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One can only expect so much...
"Extra fuel-efficient humvee"
The other day I was passing by a table in the hallway that was proferring up to me all manners of unhealthy items. The main component of this lard-fest was the much revered Krispy Kreme doughnut, about which I could write volumes. To be sure, this little morsel of sugary goodness does instill within me a certain amount of anticipatory giddiness that can only be sated by the glorious comsumption of glazed confections.
It is not my intent, however, to fill this precious portion of the internet with my laudations of baked pastries. No, while that is nobel, pure and necessary in today's world it is not the nature of this space to wax poetic towards foodstuffs. Let me instead direct your attention to the carafes of coffee which were sitting next to the heavenly treasures.
There were three of them. Coffee containers that is, not heavenly treasures. There are at least four heavenly treasures, five if you count pictures of Melissa Joan Hart naked. But I digress. The point is that there were three caffiene containers upon the table, each bearing a sign stating their contents. Upon one thermos was written "Normal" and another bespoke "Decaf". It was the third, however, that caught my eye.
This particular sign proclaimed that the coffee contained within was "Extra Strong Decaf". WTF? How in the hell does one have extra strong decaf? Isn't that what we mere mortals simply refer to as "coffee"? That's like saying "extra fat skim milk", "extra dark lightbulbs" or "extra smart republican". It's an oxymoron, a logical impossibility and most of all just plain stupid.
Speaking of stupid, I had the misfortune of watching "The Core" today. If you ever have the oppurtunity to watch this movie or rip your lips off with a pair of rusty garden shears I expect to see you with bandages on your mouth the next day. This movie is just that bad.
You spin me right round, baby, right round
The premise of the movie is that the core of the Earth has stopped spinning. This is bad for a number of reasons, the primary one being that it led to the creation of this movie. Since the core of the Earth has stopped, a team of brave heroes will need to travel to the center of our planet and detonate a bomb. This will somehow cause the core to once again begin spinning and generate millions of dollars worth of popcorn sales, not necessairly in that order.
This movie is to cinematic history what The Spice Girls were to classical symphony. To make a movie with more bad science would have required getting technical advice from Dan Quayle. In order to travel to the center of the planet, the government goes to the desert to check out the experiments of a crazy man who has developed a laser that can blow a hole through a mountain. This laser apparently requires almost no power supply and is relatively portable, which does nothing to explain why this man wasn't killed long ago after the government came in and stole all his research.
Like Deja Vu. The feeling, not the strip club.
The characters are all recycled from other equally as formulaic movies. They require almost no introductions, because you already know them from the other films. After picking up the Old Crazy Man(tm), the Nice Veteran Doomed to Die (tm), the Wacky Foreign Scientist (tm) and The Woman With Something To Prove (tm), the government needs to, of course, find The Teenage Hacker Who Can Do Anything With Computers (tm). They have no motives or needs that do not tie directly into the plot, because the film doesn't have any time for that.
People die, stuff blows up, and the main characters cheerfully stand surrounded by lava and discuss the fact that the ambient temperature is 5000 degrees. I'll take some more of that sunblock please.
Oh well, I guess one can only expect so much from their movies. I suppose it could have been worse. They could have made me stare at Academy Award winner Halle Barry's droopy boobs again. Oh wait... that's this Friday.
Posted at 10:01 pm by plki76
Play with my body, not with my mind
Everyone has played a game at some point in their life. Whether it be a solitare, a board game, a sport or something as simple as "Duck Duck Penguin", all of us have participated in some kind of recreational gaming activity. Not all of us, however, approach games in the same manner. There are two basic types of game players in this world: the casuals and the hardcore. The two different types of gamers are polar opposites, and don't generally mix very well.
A casual gamer is one who will pull out a board game maybe once a year and push the pieces around without really considering what they're doing. Sure, they'd like to win, but if they don't it's not really a big deal. They derive their satisfaction from the mechanical portion of playing the game and if they lose then at least they had fun playing.
The hardcore gamer, on the other hand, carefully considers their moves and the moves of the other players in order to gain some kind of advantage. Winning is the ultimate objective and mercy is not an option. The mechanical aspects of the game are just there to enable them to crush the opposition, and they are disappointed if they ultimately do not achieve victory.
Shocking, I know
For the majority of my life I have been of the hardcore persuasion. When I play a game, I play to win, and I must say that I'm pretty darn good. Without sounding like I'm tooting my horn too much, I must say that I have a natural aptitude towards gaming, especially strategy gaming. This has not always gone over well with those around me. I used to play a WWII simulation game (no, not Axis and Allies, it was "Command Decision") and, being as my name and heritage are German, I played the Germans.
Dear reader, imagine if you will the following scene: A group of WWII afficianados get together to play a WWII strategy game in which they will recreate some of the great British and American victories. A young lad would like to play, and he'll play the Germans, which is great because the Germans always lose and nobody wants to play them. The terrain and units are set up in accurate historical detail and everyone is ready for a German slaughterfest.
Only, it turns out that the British commander doesn't manuever well. His spotter and general have raced ahead of the batallion along with a troop carrier, wanting to establish an early vantage point on a nearby hill. The troops and the general race out of the APC and encounter light resistance from the german infantry. Then the mortar stirke is called in.
You can't make an omlet without ham and cheese... or something like that.
"Wait! You can't mortar your own troops!" Ha. Watch me. I'll trade five grunts for your general any day. Goodbye British command, and welcome to panicville. The British flank rolls up under the onslaught of the dreaded King Tigers while entrenched infantry sacrifices themselves against the American armor long enough to collapse the rear and ensure a decisive victory for the Germans.
I'm not sure if it was the fact that the American's lost or the constant barrage of German trash-talk ("Vill you surrender? Vhy so quite? Deutschland uber Alles!"), but the group only played once or twice more before I was curiously not invited back.
I try to be fair. I will help out a novice player for the first few games, but after that it's no holds barred. My philosophy is that if you continue to enable them to play weakly, they have no incentive to get any better. Besides, it's funny to watch a four-year-old cry.
She turned me into a newt! ... I got better...
Ok, maybe I'm not quite THAT terrible, but it is close. I have made a concious effort in recent months to tone this down as much as possible. It's been difficult, but I think I'm getting better. Just the other day I was playing "Lionheart" and I completely resisted the urge to jump up and do the "Medieval Victory Dance" when I won. See? That's progress!
Posted at 11:25 am by plki76
I have been officially requested to never ask this question again:
"Would you say that your belief in a religion is founded upon a complete lack of understanding of science or merely a futile attempt to maintain hope in a world run by tyrannical despots?"
Posted at 05:49 pm by plki76
Where does it hurt?
I recieved an email the other day informing me that there would be chair massages being offered to relieve the stress of daily life around here. Contrary to what the name might imply, a chair massage does not involve someone rubbing down a chair, much much like Girl Scout cookies containing no actual Girl Scouts or Compassionate Republicans containing no actual compassion.
A chair massage is actually a massage given to an individual who is sitting in a contraption straight out of "Medieval Hellish Torture Monthly" (I have a subscription). The victim straddles a bar whilst resting their legs behind them at an angle. The sufferer's face going into this little halo-looking device and the arms get positioned in from on a miniature shelf-thing. In this manner is the sucker's back and kidneys fully exposed to whatever malevolent desires the massage practicioner may have.
No Mammaries to Speak of
I arrive at the room a few minuites early for my appointment and discover, to my great dismay, that the massager is a man. Well, damn. Here I was with a mental image of a leggy blonde named "Bunny"dressed in skipy clothing oiling up my back, and I get some old dude named Steve with an evil gleam in his eye.
Well, whatever, it's disappointing but hey... free massage. Steve asks me to sit in the chair, and I do so. As it turns out, when I place my face into the (much oversized for anyone whose head is not pumpkinish) facehugger I find that my gaze is now directed squarely at Steve's crotch. Oh joy.
I keep repeating my mantra of "free massage" over and over as I close my eyes and wait for Steve to begin. Steve starts off by putting his elbows on either side of my neck and attempting to drive my clavical through the floor.
Ich heisse Helga, und ich hole die SCHMERZ!
Hey, I'll be the first to admit that I haven't had a lot of professional massages in my life. Ok, before today I had none. But I have recieved massages from other people on occasions, and they generally didn't hurt like hell. In fact, they felt pretty darn good. This though. This was just REALLY DAMN PAINFUL. But who am I to say anything? Steve is a professional and must know what he's doing, right? Maybe it's supposed to feel good later or something.
So I'm expecting that at some point Steve-O will start with the actual massaging stuff. You know, moving the hands in circular motions, all that jazz. Like those chairs at Sharper Image, only better, right? No. Steve decides that he is going to lift my arm and move it in little circles while squeezing my shoulder.
It is at this point that I decide that I am in some kind of bizarre human psychology experiment. Steve is actually Dr. Svenson, head of the Institute of Behavioral Science. There is a camera in the room recording my facial expressions and somewhere there is a guy in a little room wondering how long it will take me to tell Dr. Svenson that he is a quack and should release my limbs from his grasp.
And I never saw Steve again
Sadly, Allen Funt never emerges from his hiding place and instead Steve informs me that my time is up. My neck was still as stiff and sore as when I entered, despite the fact that I filled out a little questionare asking me what area I would like him to concentrate on. Of course, given what he did to my shoulders, I'm not sure I could have survived whatever torture he had in mind for my neck...
Posted at 05:03 pm by plki76
Say Hello To My Little Friend!
Dirty Cock-a-roaches
I would like to think that if I ever rise to the head of a large criminal organization I will surround myself with henchmen who are intelligent but not ambitious and ruthless but not psychopathic. These henchmen will at all times have heartbeat sensors on them. That way when they are silently killed by the ninjas that have been sent to attack me, I'll still know about it. I might also have them wear little bells. You know, like cats do. That way I know if they're trying to sneak up on me.
It shouldn't be a problem to staff the headquarters of my crime syndicate. There seems to be no real lack of henchmen to do one's bidding. Rarely have I seen a gangster film where the main characterts are not surrounded by all assortments of weapon-wielding thugees. It's not a bad life, when you think about it. Your main job is basically to stand around with a machine gun for about eighty minutes. Then, with about ten minutes left in the film the action sequence will start. That's pretty much the end of the road for you though. You're just not going to live past the climactic shootout scene if your name is "Criminal #13".
Say goodnight to the bad guy
When I am head of this organization, I will take great pains to eliminate people who are generally considered to be insane. Anyone with a nickname that involves "mad", "crazy" or "sick" gets popped real quick-like. No matter how much they are revered by their peers for their craziness, they will have an accident. One thing that you don't need when you are a prime target is one of your guys randomly deciding to take offense at something that another bosse's henchmen says. This can only lead to tears, bloodshed and your eventual capture or demise.
And speaking of capture, that's one thing that I would plan to avoid. These criminals always seem to be arrested on tax evasion charges. Well, that's just no good. My plan would be to set up some shell company whose cover story is internet gambling. This gambling site would have dummy players who would stop by and convienently lose millions of dollars on a regular basis. Then, you know what, I'd go ahead and pay the damn taxes. Yeah, that's right. I'd pay the taxes. Hell, in that bracket and with a decent lawyer I'd only be paying about $5 annually anyway, so what do I care. Everyone is happy in this situation. The government gets their money, I get my money, and nobody goes to prison
I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.
I will also be sure to not sink into a downward spiral of despair, drugs and alcohol. I will not be melancholy and depressed whilst sitting atop my jewel-encrusted Throne of Power. There will be no binge-drinking alcholoism or inebriated shouting. There's just no point in it. Instead of self-destruction, why not try channeling that energy into something positive. You know, like basketmaking or needlepoint? Something that you can be proud of!
Saldy I don't think that I'm cut out to be the head of a ring of international drug smugglers. It seems like a lot of work. Always having to order people's executions. Eating Italian food all the time. Reloading my gun after spraying bullets everywhere. I think I'd rather just sit in an office chair and write code. Less effort.
Posted at 11:41 am by plki76
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