Category Archives: Rant


Rant

9-9-9 …Equals -9.

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Been watching the 9-9-9 tax plan unfold? I have.

9% federal sales tax? On top of a 9.5% state sales tax? This would make a $10.00 item jump to from $10.95 to $11.85 in retail circumstances… and I’m going to pay less taxes how?

Not that this has anything to do with… well, anything, but the man ran Godfather Pizza. Have you ever tasted the product? If he ever did, he would not be proud of his tenure… anything that makes Domino’s and Pizza Hut look good.

Although, the analogy is interesting, though… if he pushed bad pizza to millions of customers, I have to imagine that he never sampled his own product… has he tasted his 9-9-9 plan before pushing it out?

My guess is: no.

Rant

Two “err” Headlines, One Day

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MSN: Obama to speak to the nation about the economy [after the DJIA drops 10% in two days] followed by “Obama: The US is still a AAA nation”.

Why “err”? Because I realized that this is as close to a Presidental lap dance that you’ll ever get: he has nothing to offer you but what you see and you’re still going to pay him for it, after the dance is over. There’s nothing Obama can say about the drop today and even though we might be a AAA nation we don’t have a AAA rating on our bonds no matter how you want to spin it. Presidental Lap Dance… sounds like a band name.

MSN: Jane Fonda says she suffered low self-esteem over dad’s criticism

Why “err”? You’re Jane Fonda. You’re an actress. You’re career was based of physical appearance and given Hollywood’s ageless quest for youth, you would be worried about your image no matter what your father said to you. In fact, don’t I recall a like of workout videos that promoted weight loss? You’re rich beyond the dreams of most American. And basically… now… well, I don’t know why you’re saying anything at this point. That you were treated like a common teenager? That your self esteem was hurt because of a degrading statement and that drove you to problems later in life? Hey, Jane: shut the hell up because this just means you are a normal person with average problems, just like the rest of us. Except for the people that can’t afford all of the help you were able to pay cash for. Suck it up. Hey, MSN: how is this worth the effort it took to post this? I mean honestly: we’ve gone from Elanor Roosevelt saying no one can put you down without your consent to “My Daddy made me bulimic because he said something mean about me” 60 years ago?

I wonder what the evening news is going to look like – I think I’ll just leave Netflix on.

Rant

So. Much. Fail.

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FoxSports: The Rev. Jesse Jackson is urging baseball’s All-Stars to speak out against the Arizona immigration law, saying they should follow the example set by Jackie Robinson when he broke the game’s color barrier more than a half-century ago.

Because… why?

For once I think this confuses me to the point of not having a point aside from this is full of Fail.

Rant

Broken Silence

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MSNBC: “Where’s justice for Caylee?” Gonzalez told the Sentinel. Gonzalez said she lives a few miles from the Anthony home in east Orange County. “Do you mean to tell me that in Florida you can kill your child, toss her on the side of the road and go free?”

I said on Facebook – once the news broke about the acquitted of murder and manslaughter charges – that I was going to take a little vacation from the intertubes because I, for one, cannot stomach misplaced public outrage anymore. Guess I broke that silence right quick. And did I say misplaced outrage? Bet your ass I did. More on that in a minute. But first a plea for help:

For the love of all that’s good and holy, can Florida secede from the Union? Get out. Leave. Go back to Spain or forge an alliance with Quebec or something. Leave Walt Disney World as a safe zone if you have to, take the rest of the peninsula, and go. You don’t even properly buffer hurricanes anymore. You have out lived your usefulness and you grab far too many headlines between botched election counting – 1, 2, 3 anyone? – and botched legal trials. I figure you’ll somehow play into the Amanda Knox trial too, given enough time…

I swear, even the Fountain of Youth wouldn’t make the state worth keeping at this point.
Continue reading Broken Silence →

Rant

Oh My Fsckin’ God

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MSNBC: Catholic charity says ‘no’ to Hooters fundraiser – Cancels after complaints that image of scantily clad waitresses not in keeping with faith

I would say “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” but since this church is so up in arms about the donation, I’m assuming they think that people won’t look above a waitress’ chin anyway.

Personally, I hope they owe money when the fund raiser is done.

Rant

E3: Finally I Can Talk About Work Again

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Xbox.com: Voice Search on Xbox 360 What if you could find your favorite games, music, movies and TV shows, just with the sound of your voice? What if you could ask your TV to find Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and it did—instantly? Only on Xbox 360 is your entertainment together in one place—and now you will be able to find it with your voice.

Forgot that I can finally talk about what I’ve been working on!

Coming to your Xbox 360 and Kinect in the future – now with video: YouTube

Rant

The Rapture: May 21, 2011?

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I’ve read more than my fair share about The Rapture. Somehow stories about “the end” have often found a way to my shelf and I discovered Left Behind when the series had just put out book 4 in paperback – they already had over 4 million readers and I found it in a Waldenbooks, on an end cap with all four books stacked up there. The marketing team on the covers did a nice job, so I picked up the first book. Several years and 15 books later, and I’m pretty well read on the theory of it all. Did it impact my world view? My religious beliefs? My day to day coding expertise? Nah. I read the books as fiction, no matter how preachy they got. After the third or fourth book, I actually got really good at skipping the chunks of preaching, and kept the story and dialog moving quite well.

In fact, three things stood out to me from the book series: the authors of the series tell a great story, they have great copy editors (because I found very, very few errors in their text, unlike a lot of books today,) and they really believe in what they’re writing about. And if you do opt to read these books, end up changing religions, and are happy about that, then I’m happy for you, but it didn’t happen that way for me. I often recommend fictional books and this set is one of them for me. If I acted on all of the fiction I read… well, between Tolkien and Lewis, I would be trying on every single ring I saw, hoping for something glorious to happen. Ah well.

Anyway, imagine my surprised when I heard that someone had predicted the actual date of The Rapture – I said “Eh?” and went straight to Wikipedia.
Continue reading The Rapture: May 21, 2011? →

Rant

The Gaming Industry Matures

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Portal 2 hit today. The critics are spoodging all over themselves over it, much like they did for Portal 1. Users, on the other hand, are having a hissy fit. To paraphrase: VALVe overhyped it, the reviewers are too enamoured of it, the game play is too short, the PC/Mac versions feel “ported” and they have way too much DLC content – totaling $86 if purchased separately – that only offers cosmetic changes in the game… no extra levels, no power ups – just customization. And that reaction has caused critics to defend their reviews… nothing good can come from this.

Me? I haven’t bought it yet but I likely will. GLaDOS is too good of a character and Portal 1 was a classic piece of gaming not to give it a shot… That said, the above argument feels like when the Academy comes around with their Best Picture winner or when the Grammys start pushing their Best Pop Album which are called “critically acclaimed” yet the mass populous want no part of it.

Looks like the gaming industry has caught up to the rest of the entertainment industry: reviewers can’t be trusted for an unbiased opinion.

Rant

Simmering Pot

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You have to love ThinkPad. Be it Lenovo or IBM before them, that product line has the fastest turnaround of any computer product I have ever dealt with. Jolene’s shiny new laptop had a bulging bezel around the screen – we think it’s been there since she got it a few weeks ago, but we only noticed it now. Call Lenovo. Returning box is sent to us on a Friday; will take about 6 business days to get to us. Box arrives the next business day: Monday.

We send the computer into them on Monday afternoon; they work on it on Tuesday; they ship it on Wednesday; thanks to UPS Red, it lands today – Thursday – by 10:30am.

Well, it should have – UPS got out the good ol’fashioned sand paper condom to make things complicated.
Continue reading Simmering Pot →

Rant

Shuffle By Album Free – Windows Phone 7 Edition

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Shuffle By Album Free is a simple ad-based application that randomly selects an album, plays the entire album, and then randomly selects another album to play. It is every bit as feature rich as the paid-for app Shuffle By Album, but it does include an ad control which cause cause additional battery drain – this is the major trade off from the free and paid-for versions.
Continue reading Shuffle By Album Free – Windows Phone 7 Edition →

Rant

Wipeout

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MSNBC: Car surfers: Catching a ride to death?

I have two comments on this Car Surfing video, which is all about the “dangers” of car surfing:

One is that I’m amazed that the parents freely admit that they didn’t know what their kid was doing – before they went on to blame it all on movies the kid watched. And apparently he didn’t watch older movies… they blamed Jackass rather than Teen Wolf.

Two is that I’m amazed that the cops are going to arrest kids doing this because this obviously screws up natural selection. If anyone of any age is dumb enough to get onto the roof of a moving car at any speed above, well, zero, then I question that they shouldn’t be weeded out as part of the natural order of life. Same goes for the idiots that are driving the cars that these people are getting on top of – if they think that they aren’t going to be responsible for their actions, they need to reconsider using any more shared oxygen because it’s obvious they don’t need it.

Don’t get me wrong – I can feel for the parents and the general concern for “the innocent children”. The only thing sadder than burying a spouse is burying a child, but these people are climbing on moving cars.

This would be akin to worrying about kids that think they can catch a bullets.

PRK, Rant

PRK: Week 6 – 8

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On December 6th, I voluntarily let someone stick a laser in my eye with hope of being able to get 20/20 vision without glasses or contacts for the first time since 1982.

Since things have been somewhat stable but slightly blurry through the 4th and 5th week, I’m keeping the updates to a minimum while waiting for the magical “Whoo! When did things get so clear!” moment around the 8th week.
Continue reading PRK: Week 6 – 8 →