Shades of Grey
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Tuesday, January 6

Truth in Words

I've discovered that the most poignant of human experiences can effectively be summed in one sentence.

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Tuesday, December 23

King of the Road

I could whine in large vocabulary about the unplanned expenditure that put four brand-new tires on my car today, but given the incredulous looks I've received from multiple people regarding the state of my old tires, I'm leaning more toward being amused at the value I've squeezed out of the rubber. Apparently, tires have mileage ratings. And people look at you askew when you grumble that your tires only have 107,000 miles on them . . .

(Hey, I still had 3/32nds of tread left!)

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Sunday, December 21

The Cableless Guy

I'm considering dropping my cable. I made a preliminary audit of my television-watching habits the other day and realized that the only show I specifically plan to watch on television is Atlantis, and it only has two more episodes. Everything else I stream from Hulu or Netflix (or else is just random channel flipping that I wouldn't miss). This was brought into stark relief last week when I was talking about "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" to one of my coworkers and encouraged her to watch an episode; she agreed and asked for the channel and time, and I sat there confused for a moment before saying "Erm, Hulu, whenever it's convenient?". The savings from dropping cable wouldn't be *huge*, but they'd be noticeable.

In furtherance of my cable-pondering, I visited the site of my somewhat-less-than-illustrious cable provider to check on current pricing. The visit did not do much to dispel my disappointment in them . . .


I also like how their premium package is advertised for "large file downloaders" (wink, wink).

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Friday, December 19

Cathartic Sacrifice

There is something in the sudden awareness of an approaching wave of snow, showered off the street in perfect parabolic arcs by a city plow, reminiscent, in its way, of the movie staple of the car splashing water from a puddle onto a hapless pedestrian, that leads one first to swear and then to laugh at the absurdity as the efforts of an hour of snow shoveling are reburied under three inches of greyish muck.

So I have to shovel again when I get home tonight . . .

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Friday, December 12

Who Says Black Friday Is Over?

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Thursday, December 11

Sodal Disobedience

A small confession. Whenever I encounter a soda machine with specific instructions on how to orient the proffered currency in order to encourage the machine to accept it (these days most commonly denoted pictorially with a rough little sketch of ol' George facing a specific direction), I always give the bill a 180-degree turn and feed it in backwards. I wonder what that says about my psyche.

For the curious, the machines have always accepted such rebellious offerings and vended my purchase without so much as a glaring eye. I've heard, from others frustrated by the intricate rituals often required to appease the vending gods, that this is an anomaly, but it's one with a surprisingly strong track record.

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Monday, December 8

Math Is Hard, Pt. II

From the great source of timeless wisdom that is the John Tesh radio show (heard on the radio last night):
A recent study found that one third of people have admitted to sending an e-mail or text message to the wrong person. That means that on any given day, 1 out of 3 e-mail or text messages go to the wrong recipient.
Yes, in much the same way that if 75% of people admit to having had chicken pox at some point in their lives, on any given day 3 out of 4 people have chicken pox . . .

A corollary to the above is another math question that has been popping up on OkCupid for me lately (mostly because my answer differs from most others, and the site for some reason wants me to be aware of that fact):
If "some men are doctors" and "some doctors are tall", does it follow that "some men are tall"?
I'm going to skip the Venn diagrams and just say that the question is a theoretical problem with no relation to reality (you could swap out "companion cubes" for "men," "nerf herder" for "doctor" and "vorpal" for "tall" if abstract words help to divorce the question from the idea that "of course some men are tall"), and the question only asks if we can prove some men are tall from the information given, not to prove that all men are short. Logic puzzles are funny that way.

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Wednesday, December 3

Money To Be Made

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

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Wednesday, November 26

Beep Beep

I found this article amusing today, given that I use my car horn so infrequently that I went over a year without realizing it doesn't work. That was at my sister's wedding, so I've been without a horn for at least two years (I'll probably get a fix-it ticket for it eventually, but in the meantime I've not missed it, at all). I found the salient points in the article to be the conclusions that most honks are administered as chastisement after the fact and very few actually contribute to avoiding accidents in real time, given that reaction time limits our ability to take evasive action *and* honk at the same time. I think I'm in favor of abolishing horns.

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Wednesday, November 19

I Don't Think They Were Going for "Oooo, pretty!"

Lisa has been encouraging me to watch "Bones" lately (something to do with the female lead exhibiting the same highly analytical-but-socially dysfunctional personality traits that I do). This clip is from the first minute of the pilot episode. To illustrate my atypical reactions in what is hopefully a humorous fashion, my initial impressions of the shirt-ripping scene were, in order:

1. I hope those were snaps, because otherwise her buttons just ripped off.
2. It's kind of sad that she had to resort to that.
3. Wow, that's a fantastic corset. That would make an awesome photo prop. I wonder how much one of those runs and if I could find one on eBay.

Highly analytical. Check. Poor social skills. Check.

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For the Dogs, Redux

I Stumbled on a page re-referencing the high-pitched tones used by some teenagers for clandestine cell phone rings. It's been about two-and-a-half years since that post, and I can still hear 17kHz, so at least my hearing isn't declining. In an irrationally masochistic move, despite knowing that it would likely give me a headache, I listened to the tones anyway. And they gave me a headache. Go me.

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Thursday, October 30

I'm Sure Tim Will Kick My Ass at This

58

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Tuesday, October 28

Thou Shalt Not Do Round-offs

I wasn't aware that Christianity really had anything to say about gymnastics.

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Friday, October 24

Freudian Slip

Red Cross tech: Okay, we're all done. Here's your contact sheet. If you experience any problems today, please give us a call. If we have any problems or determine your love is unsuitable for others, er, your *blood*, that is. Wow. Yeah, if your *blood* is unsuitable we'll give you a call.
She was horribly embarrassed. Poor girl.

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Saturday, September 20

Digital Fingerprints

I'm not the only person engaging in befuddled head-scratching over Microsoft's most recent spate of confusing television advertisements.

- First came the egregiously expensive $300 million Seinfeld ads that supposedly helped "humanize" the company by showing comedian Jerry Seinfeld and "the man" Bill Gates interacting with "normal people" in a shoe store and moving in with a "normal family" for a week, but actually ended up showing Gates to be a pompous ass who complains about leftovers and tips poorly, and nothing in the ads related in any form whatsoever to Windows Vista. The third completed ad was shelved without being released.

- Then came the "Mojave Experiment," where short clips of "real customer interviews" being shown what was supposedly a new operating system called "Mojave" but which in reality was Windows Vista demonstrated that people think the operating system is "neat" or "cool" if it's shown out of the context of its readily deserved criticism. Of course, the commercials don't actually show what the customers are seeing on the screen and offer no rebuttal to the reasons people have downgraded back to XP or labeled Vista as seriously flawed, and more importantly the customers see Vista running on a state-of-the-art laptop that can actually run Vista properly, not a much cheaper "standard" laptop that most people buy or already own.

- Most recently, Microsoft launched its "I'm a PC" ad line aimed directly at Apple's popular-if-snobbish "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" commercials. Notably, they don't say "I'm Windows Vista," which does nothing to brand this as a Windows commercial and may actually just be free advertising for Dell. And most interestingly of all, the ads were made on a Mac, something Microsoft tried to hide as soon as it was discovered.

All in all, Vista has become a significant embarrassment for Microsoft, with 60% of corporate companies indicating no plans to upgrade to it and most PC dealers bundling it with an option to downgrade to XP. This for an operating system that will be officially two years old in January. But all of that aside, Microsoft's schizophrenic advertising has become so muddled that it's likely to have no impact at all on Vista's adoption. Sure, Apple makes expensive hardware and dips well into the "pretentious" vault on a regular basis, but at least its commercials are understandable.

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Friday, September 19

Blunt Honesty

A snippet from a clandestine planning session:

Me: Okay, we could make cookies or cupcakes.
Alec: Oh, I love cupcakes!
Me: Or waffles. I make pretty good waffles.
Alec: Oh, I love cupcakes!
Point taken.

Followed by:

Me: You know, I make chocolate cookies that are shaped like little tiny waffles. Those are pretty good.
Kyle: WOW! How do you do that?!

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Wednesday, August 27

My Own Personal Stalker


My Own Personal Stalker
Originally uploaded by -Greyson-
I received 8 single-ring calls from Linde today in the space of 3 minutes. Turns out she *thought* she was calling her voicemail and it was, somehow, dialing my number instead. When I finally answered, she seemed surprised and then said she wasn't calling to talk to me. I feel loved. ;)

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Tuesday, August 26

Accentuated

The twins, while finishing the coconut-pineapple smoothies they helped me make, were watching one of their DVDs, one I had not seen before from a television series entitled "Charlie and Lola." The protagonists of said series are English, which made for some interesting observations. Kylie and I had a humorous exchange involving one of the characters, a hamster named "Burt."

Kylie: "Oh no! Butt's in trouble!"
Me: "Who?"
Kylie: "Butt."
Me: "Oh, right. Burt."
Kylie: "No, Butt."
Me (laughing): "I'm pretty sure it's Burt."
Kylie (shaking head): "No. It's Butt."
Me (looking directly at her): "Burt!"
Kylie (staring back defiantly): "Butt!"
Me (still laughing): "Okay. You win."

A few minutes later I was quoting along with the show in a mock accent when Kylie, mimicking me mimicking the show, started saying "perfect" in a scarily accurate accent ("puh-fect"), to the point that Lisa thought it was the show and not Kylie (although I tried to get her to do it later and she reverted to her standard accent).

It was an interesting observation on how our brains compensate for anomalies; my brain automatically translated the English-accented context while to Kylie at least some of them appeared as entirely new words. In a similar vein, while listening to the BBC web cast today as I usually do, I sailed along with their accents until I tripped over "alu-MIN-i-um" and had to pause for a fraction of a second to figure out what they were talking about.

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Monday, August 11

The Surreal Life

Wal-mart, early afternoon, check-out line.

Elderly gentleman with all of his purchases bagged *except* an alcohol product of some sort. Line on hold while underage checkout girl waits for a customer-service person to ring up the last item.

Young man in line between the elderly gentleman and me, with no items to buy, spilling to the girl that he's seen her several times and has finally gotten up the courage to come over and ask her out. Awkwardness for the rest of the line. Panic on the girl's face. Pause after the nervous boy's pitch. Girl stammering out something about having a boyfriend (whether it's true or not). Dejected but polite guy slinking off embarrassed.

Girl paging customer-service person again. Fed-up elderly gentleman saying to skip the alcohol, paying for his bagged items and leaving.

Me bantering with the red-faced girl (who has had one unhappy customer and one unhappy non-customer in 30 seconds). Her joking that it's not her fault she can't ring up alcohol and she would if she could. Me joking that it really *is* her fault for not being born earlier (clearly a facetious comment).

Her gesturing to the woman ringing up items in the lane immediately behind hers. "Blame my mom."

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Saturday, August 9

En Garde


Thanks to work (*grumble* silly attorneys *grumble*), I missed the opening ceremonies of the Olympics this year (although I hear they were impressive). I did, however, see the American sweep of the women's sabre event. Yay for Olympics! Yay for women with swords! Yay for an event I actually know all the rules to (I'm in the black)!

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Friday, August 8

Cyber Toddlers


Lisa found this on her computer today after putting the twins down for their nap. It looks like Alec is getting started on the Internet early.

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Saturday, August 2

I'm Not Sure What This Is About, But It Can't Be Good . . .

"Fool close friends/family"? Really?

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Tuesday, July 29

Sarah Haskins Rocks

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Friday, July 25

I Admit It, I Laughed Outloud

From Yahoo!Answers:

How would i cover up a bullet hole in my wall?
I don't care if you're gonna rant about guns and stuff
I just need to know before my dad finds out.
my friend shot his gun in my room, so i have this whole in my wall
my dad was naive enough to believe it was just my stereo that fell off my TV stand
but my brother found out.
So what's an easy way to like fill it in or something?

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Wednesday, July 2

Yay MacGyver!

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Monday, June 30

Well, That Lasted Until It Became a News Article

"I'm struggling...I don't want to lose my house and I want to find somebody," said Trabosh, who changed her name in the ad to Traboscia to keep people from finding her in the phone book.

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Tuesday, June 24

Niche Marketing

This seems like an oddly specific Web banner. Are there a lot of people who read Web comics who happen to run fishing tournaments and who are also looking to start Web sites? The peculiarity is only enhanced by its placement as part of a triptych banner of unrelated ads; the other two were for an HDTV and a once-a-month birth control implant.

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Monday, June 23

Please Commence the Procedure

Sometimes I think scammers would do well to hire a good (albeit ethically loose) proofreader to polish the nonsense they distribute. There seems to be no shortage of people on the Internet offering to clean up resumes, Web sites and other published material, although I do admit that the quality of these services is somewhat suspect until the results are displayed. Hopefully, they would know not to put exclamation points into a missive supposedly originating with a major corporate entity (and could polish out the missing articles, because nothing says "this wasn't penned by a literate English writer" like "If you are not customer").

Perhaps of more importance than appropriate business-style grammar and format, though, is the give-away involved in announcing that, even though the e-mail is going out to all Chase customers, if the recipient isn't a member of Chase Bank he or she can ignore (again with the exclamation point!) the e-mail in its entirety (bolding mine in the picture). Very polite. Not particularly bright.

Seriously, where is the doctoral-candidate-in-English mastermind writing these things on the side for pizza money who actually understands how to write to the audience and make it look realistic?

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Friday, June 20

Math Is Hard

The following is a frequently encountered question in the wide pantheon of OkCupid questions:
If the price of an apple was raised 50% and then decreased 50%, making it cost $0.75, how much was the original price?

(a) $1.00
(b) $0.75
(c) $1.25
(d) $0.50
What particularly amuses me about this question is that it's not a "how do you feel?" or "what's your opinion on this?" question as every other OkCupid question is; this is a math problem with only one correct answer. For those of you without OkCupid memberships, the problem with this is that the answer is never given and instead your answer (along with "how you want your friends/matches to respond," which works well for questions like politics and music tastes) is just posted for other people to see. And the vast majority of people who have compared their profiles to mine have gotten it wrong. So essentially it's a trick question that makes mathematically inclined people look dumb to the non-inclined, and the non-inclined look dumb to the inclined, because there's no opportunity to explain *why* you answered the way you did. So if you answer the question incorrectly and specify that you only want to match to other people who answered as you did . . .

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Monday, June 9

Pixels Are the New Bragging Rights

Given my photographic proclivities, it's probably not surprising that at the moment I own four complete camera systems (granted one of them has some zooming issues due to an unfortunate fall and hasn't been out of the drawer in a few years, but it still takes perfectly good pictures), all four Canons, the most recent acquisition of which (purchased a scant two weeks ago) put a $1,300 dent on my credit card (but I got a really good deal on it!). Still, one can never have too many cameras, so for those of you who would like to take out a mortgage loan to treat me, this Hasselblad 31-megapixel camera is on sale ($9,000 off!) for a scant $18,000. :)

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Thursday, May 8

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

While enjoying the latest episode of "Top Chef" tonight (thanks to Cris for not spoiling it and yay to Richard for still being in), I saw a commercial for a company called "Finally Fast" that advertises a "free" computer scan (followed by a not-free "cleanup" of any problems it finds) for your PC. As a note unrelated to my amusement factor, what they're really selling is the same service that Spybot provides (except that Spybot is robust, highly recommended . . . and free), so what they're actually doing is cashing in on the computer-illiteracy of the average American.

What earned a laugh from me, though, was something completely unrelated in their ad. The opening and ending of the commercial, the "book ends," if you prefer, feature a young man first complaining that his computer (which "used to be so fast") is now crawling and then, after running Finally Fast, bragging in overly enthusiastic tones about how fast his PC is now. Except his "PC" is a 20-inch iMac (newer generation, either the last of the G5s or the first of the Intels). So the software the company is promoting wouldn't even install on his computer, let alone do anything to speed it up.

It's the details that get you.

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Wednesday, May 7

Jealousy

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Wednesday, April 30

Scientists Are Hard at Work on a Vaccine

From a science article on obesity's effect on carbon footprints:
It's no secret that obesity has plenty of personal health consequences; the list of diseases that have been associated with being overweight include higher risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and less sex, to name only a few.
Wait, "less sex" is a disease? Is it contagious? That sounds like the death knell for the planet, as dangerous as small pox or zombie viruses. "The CDC now reports that 98% of the population is infected with the "less sex" disease. Birth rates have plummeted."

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Monday, April 28

Generation Gap

Here's one to horrify my mother. I've always liked Dana Delaney (probably because "China Beach" was my mother's favorite show for awhile). I read an interview on Sunday about her tendency to date much younger men. That means if I'd played my cards right, my mother could be thrilled to actually meet one of her favorite actresses while simultaneously horrified that I was dating someone my mother's age.

That'd be a fun Christmas.

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Tuesday, April 15

Dammit, I Hate Spoilers

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Monday, April 14

Robert Armes, This One Is For You

For the past few weeks I've been watching various sites for Canon lens deals so I can upgrade from my current walk-around lens. On Friday the following ad popped up on the local Craig's List board:

"Canon EOS 5D 12.8 Megapixel w/ EF 24-105 Kit- $1100"

Right of the bat this seemed odd to me. The poster was advertising it as "like new," having only used it for "50 shots" before deciding he didn't need a full-frame camera. The language in the ad actually showed some degree of knowledge of cameras, but at the same time he's asking $1,100 for a nearly $3,000 camera. The lens alone is worth what he was asking for the package.

So I passed. I did forward it to Lisa with a joke about how I'd give her my XTi for free if she'd buy me this one, but other than that I forgot about it.

On Saturday afternoon it was still there, and I finally broke down and sent a query about the condition and original purchase point (no harm there). As usual, I used one of my "throw away" e-mail addresses so in case it *was* a scam I could just junk the e-mail address when I started receiving spam from it. No response came on Saturday, and within about three hours the ad was removed from Craig's List. I figured the seller had found a buyer and removed the ad to keep from receiving further inquiries.

Fast forward to this morning (Monday), when I receive the following:

> -------Original Message-------
> From: Robert Armes
> To: [my throw-away craigslist.org address]
> Subject: Canon EOS 5D 12.8 Megapixel w/ EF 24-105 Kit- $1100
> Sent: 14 Apr '08 13:14
>
> Hi there,
>
> I still have the Kit. But the thing is that i'm in the U.K. for my
> school ( i have the gear with me), if you're still interested in the sale
> please let me know and maybe we can work something out . So drop me a line
> if you're up for grabs!
> Thank you!
>
>
> Robert Armes
> 420, Prescot Rd, Old Swan, Liverpool, Merseyside L13 3DA
> United Kingdom
> Ph: 44 20 3014 7453
Alarm bells. First off, he didn't answer any of my questions. Second, he's suddenly in England, two days after advertising on an Omaha posting board? For school (a long-term obligation)? Why even bother to advertise it here? Third, now we're talking shipping charges, which defeats the purpose of Craig's List (local buying and selling) and introduces the potential for scams and fraud.

So I Googled his name and a few other pieces of information from the e-mail. It took less than 15 seconds to come up with a Flickr discussion board with posts from people who have received the exact same offer (using the same name and address) on the Craig's List boards of Seattle and Chicago. Some of the contributors to the board pursued it further than I did and had received instructions for sending payment through a faked-but-authentic-sounding shipping company.

Just a reminder that things that sound too good to be true probably are.

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Tuesday, April 1

A New Leaf

Even a casual perusal of my blog will touch upon my secular preferences, although I think I've done an admirable job of being the antithesis of the "militant atheist" so often denigrated in the common memetic circles.

As of late, however, I've really felt that something was missing. Something beyond physical stasis, perhaps some form of consensus reality where the dreams and beliefs of humanity shape existence. I dunno. In any case, I've decided to give Scientology a go; I remember that "exploding volcano" commercial for Dianetics when I was a kid and it's always seemed to have some commonsense appeal to it. I've looked for an Omaha chapter of the Church of Scientology without much luck (just some links to a defunct chapter), so I've had to sign up via the Internet. But the introductory packets arrived last week, so I should have some interesting homework for awhile.

And just in case you're still reading and are very confused, Happy April Fool's Day. :)

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Friday, March 14

Held Back

There has been some hoopla about the final Harry Potter book being made into two films instead of the traditional one (I'm sure Lane will be thrilled, given that the longer format means, hopefully, a movie truer to the book). I find it interesting, though, that by the time the final movie is released, the actor playing Harry will be 32 . . .

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Friday, January 25

Deadpan

"It looks like a mock-Tudor house from the front and it's got two turrets at the back," the spokeswoman said. "I understand there is also a cannon."

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Wednesday, December 19

Double Meanings

My boss came into my office today and told me to clean out my desk.

Really.

Turns out I'm getting a new (or slightly less used, anyway) desk.

No one seems to think I'm funny today when I pause before clarifying the first sentence. *harrumph*

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Friday, November 30

Payment Perils


Payment Perils
Originally uploaded by -Greyson-
I accidentally paid my power bill twice last month (once by online payment, and then again at the end of the month when I couldn't remember if I paid it online and their site was down, so I mailed a check). As a result, they credited my account and *this* month I owed a grand total of 87 cents. Due, of course, by the end of the month, with a $2 late fee if not paid on time. So my choices are to mail a check for 87 cents (meaning the check, the envelope and the stamp would make up more than a third of the cost) or pay it online like I normally do . . . except, to my amusement, the site won't accept a payment of less than a dollar.

So my next month's bill is going to have a credit of 13 cents on it . ;)

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Thursday, November 15

"You Know That I'm No Good"

"To all those booing, just wait till my husband gets out of incarceration. And I mean that."

When all else fails, threaten your fans. Good plan.

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Thursday, October 11

Day of Links

- My baby sister's campus is on lock-down after the get-away vehicle from an armed robbery at a casino was discovered in the vicinity. Scary stuff, but it's good to see the campus is taking it seriously in the wake of other recent campus incidents.

- There is a real decommissioned Titan missile base for sale on eBay. Perfect for an Evil Mastermind Lair(tm), a zombie-apocalypse retreat or a do-it-yourself Stargate facility. If only I had $1.5 million (plus another several million to renovate it, since it was "stripped for scrap" in the 60s). We could pool our money for anyone interested.

- As amusing as this video is on its own, it's compounded by the fact that the "blonde" second-from-left is one of my uncles. I'm glad to see he makes an even less attractive woman than I do.

- Although not a cup of tea palatable to everyone (both musically and politically), I found the song "Empty Walls" (even if the video quality on the official site is somewhat lacking) a sad-but-moving entry. For those trying to place the voice, this is the lead singer of "System of a Down" on his first solo outing.

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Tuesday, October 9

Winning Bids

eBay should have waited until the last moment and sniped this purchase instead of using the Buy It Now feature. Sheesh, you'd think they know this.

On a similar note . . . ;)

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Wednesday, October 3

A Penney Saved

JC Penney is amusing me this week. Such a simple statement deserves greater scrutiny, and a breakdown of the complex emotion I've conveniently labeled "amusing" would, in this case, reveal a smattering of "annoyance" and a healthy dose of "you've got to be kidding." Such are the limitations of language.

Due to a scarcity of counter space (compounded by cabinets that hang far too low, making what counter space I do have difficult to use), and owing to the acquisition of an awesomely monstrous mixer that has to go somewhere, I've decided I want one of these kitchen carts. It seems to be of decent construction (compared to the toy-like offerings at Wal-Mart), and I think we all know my affinity for copper. It would be nice to be able to roll out dough directly under the track lighting (illumination is a good thing).

Here begins the amusement. The stores do not carry furniture so I'm obviously going to be subject to shipping costs (I'm also, as Lisa enlightened me yesterday, going to be subject to sales tax despite it being an Internet order because they have a physical store in Nebraska . . . a store that doesn't carry this item). Calculating the basket on their Web site, however, gave me something of a shock. For $113 in shipping, I'm assuming it's arriving in an armored car surrounded by armed Hum-Vee escorts, driven by men in dark suits with little radios in their ears communicating their exact location to a command bunker via satellite every five minutes. Or "next-minute shipping" via their new teleportation service. My god, people.

Recalculating to deliver it to the nearest JC Penney store (the one that told me they don't carry furniture) drops the shipping costs drastically, so that appears to be the way to go. It *also* drops the taxes, which means they're charging taxes on the shipping. Harumph.

I also noted today, with those amused shakes of the head, that the main page of their site is dominated by the promo for their 105th Anniversary Sale, with a promotional discount code. The ad and the savings summaries are in large and colorful print. Hovering beneath, however, in nondescript grey text, are the inevitable exclusions, which include (*deep breath*): cookware, cutlery, cosmetics, electronics, furniture, housewares, mattresses, small appliances, sporting goods, toys and video games, along with a lengthy list of specific brands (as well as Santa suits, which seems oddly specific), leaving me to wonder just what exactly qualifies. Considering the maximum savings is $20, their exclusion list seems ridiculously complex. Apparently the kitchen cart is considered furniture, as the discount code curled up and died somewhere between pages 2 and 3 of the checkout process.

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Monday, October 1

Ninjas Are Everywhere

Even robbing stores.

On an unrelated note (as much as Lane would like to be a ninja), the two of us finally unlocked Mirror Mode in MarioKart. And promptly got our asses kicked in our first forays into playing the races backwards (we tied for last place after the first four races . . .). Go us.

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Saturday, September 22

Die Young and Leave a Beautiful Corpse

I caught a matinee of Resident Evil: Extinction today. It's certainly no Oscar-winning production, but for what it is (mindless entertainment featuring apocalyptic zombie wastelands based on a video game), it isn't bad.

I did find it amusing, however, that, despite the horde of zombie movies over the years, and the fact that these particular characters have been fighting off zombies for more than 5 years, no character in a zombie movie ever seems to wear the proper clothing. Every heartfelt, sad moment where a character reveals to a close companion that he or she was bitten in the previous skirmish and will now change into a zombie, forcing said companion to cry out in anguish and reluctantly agree to kill the character "when the time comes," could be avoided if the damn people weren't traipsing about the end times in shorts and t-shirts. My god, people, how hard is it to put on a motorcycle jacket before you enter a "supposedly abandoned" building? For extra safety, add some Motocross armor, reinforced biker pants, a helmet and Kevlar gloves and boots (as Gregg will attest, these are all readily available at any now-deserted-due-to-zombie-attack motorcycle store). Then those sad scenes could instead be "Oh, that's a nasty bite-shaped bruise you have there, but luckily it didn't break the skin! Now we can ride off into the sunset and have lots of babies!" But, no, we're going to whine and complain as we're picked off one by one because we've decided the standard uniform should be khaki cut-offs and tanktops.

On an only vaguely related note, the film was prefaced with a trailer for a horror flick called 30 Days of Night, whose hook is a brood of vampires terrorizing an Alaskan village after the sun dips below the horizon for an entire month. Perhaps it's addressed in this specific film, but as a general rule, both vampires and zombies (making it applicable to the previous movie commentary) are walking corpses, which means they're non-heat-generating walking corpses, so they should, theoretically, assume the ambient air temperature given enough time; in the case of arctic, snow-covered, below-freezing locales, this should mean frozen-solid undead in a matter of days. Granted perpetually cold locations aren't ideal for human survival, either, but hey, the Eskimos and Norse seem to have gotten by just fine for thousands of years; I'll take that over being eaten by walking corpses . . .

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Monday, September 17

Humanity's Long Twilight

Two unrelated items, both deserving of social commentary:

-Craig's List continues to supply items of amusement, although the emphasis on form over content here saddens me.

-I'm tempted to buy a Map of Humanity, although I'm not sure where I would put it. (Larger view here.) It's an interesting two-dimensional counterpoint to my previous post, providing compass points to my "journey."

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Friday, September 14

Early Adopters

I hear through the grapevine that Alec called me yesterday. On a toy cell phone. And proceeded to sit and tell me about her day in great detail (in the ever-growing vocabulary of a two-year-old).

That's kind of cute (for me). And doesn't bode well at all for Scott and Lisa's future phone bills . . .

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Monday, August 27

Busy Busy Busy

I've been swamped. My apologies. And I'm not writing anything of note now, either (I know, I'm a slacker).

Instead, amuse yourself with the animations of this site. :)

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Wednesday, August 22

Deep Into the Darkness Peering

I've been playing a new (to me) game on the GameCube the last couple of nights, one of the games that actually encouraged me to buy the Cube (no, not MarioKart, Lane). Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is a game "inspired" by H.P. Lovecraft's work, and as a huge Lovecraft fan how could I pass that up? The game has a similar feel to Lovecraft's stories, with human protagonists thrust into dealing with sanity-destroying cosmic entities trying to claw their way into our world. Gameplay-wise, it's very similar in style to Resident Evil, with the added bonus of flipping back and forth through a variety of characters in different historical periods (e.g., you start out as a Roman Centurion, then jump to medieval France, etc.).

The part I've enjoyed (and dreaded) the most, though, is the incorporation of the effects of sanity in the game. In Lovecraft's books characters regularly suffer nervous shocks or go insane simply by witnessing the events in the stories. In the game, this is represented by a "sanity meter," which drops every time you see a creature. As the meter drops, the game changes. To represent your character slowly going insane, the game throws in effects ranging from soft whispers and footsteps to bleeding walls to enemies that aren't really there to statues with heads that twist to follow you as you walk by.

Here's where it gets really good. If your sanity drops too far, the game breaks the fourth wall and actually starts messing with you as the player. The game will pretend the controller is unplugged, mute or turn up the volume, give television error messages, pretend to turn the television off entirely, make fake "bugs" crawl across the screen and, my personal favorite so far, make loud banging noises that sound like someone is pounding on the wall behind the television (that's always pleasant at 2 a.m. in a dark house . . .).

Yay for interactive media. :)

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Friday, August 17

Undesirables

Spotted on my way to work today:

In the midst of a protest rally in front of the Mexican embassy along Dodge Street, a man holding a sign that read "Deport all illegal immigrants and their sympathizers" (emphasis mine). I was amused at the irony involved in utilizing one's First Amendment rights to suggest removing another group's First Amendment rights.

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Thursday, August 9

Hips Don't Lie

I uploaded this photo to my human form portfolio on Flickr some time ago. Shortly thereafter Cris commented on the graceful feminine curves of the image, which was pleasant feedback. Of course, it would have been nicer feedback if the image wasn't of me, and if the commentary on the feminine curves hadn't come in the form of "Dude, you have girl hips." Taking the teasing in its good-natured form, I laughed along and forgot about it.

Last week another Flickr "favorited" the image (in essense, adding a bookmark to the image to tell other viewers you liked the photo). When I peeked at this person's favorites list (the entire collection of favorited images), I found that every single photo (about 150) in the collection were of backs and hips . . . of women. Except for the picture of me.

[insert Cris's burst of triumphant laughter here]

I still maintain it's the angle and crop of the photo. :P But Cris wins this round.

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Tuesday, July 31

What Your Ring Says About You

Scene: A quiet hallway in a professional law firm.
Action: The tinny ring tone of a visitor's cell phone blares loudly through the hallway, startling everyone. I crack up laughing.

My boss: Is that Wagner?
Me: *still laughing* No, that was "The Imperial March" from Star Wars.

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Tuesday, July 17

@#$%!

This is scarily accurate. Not just for me, but for Lane as well. Her repetoire of swear words is somewhat limited (and suitable for primetime television), but the meaning behind them is pretty clear.

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Saturday, July 14

Fashion Sense

I saw a teenager walking down the street today with what I thought was a chunk of yellow fiberglass insulation taped to the side of his head. As he walked by I realized it was his hair. He'd grown it to his shoulder on the left side and cut it short on the back and right sides, and then he'd dyed just the long part a fluorescent yellow (not even bleached blond, but actually colored highlighter yellow), which contrasted with the rest of his light brown hair. I realize I'm too old to be in the "hip" crowd, but come on, that's not even "making a statement." That's just "attention whore" (help me out here, kids; can you apply that slang term to a guy?).

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Friday, July 13

Days of Our Lives

My sympathies to all the paraskevidekatriaphobes out there today.

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Wednesday, July 11

Radio Waves

Heard on the radio today:

"It felt like being in jail. Although I guess I've never actually been in jail, so I don't know what jail feels like. But if that's what being in jail feels like, then it felt like being in jail."

I also heard a disturbing rendition of Queen's "We Are the Champions" performed by Disney cartoon characters . . .

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Tuesday, July 10

Seed Thief


Seed Thief
Originally uploaded by -Greyson-
I've noticed lately that the bird feeder holding sunflower seeds has been emptying about three times as fast as the others. This would