Category Archives: Rant


Rant

Snow-globed …in April?

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Went snowshoeing this weekend for the first time. Drove from 75 and sunny in the lowlands to 120″ snow base at the Summit in Snoqualmie. Was told by one group of people “you can’t shoe here – this is private property!” which got a ‘Uh, you own the whole mountain?’ in reply. The woman replied with “Actually, yes! We bought 80 acres a couple of years ago!” which sent me scurrying down a mound of snow. Equally as mind blowing was walking around on shoe-things that are about two feet long on a massive layer of snow while wearing a short-sleeve shirt, but it was hot up there… was fun tho – may do it again this or next week. Heard there was bare ground starting to show in some places already…

Nind numbing? That was doing a FacePlant into said layer of snow and need help to get up because I tried to walk forward with your left shoe pinning the right shoe down.

noOb.

Rant

Nine Point Fuckin’ Five

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Sales tax in King County Washington is now 9.5%. I don’t know if I’m more appalled by the actual number or the fact that there’s no public outrage by the rise in sales tax. Again.

Or still. I need to start going to Oregon to buy stuff. This new rate makes a 360 game $65.69. Makes a $3.75 cup of coffee become $4.11. New Nintendo DS? $186.14. A Samsung 52″ LCD on sale at Best Buy goes for $2099.99 (orig $2699.99) but in WA it’s out the door price is $2299.49, eating a third of the savings. I know it’s simple math, but it doesn’t take the sting out of it. And isn’t that just what you want to see as spending slows down? Higher tax rates? On top of that, Amazon is a WA based company: every order there gets ding with sales tax as well. Pretty damaging number.

On a personal note, my thanks to everyone that re-elected Gregoire. True, Rossi may have raised the rate as well (maybe even raised it higher!) but I can’t debate that because it’s an unknown. What I can state is a very simple fact: Christine has raised it from 8.8% to 9.5% within a span of four years. And where has the money gone? I know where it hasn’t gone: the Alaskan Way viaduct, a new 520 bridge, the light rail project for Bellevue, or the “new” monorail in Seattle. I know that we have new parks though. I’m sure we have a whole slew of anti-drug programs. Not to mention the anti-online gambling task force. Along with all sorts of other hippie feel-good programs that have been dreamed up in Olympia and given us nothing to show for it.

Well, I shouldn’t say we have nothing to show for it… obviously we all have to help pay the bill.

Rant

Take Fast!

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Not sure where 2009 is going but it’s obvious that it’s not being channelled into the blog… and I’m not even going to apologize for it. The simple truth is that there hasn’t been much going on that needs Ranting about. And what does need Ranting about is being passed through other channels be it work or personal related… after all, somethings are just simply not meant for public consumption. Hell, even my Facebook status goes for up to a week without an update…

That said, I’ve been holding out for Al-baby to do something stupid that would help me to rally, but he’s been remarkably quiet as of late. The only other coming head explosion will be that around our coming King Country (or WA) sales tax increase… the splash zone of brain matter will be directly impacted by the size of the increase… I’m expecting to be at 9.5% by summer and 10% by year end. This will mean a large head pop.

In other news, there’s a foster kitten in my upstairs bathroom in an experiment to see how my allergies [and allergy medication] hold up with critters in my house… so far so good, but time will tell.

Ever forward.

Rant

Not Alone

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This isn’t the first blog post that you’ll see with a “Whoa, where did February go?” and probably won’t be the last. I just noticed two things today: a) there’s new Apple hardware that’s been released and b) I haven’t posted in well over a week. Some random observations:

– I have way too many inclosures for backing up data for someone that doesn’t back up data too often

– A busy work life can make for a lack of blog posts

– With new iMac’s having been released, is there a way to turn off the monitor and still be able to use VNC?

– Why does Apple tease me by putting in Shuffle By Album support into the iPhone and then hide it from the UI a la Emoji? And then when someone actually discovers this, why was it replaced by the Genius Playlist that I’ve yet to find anyone using? Meh.

– The Watchmen is going to be The Hit of the first half of 2009, which is interesting. I expect the hardcore fans that have waited over 20 years for this movie to be confused by the reception; I only read it in the last few years so I didn’t have to wait long. I also expect the mass populous to be confused because they won’t “get” the movie but will love it because they were told to… I can’t imagine trying to follow the story without having read the book…

– Live Mesh continues to thrill me in its ability and simplicity; I’ve often thought about coding Client/Server apps in the days before Terminal Services and how painful it was… and how easy it is to take RDC for granted now a days. Mesh has had this same effect on me. No matter which machine I go to, I have access to certain files and I now expect them to be there and up to date at all times. Simply brilliant.

– Halo Wars popped out the door today. Having played the Alpha, the Beta, and the Demo, I know I suck horrifically bad. We got our copies last night and I’ve been too shamed to try the RTM bits so far… *sniffle*

– Halo 3 recently logged it’s one billionth online game which equated to about 64,000 years of online play. Cheers to Bungie!

Wonder how fast March will scoot by… and how many games of Halo 3 I’ll be contributing to that ongoing total.

Rant

Perspective Please!

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CNN.com: Sharpton blasts Post cartoon linking stimulus bill to chimp

Right, because politicians of all color are never compared to chimps or rhinos or donkeys or elephants.

Where was Sharpton when Bush was being compared to Hitler? Isn’t being compared to a genocide-supporting, sadistic fuckwad far more insulting than being compared to a “dumb” animal? Or Clinton, whose own cigar-related activities had him compared to an adulterous lounge lizard or a presidential Hugh Hefner in many comics?

…or is Al-baby simply being more transparent in his racist remarks as usual? Because yes, call it whatever you want, this is classic Sharpton: crying out based on skin tone rather than actual insult or issue. Business as usual for Al-baby: it’s all about what press he can get simply by pointing at himself and crying, rather than supporting human or civil rights…

There’s nothing civil about discrimination and that’s the ongoing Sharpton motto: what can I gain from this and how can we favor one group above all others, rather than equality for all.

Rant

Howard Stern: Role Model

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TVSquad: Michael Phelps recently went from big-time role-model to big-eared pothead in about the time it took for some d-bag with a cameraphone to press “send.”

This got me thinking about role models in general. Like it or not, most of us wind up choosing role models from television, probably because we see the people on TV more often than we do our own family. Considering the amount of alcohol-fueled Thanksgiving fistfights in my own family, that’s probably for the best.

So, seeing as my son is going to be raised by TV, I decided that I needed to pick out the best role model on it. My choice?

Howard Stern.

After reading the article, and being reminded of the years I’ve spent listening to Stern [on terrestrial radio] I have to admit it: he’s right.

Rant

Oh For Fuck’s Sake: Italiano Edition

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New York Times: Four executives of Google begin trial Tuesday in Milan on criminal charges of defamation and privacy violation in regard to a video posted on Google’s Italian site.

It’s because of cases like these that hosting companies want little or nothing to do with user-contributed content… the cost of having to monitor and control an upload feed is extraordinarily expensive in terms of resources but it’s also an extremely muddy pond to swim in. Imagine if you had to weed out every piece of video that everyone might find offensive… you’d end up a with Sputnik-like soundtrack and a test pattern for a display. Especially since this very thing has been proven over and over again with chatroom experiments: you always need moderation. Can’t be helped, but humans can’t be trusted if left to their own judgement – human nature, some call it.. It is further proven by into John Gabriel’s Internet Dickwad Theory…

Either way, it’s very weird to cheer for Google for a change.

Rant

Modern News: Facts Are Not Required

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TimesOnline: Microsoft poised to announce job losses

Cheers for not fact checking. I mean, it’s not all bunk – yes, the Zune 30 had a Leap Year related bug and yes, Microsoft is going to be at CES… the rest? Various levels of bunk – someone can’t even handle simple date math.

Let’s look at it one section at a time…
Continue reading Modern News: Facts Are Not Required →

Rant

FAIL: Frozen Edition

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Seattle Times: Seattle refuses to use salt; roads “snow packed” by design […] To hear the city’s spin, Seattle’s road crews are making “great progress” in clearing the ice-caked streets.

But it turns out “plowed streets” in Seattle actually means “snow-packed,” as in there’s snow and ice left on major arterials by design.

“We’re trying to create a hard-packed surface,” said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. “It doesn’t look like anything you’d find in Chicago or New York.”

The city’s approach means crews clear the roads enough for all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, or those with front-wheel drive cars as long as they are using chains, Wiggins said.

The icy streets are the result of Seattle’s refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows.

“If we were using salt, you’d see patches of bare road because salt is very effective,” Wiggins said. “We decided not to utilize salt because it’s not a healthy addition to Puget Sound.”

Did someone tell them that the city’s busses can’t get up the hills? That Denny Way [shown at right] is still shut down? That the cop cars are rear wheel drive (and can’t make hills with chains?)

Full of loss.

Rant

New Starbucks Lids? OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

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When Starbucks bought Seattle’s Best Coffee (SBC) I sobbed a little bit. SBC had a great mocha syrup, an excellent matcha latte, and a killer Cold Brew vanilla latte but I figured Starbucks would stamp their mermaid logo all over the place and kill off all of the things that made SBC a worthy competitor.

I was wrong. Starbucks opted to keep SBC as a separate brand and allowed them to carry on in their already established ways. All three drinks survived the buy out and all was right in the world.

Well, almost everything was right – they shit canned the lids.
Continue reading New Starbucks Lids? OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG →

Rant

Saying Goodbye to a Furry Friend… Yet Again

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Over the last five months Jolene and I have been fostering kittens. As someone that has alergic reactions to cats (and dogs) and yet can’t stay away from them, this sounded like an awesome idea. You go to the shelter, you take home some kittens, feed’m up, hold on to them until they can get spade or neutered, and then put them up for adoption. It’s a limited time thing – you don’t have to worry about longer term care because, well, you don’t get to keep them. Along those same lines, when you get attached to one of the little buggers, it can be hard to let them go but then you remind yourself that “Hey, you can’t keep them anyway so at least you can send them off to a good home.”

That’s what stings the most about Espresso Chococat. We got her when she was mere weeks old. Got her spade after she got over two pounds. Took her to an adoption fair with two other kittens; she was the last to go and she went to a guy that looked like he’d be good with her. Life was good. Last Friday, Jolene got a call from the shelter asking us we were the ppl that had a black kitten named “Espresso”; the guy that took her home brought her back to the shelter because she wasn’t eating and he couldn’t afford the cost of the vet. The shelter took her in and ran some tests on her… it wasn’t clear why she wasn’t eating but she had a sizable tumor in her stomach. Chemotherapy was an option for her but a) they didn’t think she’d survive because she was already bone thin and b) it would be several thousands just for the initial treatment. Left with no other option, the shelter put her down this week…

*sigh*