Rant On

A couple of rants tonight.

First of all, there is a spot running on ABC.com that is driving me nuts. You've probably never seen it— I don't believe it's an air-able commercial— but I have to endure it one or more times every time I watch an episode of Lost on the website. It's a spot about their own show, Wipeout. In the spot, the host of the show is talking to the producer of the show. Ostensibly, they're going to show us how exciting Wipeout is. The name of the mimbo show host is not given, nor should it be. He's just another pretty face exploiting his 15 minutes of fame, and two years from now he'll be on some 'celebrity' reality show. Or he'll be in rehab. Anyway, he is wearing a swim suit and appears to be ready to run the Wipeout obstacle course. He announces that he's here to talk to the producer of Wipeout. I'll paraphrase a few of their lines:

Mimbo: "I'm here with the producer of Wipeout, and he's going to give us a rundown of the course."

Producer: "This is what we tell all the contestants."

Mimbo: "Great. How about a few hints since I work for ABC?"

Producer: "I'm going to tell you only what I tell the contestants."

Mimbo: "That's fair."

That's fair? Mimbo, did you even bother to listen to the conversation you were participating in? Do words fly out of your mouth so fast, that you can't screen them for logic or rationality? Let's look at what happened. The producer told you he was going to give you the same rundown he gives to all the contestants. You asked him if he could hook you up with a little extra knowledge, and he shut you down completely. Then you said, "That's fair." What's fair about it? You asked for something extra, and the producer didn't budge an inch for you. On a scale of 0-to-100, where '0' represents the producer's end and '100' represents your request, your negotiation came up '0'. The producer totally shut you down without even a whiff of compromise. Where's 'fair' in that? Hunh? Answer me, Mimbo.

Yes, the answer to your question is that I have seen that spot too many times...

My second rant is less kind. I know I'm not the most attractive person in the world. I know I don't always appear in public with my best face on. Once or twice a week I go through my day without a shower. My beard is frequently unshaven. I wear shorts all the time when maybe my legs aren't all that good looking. I certainly don't have the chest or stomach to wear tee shirts that well either. All that means that I know I'm no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow— but at least I am conscious of my presence around others. At least I am aware of what effect I may be producing, and I take steps to minimize anything unpleasant when I can. (For instance, if my hair is unwashed, I will usually put on a hat in public.)

So, my question is this: Why the fuck do people go to the grocery store looking and acting like it's just another room in their own damn house? I am seriously tired of this. The grocery store is where my food is being stored until I can afford to bring it home. You lazy mother-fuckers need to get back in your cars, go home, wash your face and your hands, and put on a shirt that doesn't have holes the size of grapefruits in it. And put on some shoes while you're at it. If you rolled out of bed in the morning and put on a muumuu then stepped into some house slippers, that's fine. But the muumuu and the house slippers stop at the door— especially if your muumuu is so threadbare that we can see your bra and/or other undergarments beneath it. Take a look at yourself in the mirror if you need to. Maybe your family accepts you for who you are, but is this the best face you can show to the public? Pretend to fucking care. Just for the 15 minutes we have to be around you.

And while I'm at it, even if you don't care what we think of you, at least spare the brain power to acknowledge that we're close by. If you take up most of the aisle— with or without a shopping cart— move to one side or the other when someone else is coming your way. And make sure your kids do so as well. I understand it may take four of you to pick out which flavor of Pebbles cereal to buy, but spreading yourselves across 10 square feet of the aisle isn't going to help. That goes for you people in the electronic scooters too. Whether or not you're genuinely handicapped or your just too fat and lazy to walk, you don't have a free pass to ignore everyone around you.

I've lately grown disgusted with the clientele in my local Stater Bros. Sorry you had to put up with that.

See you soon!

"Courtesy is the one coin you can never have too much of or be stingy with."— John Wanamaker

And Another Thing

I forgot to mention last night that spending an hour or two playing games most days helps me with something else. I subscribe to a lot of podcasts— between 25 and 30 of them. Most are weekly, several are daily, and a few of them are sporadic. Most are 45 to 90 minutes in length. My game playing time is also my podcasting time. So, when I'm not playing games regularly, my podcasts stack up. Right now I have over 250 backlogged podcasts. About half of that backlog built up the three weeks I was in Florida.

So there's another reason I need my WoW back. :-P

I listed a few items on CraigsList this afternoon. They were items I picked up at BlizzCon a few years ago. As such, they're small and easy to get rid of. I had dreams of scoring some quick cash off them, but as yet I've not received even one response. I'll leave them posted another day or two, and if there's still no response, I'll try ebay.

Here's an update on me watching Lost. I am well and truly into the show now. I'm only a few episodes further along than the last time I wrote about watching the show, and that's because I discovered that I can watch episodes of Craig Ferguson's show online. Keeping up with those is my top priority, and Lost comes in second place. But, I believe it's safe to say I'm truly hooked on Lost now. I find the flashback sequences to be a bit annoying, even though they round out the characters and show why the characters are behaving the ways they do. Still, my interest is primarily concerned with what's happening on the island.

I don't think I mentioned it here yet, but my brother recently hired me to help build a merchant website for his company. It's nice work, something I've always wanted more experience with, but also something I've been hesitant to dive into. When there's a site to show off, I'll definitely link it here so that everyone can check it out and buy something nice. :-P Of course, since my brother represents about 25% of the readership of this blog, there probably won't be a huge sales jump after the free advertising here.

Along the same lines, I am trying to study C#, hoping it might be useful to me professionally in the long run. I scanned an article that Monster sent to me this afternoon about trying to maintain a career in I.T. when you're older. One of the key points was staying up on current technologies. That's hard enough when you're active in the field. I used to get maybe half a dozen different magazines when I was the I.T. manager at FirstAm. I couldn't do much more than leaf through them, reading a few paragraphs here and there when something caught my eye. Now I don't have those resources, and I can't afford magazine subscriptions. But, I have always enjoyed programming, and C# is the newest and brightest baby out there so I'm giving it a shot.

A friend of mine told me the other day that another friend of hers develops apps for the iPhone. She suggested I check that out as well. I will admit that it interests me, but I have no iPhone (or iPod Touch) to play with, making development rather tricky. Along a similar line, however, I've been thinking about developing something for Facebook. I'm not sure what I could do, but there seems to be a call for brainless apps on Facebook. I have a tiny idea for one in the back of my head, but I'm not sure about it yet.

Well, this has been something of a hodgepodge. See you again soon!

"Radio is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome."— T. S. Eliot

WoW, O WoW, Wherefore Art Thou

A couple months back I turned off all my online games. I say 'all' as if there were that many, but in fact there were only three, each costing $13 - $14 a month. (A lot of people object to the monthly costs of online games, but I find them to be the best entertainment value out there.) I was subscribed to Vanguard, Warhammer, and World of Warcraft. Vanguard I only played irregularly because the game has never worked well since it debuted a few years ago. Over the last year and a half, I've been subscribed maybe six months. I would play it for a month or two, get disgusted with all the bugs and 'quirks', then unsubscribe. A few months later I would subscribe again and repeat the pattern, always with the hope that the game would be better. It's a decent enough game and looks pretty, but it sinks under its flaws after awhile.

Warhammer is a fun game that debuted last year. Like Vanguard, it has flaws, but the flaws don't kill the game. Also like Vanguard, I had a pattern of subscribing for a month or two at a time and then walking away for a few months. Needless to say, cancelling my subscriptions to these two was relatively painless, and probably would have happened anyway at some point since.

World of Warcraft (WoW), on the other hand... I love playing WoW! Just over 10 years ago I jumped into the MMO game field by playing EverQuest. EQ was a fine game for its time, and I played it for 4½ years. Then a friend got me into the WoW Alpha test program. I started WoW believing I could play both, but after two weeks of not touching my EQ account, I cancelled it and never looked back. If you add up the time I played WoW in Alpha and Beta and the time since the game went live, I've played WoW for almost six years. And, with the exception of times when I was on vacation or otherwise not able to log into my account, I played nine days out of ten, sometimes an hour, sometimes five or six hours. I know most of the WoW game world better than I know San Bernardino.

So, turning off my WoW account was hard. I initially turned it off at the same time I turned off the others, but then the WoW writing contest came around, and I turned my account back on for a month in case I needed some in-game references. But, when that additional month expired, I turned off my account and it's been off ever since. That's been about six weeks now.

I have to tell you it's been hard. I know most people would say that I'm addicted to the game, and I will agree that addiction is a factor. But, honestly, I would rather play WoW than watch TV, and, in my book, WoW has more value than 99% of TV. Unlike TV, when I'm playing WoW, my mind is actively engaged. When I watch TV I usually have to play solitaire or do something else because TV just doesn't hold my interest longer than 15 minutes— and that's programs I like! (When I watch TV with other people it's a little different because I view the program we're watching as part of a conversation all of us are having... which is why I piss off some people while watching TV because I feel free to talk during it.)

I have other games— many other games— that I can play offline. My infatuation with them rarely lasts long though. Here's the really ironic thing: even though I choose to almost never play in a group or a raid with other people online, I do enjoy seeing the other characters (players) running around the game world. It makes me feel like part of the community, even though I am the silent neighbor.

Without WoW I have had to find other sources for online play. There are oodles of free online games out there these days, but 'free' is another way of saying 'alternate form of payment.' By and large that alternate form of payment means you're playing a shallow and uninteresting game. I have played Dungeon Runners. DR is a one-dimensional parody of WoW. You can play it for absolutely nothing, but if you do, there is a banner ad at the top of the game window. I can live with that, but the next limitation is that super duper cool items are not equipable by free players. That is, you might kill a rat monster and see it drop the Righteous Sword of Unholiest Slaying, but as a free player all you can do is sell it for a tiny bit of coin. Only paying players can equip the uber items. (DR has a modest monthly fee of $4.99) But, in the long run, the problem with DR is that you can only play it a week before it gets mind numbingly repetitive and dull.

I logged in one evening to my old Guild Wars account. GW is so close to being a good game. It's several years old now, but the game world is still gorgeous. There's just something that doesn't quite work about the game. On top of that nebulous something, the game also requires group play for a lot of content, and, as I said, I don't like to group up with others. Having bought the GW game years ago, it's free for me to play online as much as I want, but I find that it just doesn't call me to come back and play over and over.

I've also tried an insane Chinese-made game called Ether Saga. It's like running around in the cutest anime ever filmed— so cute in fact that it feels like you're killing pokémon. Of all the online games I've played, it has the most innovative new features. In fact, one of the problems, I feel, is that there is too much going on. It's as if there are so many options that you can't even hold them all in your head simultaneously. On top of that, the color scheme of the game is absolutely lurid, with the brightest blend of day-glo and pastel colors you've ever seen. It rather hurts one's eyes.

So, where does that leave me now? Well, ironically, last week I got an email from the makers of Vanguard and they are offering free gameplay for the month of June to all former subscribers. That's what I've been playing. But, in a week, I've grown so bored with it, that I already want to give it up.

I guess this means I have an extra hour or two a day to be productive. You'd better believe when I have a steady employment check again that WoW will be the first thing I turn back on!

See you soon.

"Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind."— Thomas Jefferson

Ground Control To Major Tom

I am really out of it.

Several days ago I somewhat decided to kick my caffeine habit. It wasn't a decision I really meant to make, but one I walked backwards into. I didn't have any caffeine in the house, and I am so low on money that I didn't feel like going to the store to get some. Amazingly that day passed without any kind of negative reaction from my body. When the next day dawned, I felt confident in going forward with the break. Unfortunately, that day the first caffeine headache set in. It wasn't too bad, and I fought it off with a couple doses of ibuprofen. By day's end I felt pretty good, and that night passed without the headache returning. The next day I pronounced myself to be past the headache and into the 'fuzziness.' (The last time I gave up caffeine, early 2002, it took about two weeks before my head cleared up. I was in a constant fog.) Well, the headache returned later that day with a vengeance and also came around the following day. Today, however, I was headache free the entire day. Oh boy is the fuzziness with me though. The last two or three days I have been in bed about 12 hours of the day... maybe more! I'm not sure. I've tended to go to bed earlier than normal— 11 PM one night— and then sleep in. Most mornings I've been up for an hour or so in the early morning, checking email, etc., but then I fall asleep again for a few hours. I'm hoping that if I allow myself to get all the sleep I seem to need right now, the fuzziness will pass faster. It can't pass fast enough for my money. I was on the phone tonight with a friend, and I found myself forgetting simple words. And then running into that forgotten word block would almost derail me from the conversation. It must have been annoying to be on the other end of the conversation.

The last time I gave up caffeine it lasted about two months, maybe three. Once my ship passed the shoals of fuzziness, it was clear sailing, and I felt good. It is hard, however, to live without caffeine since it is in so many of my favorite drinks. In particular, I love iced tea. Iced tea is my substitute of choice when I don't feel like having a Diet Coke. When you eat out, those tend to be the only sugar free choices you can get, besides water. Despite what you may think given how big I am, I am not a fan of sugared drinks. Seeing as how I can't afford to eat out, it may be easier to steer clear of caffeine this time around.

What brought me back into the arms of caffeine last time was the very successful diet I went on, beginning about March of 2002. I lost about 70 pounds by sticking very strictly to a low-carb diet. I didn't have to do anything else— the pounds just melted off. But, I somehow made myself stick to it very strictly— so strictly in fact that Lisa's Mom scolded me for not eating much more than ham and salad that year when they invited me over for Easter. Anyway, about a week or two into the diet I was in misery. I ended up making a pact with myself, allowing caffeinated beverages back into my life, but only those with no carbs. I've heard that caffeine is a no-no on a low-carb diet, but the formula worked OK for me.

Well, I fell hard this week. I've been putting it off for years, but I finally started watching Lost this week. All of my regular shows are off for the Summer and Craig Ferguson was in re-runs so I decided to take the plunge. ABC.com has all the episodes available online in HD, which is a nice plus. So far I'm enjoying it but I'm not compelled by it yet. I have heard too many things over the years from friends. I know what happens in a lot of the early plotlines. There have been a few surprises though. For example, I always got the impression that Locke was an asshole. So far he's been pretty likable, like he's the island's shaman. I also thought the flashback sequences would be a little more cryptic. However, they have dovetailed nicely in each episode with some dilemma that character is facing in the episode. Honestly, it seems more like the island is trying to be Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap and fix these people week after week. I assume things will get more involved as I get further into the series.

Hmmm... I had more things in my head to talk about, but they seem to have drifted off. I think it's time for sleep.

"I believe that every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don't intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises."— Buzz Aldrin