Ramblings, v.2

If today is any indication, snow.  More facking snow.  Global warming my ass.

ross rant-o-matic

Read about the crazy raging liberals.  Seriously.  Socialized medicine?  Are you insane?  If we fully socialize medicine in this country, it’ll be like hanging a “Free Beer” sign outside a bar on Water Street on a Friday night that only has two barrels of Milwaukee’s Be[a]st Light and no plans to get more barrels any more frequently than once a month.  You’ll be waiting YEARS for beer!  No.  Not my tax money.  IF I want to pay for some drunk-ass to get himself fixed up after he smashes his car into a tree just so he can go back out and smash into another tree – or pedestrian, or full-complement minivan (dad, mom, 3 kids, etc.) – I’ll give him my money myself.  I won’t, though.  I won’t endorse the innocent killing of people by vehicular manslaughter at the hands of a drunk that can get fixed up for effectively free.  ShrillaryCare can go to hell.

ross rant-o-matic

My spineless, technology-illiterate, pansy, communist writers are still on strike.

ross rant-o-matic

if you are so dumb you can’t steal music, then i don’t want to hear your opinion of DRM and copyrights.

Just a little something I found while browsing the blagonet a while back. Last night, I was flipping through channels waiting for Jail to return from a commercial break when I stumbled upon one of the 20/DatePrimeLineTimeLive shows. They were talking about “bloggers”. Yeah, I don’t think I’m included in that, since I post once a week. Maybe. (Incidentally, I kinda posted on this before.) Anywho, they were talking about how these “bloggers” often sit at home in their pjs and talk about whatever is on their mind, posting videos to sites like Youtube and podcasts (which are then explained in a short sentence) to iTunes. I didn’t watch more than 30 seconds of it, but it was enough of John Stossel’s increasingly-high voice to piss me off. He’s talking about it like people who write about what they want online are doing so while smoking a reefer, snorting coke, and getting pleasured by a prostitute while hacking the military’s computers on a second computer. I expect that the sentence after I changed the station went something like this: “These youngins are destroying the validity of reported news by polluting the airwaves and wirewaves with their self-righteous ramblings that nobody reads!” [Do note that, while you read that sentence to yourself, you have to increase the volume and pitch of your voice with each word, to the point that you sound like a deranged 3-year-old at the end. Because that's what he sounds like. A deranged 3-year-old.]

What does he know about the digital age? Does he understand that most people under 30 realize that most mainstream media is contrived? Even if he does, it’s not like he’s going to report that…his employer is mainstream media. Why bite the hand that feeds?

We, the rising youth, report our own news, our own important events. What’s better is that we hear about most things a day or two ahead of the news media reporting it.

An aside moment for local news: other than weather, traffic, and local professional sports teams, local news outlets are pretty much worthless. Incredibly detailed analysis shows that (read: IMHO) 90% of the rest of the local broadcasts are human interest crap. I don’t care if some local woman’s house is overrun by cats. Good for her. I hope she doesn’t reproduce.

Returning, a second item that’s burned my shorts. I’ve had this iPhone for a week. In that week, I’ve had no less than 6 people if I like my “$100 per month phone bill”. To which I reply: “I like my $60 per month bill just fine. What is this $100 monthly bill you speak of?” Yes, the iPhone plans from AT&T are tiered, and the most expensive plan is $100 (I think…what, you assume I’d fact check? Psssh.), but that doesn’t mean that you must get the most expensive plan to “fully” enjoy the device. In fact, news outlets only reported the total monthly bill, not the cost of the data plan. Let’s look at the plan I’ve got. For $60, I get 450 anytime minutes, 5000 night & weekend, 200 text messages, and unlimited internet data. Those first two stats are very similar to a non-iPhone plan. In fact, it’s exactly the Nation 450, which is $40 per month. The iPhone plan adds 200 text messages and unlimited internet for just $20 more. The next step up in iPhone plans is $80 per month. Just like the lower plan, it’s exactly the same as the Nation 900 (900 anytime, unlimited night & weekend), albeit with added text messages & internet. Twenty dollars is all that separates the Nation 900 and comparative iPhone plan. The most expensive plan is the same. So what’s this about “Oh, man, I gotta pay $400 for a phone and $100 per month just to use it?” NO, dumbass, you pay $400 for a phone (which is right in line with fresh on the market, top of the line smartphones) and only $20 more to get a data plan over the voice you would use anyway. You’d be paying someone for voice, so that’s factored out of the equation when comparing the luxury cost of the iPhone. A personal Blackberry data plan from AT&T is a $35 per month option, $15 more than the iPhone data plan. Is the iPhone expensive? Hell yes, it’s brand new technology. (Ok, fine, all of the tech has been around, but this is the first time it was all combined in this way. It’s a brand new device. )

ross rant-o-matic

Melinda wanted to see Over the Hedge. I was able to stomach about 20 minutes of it. Lemmie give you the synopsis of what I saw:

The movie opens with a hungry raccoon trying to steal food from a hibernating bear. The bear wakes up, gets pissed, and threatens the raccoon with death if he (the raccoon) doesn’t replenish all the food that was just decimated by a passing semi. Pretty cheery plot for a kids movie, eh? Anywho, the raccoon happens upon a familial group of wilderness animals: a very conservative turtle who happens to be the group leader, a spastic squirrel who is male (but exhibits certain *other* qualities), a group of “up-norte-eh” porcupines (dad, mom, and three small children), a single and very feminist skunk (voiced by Wanda Sykes), and a father-daughter pair of possum (where the dad is very dumb and quick to, well, play possum while the teenage daughter is hip, cool, and generally resents her dad). If you forget the fact that they are all wilderness animals, this could be any network television sitcom. Lovely. I forgot to mention that the raccoon joins this group as the rebel character who is immediately at odds with the turtle. Very soon after the raccoon meets the group, we get the biggest, most blatant piece of art-student-liberal propaganda shoved in our collective face. In short, upper-middle-class suburbia eats to excess, drives gas-guzzling SUVs, and generally isn’t concerned with the environment.

Can’t you just see the writer and give the major points of his life story? Raised by a single mom who got knocked up in her late teens, the mom was a child of the 70s. Peace, love, and DOWN WITH WHITIE. Probably raised in a half-bedroom apartment they could barely afford in the middle of the downtown area of any major city. He grew to resent anyone who could afford nice things (ie. those who went to college and got good jobs because of it), and is now a card-carrying member of at least two treehugger groups. I bet he’s torched an SUV or two in his day. What better way to get your hippy point across than to deliver it in a computer-animated feature film, to be viewed mostly by the children people who live in those exact suburbias around the country?

Yes, those of us in these United States of America who can afford to live in excess do. Why? We know it is our constitution-given right to do so. I believe the exact wording is “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. What better happiness can a human experience than knowing he/she is so well off that they can just throw away food? We can afford large vehicles to carry lots of stuff at one time, to protect us in the case of an accident, and to display our affluence. Why? Because we can.

I hate being preached to. I hate being told I should or shouldn’t do something just because someone else says so, just because it will “make me a better person”. I had a KFC Big Box Meal for dinner tonight. For those not in the know, it’s one leg or thigh (original or crispy), a chicken strip, a small box of popcorn chicken, two sides, a biscuit, and a large soda for only $6.99. It’s a TON of food, and it’s only $6.99. If I hear anybody seriously respond to the existence of the Big Box Meal with the statement, “But there are starving people in Ethiopia! We could ship this food over to them!”, it really burns my balls. Tell you what, go ship that food over there. I ordered this big freakin box of food, and I’m damn sure gonna eat it, I don’t care how many SUVs you torch or trees you have sex with. You know what? If those Ethiopians were meant to have this food, then they’d be standing behind me in line with $6.99 + tax in their bony hands waiting to order. They’re not? I guess they weren’t meant to have this food. Darwin, right? Survival of the fittest. Looking at my stomach, I can see Darwin didn’t necessarily mean physically fit; it was more of a philosophical state of fitness. I born into a family of love and sufficient wealth that I was able to have quality schooling that got me a good job. (Let’s just assume “good” means “steady” and “reasonable paycheck” for now.) I can afford to eat a Big Box Meal pretty much whenever I want. I can also afford to impress a woman enough to somehow make her want to marry me, and the two of us are financially fit enough to own a home. At this point, we’re surviving. Can someone in Ethiopia claim to be as fit as I? It depends. That Ethiopian can probably outrun a charging African lion, whereas I would be kitty food. Survival of the fittest is not only a philosophical statement, it is also situation-dependent.

There. I think I got it all out of my system. Don’t watch Over the Hedge. Puzzle Quest is total videogame crack. Maybe I’ll write about it tomorrow when I’m waiting for the dealer to finish my truck’s oil change. Assuming I don’t have my head buried in Puzzle Quest, that is.

ross rant-o-matic

Why are game developers still limiting player names to three characters?! It was cool back in the 80s. It was acceptable in the 90s when arcade games were ported to consoles. N64 came along and they were still doing it. I just rented Rayman: Raving Rabbids for Wii, a game made for a brand new system (and, sure, ported to a few other platforms, none of which are the arcade), and you’re limited to 3 characters when naming your account. Seriously. Excite Truck does the same thing, and it’s a Wii exclusive!! Look, the Wii has half a gig of memory. I don’t think allowing 15 or 18 more characters would break the bank. Isn’t the Wii all about personalization? How can I make the account mine when I can only represent myself by THREE CHARACTERS?!

Ok, ok, I can hear you, game devs. “Our high score lists will be malformed if we allow huge names!” Bullshot. Scroll any names bigger than the field you’re allowing. It’s not hard. Yous guys are all about slick animation. Something like if(name.length > fieldsize){ animate } else { display }. If the animate() function is smart enough, you don’t even need to call a separate display function. It’s not that hard! Until a big game developer sits me down and explains to me why it’s so freakin difficult, I’ll continue to curse them every time I’m limited to 3 characters. It comes down to one thing: laziness. I can’t be the only one annoyed by this. If any of my 2 readers agree, comment on it.

In other news, Ross Lectric has branched out to installing shower doors. Sweet.

ross rant-o-matic

While there was minor jubilation at the Green Bay Packers‘ win over the Chicago Bears on December 31, I still noted the bitter taste of the Bears’ playoff berth. I asked God why, why were the Bears, with an inferior quarterback, allowed to continue into the post-season while the Packers, who were due another run at the big one, refused entry? As the post-season progressed, so did the Bears. The Bears stole the NFC championship from America’s team – the Saints – angering nearly the entire country. February 4 came, and the Bears were allowed to taste victory, but only taste. In the heat of the moment, absolution presented itself. The final understanding of God’s plan was realized in the 4th quarter when Rex Grossman threw a touchdown pass to Kelvin Hayden. The issue at hand for Sexy Rexy is that the receiver in question wasn’t wearing a dark blue jersey. Mr. Hayden, in fact, plays for the Colts.

The Lord allowed the Bears to see the promise land, but were then refused in the most glorious way. In the fallout, I foresee the Bears having a new starting quarterback next season. They might keep their respectable defense, but the Bears’ offense will be in shambles. With Favre returning for an astounding 17th season, we could see the Bears’ 15th starting quarterback in as many seasons. Hah.

ross rant-o-matic

digg – NYC 5th Ave Apple Store Glass Cube Attacked with Green Lights by Activists

I was originally gonna post with a link to the Greenpeace article, but the digg link is so much better. The comments contained within are priceless:

i hope those lights don’t run on batteries.

Right, I’m sure Apple uses some bizarre amount of harmful chemicals. Target somebody worthwhile. I think the setup to this little event went something like this:

Greenpeacer #1: Dude, I heard that, like, Apple, like, uses chemicals in their computers.
Greenpeacer #2: Man, that’s bogus.
#1: I know. We should, like, do something about it.
#2: Yeah, but I’m way too stoned
#1: What if we just go shine a bunch of lights at that big glass box on 5th avenue?
#2: Can they be green?
#1: Sure.
#2: I’m in, dude.

Hippy/attention whore is a dangerous combination.

My favorite comment has got to be this one:

Friends, there is a much more serious threat to our environment than Apple. This offender leeches thousands of tons of sulphur and smoke into the atmosphere every year. It ruins natural habitats, killing countless millions of plants and animals, turning their habitats into barren wastelands. Who are these gross murderers, you ask? They only go by one name…

Volcano

What are these kids thinking? Do they not understand how we, as a race, do things? Their coats, their shoes, their food, and (in this case) their flashlights with green filters are all made without regard to any environmental concerns! What about the digital cameras they used to record the event, or the servers used to host their website? If they really believed what they preach, Greenpeace couldn’t exist. Rather, it could, but all its members would live in the wilderness. Except that wouldn’t work, because they’d still need to eat, which means they’d have to kill animals and/or destroy foliage. Greenpeace is self-defeating. All the little hippy rich kids need to go home and do something productive. Like sending me some of their rich parents’ money.

ross rant-o-matic

It’s not just because I wasn’t that great at the sport in high school. If that were the case, I’d hate all active sports, the English language, history, and biology. (Ok, I kinda do hate all those…but I’m already way off point.)

I was mindlessly going through digg posts over the weekend and stumbled across this gem:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/dtBYUz43G_M" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Right. The pansy you see running away like a little girl is Carmello Anthony. He got in his one open-hand slap and turned tail. I thought he was supposed to be this big baller, this new breed of “basketball gangster”. In the video, you can see Mr. Anthony and direct participants looking for someone to “hold me back” so they don’t tear into their adversary.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Basketball is no longer about the team. End of story. Certain players have tainted the game with their juvenile attitudes and disrespect for the institution of the game. (I’m not naming names because (a) there are too many to mention and (b) i honestly don’t follow b-ball enough to know who they are.) These players may have grown physically and may have improved their basketball skill set, but their maturity level has (if anything) dropped. Why? Why has basketball devolved into a gang war fought with and excuse for rules and an orange ball? How has the game of American football been given a relative pass in this case? This is not to say football hasn’t had its own share of problems (the Vikings Love Cruise is just one example); however, football games are still games about the teams. Why? Why are we allowed to enjoy football as a team sport, commenting on the teams’ offense and defense as if they were a cohesive unit? Because, little Johnny, you can’t see the players’ faces in football. On the field, every player is every player. Unless you’re really up on your stats (or have an HD set and can read the names), it’s somewhat difficult to know who just caught the quick drop for 8 yards. Furthermore, to play football, you need a team. It’s pretty much impossible to play a football game and make successful scoring attempts (even in your backyard) with only one person on a team. In basketball, you can see the players’ faces, and it only takes one guy to drive the ball from the far side of the court and slam the ball in the hoop.

You may be thinking that I’ve been living under a rock and haven’t noticed that football has just as many star players as basketball. Au contraire, I recognize that football stars are just as plentiful. The difference is that every one of those football players would be nothing – NOTHING – without a good team to back them. How good was Brett Favre when he had a solid offensive line? Damn good. How good is he now that his offensive line could be replaced with swiss cheese and his receivers’ hands ooze butter like well-oiled movie popcorn? Not anywhere near as good. Michael Vick: pretty good, but give him to the Cardinals and watch his stats tank. Now for the basketball analog: back in the day, you could have put Michael Jordan on any team in the league and he’d have done very well. The same can be said of any good player in the sport. I already explained why: you don’t need more than one person on a basketball team to play the game. Sure, the other guys are good distractions, but only one player needs scoring ability. “But Ross, basketball keeps track of assists!” Bah. Worthless. No one is going to think you’re badass just because you’ve got the leading number of “assists”. What, you couldn’t finish the job? Pansy.

Now that I’ve listed the problems with “professional” basketball, I should probably attempt to provide solutions. The only problem is that I can’t, short of firing half the players and imposing strict behavioral rules on the remaining players. And force players to attend social-awareness training. And shock-therapy away their inflated egos. We could force the players to wear full-face helmets, but we’d still be stuck with the ability to have a single player run the game. In short, the game itself can’t be fixed. The players simply need to grow up and realize that the antics they could pull as teens can’t fly in the world of professional sports.

ross rant-o-matic