Saturday, November 10, 2007

Reasons why Jews kick ass #112

I've pointed out on numerous occasions that if you believe in an invisible man in the sky then I think you're stupid. The Jews win some points back, though, thanks to their contributions to the world of comedy. The latest example of this is the Shmaltz Brewing Company, maker of HE'BREW: The Chosen Beer.

That is just too fucking awesome for words.

Looking at their list of places to buy HE'BREW, a liquor store right by my house carries their products. I don't recall seeing any of their beers but maybe I just wasn't paying much attention since I usually end up getting Guinness or Fuller's ESB. Hopefully they stock Messiah Bold.

Friday, November 09, 2007

If this guy is correct, then that's pretty fucking badass. A five-hundred-year-old painting and there's still shit like this that we haven't figured out about it? Hard fucking core.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Alright, so the thought of starting to discuss politics here once again kinda nauseates me, as it has done since the '04 election. But I still need to mention this, which is pretty much the final nail in the coffin of me backing Giuliani. I totally wanted to get behind that guy because I loved the idea of divided government with a Democratic congress and a Republican president who is socially liberal or at least moderate while maintaining some true Republican roots (i.e. not all this Jesus and big government crap). Plus there's a local sandwich chain (Deli Zone) which has an awesome sandwich they call "the Giuliani." Somehow I think that also factored in to me wanting to back Rudy because I'm dumb like that.

But yeah, Rudy just sucks. 9/11, 9/11, 9/11... Yeah, we get it. That's not so bad, though. What gets to me (and I know I've been over this before) is all the bullshit pandering. Kissing ass with Bush. Trying to convince the religious right that he's down with them. And of course, that scheme paid off handsomely with this endorsement. The best case scenario I could think of is that he's just bullshitting everyone to get support from Republicans who otherwise wouldn't support him and then he'll do whatever the fuck he wants after elected. But even then he's just another dooshebag saying whatever he needs to say to get elected.

Why can't we get another moderate Republican in the mix here? Sit your ass down John McCain. You phony fuck. I'm sorry, maverick. Seriously though, moderate Republicans are my favorite people in government right now. 'Cause think about it. Mid-right and far-right Republicans, you know how they're going to vote on everything. Party line, Bush, blah blah blah. In general the Democrats are gonna do the same on their side since they're doing what little they can to consolidate what little power they've managed to stumble into (gotta love those approval ratings guys and gals!).

Moderate Republicans, therefore, are the only ones we can hope for to shake things up a bit and not be 100% fucking predictable. Like usual with American politics, shit just keeps getting worse and worse, and we're not choosing based on who we want, but choosing based on who we don't want. And in the end everyone sucks anyway. Politics off.
Alright, I think the whole toy recall thing is getting out of control. Christ, are we gonna have to start recalling everything that might be harmful to kids? Like with most all these recalls (if not all of them), the only danger is through blatant product misuse.

Wednesday's recalls include about 7,200 "Big Red" Wagons imported by Northern Tool & Equipment Co. of Burnsville, Minn. Totaling about 405,700, the recalled children's products all had excessive levels of lead in their surface paint.

Although no illnesses connected to the toy car recall have been reported, lead is toxic if ingested by young children.


If your kid is ingesting his or her fucking wagon I think there are bigger issues. Shit, if they're just scraping paint off and eating it, that act alone is a fuckin' problem.

Scientists say a chemical coating on the beads, when ingested, metabolizes into the so-called date rape drug gamma hydroxy butyrate.

That is just fucking... Bizarre. I mean, what are the odds of that happening? I don't mean kids eating shit they're not supposed to, but the chemical coating getting converted to GHB after ingestion. I think this company deserves some kind of award. For something. Oh, and if you're expecting some kind of joke considering the GHB thing, forget it. It's too easy, and I need to cut back on that shit or I am gonna be the subject of the next recall.

Considering who I am and my opening to this post I know you're probably thinking that I'm thinking, to hell with these kids, if they're dumb enough to be putting this stuff in their mouth then just let Darwinism take its course. On one hand I'm like, yeah, kids should really be smarter. And if they're not, well, they might be doomed anyway.

But on the other hand, kids do stupid shit sometimes since they're, well, kids. Everyone makes mistakes and not all of them should carry the death penalty. Like did I ever tell you all about the time I spray painted my ass brown? I know I've told ETP 'cause it's like his most favorite story ever of mine but I can't remember if it's come up here or not.

I had to have been like four or five at the time. A neighborhood friend of mine and I got a hold of some spray paint somehow at my grandparents' house. And we proceeded to spray paint the fences, the shed, and, for some fucking reason, our asses. Lemme tell you, it was pretty awkward for my grandmother to have to be soliciting advice from others on how best to remove spray paint from a child's ass. I think I deserve some kinda bonus points for using the ever-appropriate color of brown.

Then there was another time that, for some reason, I had a pair of keys. And I was sitting there looking at an electrical socket. It had those two perfect slits, and I'm looking at the keys, and I was like hey, these must go in there. I got a good jolt from that, naturally, and this nice big blister on my hand. I remember crying my eyes out -- not so much from the pain but because I was worried the blister would catch fire. Why was I worried about that? I dunno, I'd just stuck two keys in an electrical socket, what the fuck do you want from me? I'm not sure if this incident played a part in me eventually becoming an electrical engineer or not. To this day, though, I really do not like working anywhere near 120V AC.

So yeah, I'm kinda torn on which way to go here. I suppose for these kids who end up hurting themselves, if they don't die the first time and they don't learn their lesson and they do the same stupid shit again, then fuck it, let 'em die. But if not they might still grow up OK after all. I, for one, never spray painted my ass again or stuck keys in an electrical socket again. And what if I had died? What kind of travesty would it have been for the world to miss out on me?

In closing, I am of course obligated to link to this.

Why can't they ever bring back good shows?

So I've discovered a new webcomic: Joe and Monkey. I'm not sure if it's consistently good or not, but there is this one, which is fucking awesome.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Defective Junk Hero

No, this isn't some kind of Viagra spam post. I picked up Shitty Cover Band III (AKA Guitar Hero III) this past weekend. Twice. On Friday I pick the game up after work, head home, get my wireless network shit set back up, and fire up the game. I start playing "Slow Ride." I'm a bit rusty since I haven't been practicing my fake plastic guitar skills in awhile, but I'm doing OK. Not stellar though, as I realize my timing sucks because I just cannot hit a red+green combination.

After awhile I realized the issue wasn't me (for once), but the shiny new wireless guitar. You know, the one us 360 owners get jacked an extra ten bucks for thanks to Microsoft's proprietary wireless interface (at least, I'm guessing that's why it's $10 more than the PS or Wii versions). Upon further investigation I found out that it actually worked when I would strum up, but not down. I was about to call ETP and ask him if this was some new dumbass feature they'd added to make the game more challenging.

Playing some more I further realized that doing a red+green+down worked, if you consider red+green+down registering as yellow to be working. At this point I'm like, probably not a new feature. Oh, it's a feature all right, the kind that plenty of other people are having. It didn't take much searching through forums to see that I was not alone in my wireless guitar woes. Yay for quality control and product testing.

I started to take the guitar apart but got to a point where I felt like a circuit board wasn't gonna move without me breaking it so I was like, fuck it. Back to the store for an exchange.

My second one seems to be working just fine. I haven't put in a ton of time on the game yet (and you know there's the looming spectre of my video game ADHD), but it's not bad. It's Guitar Hero. It looks a bit different but pretty much plays the same. My biggest complaint is the extra shit it puts up on screen while you're playing, like when you hit a note streak. That always fucks me up because I think it's telling me I have Star Power when of course I don't. I'm busy paying attention to shit at the bottom middle of the screen assholes, and it used to be useful for the game to tell me up top about Star Power. I'm not actually gonna read it douchebags, but when it popped up I knew what it was without looking away from what I was supposed to be playing.

As an aside, dontcha love how when you've been playing for awhile and then you finally look away from the screen, everything around you seems to be moving upwards? That was rather unsettling the first time it ever happened to me. And now it's just normal.

The only new feature I've come across is the whole boss battle thing, which I found rather annoying. Partly because it took me a buncha tries to beat Tom Morello since I'm retarded. Then there was the time I was trying to attack and I tilted the guitar up so quickly and violently that i hit myself in the head, also because I'm retarded. And now more so. But in the end I beat Morello, and afterwards we had a nice discussion on geopolitics and he pointed me in the direction of a communist bookstore for references to support his dumbass opinions.

I was under the impression that a good deal of songs were the actual songs by the original artists, but no, most (so far for me at least, and I'm too lazy to go look it up right now) are just performed by shitty cover bands. Hence my nickname for the game still stands. And yes, I'm full well aware that Shitty Cover Band would be a better nickname for the impending Rock Band, but I started referring to GH as such a ways back and it's too late to change now. Maybe I'll just refer to Rock Band as Shitty Rock Band.

So while the track list is pretty badass, I'm rather disappointed in all the crap ass cover bands. I was especially pissed when I heard "Barracuda," one of the first songs I can ever recall listening to and enjoying (can't fuckin' believe that song is actually two years older than me). I was looking forward to playing that song, and while fun, the whole shitty cover band experience kinda took off some of the lustre.

Speaking of Shitty Rock Band, I can't say I'm all that enthused for the game. It's like, I can already be mediocre at playing the fake plastic guitar. Am I really that stoked to learn to play the fake plastic drums? Because I sure as hell will not be doing any singing. I have a good voice and all, but singing? Fuck that shit.