Shouzer

Road construction up here in Washington (at least around Seattle) is absolutely horrible. I don’t know who thought it up, but they shouldn’t be allowed to step foot behind a car if they think it’s fine.

Basically, they shutdown a lane or two while they’re doing work, which makes absolute sense–I imagine you don’t want the workers dodging traffic. I get that much. That part I’m cool. So far we’re good. But then, then, when they call it a day, they just cover the part of the road they were working on with steel sheets and put up a sign that says “Bump”.

Sound reasonable? Yeah, it might, until you realize that these are no ordinary steel sheets. They’re like fucking eighteen inches tall! Honestly these things might be tough to walk over, much less drive a car over. I swear I’m going to pop my tires one of these times.

And really, when you can see them, it’s not an issue. However, the roads here are pretty hilly, and I think they go out of their way to only do work right on the summits of these mini-mountains. It’s like they’re playing some kind of game with me, except that I don’t get to say, “No thank you”, and it hurts.

If this is how they do road construction most places around the country, they need to take a page out of Illinois’ methods. And geez, believe me when I say that’s horrible, too. Gotta repave a quarter mile of highway, do ya? Well… I don’t know, I figure that’ll take about a year and a half. Yeah, at least.

In my opinion, the point of a console is that every one is supposed to be the same. That way, game developers don’t have to worry about different possible configurations like they do on PC. That’s the power of a console–it’s easier to develop and optimize for.

That’s no longer the case now that there’s a 360 Premium, 360 Basic, 360 Arcade, 360 Elite, PS3 20gb, 40gb, 60gb, 80gb, etc. The different PS3s vary more than just by hard drive size, too. Some support full PS2 compability, some just a bit, and some not at all. Some have built-in WiFi, some don’t. It goes on and on.

Really, the Wii is the only console left that is a true console. There’s only one version out there. They all play the same games. They all do the same things. They all have the same hardware. Oh my, how smart…

Take the quiz at GlassBooth. For the second time in 4 years, I’m closely aligned with John Edwards. Here are my top 5.

1. 84% John Edwards
2. 80% Barak Obama
3. 76% Hillary Clinton
4. 71% Dennis Kucinich
5. 64% John McCain

Those were followed by Mike Gravel, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Rudy Guliani, and Duncan Hunter.

I happened to catch this article on Engadget about Sony adding it’s music catalog to Amazon mp3. It’s amazing to me how quickly all the major studios have come around on drm-free downloads after EMI showed that it was perfectly sane.

EMI couldn’t have put drm-free mp3s on iTunes anymore than a year ago. I don’t actually remember when it was, but seriously… After such a long-fought “battle” against college students, you’d think one of these companies would have jumped to this conclusion a little earlier.

As far as I’m concerned, DRM of all forms is anti-consumer. It’s not pro-copyright or anything like that, it’s just plain old anti-consumer. Bought the first couple seasons of The Office on iTunes? Too fucking bad, you’re going to have to get the next couple on Amazon Unbox, and you’ll have to watch them on different devices. Fuck that shit. You know what that’s going to do? That’s going to make me more likely to pirate it. That’s the only way I have any guarantee that it won’t quit working at some point.

Well, I’m once again really late writing about this, but I had a nice Christmas holiday season. The office decided to give us the week off between Christmas and New Year’s so I went traveling. My parents and sister were here for the first part of that. They came to Bangkok to visit for a week and a half. We decided to spend Christmas and the weekend preceeding it on Phi Phi island. It’s a dreamy tropical island with a great beach. Actually, The Beach was filmed on location there, though it was on the unihabited Phi Phi island quite near the bigger one we were on. I did a little scuba diving and mostly laid on the beach all day.

The beach we were on was amazing in that was shallow and sandy for several hundred meters out. As the tide went out, the water would drop, and it would change colors throughout the day like a blue sunset. By mid-day, it was ankle-deep pretty far out, and on one day, I decided I needed some swimming to cool off. I moved out trying to find some deep water to swim in.

On the way out, I got tired of walking, so I decided to swim, even though the water was too shallow to really warrant it. As I was swimming out, I accidentally kicked what I thought was a rock. Turns out, it was a sea urchin. I pulled my foot out of the water to find half a dozen 4 inch needles sticking out of my big toe. I can only describe this experience as painful. I limped/swam/walked back up to the beach, screaming under water along the way to seek assistance from my father and sister. It can sure be handy having relatives in the medical field, that’s for sure. Of course, neither of them had much experience dealing with this sort of injury as it doesn’t occur often in southern Illinois.

They take me back to the hotel, and talk to the owner while I go to clean it in the shower. The owner, a rather dramatic fellow, insisted that I go to the hospital, “You go to hospital, NOW. Sea urchin very poisonous. You foot swell VERY big.” I needed my passport, so my sister ran back to the room to get it while the owner instructed an employee to take us to the hospital.

There are two important things you need to know at this point. 1) There are no cars on Phi Phi, people walk every where as it is a small island. 2) Thai people do not ever get in a hurry.

We are walking to this hospital, and the lady taking us is moving incredibly leisurely. I’m walking far faster than her, and I have a bunch of needles sticking out of my toe. Along the way, she runs into a friend who joins us on our stroll to the hospital.

When we finally arrive at this hospital, the nurse instructs me to sit on a table. She pokes at my foot a bit with some tweezers, and then declares, “I no take off.” I am freaking out a bit at this point at the thought of my toe being removed from my body to stop the poison. However, what she really meant was that she wasn’t going to remove the needles. She treated it the toe with ammonia to dissolve the calcium needles and it basically took care of itself. It turned out to be a pretty minor inconvenience as I was still able to go diving the day after this happened.

After my parent left, I went up to Chiang Mai, but nothing too exciting happened so I doubt that I’ll be posting about it.

As much as I’d like to root for the AFC West team in the playoffs to do well once the Broncos are out, I just can’t do it when it’s the Chargers. As much as I’d like to root for LT to win a championship, I just can’t do it when his QB is Philip Rivers.

There’s just something about Philip Rivers that makes me hate him. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s a horrible QB, and he doesn’t seem to realize it. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s always whining about something. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s always yelling at his team, even though he makes more mistakes than anybody else out there. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s ridiculously arrogant, and I can’t stand that from good players, much less players who I wouldn’t want as backups.

Don’t even get me started on Merriman. The guy cheats, everybody makes a stink for a couple weeks, and then nobody seems to care anymore. Everybody still thinks he’s the shit. Sorry, I don’t think it’s that hard when you cheat. And yeah, that goes for the Patriots, too. Bitterness? Certainly. Fortunately for me, that doesn’t make it any less true.

Tom Brady just doesn’t impress me. Is he a good QB? Certainly. Is he one of the better QBs in the league? Of course. Is he the greatest that’s ever played? Not even close.  (Well, that’s an overstatement, but I’m trying to make a point).

It’s fairly obvious to me, as it should be to anybody who watches the Pats play, that there’s three big reasons Tom Brady’s numbers are as good as they are. A) Wes Welker B) Randy Moss C) 10 seconds every time he drops back with the ball.

I mean, for real… find me a QB who’s decent to begin with, give him two excellent playmakers and 15 seconds to find a receiver, and I guarantee you he’ll look amazing, too. If anything, Brady’s been much, much less impressive this year than in years past. When they played the Dolphins early in the season and blew them out of the water, Tom Brady made nothing but bad decisions. It didn’t matter, though, because Randy Moss jumped up out of triple coverage and came down with every stupid pass.

Put me in the NFL, give me 20 seconds whenever I drop back, and I’ll at least look as good as Rex Grossman. Sure, that’s not saying a whole lot, but I don’t consider myself NFL talent.

I don’t even care about the Packers. I’ve been rooting for them this year, simple because I love Brett Favre. I just don’t see how you can’t like the guy. He throws an 80-yard TD against the Broncos in overtime, and it doesn’t even really upset me. Now that’s saying something.

I honestly thought the Packers were finished today against the Seahawks when Ryan Grant decided to fumble twice in the first 1:09. But Favre brought them back, and the Packers ended up winning a blowout. I can’t help but hope that the Packers end up upsetting the Pats in the Super Bowl, and that Favre retires on top.

The funny thing is, though, that Favre probably wouldn’t retire even then. Before this year, I thought he was crazy, and he needed to just give it up. He’s definitely brought me around since then, though.

I’ve talked about this before, and it looks like it’ll soon become a reality. It’s amazing to me the things this (notice I’m very careful not to say our) government will do in the name of security.

Jefferson said, “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” That’s something I agree with rather strongly. I’ve been to the airport a fair bit lately either dropping people off or flying myself, and it’s pretty shitty that whoever is flying has to go and wait at the gate by themselves. Surely there’s got to be a better way to ensure security than how they currently do it.

As I’m sure you’re all aware, I’ll almost positively (can’t ever too too sure) be voting for a Democratic presidential candidate in the next election. However, I’ve got to say that I hope that candidate isn’t Hilary Clinton. I can’t stand her. She’s never said a single thing that didn’t seem politically motivated. I have a feeling she’d do about as much good as another Republican president would.

I still think it’s ironic. Republicans are for small government, but our government has gotten bigger. Hell, we added an entirely new department (Homeland Security). Republicans are for fiscal responsibility, and yet we’ve got a monstrous deficit, despite Clinton putting us on track to be out of debt within the next couple years. Republicans are pro-life, but Roe vs Wade wasn’t challenged, much less overturned. What expectations could have persuaded one to vote Republican that have been seen through to fruition?

I finally got the pictures my friend took on our trip to Vietnam. I found myself exhausted with the idea of traveling after this trip. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was the people there that really tired me so much. They were quite rude to me on several occasions, but then, to be fair, they have a good reason for disliking Americans. I did some traveling in Thailand over my Christmas break, and it was much more relaxing. More on that to come in the next few days. I only feel like writing one post today, especially since I’m now using internet cafes. My laptop perished earlier this week. I’m looking for creative ways to destroy it if anyone has any suggestions.

Vietnam

The roads are horrible here right now.  Not because they’re icy or anything like that–no, it doesn’t get that cold here.  :)  Actually, it’s because there’s just too many damn cars out there.  It usually takes me about 5 minutes to get home from work, which I personally really like.  Yesterday it took me 20.  Now, granted, that’s not actually that long.  On the other hand, it is 4x longer than usual.

Anyway, I’m getting ready to leave for a couple weeks.  It’s cool that I haven’t been working at MS for even six months yet, and I can already take a couple weeks off.  That’s how we roll, I suppose.  I think next year, though, I’ll have to stick around.  My building was dead quiet the last few days, and it’s probably the best time of the year to get some serious work done if you want to.

This whole HD-DVD vs Blu-ray thing is absolutely pitiful. Here we’ve got a bunch of asshole movie studios, tv producers, etc. refusing to pay the writers who are responsible for everything they make. On top of that, we’ve got mostly the same bunch of assholes who couldn’t come to a decision on a standard to replace DVD. And finally, we’ve got the same assholes suing people left and right claiming piracy costs them over $6 billion per year.

Whatever. Maybe you’re losing money because, as I’ve mentioned already, you’re all a bunch of rich fucking assholes that nobody wants to give their money to. I’ve done my research when it comes to the WGA strike, and the writers have every right in the world to be pissed. What’s more, they were actually willing to work through their current shit contract. It’s not as if they’ve got a contract, and they want to renegotiate. No, their contract ran out, and they’re wanting a new, better one. But the execs aren’t willing to give them anything reasonable. Basically, they’re just a bunch of rich, greedy bastards.

As for the HD formats, it’s hilarious to me that the movie studios ever consider themselves to be for consumers. When I got my TV, I got a PS3 also, because it seemed to suit me best. It would give me access to PS3 games and Blu-ray movies both, which sounded pretty appealing. However, most of the Blu-Ray lineup sucks, and I don’t own a single PS3 game. In the same time, I’ve bought four 360 games. What a mistake that was. Hopefully the games will stop sucking, but as far as movies, I certainly should have gone with HD-DVD. One way or another, two formats is dumb, and it’s horrible for consumers.

The sooner the studios embrace reasonably priced, reasonably versatile HD downloads (and I’m talking 1080p), the sooner I might start to think they actually know what they’re doing. I wanted to buy Transformers in HD, but it’s not on Blu-ray. That’s cool, I figured, I’ve got a TiVo, so I’ll download it on Unbox. Nope, I can only download it in SD. Well, that’s just too bad, now you don’t get my money. And you wonder why your sales are down? Dumbasses.

There was a holiday in Thailand last weekend called Loy Krathong. Here’s a link to a Wikipedia article about it. I’m not going to offer an explanation about it because mine will only be inferior. Don’t worry, that one is really short.

My Loy Krathong celebration started last Friday. My regular school had a hand, foot, and mouth epidemic so they canceled. I begged my way into an outing to another school where they were celebrating the holiday. They had games, a traditional song and dance, this hot air balloon/kite, and of course, they floated Krathongs onto the swimming pool.

On Saturday, I went with a bunch of foreign teachers and one Thai to the main festival in Bangkok. We started out at a temple which is close to the canals and fairly close to the main river. I’m really not sure why we were there, but there were tons of people in the area. It had a carnival type feel to it. There were stalls all over the place selling everything imaginable as well as a few carnival rides and games. The more notable things were a freak show, a show where monkeys were all dressed up, and 2 dunking booths with “beautiful” girls ready to get all wet. Most of them didn’t look that happy to be there, incidentally.

After the carnival/temple, we headed down to the main river. There, people were floating their Krathongs. There was also a parade of much larger boats and some fireworks. It was incredibly packed here as well. Most of the action seemed to be on the other side of the river, but the bridge crossing was jammed with people so we just stayed on our side. Afterwards, most of us were pretty tired, so we headed back to our area for some dinner and chilling out. I floated my Krathong on a canal near the beer garden where we were. My candle went out pretty quickly. I think that means I’m destined for a short life. Then again, I’m also destined to meet a beautiful woman because I’ve taken the last piece of food from a dish at a community meal. So I guess I’ll have a short, but happy life.

I’m posting this because I haven’t seen this story on Google News or Shortnews, which are the two news outlets I see most. I’m curious to know how many of you have actually heard about this before as it doesn’t seem to be getting much media coverage. I haven’t even seen CNN International covering it, though to be fair, I rarely watch that channel. I originally saw the story a few days ago in the Bangkok Post, but this one from Yahoo is much better written and informative. Anyway, here’s the link:

Link

This story on CNN was just crazy. I mean seriously? People are allowed to get away with this shit? Good thing our government is all buddy buddy with the Saudi royal family.