Vulcan's vice grip on the computer

For the past few strips at one of my favorite online comic sites, they've been teaching the community about online ("trash") talk. A few days ago, they were discussing the difference between "newb" and "n00b" For anyone out there, newb's are users that are green to the field and need some lovin. n00b on the other hand are arseholes the love to trashtalk and just needs a good clear view of the backside of my hand. Today's venue was a a discussion about a way that online gamers use to show up other people in online shooter games. This is called (viewers discression is advised) "TEABAGGING". Well, I'd like to draw the attention to the final panel where the dude is holding a cup and dipping away. Yes.....dipping away.........very subtle....but dominates the rest of the panel. *crouch crouch crouch crouch crouch*

Alright, last night, after using my company's "discount" I bought cheap tickets to watch Lord of the Rings theatrical. I got really good seats, 6th row from the front, I was able to see all of the costumes in detail and the facial expression......and the backstage people getting ready.......stage right. There was some singing, dancing, slapstick comedy, lots of flashing things and confetties blowing around. The costumes and the stage was designed very very well I believe. Unfortunately, we only got the understudies for last night's show. They weren't all that good I think. The only really good actor was Smeagol/Gollum, he was at least a 11/10 on my scale. He was the only person that got the entire crowd to scream, whistle, cheer, stand. Legolas was a bit.........on the chubby and non-agile side (I think Orlando Blooms has really gotten into everyone's mind). Oh, I had one really really bad point to sitting so close to the stage. During many "elf" scenes, they wanted to have a bunch of "females" dancing...but I found out that 50% of them were drags.....yes.....guys in wigs and dresses and lipstick and stuff......kinda grossed me out a bit.
The story was very interesting. They did 80% of the first book, 30% of the second book and then the third book they totally just skipped and said that Frodo had the ring at the pool of fire/lava. Well, I guess they had 15% of the thrid book intact.
For anyone who's watched Clerk's 2, the dude did a very good representation of LotR Theatrical.............All in all, I think I'd give it a 6/10 doors for the good decorations and Gollum.

Underworld God being demoted

In recent discoveries, a group of scientists called a meeting with many more scientists to vote on what this decade may be known for..............the demotion of our final planet in our known Solar System.......Pluto. This small, icy mass of land was deemed unworthy of being a plant and has been demoted to a "dwarf planet". Sooooooo...all of our textbooks will need to be rewritten and everyone will need to go through a little phase of reprogramming. *waving hand horizontally while saying "There is no Pluto"*

In consolation to having Pluto demoted to a dwarf, we've gained another dwarf around the size of Pluto. It's the 2003 UB313, formerly known as the thing behind Pluto the ex-planet.

What I don't understand is how people can pay a group of scientists to name a star. How do I know for sure that my star hasn't been claimed by someone else? I'd really love to hear about some court case about verdict B scamming victim A of 20k for naming a star and finding out that someone else in the world has actually claimed that star already. Really........how would that case go?
"I paid this person 20k to name that star...sorry...evidence A.......and we have found out that someone else has named that same star something else. I need 5 billion dollars in compensation for my traumatic experience of losing out on my favorite star......evidence A."
riiiight.....

I just finished Dirge of Cerberus, the "sequel" of FFVII made by Square Enix. It's a shooter game (the first for Square Enix I believe) staring the mysterious character Vincent Valentine. Vincent (if people didn't know) has a daemon in him called Chaos (when released will cause......yes...Chaos........). DoC explains a lot about Vincent's past and how he become the daemon he is. At the beginning when I first heard the English voice actor for Vincent, I thought it was David Hayter because of the deep deep voice. The actual voice talent for Vincent is Steven Jay Blum. He dubbed the voice for my all time favorite Gundam character, Char Aznable. The game itself was ok, it was very easy to control and the customization of the guns was pretty good. All the CG's were in the same style as FFVII: Advent Children. All of the FFVII cast only plays a small role (except Yuffie, which as at least 5 more scenes than the other people like Cloud and Tifa). The ending is already posted on YouTube for anyone that wants to just spoil themselves, but the plot is fairly well written. Overall, the storyline was just below par, character development was weak, and gameplay wasn't all that exciting. I can really only give this a 6/10 doors because it had really kick arse CG and because it was made by Squard Enix. Oh, the voice over talent in English wasn't too bad either, I would've prefered the original Japanese voice as an option and then English subs.

Next thing I'm looking forward to will be FFXII, looks very very promising.

I Scream Day

Today is yet another Wednesday. Every Wednesday since the beginning of August, my company started the Ice Scream treatment program. Our wonderful CTO decided that we should be given a pat on the back and some nice treats on the side. Everyone here in the building get's a coupon that allows us to redeem any product from the ice cream truck below $2.50. I'm saying he's a genius, we may have around 100 employees here so that's $250 a week or a max of 1k a month. That's very little to keep people all energized and happy. People here are all going...AGHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it's ICE CREAM WEDNESDAY!!!!!! YEAH!!! YIPPIE!!!! 3-cheers for.........ICE CREAM!!!!! My condolences to those that are lactose intolerant. And there was much rejoicing.

In other news, I was kinda screaming with the rest of the world when I read that the Swedish news program had pr0n shown on it. So how did it happen? Well, some of the workers were watching the "sports" stuff on one of the TVs in the background of the newscast but forgot to change the channel. The same network company actually shows soft core movies on a separate channel during the time when this channel show's the news (so why would people want to watch the news then?!?!?!......). So bascially they had 5 minutes of pr0n showing LIVE on air..........yeah, you got it...all heck broke loose.

Entertainment wise, Hilton, Ms. Scandel 04/05/06, has told the media how she actually chooses friends. I'm flabergasted.......absolutely blown away. She says that she will go to a clothing store, pick out one outfit she likes and one that is ugly then ask the "friend" for an opinion. If the "friend" chooses the ugly one, Hilton will not be friends with this person anymore. Talk about materialistic and anal. But then again, ain't it a 50/50 chance to get it right? Maybe Hilton has a followup question of..."Why'd you choose this one?" and if they answer that "they just liked it...." it would be a basis to also not be friends.........

As the saying goes, "You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but don't EVER pick your friend's nose." AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhh....ewwwwwwwwwwwww

Expired

I just realized that I bought a bottle of Pommegranate Juice that is past the due date. Ok, it's only past the due date by 3 days, but that's still quite a lot. I would expect that my local store would check the due dates. I guess it should be ok, as long as I drink it all up by today. I don't really recall the last time getting over due stuff, but I do remember having milk that was WAY WAY WAY past it's life expectancy. Not a pretty sight...smell....or taste.........yeah........

So last night while doing some wedding planning with my co-MC, we kinda sidetracked onto a weird topic. We went through some 80's cartoons and had some questions (which some of them were often asked). Smurfs have been on my #1 for questioning. How in the world did the procreate? Ok, do a search on Google or some other search engine (there is another one?!?!?...really?) for "How do smurfs procreate" and you'll find millions and billions of hits. I really need to get a life I think.

Inspector Gadget, the cyborg guardian. At first, I was wondering how he actually procreated and had Penny.....who was the wife?!?!?....and he's a cyborg...how'd he..........ok...this was all answered after I quickly Wiki'd Gadget. It seems that I was wrong, Penny is actually his niece and hence her calling him "Uncle Gadget"............stupid me. But I'm still baffled by the intelligent dog Brain....."Woof woof bargh woof bark.."......"Yes Brain, Uncle Gadget is being stalked by a 70 foot tall MAD monkey that's a transvestite durian eating dip-SH*T!......OMG Brain........such profanity.....no more splif for you tonight...."............

Wow, I just read in the newspaper that someone in Brittain is actually petitioning against Starbucks from openning a store in his neighbourhood. He calls Starbucks a "cancer". It's spreading like wildfire around the world. They ARE the next generationg McD's I believe. The only difference is that McD's is good for all ages, while Starbucks doesn't have any happy meal toys. So Starbucks, if you're wanting to expand into new domains, start giving out Caffie-Meals with little toy figures of their new kiddie spokespeople, Donald Starbucks the coffee king (has his own card game like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon), Twitch the espresso fanatic, Latte Gals, and much much more.

Riddle me this, riddle me that

For the past LOOONG little while, I've been doing a lot of newspaper puzzles. Since highschool, I worked on daily crosswords, JUMBLEs and sorts. The latest and greatest newspaper fad is the Sudoku. This thing has totally taken a spin of its own. Not only do I see 70% of the people in transit doing on, they're now making them in different shapes and sizes.

A collegue of mine decided that he'd spend a Sunday afternoon to program a Sudoku solver. Ok, my thought on that.......great.....now that you have an AI for that, you can be ranked Gifted Sudoku GOD cuz you've completed all the puzzles in less than 10 seconds. I do applaud for his skills in programming this, but I thought Sudoku's are nice puzzles to let you burn some time and also strengthen your brain muscles. Oh well.

So I was checking something online and saw that Movies are now into the Sudoku world. There are Sudokus that are based on movie themes. WTF?!?!? Ok, this world's commercialism is REALLY out of wack. So basically this version...let me find the quote...."We totally took regular sudoku puzzles, got rid of those safe 3-by-3 squares, and replaced them with "deadly snakes."" So, I'm going to take a while guess that people know which movie this is from. I wonder if Jackson get's any royalties for this.....actually, I wonder if the snakes get any royalties for this. And this puzzle book is called "Snakes on a Sudoku" Splittahs!!!!!!

Survey Says........

Once in a while we'll see these "TOP X of Y", and today I saw one of those on our friendly MSN/Sympatico page. The one I read was "Top 5 reasons your gf wants to dump you". Well, after reading that, I'm pretty much inclined to put up my smirky version.

1. She slaps you and says "We're through"
2. She catches you sleeping with her sister.....proceed to 1.
3. She catches you sleeping with her brother............also proceed to 1.
4. She's sleeping with your brother...............I think you get the picture for that one.
5. She kicks you in the family jewels with sharp high-heels, calls you a bastard and leaves

I think those are definate signs. I think they're pretty clear signs too. If you keep to this guide, you'll always know when your gf is giving you the signal that she wants to dump you.

Conversations with Snakes in Suits

Last night afterwork began with me going to wait for Chris at the usual area in the lobby. We were going to watch a movie called "Conversation with Women(s)". We got to the theatre a little bit early so we decided to go to the local pub around the corner and have HALF PRICE WINGS!!!!! I myself had a glass of Guiness (because they didn't have any Stella). 17 wings, a glass of Guiness and a glass of juice later, the bill came to $18 (tax & tips already there), I think that's pretty good for a meal that stuffed me.

We got into the theatre and proceeded to the ticket ripping person (there's a name for these people right?) . We were told to go straight and it's on the right. So we go forward, see the sign written "CINEMA #1 --->", so we turn right and see an escalator that goes down into the depths of hel.....ok it just goes to the basement. We go down and again we turn right and follow the signs written "CINEMA #1 --->". Finally we reach another sign that writes "<---CINEMA #1" so we turn left and proceed to go forward. At this point, Chris asks me jokingly "What is this? This is strange." We proceed and after another flight of stairs down, we finally reach CINEMA #1. It seems that the theatre only has 2 CINEMA....and we took the scenic route to CINEMA #1. We go in and grab some seats that were a bit far away.

We made it right on time. The ads were rolling and none of the previews were shown yet. Chris goes to the little power room to donate to the porceline god and I sit there admiring the new Johny.ca commercial. Suddenly the screen flickers and all is black. There is still sound, but the screen just is black. A few seconds later, the image appears back on the screen but it's very dim and the light pulses continually. Suddenly a bright *FLASH* and the screen becomes dim again while the commercial comes to an end, another commercial starts, still a very dim screen. Again *FLASH* GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this is really annoying. Then something sparks in the back of my mind "Maybe this is some new subliminal message technique? They're trying to brainwash all of us. Or maybe this is like The Ring and after watching these I'll get a phone call and.........." Chris comes back from the powder room and suggest that we move up closer to the small flashing screen. We get up and go to the 4th room and settle in. Some of the people get restless and start leaving the theatre to find someone to fix the machine. *FLASH* The big self-promotion of ALIANCE ATLANTIS is shown on the on the screen. *FLASH* I start feeling a mild headache so I close my eyes and feel the pulsing light on my eyelids. Chris suggests that we leave and refund the tickets, I agree and we get up to leave. As we exit the door, one of the workers tells us that he's there to fix the machine and that everything is alright. Chris and I ignore him and proceed to refund our tickets. And there was much rejoicing **yeah**.

We then rush to the theatre 2 blocks over. We rush through the Indigo store and up the escalators and see if anything good is on. Hmmm.......X3...seen that.......Miami Vice....seen that.....Pirates..........Chris has seen it...................that new 9/11 movie........excellent what time is available.....NOOoooooooooooooooooo....we just missed it by 40 minutes. By now the headache is 80% there to becoming really really painful and unbearable. We meander back down to the Indigo book store below.

Chris starts looking at the photo album for "Wicked: The broadway." I start looking for a chair somewhere to sit. I'm at 85%. We head downstairs to the health/lifestyle and business area. Chris looks at some stretching book and I look at some Shaolin excercise manual. I'm at 87%....reaching critical mass soon. We head over to the business section. 90%....RED ALERT...RED ALERT..........oh my.......a book catches my eye. It's black all around and has the picture of a person, just showing the suit from neck down. The only thing that's weird about the photo is that the man is wearing a snake for a suit. "Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go To Work" OMG, wow, that's interesting. Me being a psych fanatic, I picked it up and started reading the inside flap of the book. Chris picked up "The Culture Code". 92%.......reaching meltdown point. We quickly grab the books and look for chairs. We find some seats at the corner of the store, settle in and start reading the books.

I read quite a bit of the book in one sitting. A lot of the information were common knowledge statements. Well, I think I'll try and get some more reading out of that book, it's very interesting. But the key note in the book is, "Don't go around judging people as psychopaths at work because the reader is not trained to do so." Well, I'm not too sure I'm going to go around labelling people anytime soon........*runs to mirror and points into mirror..........psychopath*

Side Note: I did learn the difference between Psychopath and Sociopath though.

The Land that Hums

For the long weekend I went down south the the land of the Hums. I stayed at a hotel called Park Central. It's a fairly nice hotel that's in the heart of South Miami. At first I was very scared of the area due to many news reports and testimonies from friends. The safety there seemed to be......quite interesting to say the least. I just think that when at every block there's a cop car, there HAS to be some issue there.

Miami Beach is split into the North, Central and South areas. On the far east is Ocean Drive, where all of the hotels and eateries lie. In one block is Collins Avenue that has most of the pricey shoping (only in the South Beach area). One more street in is Washington Ave., this is where the main "clubs" and the Miami Beach Police station is located. A lot of the clubs here have the windows painted black or somehow covered up. As the tour guide says, what happens behind those closed doors, stay behind those closed doors. Makes me just all warm and fuzzy inside. On the far west side is Alton Avenue. Very little lights on that side and it doesn't look like a place I'd want to be caught out after the sun has set.

Well, it seemed that Mariah Carrie was having her concert on the weekend at the American Arena.....centre...thingy there. I was waiting outside Bayside for a bus and since it was beside the arena, all the cars from all directions were headed that way. Traffic was really heavy and some things were quite strange to me. People didn't really signal with lights or honk their horns at all. They'd roll down their windows and point with their arms and kinda say out loud, "I want to go there in front of you." Now here's the funnier piece to it. 1/10 cars there are Hummers, yes, H2 and H3. I don't think they need to roll down any window at all..they just edge into the lane and well, I don't care what car you have, you're going to STOP in your spot and let the hummer through.

Oh, I kinda miss the ability to carry open liquor around the place too........maybe I should've tried to share some with the local bobby.....

Day Three

Ok, it's not the phase in which it's quite painful going cold turkey. The day starts and when people ask questions, my response is..."Go ask Mar...........shit...........dammit...ehmm...gimme a sec there...I'll think of something." After many long moments of glazed over eyes, I'm still at a loss for an answer. I'm left with the only viable option, "I dunno *shrudge shoulders*, I'll think of something."

Today is going to be a big day for me. I'm going to pickup my first car. I've managed to budget myself for a Mazda 5. Phantom Blue....some call it dead man's blue, but I'll call it...the blue that you see at really nice beaches down south.

In local news, it seems that we're in a severe thunderstorm watch right now. I'm looking at the graphs and the satellite images and..yup....storm it is. Right now as I'm typing, the winds are dropping down to a lull (0km/h). The calm before the storm.......this will prove to be interesting. I didn't bring my umbrella today...so I'm pretty much shafted. And I'll be picking up the car tonight...meaning...more so shafted.......dammit.

Last night was very exciting for me. I had a case planned for my SJA fellow members. it's the annual competition. It would seem that my props were not good enough and people tend to not notice things. This will cost them quite a bit for not noticing.

Alright, enough of me typing in a journal style.
So last night on the bus, I got a seat that was beside the door. Some lady (30's, and obese) stood in front of where I was sitting. I understand that it's quite crowded during rush hour and there isn't a lot of standing space. Anyhow, the lady decided to play footsies with me. It wasn't really a game, more of a stampede. As the bus moved, she shifted and stepped on my foot, and without lifting her foot or appologizing, she stood there thinking it was the floor. I'm not too sure, my foot has a definite incline on it, any fool would be able to tell they were stepping on something. So I quickly yanked my foot free. A few minutes later at a red light, the bus jerked on the acceleration and again, the lady ended up on one of my feet. I was fairly sure by the 3rd time that either she didn't know she was stepping on me, or she was just being annoying. I don't recall in my past life that I ever stepped on her toes.....but maybe that's because I don't really remember anything from my past life.........if I HAD a past life. So I ended up with one resolve, it's an eye for an eye..or in my case, a foot for the gas. Yes...I dealt a really nasty one......I appologized really loudly, because I affected the person I sat beside. But the lady did decide to back off a bit. For the rest of the ride, it was nice and calm, and a bit nauseating.