Cranky-D

I don’t watch television as it is delivered because commercials drive me insane. Instead, I tend to avail myself of alternate delivery systems for teevee which allow me to watch the shows on my fantabulous 30in widescreen computer monitor (which, by the way, I ended up buying from my former employer because I really couldn’t give it up). So I am right now watching the CSI NY from last week(I guess) and they have car racing in the show, which is great because I like cars and machinery in general. However, they came up with this insanely ridiculous idea of a “Velocity Injection Chamber” which somehow stores the kinetic energy from braking and allows you to re-apply it to the wheels at some later time.

As I said on teh twitter, what a load of horseshit. First of all, braking converts the kinetic energy of the vehicle into heat, which is then dissipated to the surrounding air. Storing heat is really quite difficult. If you wanted a direct conversion, you would need a good way to store the heat energy in some other form and then re-apply it later. Good luck with that. Now, it’s possible to use the kinetic energy to power a generator and then store the energy electrically, and indeed hybrid cars do that to a greater or lesser extent to re-charge the batteries. That would not work on a race car.

Whatever. It did give me a huge laugh, which is always welcome. However, it should also serve as a reminder that they crap you see on teevee is often completely insane and unworkable. Most writers don’t know a whole lot about anything. Keep a skeptical mind.

I’ve been getting back to my roots, as it were, since I’ve been unemployed. I have been a long-time fan of the Perry Mason teevee series, and have seen them all many times. However, I have probably never seen them as originally broadcast as they were about 52 minutes long and most of the time you are lucky to get 45 minutes of them on the telly. However, if you know where to look, you can get them for “free.” Yes, I’m a bad boy. If streaming video actually worked as promised I would just watch them on the CBS website, where they are all available for free, but streaming video still bites the big one as far as quality goes. I cannot abide hiccups in the delivery.

Anyway, I just queued up an episode, and I knew who the killer was within about 20 seconds. I paused it to write this. It’s really more about the process to me, since I usually recall the killer soon enough. I am hardly ever surprised any more. Still, it’s a lot of fun.

I’m that way with Star Trek: The Original Series as well. I can name the episode from watching the teaser. Yet somehow, I forget if I’ve taken my asthma medicine for any given morning. Early onset alzheimer’s, or just normal forgetfulness? Your call.

I just saw the movie “New Moon” at the local cheapo theater down the street. I was curious about what the teenage kids like these days.

Wow. Just wow. That movie dragged like you wouldn’t believe. They could have cut 30 minutes out and not done it any damage. The only reason I can think to give it so much space is to give the little girls time to get done crying before the next plot point scene takes place. And the protagonist wallowed so much in her misery it was damn annoying at times. Sure, she had a reason to be upset, but she seemed to relish it.

Every young male in her life seemed tough but still sensitive. Her father was a doddering idiot at times. And we have 100 year old vampires going to high school for frel’s sake. Jeebus. I wouldn’t be going to high school. I’d be dressing up in period clothing from 200 years ago and wallowing in decadence and killing humans and stuff like that. I mean, if you’re going to hell already, why worry?

It could have been a lot better with some editing. The story was quite predictable, but it had some good action scenes. More of that would have been welcome. It really wasn’t as bad as it could have been, I guess, and it was pretty much what I expected, except too gosh darn long. Rent it if you’re curious.

That was such a chick flick, I think I just ovulated.

As part of the reward when we got the contract, the boss sent me a bad-ass 30 in monitor. Well, now that I’m funemployed he either wants me to send it back or pay for it. Of course, he broke his “word” which is effectually meaningless when he said he’d give me two months notice of my termination (though he gave me one month notice which is more than legally or “morally” required). He has decided that he will charge me the market price which is probably what people want to charge for them, not what people actually pay for them. I figure that if I pay about $600 for it then I’m not making a huge mistake. That will be my offer, and otherwise he can tell me how he wants it shipped back.

Perhaps I should just have him have a shipper come and get it.

Update: He wants $1200 for it. I told him I would have to wait and see if I can find work first.

Yay! I’m now funemployed! I’ve heard it’s all the rage these days. I have a lot more time to play video games and go to the gym and stuff like that.

Society, take heed, I may be about to become a burden on you. Or not.

Another way of putting it is that this recession has become a depression since now I’m one of the ones out of work.

from here

It’s my birthday pretty soon. When I corrected my mailing address when a family email came announcing the June birthdays, I wasn’t asking for cards. I just thought it would be a good time to let everyone know where to send the hate mail if they are so inclined.

I think I’ve already received more cards than since I was a teenager.

It is kind of nice, though.

My employer has had me on to do lists for a while now, which is insulting enough since I have already proven that I can work on my own. I have produced two products all by myself so far, though he stuck his hand in one and thinks he actually contributed something.

Whatever.

Well, the latest one required me to integrate code that he hadn’t finished writing yet. So, instead of making fake work and twiddling my thumbs, I decided to wait a bit until he was finished, and make up my hours later when I really had something to do. He finally got the code to me today, but not before complaining that I didn’t have enough hours in for the first week of the month.

What a jackass. If there were a job market, I would be so gone.

Just some rambling. Don’t mean nothing.

I’ve just finished my month with my job, and got my hours in. My boss decided that he wanted quantity and not quality in my work, and I can always conform if I have to. The fact that I had to let go of my standards for quality at the same time is a loss that will not be noted in his book.

Anyway, I’ve been celebrating with a bottle of Tillamor Dew Irish Whiskey. I had forgotten how great the buzz is on that stuff. Smooth. It’s weird how different alcohol delivery systems can change the effect.

I’m watching a Glenn Beck show. I have come to the conclusion that he is kind of a crank, but he’s my kind of crank. He is over the top in his judgements. He just interviewed a former head of the IRS. I find it hard to hate them because they found that I had overpaid recently (I totally forgot an estimated tax payment of $1100 when I did my taxes) and they sent me all my money back. I had a nice surprise. I don’t hate the IRS as much as I dislike Congress, the Senate, and the President for taxing the fuck out of me.

Anyway, Glenn is over the top. Like I think I said. However, he’s not all that far away from my thinking. He is a strict constructionist on the Constitution. As I am.

So, I guess I’m saying that these “crazies” are over the top but still pretty much saying what I think.

For instance, if you call our president a fascist, well, I would answer that he might not be one, but the fact is that fascism is connected to government direction (not ownership, just control) of industry, and we have the Obama administration in charge of GM, so I’m not sure what’s going on. Oh, wait, I am sure.

Anyway, like I said at the beginning, I have a buzz going, in celebration of hitting my hours for the month, and I plan on keeping it going. I plan on playing video games all weekend.

Rock on.

Update: Tillamor Dew? Smoooooth.

This is so me. I still dream that I have some high-school classes that I have to take. I still dream about classes I have forgotten to attend that I need to pass to get my PhD. I dream that I’ve applied for yet another graduate program somewhere.

It’s crazy, man.

from here

I think I’ve reached my limit with politics for now. I just heard about the proposed budget. $3.5 trillion. Jesus Christ.

Naturally, there’s over $600 billion for “Universal Health Care.” The “Experts” say it will likely cost over a trillion. Please. It will cost even more than that.

I don’t WANT government health care! Those guys screw everything up. They cannot put their hands on anything without making trouble. And now they’ll provide “health insurance” for everyone. We all know how that is going to turn out.

They’ll sell it as “supplemental” for those people who cannot afford it. Of course, what will happen is many fold. Whatever price the government sets as the floor will become the industry floor. Companies will bounce employees out of their health care programs because the government is providing health care. Pretty soon the government will be the sole provider of health insurance. Then we will never be rid of it.

If you cannot see how things will work after that, you’re delusional. They will cut services that “extend life” for both the very young and the very old, as if life extension wasn’t the result for all health care. If they had been in charge my father would be dead now, instead of alive and well and probably on his way to live quite a few more years. Since the government does not have to compete for services, costs will rise. Only the wealthy will be able to get decent care in a timely manner. If you don’t think this is true, look at the United Kingdom. Look at Canada.

I am so very angry that I frankly cannot think straight. This program will end up costing trillions. We are all royally and truly fucked.

What’s even worse is that is just the tip of the iceberg. There is still another $2.8 trillion worth of insanity. Sure, there’s some defense spending in there (one of the few legitimate expenses for the fed) but a huge chunk of the rest of it is pure pork.

Don’t forget, this is spending IN ADDITION to the $820 billion already spent recently, of which 2/3 is permanent additions to the budget. And don’t forget all that TARP money spent last fall and continuing into this year.

The “experts” say Obama wants to spend 50% more than the government will receive in revenue. Of course, he will eventually raise taxes under the delusion that tax rates and tax revenue have a direct correlation.

My head is starting to hurt.

It’s hard to believe the founders founding fathers were bitching about taxes in the 10% range. Many of us are already being taxed for over 50% of our income, and we aren’t exactly rolling in money. To pay for all this shit we will probably end up paying at least 60% of our income in taxes.

Is anyone going to stand for that? I don’t know. Probably.

The great experiment that is the United States is soon going to be circling the drain. I hope we can pull out in time.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope this thing gets stopped right now. Enough is fucking enough.

It’s kind of odd that I have posted all these pictures lately. I don’t normally do that.

Eh, it’s not like I am using up all my bandwidth with my provider. I have plenty to spare.

I really like this comic, from here. I don’t think he’ll mind, I didn’t hot link it.

G-d help me, I’m actually watching race-walking. Because that is all that’s on right now olympics-wise.

I just finished watching the indoor volleyball game with the Americans and Russians. The Americans pulled it out in the end, and are going on to the match for the gold. They will at least get a silver at this point. Earlier this evening I saw the American men win the beach volleyball game. Both volleyball games were interesting because I wanted the U.S. to win. Otherwise, I really cannot see a reason to watch. I mean, it’s pretty exciting stuff and the scoring happens quickly so it’s good for people with short attention spans. Sort of. Because the games last a long time it seems.

Part of watching the olympics is deciding what it’s okay to watch. Now, women’s beach volleyball is always okay to watch because you have tall hard-bodied adult women running around with almost no clothes on. That is something I might watch even when it isn’t the olympics. In fact, I think I have. However, when watching “women’s” gymnastics, there is a problem. Because they are not women, they are girls. Usually attractive girls with nice bodies. The only way to survive that was to become temporarily gay and complain about the scoring (and I did complain, though in the end the individuals scoring came out right anyway) and bitch about how much of a catty nancy that one male gymnastics commenter is. Then, once they were over I was able to catch the beach volleyball stuff and return to my usual straight horndog mode. By that time, I was able to think that the sturdy little gymnastics girl named Shawn would make a nice daughter.

I watched the male gymnastics as well. Whatevs. They’re pretty impressive. However, they are also very small guys, so it isn’t a threat or anything. Not like wrestling; those guys could kill you.

Right now I know a few additional things. Jamaicans are really fast. Americans cannot pass a baton without dropping it. Race walking looks really really weird, and it also looks like you’d ruin your hips or something.

BTW, I also watch race-walking last night. I must be insane. Luckily, this is all over in a few days, and I can go back to watching other kinds of bad television. Yay for me.

Okay, I’m kind of at a loss here. I plan to start having regular content, but I really don’t do straight news analysis stuff and have no desire to do so at this time. I was going to start writing 100 word stories based on the topics suggested by the site, but it is apparently dead now. So, if you like, throw out some topic suggestions for that.

I figure on one 100 word story per day, an apropos of nothing post, and perhaps one other thing of some kind yet to be determined.

Probably should go to bed now, before Mr. Sun shows up. He’s due soon.

Update: 100-word story topics could be just a word that must be used, a situation that needs to be explored, stuff like that.

Jeff G. at protein wisdom has decided to take a break. As one of the guest bloggers from a few years ago (and I still have access), I will try to add my own weird take on things over there to keep the content going. If the spirit moves you, you might drop by to see if I have contributed anything. Or not, whichever. I admit that there is a lot more traffic there than here, which means that my ego gratification score is much higher there even when I get lackluster feedback.

The first time around I decided to expand on his memes. If you’re masochistic and curious, search the archives for my handle and you should get a good portion of my content there. This time, I plan to come up with my own memes, and rather than ape J.G., I will try to create something new.

Update: I just did a search over at PW and wow, I have written a lot over there. Some of it is actually mediocre.

Update II: If you’re interested in my weird short stories, read here, here, here,, here, and here, in order. They take the armadillo meme and run with it. I have no idea what J.G. thought about what I did to his character, he never said a word.

Basically, my day consists of reading blogs, watching some teevee, playing RPGs on various Game Boy incarnations, and writing code (the last one is what pays the bills). Mostly it’s writing code and reading blogs, but some days, like today, it is more reading blogs and writing code.

Anyway, I bought a DS a while ago, and I finally started using it last week after I completed yet another run-through of Dragon Warrior III. Right now I’m playing Final Fantasy III. It’s an amusing little RPG. I find myself using the touch screen a lot, since the game kind of encourages it. So the screen is smudged and will likely remain so for some time. I have no idea how long the screen protectors are supposed to last, but you definitely need them. I have seen no reason to use the stylus so it’s just naked oily fingers instead.

What’s sort of funny is that I have started about four or five final fantasy variations and have yet to play one to completion. This has more to do with what interests me about the genre than me not being able to finish anything. Once you’ve done all the pre-requisites, the only thing left is to level up enough to tromp the last “boss” and win. I only finished DWIII this last time because I thought there was supposed to be more coming afterwards. I guess I took a wrong path or something. However, I played DW I-IV on the 8-bit system and finished them all many times so I already know what happens. Obviously I get replay value from the series.

FFIII is probably not supposed to be a complete level grinder but sometimes that’s how I play these things. Today I had to go to the laundry, so I used that time to grind away to increase the stats. Oddly enough, I have never played D&D, and I have only played a smattering of computer-based RPGs; that probably puts me in a minority among my peers. I’m still considering moving on to WoW. I would probably like it, and when I bought the laptop I’m using to write this I made sure it could play WoW just in case, but it seems that I don’t have the time since I waste too much of it doing other stuff.

If that’s wasting it. I’m not sure.

Anyway, if you like RPGs you could do worse than get a DS. The graphics are pretty nice, the screen is bright, the unit is small but is still okay for adult hands, and it plays GB advantage games as well so there’s a catalog of games you can play. Plus, there are walkthroughs on the tubes if you get stuck, and the ones I’ve seen are usually pretty good. I have found that ebay is a good source for older games, but I tend to buy new if I can because then I know that the cartridge hasn’t been in and out of the unit a lot of times. There are a few titles out on the DS right now, and it looks like Dragon Quest IV will be released in the US fairly soon (DQ IV is the same as DWIV which was on the 8-bit NES); someone has already discovered that the chip released in Japan has an English translation already on it. I’m hoping they follow with DQV and DQVI, which I have never played but look forward to. They are definitely going to be released in Japan, but I’m not enough of a fanboy to deal with a Japanese-only version of the game.

I still have DQVII and DQVIII to play on the still-unused PS2. Maybe when I get back home “for good.” Somehow I think I’ll still be here in S0-Cal a lot more than I was before. Such is life, I guess.

So. My sister is working for H&R block this tax season. She wanted to look at what her schedule would be this weekend, and it didn’t show up properly in firefox. We’ve all seen sites like that, and we all know the solution. Use explorer.

Of course, explorer wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Instead, MSN explorer was parked in its slot, and it wanted to set me up with a new email account and stuff like that. Bye. I had to dig through the menus to find explorer, which I consider odd since we’re talking about the dark empire here. Still, this is on XP Home, which is a sub-optimal O.S. in my opinion. Don’t even attempt to “repair” the dlls if you know what’s good for you. Trust me. I did it once, and it was such a disaster I wondered if I could get the machine working again. I haven’t touched it since.

The amazing part was, my sister had no idea how to type a URL in. Seriously. She apparently uses google all the time to find things, and then pulls the URL out of the list google presents you. The whole process of typing “myblock.com” in the topmost bar was shocking to her. Even though I just showed her you can do that, I’ll bet it never happens again.

What’s really scary is she is actually pretty intelligent. One wonders what the stupid people do. Bang on the keys and hope for the best, or only go to sites that are in the browser history, I guess.

Yesterday marked the end of winter for me. I left the upper Midwest and flew to my father’s house in Southern California. I won’t be returning until the end of March, and by that time I doubt there will be any sub-zero temperatures. On the other hand, right now it is wet and rainy and I think it’s in the mid 40s out there. Yikes. Still, compared to what I left this isn’t too bad, and I know it will get better again very soon.

When I got here, I found out that the cat had finally gone to kitty heaven. When I left 10 days ago, she was not doing all that well and couldn’t use her back legs. That had been an ongoing problem that seemed to be helped with steroids, but they had finally stopped working. She had finally let me touch her to help her on and off the bed, since she couldn’t jump up on it any more. As it turned out she had cancer in her spine. I don’t know all the details, but my dad footed the bill for the MRI and an operation that was not successful. We are pretty sure the cat was about 23 years old or so. She had survived many challenges, but this one was too much. My sister has yet to pick up her ashes.

My father is slowly getting better; he is the reason I’m here in the first place, of course. With me here my sister can go to work, and in general it takes some of the load off of her since she can also go places without worrying about what might be happening. I’m fairly content to not go anywhere. It’s enough to just try to get a useful amount of work done so my employer doesn’t regret hiring me.

I was only home for 10 days this past break, and I spent a lot of time catching up on stuff there. It was more of a vacation being there than being here. Since the beginning of December, I’ve only been home for 20 days total. I decided to make this trip longer since I don’t have anything planned back home, as I did for New Year’s and for a blues concert during my last stay.

Only today, my father decided it was time to open his Christmas gifts. I took them to him in the hospital on Christmas day, but he wanted nothing to do with it. I can understand that. There were only a few items; we have long since stopped exchanging presents, since it usually turned out to be all of us exchanging lists and buying stuff on the list. I suggested that we could all buy the stuff ourselves and cut out the middleman. I guess I’m not particularly sentimental. I still send money for the kids gifts, since they have no way of buying things themselves.

That’s life, such as it is. Boring, really. Lately, that’s a good thing.

I just got home from my Monday night outing. I was approached by a young man at one of the train stations, asking me for money. I told him I wouldn’t give him any. He said something to the effect of, “You better make sure I’m not on the station where you get off.” Well, that pushed me over the edge just a tad. I approached him on the platform to let him know I wasn’t afraid. I entered the train in the exact same door he did. I told him that if he wanted things that way I would accomodate him. He apparently backed off, because he did not get off at my stop. My best friend, who I didnt’ think would get involved in my stupidity, let this guy know that there would be trouble. I really appreciated that.

I don’t like confrontations, but I know how this shit turns out. I was immediately in his face, but I gave him an out. I said that he could just walk away from it and that would be that. He did not get off the train when I did. Smart thinking on his part.

Maybe I’m wrong. I can understand if I am. However, this man threatened me. He thought he could get away with it. He didn’t. I won’t let that happen. Ever. Even though right now, my right arm is almost useless and could hardly back me in a fight. The nerve ending that fires the right shoulder muscle is dead, and I await its re-growth. And still, I wouldn’t be sorry to have taken that shit on.

I cannot figure out what’s wrong with boys/men these days. I think they don’t have fathers to teach them how to be men. I really wish I could help them. On the other hand, I don’t care much for the average person, so who cares?

Update: I wasn’t clear. The boy in question was white. The one man other than the rest who got how things were and talked with me about it was black. Just so you know.