Lastly, this item: Slaughter at the magic funeral. Marv told us about this at dinner last week, but this, true believers, is must see IT.
Yes, I know it is sad that someone died. That's indisputable. But everything else about this is flat-out, gut-wrenching high comedy. From the sheer audacity of the guild that did this, to the self-righteous outrage over the virtual (aka, not real) massacre by a community of gamers clearly out of touch with the outside world, to the clever-yet-goofy guild names (Gnomeland Security?), I found so many things to laugh at that I think this is one of the all-time funniest things I've seen on the internet. The video is funny, but the gold is in the message board posts: incensed condemnations, the unapologetic attackers, and juvenile name-calling are all highly entertaining in a very, very stupid way.
My favorite excerpts from the article:
"The raid has led to much hand-wringing about player ethics, with many people apparently shocked that a game about wizards killing each other would be used for exactly that purpose."
"Even those who found the raid distasteful say it was idiotic for the 'funeral' to be held in an open combat zone."
(I also find it deliciously ironic that the people responsible for all this indignation and vitriol call themselves "Serenity Now". Good stuff.)
Friday, April 28, 2006
Proving my point
The headline in your Houston Chronicle tomorrow morning:
Let's be clear: Bypassing Bush smacks of stupidity
"There's a word for this kind of logic in professional sports. It's called stupidity."
Let's be clear: Bypassing Bush smacks of stupidity
"There's a word for this kind of logic in professional sports. It's called stupidity."
Bush league.
(Peter Read Miller/SI)
Reggie Bush had a bad day today. Mario Williams and Domanick David had a good one. But the people who had the worst day were Houston Texans fans.
I thought the 49ers were foolish for winning out last season, scoffing at the number one pick (and reuniting Reggie Bush with Alex Smith) for a couple of meaningless wins in a lost season. But the Texans are even more stupid for passing on the one sure thing in the draft for a guy who got hot at the end of last season against weaker opponents. They didn't even take the guy who single-handedly won the national championship and beat the most hyped "dynasty" in recent college football history, Vince Young.
Next season, when Davis runs for 3.5 yards a carry and David Carr takes more hits than Ricky Williams on an Amsterdam holiday, they'll wish they had #5 in the backfield.
It may turn out that before Vince Young sold his soul for superhuman abilities, Cal won't be the last team to beat U$C. If the NCAA and Pac-10 find out Bush's family had a deal to live rent-free in a house owned by an agent during the 2004 season, Cal and everyone else USC played that year won by forfeit. Probably cheering up Aaron Rodgers a little, since Brett Favre is coming back to hurl passes into double-coverage for one more season. I know the DBs around the league had a good day that day.
They might even take Reggie's Heisman. Won't matter. If they're smart, the Saints will sprint to the podium to bring St. Reggie to the Big Easy. Bush will rebuild New Orleans faster than Katrina and FEMA could conspire to bring it down.
And if the Saints and the other three teams ahead of San Francisco want to pass, I think we can find a spot for him in the city by the bay.
Staying alive
He may look like a fifteen-year-old or like a member of a New Jack Swing singing group, but Kevin Martin kept the Kings' season alive with a last-second lay-up following a Mike Bibby steal. (AP Photo/Greg Rihl, Davis Enterprise)In other Kings news, The Onion had a good story about Ron Artest.
What took so long?
Seriously, at what point did you numbskulls think maybe this was a good idea?
Key Commute Route Near Tracy To Be Widened
"An 11-mile stretch of Interstate 205 near Tracy will have two lanes added, resulting in three lanes in each direction...Officials said the freeway currently sees about 120,000 vehicles a day, about twice what the road was designed to handle."
Key Commute Route Near Tracy To Be Widened
"An 11-mile stretch of Interstate 205 near Tracy will have two lanes added, resulting in three lanes in each direction...Officials said the freeway currently sees about 120,000 vehicles a day, about twice what the road was designed to handle."
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Color plus size minus love over dream...plus spirit
It's getting late and I gotta run, but I wanted to say something about Me & My Katamari for the PSP.
This was my first exposure to Katamari Damacy, and I loved it. It made me want to get a PS2 and get the first two games, that's how much fun it was. The gameplay is fun, but it's the flat-out insanity of the game that is really endearing. If I wasn't so into Japanese culture, I don't know if I would enjoy it as much. But rolling over stuff like takoyaki, schoolchildren, giant robots, and Queen Natasha, Queen of the Penguins just brought a smile to my face. The music is infectious (at least, if you like J-pop). On the way to San Francisco we actually hooked the PSP to the FM modulator to listen to the game music (and the screams of panicking civilians) in the car. It sounds disturbing, but it's not, it's hilarious.
My only complaints are it's too short (and while there are lots of items to collect, the environments get repetitive fast) and this is THE hand-cramp game. The PSP is not exactly ergonomic to begin with, and this game will have you icing down your left thumb if you play it for too long. I haven't played it on the PS2, so I can't compare, but I doubt it's as much of a problem.
Recommended.
Cherry Blossom Festival
So I was at the AMC Van Ness Saturday, and I bought a ticket for The Sentinel, or as I like to call it, "24 Season 5".How was it? Beats me. I didn't see it. It was cheaper though for me to charge a $10 movie ticket, go up the escalator, get my parking validated for $6, and go back down than to pay a $2 ATM fee on top of the $17 those leeches wanted for parking.
Rhonda dragged me out to the city Saturday for the Cherry Blossom Festival. If we do this again, we're leaving earlier - we had to park at the AMC Van Ness, hoof it to J-Town, stuff ourselves silly, and hook it back. We didn't make it back in time to avoid $5 more in parking fees, hence the hoop-jumping at the theater (I had enough cash for 3 hours parking, but not enough for 3 hours and 5 minutes).
Well, it was fun while it lasted, and the weather was fantastic. Beats all that rain we had.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Sun sets on Scott...am I next?
So it's Friday, my vacation is winding down, and I pick up the paper to read the Fry's ad and I see a headline about imminent job cuts at Sun. The analyst they talked to said Sun needed to cut about a third of the workforce.
With our Q3 results being announced Monday, you could see how I would be uneasy on my first day back at work.
Instead, the big news was the resignation of Scott McNealy as CEO and appointment of Jonathan Schwartz to that position. (They also reiterated no large-scale, across-the-board layoffs were planned. Yet.)
Scott's "retirement" (he's still the Chairman of SUNW, similar to Mr. Gates' role over at MSFT) wasn't too big of a shock. I've read about rumors that Scott was thinking about stepping down, but not until the ship is righted. Does this officially mean the ship is righted?
It could be that the layoffs are still coming, and that Scott is deflecting the role of "bad guy". However, I am optimistic that isn't the case. The fourth quarter, usually Sun's strongest, could be key. If Sun can build momentum, eek out a profit, and sustain it, Sun will rise again (pardon the corny cliche). It has been declared dead before.
There was criticism a couple weeks ago from John Shoemaker, who used to be a VP at Sun, that Scott's hesitance to lay off Sun employees is responsible for the company's poor performance. I would argue that's not the case, we probably blew it by not embracing x86 earlier. But that's beside the point.
Call me biased, but I don't think a guy should be criticized for not wanting to put his people out on the street. There are two things I love about working at Sun: they seem to be one of the few employers on the planet who actually give a damn about their employees, and although making money is good and necessary, the vision of the company has always been bigger than just making a buck.
Hopefully, worrying about my job will something I look back on and laugh about. Guess that prayer in church Sunday worked - at least for the time being.
With our Q3 results being announced Monday, you could see how I would be uneasy on my first day back at work.
Instead, the big news was the resignation of Scott McNealy as CEO and appointment of Jonathan Schwartz to that position. (They also reiterated no large-scale, across-the-board layoffs were planned. Yet.)
Scott's "retirement" (he's still the Chairman of SUNW, similar to Mr. Gates' role over at MSFT) wasn't too big of a shock. I've read about rumors that Scott was thinking about stepping down, but not until the ship is righted. Does this officially mean the ship is righted?
It could be that the layoffs are still coming, and that Scott is deflecting the role of "bad guy". However, I am optimistic that isn't the case. The fourth quarter, usually Sun's strongest, could be key. If Sun can build momentum, eek out a profit, and sustain it, Sun will rise again (pardon the corny cliche). It has been declared dead before.
There was criticism a couple weeks ago from John Shoemaker, who used to be a VP at Sun, that Scott's hesitance to lay off Sun employees is responsible for the company's poor performance. I would argue that's not the case, we probably blew it by not embracing x86 earlier. But that's beside the point.
Call me biased, but I don't think a guy should be criticized for not wanting to put his people out on the street. There are two things I love about working at Sun: they seem to be one of the few employers on the planet who actually give a damn about their employees, and although making money is good and necessary, the vision of the company has always been bigger than just making a buck.
Hopefully, worrying about my job will something I look back on and laugh about. Guess that prayer in church Sunday worked - at least for the time being.
Back to work, slave
So my vacation came and went and, on the surface, we did nothing.
Sure, there's a patch of dirt in my lawn where weeds and rose bush stumps used to be, and I had the sore muscles to prove it for a few days. We made the rounds and visited with friends and fam, and yes, I was asked to fix not one but two computers.
Still, I felt refreshed at work yesterday for the first time in who knows how long. Our other "vacations" have been so physically or psychologically demanding (I survey theme parks the same way military advisors look at satellite recon), it was nice to live at a more relaxed pace. And the alone time with my wife and sleeping in are also nice.
The only real downside is we did little to no cooking last week, which is alarming since it wasn't like we were too tired from working during the day to cook. We might've ate right through our mortgage payment, but hey, we were on vacation!
Sure, there's a patch of dirt in my lawn where weeds and rose bush stumps used to be, and I had the sore muscles to prove it for a few days. We made the rounds and visited with friends and fam, and yes, I was asked to fix not one but two computers.
Still, I felt refreshed at work yesterday for the first time in who knows how long. Our other "vacations" have been so physically or psychologically demanding (I survey theme parks the same way military advisors look at satellite recon), it was nice to live at a more relaxed pace. And the alone time with my wife and sleeping in are also nice.
The only real downside is we did little to no cooking last week, which is alarming since it wasn't like we were too tired from working during the day to cook. We might've ate right through our mortgage payment, but hey, we were on vacation!
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Proofread, people.
Davan Green
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that our good friends, Bob and Jamie Green, welcomed a new baby boy into their family on Easter Sunday. The tale of the tape on Davan is 6 lbs, 12. oz, and 19.25 inches. He didn't come into the world without a fight, since Jamie had to endure 14.5 hours of (grueling, I'm sure) labor.
No word if the Chico P.D. has been notified yet. :)
No word if the Chico P.D. has been notified yet. :)
Still alive.
How about that, a new post from me! It's been over a month and a lot has happened.
- I had a hard drive crash. This has been the primary factor keeping me from cyberspace. It's pretty sad actually, I lost a good deal of our digital photos. Luckily, I (inexplicably) had copied our honeymoon photos to the laptop, and there were still all the pre-2005 pictures on my old computer. But it's like 2005 never happened. We lost a lot of pictures from fun stuff like the Cal football fan appreciation day, and the Giants season-ticketholder appreciation day. And I don't want to get started about my iTunes library...I'll be re-ripping CDs for months to come.
- Sara turned 18! My mom and dad threw a surprise party and, despite numerous slip-ups, Sara was actually surprised. I don't have any pictures though, since we were the distraction. ;)
- I came very close to winning my NCAA pool, although no one predicted the champion. I needed LSU to beat UCLA, and they got worked. So instead of $400, I got zero.
- Baseball season started, and that ends up sucking up three hours a day from all other activities. Luckily, the Giants are off to a good start despite all the distractions.
And I'm on vacation! I scheduled some time off to correspond with Rhonda's spring break. I spent Day 1 (Easter weekend doesn't count) pulling weeds (and three stumps from old rose bushes) from my yard while Rhonda cleaned up inside (safe from allergies). Today we drove up to Oakland and visited Erica and her daughter Daria, although I was too stiff and tired from yesterday to do much else.
- I had a hard drive crash. This has been the primary factor keeping me from cyberspace. It's pretty sad actually, I lost a good deal of our digital photos. Luckily, I (inexplicably) had copied our honeymoon photos to the laptop, and there were still all the pre-2005 pictures on my old computer. But it's like 2005 never happened. We lost a lot of pictures from fun stuff like the Cal football fan appreciation day, and the Giants season-ticketholder appreciation day. And I don't want to get started about my iTunes library...I'll be re-ripping CDs for months to come.
- Sara turned 18! My mom and dad threw a surprise party and, despite numerous slip-ups, Sara was actually surprised. I don't have any pictures though, since we were the distraction. ;)
- I came very close to winning my NCAA pool, although no one predicted the champion. I needed LSU to beat UCLA, and they got worked. So instead of $400, I got zero.
- Baseball season started, and that ends up sucking up three hours a day from all other activities. Luckily, the Giants are off to a good start despite all the distractions.
And I'm on vacation! I scheduled some time off to correspond with Rhonda's spring break. I spent Day 1 (Easter weekend doesn't count) pulling weeds (and three stumps from old rose bushes) from my yard while Rhonda cleaned up inside (safe from allergies). Today we drove up to Oakland and visited Erica and her daughter Daria, although I was too stiff and tired from yesterday to do much else.
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