Purification Week

Okay, this week I'm going to do a lot of the stuff I've been procrastinating on. Get shit done.

1 resume
2 web
3 bcor4k paper
4 fix bikes
5 contacts
6 portfolio
7 real money
8 BOP
9 max fishing
10 apply target
11 minimize eatout

registering

You know how when you are registering for a site or a forum, they have that little box with the mangled text you have to type in to pass, for security?

They used to be fine, but damn lately they are getting so complicated half the time I can't even read them.

argh

In high school I remember sometimes being ashamed of how I would always get better grades and perform better than other people. I'm not exactly sure why. One thing's for sure though - I wish I still had that problem these days. Being embarassed for the opposite reason is a lot worse.

stuff from around the internets

nice photos of new york city using high-dynamic range imagery

http://www.flickr.com/photos/automatt/sets/72057594091674928

a dude who takes mmorpgs too seriously - the maybe the hardest i have ever laughed
http://wowseriousbusiness.ytmnsfw.com/

had some other video links to share but youtube is messed for me right now

whos yo daddy

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3418263437173679038

The Age of Enlightenment

Recently it's been feeling a lot like the mid-to-late 90's to me, the first internet boom. I mean, all these innovative sites like YouTube, Wikis, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, and blogs are really catching on into the mainstream, and it feels a lot like it was back then. It's pretty exciting.

I think the good thing about it now is that it is a little bit more reserved - it's not just about hype, but sites are becoming popular on their usefulness and if they are actually adding value. I think we went over this adoption curve in my digital business class last semester - where there's a big spike at the beginning where it's all hype and excitement, then a dip when the bubble bursts, and lastly another ramp up when the technology is really being used for the value it adds.

Anyways, I am happy for it all. In my opinion, it is the greatest invention in the history of the earth - nothing ever invented had such a major, instantaneous impact on people's daily lives. Long live the internet.

lol

The more I think about it, George Bush made a brilliant pick in his vice president. Now, even after evidence that he leaked the identity of an undercover CIA operative, no one will impeach him. Why? Because the only thing worse than having George Bush as president would be Dick Cheney as president. So, by picking someone a lot worse than you for the second seat, you are pretty much immune to anyone trying to take you down. I'll make a note of that for the future....

OMFG ROFLMAO

o man where has this clip been all my life

what is a ho?

Down with the food network

Well, Food Network took Iron Chef out of the regular weekday 9PM and 1AM time slot and replaced it with a multitude of their crappy other shows. It really sucks because that was my absolute favorite show on television, and now if I want to see it I have to stay up until like 3 AM on Tuesday nights.

I guess it's fitting, it seems that Food network takes all their very best shows and plays them only in the middle of the night when no one is watching. For example I just saw these two shows at like 3 AM tonight with Anthony Bourdain and Pete Luckett that were like 50x better than anything Rachel Ray or Alton Brown have ever done.

Argh...

Everything's going to be OK.

Does anyone remember OK Soda?

I have asked many people over the years, and no one seems to know what I'm talking about.

God bless wikipedia.

Good Night, and Good Luck.

I just saw the movie Good Night, and Good Luck, which is about Edward R. Murrow's on-air battle with Senator Joseph McCarthy. Although as a movie it was pretty weak, I think the story it tells is very valuable. David Strathaim, the actor who plays Murrow, delivers the lines perfectly and at one part I even started crying because the words were so patriotic and beautiful. I think this stuff is relevant especially at this time, for both journalists and americans.

"We will not walk in fear, of one another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of the Republic to abdicate his responsibility. As a nation we have come into our ful inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourseleves, and indeed we are, the defenders of reedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world. But we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

-Edward R Murrow

Lucas Bashing.

So I came across this article in Wikipedia about something called "Lucas Bashing." This surprised me because it is an activity I have participated in ever since the release of Episode I back in 1999. I wasn't aware there was an actual term for it. It does make me happy that I am not only former star wars fan that does it.

And since I haven't had the chance to Lucas bash lately, here I go:

FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS
FUCK GEORGE LUCAS

Ahh, I feel the stress just melt away.

I'm gonna have to charge you for that extra sauce.

Now, I am not a very difficult consumer. There aren't a lot of things I demand when I walk into any retail or food service establishment. I mean, I know what it's like to deal with difficult customers and get paid crap wages. Just treat me fairly with at least basic customer service and I'm usually pretty satisfied.

But there is one thing that really pisses me off. The situation:

It's lunch or dinner time. My stomach knows this, and tells me I am hungry. But I am not hungry for just any food, no. This time, I have that certain hunger that can only be satisfied by a 20 piece set of McDonald's Chicken McNuggets. Yea you know the ones - those golden, artificial tasting, fat-injected, pressed chicken meat McNuggets. Now, I don't really go to McDonald's that much anymore because it usually is a pretty horrible experience, but this is the one situation where I will make the exception. After all they have a McNugget monopoly.

So I walk into my local McDonald's, really excited about how I'm gonna order a bunch of mcnuggets and really scarf them down. I walk up to the counter and place my order chicken nuggets with some barbeque and sweet and sour sauce. I step back for others to order. I nod and say to myself, "damn, these nuggets are going to be fuckin awesome."

And then they give me my order. There are the chicken nuggets, and there are the sauces. Two of them. WTF? Now, being an experienced chicken nugget eater, I know those two sauces aren't going to last. I have determined that, given the nugget surface area and the viscosity of McDonald's sauces, the optimal nugget to sauce ratio is about 3.5:1. That means that for total coverage, they should give AT LEAST 3 sauces per 10 nugget order.

So I go, "could I have another sauce please?"

Instead of instantly responding and setting another on my tray, the girl gets that look on her face. You know, THAT look. A look I have come to know too well. And I know what's coming next.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to charge you for an extra sauce."

I try to stay composed, and go "okay that's fine." I reacch into my pocket for change. Inside, however, my excitment about the nuggets has disappeared. In has been replaced by a burning rage, and in my mind I am cursing the McDonald's corporation with every part of my soul. I take my tray and sit down, my happy day destroyed by this encounter.

Now, I'm not cheap. Ten cents for an extra sauce? Fine - 10 cents is nothing to me. But its the principle of the thing. I mean, are there margins *that* thin that they cannot throw an extra sauce my way every now and then? It's just one of those annoyances that really drag down the experience. Are they willing to risk lose customer relationship and all of the future income it means, for a DIME?! I'm not sure if this is something franchisee-specific - I wonder what corporate thinks. But one thing I do know is that pissing customers off for an extra 10 cents is NOT good customer relationship management and it is not good business.

And nugget sauce isn't like ketchup - an extra condiment you add on. Sauce is a part of the nugget experience - you cannot have nuggets without the sauce. I have never seen someone order just mcnuggets by themselves. The nuggets, pretty bland by themselves, take a lot of their flavor from the sauce - once you get to the bottom of that little white tub, it's over.

Now, McDonald's doesn't get that many chances from me. They are already on the edge because of the many other crappy experiences I have had from them in the past. I don't think this is very different from the general public either - I know people that refuse to walk into a McDonald's. That means that each encounter is that much more important to them because they have that much more to lose. FFS shape up McDonald's.

Are you kidding?

The PS3 will be $600-700? WTF?! I had high expectations for it, but if you're paying that much for a CONSOLE, it better come with some sort of interdimesional time travel device strapped to the bottom. gg Sony.

Although I believe that the definite trend of home entertainment is this convergence of everything into one box, I think there is something to be said for the straight gaming platforms of the past like the SNES or the original Playstation. Although this convergence doesn't necessarily mean games will get better or worse, there was a certain purity in the old systems. By being videogame-only, I think you approach them differently and with a different philosophy than you do today's systems.

Revolution, you are our only hope.

Think Different.

Today, Apple announced new software that allows the new intel-based macbooks TO RUN WINDOWS XP.

When I saw this it just blew me away. Historically, the company has been very protective of its operating system and forced all mac users to use it. And this has been the biggest single obstacle they have faced in getting new customers - it is hard to switch when all of your documents and favorite software run only on windows. And really, the main reason why I have hated apple all of my life is because of rival-type position. But now, they have eliminated this barrier in what I think is a brilliant move.

I probably won't be buying a Mac anytime soon, but on campus they are EVERYWHERE. In the business school at least, they might even outnumber normal PC notebooks. But I do admire the company for its bringing style into the computer market, and now that you can run Windows XP on them, I think they will sell A LOT more notebooks and gain a lot more market share.

Full Disclosure:

After I read this news, I promptly ran down to the computer lab after class and bought all the Apple stock I could afford (which isn't that much) because I think there is no stopping them now. Of course it wasn't cheap, up almost 10% today on this news. I only wish I would have read it earlier.

Dual-Screen Goodness

So I caved, went to Game Force, and bought a Nintendo DS. I have to say when I first heard about it a couple years ago I thought it was sort of a dumb idea - I mean, two screens? It sounded sorta gimmicky. And who the hell puts a touch pad on a video game system?

Well, now I understand. I really respect Nintendo - they are one of the companies out there that are really innovating and taking video games to the next level. With the DS they are exploring what really is possible. The touchpad is awesome - it adds a whole new dimension and interactivity to games that hasn't been achieved before. It's hard to explain, but there's something about how crisp and fast it responds to the stylus and how the games respond that make the gaming experience much more intimate.

And game developers have really taken this touchpad concept an ran with it. My first game is Nintendogs, where you adopt a puppy inside of your DS and play and interact with it using the touch screen. It really is pretty cool, and my puppy (a lab named Daisy) really seems to be alive and responds just like a real dog. Yeah I know, this game is for preteen girls, but whatever! There is even a game where you perform surgery with the stylus.

When I was at Game Force I also saw a weird game, Electroplankton, where you make music on your DS with these bio-luminescent plankton thingies. I plan on picking it up this next week. The guy there told me that they stocked up on it (they had like 10 copies) because it would soon be a collector's item, since it is unique and innovative but will never win appeal with a wide audience.

I also got Tetris DS, which isn't really THAT innovative (although it does have some new touchpad features) but hey, how can you have own Nintendo portable system without Tetris?!