce Wayne's original goal when he donned the mask. Wayne's father, Thomas Wayne, "believed his example could inspire the wealthy of Gotham to save their city." And yes, Wayne believes that as a man he can't do the same as his father did, hence his need for the Batman persona -- but in Dent, perhaps he has actually found the man to do this. We even see him contemplating the retirement of the bat suit. Such is his confidence in the D.A.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Dent foreshadows his own demise, however, when he claims that, "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." And in his own demise, we see how very little hope Gotham City has, and -- reminiscent of Jack Bauer's (of TV's 24) tragic existence -- how wretched Batman's life must continue to be in order for there to be some modicum of decency and order. Harvey Dent, after all, is only a man. He's not a symbol, and as such he is not, as Wayne put it in Batman Begins, "incorruptible."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The vile waste that is The Joker succeeds in corrupting Dent, taking away the love of his life (and coincidentally of Batman's life), indirectly burning the left half of his face (is it coincidence that the burnt flesh leans Lucifer's way?) and sending the once pure man, Gotham's only law-abiding hope, into a vengeful fit of rage. In becoming Two Face, in seeing his soul corrupted and destroyed, Harvey Dent represents the singular driving idea behind Gotham City and The Dark Knight (both the film and the character): the depressing thought that in light of the progress and the good that is being done, everything is destined to be hopelessly torn to absolute shit. (See what I mean by Jack Bauer?) From Chill to Batman to The Joker, the lowest of the low in Gotham City ultimately creates and destroys the monster that is Two Face -- in effect, Gotham City has just swallowed its own hope for a brighter future.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The only White Knight Gotham had left was snuffed out without mercy, and Dent's apparent death came too late for him to avoid becoming the villain he foreshadowed. It's this rise and fall of a true hero -- this descent into madness -- that most powerfully symbolizes Gotham City's everlasting struggle, and it's his tragedy that simultaneously emphasizes Batman's own personal tragedy to us. Wayne's desire to hang up the mask was fueled by the possibility that Dent could lead the crusade, and subsequently the hope that Rachel Dawes would return to his loving arms. In one fell swoop, these two flickering lights are both eradicated, and Batman's only hope for a normal life is just... plain... <span style="font-style: italic;">gone</span>. Worse, Batman must take the fall for Dent's crimes in order to keep any glimmer of hope alive; what would Gotham think if it found that its White Knight bowed to The Joker's level? From nadir to apogee and back to nadir: The stories of Dent, Wayne and Gotham City are perfect mirror images of each other, with Dent's metamorphosis into Two Face -- so poignant, so condensed -- the most tangible and evident tragedies of them all.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">If you want to understand the misery and despair of the film The Dark Knight, all you need do is follow Harvey Dent. After all, it's his movie.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-17420686576714524102008-07-18T22:59:00.000-04:002008-07-18T23:00:21.950-04:00The Website Is Down.<a href="http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com"><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: [playing Halo] C'mon you little bitches, let's go... That's right. Oh snap.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">[Skype phone rings]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Ulch, not now! [Halo: "Red team is winning."] Oh, you so suck. Ohhh... c'mon. Ohhh..... FUCK. [Picks up the call] Hello? [Alt-tabs back to Halo]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Web dude it's Chip in sales, what's up man?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Nothing, I'm working. What's... um. What's going on?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Hey are you ah, you here in Building 3?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Yeah I'm in Building 3.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Well why do I have to call an outside number to get to your desk?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Wha. Look uhhh, I don't want to get into an IP Telephony conversation with you right now.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: You pee telephony? Haha. I pee *urine*. Heh heh... he totally fell for it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Nancy and others giggle.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: ...that's a... that's a good one.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Alright so web dude, we got a problem. The website's down.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: ...I'm sorry what??</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: The Web Site Is Down. It's a black hole, can't get to anything.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: [gets killed in Halo] FUCK.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Yeah.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Hold on. [alt-tabs out of Halo into web browser, showing monster.com, brings up the company website] Looks like it's up to me.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Wellp... I rebooted my PC and it's still that way.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: [alt-tabbing back to Halo] How many times d'you reboot?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Three man, you always tell me to do three.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Well, uhmmm... hold on. [alt-tabs back to the site] It's up, I mean, I can check to see if Apache's running. [typing commands] Apache is running.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: I don't know what this Patchie is, but ah, either way? I'm still not able to ge-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Oh look, I can telnet to the core, you can get HTML, like, it's running.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Ok well I'm st- I'm still not able to get what I'm looking for, uh... Nancy said that you guys rebooted last time- I dunno.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Do you want me to reboot... the web server? Even though it's running.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: I'm just saying that's what Nancy said you did last time. Okay?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">[long awkward pause]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Well... I can reboot it now? It doesn't make any sense to reboot something that's running-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Okay well I'm just, I'm just telling you what Nancy said, that y'guys just ah, you know, you guys rebooted last time.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Ummm...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Y'know I'm not saying anything about YOU guys, you know, I don't, I don't --</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Sure. Why not...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: -- I mean, you know, I dunno anything about ah...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: ...let's reboot it I mean. It's fun to reboot a web server. I mean that'll take fifteen minutes [alt-tabs back to Halo] so I can get back to what I was d-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Wait... something just happened. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I - I can't get to the homepage.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Whaddaya mean you can't get to the homepage? I just took it down.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: I just -- I just tried to get to the homepage and I can't get in-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: You could get to the homepage before?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Yeah I was gettin' to the homepage and now I can't get to the homepage.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: You told me the website was down. ....gehhh FUCK. So the website WASN'T down.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Well... eh. Well maybe that's not what I meant okay, uh...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Well it's down *now*.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Well, what. Whatever it's called. Uh, the world wide web, was dow-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: The *internet*????</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: It's slow, everything is just slow-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: You don't know the difference between the internet and our web site?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Hey Nancy, is your, is your, is your web working?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Nancy: I told you it wasn-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Nonono, I know, I know. He rebooted the website.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Nancy: What!?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">[incoming call]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: He rebooted it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Nancy: Waaaaaaaat.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Hold on. [transfers to Line 2] Hello?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Trevor: Uhh yeah, this is Trevor... I work for the city of Arvada, population ten thousand... and I was just looking at our website -- www.arvada.org/arvadaharvestfestival -- and. Ah. I get this error message, page cannot be displayed.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Well it's because the web site's down.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Trevor: Hunhhh?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Oh my god. Look, the sales guys upstairs took down the website so we're waiting for it to come back. [Shooting teammate in the balls in Halo]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Trevor: Whooo?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: I guess it was Trevor.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Trevor: And then I tried Arvadaharvestfestival/pumpkinpatch and that wasn't on there and then I tried harvestfestival/beanbagrace and nothing's coming up and I LITERALLY... have the Mayor breathing down my neck right now so we need to get this back up, uh --</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Well it should be up by now honestly -- [continues to shoot teammate in the elbow in Halo]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Trevor: They call it On Line. We gotta get this page online.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Uh, alright Trevor, well let me, you know, can I call you back when it's up? [Halo: "Blue team has the lead"]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Trevor: You know what, call me back, at this number... LITERALLY. Have the Mayor. Breathing down my neck. Arvadapumpkinpatch.org.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Mkay. Check.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Trevor: Hunhhh?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: See you later. [Hangs up on Trevor, transfers back to Chip] Okay --</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: ...down because he rebooted it. I--</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Nancy: What an idiot.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: I dunno why he did it -- ahhmmm, say that again?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Listen -- oh. What was your name again? Chip?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Chip-hhh.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">[incoming call]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: I didn't ask for it to go down...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Can you hold on a second? [transfers to Line 2] Hello?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Boss: D'you take down the website?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">web Dude: ...no...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Boss: Well Nancy says ya did.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">[pause]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Oh I mean. Yeah!</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Boss: Well why the hell didja do that???</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Well the sales guys... were...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Boss: Didn't you get my email about not taking down the web server?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Uhhmm... nnn... [alt-tabs to Outlook, showing an email: DO NOT REBOOT THE WEB SERVER!!!!!!!!!!!] ...no?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Boss: Well I sent it to you.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: ... ... ... ... [click, click, click] well... [click]... [removes all traces of the email from Exchange Server] Hold on. Cuz I don't see it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Boss: Well... ahh, this is weird. I don't see it here. Okay. Well maybe I didn't send it to you.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Well yeah cuz uh seriously, you know, I didn't get it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Boss: Well the email said don't take it down because it won't come back up without being powered off.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Oh. Crap.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Boss: Yeah. Thanks a lot.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Uhh -- [Boss hangs up] -- I'm sorry? *sigh* Fucking... look. [transfers back to Chip] Chip?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Yeap.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Look, okwebserversnotcomingupnowbecauseyoumademetakeitdowninthe- in the wrong way.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Ahh, okay?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: I'm gonna have to get Lazlo to power it off. C- ...can you hold on a minute?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Alright.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">[Puts chip on hold, dials Lazlo's cellphone... rings, rings, rings...]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Fuckin' Lazlo, c'mon.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: Hello Derek, you fucking idiot. [loud hiss of servers in the background] What rack is this in?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: I'm sorry what?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: What rack is the system in?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: It's in Rack Five.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: [distant, over the din] Five?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Yes.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: Rack Five?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Rack Five.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: ...told me that you took down the system.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Yes. It was an accident.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: What'd he tell me?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Just reboot it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: You need the system rebooted?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Yes.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: Which one is it?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: It's gray, it's on the, it's like third down.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: The one... they- they're all gray.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: It's third down. You can see the gray on the bottom.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: You mean which... from the top or the bottom?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: From the top...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: ...you tell me...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: ...it's. Jesus-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: You tell me. I can't...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: It's gray. </span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: I can't hear anything.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: I know -- shut up! It's gray on the bottom!</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: From the bottom.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: It's GRAY on the bottom. It's not in the bottom of the rack? [computer dings]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: From the top?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: YES!</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: Ah.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: You just powered off the Exchange server!</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: I'll do the top one now.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Oh my fucking god. [computer dings]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: 'Kay, yeah, I did both of them so you should be good.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: No!</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: Mkay, later.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: THANKS A LOT.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lazlo: ...idiot...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">[click, call ends]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: *sigh*... [alt-tabs back to Halo] Wwwwaaaaaaaaaaau[proceeds to fire at teammate incessantly]uauuauuuuuuuggghhghhhhhhhh-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Msg from Halo: ATTENTION. The Server Operator has kicked you from this server.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Aagghh. [transfers to line 1]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Yeah I dunno, guess he didn't take it down right.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Chip.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Nancy: ...I swear...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Hey.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Well, ya managed to take the email system down as well.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: R'heally? the email server?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Well it doesn't-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: He just-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: -have anything to do with the web server-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: - shut off all our email.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Nancy: That's what he fucking did last time!</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Look -- [reboots Halo]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Ahh, okay.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Lazlo at the data center rebooted it when he was trying to fix the web server that *you* asked me to take down, so...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: How many times?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: ............... how many times *what*?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: How many times did he reboot it?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Once.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Well I think ya need to try a few more times.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Nancy chortles in the background</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Lookit-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Web dude, we're having a quarterly sales call in two minutes, I need to get on the website, or the internet, or whatever, that's why I called you in the first place. Help a brother out.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: What's your asset tag, Chip?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Ahh, the asset tag is 287jpc, and the number 2.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Is that P as in Paul?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: That's P as in Paul.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Mkay. [Remote Desktops into Chip's computer, where an old Windows 95 screen saver is running] Where'd you get this wh...unnhhh... is this your desktop??? ...is the mouse mo-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: WHHOOAAA my mouse just moved!!!!</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Okay. Yeah why d-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Do that again! Oh my god you're moving my mouse...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: It's remote desktop. What is your password?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: It's just the letter A.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Just the letter A. Alright. [opens up a screen with a gajilliondy windows open]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Like Apple. ...are you looking at my desktop right now?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Dude, how many programs do you have running? </span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: This is so awesome.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: You g- you're totally overloading your box. That's probably part of the reason.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Well I use all these programs... but -- you know I gotta lotta work to do during the day.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Can I... can I close this [closing Explorer window]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Whoa whoa hey- [Web Dude closes email draft] -nonono! </span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: ...save this? [Web Dude closes IE browser window showing "Utterpants -- sex with Vegetables"] </span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Wait wai-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Chip - </span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: You cannot, no... I need to save this! This is all my work!</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Look, you don't need this stuff.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: I've got some research that I'm doing, okay, you-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: [closing a game of Hearts] I mean all these things take up memor-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: You can't close all of my windows! Okay!?!?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: [closes a game of Solitaire] Closin' that.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Web dude, web dude, ya gotta slow down-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: [comes to a window of AOL before 3.0] Dude, AOL???? Don't use AOL! It's dial-up networking.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Well how am I going to get to the internet without AOL?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: I... It's... it's broadband.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: But I got like 4000 hours for free.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: It's -- ughh. We have a corporate OC3 -- it costs like $1000 a month, so don't use AOL. [closes AOL, only to find...] Whoa.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Can you carry over my hours?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: What -- what is *this*??? [mousing over desktop] "Fuk u..."</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: It's... my desktop?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: What... there're icons, they spell "Fuk u!" and there's a picture of a penis.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Ahh, Patricia did that when I took over her computer. She wasn't very happy.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Holy crap. ...how long's it been like that?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Eight or nine years.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Oh my god.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: You know I just got so used to it. I didn't want to change it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: That's fuckin' awesome... hold on. Alright, I'm taking a picture of this, hold on just a sec.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Ok, just so you know I got a meeting in like five minutes, so whatever we gotta do to get my PC back.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: This is going right onto BoingBoing.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Uh what's BoingBoing?</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Here's the thing. This? Is a problem. You can't have people looking at this, okay? Arrange your icons -- [sorts desktop by Name] -- by Name or something...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Whoa nonono! I can't find anything!</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Whaddaya mean? It's alphabetical!</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Aww man. I -- ugh -- I had everything exactly where I knew where it was. I knew th- that th- that our website? Our website? Wasattheverytipofthe penis!</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">[pause]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: And now I don't know where anything is! How am I go- no, it's not that one, it's not that one anymore!</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Well... ulch... </span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: MySalesForce.com was on the right testicle -- I'm not gonna be able to find anything. I gotta meeting in two minutes and I need the icons back the way they were.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Well I can't go back. There's no way to go back. You can't arrange 'em by penis.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Omigod... I tell ya, every time I've called you tech support people, every fucking time, you guys do something entirely different you know? You don't fix the problem that I call about! You know all I wanted was to get the website back! That's all that, that's all I needed! Can you restore it -- you said you took a picture of it. Restore it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Well.... yeah, I guess. I mean I can just make that the background for your desktop.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: I don't care what you have to do, whatever you gotta do to get this thing back.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: ...honestly that probably won't, won't solve the problem completely but...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Well if the icons're in the same spot I'll be able to get to them. [Web dude restores penis background; meshing in with the grid of arranged icons, it creates a jumbled mess] ...alright, so this is worse. [Web Dude Selects All icons, drags them completely off the screen, leaving the penis background on display crystal clear] Oh wait-</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: I mean this is just a picture on the desktop... </span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: That's great, this is perfect, this is perfect. Hey I gotta get into my meeting, so, you know, I'm, I yeah, this is great.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: You good with it? [dragging selection box around, not able to select any actual icons since it's only a background] Because...</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: No no, this is, this is fine, I can find everything! I can find everything, this is fine.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Mkay.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Ok so, I gotta go to the meeting, ahhhhh you know, thanks a lot web dude, I'm outta here!</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Mkay.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chip: Alright, bye.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Web Dude: Jesus. What a fuckin' day. [alt-tabs to Halo, plasma grenades a dude and melee's him out, with the grenade exploding a second after.] Hehehehe...</span></span></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-3000017346536675132008-07-14T23:21:00.000-04:002008-07-14T23:22:11.352-04:00Broken Tech Sucks<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">So, almost exactly a week ago, my 60GB Toshiba MP3 player -- a Toshiba Gigabeat S60, to be exact, a great device with a great interface and nearly-effortless Windows Media Player compatibility -- died on me.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Last Friday, the day after I landed back in New York City from my weekly Pittsburgh commute, I went looking for my digital camera only to find out that I couldn't find it. I likely left it at my friend Scott's house the week before, where I had gone to enjoy burgers on the Fourth of July, but I couldn't be sure. Text-message inquiries resulted in no responses.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Well, on the same Friday, I went to Circuit City. The night before, I won the Guitar Hero tournament that my friends and I participate in weekly and Triggy (the grand puba of the McAleer's Pub GH Tournament and all-around awesome hostess) was giving away a $50 gift certificate. I put this $50 to a new 80GB Zune. Problem 1 solved.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">On Sunday, I was cleaning up my room -- which was long overdue for a good "put your crap away" session. Among the rubble I found my digital camera, safe and intact. Scott then called me literally minutes after to apologize for not getting back to me sooner -- he had been stricken with a nasty case of the E. Coli that was spreading around, and he had trewn upz on the subway. But he was better now, and even though I had already found my camera I thanked him for getting back to me. Problem 2 solved.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">There exists, sadly, a problem 3: The laptop I was given by the company I work for is now brain-dead. The issue began Thursday, when I was waiting for my flight back to New York City in the Pittsburgh airport. Somehow, I got a BAD_POOL_HEADER blue screen of death. A reboot solved it, but then it happened again. Putting the laptop on the floor -- instead of my lap, where it wasn't completely lying flat -- seemed to do the trick for a moment, and I had noticed that whenever the laptop tilted more than slightly due to my very fast and very harsh typing, it would blip. The tilt was in the direction of where the hard drive sits in the laptop, and BAD_POOL_HEADER is -- I think -- a symptom of a few hard-drive or otherwise memory-related issues.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Getting home, the thing seemed to run fine and on Saturday, it withstood over 90 minutes of podcast recording.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Problem was, the podcast was longer than 90 minutes. That's right -- our backup 100th Episode recording was cut due to a Blue Screen of Death. That damned BAD_POOL_HEADER issue again.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Thankfully, as I hinted above, the laptop is ONLY used as backup: All participants record their own voice files on their own computer. In the event that one or more of our voice files gets corrupted somehow, the laptop is there recording a stream of every participant coming in through Skype. It's not as flexible, of course -- I don't get to tweak out someone farting or coughing or saying something to their pets -- but it's a sufficient backup, and this weekend, the backup is all that was lost. IF everyone's voice file is stable, which it usually is, then I should be fine to edit.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Except I can't edit it. That laptop that's used to record our backup recording; that laptop that I use courtesy of my firm; that laptop that blue-screened constantly -- is the laptop I also used to edit our podcasts when I was on the road at work. So why don't I just edit a little, save, edit a little, save, edit a little, save?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">BECAUSE THE BLASTED THING WON'T EVEN BOOT INTO WINDOWS ANYMORE. Right after I enter my password and it starts loading up stuff, and yes I've tried it in Safe Mode both with and without Networking, it BSOD's -- only this time only with a STOP error code and no descriptive (but still ultimately useless) words like BAD_POOL_HEADER. Just STOP ERROR X0000B3 (9823498234 2398423984792834789 239842973569729625). Those numbers were made up, of course, but it might as well have been those.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">But wait -- that's not the final state it's in. After multiple tries of rebooting, and getting kicked out again, and then trying to run the Hard Disk Drive test from the BIOS (it passed the first "quick test"), it froze. Now, when I press the power button, the fan turns on. But the hard drive activity light stays dormant, and the screen stays pitch black. It's done this 10 times in a row now, and I've given up. It's dead. I have to go into the office on Friday and turn it in for repairs. Along with it MIGHT disappear ALL of my files -- work-related files.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Not only that, but it was my window to the outside world. The client site I work at does not allow access to personal webmail and blocks 90% of the sites I visit on a daily basis (thank god ESPN and Ars Technica are still allowed). So that laptop was my only recourse. You know where I'm friggin' typing this post from? The PC that sits at the bell stand in the hotel I'm staying at. Soon some rotten little kids will want to come by -- and yes I know it's 11:15PM, but it's summer vacation for them -- and look up Sponge Bob or the latest Digimon or maybe even some terrible pornography that no kid their age should be looking at.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">So I just left this rant to you, gentle readers and those who don't give a ratt's butt about me but find my ranting halfway-semi-quasi-entertaining, so that you know how annoying dead laptops are. For those who listen to the podcast, well, it'll probably be coming sometime next week or this weekend. For those who don't, well, if I don't answer your emails until I'm just about due for sleep (like right now), this is why. Because I have to play bellhop in order to communicate with the outside world.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Oh yeah -- and Wii MotionPlus: w00t ... that is, of course, until it's revealed that they'll sell it to us for $34.99 apiece and don't standardize it into the Wii's technology as they did the Dual Shock and Dual Shock 3, leaving developers to wonder whether or not it'll be worth their time to actually put the effort into it if no one's going to use it because it's not standardized. (Oh hey Xbox 360 hard drive! Do you think people are learning yet about how not standardizing things can bite you in the left buttock? No? Me neither.) /cynical (I actually love the idea, but I'll be pissed if they -- as I facetiously suggested -- don't standardize it. They HAVE to... even though you know Nintendo will make buttloads of $ even if they don't. Ok, they HAVE to for MY sake. :P)</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-66311522131904059002008-07-11T17:17:00.003-04:002008-07-11T17:39:35.577-04:00Eulogy for Gigabutt<span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">It was around 7PM on Tuesday, July 8th, when I was walking back from work in Pittsburgh across the Roberto Clemente Bridge to my hotel. Scattered Pirates fans walked along with me, trudging towards PNC Park to make it in time for the upcoming baseball game. I was listening to the July 4th edition of the 1up Yours podcast at the time.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">When I was about 30 feet from the other end of the bridge, the podcast just stopped completely. Thinking I had pressed a button, I took out my MP3 player -- a <a href="http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2006/06/toshiba-gigabeat-s30-s60-review.php">Toshiba Gigabeat S60</a>, with 60GB of hard drive space for music and video, using the ultra slick Windows Mobile platform for its interface -- and pressed the ON button. No dice. Maybe it was time for a hard reboot. So, I took out a pen from my bag and flicked the tiny little "battery" switch on the bottom to turn the battery completely off, then on again. Usually this did the trick when the MP3 player froze.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">When Gigabutt* (that's its name) came back to life, I was greeted with a nasty message scolding me to update the firmware. Well, I didn't have any firmware on me. I was walking across a fucking bridge. Nor did I have a USB cable with which to connect Gigabutt to a PC when I finally reached my hotel. So, I shut the battery off and resolved to turn it back on in the hotel room to see if a second reboot did the trick.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Enter me, into el hotel room-o. On goes the battery. Instead of getting a firmware request, though, I get a, "Please send back to manufacturer."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Shit.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">The next day, I ask my team lead if she has a mini-USB cable I can use. She does, and that night I plug Gigabutt in, search the web for some tips and tricks on how to handle this garbage, find out that Toshiba really doesn't have any support options for the Gigabeat S line anymore, and almost cry. But hark -- Googling leads me to a site where people have found hacked firmware for another Gigabeat model, modified to work seamlessly with the S series. I download it, follow the instructions, say a little nerd prayer (sounds something like "100111001, omfg... pls help kthxbye"), and wait for the device to spring back to live.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Ultimate victory, Chamillionaire style. Now, all my music is gone at this point -- but that's ok; I have a USB cable, and I can transfer a podcast or two into the thing that'll tide me over until I make it home to my full library of music. So the next day I walk to work, listening to Gigabutt as usual, enjoying the fruits of some hacker's labor and thanking the digital gods that my MP3 player is not dead after all.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Oh too soon do we speak. I put the unit down on my desk and charged it up when I got to work, and just left it to be. I gave the USB cable back to my supervisor and went about work. I looked at Gigabutt again a few hours later and decided to set my device settings (screen brightness, etc.) again, since the firmware re-install undoubtedly changed it. One click of d-pad sent the "loading..." animation to the screen. So I waited.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">It never went away. For minutes. I let it sit, thinking that this was probably it but who knows maybe just MAYBE it would come back to life but no. Minutes became an hour.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">I did the battery reboot again, and it threw the firmware warning at me. Another one threw a "connect to PC" request. The last one threw the "Contact Manufacturer" nastygram. It was throwing different errors at me and I figured that this really was the end, given how inconsistently it was behaving. I tried one last time... and the OS came up! Yippee, I guess? Well, not really. I tried to see if I could set the FM radio to a local Pittsburgh hip hop station. I hit RADIO, clicked OK, and... nothing happened. It didn't crash, but nothing happened. So basically the radio functionality was DESTROYED.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">It was over. It IS over. I have to bury Gigabutt. I went out during lunch today and dropped a $50 gift certificate on an 80GB Zune to replace Gigabutt, and I might as well just give it a proper goodbye.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Let me take a few moments to speak about what Gigabutt was able to do in life that Zune-butt, despite its current-day glory, cannot do. Nor can an iPod.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Gigabutt, you played oh so nicely with Windows Media Player without batting an eye. Anything I wanted to sync, I just needed to drag and drop it into a window. No need to add to its library, no need for other proprietary software like the Zune software or iTunes.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Gigabutt, I could change the volume on a particularly loud song or reverse/fast-forward/skip tracks, without ever having to remove you from my pocket holster, thanks to your dedicated volume, play/pause and track buttons on the side of your body.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Gigabutt, if ever I forgot your USB cable, chances are that someone else would have one because it takes the same USB cable that many Canon cameras take, the same USB cable that Sony's PSP and SIXAXIS and Dual Shock 3 controllers take -- not a proprietary shitty iPod or Zune or Creative connector.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Gigabutt, that AC adapter that CAME WITH YOUR PACKAGING was a godsend. Because, hey, having to shell out $35 for an external adapter -- you listening Microsoft and Apple? -- is just plain shitty, right?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Gigabutt, even when I had to send you back to Toshiba after the first 11 months I owned you, even after the techs RIPPED you open to fix you and didn't bother to do a good job sewing you up, you held up for another 10 months like a champ. Your battery life stumbled a bit, perhaps due to the surgery, but you were always there for me. As I tried to finagle some MP3 goodness out of my cell phone on the plane ride home yesterday, I knew that it would never hold a candle to your greatness. As I stare at this admittedly pretty Zune, knowing that any time I have to do ANYTHING -- even as simple as skipping a track -- I'll have to take it out, I'll remember how you comforted me with words like, "". Well, of course there were no words because you couldn't speak. BUT, if you COULD speak, you would have said, "No, don't worry about taking me out and possibly dropping me -- I have handy-dandy accessible buttons on my right side." </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Gigabutt, you were truly a friend. Not like those assholes who expect you to actually converse with them or do stuff with them. You will be sorely missed.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">...now <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/08/toshiba-gigabeat-s-exposed/">let's open you up and have a look at your insides</a>!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">... ... ... what? Why are you staring at me? Oh come on. Any self-respecting tech-nerd has to do an electronics dissection when given the chance.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">*To be honest, Gigabutt was given its name 17 minutes before the writing of this piece...</span><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-26672413546444548362008-07-06T01:17:00.007-04:002009-06-30T10:02:53.332-04:00Wanted - Check Your Brain at the Door<span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;" >Well, well. Summer begins, and it looks like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0564215/">James McAvoy</a> wants to get away from the heavy-handedness that was "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455590/">The Last King of Scotland</a>" and "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783233/">Atonement</a>". Just watch first ten minutes of "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0564215/">Wanted</a>" -- and then the remaining 102 of them -- and it becomes obvious.<br /><br />"Wanted", from director <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403358/">Timur Bekmambetov</a>, starts off by introducing you to Wesley Gibson, an "account manager" and the most vaginal of pussies getting walked on like a treadmill by everyone around him -- including his girlfriend. Here we see him desperately try to tolerate the birthday celebration of his whale-sized supervisor, listening to his internal monologue telling us about this monstrous event for this monstrous woman (which includes such descriptive gems as "anorexic"). Not much later thereafter, we're transported to a seemingly entirely different world where people can fly (well, not really, but close enough), gunmen can curveball bullets, and "The Matrix's" slow-mo is all the rage again. Oh yeah: It's also brain-burstingly bloody.<br /><br />Back and forth "Wanted" goes, between cynical "I hate my life" comedy and over-the-top, stylistic gunplay as dear old Wesley is recruited into "The Fraternity" (of assassins) and eventually stops hating his life. Finding out "who he is," so to speak, Gibson now feels he has some sort of purpose in his life -- though of course, he has to come to grips with his new "occupation" as an assassin... you know, killing people and mean shit like that.<br /><br />I'm going to skip over the "acting" in this movie, as it's entirely moot. The real stars of the show here, ignoring the randomly inserted sarcastic comedy for a minute, are the rampant, overdone but still enjoyable stunts and gimmicks. Watching Gibson fend off an oncoming bullet with one of his own never gets old, and Fox (played by a suddenly-super-skinny Angelina Jolie -- I mean Christ, I'm surprised her lips don't make her top-heavy) atop a speeding train car under doing a limboto fit under a low-hanging tunnel ceiling is pretty hot.<br /><br />When I say overdone, though, I really mean it. You've absolutely got to make sure to check your brain at the entrance, grabbing that claim ticket before proceeding to drool into a cup. Watching an assassin shoot bullets around corners, or hang out of a speeding car where the front windshield used to be while firing behind the car at an assailant, is one thing. Seeing assassins complete a hundred-foot long jump out of a high-rise office into another building or sniping a target's forehead from miles away, in between moving train cars and <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">through a fucking doughnut hole</span>, is quite another.<br /><br />The story does throw a common though still slightly surprising twist our way, and the mystique of this assassin's guild (as it were) along with its lore are pretty fun to sit through, but since we just <span style="font-style: italic;">have </span>to get back to the crazy bullet-time action, the little things are fleshed-out only just enough for us to have the necessary "facts" for the plot. Those of you who might have wanted ten extra minutes to explore how "the loom of fate" works (yeah, brain at the door) or more about the The Fraternity's past, or just any lore or mythos you might want, will be out of luck. In terms of lots of backstory, the movie version of <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/assassinscreed/index.html?tag=result;title;2">Assassin's Creed</a> this is not. It certainly doesn't get any brownie points for throwing in a very brief discussion -- if you can even call it that -- on fate and destiny, on a totally superficial level without any meaningful expansion or impact. Though perhaps it's for the best -- no one wants to sit through another pace-destroying treatise on causality; one <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0234215/">Merovingian</a> was enough.<br /><br />So yeah, "Wanted" gets hokey and stupid. However, it also packs every minute with either comedy, style, or intensity, and even all of the above. The performances are fine and never detract from the dumb fun, and rarely do any lines ever feel forced or contrived -- two things I can't say about horseshit like "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0232500/">The Fast And The Furious</a>". If films like "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416449/">300</a>" make you giddy (though I should say that "300" is much, much better), you'll very likely have a good time with "Wanted". I certainly did.<br /><br />(Bonus points for you if you enjoyed Bekmambetov's "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403358/">Nightwatch</a>"; you'll definitely see some stylistic similarities here. And if you end up enjoying "Wanted" but didn't see "Nightwatch" then mosey on down to your video store or web browser and queue up a copy of the latter.)<br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-46986752209784615382008-06-26T13:01:00.003-04:002008-06-26T14:42:37.632-04:002008 NBA Playoff Monster Thread: The Opening Salvo<span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >From: Shau, Austin<br />Sent: Wed 5/14/2008 11:49 AM<br />To: Bunch of People<br />Subject: Semifinals!<br /><br />Who's advancing out west, and does Cleveland have ANY hope?<br /><br />-a<br /><br />p.s. - This be my work email... watch the cussin' and fussin'<br /><br />---------------<br /><br />From: Cris Eastmond<br /><br />Sent: Wed 5/14/2008 12:06 PM<br /><br />To: The Same Bunch<br /><br />Subject: Re: Semifinals!<br /><br />i see new orleans riding home court to a series win, as long as dave west's back isn't more threatening than it was last nite. i see the jazz winning tonite then winning at home ending this annoying kobe lovefest. cleveland has plenty of hope! lebron was one legal four-step layup away from winning in the td bankworth, and boston is d-league at best on the road (an indictment of all of the 3party by the way, one that the media is keeping quiet so far) with chauncey well rested and the game plan laid out after two straight seasons of facing them and knowing that stopping boobie [Gibson] is the key, detroit will win in 7. deron williams win the first of many western pg wars against his draft mate in 6. in revenge to the league and its sheep for years of kings, mavs, and suns ball, we get a 7 game series from two of the best old skool teams duking it out for 7 with the pistons experience giving it the crown.<br /><br />-Cris<br /><br />-----------------------<br /><br />From: Shau, Austin<br />Sent: Wed 5/14/2008 12:51 PM<br />To: Cris Eastmond<br />Cc: The Same Bunch<br />Subject: RE: Semifinals!<br /><br /><br />Ah, the "sheep" comment. Sorry, but I don't blame people for wanting to be entertained. I pose another question in addendum to the first: which coach is botching up the most? (By way of Atlanta, peering subtly in Doc Rivers' direction)<br /><br />-----------------------<br /><br />From: Gideon Bryant<br />Sent: Wed 5/14/2008 3:02 PM<br />To: Shau, Austin<br />Cc: The Same Bunch<br />Subject: Re: Semifinals!<br /><br /><br />i've gotta disagree with cris. i'm sure part of it is attributable to fandom considering i've actually sat down and watched maybe 1 game this entire postseason, but i'm an exhaustive box score examiner.<br /><br />lakers are taking it. the only time the jazz win is when they shoot over 50% as a team. no way they can do that 2 of the next 3 games. especially with my namesake [Kobe BRYANT] in mvp mode. one more loss will put him at critical health, which would mean a limit break is right around the corner (omnislashing his way to 50 point performances).<br /><br />boston is taking it as well. even taking into account their road troubles and lebron's tenacity, i can't see them losing a home game with their backs against the wall. detroit worries me because they bore me to tears yet continue to win. i'll just continue to ignore them like i have thus far and hope they go away.<br /><br />i don't even think new orleans will need 7 games. they'll ride the wave of their latest win all the way to the conference finals, where they will lose to the lakers. i wish i could provide some rhetoric beyond "because i said so", but i think that should suffice for now.<br /><br />finals will be the stern approved celtics-lakers. boston's road deficiencies will finally do them in here.<br /><br />and doc is the run-away winner of the botching award. boston is continuously losing to clearly inferior teams. plain and simple. the coach has got to take the downfall on that one.<br /><br />------------------------------<br /><br />Domingo's reply (time and date unknown):<br /><br />1- As a proud subscriber of nba league pass via channelsurfing.net (read free...sidenote: also has PPV and HBO events) I've seen enough d-west to know he's derrick coleman. Why I don't like him? It's easy to be bold when you're an up and comer coattail rider..I'll respect him if he steps to Rasheed or somethin'...at this point I could step to Dirk<br /><br />2-LeBron is a phenomenal player and on the court he makes great decisions, but as a vocal leader dude has the motivational skills of a paper plate. His sheer greatness elevates his team, but his leadership skills are on par with Paul Pierce. Best leaders out there right now are KB8, CP3 and Duncan. It might be a style preference on my part.<br /><br />Random: Did you really think Peja could keep this up a whole playoff season?<br /><br />Random 2: Did you see Manny catch the fly, high five the fan, and double the guy on first? Greatness<br /><br />----------------------------<br /><br />Matt's reply (time and date unknown):<br /><br />This is Fun! Austin great idea by the way. We should start a radio show.<br /><br />I like all of Domingo's 2 cents except for the D-west & lebron comments.<br /><br />Don't get it twisted. We would never hear about David West in this part of his career unless CP3 is his teammate -- true. However, D-west is not a fluke by any stretch. He is a product of a great offense. With another decent guard he would be doing the same thing but have a lower FG%.<br /><br />Lebron is probably the best leader in the league with his makeshift team of "who are these guys" Kobe has way more help and it is way easier to lead lamar and Pau than Ben and Delonte.<br /><br />I will ride with Boston this year. The west is anybody's game(s) to win. Detroit may need to figure out conference banners don't mean shit, and yes, they will be split up after they lose again in the<br />conference finals. Sorry Joe D. Time for new blood for tayshaun and Chauncey to work with. Keep maxiell and Stuckey. The rest can go elsewhere.<br /><br />Keep the party going.<br /><br />--------------------<br /><br />From: Cris Eastmond<br /><br />Sent: Thu 5/15/2008 9:13 PM<br /><br />To: Domingo Ramos<br /><br />Cc: Mad People<br /><br />Subject: Re: Semifinals!<br /><br />best part of the manny play was the jordan pose he struck to do the high five.<br /><br />domingo: any words on orlando's demise?<br /><br />leader: kobe > lebron.<br /><br />so domingo, if you checked into the eastern conference finals last year, does that mean i can check into a mavs practice and put my finger in dirk's face!!??! awesome!<br /><br />lastly, any comment on the fact that the pistons have been coaching themselves all playoffs long, and that flip barely gets paid attention to in huddles at this point??<br /><br />-Cris<br /><br />---------------------<br />From: Shau, Austin<br />Sent: Fri 5/16/2008 8:48 AM<br />To: Cris Eastmond; Domingo Ramos<br />Cc: Lots of ppl.<br />Subject: RE: Semifinals!<br /><br />David West's pick-and-pop jumper, complete with 17-foot shooting range, basic but effective post play including turnaround jumpers and drop-step jump hooks (note: isolated post-up play DOESN'T necessarily rely on any guard running an offense except for a good post-entry pass, which can come from anyone capable of making a solid bounce or lob pass) WHILE being undersized, hard work ethic and pretty much a lack of flash equals Derrick Coleman who was fat, whoop-de-damn-doo lazy, flashy for flash's sake (although brilliantly so), and got by on his ego and physical talent? Me no es agree-o.<br /><br />David West may have a temper problem with the refs, but that has no bearing on his skills as a basketball player or his effectiveness as a teammate (technical free throw points and the potential for ejection excepted, of course). We're not talking old-school Sheed or Dennis Rodman here. Unless you're predicting that his latest back injury sends him into Derrick Coleman Injury Prone territory. I agree -- and pretty much everyone else here has or will -- that Cristo Pablo Tres does grant him those open jumpers, but that he knocks them down with consistency (Game 6 excepted) and that he has a sound, solid foundation for a post-up game that *works* even at his size (reminds me of a not-poor-but-not-rich-man's Elton Brand) AND that he swatted away a Duncan shot quite nicely (ok, one play does not a superstar make, but still!!!) has convinced me that David West is a quality forward even if not a perennial All-Star.<br /><br />Cris, I think Rasheed is the next coach for the Piss-tawns. I wonder how many times he'll try to energize his team by getting throweded out ;) I still am surprised that you of all people picked Orlando to advance, though, especially given your faux-Hedo-hate (before you respond, I said "faux" -- I know you don't really HATE him :P), Stanvan's penchant for making the three point play instead of the easy bucket, and Dwight Howard's still limited (but quickly improving) repertoire of post-up moves. Orlando wasn't, isn't and won't be ready for a true finals run for another year -- and that's fine. I think they're on pace as a team, and they just need to grow.<br /><br />---------------<br /><br />Matt Graves<br />Fri, May 16, 2008 at 12:58 PM<br />Subject: Re: Semifinals!<br /><br />KB8? Well, if you want to see shots just go up and shaq getting upset. I prefer KB24, much better leader. Take away the Cocaine and Derrick Coleman was the shit too. West can't be who he is without CP3, but CP3 would not be who he is either if West is not hitting those shots all season. Paul had a great rookie year too, but since they hit more shots this year his assists went up tremendously. Plus more highlights. He became even more popular. shit 80% of his assist are to West. If that is riding Paul's wave, then I am a surfer too.<br /><br />Tyson Chandler would not even score in another team's offense so lets be real here. BUT, David West would be a solid contributor on another team.<br /><br />Shawn Marion? Does anybody know his avgerage after the trade? He can have some sympathy because, after all, it was Miami.<br /><br />LB23 is only 23 years dominant. When he reaches 28/29 like Mr. Bryant, we can reflect on this leadership debate when he has a ring or two with no help. Once again: It is easy to lead Lamar, Pau and Fisher instead of Ben, Delonte and Boobie. (I can't believe I called D-Gib Boobie) . King James has a whole lot more on his shoulders than KB24. Both are certified murderers.<br /><br />Peja and Ray need to switch to ethanol, because their fuel efficiency is null and void.<br /><br />Manny is the realest baseball player ever, after Jeter. Two different extremes, but great nonetheless.<br /><br />---------------------------<br /><br />from Domingo Ramos<br /><br />to Austin Shau<br /><br />cc Lots of people<br /><br />date Fri, May 16, 2008 at 1:23 PM<br /><br />subject Re: Semifinals!<br /><br />Let me address a few old and newly introduced topics...<br /><br />1 - Matt, you hit the nail on the head with my Derrick Coleman comparison. For those that remember, DC's greatest years were with Kenny Anderson and Drazen Petrovic...He was a double-double guy; very good player. He'll put numbers up but he's not gonna be the primary reason the team wins.<br /><br />2 - Orlando bowing out - No team with Jameer Nelson as their starting PG will win a quality playoff series. Book it. He doesn't excel in any area and he's a defensive liability (slightly better than Nash on D). They've got a great base but starting next year we're getting into the "How many of Howard's good years are we wasting?" era. They are literally 1-2 years of maturity and a PG away from contention. Lewis, Hedo, and Howard are a poor man's version of a Big 3. If they could also get an Anderson "Sideshow Bob" Verajao type I'd feel even better about them.<br /><br /><br />3 - Playoff Coaching (Boston) - Doc Rivers is trying his darndest to tank in the playoffs. Does he know that if you're up by 15 in the 3rd quarter of the game you can still lose? I count at least 3 games in these playoffs where they were up by 10+ in the 3rd and he sits almost all his starters for 7-8 minutes at a time. I don't think he understands that tanking at this point doesn't really help his Draft Lottery chances (see 2007).<br /><br />4 - Playoff Coaching (Detroit) - Is it me or does Flip look like he's always worried about losing his job? That said, I'm convinced Tayshaun coaches this team. I think I also saw them wearing WWLBD bracelets (What Would Larry Brown Do).<br /><br />5 - New thought - I was telling my brother that Rasheed and Lamar are the only 2 players I've ever seen that have HOF-caliber natural talent and for some reason don't just dominate every game. You can't guard them and they can guard anybody...makes no sense why they aren't killing everyone in the league.<br /><br />------------------------------<br /><br />from Austin Shau<br />to Domingo Ramos<br />cc Locos Gringos<br />date Fri, May 16, 2008 at 1:30 PM<br />subject Re: Semifinals!<br /><br /><br />Mentality and streaks. I haven't watched a whole buttload of games, but I watched enough to know that [Rasheed Wallace's and Lamar Odom's] penchant for shooting will ultimately lead to bad shooting streaks (as well as good ones). Every time I see a Rasheed box score that says 2-11 I know it's because all he was doing was trying to take fadeaway baseline jumpers and hurl threes at the rim.<br /><br />Unless [of course], your contention was that "it makes no sense that they don't have the mentality to dominate", in which case I agree. But as for WHY they don't dominate all the time, it's their mentality -- which, again, in and of itself may be what doesn't quite make sense.<br /><br />------------<br /><br />from Matthew Graves<br />to Austin Shau<br />cc Dalibor Bagaric's Security Team<br />date Fri, May 16, 2008 at 4:18 PM<br />subject Re: Semifinals!<br /><br /><br />This is better than SLAM Magazine!<br /><br />Somebody give Tayshaun a 'TAKE OVER THE TEAM PILL" so I do NOT have to watch "rip" (rather, "I pull") shoot more than Kobe on a bad night. I hate when richard [hamilton] makes his first attempt, because then he will take the next 5 even if the play is not for him. yeah he is in great shape, but [even with] a 4 minute mile you still couldn't guard a cup of water named Deshawn.<br /><br />What Would Larry do............Larry will hope Iverson wants to move to Charlotte. I can't wait to see that team next year. What would Rick Carlisle do...... He will get Dallas back to the finals and they will lose to Lebron -- then he will get fired and the next coach (the fucking statistician) will win the following year over the Orlando Magic. LOL . Scary like the Bobcats roster. shout out to DA (Derek Anderson) -- way to make that 1.8 Million veteran minimum. You gotta love those Team Jordan advantages.<br /><br />I began thinking about the Lottery............I have this feeling Pat Riley will have a heart attack because Miami will get the #5 pick instead of Michael Beasley at #uno. The draft will be a straight gamble after the #7 pick.....good old reliable potential. That's when the D-league comes in. what a waste. Hey development league -- let's actually develop somebody and not give owners tax breaks.<br /><br />Shout out to Mike Taylor, who said F* college, I am gonna enter the D-league draft outta HS, get drafted and work my ass off with a bunch of veterans and get finals MVP. Then David Stern, just to piss you off, I am gonna be a 1st round pick in this year's NBA draft and make 2-6 million dollars. Then I will tell all the future kids like me to do the same thing since we should get paid performance bonuses in college anyway.<br /><br />Will the rockets ever remain healthy all season?<br /><br />anybody else not want to see Avery coach ever again? I don't.......Let him coach in Memphis; that way I never have to worry about seeing him on TV. "transition defense" ! How about, clear-out for Josh and don't trade the only person who could stay in front of CP3 just because you don't like him.<br /><br />I know this: KG needs to do whatever he did in the last game tonight, and let us all pray right now for RAY ALLEN'S BREAK OUT GAME!<br /><br />moment of silence for Ray..................................................................................................jesus shuttlesworth.........where are you?<br /><br />--------------<br /><br />from Cris Eastmond<br /><br />to Austin Shau<br /><br />cc Your Face<br /><br />date Fri, May 16, 2008 at 6:45 PM<br /><br />subject Re: Semifinals!<br /><br />quick note. for those wondering, i picked orlando to advance to the east finals last JULY after they picked up 'shad lewis (pronouced [as follows]: "shad" rhymes with with "chad" and "lewis" [is pronounced] like the 3rd donald duck nephew [Luey]).<br /><br />i LOVED that move when it happened. i can't understand why the team never clicked. thus my anger at hedo taking shots. when the playoffs began i was pretty sure orlando wouldn't make the finals, but i was still disheartened because unlike Domingo, i very much believe in jameer nelson. the death of his father truly affected his game for about the first 5 months, but i liked his playoff performance. he doesn't get ref love on D, almost heinrich-esque the way he picks up fouls. but still i have high hopes for him. the 3rd pg after paul/D-ron<br /><br />------------<br /><br />from Matthew Graves<br />to Cris Eastmond<br />cc My Anus<br />date Fri, May 16, 2008 at 7:01 PM<br />subject Re: Semifinals!<br /><br />good point cris. I picked Orlando to make it as far as they did after the great trade. I think they did click, but they are a pretty young team. Nothing but high hopes. I have been a jameer fan since St. Joe's. yeah. Check your old SLAMs of him and his old backcourt-mate that dropped off the face of the earth........I think his name was Marvin....? damn. some one research that shit. They were a great backcourt before Delonte. Hedo was not used to being a 2nd option -- he got it almost towards the end. Future will tell the rest.<br /><br />Go KG & Lebron...........I WANT DOUBLE OVERTIME TONIGHT! celtics by 9<br /><br />------------------------<br /><br />from Austin Shau<br />to Matthew Graves<br />cc Scrotal Wartage<br />date Fri, May 16, 2008 at 7:15 PM<br />subject Re: Semifinals!<br /><br />My thing with Hedo is this -- I realize that it may go back to my days as a Christie-Webber Kings fan and seeing them pick Hedo instead of Desmond Mason, Q-Rich, Mo Pete, et cetera [and getting PISSED about it]. As he started getting a little burn I saw the value in him, and then in Game 4 against the Lakers he had that great 22 point game complete with hugely clutch 3-pointer to seal a Kings victory (he followed the make by turning around and screaming at the roof with his arms outstretched to his sides, angled down, fists balled). He's come up in less memorable clutch moments [too]. Then when he moved to the Spurs I didn't know what he was really doing; he didn't really stand out so I wasn't keeping tabs.<br /><br />Watching him on Orlando, coming back to hitting some decently big shots, and then this year where (I hate to go Hollinger on this because stats don't mean everything especially not without context) he was third in the league in 4th quarter points, and he had some big game winning shots (especially the one where Cris txt'ed me on my phone, "Ew, Hedo taking the last shot?") it all points to Hedo being at least a plausible option in the clutch. I don't think the team not clicking is Hedo's fault. I mean, it reminds me of how Pippen was pissed off that Kukoc got the call for the last shot that game. Kukoc may not be a better player than Pippen (lol... "may not"... what an understatement) but I'll be damned if anyone chides a coach for giving him the last shot over Pippen.<br /><br />Same thing applies here, only I haven't seen Rashard in the clutch that often, so [I'll concede that MAYBE] I'm missing his side of the story.<br /><br />-----------------------<br /><br />from Matthew Graves<br />to Austin Shau<br />cc Pussy Galore<br />date Sat, May 17, 2008 at 10:32 AM<br />subject Re: Semifinals!<br /><br />Hedo is the best shooter -- so he gets the last shot, unless Dwight or Rashard had a great game. In my book, he will get the last shot.<br /><br />Just like, [despite how] shitty and non existant Ray Allen has been in the playoffs, he will get the last shot every time on my team. even Cassell.<br /><br />[Follows is Matt's stream-of-thought play-by-play of the game in his email]<br /><br />Doc Rivers, what the fuck? 4 minutes to go, and the only offense in the game is KG (who never saw the ball more than 1 time and he shot a fading floater from 5ft. away) and Paul I-flop-with-contact Pierce.<br /><br />hey Dick Bavetta...........It was out of bounds on Lebron -- not a charge on Pierce. that was worser than this years G'town vs. villanova foul call with 1.3 seconds left. extremely gay officiating.<br /><br />Lebron is the shit!<br /><br />If Ray Allen does not show up in Game 7, I will jump on my Kobe vs Lebron Finals campaign. Fuck it! make it a sneaker battle.<br /><br />--------------------------<br /><br />from Matthew Graves<br />to Austin Shau<br />cc Frank'n'beans<br />date Mon, May 19, 2008 at 11:26 AM<br />subject Re: Semifinals!<br /><br /><br />GAME 7! WHAT A GAME.<br /><br />Lebron had the city of Boston shook until Paul Pierce's free throw bounced in. Great matchup. #23 vs #34. I loved to see them go at it. Paul proved that Lebron needs to work on his on-the-ball defense. There is no way in Hell, if I am Lebron, that I let Paul explode pass me for numerous trips to the cup. And how many freaking times are you gonna let him hit that hesitation pull up? Sit on that right hand dammit. Ben Wallace: good Defense that was a charge, but you were in Boston. Shout out to P.J Brown.<br /><br />Has anybody seen Ray Allen's Jumper? he left it in ATL. Doc, you need to utilize Ray better. He should not be a last resort. If Posey can get wide open shots along with E-House, then dammit, Ray can too. Cavs played great Defense on Ray, yeah, but it is easy when you get looked off of.<br /><br />Can CP3 and Co. do it big this evening? I sure hope so.<br /><br />I feel refs should be fined for missing obvious calls. grabs, slaps, pulls. I don't think I have seen anybody get fouled as much as lebron in a long time, if ever.<br /><br />expect a big Bonzi Wells night. yeah I said it. BONZI!<br /><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-90331439794542642302008-06-24T16:38:00.004-04:002008-06-24T17:51:20.000-04:00God deals drugs in Florida.<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">This didn't make it into Genesis. We got the edited Conservative version.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Read this:</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.optimum.net/News/AP/Article?articleId=430685&categoryId=69"><span style="font-family:verdana;">http://www.optimum.net/News/AP/Article?articleId=430685&categoryId=69</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The deleted scene of how Adam and Eve really got throwed out probably went something like...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">God: "Hey, kid. Come over here for a minute."</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Adam: "Yessir."</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">God: "See this tree over here?"</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Adam: "Ayuh." [at this point you probably wonder why Adam is from Maine.]</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">God: "It's got some shit that'll blow your mind."</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Adam: "Really? Wow, let me get some!"</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">God: "Whoa, whoa. Easy, bro. Can't touch it. Stuff's not free, you know."</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Adam: "Oh balls."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">...later...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Eve: "...so what do you think eating an apple off of this tree is like?"</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Adam: "I don't know. I don't have the cash."</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Eve: "Whatever happened to 'first taste for free'?"</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Adam: "..."</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Eve: "You know what, fuck 'im. *CHOMP*"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">[Insert token scene with '70s funk music and psychedelic colors interspersed with scenes of God smacking Adam with a sock filled with oranges screaming, "Where's my money?"]</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Let's close our Bible: The Unrated version and look back at the news story. Check out dude's name.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">"Authorities began investigating God Lucky Howard in April, and he was arrested on Saturday."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">God Lucky Howard. That's the Godliest name (not only is he God, but he's also lucky!) since </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Shammgod">God Shammgod changed his name back from Shammgod Wells after having changed it to that from his birth-given God Shammgod</a><span style="font-family:verdana;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">This brings back memories of my sister "jokingly" claiming that she'd name her son Acar -- "A car?" her friends would ask, "Which car?" "No," she'd correct them," A-C-A-R -- Acar" -- or, if she had twins, Hale and Bopp. (Fun fact: There was a girl in one of my college writing courses named "Apar". Close enough.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">To name your child something ridiculous might just be one of the cruelest non-violent things you could do (that's not true but let me hyperbolize). Like naming your child after a month that isn't April, May or June. Can you imagine naming your son after a month? "Hey March! How's it going?" I don't think so. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">What about the alleged homoerotic naming of one Richard Gaywood, </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://kotaku.com/5010324/microsoft-explains-gaywood-ban">who had his Xbox Live gamertag banned</a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> on account of it being labeled as "offensive" by the Xbox Live community? What about our beloved former </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey">House Majority Leader Dick Armey</a><span style="font-family:verdana;">? You know, the one Peter Griffin responded to with, "What's your friend's name, Vagina Coastguard" in </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Griffin_Goes_to_Washington">that episode of Family Guy</a><span style="font-family:verdana;">?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">And then there's </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_CK">Louie CK</a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> who theorized about what might happen if he were to name his child, Ladies And Gentlemen. "Ladies And Gentlemen </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;" >please!!!!!</span><span style="font-family:verdana;">" "Ladies And Gentlemen, would you stop writing on the wall?" And so forth.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">This further brings back memories of my Quake II-playing days, when I'd name my characters ridiculous shit like, "My Anus" or "Your Face" and watch in glee as the prompts would come up when people either killed or were killed by my character.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">"Jaws was fragged by My Anus."</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">"Amanster rode Your Face's rocket."</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">"MrCHUPON killed That Dude's Balls."</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">"That Dude's Balls ate My Anus's grenade."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Ah, college.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">So wait, where was I going with this? Oh yeah. Don't name your kid God, or he might push drugs in Tampa.</span><br /><br /><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://xlm2k.blogspot.com/">Shout out to Long Hair</a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> for the link.</span><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-57617672367077352342008-05-27T23:04:00.002-04:002008-05-28T00:00:59.659-04:00Some observations about this Pittsburgh office...<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">...and related things, such as the hotel room, both remarkable and unremarkable. This is guaranteed to be one of the most boring things you've read in the last four years, seven months and six days. Give or take. *shrug*</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* the most expensive lunch I've had from the food court in the building must have been spaghetti and meatballs from the Sbarro's, which ran me $6.39 (I think)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* the cheapest must have been a large soup from Au Bon Pain from the same food court, clocking in at under $4</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* a whole bunch of people -- not including contractors / consultants like myself -- clock out at 3:30... of course, they're in at ass o'clock in the morning, too</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* the entire place (ok that's an exaggeration) is plastered with "Bring Back the Cup!" signs in hopes of the Pittsburgh Penguins winning the Stanley Cup (hockey for those who don't know). After working in Illinois for the last 15 months and watching the Bulls go from a playoff team to a turd, it's an interesting change of sports pace...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* most offices have a security ID card scanner outside the door leading into the office from the elevator bank, and a button that you have to press in order to exit to the elevator bank. Our button looks like the friggin' "Easy" button from those commercials</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* not being able to communicate with the outside world while at the office, via anything other than my firm's webmail, continues to be frustrating. My fingers haven't yet, and probably never will, enjoy sending instant messages through my phone's keypad</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* I should be used to this, because I spent a cumulative 28 months in an office with such a bathroom, but yet again the people here are incredibly sloppy with disposing of paper towels in the men's room. Half the time, a few sheets are strewn on the floor underneath the actual basket; more often than not, there are a bunch of sheets just hanging around the rim of the receptacle (thanks to Lebowski I must use that word now)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* in my time here so far, no one's forgotten to flush the toilet, unlike in the last building I worked at. Man that was fuckin' disgusting...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* this is one of those buildings where the men's room has a tall urinal and a short urinal. I haven't seen any men under four feet in this building, but I suspect it's to support those who are vertically challenged. If this is true... why, then, isn't this shorter urinal standard wherever handicap stalls are standard?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* this is one of the only office bathrooms I've been in that has a coat rack. It's warm now and no one's wearing coats so I lie the Gatorade bottle that I've usually just filled at the nearby water fountain across a pair of the hooks</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* the color scheme here is mostly dark browns and greens in the halls and open areas, with white walls enclosing the majority of cubicles. Is this to encourage us to stay at our desks, where it's brighter and more cheery? :P Because the halls are damn depressing</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* the water fountain is sufficient, but I miss the little "gloop gloop" that water coolers make when you use them</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* my hotel is literally across the street from PNC Park, where the Pittsburgh Pirates play baseball. Every day I walk to work (it takes a total of about 12 minutes to walk from my hotel door to my cubicle), I pass by the stadium and then cross a yellow bridge over the river to get to the streets where the office building is. I think the same homeless person sits in the middle of the pedestrian area of the bridge every morning</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* I just tried sending e-mail to three distinct individuals with a Hotmail address, including my old one that's I had to re-activate for my Xbox Live account. For some reason, tonight, I'm being told that my IP address is blocked by Hotmail... wtf?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* the hotel where I stayed at previously in Illinois had a lounge with free water bottles for those who accumulated enough hotel points. There is no lounge here and we get a tiny pint bottle each night. I drink A LOT OF WATER. So I've been resorting to boiling tap water in the coffee maker, then chilling it in a sink of cold water. Yeah, it has a burnt coffee aftertaste, but I'll take whatever I can get</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* last week, my next-door neighbors in the hotels were singing. Loudly. And very, very poorly. It didn't help that it was one of those dealies where there was a locked door joining the two rooms, as opposed a solid wall, allowing the howling to seep through even more</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* the bathtub in my hotel room has this weird plug that you push on one end to lock, and push on the other end to open. In several attempts to lock the drain so that I could fill the tub with bath water, it popped back open of its own volition about 14 times before I finally got it to stay. What the hell ever happened to a plain old fashioned wedge attached to the tub with a chain, because you know they're worried about people stealing the plug?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* they've played this goddamn motherfucking Volkswagen commercial where the drummer chick says "Europeans are crazy" WAY TOO MANY TIMES DURING THE LAST FEW GAMES NBA PLAYOFFS. STOP PLAYING IT. </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: verdana;">IT'S NOW MORE ANNOYING THAN THOSE REPEATED ZUNE ADS AND THE FKN' HEINEKIN AD <span style="font-style: italic;">WITH PEOPLE PASSING THE BEER ALONG VARIOUS REGIONS</span>.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">* the room service here comes from a pub that shares part of the ground floor of this hotel's building. The person who delivered my snack yesterday was most definitely not hotel staff, unless this hotel staff has employees who regularly dress up as bar flies. Just an amusing observation on my part</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">* that's it. go home</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: verdana;"></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-71337896329710636402008-05-22T21:43:00.002-04:002008-05-23T03:24:58.803-04:00On Fatigue<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">I guess the answer to the question I pose at the bottom of this blog is: My body's endurance sucks.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Here's a little preface on how my job works. I work for a consulting firm, meaning that -- in all simplicity -- I'm one of The Bobs from Office Space. No, I don't go in and find out what people do and get them fired literally, but my overall job -- as part of a team -- is to be involved somewhere in the process of going in, finding out what a business needs, how it can improve itself and its processes, develop a plan for that, implement that plan, and support it. However, not everyone stays in a project from beginning to end. A lot of us have experience in concentrated areas -- such as the planning and analysis stage, where we have to gather requirements for a proposed application, et cetera -- or the testing stage, or even the support stage which happens when the application or new system goes live. Now, some people do stay on a project for its entirety, from very beginning to very end -- but I’m not one of them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">So it's not like I stay at one client for three years. For me, it's been between 8 and 15 months at a time. These projects happen everywhere. Depending on your assigned specialty, certain types of clients reside in certain areas. Financial institutions are mainly centered around Wall Street and elsewhere in New York City, or in the tri-state area at least (as well as other metropolitan areas). I don't get assigned to Financial clients, though; instead, I'm in the Products group, which specializes in consumer goods and services (retailers, liquor distributors, market research firms), and health and life sciences (pharmaceuticals, health care). Thus, the projects I've been assigned to have been in South Norwalk, Connecticut; Schaumburg, Illinois; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That means I do indeed have to travel a lot, and for the most part, Mondays through Thursdays have been spent on-site with Fridays being the magical and relieving day working from the comfort of my native New York. (One exception: For Connecticut, I was close enough to travel there by rail. It was a 2-hour commute each way, but it was worth it to sleep in my own bed every night.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Now, when you "roll off" of a project -- meaning your job and role on that project is finished -- you go "on the bench," waiting for new roles to pop up. It's like job hunting within a job. You're still employed by the company, but you're not working on anything in particular for a client. So when you're on the bench, your responsibilities are to actively look for other priojects to sign onto, and better yourself through training courses offered by the firm. Most of these can be downloaded right to your laptop. Some of them are in-classroom. Whatever the case may be, you're not just supposed to sit on the beach or on your rooftop garden with a Corona. You're supposed to be putting in a good, honest 40 hours per week, training, adding to your internal resume, and shopping yourself around to projects that might be able to use your skills.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Preface over.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">From December of 2006 to the end of March 2008, I'd been going to Schaumburg, IL. This was actually my second stint on this specific project; I had been going there from September of 2004 to December of 2005 prior to that. Then I went to Connecticut before I ended up back in Illinois. The important takeaway here is that before the end of March, I'd spent 28 out of the last 38 months doing the weekly grind to and from O'Hare International Airport -- get my ass up on Monday at 5AM for a 7AM flight, and then catch a Thursday evening flight back to New York that would get delayed almost half the time (resulting in me landing in NYC at 1AM on a few occasions). Finally, on March 24th, they honorably discharged me after extending my role week after week. At that point, I was on the bench.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Now, I'd basically been inactive work-wise since March 24th until May 5th, which is when I was staffed to a new project. I didn't travel to the client site until the next week, May 12th, as the week of May 5th was spent reading up on the project's background and other documentation. Technically, then, I spent seven weeks on the bench. Yeah I was working, but doing training on your laptop out of your bedroom and having the luxury of taking a break for a walk in the park -- as long as you put in eight honest hours -- is a far cry from flying out at ungodly hours and working 10 - 12 hour days in a bustling, chaotic and frankly critical situation.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">So what happened during those seven weeks? I started going to the gym regularly again. I learned me some skills. I received less-than-positive news about my Business School application (there's always next year). I reviewed a few games (though I really should have been kept more busy than I was, ahem). I poked a little at my website's design. I hung out with friends more regularly. I threw Rock Band parties. I discovered a weekly Guitar Hero tournament -- the prizes are free shots every time you advance a round -- and met some really fun people. I woke up at nine in the morning, put in my hours, and was out in the sunlight of the late afternoon every day of the week.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">After seven weeks of this, I went to Pittsburgh for my first week. I got up at 6AM to catch an 8:30AM flight at Kennedy, which is much better than waking up at 5AM as in months past (that hour makes a difference). After my first day, I had some energy to run a full court basketball game, though I was woefully out of basketball shape at that point. On Tuesday, though, I came into my room not wanting to do anything. ANYTHING. I didn't want to check email. I didn't want to study more for my GMATs. I didn't want to play Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations on my DS (that's the last game in its trilogy and I've been trying to finish it for quite some time). I didn't want to read more about my project. I was too goddamn tired and just wanted to watch the basketball game. Wednesday night after work, I just plum fell asleep before midnight with my DS open and the TV on. I woke up not knowing who won the game (it was the Lakers) and found my DS with its battery entirely drained.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Ok, so that's weird, because I just had seven glorious weeks of not-work and rejuvenation.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">This past Tuesday night, my second Tuesday on the job, it happened again. Only this time, it wasn't before midnight -- it was before 10PM. This was during the Celtics-Pistons game. I was lying on the couch and had my laptop open to do work. I only remember drifting in and out, opening my eyes and just barely seeing Kevin Garnett hitting a jumper from 19 feet out, then fading out again. Then in, another KG jumper, then out. Rinse, repeat. I woke up with a drained laptop battery and the post-game press conferences on ESPN.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Why in shit's name am I this tired after almost two months of the most relaxed job in the world? Is seven straight weeks of that really not enough to combat three years flying back and forth / making a 2-hour rail commute? And mind you, I *did* take real family vacations during those years, so it's not like I went straight through without rest.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-66703440853400297192008-05-12T23:11:00.003-04:002008-05-12T23:24:47.414-04:00Project in Pittsburgh<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">given a laptop by the client which can't be used to access any personal webmail, unlike my last project</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">can't connect my own work laptop to their network for any reason</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">can't put any flash memory cards or USB drives into client laptop to transfer files, unlike my last project</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">half the stuff around here closes at 6PM</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">per diem$ are 15% lower per day than my last project</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">have not yet determined whether or not I can actually get on AOL Instant Messenger</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">can get on Mobile Instant Messenger, though it fucks up my buddy list when I log on via computer</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">don't have to get up at 5AM on Monday to catch an early-ass flight, as with my last project</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">proximity to NYC and lack of time-zone change means my flight on Thursday night lands at 8:30PM in New York, instead of 11PM as with my last project, delays pending</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">access to an indoor basketball court by the hotel means I can trim some fat off my fat ass without being bored</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">the office building has a small mall on the first floor and a fucking food court on the second</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">don't have to walk for 20 minutes just to get to something, say a bar or restaurant or store, outside of the hotel as with my last project</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">right across the bridge from where the Pittsburgh Pirates play</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Is it a wash? We'll see in about 6 months.</span><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-22910429475414371692008-05-08T18:14:00.003-04:002008-05-08T18:19:46.397-04:00To Catch a Karl Malone<span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hill/080507"><span style="font-family:verdana;">http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hill/080507</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Read that.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Now, read it again -- specifically the paragraph that begins: "Roger Clemens' alleged seedy indiscretions".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Yeah. That's right. Karl Malone may have given his yogurt to a </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">thirteen </span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">year-old girl.</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">I don't know if I should be surprised -- I shudder to think what a man of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird or Magic Johnson's stature (especially that last one -- c'mon, "Magic" "Johnson") would have taken when drunk at a frat party -- but hot damn. That's sick.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Now, it's only reportedly so -- not confirmed. However, if someone would kindly look up the age of Demetrius Bell's mother and subtract his age from hers... well now.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Ew. Just, ew.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Thanks to my boy Matt who found the article.</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108744526556234466.post-91394781052465771762008-05-07T01:41:00.004-04:002008-05-07T01:57:22.181-04:00LeBrohn Starks<span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=280506002">LeBron James</a><span style="font-family:verdana;">, meet a little bit of </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Starks_%28basketball_player%29">basketball history</a><span style="font-family:verdana;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Okay -- to be fair, this was Game 1 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Semi-finals. Starks' own 2-for-18 performance was during Game 7 of the 1994 NBA Finals against the Houston Rockets -- a much more important game than a series opener "feel-'em-out" game.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">But still. James' shooting performance -- not to mention several botched layups -- was just as painful to watch. Here we've got a perennial MVP candidate, the so-called King, a man who could soon be averaging a triple-double for the season for many years to come, and we see him make only two baskets in 39 minutes of playing time -- and missing 16.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Did I mention he had 10 turnovers to go along with his 12 points, nine boards and nine dimes? Hell, son coulda had a quadruple-double the shitty way.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">In any event, I'm not hopping on the "LeBron sucks" bandwagon. He's a force, and along with young studs like Dwight Howard, Chris Paul and fellow draftmates Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony, he's an icon for the league and will be for years to come. It's just disconcerting to see someone who's really supposed to be <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;" > guy </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">-- a killer, a monster, an unstoppable force of nature -- pull such a poor performance out of his jock strap. Anyone notice that while you usually get yours at the foul line when you've got a poor shooting night, LeBronze didn't attempt a </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;" >single </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">free throw in the second half? Yeah. This is year five, Bronny. Stop taking those shitty three-point attempts.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">But hey, on the bright side, he's still only 23. Can you imagine him five or six years from now, if and when he improves his scoring consistency to Kobe-Jordan status? Can you imagine if and when he improves his defense to Kobe-Jordan status?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">...well I can't -- not just yet. First I've got to be confident that I won't see 2-for-18 from him very often in the future.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Ok, ok, ok. So there's another bright side: LeBron only needs 141 regular-season points to pass John Starks' all-time 14-year career mark of 10,829. At the rate he's going, it'll take him five games when the 2008-2009 season starts.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Unless he shoots 2-for-18...</span><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1