Category Archives: Rant


Rant

WTF: Military Edition

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Heard today on the news that some officer is refusing to follow orders. Those orders are that he’s to be deployed to Iraq. His problem? It’s “immoral”.

Riiiiiight. No disrespect intended, but don’t you sacrifice a chunk of your personal reservations when you sign up for military service? Aren’t you expected to follow orders, even if you don’t agree with them? Aside from things that can be punished as a war crime – i.e. shooting civilians for playtime target practice – how do personal politics fit into it? I mean if you could never ever shoot another human in a combat situation, would you join the army and then refuse to fight? Go work in a slaughterhouse if you might consider yourself slightly Hindu?

Of course now that the media is involved, they’ll have a new poster boy to rally around, when the truth is that this dude should be swinging from a rope… imagine if half of our armed forces woke up tomorrow and said “Hey, today’s Wednesday – I don’t feel like being a solder today”?

Ridiculous.

Rant

A Mini?

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A few of weeks ago I decided to lease a Mini. Er, a Mini Cooper. As in the car, not an Apple – the Mac mini was two weeks ago, not four! A bunch of people – mostly friends and family from the east coast – have asked me why I’m even considering a Mini. Especially when they hear I’ve ordered the base trim and not the sporty-focused S model, after all the fuss I made over the 6-speed transmission of the speed Jetta GLI that I currently have.

The short answer is pretty short: look at the picture to the right and keep in mind that the Mini is the exact same width as my Jeep.
Continue reading A Mini? →

Rant

Hell Yeah I Laughed

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Police investigate angry eBayer’s revenge site: Police are investigating a disgruntled eBayer who took online revenge after finding a laptop he paid £375 which, he said, did not work. The buyer recovered the hard drive from the malfunctioning notebook, finding it full of personal details, allegedly including access to email accounts, 90 voyeuristic leg shots taken on the London Underground and gay porn. He posted the material on a website, naming and shaming Barnet 19-year-old Amir Tofangsazan as the seller.

I had to laugh: I might be selling an older notebook on eBay very soon! I planned to simply restore the HDD with the included original discs but now I think I’ll wipe the drive first and then restore it… for work items. Honest. I don’t have crap like this on my notebook – I’ve never been to London!

Besides, I guess no matter how strange or twisted my own recent life has become, it’s still much, much better than this poor dumb bastard’s recent weeks…

Rant

Movie Fest

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Popped out to see a couple of movies over the long weekend. Strange for both of us as we hadn’t seen a movie in ages, much less together… what with a backlog of DVR shows, a room full of DVD movies, and Xbox 360 related activities, it’s easy to forget that theaters are still there, collecting nearly $9 a ticket.

X-Men 3 was good, at least I thought so. Good for the genre at any rate. A nice follow up to X1 and X2, too. The Da Vinci Code was the other one – that was good too, again, for the genre. I thought the cinematography was exceptional in The Da Vinci Code – I knew the story already but the way the filmed it kept me guessing and jumpy. The other thing of interest was Tom Hanks in the movie… I think he was underutilized. Ya know how he usually drives the film? Not so much here. It’s almost like he dialed it back a notch to let the other characters drive the movie. Which is exactly how it goes in the book: Robert is just sorta along for the ride that other people send him on. So to that end he did his job well – the rest of the cast shone and was well picked.

To compare the two wouldn’t be fair but I will say that I went to pee during X3 and didn’t even think about it in The Da Vinci Code… that’d be a 3 second review, if I had to give ya one.

Rant

Overhyped

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Yeesh. I’ve wanted to see X-Men 3 ever since they flashed Phoenix under the water at the end of X-Men 2. At least I used to… I don’t know any more. It seems that every time I turn around I see Yet Another Preview. Teasers. Trailers. Sneak previews. Behind the Scenes. Behind the Scenes of the Behind the Scenes. I don’t wanna know what happens in the movie, but I’m wondering if I could figure out the entire story, if I watched all this crap… I’ve been avoid all of the coverage as much as possible, but it’s really hard to do… The hype machine is really getting to be long in the tooth – it’s almost enough to make me want to wait for the DVD.

Thankfully The Da Vinci Code isn’t as bad – sure there’s hype on that too, but most of that hype is being generated by worldly religion communities and English courts: it’s more news than hype.

Rant

Isn’t It Ironic?

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It occurred to me today that how asinine our culture can be. Has anyone else noticed that we’re content to push coloring books at kids without thinking about why we’d do that? I have no issues with the books themselves; I have issues with their limitations. Think of it this way: people have the most amount of imagination when they’re young – the older they get the more grounded in reality they become. Why do we feel compelled to give them pre-drawn coloring books? Or even pre-fab Lego kits rather than a buck of Lego bricks? Is it because as adult we’re terrified by the void represented by a complete blank sheet of paper? Or is it just “because”?

I dunno. Occurred to me during lunch today. Thought I’d share.

And for that matter, would it even pass for irony in the first place?

Rant

Careful: Not Work Safe

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Furrygoat: …it makes me wornder if the “Kid From Brookyln” has it right (warning: while the video may not be the most appropriate for work, it’s certainly amusing).

Volume is required but it’s um… rather… spirited? Rated R for language, but visually safe. Sorta. If you can watch the Sopranos you can handle lookin’ at dis guy. Honestly, tho, it was like listening to one of my uncles, in real time.

Almost made me shoot vanilla latte out my nose, too.

Rant

Mini-Update: Whee!

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Nothing earth shattering to report as of late. I did go over to “The Peninsula” this past weekend with Anna, making a day trip out of a tour of Sequim, and I’ve been trying to keep my mind serine about my change of jobs. Which has made me pretty freaked out lately: I realized the other day that I am changing jobs. Doesn’t sound like a big deal for some and I’m staying in the same company but that doesn’t minimize the change. Sure, my 401K/ESPP information doesn’t change… neither does my phone number and email addy. I’ve moved office four times since joining Microsoft, so that’s not a huge deal… but then it hit me: it’s still a complete job change and certainly a shift in career objectives, given the new group – I shouldn’t be taking it that lightly after all. So it’s been a struggle to keep my mind off it, but that’s hardly any new news…

Aside from that, I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to not impulse buy a MacBook Pro and planning on getting some flooring in my house replaced… but that’s hardly news to most.

Wii! Whee! E3 this week!

Rant

¡Ultraje – Indignación!

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MSNBC: “If we don’t come out, they’re going to paint us as criminals,” Aguilar said. “We’ve only come here to earn money with the sweat of our brow.”

Oh, well then. That makes everything OK, does it?

Not.
Continue reading ¡Ultraje – Indignación! →

Rant

Dateline: Online Predators

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Just spent an hour watching this show… fuckin’ rules. The show uses decoys, actresses, and cops to set up perverts and busts’m. Like 21-50 year old men hitting on 13-15 year old girls. They even went so far as to get this 19 year old chick that looks 13 to bust this 6 grade teacher.

Rules. They should do away with Dateline entirely and make this a weekly show. I swear: the only thing that will stop this type of crap is humiliation and constant vigilance.

In fact… I should find out about the decoy organization, this Perverted Justice – I swear I could help them…

After 20 years of chatting, HO SHVIT I r0xx3r t3h pr0n!!!11!1 :)

Rant

Oh. Shit. (RvB Edition)

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Today I was driving to work, pretty much in a fog. So much so that I got to my building, I had to drive back home to get my ID badge: sure I could have gotten a “I forgot my ID” sticker to wear all day, but since I get to work so early, the receptionists aren’t even there yet, so no sticker for me.

On my second trip past our Executive Conference Center, I said “oO, big red banners with Chinese on them… oh yeah! The Chinese President is on campus today!” I then looked down at the shirt I was wearing… and said:

“Oh. Shit.”
Continue reading Oh. Shit. (RvB Edition) →

Rant

Lazy? Comfort?

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Are comfort and lazy interchangeable? Does the difference between laziness and comfort lie with a person’s intentions, when making a decision? Or is it situational? Is taking the “sure thing” rather than the “risk” a case of laziness or staying within your comfort zone?

To me, the lines between the two are very blurry…
Continue reading Lazy? Comfort? →