Hell's Half Acre

geekend rules

I get these emails from techRepublic on anything from Windows Vista, to new AJAX libraries, to Top 10 IT skills to contemplate.  I also get a newsletter called Geekend. In today's geekend we have an article on how you can program your own 8-bit gaming system, a blog post about Transformers (my current obsession) and the ubiquitous Star Wars article.

I want to NOT like Geekend but I can't help myself especially when I read a post containing this:

That said, the original Bonecrusher and Optimus Prime would never have deigned to rollerblade while fighting. The old-school Transformers never tried to be cool (or even make sense), they simply were cool. I mean, giant frickin’ robots that were also sports cars and fighter jets. That doesn’t need any dressing up or justification. It justifies itself.

But when you turn these icons of adolescent wish-fulfilment into self-serious, preening death machines (that rollerblade), you miss the point. It’s like making a serious movie version of Super Mario Brothers that tries to logically justify a guy named Mario Mario who fights sentient mushrooms and subterranean dinosaur tyrants (oh, wait, we’ve been subjected to that too). Some things exist in their own idiom, and can’t be translated into a cookie-cutter overproduced blockbuster without immediately becoming a self-parody. And Michael Bay is the patron saint of such films. You’ve all been warned.
read the full post. . . you may have to create an account first. I can't rememmber.

or an article (Why Star Wars Fans Hate Star Wars) containing this:

Star Wars fans also hate the original Star Wars trilogy. We think Mark Hamill’s acting was whiny, the pacing was flawed, and Empire was better than Jedi, making the end of the series a let-down. We hate the way Boba Fett died, and we hate the cantankerous, arthritic duel between Vader and Obi-wan. We don’t understand why the storm-troopers can’t shoot worth a damn, and we don’t get why “an entire legion of [the Emperor’s] best troops”(ROTJ, Palpatine) can be overpowered by a tribal society of midget teddy-bears armed largely with rocks and twigs. Star Wars fans hate omnipotent war-machines that get their legs tangled in strings, or slip on logs. They hate Darth Vader’s face and that stupid harmonica thing he was playing. Star Wars fans hate the original Star Wars trilogy.
read the full article. . .

p.s. if you go on to read the full articles/posts then you are geek too.

history or histrionics?

White House Is Subpoenaed on Wiretapping

By JAMES RISEN
Published: June 28, 2007

WASHINGTON, June 27 — The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday issued subpoenas to the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and the Justice Department after what the panel’s chairman called “stonewalling of the worst kind” of efforts to investigate the National Security Agency’s policy of wiretapping without warrants.   read more. . .

is it too much to hope for to see this administration go down in flames like it deserves too? I would hate to look back through the annals of history and have these jackasses portrayed as anything other than the devious criminals that they are. Just sayin'. If I see another picture of Bush standing with FDNY on the smoking ruins of the Trade Center in an attempt to paint him as some kind of true leader, I will point out that one day in history does not make up for the other 2919 days of his time in office.

fuck yeah donkey! the kids are alright

from today's NYTimes online

New Poll Finds That Young Americans Are Leaning Left

By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MEGAN THEE
Published: June 27, 2007
Young Americans are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage, according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll. read more. . .

the age range was 17 to 29. . .the idealistic under 30 set. sigh.

now if they could just hang on to that past 40.

for sale by owner

someone come and pick up my disposable furniture. . .please

http://newyork.craigslist.org/jsy/fur/360775310.html

The Pirate Times

Someone at the hidey made the mistake of starting a sentence with the phrase "back in Pirate times. . ." which I immediately jumped on with "The Pirate Times!!?? You mean they have a newspaper?! Sweet. What are the headlines?"

rule number one: Never ask a group of drunk people what the headlines are in The Pirate Times.

Here are the answers:

Yar! Scurvy bastard Bush walks plank in Iraq.

Avast Ye! Paris Hilton gets out of the brig. Arrrrr!

Lily livered land lubbers hold fast during housing slump.

Blow me down! Fires burn across the west.

Those weren't even the good ones.  anyway, you get the point, right matey?

badmotorvator

Uncle Owen! This R2 unit has a bad motorvator.

The fate of the galaxy would be very different had R5-D4's motivator been more reliable.

time to start shopping for pilgrimmage wear

the dates are set. the trip to the hottest place on earth will take place during the first week of the hottest month of the year.

I am going shopping tonight for a giant ice mold in the shape of a business suit. Hopefully it will last until the end of the day, otherwise, that could get embarrassing. I haven't put in enough time at the gym yet.

the grey sections of the map are off limits.

purging plus Optimus Prime

Why is it that I have ATM receipts from 1999? Why is that?

I'm not one of those freak horders who save everything until they die, trapped in their apartment by the mounds of crap they've held on to. That is not me.

For some reason however, I have bank statements and check stubs dating as far back as 1997.  I have resumes from when I had two companies in my work history, both retail.

I have records of every single street address ever. I have collection notices which have since been paid, I have 401k plan information for accounts which have been long cashed out.

I bought a shitty shredder at the Right Aid which died after five letters. 

From the amount of crap I've discovered, I am going to to have to pony up for an industrial strength shredder/purger.

The silliest question of all is why has this stuff managed to follow me through three different cities, and across country no less?

All I can say is it's time to hit the road, excess baggage. Bye Bye.

*p.s. post written on Optimus Prime, my new laptop.  Optimus has way more features than I could ever use. I didn't even realize when I bought it.  Beside having the large screen, hard drive space, and memory that I was really looking for, I've found out that Optimus can receive digital and analog television signals. Unfortunately Optimus came with Windows Vista installed, an OS that is pissing me off.   I guess I will have to move forward if Optimus and I are going to get along. 

post baccalaureate discourse - Al Gore's "The Assault On Reason"

He had me at the introduction.

When you start laying out, in a careful manner, the structure of media ownership, then connect it with the lack of a well informed citizenry, then connect that with our diminished ability to exchange ideas with our political leaders, and with the lack of a forum for well reasoned debate, you come up with a pretty strong conceptual model of why we are now where we are politically. Connect that with the mechanism of fear and its visceral, emotional response, then speak of imagery and how television preys on instinctual responses, then speak about propaganda and advertising and how the tools of manipulation are geared NOT toward logic but toward an underlying gut instinct. . .well, then you have the first half chapter of Al Gore's new book, The Assault On Reason.

I mean, for me the guy is preaching to the choir. When he brought up Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan and their analysis of television as a medium to inform, I was sent back in time to my media history and theory class. When he started to speak about how one-to-many mass communication has shut down the "marketplace of ideas" that an informed citizenry should have, I thought about The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Combine all of that with a scathing indictment of the Bush Administration's rule of corruption, fear mongering, and lack of reason and well, you can make up your own mind about whether or not you think the book is worth a go.  You already know what I will say, if you've read any of this blog.

This is what I am reading right now. This is what I can't put down. This is what I have shunned Law and Order in favor of and this book is the reason why there is a stall in my Netflix queue.

I'll let you know how it turns out. I promise I won't give away the ending.

New York Times Book Review

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

  tooooooo busy today.

is it beer o'clock yet?

anyone want a job? help!  understaffed.