A Short Treatise on Football Players and Comedians

Jay Leno == Brett Favre

They’re both old fucks who don’t know when to give it up.  The End.

The Door’s Almost Shut

We’re approaching zero hour on 2009 and I couldn’t shrug my shoulders harder if I goddamn tried.  Work is busy and I’m attempting to purchase trinkets for everyone I know by next week.  Me and spacebee and belly and wwhazz ate at Pedros-Pedros-may-keen-mayx-ee-can the other night after a night of shopping.  It was a grand ol’ time, especially that deep-fried Snickers bar for dessert.

Not much goings-on elsewhere so I’d like to frankly discuss the 1964 classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Thusly: it’s not entirely clear to me just what drugs the creators were using, but I salute them and their efforts.  In a story ostensibly about the titular reindeer the spotlight instead falls upon (a) an elf desperately seeking a career in dentistry and (b) a north woodsman with a revolver hanging from his belt that clearly has mental problems.  It seems to me that the writers wanted to craft a different story entirely but were forced by the General Electric corporation to adapt their lunacy into a framework descended primarily from a one minute Christmas tune.  I don’t know whether the coercion took the form of ducats or whippings– the result is the same.  Also: everyone really hated that fucking Rudolph.  They just shit on him and shit on him until he saved the goddamn day.  He should have pooped in Santa’s mouth.

For those not on the spacebook, my concise review of How the Grinch Stole Christmas:

Zachery Moneypenny feels that the grinch was right to hate those whos- did you see the lunatic instruments they endlessly played?! How bout this: I’ll buy your downstairs neighbor a musical abomination consisting of a bowling ball, a huge metal pipe, and CHIMES and we’ll see if a steampunk xray machine detects any heart shrinkage on YOU.

I have nothing else to say about that shit.  Let’s all get together some Thursday night and watch star trek dvds.  I have one season on dvd (five, I think?) and can provide whiskey.

Everyone else out there: HAVE A GODDAMNED MERRY XMAS!

The Latest and Greatest in Opinions

Corona Beer Commercials

I really, really hate Corona beer commercials.  Fuck that asshole who skips his Blackberry into the water like a stone, or that bitch who squirts a lime into her husband’s face because he looked at another woman.  All it does is convince me that only assholes would want to drink your shit beer while they sit on a beach.  In conclusion: fuck Corona.

Amazon Kindle

So I’ve been reading a variety of books on the Kindle for about a day now.  I’m sure I’ll have more opinions, but this is pretty much the 24 hour first impressions: it’s pretty good, with one really annoying ‘feature’ and one kind of annoying aspect.

The great thing is that the e-ink that they tout as having the same reading experience as real paper is really great.  I read out on the balcony this morning in the sunlight and it was easy as pie– no glare problems whatsoever.  The online store (accessible from the device as well as from a web browser) is pretty good as well, with lots of free classic books.  I got McTeague, Heart of Darkness, and Darwin’s On the Origin of Species for free so far.  I also got The Death of WCW for $9, which I’m kind of using as my test book.

The one really annoying thing about the Kindle is the ‘feature’ that it shares with the iPhone: if you tilt it sideways it will go from portait to landscape mode.  The problem: if I’m sitting or lying down and reading, I may tilt the unit in such a way as it switches when I don’t want it to.  It’s really annoying, and I had to hunt around to find out how to the turn the feature off.  The iPhone does the same thing, and I don’t like it there either.

The kind-of annoying aspect is that, (I think) due to the way the e-ink display works, when you turn the page the whole screen goes dark, and when it fades away it leaves the content on the next page.  It’s an odd visual tick that distracts when you’re reading.

Finally, the book management on the device is pretty poor.  You just get a straight-up list of all the books on the Kindle; no ability to sort them into directories, tag them, or anything else.  You can sort the (eventually) giant list by author or title.  I’m hoping in the future to be able to define folders or something to be able to do my own custom sorting.

Overall: I love reading on the thing, it’s only a bit of the organization of the content outside of the context of the book itself that I have some beef with.  I’d recommend it to people who want to be able to take lots of books various places.  I got the DX, which has a 9″ screen.  The original Kindle has a smaller screen, but I hear it’s also much lighter, which would be a plus.

Revisiting the iPhone

In doing some research for this article, I went back in time and re-read this post from July 2007, where I rehashed something Scientist said in comments about why he would never get an iPhone.  I declared that I had no interest in getting an iPhone (which had been released just a few prior) mostly since I felt that “I own a laptop and a desktop computer (not counting my work laptop), and there really isn’t a good reason to buy a phone that does the exact same shit.”  Well, later that year I ending up buying an iPhone when I was working on the Quicken for the iPhone project, and I haven’t really looked back since.  I actually really like it these days, but I gotta admit that the 3G version is about ten thousand times better than the Edge.  Also, the App Store opened up a whole new realm, and my favorite current video game is actually on the iPhone even though I would have laughed at you if you suggested that one year ago.  Summary: I really like the iPhone today, and a lot of the concerns I had back then turned out not to be a problem.

Bandwagonin’

Yahoo. Seriously.  You fucking suck.

I am on a page that shows all of the players in the pool.  How do I make my pick? Here are my choices from the home page:

Dumb

Hmm, perhaps I’ll choose “Group Picks”, as I am in a group and I want to make a goddamned pick.

Really dumb

Really? There’s no way for me to make my selection here? Really?! In desperation, I will click on my name at the top. It’s blue; it seems to be a link of some kind.

WTF

Well, now I see my picks but there is no clearly marked way to create a new one.  “Edit”? Are you fucking kidding me? That’s how I’m supposed to make my pick? Look assholes, the entire goddamned point of your dumbfuck site is so people can pick a football team every week.  Without that feature, you have no reason to exist.  Your solution is apparently to bury that key feature under a thousand layers of obfuscated horseshit links and terminology.  I can only surmise that either:

1. The developers and product managers of this piece of shit have never played any kind of fantasy football in their lives (actually a strong guess, since this work has most likely been farmed to some contractor in India), or…
2. Yahoo actually doesn’t want to be in this business and they want to actively make people quit using their fantasy football tools.

I can’t think of another reason at the moment.  Scientist: didn’t you code up a survival league website back in the early aughts? Put that shit back online.

The Wildcat Formation

Today’s science lesson: the Wildcat Formation.  I’ll be shamelessly using Wikipedia as my primary source for this paper; it’s the baddest source I ever saw (like Michael Jackson’s Bad or George Thorogood’s Bad to the Bone, not bad bad.)

The Wildcat Formation is a “variation on the single-wing formation,” used in high school and college football for years but currently showing well in the NFL as well.  It is heralded most directly by a direct snap to the running back.

One reason that the formation is so effective is that

the rushing play is 11-on-11 (although different variations have the running back hand off or throw the football). In a standard football formation, when the quarterback stands watching, the offense operates 10-on-11 basis. The motion also presents the defense with an immediate threat to the outside that it must respect no matter what the offense decides to do with the football.

The Miami Dolphins have had considerable success using the Wildcat, and even teams that don’t run it themselves admit that they have to spend extra time preparing the defensive plan to counter.

Check this page of search results for more videos describing and showing the formation in the wild.

Now onto other news… this piece of goddamned fucking nonsense has officially replaced Daniel Hinkel (he bought me a drink at the Karaoke Kid; not a bad fellow) in the pantheon of Stupid Shit Written for a College Newspaper (2009 Edition).  So in the interest of being added to yet another Enemies List somewhere in a Langdon St. efficiency, I give you Motherfucking (I Am Not Kidding) Erin Kay Van Pay:

According to Dr. Michael Farken of California’s Santa Barbara Regional Psychiatric Hospital, “Peen-Face” is a temporary physical condition that comes to fruition upon photographing a subject without their knowledge. It has serious consequences for the reputation of the victim. Peen-Face occurs when the subject’s mouth is open so far wide and in such a manner that it appears that a “peen” has either just been inside the cavity or is about to penetrate it. As the number of pic and run incidents increases, the number of Peen-Face cases increase s proportionally. Victims are typically in the background of the photograph talking, eating or playing beer pong. Lewd comments almost always follow the posting of pictures that contain this ailment.

Texas A&M freshman Sam D., 18, was shocked to find that moments after his buddy tagged a picture of him at a house party in which he had moderate Peen-Face, seven comments from three friends were posted accusing Sam of homosexuality. “My friends now think I’m gay. I was on the phone when [the picture] was taken… with my girlfriend.” Adds Sam, “Peen-Face has ruined my relationship and my life.”

Daily Cardinal: if that is supposed to be an attempt at humor, then you have failed spectacularly.  You now have XPAC Heat. I hate writing GET-OFF-MY-LAWN opinions about college idiots, but when you write something so spectacularly stupid that it will probably used as a punchline in the next Funny/Stupid/Epic/Action Movie in the franchise (punctuated by someone’s dick getting exposed/hit/falling off or a fart that blow dries someone’s hair/smells/causes an explosion) it stimulates my Old Man Ganglia and I start shaking my fist at no one in particular.  Stop.  Just stop. Please.

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

I am going to talk about a video game that enraged me this morning– if you don’t like it then (jerks thumb) screw.

I had heard vaguely good things about a game called Puzzle Quest before, and I have enjoyed puzzle games in the past (Chuzzle, Zuma, Bookworm, etc.) so when I saw a featured game on Xbox Live Arcade called Puzzle Quest: Galactrix I bought it.  What appeals to me is the ‘gather strength and weapons’ aspect of RPGs mixed with the puzzling action.  I won’t get into exactly how Puzzle Quest mixes weapons and tetris, but if you even care you’re probably the type of person that can imagine how it works.

My progression was fine until this morning.  As you defeat stronger enemy ships in combat you get money, cargo (which you can sell for money), and plans (which you can use to create new weapons and ships).  You have the choice of purchasing new weapons and ships, or you can combine plans and cargo to create your own.  I was content to purchase the weapons I wanted, or sometimes I crafted them.  However, at a certain point in the game you face increasingly tough enemies who can wipe your little ship out in two turns.  At this point all the weapons in the world can’t help you– you need a bigger damn ship.

So, as I mentioned above, the ships are obtainable in three ways: buying, finding, and crafting.  You hardly ever find a ship, but that is how I moved from the small version to the medium version.  I kept hoping to ‘find’ a big ship but so far no luck.  I did, however, get plans for building a huge ship.  It had lots of preconditions (an immense amount of cargo, and you have to solve an incredibly hard puzzle) but I spent all morning cruising around the galaxy, mining asteroids and running errands for asshole aliens.  Finally, I have assembled all the ingredients to make my huge ship which will propel me to victory against the Borg– er, ‘Soulless’ (I see what you did there, developers).

Here I should explain how the cargo, or ingredients, work.  Your ship can only hold so much.  You can have up to three ships at a time.  This becomes important later, but for some reason even though you fly and fight in only one of your three ships, your total available cargo room is calculated by adding up all three ships’ cargo capacity.

Ok, I got the ingredients, I got the plans, let’s craft ourselves a Voltragg Battlecruiser! Er, no.  “You already have three ships in your fleet.”  Hmm, ok, I’ll sell my smallest ship that I never use.  Then I’ll have room in my fleet for my Voltragg Fucking Battlecruiser.  (sell item) “You can’t do that because you have too much cargo.”  So I can’t sell my smallest ship because my cargo would then exceed the combined capacity of all my ships– I already had a feeling of dread.  I sold off all my excess cargo, the stuff that wasn’t necessary to build my battlecruiser; not enough.  So I sold more, and more until I was able to sell the small ship.  And now? I don’t have enough capacity to hold the ingredients to make my fucking battlecruiser.

My only option now is to sell all my cargo, and my second ship. Then buy a new second ship that I have no intention of using but that has a large capacity so I can put enough fucking cargo in it so I can have a third slot open so I can build a motherfucking Voltragg Battlecruiser.  pant, pant.  Fuck.

I should not have to buy a second (very expensive) ship (let’s call it the Stor-N-Save) just so I have somewhere to put the materials I’ll use to build my Eradicator of Worlds.  Fuck you, game-makers.

No Accidents!

GM and Segway (yes, the scooterific people) are hooking up to make a vehicle that will change the way you putter around Manhattan.  Check out the picture first.  Awesome (sarcasm).  Anyways, I was mildly amused that, after introducing the Hummer to the world and making cash off of gigantic SUVs for years, GM’s new strategy is to put you into a brand new shiny, two-wheeled shopping cart.  So I started reading the accompanying artiCAL and was stopped in my tracks.

Larry Burns, GM’s vice president of research and development, and strategic planning, said the project is part of Detroit-based GM’s effort to remake itself as a purveyor of fuel-efficient vehicles. If Hummer took GM to the large-vehicle extreme, Burns said, the PUMA takes GM to the other.

Ideally, the vehicles would also be part of a communications network that through the use of transponder and GPS technology would allow them to drive themselves. The vehicles would automatically avoid obstacles such as pedestrians and other cars and therefore never crash, Burns said.

Well, I’m glad they’ll never crash. Even without getting into the particulars of Murhpy’s Law that is an asinine statement.  The idea that if we wrap a shopping cart with enough wi-fi that it will never hit anything is pretty lunatic territory, and that’s not even getting into misusing your shopping cart through drunkenness, etc.

On this one, I’m firmly in the A2K camp.

PAX 2008

I spent the weekend in Seattle to attend the Penny Arcade Expo, put on by the guys who make the Penny Arcade webcomic that I’ve been reading since the late 90s.  I met up there with EvilAntnie and Alandovos and had a great time, though I’m not sure if we’ll make the trip next year.

I flew in on Thursday night (the con started on Friday afternoon) and kicked it with maddddddddddddddd and rach-o.  They took me down to Ivar’s-on-the-lake and we had some down-home fast food seafood.  After that scientist took me to Diamond Lil’s card room where we hooted and/or holllared until the wee hours of the morning.  Scientist: about even, me: dead broke.  It was straight up bay area-style asian poker: gambo, gambo, lose.

So I haven’t been to a Nerd Fest in quite a while, but when I was a kid we used to hit up Gen Con in Milwaukee every year until it moved down to Indianapolis.  It was kinda odd coming back into the fold, because I’m a Nerd-In-Good-Standing in some ways (check off the requisite boxes: sci-fi fan, RPG fan, video game fan, quasi-anime fan, CCG fan) while being generally horrified by other element’s of Con Life: cosplay, bad smells, greasy lunatics, EXTREME anti-social behavior.  PAX had some of everything but overall I had a good time; for example I met incredible fucking assholes while playing WoW TCG games and standing in lines (oh, the lines!) The majority of folks, however, were nice and polite.  The PAX Enforcers (volunteers that roam the con) were incredibly helpful.

PAX is mostly organized by a legion of volunteers, and it stands out among other conventions because it’s built around a cult of personality firstly, and shared culture secondly.  So if you want to attend the insanely popular “Make A Strip” session (where the two guys make a comic strip onstage with audience particpation) or the Q&A Session you must stand in a line with literally thousands of people for upwards of one and a half hours before they open the doors the auditorium.  I hate lines and I hate large crowds, so those things don’t sit well with me.

I heard there were 50,000+ people attending this weekend, but as a rule I steered clear of lines and crowds by just going to places where the people weren’t.  If there was a popular session going on, I would miss it and take the opportunity to do stuff that otherwise would have been crowded.  What that means is that I didn’t spend much time in lines, but I also missed the cool experiences that drew me to the convention in the first place which is why I’m on the fence about attending again next year.

The Operational Rule of Nerds: Never underestimate the amount of time a nerd will wait in line to get something free/cheap/signed/limited in quantity.  Even if the place does not open until 10am… if the thing in question is good enough and you think a sane person would show up at 9am, so you’ll be first in line at 8am, then count on nerds sleeping overnight on the sidewalk in front of the doors where the thing will be given away or sold.  Many sane individuals have not gotten a cool thing because the underestimated nerds ability to stand in lines.

I didn’t participate in a whole lot of organized stuff– walked the exhibit hall and saw a lot of new video games that they were demoing (Castle Crashers looks cool), played some WoW TCG tourneys, saw WoW Minis demo, playde D&D 4th ed with Alandovos on Saturday morning (we wiped on the 2nd encounter), and took pictures of all the crziness around me.

Saturday night we hit the concerts: ditched the first band and drank, saw the end of the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets set (pretty good cthulu-metal, if you’re into that), and watched MC Frontalot and The Minibosses.  The concerts went way late so we ditched at around 2am and headed back to the hotel.

I’ll probably have some pictures up once I get back into town (I’m writing this from the SEA-TAC airport). Until then– HOLLLARIT whazzmaster.com.

Cast ‘Member’

The Brewers game today wasn’t on TV so I had it on my radio while I worked.  They ended up sweeping the Nationals (awesome) and I happened to leave the radio on while I was doing other stuff.  Anyways, I ended up hearing a commercial for some joint out by the mall called Tilted Kilt Pub.  Apparently these dudes are trying to give Hooters a run for their money– which I guess I can understand but there were two things that bothered me.

One: From their ‘about us‘ page:

The idea for a modern American, Irish, Scottish and English sports pub was the brain child of successful restaurateur Mark DiMartino. Wanting to impress Harrah’s hotel executives, Mark dressed in his finest T-shirt, ripped Levi’s and well-worn Chuck Taylor sneakers and pitched his idea of a contemporary, Celtic theme sports pub staffed with beautiful servers. And guess what the uniforms would be… knee-high socks and short, sexy plaid kilts with matching plaid halter tops under white shirts tantalizingly tied to show off the midriff.

There really is a lot of backslapping going on here when the idea boils down to: Hooters + Less Orange Shit.  Don’t try to sell me that this is the idea of the millenium.

Two: They’re using the Vegas Showgirl-Style of employee management.  All of the employees are called ‘cast members’.  From the Kilt Kareers (?) page:

The Tilted Kilt is always looking for talented and service-oriented cast members. We’re casting the rolls of: Tilted Kilt Girl, Tilted Kilt Host and Tilted Kilt Bartender in new and existing sports pubs now.

Bottom line: we don’t have to abide by any equal opportunity loaws because we are casting a role not hirin– fuck it NO UGGOS ALLOWED!  Dude, unless I’m at dinner theater I don’t want a ‘cast member’ serving me food.  No, fuck that, even at a dinner theater I don’t want a fucking cast member serving my food.  You (pointing at actor), act. You (pointing at waitress), serve food.  Don’t want to eat there… unless they show Pay per views, I guess.

Foggy Madison plus Bonus Charter Hate

My trip to California for business and MacWorld has not gotten off to a good start.

The following was the mail I sent my group mailing list this morning:

Hi everyone—

I’m Zach Moneypenny. You may remember me from such projects as File & Pay, and The Winner of That One Halloween Contest. Well, thanks to (AL Gore’s ominous voice and accompanying Nobel Prize-winning PowerPoint slide deck) GLOBAL WARMING, in the last two days Wisconsin has experienced 55 degree temperatures, thunderstorms, tornados, and layer of dense fog kinda like San Francisco, except it never ‘burns off’.

The ‘punchline,’ as it were: My flight to California yesterday was canceled (along with all others), rebooked for this morning, whereupon it was again canceled (along with all others), and I was rebooked to tomorrow (Wednesday). When asked what I was supposed to do to get to Cali-for-nye-yae for business they offered me a cart, two oxen, and team of 5 stout men to forge a new overland route. I politely declined, as I can technically attend meetings via The Webernet.

Tomorrow morning I’ll make a saving throw vs. weather and see if I can board a mystical flying boat that will get me to my destination: Kansas City, WHICH FROM WHERE I will depart for all points San Francisco.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Midwest Airlines is not on my Happy-With list right now (betcha didn’t know I have one of those). I was supposed to be in Mountain View at noon on Monday. Here we are 4pm on Tuesday and I’m still in my miserable living room. I thought we lived in two thousand fucking eight, where marvels of modern science whisked you among the clouds except, apparently, when those clouds are very low to the ground.

So, if all goes well (it won’t) I’ll be in SFO at 11am on Wednesday, until next Wednesday the 16th. HOLLLLAR at a player if you see him on the streets (or in an airport bar).

Fucking Charter Fucking Communications Can Fuck Themselves

I know. I know. I. Know. Why would I get back into bed with the ass-raping fucknuts after what happened last time? All I wanted was HDTV so I could see the Green Bay playoff games on the fancy-pants TV that I’ve had forever now. They asked if I wanted a DVR for only a few more dollars a month. “OK, fine.” When the guy came to hook it up, he crammed the Tivo-sized unit into a small shelf in my entertainment center. “Is it going to work in there?” I asked, “Because I can move things around a bit.” He assured me that it would be no problem.

After two days the least surprising thing in the universe happened: there was a problem. The unit overheated, blew a gasket, shut down, and hasn’t restarted since. We weren’t able to watch the weekend playoff games, and when we called for someone to come exchange it the earliest was Tuesday (today). They asked us to be here between 5 and 7pm.

I think you all know how this goes. Second (or fucking 7th, I’ve lost track at this point) same as the first…

Friday [Ed note: it was Tuesday this time] comes and goes, no one ever shows up or calls (MISSED SERVICE CALL 1). I would later be told that someone came to my house but I wasn’t there. Funny, I work from home; I was there all fucking day. My cell phone has this feature where I know if someone called. No one called.

Fuck. Charter. Communications. Why in the Fuck can’t Madison have more than one fucking cable company; preferably one that does its motherfucking job without fucking people over with substandard equipment, fucking awful pricing, and motherfucking asshole shitfuck twat-faced cock-sucking cunt-sucking shit-eating motherfucking shitheel ‘customer service.’ Oh, and could we please get a goddamned motherfucking company that shows the football and basketball games of the team from the major college of the town and state in which they fucking operate? Fucking. Assholes.