Fury
Hey Hollywood… gimme a damn break!
I just read an article about how they might reboot Batman after the next movie comes out. Are you kidding me?! They’re already talking about milking the cow AGAIN before the next movie comes out?
They do this all the damn time! It shouldn’t come as any big surprise that Hollywood is out of ideas. They’ve been telling the same six or seven stories over and over for twenty years now. They’re starting the Spiderman series over already and it’s already setup with a sequel in the works. The FIRST MOVIE ISN’T EVEN DONE AND THEY’RE MAKING A SEQUEL! C’mon man!
Do you wonder why Harry Potter is so successful? Part of it is that it speaks to children and to the inner child of adults. Part of it is that the series has grown up with its audience. I think a lot of it is that it was something new! But hey… if Harry Potter works, so would something almost identical! How about Percy Jackson?!
Wait a second! Independence Day made tons of money… what about Battlefield: Los Angeles?! YEAH!
The worst part is that we keep feeding the beast by going to these stink-tacular pieces of garbage. It’s really too bad that the “indie scene” takes themselves so seriously and puts out depressing, over dramatic sob-fests. They’re the ones that can come out with adventurous movies. And by adventurous, I mean movies that might not do well and have the massive broad spectrum appeal. They take chances.
Until a mega-company like Disney comes along and buys them up.
[UPDATE] – Now it seems that dipping into the 80′s movies is the method of regurgitating everything that’s in fashion today. In addition to remaking Footloose and The Smurfs (which wasn’t a movie to start with, and shouldn’t be now) they’re remaking War Games. Good god. Why stop there? How about remaking The Usual Suspects, Godfather or Gone With the Wind?
It’s my fault, but you’re still stupid
I got a text message from AT&T this morning warning me that I’ve used up 65% of my data plan for this billing period. I didn’t sign up for the gouging 2Gb plan so that means I’ve used 130Mb of data since April 14th.
Huh? I don’t think so.
I signed into the AT&T Website to check things out. I saw that, according to AT&T, I sent 52Mb yesterday at 4:50. There’s a lot wrong there. First of all, I didn’t send 52Mb of anything from my phone, ever. EVER. (more…)
Sniffing out posers
Why, oh why do I have such a limit of patience for posers? I’m really a pretty moderate guy. I tend to let things go and not dwell on them. But when someone is really in my face about things that I know about, it gets under my skin. Especially when it’s obvious that they don’t have a damn clue what they’re talking about.
You probably know that I’m a computer guy. I’ll blow my own horn for a second here and say I’m a damn good computer guy. So when someone comes up to me presenting themselves as computer guys, I have a certain level of expectation. I expect that they can do certain things. I understand that everyone has specialities, but when you label yourself a “computer guy”, I expect that you should be able to get pictures off your phone.
The situation I’m faced with at the moment is this doofus sitting next to me. He’ claiming to be the end-all be-all of computer guys. I’m not sure why he feels so qualified. I guess he probably installed MS-Word on his computer all by himself. Whatever.
He got all up in my face about how much he LOVES Android and HATES iPhones. He lauded how great the interface of Android is and how bad working with iPhones is. Huh?
I should have known better, but I asked him why he felt that way. He went into how impossible it was to get pictures out of the iPhone so that they could be imported into a Word document. Again, I say… huh? He went on to talk about how after searching the internet for hours and hours, he finally found them in an encrypted directory (or some other bullshit… this dude has no idea what he’s talking about). It was at this point I wrote him off as a 100% pure poser.
The worst part is that I’m stuck with him for another 10 hours. <sigh/>
Give me strength.
Hey Network Administrators… suck it.
Network administrators are nearly the most useless and annoying people in any IT organization. They have nothing to do and they seem to be notorious tinkerers. Playing with networks is like playing with their toys. Their favorite toy is SECURITY. They just looove to tinker with security settings. I think it gives them some sort of bizarre fetish satisfaction to be able to screw with peoples lives; all in the name of SECURITY.
Transformation of a conservative
If someone had told me six weeks ago that I would have been marching in a union protest, I would have thought they were crazy. I’m a pretty conservative guy, politically speaking. My general sense of things can be summed up pretty simply.
We need less government. Hey government, stay outta my way and outta my business.
It’s no big secret that when I joined the technical college as a teacher, I was automatically signed into their union. I thought that was hilarious! ME! Part of the teachers union! That’s like saying Yoda joined up with the Empire because he got a job as a poet. Whatever.
So I was part of the teachers union. It honestly didn’t impact me at all one way or the other. If anything, it’s been a hinderance to me since the contract the Part Time Teachers union has states that newbie teachers don’t get offered classes as much or as frequently. Okay. Fine… they were taking a portion of my paychecks. That’s cool.
Then I joined the state of Wisconsin. I’m just about to quit here. I’m currently a computer guy working on a variety of projects. Again, I was thrust into a union. I’m sure I’ve enjoyed a lot of the benefits which have been negotiated for me. Again, the unions take a portion of my paycheck. At least now, I have a lot of vacation time to show for it.
Funny how a GOP guy can still be a donkey
Then we have an election and usher in (along with the rest of the nation) a whole bunch of conservatives. Some say it was because of the lunacy going on in Washington. Whatever the reason, I was happy. Like I said, I’m a conservative. Just keep government crap outta my shit and I’ll be a happy guy.
Scott Walker is a freakin’ nut bag though.
I thought we had elected a guy to come in and make sense of things in a way that makes sense. This guy is 25 pounds of conservative crazy in a 5 pound bucket. Not even Rush Limbaugh is nutty like this freak.
He comes in to the state and within a month (after the Packers won the Super Bowl) goes straight for the nuclear bomb. He didn’t pussyfoot around and slowly implement incremental changes. He just said “How much dynamite do we have? Okay, let’s use it all.”
When he put out his budget proposal, it was immediately apparent to EVERYONE that he was going after the unions. He wanted us to pay for our retirement and health care. He said (and continues to say) that we in the public sector are getting special treatment and that it has to end.
What a load of shit.
When I left the private sector to come to work for the state, I took an 8% pay cut. Let me restate that… an 8% PAY CUT. My pay was lowered by 8% for the privilege of serving the people of the state. Bear in mind that this isn’t some anecdotal random nobody. This is me and my personal experience.
I was somewhat compensated for the lower salary by the balancing out of the retirement and health care being so much cheaper. It didn’t cover things completely… my pay checks are still significantly lower than they were. Now this power-drunk, disconnected weirdo wants to take MORE money from my paycheck. I’m sorry but I just can’t afford to work here anymore. I’m quitting to go back to the private sector. Again, my new salary will be 9% higher. Don’t let anyone tell you public and private sector people make the same money (much less that public sector people make more).
Let’s stay focused though. All along, Walker’s been saying that he has to crush unions because it’s a fiscal issue. It’s a money thing. Naturally, this nut bag can’t be trusted. He’s shown that over and over. I’m not even talking about the phony phone call from that blogger guy. I’m just talking about what he’s laying out and threatening. If he doesn’t get his way with the budget, he’s going to lay off 1,500 people?! Guess what! After he gets his way, it’s not going to do as much as he thinks and those people are STILL GOING TO GET LAID OFF! This fat fool also kept talking about how he wanted the democrats to come back from Illinois to negotiate the bill. He really doesn’t think much of anyone. Can you really tell me he was going to negotiate? HELL NO. The republicans don’t need a single democrat vote to pass this travesty. They only need them present to hold the vote. Telling us he wanted them to negotiate is akin to saying “You have to come to my house so I can murder you, but don’t worry… I’ll only use a gun and I might not murder you.” How disingenuous can you get?
Well last night on March 9th, 2011, the truth was finally revealed. To nobodies surprise, it turns out that crushing the unions actually isn’t a fiscal matter after all. The republicans decided that since they can’t bully the democrats back from Illinois, they’d just separate out the union crushing portions and get that passed. I hate terms like “railroaded” and “rammed” but they’re really the most appropriate terms for what happened. In just a few minutes, the republicans railroaded the revised legislation through.
I’m embarrassed and ashamed. I still maintain my stance that government should just stay out of my business. The thought that I might be lumped in with Walker is terrifying to me.
I’m too worked up to continue right now.
[facebook]
Sometimes you have to start over
I’ve been getting my standard list of bugs. Some are legitimate. Most aren’t. Today though, I got a list of bugs that reads like this…
- Doing some action, got a big bad error message
- Hit the back button and tried another action. Got another message
- Hit the back button and did something else. Got another message.
- Hit the back button and tried something. Got another message.
To me, this seems like driving your car into a tree and then trying to continue to drive.
- Driving along, hit a tree. Couldn’t drive forward anymore.
- Changed the radio station, still couldn’t drive forward
- Tried the headlights. Headlights don’t work now! Must be a bug with changing radio stations. Still couldn’t drive forward
- Unbuckled seatbelt. Still couldn’t drive forward
I’ve said it before, I’m shocked (and terrified) that these people are allowed to operate motor vehicles.
User bug submission
From our users…
on the Programs Awaiting Campus Approval page, the “approve” and “reject” buttons are defined, but “cancel” is not defined.
Seriously? You need a definition of what “Cancel” is for?
Talk about not holding up…
The year was 1995. Friends was raging. Grunge was the shizzle. An angry female population was misspelling words wherever they could (womyn). Buoyed by something, I don’t know what… I was part of that scene, just like Alanis Morisette.
So I am working away looking for something to listen to. I recall really liking Jagged Little Pill and it’s super-hits “Ironic”, “Hand in my pocket” and “You oughta know”. I fired up the ole’ iTunes and hit play. At least it was easy to find… being near the top of the list of artists and all.
We need some type of instruction
One of the bug reports I got recently.
We need some type of instruction so that people know how to use the compare feature. Our student and professional testers did not understand that the “compare” checkboxes should be checked, and then the “compare” button should be clicked.
Really? That’s because your “student and professional testers” are idiots. Are there instructions on microwave ovens? Are there instructions on telephones? Some things are just obvious. I’m shocked that these people are allowed to drive cars.
If something were really, truly obscure or hard to understand, I could go with it. Not understanding the compare function of a website? C’mon… they’re not even trying.