I know, two entries in two days – either I must be bored on the train or this week’s book is boring and I’m tired of sleeping through stations. Fact is that I wasn’t planning on another Rant so soon, but as usually, life throws a curve ball when you aren’t looking forward. Better a curve than a sinker or a slider, but still, it’s the randomus-interruptus that makes the world go round. Last night it was a chat room.
Continue reading #1[T1:Starfire) Chat Room Drama
Category Archives: Rant
Say Hello to iPod — Say Thank You to XPlay
The iPod is the coolest gizmo that I’ve seen in at least four years. I mean it’s incredible. Pricey? Sure. Snobby? Well yeah, since the iPod requires FireWire (rare on most PC’s) and iTunes2 which requires Mac OS 9 or higher only – the $399-$499 price tag doesn’t help any either. Elegant? You better believe it. So what make it so good? Design. No other way to describe it. IBM had a spurt of great design some time in the 90’s. Remember the butterfly keyboard? Great idea, but who could have foreseen notebook screens growing to 14″ and 15″, allowing a near full size keyboard? And the TouchPoint (or whatever they called it) – that mini-joystick in the center of a keyboard that buried the trackball but got itself buried by the touch pad common on most notebooks today.
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To Too Two Too Two To Too Too
Happy Fourth of July!
On to today’s Rant. To. Too. Two. Notice the difference in the spellings? That’s right they are three different words there. Most of the people I share cyberspace with seem to have lost sight of that. Not too much with the Two. Most people know what that means and just use 2. Never mind that while writing, numbers under ten should be spelled out – that’s a gripe and it’s one that even I don’t adhere to as often as I should – I guess most people forget that syntactical rule. And using a 2 in place of to, well, I know that’s just ‘net shorthand; no gripes there at all. But, yeah, two should usually be left in it’s proper form of “two”.
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The Master Plan
I’ve always believed I have a unique perspective of the world. I know there’s a whole huge world that surrounds me and I’m a proton that lives in an atom that’s on a dust mite that’s part of a dust bunny that sits on the smallest cog of the great machine known as Earth. Ok, that’s not entirely true – I’m more of an electron, as I have a mostly negative charge and I fancy myself to be in motion at all times, but you get the point. Anyway, I’ve found this to be a unique perspective among Americans my age. Most of my peers consider themselves to be the center of the universe, never mind that there’s other nations in the world besides America. This constant belief of one’s own importance is something that seems to be a common theme for us yanks – the only reason why I would distinguish myself is that I realize that there’s much, much more to the world besides America; I just don’t live there. There’s a point to this babble, trust me…
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Rush!
Back to back reviews here: RUSH – first the band and then the concert from June-28!
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Lets Go Mets! Lets Go Mets! – So go ahead and go already!
I’m spoiled. I know this. If I’ve said it already, let me repeat myself: I was born into pinstripes and I’m a Yankee thrice over. Once by being an American (to my fellow Yanks that are clueless, in a worldly fashion, all Americans are Yankees to most other nations), twice by living in the North (at least as far as Southerners are concerned), and third because I was born into Yankees pinstripes. Not that I’m complaining about that – by living in Connecticut, the closest thing we have to a pro team is the Wolfpack or Sound Tigers and the Ravens, so you have to sign your allegiance to either New York or Boston. It just that I’m spoiled.
Continue reading Lets Go Mets! Lets Go Mets! – So go ahead and go already!
RandyRants.com Swag!
Just a quick plug here about a new addition to the site: Swag! Over to your right, the last item on the menu, is a link to a whole selection of RandyRants.com merchandice. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but I thought it would be neat to see my logo printed across a pair of breasts. Well, what I mean is that there’s a very female t-shirt available and where the logo is… um, well. Hm. Ok, fine – get the mouse pad instead if you’re going to make an issue out of it! Jeesh… try to be a capitalist and look what happens – there’s also regular t-shirts and mugs and frisbees… I don’t make any cash on it either, but it’s a great way to get the site some free publicity – I’m not giving up my day (or afternoon or night) job!
In God We Trust
Recently there’s been so much in the news, it’s hard to pinpoint any one thing to Rant on. I mean this whole Israel-Palistine thing would have been taken care of if they had just followed my advice in the first place, but since that wouldn’t make for more than a couple of days of news, no one seems to want the problem to go away. Anyway, it’s been a rarer and rarer thing that I’d get thought the morning news reports that and it would foster a Rant, much less one steeped in blind fury. Any yet, today is no ordinary day, now is it? No… today is the day after the California Supreme Court ruled the US Pledge of Allegiance to be unconstitutional.
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Ee-oh-eleven… Ee-oh-eleven…
This morning, Ocean’s Eleven was on one of the movie channels… not the remake from a couple of years ago, but the original from 1960 with the Rat Pack, Mr. Roper, a Boss from the Godfather, and a couple other ppl, taking place in Vegas when the Vegas strip was just about five hotels long. Good movie, actually, if you understand the Rat Pack at the time.
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The MTD sucks bollocks. So do the Mets for that matter.
The Milford Transit Dept sucks major bollocks. Yes, I’m currently sitting on the train platform instead of my regular morning train because the people at the MTD (that control the commuter parking lots that I park in most mornings) have — oo! an Acela train just went by! — over sold the lots while under construction. Not only did they keep the “normal” amount of spaces for lot 1 and 2 but lot 2 is down about 75% of the original spaces and lot 1 down about 50% – obviously I have been put in Time Out in lot 3, which has more than enough parking for all of Milford, but it made me trek a bit to the platform, making me miss my train.
Continue reading The MTD sucks bollocks. So do the Mets for that matter.
Boston Sucks! Boston Sucks! Boston ….! Boston ….!
A few weeks ago, the Seattle Mariners made national news – no, not for their playing of Ichiro – for a new policy they put into effect at SafeCo field for the Yankees-Mariners’ homestand. Fans that were showing up to the ballpark with the traditional “Yankees Suck” t-shirts were being told that they had to either turn them inside out or take them off, should they want to get into the game. Fans were a bit pissed off about this “new” policy, and a whole media circus occurred.
Continue reading Boston Sucks! Boston Sucks! Boston ….! Boston ….!
got date.NET?
“Been there; done that.” A great expression. “Let’s not and say we never did it?” A little tweak on another great expression. “It’s all fun and games until someone uses a fallopian tube!” Good words to live by. Ok, I’ve already digressed from this Rant and I haven’t even started it yet. The title says Internet Dating, doesn’t it? Well, the truth is that I’ve done it already, long before the Internet was trendy and certainly long before services like Match.com or Lavalife were around, that’s for certain. Does it work? It can… it depends on what’s involved and how much the people want to work at their relationship; sound familiar? It should – it’s what’s required to make any relationship work in the first place.
Continue reading got date.NET?
Hey man, got a butt?
What else made this morning bizarre? The scene on the train platform. Scene might be too strong a word, but while standing on my Northbound side of the tracks, there was a bit of activity on the Southbound side that made for a nice anti-Norman Rockwell episode. Not that I’m anti-Rockwell mind you! He just seems to have such great still shots of a “perfect” moment from a “perfect” American life and this was quote the opposite. I use the quotes there for a reason – what is perfect to Rockwell might not be perfect to all. What I saw today would make a tobacco executive get sticky pants and the MTV exec’s stay up all night with marketing to find the next big “spoodge” for their industry.
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Chat rooms and Parent and Malls!
I’ve been chatting online on and off for about 16 years now – yes, I’m that big a Geek – and as I’m now 29, you can see that I started chatting rather early on. 16 years ago, the only chat services were the ones that no one really knew about – just computer people – so the chat was rather “normal” as were the majority of the people. Sure there was lots of GeekSpeak, but it wasn’t a breeding ground for non-Geek weirdos; a subtle but very pointed distinction. For the most part, parents didn’t know about chat rooms, but if they did there was less to worry about, given the people online.
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The Rising Price of CD’s
This is a monopolistic industry. It’s outrageous and frankly, I’m pretty pissed off about it. It’s been something of a slow rage to me, but here’s the end result of it. See, I started listen to music when vinyl was on its way out (because it wasn’t trendy anymore) and cassette tapes were in the mainstream. OK, fine, I was around for 8-Track too, but that’s moot because I never had one of my own. Cassettes sucks. They were fragile lil things, constantly breaking, unspooling, melting in the sun and sounded like crap. Dolby-B/C never did anything but muffle the highs and every tape player had a slightly different speed to it, so music never sounded the same from machine to machine. Oops, got techy again. Anyway, I what I’m trying to say is I was around for the DAT debacle and the introduction of CD’s.
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