Category Archives: Rant


Rant

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

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Went to see the movie on Friday… as is no surprise to anyone that knows me, this was a “must see”. After all, I read the books as a kid. All seven of the books. And what’s more is that I was sucked into it the same way The Lord of the Rings got me… I saw the 70’s cartoon. I saw The Hobbit and Return of the King – you know, the ones with all the cheesy folk music – and had to read the books to find out what happened between the two movies. Same thing with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe: I heard there was a book and then that there were six other stories in Narnia… sucked me right.

How was it? Good. Better than I expected but not a complete “wow!” either… more after the jump (as it includes minor spoilers).
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Rant

Smoke Free State: Now Active

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Public smoking is now banned in the state of Washington, as of midnight this morning. Not only is it banned from public places but while smoking outside, you are required to be 25 feet from the entrance of any public building. At this time, tribal establishments are exempt from the law, as expected since their reservations are not subject to our laws.
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Rant

Who Would Jesus Punch For an Xbox?

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Seattle Weekly: Bankruptcy of Spirit – Who would Jesus punch for an Xbox? – The holiday season has officially begun with widespread reports of near rioting at various big-box retailers, including the Wal-Mart in Renton, where the police had to be called in to quell crowds driven to a frenzy over the chance to buy laptop computers at a deep discount.

I encourage you to click through and read the article. I expected a good chunk of hippie tree hugging, considering it’s a free local newspaper, but he actually makes a lot of the same points that I would have here…

…if I wasn’t spending most of my free time playing with my 360, that is.

Rant

WTF: Forbes Edition

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What the bloody hell is Forbes Online thinking? I once worked for a company that partnered with Forbes, in an effort to deliver their content to mobile devices… pre-RSS days, I was required to parse through their HTML pages for content and I remember thinking “what a mess!” at the time.

Has anyone seen Forbes’s online site lately? My God…
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Rant

Xbox 360: The Headset

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I’ve never cared much for the original Xbox headset. What’s the point of playing a game on a 5.1 equipped system if one entire ear is plugged with a headphone speaker? It annoyed me enough to look for an alternative about a year ago: I found a Sanyo universal cell phone headset for $9.99 at Target. It is an in-the-ear bud design and allowed external sounds through; it also has in in-ear microphone, so I don’t need a big boom thingy in my face.

What about the 360, then?
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Rant

Second Chances?

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MSNBC: N.C. carries out nation’s 1,000th execution

Convicted killer dies by lethal injection; death penalty reinstated in 1976 […] “He made one mistake and now it’s costing him his life,” said Kenneth Smith, 35, who visited with his wife and two children. “A lot of people get a second chance. I think he deserves a second chance.”

He made one mistake? One?!
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Rant

Mall Times

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Personally, I think teenagers need to spend time at the mall on weekends. In my opinion, they simply aren’t there long enough for the place to make a proper impression. You see, if they did spend more time at the mall, obviously there would be a substantial and measurable drop in teenage pregnancy: I can’t think of very many forms of birth control that are as effective as being in a mall on a Saturday afternoon, surrounded by a bunch of screaming children, simply because you decided to get a latte.

Honest – it’s a lock.

Rant

Quandary: Christmas Edition

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I’m having a quandary. About six years ago, one post-Christmas day, I bought a fake Christmas tree so I could start decorating my house. Mission accomplished. Two years ago, while taking down my tree, I accidentally broke one of the plastic pieces on the central “bark”; later that year, I moved, but I took my decorations with me, sans the broken tree. Since I was still renting last year, I skipped the whole decorating bit. This year, I have the quandary: do I buy a tree pre-Christmas and play a premium or wait until after Christmas and go without a tree again this year? Assuming I’ll have time post-Christmas to even get the freakin’ thing…

Then again, I don’t know where I’d put it, if I had it – I don’t have a free corner in the place!

Rant

“Will Work For Food”

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Washington Post: Tasha Henderson got tired of her 14-year-old daughter’s poor grades, her chronic lateness to class and her talking back to her teachers, so she decided to teach the girl a lesson. She made Coretha stand at a busy Oklahoma City intersection Nov. 4 with a cardboard sign that read: “I don’t do my homework and I act up in school, so my parents are preparing me for my future. Will work for food.”

Extreme? Certainly. Better than entropy? Absolutely! Props to the Mom for trying something. Oh, and there was another nugget in this article worth calling out…
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Rant

Pensive?

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I think I’m simply shell shocked by the pre-release hoopla of the Xbox 360. Games are already in the stores, as are a bunch of accessories. There are playable kiosks everywhere. I’ve mail ordered a wired controller from online, since I forgot to pre-order one. Even went and pre-paid the outstanding balance on the console and Madden 06. All the excitement is causes a lack of blogging time for me somehow. Or so I tell myself!

And yet, in spite of all of this, I still don’t know if I have one coming to me on Nov-22! The ebGames I pre-ordered from isn’t saying a word. Pre-ordered? Don’t I work at Microsoft? Contrary to what you’ve heard or what you might assume, we get no special treatment for hardware of this magnitude. We’re in the same boat that you are: scrambling to get one. Anyway, yeah, ebGames will be open at midnight, sure. Other stores have told people what they’re position in line will be. Hell, Best Buy and Future Shop have had their entire nationwide allocation – per store – leaked online. My local ebGames is making me very, very nervous. I pre-ordered in the first wave, the weekend the 360 was announced. If I don’t get one of the first lot, I’ll want to know where I stand on the list. The least they can do is tell me how many people are in front of me. That’s all I wanna know. Grr.

On another note, I’ve opted to bite the bullet and repave my home machine – one spontaneous reboot and hard drive error too many. Give the Good Geek Karma a real test this month. Should make for an interesting week end and weekend… the box is so vintage is still has Visual Studio 6 installed on it.

Yippie freakin E.