Daily Rant
Big Rants
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| Advertising is actually 'Hypocrisy' in ancient Greek |
May 12, 2004 11:59 PST |
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So I'm driving along in my car and a commercial comes on the radio. It's some woman saying how she can justify spending $8 on a coffee (oh, I'm sorry, a latte) and $100 on a pair of jeans (which she justifies by saying she wears everyday, cause you know people that blow $100 ON ONE PAIR OF JEANS wear them every day and don't just buy them and wear them three times) but then reverses herself by saying she can't justify spending $50 on a haircut when she can get a grrreat haircut at Great Clips.
Let me get this straight. You spend $8 on a cup full of ground-up beans, $100 on a couple pieces of cloth sown to fit over your legs, but you are totally not the kind of person who would spend $50 on your hair.
Let me reach into my crystal ball a little bit and tell you (you being this woman) something about yourself...
You are the kind of person who goes to the day spa every week. You get manicures twice a month. You probably spend more on clothing and makeup in one year than I will spend in my entire lifetime.
But! You would NEVER spend $50 on your hair?
rrrrriiiiiight
oh yeah, and the commercial ends with narrator saying how Great Clips can help you stretch your dollar even further. As though Betty Spendsabungload is a great example of someone like that.
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| An Ode to Shakopee's Finest |
December 10, 2003 09:00 PST |
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It's snowing here. A lot. More than a foot in a day. The drive to work yesterday was hell on 4 cylinders, took an hour and a half versus the 20 it normally takes me.
Today started the same. Same backed up traffic to cross the one bridge out of town. Same idiots doing idiot things that piss the normal (can I say it... courteous) people off. Allow me to display a roadmap of a piece of my commute.
Path A indicates the flow of traffic along my commute line. Standard T intersection of two four lane roads. Both Path A and the oncoming lanes that match it back up pretty bad trying to make turns onto the highway going north in the morning because north is the only bridge from that part of town to Minneapolis where I work. Especially on mornings where there's a ton of snow, it gets REALLY backed up.
See path B? That's the route some asshole who couldn't possibly wait in line like the rest of us tried to take. Remember the snow? Because path B is a not a supported method of traversing this intersection, the snowplows didn't clear it in a right-turnedly direction, so Mr I'm-In-An-SUV-And-Don't-Need-To-Heed-Traffic-Laws hits the turn and is pushed over a little bit into path A, almost sideswiping some poor woman in a compact car.
But soft! What light through yonder lightbar breaks! Tis a Shakopee police officer that someone-who-shall-remain-nameless-but-who-is-impatient neglected to detect sitting in the lane he should have been in. The policeman (who shall be referred to from here on out as the blessed dispensor of justice to idiots) whips out, flips on his lights, pulls Mr Man over, gets out of his car and is REALLY PISSED OFF. He gets up to the window of Dr Dorkman and starts waving his arms and in general reading this moron the riot act. He then storms back to his squad car and proceeds to write what I am sure is the most detailed moving violation he can write, and I bet he tried to tack anything on there he could.
Thank you, oh blessed dispensor of justice to idiots, you made my 45 minute commute worth it today.
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| The Condiment cycle has been broken!!! |
March 24, 2003 09:28 PST |
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Well if you've read up on the trials of my life you will remember my neverending battle against ketchup nazis, those evil purveyors of fast food who refuse to acknowledge the fact that you need more than a couple molecules of ketchup per fry to enjoy the taste.
Well I have to announce that after over 3 years of fighting, the war has seen its first victory. I went to Le Burger King on Friday and ordered the whopper combo king sized (read: slaughter me a field of idahos and fry them up) and after receiving my food asked "can I get a bunch of ketchup?"
Now according to my rant that is the easiest and fastest way to guarentee you'll never get enough ketchup but being the optimist I am I always try to prove myself wrong.
To the woman working the drive thru of Burger King at the intersection of Alley and 5th - I LOVE YOU.
When asked to bestow ketchup, she boldly cast aside the stingy heritage of her forefathers and scooped, no gathered up lovingly, two handfulls of ketchup and dropped them in my bag.
I was stunned. Speechless. Vocalization systems were completely offline. A single tear rolled down my cheek as I drove off, my shattered dreams of condiments patched back together by this heroine of the headset.
Whoever you are... thank you for bringing joy back into my life.
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| Apartment Luck continues |
January 15, 2003 21:20 PST |
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Good grief. You'd think after living in a room in a house for a year whose kitchen violated at least 3 EPA statutes, then living with 3 hormonal women for a year, then having to avoid Ben's rectal emissions for a year, then moving to Iowa where little blond girls in scooters rule the streets, AND THEN moving to Seattle and living in an apartment where apparently the prince of darkness himself has spawned an entire generation of evil kids that we would finally have some good luck with our new apartment.
Nossir, karma had us by the short hairs in Washington and isn't gonna let us go. Our neighbors must own stock in Marlboro or something because they smoke enough to be personally responsible for global warming. Let me put it this way: they smoke so much that the smell comes in through our bathroom air vent EVEN IF WE TURN THE VENT FAN ON!!!!
Oh, did I mention their little girls like to run sprints up and down the stairs at 10:30 at night?
Gun.
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| Adventures in Moving |
January 4, 2003 19:04 PST |
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So we moved from Seattle to Minneapolis this month. Now that may not seem like much of anything to post about, but allow me to share some of the gory details with you.
First we had to pick up the truck. Lucky some good friends of ours flew in from Georgia to help us with the move, so Dave and I climb into our moving truck, or as I like to call it, the supertanker. This truck is huge. Not just big mind you, FREAKIN HUUUUUUUUUUGE. It's a 24' Ryder truck, but with no Ryder marking on it. Dave even composed a song about, allow me to share the lyrics.
Grummond Olsen, Grummond Olsen
Manufactures Freightliner trucks
Grummond Olsen, Grummond Olsen
24,000 pounds gross weight
That's right folks, I was behind the wheel of 24,000 pounds of moving pow-pow-power. It even had the really big horizontally oriented steering wheel that just screams for one of those little metal ball thingies you can use to spin the wheel really fast. Too bad they outlawed them.
We climb into the truck and I turn the key. Then the parking brake indicator buzzer comes on. Oh. my. gosh. Imagine Jim Carey from Dumb and Dumber making the most annoying sound in the world only amplified to levels that make dogs howl in agony. At least I'll never forget to disengage the parking brake!
We get the truck loaded up Thursday with some help from some of my students from DigiPen and decide to head on out early and make some time. Of course, it wasn't going to be easy, noooooo Dave and I had to drive the Exxon Valdez to DigiPen first to pick up my Christmas bonus, a custom bicycle. We drive through rush hour traffic and stop at DigiPen. I get out looking like a trucker after a bad meth hit, say goodbye to everyone, get my bike, load up, and head out. We join up with Sarah, her mom, and Monica just outside Seattle and begin the assault on Snoqualmie Pass, the first of several high points on the road that might be covered in snow, or as Seattle natives like to call it, frozen death.
Rollin rollin rollin, keep the tanker rollin... We get about 3/4 of the way up the pass and I begin to smell diesel. And not just "oh look there's a truck in front of us burning diesel" smell I'm talking get out the gerrycan full of gas and beer bong it. At first I think it's blowback from the exhaust, but then I notice the gas gauge trying very hard to break the world land gas gauge speed record on its way to E. (E stands for "Everyone you love and all your worldly possessions are behind you in a caravan and if the truck dies on this mountain pass you are screwed beyond all belief" by the way) We just barely manage to make it into Summit, Washington before the truck runs out of gas only to find that the ONLY gas station in town doesn't sell diesel fuel. Of course, this is a moot point considering we're leaking diesel like a 5 gallon bucket that just got used for target practice by bored rednecks.
We pile into the one hotel in town and I call Ryder's roadside support line. Now as much as I may mock our truck, the Ryder support guys were right on. Unfortunately they couldn't get a guy out to us that night because (of course) the pass started getting snowed in but the next morning the repair guy shows up.
Now, let me ask you a question. If someone is coming to fix the vehicle currently holding everything you own in life, do you want
Repairman A - 30-ish man with slicked hair and nice overalls
Repairman B - a grizzled 55 year old with a battered and grease-stained Mack Truck hat whose hands barely fit the legal definition of caucasian because of all the oil stains on them.
We got person B and man were we glad. Apparently the fuel line had ruptured during the climb up the pass, and by ruptured I mean it blew all the way apart. I can't believe it was getting gas to the engine at all.
Back on the road we go. Dave and I in the truck o' doom with two cars trailing behind us. No music. No CDs. Just the wind, some books, and a parking brake buzzer that could resurrect Noah.
So I have to ask... do the people that live in Butte Montana realize that EVERYONE who drives by their town refers to it as butt? And makes HOURS worth of jokes about it later? Or is that just me. The winner take all goes to the billboard just outside butt(e) that reads
SEE. EXPLORE. BUTTE.
Now that's just plain funny if you ask me. Of course there's not just Butte along the route from Seattle to Minneapolis. There's also Eagle Butte and Bear Butte. Man, my sides hurt.
I almost got arrested though. Not 50 miles outside Minneapolis Dave and I stop for lunch with Monica in tow. (Sarah and her mom stayed a little longer in Sioux Falls that morning) We roll into this Burger King parking lot and I decide to park us next to another large truck also occupying the lot. As I pull up next to the truck, I notice a couple construction workers in a crew truck sitting in the BK drive through staring at us as though our truck had naked pictures of Bill Cosby plastered on the sides. Puzzled, I dismount from the truck and hear a voice from near the back say "wow, you kind of rubbed on it didn't you?". I look back to see the man who was sitting in the truck we parked next to looking up at the tops of the trucks. Apparently as I ever-so-gracefully demonstrated my parking abilities, I scraped the top of my truck along the top of his. According to Monica, his truck was swaying back and forth like a bamboo in a tsunami, but those of us riding in the U.S.S. StuffMover didn't notice. Oops. The trucker took it in stride though, there wasn't any damage to either vehicle, so he just let it be. (Thank you Mr Moving Man!)
Finally we roll into the parking lot of our new abode. As Dave and I get out of the truck and lower the lift gate down to grab the first load of boxes, we notice a bunch of parking light pieces fall out of it. Apparently someone in Summit Washington didn't see Mt Everest parked behind them and backed into the truck. And we carried the pieces of their car across the country. Makes you think, doesn't it?
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| Movin' on up! |
November 20, 2002 13:13 PST |
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Keeping close to tradition, Sarah and I have decided that we cannot stay more than two years in any given place, so we're moving again!
Actually, I got a job offer from ZEMNOTT, a small development company run by two very good friends of mine and given the housing market here in Seattle (read: mortgage the baby) it was pretty much a done deal from the start.
Now we just have to move all our belongings in THREE WEEKS!!!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH
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| RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!! |
November 7, 2002 13:37 PST |
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Oh no, my son just learned how to crawl. This could get very very bad.
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| Pictures added, news galore |
November 4, 2002 23:31 PST |
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I added 6 more pictures to the Play area after Tal's latest photo shoot. I'll be adding some video in there later of him crawling (eek).
In other Play news, I restarted work on Rune Quake 3 again and we're just about to put out the first public version of Wolf Tactics. Good stuff.
Finally, I would like to declare that all women (at least, all wives of myself or my friends) cheat terribly at Trivial Pursuit. Twice in a row now I have been denied my rightful place as King of Trivia because the wives (first night it was Sarah, second night it was Jaime, Adam's wife) were able to pull questions like "who is Snoopy's sidekick" while I am trying to remember the name of a very obscure stunt-boar used in the first onstage rendition of Romeo and Juliet.
However, justice was quickly and appropriately served when I trounced Sarah twice in consecutive games of Monopoly. The first one was a complete blowout but the second was a game to remember, as I was able to come back from a severe deficit (think of her having two completely developed three property monopolies, the purple and greens and me having not a house to be seen) to win the game gloriously.
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| Hairball of Doom Strikes!!! |
October 20, 2002 15:31 PST |
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So we had company over last night, which necessitated several hours of "oh crap the house looks like a garbage heap CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN". I got the office all organized and then decided to vacuum. Turn the vacuum on, and nothing happens, the brush isn't moving. Then a thin wisp of smoke rolls out of the vacuum and I decided that this was bad.
Upon examination, the vacuum had a hairball the size of a small planetoid wrapped around the brush roller. How could a furwad of such proportion exist you ask? Well, that's pretty easily explained by the fact that both my wife and I have hair down past our waistlines. Unfortunately, we forgot to check the vacuum regularly to check for hairs that were wrapped up in the roller instead of sucked into the vacuum bag. This went on for months until the hairball got so bad it actually invaded the bearings inside the roller itself. When the vacuum's motor could overcome the follical blockage, it would spin so fast that it melted the hair and dust into a solid chunk, which eventually grew so large the roller could not longer roll past it.
About an hour later the problem was fixed thanks to a screwdriver, a wrench, and a razor blade. But good heavens CHECK OUT THE HAIRBALL.
My hand is there for scale purposes. Imagine a 6' tall male with slightly larger than average hands. That gives you length of the hairball. The more important thing is that it weighs a good pound or two and is thicker than my forearm. Daaaaang.
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| When Maturity means Immaturity |
October 17, 2002 22:11 PST |
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With the release of BMX-XXX into stores, Acclaim has taken serious heat from many groups about its content. While claiming that they are being picked on or "held to a higher standard" as they said in a recent press release, they turn around and justify their actions by pointing out what exists in other media. Let's be honest here shall we?
Acclaim created BMX XXX for one reason and one reason only: controversy Pimps yelling at hos, dogs humping, live action stripper montages all have one thing in common: THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH BMX BIKES. From their press release stating "other mature games" it's quite obvious they mean GTA3. But given GTA's focus on organized crime (of a sort) the presence of the aforementioned non-BMX themes makes sense. (not to say they didn't take that focus intentionally to create press coverage, mind you)
It saddens me to no end how game companies are stooping lower and lower to create coverage for their games. Acclaim seems to be taking a forerunner lead in the "tacky" category (Turok name changes, encouraging speeding and tombstone advertising anyone?), but it's a trend I see growing.
I love how Acclaim "fully supports the ESRB" but cites mature (read: R rated) movies as part of their motivation for producing the game. There's one HUGE flaw in their logic though: you can't get into R-rated movies without parental consent, but yet in most stores an 8-year old could buy an M-rated game. If the ESRB standards were enforced the same way the MPA movie standards were enforced, I guarentee that companies would see less outrage over certain games. Of course that begs the question of whether they would WANT the outrage to go down.
No I am not saying Acclaim is unique here. Do any of you think that the sales for DOA: Beach Volleyball will be driven by its great volleyball simulation? Or that Bikini Karate Babes is selling because people want to see a good side-fighter? Are Acclaim and other companies being held to a higher standard? Yes. The complete lack of true regulation in the gaming industry demands that.
Maybe what offends me most about this entire process is how these companies are throwing around the term "mature gamer". Given that they use that as a term justifying them selling products whose marketing campaigns consist of penis references, stripper videos, and animals humping, I guess they have an entirely different definition of "mature" than I do.
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