meandering thoughts

Tomorrow, we're going over to a friend's apartment to look at a cat. Liz has been wanting to get a second cat since before we got Mirta a year and a half ago almost, but only now could we afford it (kind of). If Mirta and Monster (tentatively named Milo, or possibly something else) get on, we'll have a black cat with green eyes in addition to our half-siamese bratcat. Monster was abandoned at our friend's church and she took him home, fed him so he isn't malnourished anymore, and then her cat stopped crapping in the sand in protest. Hopefully, Mirta won't react the same way. Since we'd be getting MiloMonster for free (no adoption fee, already neutered, all shots) I told Liz that if we get another cat, she has to get me (or go in with me on) an Xbox 360. I will FINALLY PLAY GEARS OF WAR AND MASS EFFECT!

In other news, this evening (or noon depending on your global location) BBC Wales announced the actor who will be filling David Tennant's Chuck Taylors in 2010 as The Doctor (Who). Liz found out during the hour before she had to go into work today and complained about it because he has a super-emo-twat haircut at the moment. I honestly hope it's for a role and not his normal hair, or hair that he'll be wearing on set. Anyway, his name is Matt Smith, and at 26 he's the youngest Doctor ever. From the small clips they jammed into the Doctor Who Confidential they used to announce him, he seems quite an amazing actor, and I'm looking forward to what he'll be doing with the role. Liz relented and said she'd give him a chance on the condition that he doesn't look like the Doctor suddenly started to listen to Fall Out Boy and cut his hair like a goddamn moron in Hot Topic (my words, but I'm sure she'd second them).

Finally, (god, I've got to learn to tie this shit together) I've managed to coax my MacBook into ripping DVDs for completely legal fair-use backups again. The only part of the problem remains I don't have an AppleTV, but if I'm getting an Xbox 360 it should work largely the same way. I celebrated by finally backing up my copy of Old School, which is perfect for iPod use, as I somehow got the "full" screen version. I don't mind too much though, since it's not like Old School is a massive cinematic achievement that I bought for its intelligence, grand use of 1.85:1 ratio and Kubrickian Steadicam shots.

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Now playing: The Onion - Roomba Continues Gathering Evidence Against Human Captor
via FoxyTunes

I'm a retard

I lost my phone at some point yesterday.

For years now I've seen people making facebook events called "I lost my phone, give me your phone numbers", and I've always thought, "how the hell do you lose your phone?! Well, now I know. Actually, I don't know because I still don't know where or how I lost the fucking thing. I know I got a call from my parents from outside my flat. I know I was sitting in my chair when I got it, and I know I hung up and got my coat on. I don't know where the fucking thing WENT! I was pretty sure I put it in my pocket, like I do every time I leave the apartment.

Editor's note: I'm a fucking retard. I looked just past my knee and saw the phone underneath a pillow on the sofa. It's been here the whole fucking time. Seriously though, I NEVER put it on the sofa for this very reason!

Guh. It's this side of myself I hate. This part of me has locked my keys in my car multiple times. How the hell stupid can I be?! I ... bollocksing shite!

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Now playing: Black Sabbath - Sweet leaf
via FoxyTunes

iTunes-related OCD

I'm not really sure what gets into me sometimes. Every so often I will be in an excessively weird mood. I just finished organising, collectivising, and Album-artworking my iTunes library.

Yes, iTunes automatically organises tracks and downloads album artwork, but I listen to enough slightly obscure stuff that iTunes doesn't know where to find the artwork. Not to mention tracks I get from friends, from mix tapes, improperly labelled tracks, and really old random techno music from my first year in university, when I downloaded most things that popped up when I searched "techno" (half of that shit has never been properly labelled).

So anyway, I was organising, artworking, etc. I have no idea what causes me to do this. Is it because I just ripped a Black Sabbath album and it couldn't find the artwork? That makes sense; I had to go find it anyway, so I might as well keep wiki-searching and GISing all the other stuff. But that's not it, because when I put the entire Star Wars Trilogy of NPR dramas, I didn't think to properly title the tracks or relabel each disc so I only had one bit of artwork for the whole thing (instead of Star Wars The Radio Drama 1, it would be Star Wars The Radio Drama). (This blog is shaping up to be exciting as fuck this year, innit?) For Talib Kweli's Beautiful Struggle I got it from a friend, and some of the tracks weren't titled, and it took me six months to title them.

I guess I get into organisational moods, rather than being organised all the time. This makes me wonder if my New Year's Resolution to save receipts that could conceivably be work- or school-related so as to tax-deduct them will amount to anything past this weekend? I mean, I manage to let the dishes pile up in the sink until there aren't any cups and I want a glass of milk, I let the dustbin overflow until I have more than one aluminium can to throw away, and let's not even talk about the state of the floors in my flat. But every couple of weeks (sometimes once a month, it depends) I will go NUTS with cleaning.

This could be why I never gave a shit at Best Buy. When we were slow, they had us dust whatever surface we could find. We were occasionally so slow we had to dust the pegs upon which things hung. PEGS! Things that have next to no surface area on which dust can collect! And yet, we were supposed to dust them. I never got into it. I always half-assed the job, even after having to do it every day one week. I just didn't give a shit. Meanwhile, at my current job, I'll pile up returns on the small counter space until I can't put anything else there, and then when I get a free moment, I'll move that shit to where it belongs.

I'm not sure how it works, but maybe it has to do with it being on my computer. I flip out if I can't permanently delete things. I'm constantly trying to keep my hard disk more than 50 GB free. The only cleaning items I buy and use reliably are monitor wipes and canned air.

Or it could be that Liz was playing the second most boring bit of KOTOR II again and I needed something to occupy my fingers and brain.

The New Year

Well, we've spent the first nearly three hours talking about how stupid our families are, boob pains, and general redneckery. Oh, and getting people we know laid. In the words of Death Cab for Cutie, "So this is the new year".

I don't know, I've never felt what the big deal was on New Year's Eve. The only time I gave a shit was on NYE 1999, when every fucking country had a big-ass fireworks display. They ... well, they planned to light the Thames on fire, anyway. This year, what did they do? They brought back Dick York ... no, Dick Clark! from retirement/stroke. He did well I thought, for the two minutes of his show I watched.

Regarding restaurants on busy restaurant nights ... Something like ten years ago Red Lobster stopped accepting reservations or call-ahead seating. I went in tonight and immediately concluded that it was the stupidest fucking decision they've ever made, upon learning the wait was 90 minutes. We went directly to the Acropolis afterward and got in within 30 minutes - and reservations were an option too! This may be an insufficient sampling size but I think having the option for reservations just might HELP.

As a final weird atonal note, I plan to write a hell of a lot more on here. I started earlier than the first of the year to ensure I get more into the flow of writing. I had the problem of not wanting to write some days last semester, and really all last year, and I'm going to do what I can to combat that, namely by writing whatever horrid bullshit pops into my head each day.

Happy new year, small amount of people who actually read this!

A letter to Apple

Dear Apple: What the fuck, guys?!

I greatly enjoy your products. I have an iPod, a MacBook, and I want pretty much everything else. However, if my MacBook is anything to go by, I ought to make sure I have a shitload more money than I do before I even think about buying anything else.

You see, Apple, most of my Apple products ... nay, ALL of them, have cracks in them at this point. My iPod has cracks along the right side of the screen, like so:


This was tolerable for some time, as I have a habit of keeping my iPod inside a third party case (I have three). But then, sometime in the fall of 2008, I began to notice cracks appearing in the wrist-rest areas of my MacBook. Eventually, they became detached from one end and started poking me in the wrist, leading me to just remove the goddamn things, like so:


These were annoying but again, somewhat tolerable. I took to canned air-spraying my computer on a more regular basis just in case something got in through these new openings. But then, today, this happened:


What the fuck, Apple? What the fuck?

I'll be visiting one of your stores to see if I can get a "Genius" to recommend a course of action. I'm under AppleCare, so you motherfuckers really better do something. Srsly, I don't want this MacBook to end up like my old Vaio:


Fix my goddamn computer,

Matthew Wolber ("Lestack")

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Now playing: De La Soul - The Mack Daddy On The Left
via FoxyTunes

FUCK IT'S HOT

I got ready for work this morning by watching the Doctor Who Christmas Special (awesome) and checking the weather. That wasn't hard to do because I was watching the special on my computer, and a weather thing popped up saying it was something like 70º. Liz and I sort of did a double-take at that, because yesterday it was round 45-55º and the day before it was just above freezing. Christmas Eve it was the same, and the day before it was icing.

What the fuck is up with the weather? I know, global warming and that, but seriously? And that explanation has its doubters! Mind, I don't see how, given ... evidence, but there we are. Are people happy about being able to wear shorts out on the Feast of Stephen? Is it a common goal of the public to have pools open throughout Christmas Break? Does no-one think THIS SHIT IS CRAZY?!

But enough about the weather. Every moron with a mouth talks about the weather, so I try to avoid discussing it at length. Instead, I want to follow up on stupid people. On Christmas Eve I bitched about people bitching about not being able to find exactly what they wanted on the last day before the biggest gift-giving occasion on the planet. Well, I think some of the returns shoppers might be worse.

Today, I was at work sorting the returns. This was my job for the entire day, that's how many returns we had. A side project of this job is to find and resolve price disputes when the manager is away from the front end of the shop. I did this for one customer and went back to find the sign that she was sure was there, saying that particular shirt was $9.99. I looked at the endcap she said it was on, looked on either side of the endcap thinking she might've read the sign for the items in the aisle, and double-checked, but to no avail.

She then stormed back there her damn self after I told her there was no sign. She claimed that there was "a sign there when I was back here" and stormed out of the shop. After shaking my head in disgust at her stupidity and arrogance, I went back to sorting the returns for the day.

Later, when I had but an hour left, I was reshelving some of the pre-sorted returns, and I found myself in an area near where she found her shirt. It was an aisle away and well inside the section (as opposed to near the middle lane), but there was indeed a sign saying that there were in existence, and in the shop, shirts for sale for $9.99.

The twelve rules of Christmas (shopping)

Well, I'm back working retail for the holidays. Goddammit.

I actually like the job. It's easy, it's fun, and I'm surrounded by smartasses. That means I get to be a smartass in return! Huzzah! The downside is it is of course retail, with all the cultural trappings. This isn't a problem per se but it is certainly the source of amusing stories and reasons for me to yell at people, so the blog is back, baby!

Rule number one: You don't get to be an asshole on Christmas Eve. If you're an asshole on Christmas Eve, I'm going to spit on your clothes you just bought. Now, sure, you can just wash them when you get home, but that's effort.
Rule number two: Prank calling stores and insulting the people who work there is pathetic. When I heard about the prank call in question, I had a 'nam flashback where I was beating this douchebag's head into the wall of the jewellers at the centre of the mall while shouting, a la John Goodman in The Big Lebowski, "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS!"
Rule number three: if you want a store credit card, you will have to supply your social security number. If you are unwilling to do this, you do not get the card, and you do not get the sign-up discount that comes with the card. You do not get to leave all your stuff there because you didn't get to save $12 and storm out of the shop crying because you are retarded.
Rule number four: No, you may not use the stepladder to get something down yourself, you god damned idiot. I'm this close to printing up ten half-assed liability waivers and having people who want to borrow stepladders sign them before they do.
Rule number five: if you can't find the size you need, tough. It's Christmas Goddamn Eve. You're lucky we HAVE stuff left to sell you. You're going to have to get the nearest size and tell your gift recipient to either gain or lose weight.
Rule number six: The mall always closes at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Don't phone up and ask. The closing times for the entire Christmas season, starting from one week before Thanksgiving to one week after New Year's Day, has been posted on every entrance to the mall since the day after Halloween. It is not our fucking fault if you can't read.
Rule number seven: Miley Cyrus should not be allowed to sing, let alone sing Christmas carols.
Rule number eight: same for punk bands.
Rule number nine: Only John Lennon can get away with singing kids. Similarly, only Paul McCartney cannot get away with using an 80s digital keyboard as his only accompaniment.
Rule number ten: you are under our control. We control how fast the line goes. If you are in a hurry, you should not be Christmas shopping. If you are an asshole, we will make the line go so much slower. If you're nice, we'll try to converse with you while the stupid register takes an hour to do anything.
Rule number eleven: Why do you all have to walk seven across in the mall seriously do you all have to talk to all your friends and can you even understand anything get out of the fucking way
Rule number twelve: in the immortal words of Sir Wil Wheaton, "Don't be a dick."


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Now playing: De La Soul - Betta Listen
via FoxyTunes

TV Licences

Top ten reasons why a TV licence (The UK, specifically) is better than a bunch of commercials.

1. No Zach Braff water commercials
2. no adverts for things that are nowhere near you, Boston Market
3. no miniature cliffhangers in shows, only real ones between episodes
4. no getting sick of what used to be a good song because you hear it sung by a phone and bluetooth earpiece that's attached to it
5. less chance of seeing Larry the Cable Guy accidentally
6. free
7. credit
8. report
9. dot
10. com
    

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Now playing: MSNBC Rachel Maddow (video) - 10-27-2008-194906
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The team plays awfully after Tuesday lunchtime - a question of the usefulness of sports statistics

With how much I like politics, I'm kind of wondering why I don't pay more attention to sports. Not so much the actual sports themselves but the broadcasting and coverage thereof - sport coverage and political coverage have very similar tactics.

One of the main tactics I've recently noticed is the "inane statistics" tactic. In politics it almost makes sense, such as "sitting republican congressmen in heavily democratic constituencies tend to win due to name recognition" or "the bradley effect", and don't even get me started on polls which I, nor you, nor anyone you've ever met, have been involved with. But between last night's ALCS game six between Boston and Tampa and this afternoon's ass-whoopin' (if you'll forgive the term) of the Colts by the Packers, there's quite a bit of statistics going on.

For the baseball game there was nearly every batter's record against a right/left-handed pitcher (whichever it may have been), and when the pitchers changed, it would have the pitcher's record against Lefty/Righty batters. ESPN.com's live streaming, um, thing, had the likely winner for a long time before the end of the game, and the percent chance of said team winning. They also had percent chances of the batter hitting the ball into each area of the field.

I didn't think these statistics were inane per se until a few minutes ago when the CBS announcers for the Indy/Green Bay match commented on Indy being simply demolished by Green Bay by citing a statistic - Indianapolis haven't lost an October game since 2004.

Indianapolis have not lost a game that happened to take place in the month of October since 2004. Exactly what insight does this provide us about their playing in today's match? Is October the magic month in which Indianapolis can do no wrong, and this match could signal the end of a perfect October record? What's next, "Indianapolis haven't lost a game held on a Thursday since 1987"? Exactly WHAT RELEVANCE does this have to how they are playing today, apart from the fact that they are LOSING? Last I checked, people were more interested in such things as "Indianapolis haven't lost a game since October 2004", if they had a four-year winning streak that was about to break with this game. That frankly makes more sense than what was said.

But hey, I haven't seriously watched football in years now. I may have missed a shift in the fanbase where everyone started caring about the month, week, day of the week, and what time of day the match was held. I personally prefer the classic data: The weather, the location, injuries, and any sort of personal animosity between players on both teams (or fans of both teams). Those are the ones that I think actually have the possibility to affect the outcome of the game.

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Now playing: Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
via FoxyTunes

Cars, buses, and books

I'm officially sick of cars.

In honesty, I think I was sick of cars some time ago. Driving to Indianapolis roughly once a week, followed by driving across Evansville each day, will do that to a person. This is it, though. I'm avoiding driving whenever I can.

As I type this, [pause to make myself not a liar] I changed my wake-up time on my phone alarm clock from 8:30 a.m. to 6 a.m. This should give me time to do my usual morning routine, read the news, shit, shower, shave, eat, and get out to Green River and catch a bus around 7:30. I really would prefer if the bus routes were more direct to USI, but this town is a worse hell-hole than Scranton.

If nothing else, this new and brilliant form of transportation should give me time to read. I've recently started the Dune series, on the advice of a friend, and likewise on said friend's advice, started with The Butlerian Jihad by Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson. It's an extremely pre- prequel to the original Dune, but it was fairly good, and I enjoyed it. Yes, Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade absolutely lambasted it as crap, but since I only read Dune and Dune Messiah this summer, I think I'm coming at it from a different angle than he is. Plus I like the author and think he's a great guy.

The main reason a bus ride would help me read the Dune series is because the Dune books are incredibly long. The Butlerian Jihad was over 600 pages in hardcover. I'm used to 600 pages in paperback, but outside of Harry Potter I read few 400+ page books. There was a time I would've been saddened to read someone else say such a thing, but frankly I don't have the time to sit down and read that much anymore. Being gainfully unemployed has a few, very few, benefits. One of them is time to catch up on the thousands of sci-fi novels I've wanted to read over the years but didn't get round to. This isn't to say I don't want a job: in the unlikely event someone is reading this and is hiring for a position in Evansville, my contact information is listed. I'm interested and have a largely open schedule.

I can't think of a better year to have time to read though: my favourite authors are putting out quite a lot of work this year and a few of them I haven't got a chance to read yet. I still haven't picked up a copy of Karen Traviss's Order 66, and I haven't even read the final of her Wess'har series, Judge. Meanwhile, my first favourite author, Matthew Woodring Stover, has two books coming out: Caine Black Knife, the third of four Caine books, is out Tuesday. Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor comes out on Dec. 30. Yes, I'm not sure about the title either, but it's Stover, and even his least favourite of my novels, Shatterpoint, was fantastic. Besides, there's nothing I look forward to more than Luke Skywalker and some Moody Introspective Self-Loathing.

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Now playing: Charles Darwin - On the Origin of Species
via FoxyTunes