The Alphabet According to 1980's Movies

I feel old because...

Health Risks Don't Stop Americans

If there's a greater commentary on the way Americans regard food, I don't know of one better than this…the Burger King a few blocks away from where we live was cited by the Department of Health. There was a big sign on the front door and on the drive-thru window stating that the Burger King had failed a health inspection a few weeks earlier. Now I immediately went to the Internet to check, and it turns out the BK just placed some cleaning bottles near the refrigerator, but I didn't feel comfortable eating there. However, I couldn't help noticing that the BK was doing a brisk business. The fact that customers were not deterred in any way by a huge sign stating that the restaurant had failed a health inspection seemed to me the essence of how little America cares about food. I doubt that many of them took the time to check the results. It could have meant anything from cleaning bottles in the wrong place up to and including rats swimming in the soda, but they didn't care. If this was a Burger King in France or Germany, this might have shut down the restaurant for good. In America, it's just a speed bump that Americans happily jump over to stuff their faces. Sad.

Still love the Whopper, though.

Bus drivers, drop the attitude

So there's two buses that run along the corner of Chandler and Ray. One is the 72, which turns north on Ray. I take the 156, which keeps going on Chandler.

So the other day, I see the 72 and to my surprise, it pulls up to the Chandler bus stop. I think maybe it has the wrong sign, so I ask the driver, "Is this the 156?"

The driver says, "No, see the sign" with the word "idiot" clearly left unspoken but intended.

That kind of irritates me, but I can't let it go, so I ask, "Don't you normally turn off on Rural?"

The driver says, with the same bored "you're a moron" tone, "Rural is up there."

So I look up at the sign behind him reading, "Rural Road," and weigh my options. Clearly the driver missed his turn and didn’t notice. I could help him out by pointing out his mistake and getting him to turn around. Which I would have, if he hadn't been such a jerk.

So I just said, "OK," and watched him drive off.

My satisfaction when five minutes later, I see his bus roaring back down Chandler and screeching around the corner back onto Rural cannot be overstated.

9 Catfights That Geeks Love

Ah, the catfight. Usually the term means a fight between two women that's distinctly titillating. That's not what this list is about. Well, not really. There have been some really awesome fights in sci-fi movies and TV shows that just happen to involve two women. Here are nine...and while there may be some kinda sexy moments in them, that's entirely not the point. At all.

What the lead singer of Jane's Addiction Looks Like

Steve Jobs vs. Dennis Ritchie

[From Memebase]
Don't know who the guy on the right, Dennis Ritchie, is? Exactly.

5 Best "Yo Dawg" Meme Pictures

The "Yo Dawg" meme began with this pic, based on the ridiculous stuff Xzibit used to put into cars on MTV's Pimp My Ride...

And then it got better...

 And better...

And better...

And then Xzibit got mad...

KIDSTALK: Dora Has a Freakishly Enormous Head

Okay, here's the deal. I always knew that Dora the Explorer had a big head, but never thought anything of it because of artistic style. It only became painfully and disturbingly obvious when I saw her on a guest appearance on her - cousin, brother, boyfriend, never paid enough attention to the show to figure that out - Diego's show. That painfully illustrates that not everyone in Dora and Diego's world have such huge heads. The reality is that Dora is a horrible mutant who in the real-world would be in a circus freak show. Either that or splitting atoms in a quantum physics lab, because she has a brain the size of a watermelon.

Captcha of the Future [Pic]

Supermodel Kate Upton Does the Dougie

Epic Rap Battles of History: Easter Bunny vs. Genghis Khan

There's No Such Thing As "Wired Wi-Fi"

I was at a hotel that had this sign, and thought, "Awesome! Free Wi-Fi!" So I fired up my smartphone, but couldn't find the Wi-Fi signal. When I called the front desk, they informed me the Wi-Fi was only available on an Ethernet-enabled computer. I went back to the sign and read it more closely to find it was "Wi-Fi wired" access.

I thought I'd perform a public service and inform the Four Points Sheraton, AT&T, and anyone else who might be planning this kind of crap that there's no such thing as "wired Wi-Fi." Apparently no one told AT&T that "Wi-Fi" is certified as a wireless Internet connection. In fact, "Wi-Fi" stands for "wireless fidelity*." The idea of an Ethernet connection being called "wired Wi-Fi" is like calling radio a "picture-less movie." It doesn't make sense.

* To all the nerds out there, I'm aware that Wi-Fi started as a meaningless pun intended to remind us of "hi-fi," but the fact is that even the Wi-Fi Alliance refers to it as meaning "wireless fidelity."

KID TALK: The Man in the Yellow Hat is a Banana

I have two toddlers, so I watch a lot of kids' TV. Some of it just flies right over my head. Others actually trigger thoughts and analysis that I know are way too deep for childrens' television. I feel compelled to share. Today, let's talk about Curious George.

 I've seen Curious George in movies, TV shows, and books for decades, and it just occurred to me last month that the Man in the Yellow Hat looks like a banana. No wonder Curious George hangs out with him. To George, the Man in the Yellow Hat is like a gigantic, talking, walking banana. Kind of changes the whole nature of their relationship. Now I imagine an episode of Curious George where the Man in the Yellow Hat slips in the bathtub and breaks his neck and dies. Then Curious George seizes the chance he's been waiting for and eats him. Then Curious George gets a taste for human blood and goes on a rampage. And the police come and shoot him to death in a furious gun battle.

Yeah, that's the kind of thing I think about when I watch my kids' shows.

No, Google, *You're* Too Slow!

I'm on a dial-up ISP (yeah, yeah), and I get this message every time I go onto Google Images:

You are seeing the basic version because we think your Internet connection is slow - Switch to standard version

To me, it seems a little confrontational. It sounds like, "You are seeing the basic version because your Internet connection sucks. Get a new ISP, loser. Or switch to standard version, and prove us wrong, and we'll apologize." Okay, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but still...Google, mind your own business.

Google is Watching You...Like You Asked Them To

I don't understand the uproar over the fact that Google Android phones collect location data. I'm not saying it's right that they're doing it, but it's not like Google made any secret of it. I've had to do the initial setup on quite a few Android phones and whenever I'm setting up my phone for the first time, I have this option pop up:

"Allow Google's location service to collect anonymous location data. Collection will occur even when no applications are running."

You have to have a check in the box next to it in order to use any of Google's navigation services. So what's the problem? Is nobody reading these things? If you didn't want it to happen, you shouldn't have checked the box.

The Eyes Have It: Amanda Seyfried vs. Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift should borrow some eye from Amanda Seyfried, because she's got some to spare. Taylor Swift has the smallest eyes in Hollywood and Amanda Seyfried has the biggest.

Happy Demolition Day 2011!

Happy Demolition Day, 2011! BOOM!




Video courtesy of YouTube and Controlled Demolition, Inc.

Demolition Day is coming

It's been a while since we mentioned it, but it's time to recover the tradition of Demolition Day. It's coming... get ready. Boom! For more info, go here

Ads on Android's Angry Birds Are Annoying

Right now, Angry Birds is doing extremely well on the Android platform, but I have a proposal. I want Rovio Mobile to make a paid version of the Angry Birds Android game. I know what you're thinking, "Is this guy crazy? He actually wants to pay money for a game he can get for free?" The answers are no and yes. The reason is that Angry Birds has the intrusive advertising I've ever seen on an Android application.

The problems start when you start the app. Sometimes it will play a full-screen video advertisement when it starts up. You can skip it, but it's just a roadblock on my way to the fun.

Then you get into the levels, and a banner advertisement will appear. It used to be in the lower-right version of the screen, where it overlapped some scenery, so it was out of the way. I guess that was too out-of-the-way, because they moved the banner ad to the upper-left corner of the screen. Coincidentally, that's smack-dab in the actual game-play. On some levels, it's just an annoyance. On others, it actually blocks your view of part of the structure you're trying to destroy, requiring you to move the level around to see what you're doing. It actually interferes with my game-play.

I understand that Rovio decided that problems with the pay system on the Android Market would keep them from making as much revenue as the iPhone version, so they made it free. I would politely ask Rovio to re-consider and release a paid version of Angry Birds without advertisements. I think there are a lot of customers who would pay to get rid of those ads. If you're one of them, click here to sign a petition. We can show Rovio they can make money on this app through direct sales, just like they did on the iPhone.

UPDATE: I just found out a few minutes after I posted this that Rovio Mobile is developing an in-game payment system called Bad Piggy Bank. Finally.

R.I.P. Leslie Nielsen

"I just wanted to say good luck. We're all counting on you."  -Leslie Nielsen in Airplane (1980) Rest in Peace

Calvin Minus Hobbes 2.0

The beloved comic strip Calvin and Hobbes portrayed the relationship between a young boy and a tiger. Readers hailed the love of their magical friendship But what if Hobbes really was just a stuffed tiger? What if his relationship was all in his imagination? What if Calvin was on the edge of madness? The original controversial series Calvin Minus Hobbes showed us by simply replacing Hobbes in every cartoon with the stuffed version of Hobbes. The creator eventually found it too depressing to continue, so I've taken up the torch. I'll be updating the page with new cartoons approximately whenever I feel like it.

*NEW*

Fun in a Call Center: Worker's Con

I think I would like to work in the worker's comp department. I find those insurance claims so interesting, especially when you get into questions about the authenticity of the claim. Sometimes I go back and read the follow-up notes on claims I've entered. I read one claim where the driver claims he was robbed in Texas and hit in the neck, but his movement shows he wasn't in Texas on the day he claims. He also claimed someone had to help him out of bed this morning, to which the adjuster wrote in her notes "How??? He's a solo driver and would have had to get out of bed to get someone to help him out of his bed."

There was another one where a janitor claimed he hurt his back. First of all, he claimed he hurt himself on Sunday, but when his supervisor pointed out that he didn't work on weekends, he claims the injury occurred on Friday but he didn't feel it until Sunday. Then he claimed he hurt himself working the floor polisher when it tipped over and he tried to straighten it. Well, it turns out that the only time they use the floor cleaner is at night and he works during the day, plus the ladies' room is being remodeled, so the floor cleaner wasn't being used that day. Idiots. We're not stupid.

Fun in a Call Center: You Might Be a Redneck

One time, I took an insurance claim from a trucker who had driven off the road. The trucker said the last thing he remembered before the crash had been listening to a Jeff Foxworthy CD. Well, after talking to the doctors about what had happened, the doctors think that he laughed so hard that he blacked out. If you're driving a truck and listening to a Jeff Foxworthy CD and laugh so hard that you black out and drive off the road…you might be a redneck.

The Best of the Worst Reviews for Microsoft's Kin Phone

If the HTC DROID Incredible is the biggest hit of the year for Verizon, then the Microsoft Kin is definitely its biggest flop. The decision to stop production for the Kin a mere forty-eight days after it was launched allows us the chance to look back at its failure. The failure of the Kin isn't really a surprise to everyone. Here are the top ten best lines from the worst reviews:

1. "...the idea of choosing this severely limited device which doesn't do a single thing better than even the most basic Android device is kind of crazy." -Engadget
2. "I'm skeptical that young consumers will be thrilled with this first effort."-Associated Press
3. "What was Microsoft thinking when it launched this ill-begotten device?"-Computerworld
4. "Fun software, clunky design...the hardware is middle-of-the-road and the phone can sometimes be sluggish."-PC World
5. "Quite frankly, I haven't been this disappointed in a phone in a long time." -Phonescoop
6. "Verizon and Microsoft seem to be relying on consumer ignorance to sell the Kin, because only someone ignorant of their other options would get a Kin."-Windows Phone Thoughts
7. "...the Kins are misbegotten, crippled creatures compared to pretty much every smartphone on the market."- PC Mag
8. "...I have yet to see any compelling reason for someone to buy a Kin."- ZD Net
9. "The impression you get using the Kins isn’t that they’re based on a flawed concept, really, but that they just aren’t quite done." - Gizmodo.au
10. "If the Kin sells at all, it’ll be to a narrow slice of the population."-Gizmodo