Just happened to discover that I've got a listing in
Moby Games. That is just so remarkably complete. I spoke about three sentences in Grand Theft Auto 3 and now I have a listing just like Sid Meier. I guess it's not cool to anyone but me, but it's neat.
Alright, a Japanese businessman has to auction houses compete for the rights to sell a $20 million art collection by playing
rock paper scissors. That's pretty funny, but what is interesting is the different approaches. Christies asked a couple of kids what they would do, Southeby's said, it's a game of chance, we'll just hope for the best. I'm sorry to admit I would have a Southeby's attitude, but Christies was right; the kids said go with scissors, they went with scissors and they won. It reminds me of a Mark Twain story in which someone is arrested for running a poker game, because games of chance are illegal. He sets up a poker game between professionals and amateurs (or something) and the professionals win every time, proving it is a game of skill. As is, it turns out, rock paper scissors.
The government has come out with a new food pyramid for us all to ignore. Apparently the idea is that different people need different pyramids according to weight, age and amount of excerside. I haven't seen my pyramid because when I put in my stats at mypyramid.gov the site just spins its wheel.
But I don't care about the pyramid. What interests me is, apparently at some point the design indicated foods like fruits and vegetables hould be eaten "daily" and foods like pastries should be eaten occasionally. And that is now gone. Nabisco doesn't want the government telling people they shouldn't eat cookies every day.
Would this have happened if Kerry were president? Hard to say. But it can be said that this was certain to happen with Bush as president. The government is dropping almost all pretence of actually trying to do what's right for people. Even in little things like this.
I just saw a commercial for the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie that I found fascinating because it in no way suggests that the movie is, as is likely, a comedy. Instead, it basically is an advertisement for Star Wars, a big adventure with special effects and things blowing up. I went to the movie's website to see if the same trailer exists there, and while it doesn't, trailer number 1 is pretty similar. On the other hand, trailer #3 is a good attempt at a trailer that evokes at least some of the classic HGTTG humor, and trailer #2 is a sort of standard comedy movie trailer (to some extent the trailer that is being made fun of in Trailer #3).
The studio is trying to make different markets think this is different sorts of movies. Somebody is bound to be hurt.
I recently discovered that the comments on this site don't work. Now admittedly it is possible, even probably, that no one has ever commented on one of my scarce posts nor ever will, but it's always good to give people options. So I'm making this post specifically so I can add a comment to it.
I was just recently saying that I would be able to hold my own in conversation if the subject was video games, and yesterday I was at a party full of twenty-somethings and wound up talking with a bunch of guys who were very serious about their games. That wasn't all we talked about, but it kept coming back to that. So I guess the alternative to becomming literate and well informed is to just hang out with a younger crowd.
God I hate the post office. Here's why.
I posted this at my3cents, a site devoted to letting consumers blow off steam. Those who enjoy my infuriated rants can also read about my experiences with AT&T.
I was at my friend Francis' birthday party, and Francis's friend Daniel told
me I never update my blog. I knew that, of course, but I didn't realize
anyone else did, except Francis, who had mentioned he checks it every few
months. It is strange to think anyone knows my blog exists; even most of
the people I told when I started it have forgotten by now.
But then, some people are true blog afficienados. Me, not so much. I used
to read Utopia with Cheese (which I don't need to link to because it's
listed on the right) but it's moribund, and I read Francis' blog Heaneyland
(also linked to on the right) sometimes, although since I read it on my
Pocket PC using Avant Go and turn off images and links because of space
limitations I can't make sense of it all.
But other people read tons of blogs, as I discovered at Francis' party,
where his frighteningly smart and clever friends all seem to be familiar
with certain blogs, certain magazines, certain books. It's like one of
those Woody Allen movies where a whole roomful of people have read Nietze.
Alas, unless the conversation turns to television or old movies (as when I
valiantly defended the underated Bob Hope; go watch Paleface before you
dismiss me, dammit!) I don't have much to contribute. Unfortunately video
games haven't quite reached that critical mass to be a major area of
conversation at parties (unless I start going to keggers), so unless I start
reading books and magazines and blogs and the like (which seems highly
improbable) I'm afraid I will always be more like the slightly out-of-place
hooker at the Woody Allen gathering.
Anyway, it turns out everyone is familiar with the blog BoingBoing, and Francis has created a parody of it called BoringBoring. The parody is quite amusing, but I can't for the life of me figure out why BoingBoing is so
popular, because skimming through it I can't say I was particularly
enthused. So this whole long post was just to plug his parody. I could
also plug his book, the Holy Tango of Poetry, but as a professional critic I can't plug anything I haven't received a free copy of. But if you read, which I don't, go ahead and buy a copy.
Like most middle-aged guys, I don't really know what's happening with the
young people, but today I learned that, at least with the young people on my
block, fashion dictates the wearing of t-shirts that come down to your
knees. I was talking to the friendly Indian guy Jamal in the little shop
next door, and teenage boys kept coming in buying these monstrous t-shirts.
A kid 5' 4" would come in, say "what size is that sky blue t-shirt," Jamal
would say "4x," the kid would say, "that's no kid, you got any 5x?" Not
that oversized clothes are anything new; it was a big thing in the zoot suit
era and in the last few months I've seen the oversized pants, but it's
always a little startling the very first time you see the latest fad, and
since I know I'm a major source of information for the zero people who read
my almost-never-updated blog, I thought I should let you know what's up with
the kids.
Finally someone has come up with a really useful purpose for technology: making expensive dinners float in the air. I like it when someone is working on things even science fiction writers never thought of. (Okay, I have no idea if science fiction writers have thought of floating food or not, but I haven't read it.)
The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > When the Sous-Chef Is an Inkjet
Just got this press release from an internet monitoring company called
Hitwise. I bet lots of the people visiting the gay sites are the same
people who voted against gay marriage. You always hear stories about some
hardcore anti-gay guy who one day is found giving head in a restroom
somewhere. If people would stop hating themselves they wouldn't have to
take it out on everybody else.
SWING-STATE OHIO AMONG MOST LIKELY
TO VISIT GAY, LESBIAN WEB SITES
NEW YORK, Nov. 15, 2004 - Socially conservative voters in Ohio turned out in
great numbers to support a proposed state ban on same-sex marriage on Nov.
2. But this deciding state in the 2004 presidential election also had among
the highest visitation levels to gay and lesbian community Web sites.
According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive Intelligence
service, Internet users in Ohio were 52 percent more likely to visit a gay
or lesbian community site than all other sites, when compared to users in
all other states, for the week ending Nov. 6, 2004. Ohio was second only to
Washington, D.C. and New Mexico, which were 110 percent and 60 percent more
likely, respectively.
"While the data points are not entirely conclusive of the beliefs or
standpoint of visitors, they would suggest that there is an active and
sizeable gay and lesbian community in Ohio," said Bill Tancer, vice
president of research at Hitwise. "This offers another glimpse into just how
decisive the issue of same-sex relationships is in a state that ended up
favoring a ban on same-sex marriage, as well as determining the outcome of
the presidential election."
The states least likely to visit gay and lesbian community sites than all
other sites were: Wyoming, Vermont and North Dakota. These sites were 46, 61
and 72 percent less likely, respectively, versus all U.S. states.
Lifestyle Segmentation of Total U.S. Visitors to Gay and Lesbian Community
Sites:
(Data period: four weeks ending Nov. 6, 2004)
. According to the most recent Hitwise/Claritas Segmentation report,
"Mainstream Singles" are 62 percent more likely to visit gay and lesbian
community sites than all other sites when compared to other life-stage
groups. Mainstream Singles is characterized by young, hip singles who've
recently settled in metro neighborhoods. Conversely, people belonging to the
"Accumulated Wealth" segment are 50 percent less likely to visit a gay or
lesbian site. This group is characterized by upscale professionals, the
presence of children and sprawling homes beyond the nation's beltways.
. "Midtown Mix" and "Urban Cores" are the two social groups most
likely to visit gay and lesbian Web sites (77 and 41 percent more likely,
respectively). Midtown Mix is characterized by people of average income,
ethnically diverse, childless and socially active; Urban Cores is
characterized by relatively modest incomes, modest education and rental
apartments. On the other hand, individuals belonging to "Landed Gentry" -
characterized by wealthy Americans who migrated to smaller boomtowns beyond
the nation's beltways - are 42 percent less likely to visit a gay or lesbian
site.
Demographics of Total U.S. Visitors to Gay and Lesbian Community Sites:
(Data period: week ending Nov. 6, 2004)
. Men represent 80 percent of visitors while women represent 20
percent.
. Visitors 35 to 44 years old represent the largest age segment at
31 percent. Conversely, visitors 55 and older are the least represented at
10 percent.
. At 33 percent, the largest household income bracket among visitors
is $30,000 to $60,000. At nine percent, visitors with a household income
greater than $150,000 represent the smallest bracket.
Saw an ad in the subway for the
Fitzgerald & Fitzgerald law firm. The ad was telling people if their kid is autistic or retarded there might be someone that can be sued for it. Okay, we live in a litigious society and lawyers advertise in subways for clients, and that's how the world is. But in the ad, the company was offering a free cap with their logo (a leprechaun with boxing gloves) to anyone who came in for a consultation. That is just so fundamentally wrong that I am not even going to bother eplaining why that is so fundamentally wrong.
The ever resourceful Google has created a way to search your PC for information. It indexes everything on your computer, so it searches way faster than the Windows search. This is great for me. It searches files, documents, email, and other stuff I turned off because I don't want it. Finding email in Outlook is very difficult, you have to figure out which folders to search and I always first just search the subject because it takes forever to search the entirety of each email (I keep most of my email so there's an awful lot). I can find anything right away now. It could use a few more features, but it's still in beta and I imagine more will be coming. But what's there is fantastic, a necessity for anyone who can't keep track of their files, documents and email. Trust me.
Google Desktop Search Download
Is there such a thing as a well-informed, rational Bush supporter? I'm thinking no.
Can you read the New York Times and still support Bush? Here's some information on how his minions are working to keep Democrats from voting. Take that, Democracy.
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Block the Vote
Here's something to read if you want to really be scared by our future with Bush.
The New York Times > Magazine > In the Magazine: Without a Doubt
Frank Rich, my favorite Times columnist (outside of myself), basically says, you thought Nixon was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
The New York Times > Arts > Frank Rich: Will We Need a New 'All the President's Men'?
If you'd like to see something I didn't read in the Times, here's something for those who consider it hyperbole to say the Bush administration is heading to fascism.
Fascism Anyone?
Read all this and still vote Republican and there is no hope for you as a human being.
I'll be honest, I have a little trouble peeing in public restrooms, I tend to get a bit tense. Now apparently I can look forward to walking up to a urinal and having it start speaking to me! Great.
Microsoft tends to lag behind its competitors, putting out inferior software
whose presence in the market is mainly the result of Microsoft's
omnipresence. But every once in a while they manage to do things right. It
happenes with Internet Explorer 5, I think, where they finally had a
competitive browser (now eclipsed by Firefox, but apparently adding a couple
of tricks that come with the latest Windows update that could help).
Any way, with Windows 95, Microsoft introduced their new version of the
Windows Media Player, a clunky piece of garbage that looked bad, was poorly
designed and ran like mud, and over the years each consecutive release has
caused me to quickly check and reject it. Now Windows' Media
Player 10 is out, and it's actually pushed Winamp out as my MP3 player
of choice. First off, they've finally got rid of their most annoying flaw,
which was the inability to use the playlist in any sort of normal fashion.
And instead of using up most of the screen with a big black area you can use
for visualizations, if you care about such things, or just the name of the
song huddled in a corner, you can show your library and playlist or a fairly
nice what's playing screen that also shows your playlist.
There are a lot of other nifty features, some of which may have existed
before but went unnoticed because the basic interface was so clunky that I
couldn't be bothered. Like MusicMatch, WMP can look up your MP3s and get
more info on them, so if you just have the artist and the song it can get
album and track info, although this could be tweaked. You can also easily
rate your songs as their playing, so if I do enough of that eventually the
automatic playlist that will play your highest rated songs might come in
handy (you can also ask to hear songs you haven't heard for awhile or even
your least favorite songs). And if you go through your list of artists and see that, for example, you have songs by "Beatles" and songs by "The Beatles" and songs by "Beatles, The", you can just drag one artist to another and it will give them all the same artist name (I think, typical of Microsoft, there is something a little nonstandard about how they use the MP3 info, but nothing that breaks anything).
It still needs some work as a video player, although it has improved. I use the Media Player Classic as much as possible, although it seems to be sluggish with WMV
files.
So, credit where credit is due, Microsoft did a good job. Now if they could
just do something about Outlook (like model it after Entourage, the far
superior mail reader Microsoft developed for the Macintosh) I'd hardly have
any reason to hate them at all, except that they're a big, soul-crushing
monopoly.
Well, it's been a while so I thought what they hell, why not do the singing
of the funny songs thing again. Details:
Date: Setember 7
Time: 10 p.m.
Location: Sidewalk Café (E. 6 St. at Avenue A)
Price: No cover but they want you to buy a drink (I think there's a two
drink minimum but when I've gone I'm never bothered for the second drink)
You can check out some of my songs at http://charlesherold.iuma.com
Now, you can make fun of Bloomberg's idea of offering discount coupons to people who promise to protest peacefull at the RNC, but at least it's a pleasant approach, although I expect things will get less pleasant once the enemy arrives. My problem with the offer is, there aren't discounts for anything I want. Now if 7A or Daffy's were part of the deal I'd sign right up, but for the present set of retailers I might as well start throwing rocks at Republicans right now. (Just kidding, I'm anti-throwing rocks at people, even Republicans.)
I only skimmed Tom Junod article The Case For George Bush, (i.e. what if he's right). It seems thoughtful and heartfelt, although even though Junod expresses disgust for Bush it's
hard to know what his politics are since the only articles I could find
listed by him were about celebrities. So he may be a conservative playing
the on-the-fence liberal, or he may be something very common on the
left, an open-minded progressive who bends to far over backwards to see the
other side that he winds up with his head up his ass.
Yes, we have to take terrorism seriously, and yes, there are hard choices to
make. Bush has consistently made the wrong choices and waged the war on
terrorism with grotesque incompentence, but Junod seems more concerned with
George's philosophical underpinnings (well, more likely Cheney's, since W
doesn't have a brain in his head).
And Bush's basic idea is, screw world justice, screw our allies, screw the
UN, let's fight this alone, our way, choosing enemies that seem at random,
with no clear cut goal or sensible policy. Let's create havoc and chaos and
hatred wherever we go. Bush is someone who would rid a house of termites by
burning it down.
But beyond that, I have a belief, which I'm sure many would label
wooly-headed liberalism, that the ends-justify-the-means approach to
politics is dangerous and ultimately counter-productive. Bush simply
believes that we have to do whatever he thinks we have to do, world be
damned, and that if we do all of it - suspend the civil liberties of our
citizens, attack countries with no provocation and lie when necessary to get
our policies past congress - then we will win the war on terrorism. He also
believes that if rich people and corporations don't have to pay taxes then
we will have a boom economy.
The guy is an idiot. His concepts are fundamentally flawed. He is wrong.
Just saw the latest episode of Monk, a cute show that's gone way down hill.
I've been meaning to talk here about how one could have predicted Monk would
jump the shark from the moment they changed the theme song from their bright, appropriate one to that grating Randy Newman song, how it was a sign that the producers didn't really
understand their own show and what made it good, that from that point it was
inevitable that one day there would be a show where Monk had to babysit a
chimpanzee. But now I have something else to talk about, the tendency of
television producers of lily-white shows to make their rare black characters
fat sassy women, cool streetwise guys, or occassionally impossibly noble
black people apparently there to teach us all a lesson about the struggles
of the African-American. In the case of Monk's latest episode, "Mr. Monk
and the Girl Who Cried Wolf," it was the sassy woman.
Now, I know there are big sassy black women, I see them behind the counter
at ice cream shops or talking loudly in the subway, but I don't actually
know anyone like that, and I'm willing to bet the producers of Monk don't
either. I'm white, I'm not a streetwise clubbing kind of white, I'm a
pretty dorky white, and I meet black people at work or at friend's parties
or when I go swing dancing and the women aren't sassy and the men aren't
streetwise. In fact, they are all pretty much like the white people I meet,
well-educated, soft spoken, and often kind of geeky (trekkies and the like).
So when I see yet another sassy black chick, it once again makes me wonder,
where on earth are the black people who reflect my personal experience?
There are a few in movies who seem closer to the mark, like Denzel and
Halle, but television insists on pulling their black characters from the
black lower class.
The first time I met a black kid I was 10. And I was shocked, because he
was nothing like the black people I saw on television like J.J. Walker: he
was exactly like all the white kids I knew with darker skin. Same clothes,
same taste in music. Why is it virtually impossible to see anyone like that
on television? Do these television producers simply not know any black
people, are they going entirely by what they see on *other* TV shows? I
just don't get it.
