bitterisataste . . . words and ramblings . . . v.6.0

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

this entry brought to you by outcast, "hey ya!"

THE GOOD

The new PC To make a long story short, we had a 10 year old computer that was still running Windows ME-- and yes, we tried upgrading it to XP when that came out, and we couldn't, and even had experts try. The machine was not able to be upgraded, period. The problem is that we just couldn't afford an actual desktop PC, and I was completely against buying a laptop because I just didn't see the point in doing it when we'd be using it as a desktop PC. Over the course of the last year, however, as websites have upgraded to HTML5, and as flash became more and more resource intensive, it got to the point where even YouTube, something we could always view before, was a slide show, and any web player above Youtube quality such as Vimeo would crash Firefox outright. Which does nothing to mention the constant crashes, lock-ups, freezes, and general slow loading-- even Gmail took a minute or a minute and a half to load. Which brings us to last week. I was laying in bed and thinking, when was the last time there was a month with five Fridays (and, hence, five paychecks)? We had only one so far, which meant that there had to be one left-- and sure enough, I found out that December would be the second one, and I decided, I did not care, we were going to buy a new computer. I didn't care if it was a laptop, I didn't care what brand, I didn't care what options it had, I didn't care, I was going to spend 500 dollars and not regret it. Michelle and my mom were going to go see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and had to get a ride from the dial-a-ride service because my mom is handicapped, and it would be dropping them off one hour before the showing. I had to stay home with the baby, and I gave Michelle 800 dollars, telling her to run across the street to Best Buy and just get something. Several hours later I was plugging in a machine that, holy shit! Can actually have multiple windows open without something going unresponsive! And every single one of those windows can have Youtube videos embedded! It's been two weeks now, I think, and I literally have not gotten over the novelty of having a billion things open at once, and literally do so just because I can.

Netflix Streaming I don't have cable, and one of the reasons for it is because of mail-based DVD rentals. I was previously using Blockbuster on-line, mostly because I thought, well, I have a Blockbuster right next to me, and it allowed me to use that to my advantage by dropping off movies there and being able to pick up a movie instantly to replace it, and while I only used that feature a few times, it seemed worth it to me on the chance that I needed to get a specific movie now (say, for example, a scary movie for Halloween). I had to let my Blockbuster account lapse because of lack of finances, and in the meanwhile, decided to give Netflix a free trial, because you can stream Netflix to your TV using your XBox 360. And I became instantly addicted to it. I can click a button and see movies right the fuck now, and while I'm aware that there are other on-demand services if you have cable, this, for me, utterly negates the need for cable at all. The entire family is utterly addicted to it, and you're goddamn right I found a way to pay for it monthly.

Man Vs. Food A guy-- who, oddly, doesn't actually identify himself as a "chef" specifically, only that he's worked in "every part of the restaurant business"-- goes around the country, and any place that has one of those "Eat this gross thing in 20 minutes and you get this t-shirt" deals, attempts to beat the food. Inevitably, he gets through it, and inevitably, it's torture. Somehow, this is immensely watchable, and I completely recommend it. I'm not the first person to point this out, but what's amazing, to me, is that while the host is a fat guy, he's not that fat. He's just normal American guy fat, and I cannot see how this is possible after what we see him go through in every episode.

Insane Clown Posse's "Miracles" video I know, I'm a little bit behind on this meme-- you're going to have to forgive me, I'm going to be behind on all memes for the past year, but I saw this video and, completely to my surprise, I was filled with two conflicting emotions: hilarity and how absolutely fucking ridiculous this is, but also... Kinda digging it. I mentioned this video to a friend and he said "That video is awful. ICP being sincere... It's the worst." The thing is, though, if they weren't being sincere, I would absolutely hate it. It's their sincerity that completely sells it to me. It's like listening to two retards be super serious about something, and the thing is, I totally agree with the sentiment. Sometimes you have to acknowledge them miracles up in this bitch. Of course, there's a weird anti-science thread in it and I find that to be a very specific showcase of what's wrong with America, and I'd love to address this issue at large-- but maybe some other time. If you ignore that, come on, this song is kind of awesome, if completely and utterly bizarre.

Double Rainbow Guy And, just for the heck of it, it's Double Rainbow guy! I saw this when it was just 7 million hits, but I never got around to putting it in a Polarity. Or rather, I didn't get around to doing a Polarity, period. Anyway, I regret never linking it, so here it is.

THE BAD

Laptops I knew it before we bought it-- I cannot stand laptop keyboards and that stupid track pad. And while I specifically bought one that had a full sized keyboard, I still knew deep down that it would be unacceptable, because it's not just the size and layout of a real keyboard that's necessary, it's also the tactile feedback. I literally couldn't even put in web addresses without having to retype it three or four times because my fingers just kept hitting everything, and for the first time in years, I had to watch my fingers as I typed to make sure I wasn't just mashing everything. Frankly, I don't know why for a moment I even thought I was going to be able to live with it; ever since I decided to just go ahead and buy a laptop I knew I would specifically buy one with as many USB ports as possible, for one reason: so I can just go buy a USB keyboard and mouse and just plug the fucking things in them and treat my wireless laptop as a wired desktop, which is what I promptly did the next day. My laptop has so many wires coming out of it that it's ridiculous-- it's even wired Internet because the X-Box 360 has a wireless hook-up sold desperately but why should I spend the 30 bucks for one? And a wired Internet means I can keep them both hooked up separately, and who gives a shit? The laptop isn't going off the desk, so what harm is it doing?

The full-body scanners I keep hearing people saying that they don't get what the big deal is about the full body scanners, and this attitude just completely blows me away, and frankly, I'm glad that society has finally decided to be outraged about the incredible encroachment of our personal rights when we go into a fucking airport over the last decade. Myself personally, I don't care if I have to be full-body scanned. But do you know what my problem is? How the hell do I know those images won't get out on the Internet? Why is it that we get emails from CEOs leaked about them admitting to ripping people off? Why is it that we get private phone calls that were taped leaked? I'm not saying it's not a good thing these things were uploaded to the Internet, but my point is, somebody leaked it, and these were supposed to originally be private. How do I know some disgruntled TSA employee can't just press a series of buttons and upload shit? And even if you promise me the equipment is unhackable, that there's no way some worker can't upload, that there's no way some outside source can hack in and get access to millions of people fucking naked, then how are you going to guarantee some disgruntled employee, the day he is going to quit, doesn't whip out his cell phone and record the screen just as a "fuck you" before leaving?

No hot water showers Now, I know that I live in Arizona, and anyone reading this is probably living in a part of the world where the winters get much colder, so I should stop my bitching. Nevertheless, for some reason the water in our house gets hot-- except in the shower. It's not that it's freezing, but it comes out tepid, and has been for the past several months. At first it wasn't a big deal because it was, say, September. But now that it's December, you try the couple tricks we've learned to get it to maybe work, and when it doesn't, it's infuriating because it's so goddamn cold in the house...

No heater ...And part of the problem is the fact that the heater doesn't work. If I flip it over to AC, it works fine. And it's not like it's turning on and is only blowing out cold air-- it just doesn't turn on, no matter how low you put the thermostat. Occasionally throughout the day it'll turn on randomly and I guess it feels a little better, but it's never on long enough to warm the whole house. The point is, we don't have enough money to get this shit fixed so we just have to put up with it for now. Which begs the question, exactly why is it everybody's dream to buy a house, having to fix all this shit themselves?

Pasties Every time I see burlesque for whatever reason, on TV, in a movie or whatever, I just don't get how it could possibly be hot. I get that it's not supposed to be the same thing as stripping-- fine, I get that there's an art form to it. But pasties are the worst invention of all time. What the hell exactly am I supposed to be enjoying if I can't see nipples, and yet a woman is otherwise topless?
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with love from CRS @ 8:48 AM

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

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