Bloodbowl '11

"Dad, can we play the spiked football game?" the boy said. It took me a few seconds to realize what he meant, because we hadn't played Bloodbowl for quite some time.

I dragged everything out and laid the teams out for him to choose from. He went with the Orcs so I tossed in an unpainted Varag Ghoulchewer, then decided to choose the more completely painted (but no less poncy) Wood Elves and their star player Jordell Freshbreeze, over the hardier but lesser painted Dwarfs.

The Elves won the toss and elected to receive, forcing the boy to set up his Orcs first. Not knowing how to play to their strength he started with his two Black Orcs on the bench, and I took advantage of his inexperience, sending one of my fast & agile Catchers up the left wing on my first Turn, and scoring a touchdown with him on my second.

I scored another quick Touchdown within the next two Turns when I was able to bring down the mighty Varag and strip the ball from him, although the huge Orc's armor prevented me from doing any serious damage. The high Armor Value of the slow but tough Orcs would be a boon to the boy as I brought down Orc after Orc, only to see them get back to their feet on the next turn. Meanwhile, my nimble but far less armored Elves were taking a beating. The low point of the first half was a ball-carrying Jordell being caught by a solitary Thrower mere yards from the end zone. A series of lucky rolls from the boy not only brought my star player down, but took him out of the game permanently.

Meanwhile, back on the line of scrimmage, the rest of my Elves were not faring any better. It was my own fault for teaching the boy the flanking maneuver that begins with the end model Blocking his opponent and freeing himself up to Assist his neighboring team mate with his Block, and so on down the line. The results speak for themselves.
In case it's not readily apparent, of the 9 Wood Elf models in this picture only 4 of them are still standing.

We put up a valiant fight but the Elves are not made for stand-up, knock down fights, not against Orcs. They're good at the second part, but not so good at the first. The boy was able to keep control of the ball and so control the play, and as the first Half drew to a close a lone green Lineman ran into the end zone while his team mates looked on (and probably gave the Elf at their feet a sly kicking for good measure).
The Elf's dugout was a sad and miserable place at halftime. It's hard to inspire the lads when almost half their team are Knocked Out, Seriously Injured, or worse.

Note: This is not the way to coach the Wood Elves to victory. Maybe the Dwarfs could hold on in this position long enough to scrape out a victory, or at least play to a tie. We're three turns into the Second Half, and Varag has the ball again, but this time he's flanked by his team mates as he prepares to stomp his way to victory. Not even the three Elves who ganged up on a prone Orc behind the play were able to slow down the green tide of destruction.

This game is not over yet, but the best I can probably hope for is a draw.

Mini-vacation

My son graduated from 5th Grade & Elementary school last week, which resulted in me having a mini-vacation from Wednesday through Monday, during which I:

• inflated and tied over 100 helium balloons, blistering the side of my finger in the process (something I didn't realize I'd done until the blister burst around the 90th balloon);
• ran security/crowd control on 200+ proud parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc., all intent on getting a photo of their little angel receiving his/her "diploma" while being completely oblivious to who they stood in front of to do so;
• co-chaperoned 100+ screaming 10 y/olds at a graduation 10-pin bowling party, where I discovered 10-year old kids not only know the words to Gaga's Poker Face, Taio Cruz's Dynamite, and Katy Perry's Firework but how to dance along to them, too...except for my son. He's a chip off the old block, he is ;)
• helped my 6 y/old daughter finally beat Kirby's Epic Yarn, Lego Batman, and Mario Galaxy. (Note: we only beat them, we didn't complete them. I later returned to Mario Galaxy and collected a few extra Power Stars but turned the game off when the Developers confused "challenging" with "frustrating".)

I don't honk when you're in MY lane

The right-hand lane which I use to enter the bus station's parking lot is not a right turn-only lane, so cars are free to use that right hand lane to continue straight ahead, and most vehicles in that lane do because they prefer to park in the next lot, or they're heading for the Freeway just a little further down. I find this annoying because in California, unless there are signs saying otherwise, you can make a right-hand turn on a red light, and if I don't catch the green light inevitably I find myself stopped behind someone who wants to go straight ahead. But as it's not a right turn-only lane they're doing nothing wrong, so I sit patiently and wait for the green.

Unlike most Southern Californians I always use my turn signal, and sometimes I'll pull up right behind this car, barely inches from their rear bumper, but slightly off center so if their mirrors are angled correctly my blinking turn signal is being reflected in their right-hand mirror. At times like these I'm even tempted to honk my horn at them, as if to say, "Come on, turn already." Except that's rude. They don't have their turn signal on, and if they wanted to turn they would have done so, so I sit there, patiently waiting for the light to turn green. Of course when it does there's always a couple of pedestrians from the parking lot waiting to cross the road to the bus station, so as a courteous driver (for the most part) I now feel compelled to wait for them too.

And the situation I've just described is exactly what happened this morning.

When the light went green the car in front of me drove on, straight ahead, and I pulled forward, turn signal still blinking, just like it had been doing the entire time I sat there waiting patiently for the light to turn green, then I stopped. I stopped because George, the old man who rides my bus, who had a stroke a few years back and so now walks with a pronounced limp/shuffle, good old George had stepped down into the crosswalk and was slowly hobbling across the road into which I wanted to turn.

Now I'll admit that maybe I didn't pull forward quite as much as I could have, but as far as I'm concerned yielding to pedestrians does not mean stopping your car halfway into the crosswalk so they're forced to walk around you. As far as I'm concerned, yielding to pedestrians means coming to a complete stop before your car even enters the crosswalk, and so I did.

For some reason this offended the driver of the car behind me. At first I wasn't sure if he'd flashed his headlights at me, but then he honked his horn, and then he flashed his lights again.

"Hello!" I said to myself with malicious glee. "Yielding to Pedestrians here. FUCKING wait!"

The horn honked again, accompanied by more flashing of head lights.

Now I don't know about you but when I'm being a courteous, considerate driver and yielding to pedestrians in a crosswalk, particularly slightly disabled pedestrians, specifically, slightly disabled pedestrians who I happen to know, and you're a rude, impatient, arrogant prick of a driver behind me honking your horn and flashing your lights, you've just accomplished the complete opposite of what you were trying to achieve; you've just made damn sure I'm going to completely yield to the pedestrian.

Which is what I did.

When there was enough room for me to pull forward, and even drive through behind George as he hobbled across the crosswalk, I didn't. I sat there. I would say I ignored the honking and flashing of lights, but in all truth they amused me as I waited to make sure George was well & truly clear of my path before finally driving through behind him.

Yes, I deliberately pissed this other driver off, but I don't care. I don't honk at drivers blocking my path just because I want to turn and they want to go straight ahead. If you don't want to sit behind me while I yield to pedestrians, don't drive in MY lane. It's that fucking simple.

New monitor

Ok, so it's not new, we've had it for a couple of years now. But it's never really been used as a monitor until recently.

Say hello to my little friend ;)

(If you click it, it gets bigger ;)

IT'S ALIIIIIVE!!!

This weekend I dug out two old PCs which I seemed to recall had died on us (several years ago), warranting the purchase of new PCs.

Contemplating making one working PC from the two, I pulled the sides off both boxes and took a look inside. I know my way around the inside of a case, and I'm also pretty efficient at salvaging dead PCs, so one look was all it took for me to realize that I was lacking several critical pieces, like RAM, and hard drives.

Fortunately I'm also a hoarder, so the RAM sticks and hard drives which no longer resided within these cases were still within my possession. As were several old Video Cards which I'd burned out (or so I thought) playing games that were a little bit too graphic intensive for them. I'd need one of those video cards because the mother board of one of those PCs does not have an on-board GPU.

But first on the agenda was upgrading my daughter's PC. She got 50% more Ram and a new (old) video card. Old, but still a two generation upgrade over what she had. I also uninstalled AVG. As much as I like anti-virus programs they tend to bog older systems down (as well as some newer ones). Her computer definitely seemed to run a lot faster with those simple changes. Cost? zero dollars.

Then I turned to the PCs. The first thing I noticed was of the remaining RAM sticks, the two largest were two 512MB sticks and they would only fit one of the MoBos. So it got a full Gig of RAM. I also dropped in one of my two 40GB HDD then, out of sheer curiosity, plugged it in and fired it up. To my amazement not only did it work, but it booted up into Linspire.

ASIDE: Earlier this week at my mate's house we watched United which he'd...er...borrowed(?) from a certain website which let you download...borrow. I did say borrow. So this website lets you borrow all sorts of movies which, if you've got a TV hooked up to your computer, rather than watch these movies on your piddly little computer monitor you can watch them on a much bigger screen (such as that found on a 50" Plasma TV). We already have Netflix, which lets us stream movies through our BluRay player, except that Netflix's 'online' service is sadly lacking. It does have a reasonable selection of some older movies, and some of the newer releases, but for the older or more obscure classics, and the latest releases, you still have to request a physical DVD. I understand what they're doing, but I still think it sucks.

So I hooked up this new PC with Linspire to my 50" Plasma, booted it up, and the POST loading screen came up, followed by the Linspire loading screen, and then? As it booted into Linspire's desktop, my TV screen went dark and the words Invalid Format began floating around the screen. Having encountered this situation before with the BluRay player I knew what was going on so I hooked up a monitor to the Linspire machine to set its resolution to one of the handful of true 16:9 widescreen resolutions. Except Linspire didn't offer any of those particular resolutions to me. Yes, I was using a widescreen monitor, but even when I told it to show me resolutions not supported by my system none of the 16:9 resolutions were listed.

Fortunately I had a second 40GB HDD so I unplugged the Linspire HDD and plugged in the second one. It booted up into Windows XP (as it should; I only have a 98 SE CD, and an XP Pro CD), and XP let me set the resolution to a proper 16:9 resolution. Unplug the monitor, plug in the 50" and the Windows desktop appeared larger than life (that's assuming you're smaller than 50", which I'm not, so technically it's not larger than my life, but I digress).

I unplugged the LAN cable from the BluRay player and hooked it up to the PC, which was good for updating the video drivers, but not so good for the BluRay player. But one of the other gadgets I had in my possession, which I had no idea why, or how long I'd had it (years, I'm guessing), was a 5-port Switch. As I'd gone through my box of PC Bits & Pieces I'd come across the Switch and despite not recalling ever seeing it before and not being 100% sure what it was, in typical Bloke-fashion I'd thought to myself, "I might be able to use this." A quick Google search revealed that indeed I could use it, and for the purpose I'd had in mind, too. Back into the box of Bits & Pieces I went where I extracted two 6' CAT5 cables. Plug the LAN cable into the Uplink port on the Switch, plug in both 6' cables then plug their other ends into the BluRay and the PC, and now both machines were online. Cost? Zero dollars.

Finally I turned to the last PC. This thing is old. It has an Athlon 1.2Ghz CPU. Years ago that was fast. Now? Not so much. It also only takes PC133 RAM. I had, according to their stickers, two 128MB sticks of PC133. I plugged them in, plugged in the Linspire HDD, and one GeForce MX4000, being the fastest of the old video cards I still had. It all booted up, except the Linspire HDD wouldn't boot. Which made me wonder if Linspire was not on the Hard Drive itself, but buried in an EPROM chip on the other PC's Motherboard.

Fortunately I had my XP CDs handy, as well as an old DVD drive which I promptly plugged in. It was then a simple matter of installing XP, and catching up on some reading. Then downloading SP3 while doing some more reading.

The only problem is there's one essential part of a computer which I don't have any spares of, and that would be monitors. The first PC doesn't need one because it's hooked up to the 50" Plasma, but this second PC? It needs a monitor. It also needs a new MoBo, faster CPU, more (& faster) RAM, a faster Video Card, and a bigger power supply to keep all that stuff running. In other words, I need a new computer ;)

"This axe? Why, it's been in the family for generations. Had 4 new handles, and a new blade, but it's just as good as the day my great-grandpappy bought it, all them years ago."

And I thought they were tough

This morning I dragged the wife and kids out of bed at OMFG o'clock to come support me on my 5K Gladiator Rock 'n Run. Actually I didn't need to drag them out of bed. The wife claimed she had trouble sleeping last night (as did I, a little nervous I guess) so when the cat woke me up at my usual workday time of 4:30am and I realized I needed to use the loo, doing so woke up the wife, and she got up, even though there was an hour left on the alarm. I decided I might as well stay up too, and the boy was awake when I stuck my head in his bedroom door. So it was the only the bunny who needed waking up, and unlike a school morning, despite it being almost 2 hours earlier than her usual "wake-up" time, she was out of bed in seconds (vs the typical "I'm tired!" whine followed by rolling over and burying her head in her pillow).

After breakfast, and a 45-min drive we arrived at Irvine's Hidden Valley Park.

We also, eventually, managed to hook up with 4 of my coworkers, all who are a few years (or 10 years) younger than me. The original plan was to run together and help each other out, but when the first obstacle, a balance beam affair, split us up I was now running with a female coworker a few years younger than me, and a male coworker 13 years younger. The guy managed to trip himself up on the second obstacle, a tire run, and sprained his ankle, but he sucked it up like a true Gladiator, ran it off, and we continued the race.

When I noticed that my pace was a little faster than theirs I tried to slow down to stick with them, but eventually my competitive nature said "Fuck it" and I never looked back.

At the obstacle titled "The Fools' Spools" I leaped up onto the first one only to find the competitor ahead of me was slower than I expected. Instead of landing on top of it as he leaped off the other side I was forced to check my momentum or get a face full of arse. As I fell back I grabbed the edge of the spool to hang on and...Oh shit! My right tricep screamed at me that I was the fool! When I pulled myself back up onto the top of the spool I agreed with it, but I was doing this race to test myself, to push myself to the limit, not drop out at the first sign of an Owie! (Definitely a pulled tricep. I rubbed Bengay into it when I got back home but its still pretty sore, and will be for a few days. Meh. I'm a GLADIATOR!!!)

I vaulted over the remaining spools and finally caught up to one of my first two female coworkers (she's 10 years younger than me) at the muddy uphill slope, with a rope if you needed it to ascend, which I did (Ow, said my tricep. Shut up, I replied.) followed by a water slide back down to the cargo net. I managed to generate too much friction on the water slide (don't ask me how) and I found myself slowing down, then stopping 3/4 of the way down. Knowing other competitors were coming down right after me I tried to scoot down to the bottom of the slide but I wasn't quick enough and got nailed from behind by a competitor with a lower coefficient of friction. Fortunately that gave me the boost I needed to complete the slide. Unfortunately it provided me with too much momentum, and when I hit the muddy pool at the bottom I was forced to dive across it and roll out the other side.

It was only while standing in line at the cargo net that I realized I'd acquired a war wound from my spill, but being literally covered in mud from head-to-toe I could't tell how seriously I was hurt. And I do mean literally. My face was covered in mud but I couldn't wipe it off because my hands were covered in mud, and I couldn't wipe them off because every other part of my body was also covered in mud. I figured I was still standing and it wasn't hurting much so it can't have been serious. And it wasn't.

I don't look it there, but I was not the only one a little pissed at waiting in line for the cargo net/container obstacle. I was even more pissed when it was my turn and I finally climbed to the top, only to see scores of competitors running past the cargo container. "Cheaters!" I heard someone call out to them. "That line is too long!" one of them called back. Like that's an excuse. Enjoy your hollow victory, wannabe Gladiators!

Down the other side of the cargo container and on I ran with my female coworker, helping her across the vertical wall (she's considerably shorter than me) then sticking with her as we ran up, up, up the long hill. But when we came down the hill and she started to lag behind it was once again "Every Gladiator For Himself!" and I pulled away and left her behind. I never saw the second girl, but my first two coworkers found her, somewhere, because she finished the race with them, but that was long after I was done.

When I know my final time I'll post it, but for now I think I finished in approx. an hour.

A 5 kilometre race, through mud, over 14 obstacles, and I was the first AND oldest of my coworkers to finish. And I thought they were tough.

OFFICIAL RESULTS

My time: 47m 11.8s

Mens 36-42: 148/306 (I'll be 42 in August)

Mens Overall: 854/1819

Overall: 1367/3715

I'll take royal weddings for $32,000,000, Alex...

The Royal wedding is the talk of the town, in particular the cost to John Q. Public. Apparently the Royal family is picking up the bulk of the tab but you don't have to be an economist to know where they get most of their wealth from. Investments? Yes, okay. But where did they get the money from to invest? More...investments? I see. This could take longer than I thought.

When one of my friends made a comment on FB about the Royal wedding one of his friends referenced the figure $32,000,000, which a little research revealed is the approximate cost (in U.S. dollars) of security for the wedding. Just security. It doesn't include the flowers, or the food, or booking the chapel, or sending out the invitations, or the bridesmaids' dresses, the open bar at the reception (which probably cost a lot more than US$32M). The cost of security alone was estimated at US$32M. So this figure was referenced by my friend's FB friend, along with the comment that "you could feed the world" on US$32M.










The global population is estimated to be approx. 3,915,000,000. Dividing $32M between 3,915,000,000 people comes out to half a cent each. Now I know that two people can eat as cheaply as one, unless one of those two is a pregnant woman. Seriously. Have you seen what they can put away? There's a reason Home Town Buffet tried to ban pregnant women from their restaurants. No, they didn't. I'm kidding. April Fools! What? It's still April. Who says April Fools has to be limited to just the first day of the month? Have you ever tried fooling someone on April Fools Day? Good luck! You can't fool anyone on April Fools' Day because they know it's coming! What idiot thought up "April Fools" then decided to limit it to one, specific day? That guy was the real April Fool. Amiright?

So, back to two people eating as cheaply as one, which we know is a crock. If two people can eat as cheaply as one, then four must be able to eat as cheap as two, right? And because two can eat as cheaply as one, logically that means four can also eat as cheap as one. It makes perfect fucking sense IF two really can eat as cheaply as one. But because four cannot eat as cheaply as one then two cannot eat as cheaply as one so forget this argument because it holds about as much water as Jesus' cupped hands. (I can't believe you went there! I thought you were going to reference the Loaves & Fishes thing!)

So, back to feeding the world on $32M, or 1/2 a cent each. Let me know how that works out for you.

This leads into the real problem with the world today. There is not enough money, not enough food, not enough resources, not enough anything to take care of everyone living on the planet. You can throw all the money you want at the problem but it won't solve a thing. Sure, a few people will live, but many are going to die and nobody can do a damned thing about it because there's just too many of us. Some of us need to die. A lot of us. And the rest of us? We need to let them die.

What's that? I should start by killing myself? Riiiiiiight. I'm a producer (and yes, a consumer). I'm living in a First World Country, with a job, making money, and providing for my family. Other than my employer nobody is giving me money to buy me food, or clothes, or a computer. I've got a daytime job, I'm doing alright.

But all those Third World people sitting on their arses in the dust, just existing (not living, I'm not calling that living because they're alive but they're not living; they're existing) they can die. Because they're not producing. They're not working, or doing anything to sustain themselves, because Karma dealt them a handful of crap and they literally cannot survive without a handout because the land cannot support them. Give them a fish today and what does that accomplish? Nothing! You've fed them for one day. Aah, so teach them to fish, I hear you say. Wise you are, grasshopper, for if we teach them to fish, at least they'll have a hobby to keep them occupied rather than sit on their arse in the dust all day. /sarcasm off

This is the truth: There are far too many people in this world, we cannot help them all, and complaining that the money spent on the Royal Wedding could have been used to feed them is a pipe dream. Okay, maybe just counting all the starving Third Worlders, maybe $32M could have fed them for one day. Maybe. But what do they do for the rest of the year? What about the other 364 days? Anyone got a spare $11,648,000,000 lying around? You do! Excellent! Let's have it. Oh, and if you could come up with $11,680,000,000 by the end of the year...for next year...that would be great, yeah.

People need a hand-up, not a hand-out, but if the country will not sustain them at their current population even a hand-out is pointless. You'd be better off letting them die then plowing them into the soil. If nothing else, at least they'd make good fertilizer. Finally! They're producers! /black_humor off

Don't be offended, accept the truth; the world is grossly overpopulated, millions of people need to die, and we need to let them. It's okay to be a dreamer, but we live in the real world.

/end rant

Blu-Ray, HDMI, and LOTRO @ 50"

As much fun as it is to stream Netflix videos via the Wii and it's Wii-Fii (???) the novelty quickly wears off when the LAN bogs down and the movie needs to buffer every 5 minutes. Watching movies at the Wii's 480p was also not what I'd become accustomed to after watching HD Cable for a few months, so the wife and I decided an upgrade was in order. Queue in a Blu-Ray player with its glorious 1080p, hard-wired into the LAN (no Wii-Fii here). In the Wii's defense it could have been hardwired into the LAN as well, but it would have required the purchase of a $30 "dongle" to plug in the Cat-5e cable, whereas the Blu-Ray comes with a more sensible and LAN-friendly RJ45 port.

So the Blu-Ray arrived last week and the first thing I did, even before plugging anything in, was RTFM. Yes, I did. Which is how I read that Blu-Ray players apparently like the faster, Category2 HDMI cables. So off to Target I went, armed with a $25 Gift Card provided by my thoughtful wife, where I found 3' cables for $30, and 6' cables for considerably more. Best Buy were next door, and while their online store said the brick & stone store did not carry the el cheapo $10 HDMI cables readily available online (& for in-store pick-up, if you want to wait a week), I thought I'd check there anyway. I left empty-handed when I saw their cheapest 3' cable was $40, and made my way across the road to that bastion of the working class man, Walmart, where I picked up a 6' cable for $20. Hooray!

Back home I got everything plugged in, tuned the TV to HDMI#2 and...the words "Invalid Format" appeared and began floating around the screen.

Invalid Format? Whaddayamean Invalid Format???

It took a day and a couple of visits to an online forum for my Blu-Ray player to work out that my 50" Plasma HD TV is not 1080p like I thought, but only 720p (which sucks, but I'm old, so my eyes probably can't tell the difference anyway) and solving my "Invalid Format" problem was as simple as telling the Blu-Ray to output a 720p signal.

That was all it took to get high quality Netflix movies streamed to our HD TV without pauses to buffer every few minutes. A bonus is that the Blu-Ray will also do Pandora, Hulu, and other streaming media sites, including Youtube. I now have the ability to watch Youtube videos on my HD TV, which means when BBC-USA wants to edit & cut episodes of Dr. Who so they can get in more commercials, we can watch Dr. Who on the 50" TV via Youtube. Another bonus is BBC-USA sometimes delays airing certain episodes, sometimes for a week or more, but considerate fans will often record those very same episodes & upload them to Youtube literally the second that episode has aired in the UK.

Getting the Blu-Ray hooked up and streaming Youtube also piqued my curiosity about hooking up one of our PCs (albeit temporarily) to the 50" TV, which I initially thought I could do via DVI. Except even though the HDMI#1 port (for the HD Cable) is labeled HDMI/DVI, the 50" TV doesn't actually have a DVI-in. Curiouser & curiouser. What it does have, however, is an RGB port, being the current industry standard PC video plug. Awesome. Unlike the Blu-Ray, hooking up the PC was as simple as plugging it in and switching to the appropriate Input. Okay, so there was also the issue with turning off & unplugging my son's PC, then dragging it downstairs, then getting it all hooked back up again, including unplugging the Cat5e from the Blu-Ray so I could have wired Internet access on the PC. After that, it was simple :)

And that was how my wife found me, kicking back on the sofa, playing Lord of the Rings Online on our 50" HD TV. Additionally, rather than rest the keyboard on my lap, I'd dragged over our two small side tables and had the keyboard on one and the mouse on the other and had my legs stretched out between them. If you currently have a mental picture of someone piloting a starship a la "Flight of the Navigator" you probably have a good idea of what I looked like.

I was only able to get in a few hours playing like this before the boy was due back home and I wanted his PC back in his room before the in-laws dropped him off (I didn't want him to get any funny ideas...maybe as a special treat, maybe ;) but those few hours of playing LOTRO @ 50" was awesome, and very, very comfortable :)

As for streaming Netflix, I'm in two minds over that. While it's great having a ton of movies-on-demand for a very low price (we have the cheapest 1 physical DVD at-a-time package), the selection of movies that can be streamed is somewhat limited. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of movies you can watch, including some relatively new releases (the bunny was watching Astroboy last night), but many of the movies I'm interested in are only available on DVD, like Clint Eastwood's two classic "Clint & Clyde" movies, Peter Seller's "The Party", and Terrence Hill's obscure but hilarious "Trinity" movies. I'm happy to have streaming Netflix at 720p, but not happy that many of the movies I want to watch are not immediately available.

One fine evening, down at the running track

Among the 20 or so runners/walkers at the local High School running track were:

An elderly Chinese man running the wrong way. No, I'm not saying there was something wrong with his technique. I mean he was running clockwise while everyone else was running or walking counter-clockwise.

One couple strolling along together, side-by-side...hand-in-hand. Nothing wrong with walking on the track, lots of folks do, and at least they weren't walking on the inside couple of lanes (track etiquette dictates that the inside lanes are for runners) but they looked they were out for a casual romantic Sunday afternoon stroll rather than serious walkers getting their laps in at 8 o'clock on a Monday night.

Two ladies walking together. One wearing a faux fur vest (it wasn't that cold), the other with her jacket tied around her waist, a black & white leopard print silk (or faux silk) scarf around her neck, and an umbrella. No, not a compact umbrella. She was walking around the track carrying a full-sized 2 1/2'-long umbrella. Wow!

And me? Why, I was a picture-perfect fashionably-dressed runner, of course. With my grey & black Under Armor t-shirt, my red basketball shorts with black "racing" stripes, and my coordinated white, red & silver Nike runners w/ matching ankle-high white socks.

What?

Fun with Voicemail

For several years our office never had voicemail, except for the receptionist (and maybe our Program Manager). Then we moved to a new office, with new phones, and a new phone system, and we finally entered the 21st century and had personal voicemail. Hooray!

That's actually not as exciting as it sounds. The novelty quickly wore off, and the red LED on our phone's handle signifying we had voicemail quickly became a thing of dread, especially when you handle a lot of problem calls. Some people took to covering the handle of their phone with a sticky note, which was rather obvious if you looked at their desk. I went one better. I discovered the LED was not in the handle but beneath it, and that a clear lens through the entire handle allowed the LED to shine through. One expertly applied piece of paper later, and the red LED disappeared from view. No red LED, no voicemails, right? Yeeeeeeah, it didn't quite work like that.

But out of sight out of mind, did. The problem then was forgetting to check the voicemail for a couple of days, and when you eventually logged in hearing, "You have 56 new message."

O_O

But there was also a trick to handling that. Alternately pressing the 3 & 1 keys quickly reduced that number to zero.

What?

If it's really important, they'll call back.

Besides, if I go on a 2-week vacation and set my phone message to inform any callers to call me back in 2 weeks, or that for immediate assistance they can call "Jack Black" on 555-1234, then I'm not making any promises about returning any messages left during those 2 weeks that I'm gone. Either call Jack Black now, or call me when I get back. That's how it works. I've been gone for 2 weeks. I've got a ton of work to catch up on. How am I supposed to get any work done if I'm returning calls all day?

If it's important, they'll call back.

Then there's those voicemails left on the front desk phone, which the receptionist listens to, then forwards to the appropriate person/section. Except she doesn't. Oh, she listens to them, but she doesn't forward them to the appropriate person.

She forwards them to me.

Even though the caller doesn't actually ask for me, nor do they ask to speak to someone in my section. In fact sometimes the caller doesn't even mention why they're calling at all, but she still forwards the message to me.

Why? Because I get in early o_O

Apparently her sole criteria for deciding who is the correct party to forward a caller/message is based on who is physically present in the office at that time.

I just now slipped out for coffee, got back to my desk, and there's the red LED (I felt guilty about not being able to see it, and you can only delete 56 voicemails so many times without repercussion). I was actually expecting a call because I'd just sent out an email to a couple of folks and I want a response from them, but I want it in writing so I have something solid on which to base my decision. So I check my voicemail and it's not an outside call, well it is, but it's an outside call forwarded from someone else's voicemail box. This is not the voicemail I was looking for. Heh heh. What? That's gold, that is.

I listen to the message, twice, and I have no idea what the caller wants, or why the sender forwarded the message to me. So I hit 4 to reply to the message (which sends it back to the person who forwarded it to me, straight into their voicemail box. Karma, baby.). "Yeeeeeah," I say, in my best Lumbergh voice, "this is your Cap'n speaking. You forwarded the following message to me, and I don't know why. The lady doesn't ask for me, and she doesn't mention my section or what we do. I have no idea what she's even talking about. So if you could just go ahead and call her back, that'd be great. Yeeeeeah."

Two minutes later my phone rings, which is about enough time for someone to notice the red LED on their phone, listen to my message, then call me. I glance at the caller ID and lo! It's the morning receptionist!

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
(You have to say that like Gomer Pyle, otherwise it doesn't work.)

Me and her...let's call her Pyle, shall we? So Pyle and I, we have a good old chat, and she tells me it was her (she?) who forwarded the message to me, as if I didn't know that. (Actually I didn't realize it was her, but I should have) Pyle proceeds to tell me that she listened to the message, twice, before deciding to forward it to me. I tell her I listened to it as well, twice, and that the woman didn't ask about our section, never mentioned what we do, or said anything even remotely related to my job function.

Pyle tells me she knows that, but that she can't call the woman back because she doesn't have a Long Distance-authorization code and the caller is in the next county (We need to enter this code when we dial in order to authorize long-distance call). Actually Pyle does have an LD code, but she says she forgot it.

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

And she forwarded the message to me because?

She knew my coworker wasn't in the office.

Surprise! Surprise! Sur...wait. What?

My coworker, who works in my section, who has the same job function as me, and for whom the call would also not be relevant, was not in the office at that time, and Pyle knew that, and so she forwarded the call to me instead???

Surprise! Surprise! Sur...that actually gets old really quickly. The perils of working with a Gomer Pyle, I guess.

I know M is not in yet, Pyle says, so can you call the woman back and ask her what she wants?

Perhaps you should call HR and ask them for your LD code so you can call her, I reply.

Eventually I work out why the caller was calling and she did call the correct office, and Pyle didn't completely screw up because I actually used to work in the Section the caller needs...3 years ago!!!

PYYYYYYYYY-LE!!!

Hey, buddy, can you spare a dime?

I'm not terribly fond of beggars, for reasons which I've elaborated on in the past.

I pass a couple of homeless folks on my way to the bus stop each afternoon, and they're always there, every day, and have been for years. When the weather took a turn for the worse a couple of weeks ago they acquired a tent from somewhere (not that a cheap tent will do a lot to protect you from the elements) but for the most part they have their cardboard box bed layered with blankets, and a nearby shopping cart filled with their junk. From my perspective, over the past couple of years they've made no attempt to better their lot in life, other than the acquisition of a tent.

The L.A. Mission is not far away and there the Priests will provide the needy with a warm meal, clean clothes, and a shower, shave, & a haircut. So when you're wearing the same filthy clothes day in & day out and you haven't had a shave or a haircut for months if not years when real help is within walking distance, why should I help you?

My wife will say No to you and not even spare you a second thought. But me? I tend to over-analyze things.

This weekend we were down in San Diego when a guy approached us in the parking lot (for the U.S.S. Midway) asking for help. He was dressed just like the average tourist about to board the Midway. Clean, freshly shaven, polo shirt, bermuda shorts, & sandles. He even had a lanyard around his neck from which appeared to hang a tourist ID badge, although I didn't look terribly closely. And he wanted help. Then came the spiel of your typical, heart string-pulling beggar, laced with the personal touch they all give.

In this guy's case he'd discovered he'd left his wallet in his jean's pocket and now he needed $2.80 for the train to get back to his hotel & his wallet.

Sorry, I can't help you, I told him, while my wife just said, "No".

And off he walked, saying "sorry to have bothered you." And that bothered me. Him saying that. Because now I worried whether he was just a beggar, or if he genuinely needed our help and really did need $2.80 to get back to his hotel.

Except in addition to leaving his wallet in his other pants he'd apparently driven his car to the Midway, because in fleshing out his story he also mentioned locking his keys in his car, thus being unable to drive back to the hotel. Not that we asked. It was just additional information he volunteered.

Now if he drove in, what happened to the people he came in with? Did none of them have $2.80 to loan him? Or did he come by himself?

If he came by himself, how did he pay to park his car without his wallet? Shouldn't that have been the "OMG! I forgot my wallet!" moment?

If he really was a tourist, how did he know the train cost $2.80?

If he'd found out the cost of the fare at the train station, why wasn't he still there? Why did he come back to the Midway parking lot? Surely there were a lot more people at the train station who could have given him the change he needed.

As I said earlier, I tend to over-analyze things, but now that I have there appear to be numerous holes in his story, which all seem to indicate that as clean & well dressed as he was, he was still just a beggar. A beggar with a really good shtick, but a beggar nonetheless.

When he walked away while apologizing for bothering us, that made me feel like crap, because maybe he had genuinely needed my help. But now, having over-analyzed the situation, I don't. He deliberately picked the parking lot to the USS Midway because of the prevalence of people like us, a family of four, being adults more likely to respond positively in front of their children, especially to someone perceived as a fellow tourist.

He didn't look homeless, and he didn't act homeless. He succeeded in passing himself off as someone in genuine need of help, not someone living on the streets trying to bum a quarter. And if he can successfully do that then he's talented enough & smart enough to succeed in a more legitimate line of work. Instead, he chooses to hit up strangers for spare change, and he probably does quite well at it, too. He's not down on his luck. He's right where he wants to be because he's smart enough to recognize when he's on a good wicket. That's his job, tugging on heart strings and playing to people's emotions, and when he realized he was getting nothing from us he immediately cut his losses and walked away.

My wife said No, and went right on with living her life.

I said No, felt like a prick for doing so, then over-analyzed the situation. Eventually I arrived at the same place as my wife, I just needed to put in more work than her. But even now, there's still that niggling speck of doubt that says, "What if you're wrong, and he really did need help?"

Then I'll have to console myself with the thought that someone gave him $2.80 for the train, because he and his cause were believable. If he really was someone in genuine need of help then someone helped him that day, it just wasn't me.

Insert Title Here

I quit WoW (again) almost a year ago but have since been playing the somewhat misleading Free-to-Play Lord of the Rings. While it is possible to play casually for free, if you want to gain access to some of the higher level areas (or just not be nerfed when you get there) you're almost compelled to shell out a few bucks. Which I already did by picking up two copies of the Collector's Edition of the expansion Mines of Moria (on Amazon for $10 each) which granted me & my son VIP-status (& all the associated perks) for one month, then downgraded us to Premium status when I didn't continue our 'subscription'. But the perks of being a Premium member are still slightly better than for Free Player. (The perks listed on the linked page are out-of-date. Premium players actually get a better deal than what's listed, for example, I can have 5 active characters per Server, not 3.)

When I first tried LOTRO (shortly after release) I was not overly impressed, but at the time WoW had just got its hooks into me so even though I liked the mythos of Lord of the Rings, I was not enamored with its translation to MMO. But times change, games improve, and with it now being a mostly F2P game vs. WoW's $15/month that's a hard price to beat for the quality you get. In fact there are several, quite decent F2P MMOs out there.

Like Blizzard, Turbine know how to keep you hooked, and the makers of LOTRO have greatly embraced the concept of Titles & Achievements. Start killing a few critters for a quest and suddenly you "discover" a deed, where if you kill 30 or 50 of these critters you earn an Achievement and a Title to go along with it (Wolf Slayer, Spider Foe, etc.) Continue killing those same critters and you may unlock achievements which in addition to the snazzy Title, can also result in permanent Buffs to your character.

Another Title you can 'earn' is achieved by making it to level 5 without dying, which is not a difficult task by any stretch of the imagination. In fact it's so easy to survive to level 5 that I would even argue that dying before then should be a Title-worthy achievement, especially given that your lvl 5 Title is "...the Wary." Seriously now? I followed a couple of characters through the Tutorial (which you can skip, by the way, and thus probably start playing the game proper at level 4), killed a few bandits, a couple of spiders or other critters, and bam! There I was at level 5, titled Cap'n John the Wary (well I would have been if my in-game name was Cap'n John.)

If you can make it to level 10 without dying you get the more awe-inspiring Title "...the Undefeated." which in my opinion is the wrong way around. Making it from level 5 to 10 without dying, unassisted (as in playing on your own, unaccompanied by a high level friend) is a more daunting task than hitting level 5. In fact I'd hedge my bets that the average player who makes it to level 10 without dying probably played a little more cautiously, and thus "...the Wary" or even "...the Cautious" is a far more appropriate title than "...the Undefeated." Sure, they didn't die, but you know they also didn't take a lot of unnecessary risks. Then there's the lvl 14 Title "...the Indomitable" which I actually rather like, a lot more so than the level 17 Title "...the Unscathed". I've been fighting critters for 17 levels now. No, I didn't die, but I'm not exactly unscathed, either. The final Title for not dying is awarded at level 20 and is, appropriately, "...the Undying". Now that's a Title worthy of making it to level 20. Although I still like "...the Indomitable" and will probably wear it until something better comes along.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." - Inigo Montoya

Things that piss me off

aka Come to the Dark Side.

We all have a dark side (well, most of us) and it's our ability to not give into the dark side which separates us from the Serial Killers (I think). It's the part of us we repress when we encounter displays of sheer arrogance or stupidity which make us want to scream out loud and beat someone to death, preferably with their own bloody arm which we've just torn off at the shoulder.

Like the woman at the check-out ahead of you, who stands there, purse on her shoulder, watching as the clerk rings up all her items, one by one. And it's only when she's finally told the total that she takes her purse off her shoulder and start digging around in it for her wallet. Wait. No. She's taking out...her checkbook?! You're freaking kidding me!!! AAarrghh! Have fun writing out your check...with NO ARM!!!! BITCH!!!

* EDIT - Just to clarify, in case it's not abundantly clear, it's not that she's paying by check which pisses me off. She could be using a credit card, cash, etc. What pisses me off is that she waits to hear the total before she even starts to rummage through her purse looking for her checkbook/wallet.

Then there's the old people who come up to a pedestrian crossing just as it changes from Walk to Don't Walk, and what do they do? Do they walk up to the curb then patiently wait a minute or so for the light to cycle so they can cross? Hell NO!. They run (okay, they're old; it's running to them) those last few metres to the curb, hop down into the road, and then? They resume walking at their doddering old pace across the road, in front of all those cars which are now facing a green light but can't go because there's a fricken' old person crossing in front of them!

I had an old woman do this just last week. I could see the lights from where I was sitting in my car and just as this old woman stepped down into the street the Don't Walk light stopped blinking and went a solid red DON'T WALK. And the traffic light changed to yellow. And what did she do? Did she take two steps back up onto the curb behind her? Yeah right! With 6 lanes of traffic ahead of her she started running. Just as the left-turn lane got their green turn arrow and the first car hit the gas she darted out in front of him, and he slammed on the brakes so hard they locked up and this old woman freaked out at the sudden screeching of tires right beside her, which fortunately caused her to run even faster. And we laughed and yelled (to ourselves) Run! Run, you old bitch! Run! Fall! Break a hip or two! RUN! RUUUUUUNNN!!!

I see teenagers do this sometimes, too, except the arrogant shits don't run, they slowly saunter across in an arrogant "I've got aaaaall day to cross this road." kind of way, and they walk so slowly that even though they started to cross when the light first changed, it changes again on them when they're only halfway through. Do they hurry up when they see the light changing? HELL NO!!! They know nobody is going to willingly hit them, and they continue to stroll across at a snail's pace, but now they're wearing this arrogant, shit-eating grin that makes you clench your steering wheel in a white knuckle death grip and grit your teeth because the Dark Side desperately wants to wipe that grin off their face with your front bumper! Please let us do it! Pleeease!!!

But we don't. We don't tear people's arms off and beat them to death with the wet end (and it has nothing to do with how physically hard that would be to do), and we don't run down old ladies or teenagers crossing against the light, no matter how much they deserve it.

But we do give into the Dark Side and kick the car which didn't stop for us even though we were already in the crosswalk.

We also punch the rear window of the van whose driver waved at us as he almost ran us down in the crosswalk. As if a wave made it okay to risk committing vehicular manslaughter.

And we also stared down the guy in Cheesecake Factory who not only didn't step aside for the wife despite being asked twice, he then got up in her face when she said he was rude. That's when we let the Dark Side come out (but only a little bit) and we stepped up and stared him down. And as he stared back and his eyes twitched from one side of our face to the other, betraying his nervousness, the Dark Side smiled (on the inside, where it couldn't be seen), until finally his teenage son grabbed his arm and dragged him away from an arse-beating. Okay, because the arse-beating never actually happened, to be honest we're not sure whose arse would have ended up being beaten and/or arrested. Which is why we should avoid yielding to the dark side, even if they have cookies.

So, what really pisses you off? What makes you want to give into the Dark Side, tear someone's head off, and shit down their neck?

Coffee House loitering

What's the protocol for loitering at your local coffee house?

Is it acceptable to set up shop as soon as the doors open, snaring a table next to a valuable power outlet, then sit there all day, typing away on your laptop? Or are you just being a jerk?

"But I'm a customer! See my cup? So what if it was a $1.50 cup of coffee and I've been getting free refills every hour since then. HELLO?! CUSTOMER?! We're always right, remember?"

What if you buy a sandwich at lunchtime, and a pastry or three throughout the day when your blood sugar drops? Is that okay, then?

So the wife & I stopped by one of our local Starbucks last week. There's a couple in the neighborhood but this particular one is close to home, and it's on a fairly major road which gets very little foot traffic so for some reason I don't think of it as being very busy, yet it is. It's also kind of small, as far as Starbucks go, with about half a dozen tables w/ chairs, so it doesn't need to be busy to look busy. When we walked in and looked around for a table we quickly realized we'd be getting our coffees 'to go'. Every table was occupied and almost all of them had a laptop sitting on them. Even the obligatory table w/ two armchairs had a laptop on it.

It reminded me an Improv Everywhere stunt at a New York Starbucks where they had several agents each bring in and set up a desktop PC. The thing about IE's stunt which I found most intriguing was despite Starbucks never having provided PCs for their customers (at least not to my knowledge) some customers assumed the PCs were there for their use.

We naturally assume an unattended laptop is someone's private machine, but an unattended desktop PC? That's fair game, right?

Push that button!

People who continually push crosswalk buttons amuse me. Why do they do it? Is it a form of OCD? They stand there repeatedly pushing the button as if it will make the light change sooner. But that's not going to happen, is it?

I walked up to this one crosswalk, hit the button once, and about 10 seconds later a woman walked up and hit it several times. Then she stood there for a few seconds, and when the light didn't immediately change she began pressing that button as if her life depended on it, until finally it changed. I don't know how many times she pressed it though; I lost count.

Hello?! It doesn't change any sooner because you're impatient, and it doesn't keep count. There's no Imp inside saying to himself, "Jeepers! Dat's 28 of 'em! I better change da light!" They don't work that way.

Or do they?

The Perfect MMO?

I wonder how much fun an MMO would be where you skipped the time-consuming-and-apparently-boring-but-necessary-to-recoup-our-development-costs level grind, and went straight to the "end game" with its gear-grind?

With no zones, no exploring, and no leveling up to do, players would not have the opportunity to gradually learn how to play their class, so the classes would be limited to the bare minimum required, being three, with each of the three classes reduced to their simplest form. Players would also be able to switch classes at will , and to facilitate this and preserve valuable bag space the character's "paper doll" would be able to hold up to three different outfits, one for each of the three classes, being:

DeePeeNes: Named in accordance with current MMO class stereotypes, DeePeeNes have 3 Damaging abilities or attacks.

• Take this! - An Instant Cast attack with a 1-second CD (Global CD) which severely damages a single target.
• And this! - An instant Cast, high-damage attack with no CD, but which can only be cast on the recipient of a Take this! Critical Hit.
• And that! - An Instant Cast moderate damage attack with the 1-second GCD which affects all opponents within 10' of the Target.

For simplicity's sake the effective range on all DeePeeNes attacks is 0' to 65-yards, allowing players to play melee or ranged DeePeeNess based on personal preference.

The Tank: Like DeePeeNes, The Tank also has 3 attacks or Aggro-generating abilities, also with o' to 65-yard range.

• Hit Me! - An Instant cast attack with the 1-second Global CD. This ability targets one Mob and greatly encourages it to hit the Tank;
• Everyone! Hit me! - An Instant cast attack with 5-second CD which encourages all Mobs to hit the Tank. Does not encourage Mobs to hit the Tank quite as much as Hit Me!, and;
• HIT ME! NOW! - An Instant cast ability with a 25-second CD which forces one target to attack the Tank for 10 seconds. Works even better than Hit Me! but only works on Mobs not currently attacking the Tank.

The Healer: In keeping with the perception that Healers are a hard class to play, Healers get a couple more abilities than DeePeeNes and The Tank.

• Little Heal - Does what it says. Heals the target for a small amount but makes up for it by being instant cast with the 1-second Global CD.
• Big Heal - Heals the target for a larger amount than Little Heal but has a 1.5-second cast with a 5-second CD.
• Lotta Heals - Heals everyone in the Healer's party within a 30-yard radius of the Healer for H/X, where H is the Maximum Heal (modified by +Healing gear) and X is the number of characters being healed. Has a 10-second CD but also has a small chance to apply an additional 5-second HOT.
• HOT - Single-target, instant cast heal with a 10-second CD which applies a 5-second HOT (modified by +Healing gear).
• GET OVAH HEAH!!! - Immediately teleports the targeted character to a spot 6-feet in front of the Healer. No Saving Throws, no Resists, no chance of failure. In combat or out, it doesn't matter. It works all the time, every time. Can be used to save the Healer by dragging The Tank to their location, or to save stupid DeePeeNes by yanking them out of the fire. Through strategic use of terrain can also be used with hilarious effect to drag & drop annoying players off cliffs, into lava, etc. Works especially well on characters with giant mounts standing on top of important NPCs.

With no levels there are no zones to explore, only the starting City where you'll spend your downtime & gold, and the game's Dungeons where you'll fight Mobs and find new, better gear. In keeping it simple you don't get to choose the Dungeon, instead the Dungeon Runner tool will automatically assign you to a group and a dungeon based on your character's gear or iLevel. Characters can also form parties of their own and enter Dungeons via the DR tool, but the Dungeon will still be chosen at random based on the lowest iLevel character.

As you conquer each Dungeons' denizens and find & equip better gear, you'll gain access to new Dungeons, with tougher foes and even greater rewards. Play long enough, conquer enough Dungeons, and you just might acquire enough gear to gain access to the Most Uber Dungeon of them all.

New cartoons

Daddy! We wanna watch the new cartoons!

Ok, what channel are they on?

Boomerang, daddy!

Boomerang, huh? Okay, here we go.

Yay!

Is that...Top Cat???

Yeah! Ooh, the Jetsons are next!

New cartoons? These cartoons are older than me.

*giggling*

The Jetsons come on and I start preemptively singing the theme song.

Daddy! How do you know this?!

I told you. These cartoons are older than me.

You're funny, daddy!

Incredible!

By which I mean, incredibly incompetent.

Today my office is having their March of Dimes fund raising bake sale.

After being off both Monday and Tuesday I got into work this morning, logged into my email, and the first email that catches my eye has the subject "Quarters and other coins".

No, it's not spam. It's from one of the girls organizing today's Bake Sale. It was sent at 4pm yesterday afternoon and it says: "Can I give you some dollars bills for coins? I did not have time to get change today - need it for tomorrow's bake sale."

What am I, a bank?

I've mentioned before that as I manage the office coffee fund my coworkers are often hitting me up for change, and in some cases it's not a simple request like "Can you break a twenty?" (which usually I can) but a more demanding "I need two tens." and usually it's the same woman who makes requests like this.

"I need a ten, a five, and five ones."

That's not a question because she doesn't ask if I can make change. She just hands out a twenty and demands change, in specific quantities of specific denominations.

How about twenty ones?

My response is met with the incredulous look that her own demand should have received.

"Can I give you some dollars bills for coins? I did not have time to get change today - need it for tomorrow's bake sale."

I give my response more effort than it deserved but long answer short, No, you can't. I have no change.

Now we get to the fun part, which is actually short for inFUriatiNg,

With my daughter's Girl Scout cookie orders arriving this weekend I actually came into work on Monday (even though we were closed for the President's Day holiday.) because my greedy generous coworkers bought 45 boxes of cookies from me, and I'd be damned if was bringing that many boxes of cookies with me on the bus.

Now while most of my coworkers paid in advance for their cookies, nine coworkers did not. Knowing most of them would probably not pay $4 or $8 but would have $5 or $20 bills and so expect change, I came into work this morning with a wallet full of one and five-dollar bills so I could make change. Because I'm a former Boy Scout so I'm Prepared.

So you can imagine how irked I was to see the email from my coworker requesting I make change for her because she didn't have time to get to the bank herself. Hell-fucking-O??? Isn't there a bank right across the road from our office? Why yes, I believe there is. And yes, I know Monday was a President's Day and thus a Bank Holiday, but hell-fucking-O??? Have you not heard of delegation? If you, personally, are so busy that you can't take 10 minutes to walk across the road to the bank to get change...send someone else! Geez, Louise! Good golly, Miss Molly! Etc.

So here I am, at my desk this morning, and one of the girls comes up to me and asks for change. She has a twenty and she wants change. No, not for her cookie order. She wants change for the Bake Sale. I pull out the coffee fund tin but I already know there's no change in there (I looked earlier) so she asks if I can make change. As in me, personally.

Actually yes, I can, I reply, but I need this change for my cookie orders ("Because I'm fucking Prepared! I scream. Silently. In my mind.)

We go back & forth and I'm very reluctant to hand over all my change (all $20 of it) but in the end this woman out passive-aggressives me and I reluctantly hand over my change. Reluctantly, because I already know what's going to happen. The first couple of customers at the Bake Sale are going to pay with $20 bills, because today is payday, and there's an ATM in the building's lobby. So those first two customers will pay with $20 bills straight out of the ATM and take all of the Bake Sale's change (by which I mean my change) and the next 20 customers in line behind them? If you think they've come straight from the ATM and all have $20 bills too, then you'd be right.

And naturally, as I type this, I just had the second person come by asking if I had change for the Bake Sale.

No! I fucking don't! You already took all my change! Get the fuck out of here!

By which I mean I politely replied, No, I don't have any more change. Now fuck off. Oops. Did I say that out loud? Of course I didn't, because I'm a professional, at least I am at work. This Blog doesn't count.

Toyota cleared by NASA scientists...

"Armchair Physicists" know better; still blame Toyota.

20 years ago I was a young, inexperienced driver and I was backing out of my parents' driveway one evening with my sister riding shotgun, and rather than using the mirror to see, I was looking back over my shoulder. In doing so my head was turned away from our neighbor's house and so I didn't see that he had parked his car at a slight angle across our shared driveway. We lived in a rounded cul de sac and the bottom of our driveways at the curb were positioned at a slight angle to the actual driveway...hard to describe, so here's a crappy, ascii-art picture:P
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\x\ \
Our drive is on the right, our neighbor's was on the left, and his car was parked at the bottom of his driveway (x), which meant his car sort of blocked our driveway, or at least it prevented me from being able to back straight out into the road.

As I was backing up and looking back over my right shoulder (Australian, remember? Steering wheels & drivers are on the left.) my head was turned away from the neighbor's drive, and so I didn't see his car was blocking my exit.

But my sister did.

She yelled at me to STOP! and in such an urgent voice that I panicked and jammed the pedal to the floor. Except I floored the gas pedal, not the brake. As the engine rev'd and the car leaped backward I immediately realized what I'd done, and despite being a new driver I reacted with the typical lightning-fast reflexes of a teenaged video gamer, switching pedals I jammed the brake pedal to the floor. The wheels actually locked up and left skidmarks in our driveway, but we stopped in time.

This was not in a Toyota. This was in a Ford, but that's irrelevant because it was ALL driver error. All mine. That's the difference between me and all those other Toyota drivers who fell "victim" to "stuck" accelerator pedals. I'm willing to admit that I was at fault.

Floor mats getting bunched up and stuck under pedals? That's driver error, too. Why do I say that? Because part of driving is being aware of your surroundings, including noting the condition of your car. If your floor mat is loose, sliding up, and bunching up under your gas or brake pedals, whose fault is that? The car's? The manufacturer's? Riiiiight. It's your fault! It's your car, you're responsible for maintaining it, and keeping it in a safe, drivable condition.

Unfortunately for Toyota the damage was done and their reputation took a dive, which is what makes me wonder if this was not so much a case of our sue-happy nation jumping on the anti-Toyota class-action lawsuit bandwagon, or something a little more sinister. Corporate espionage, perhaps? Who knows. From here on out, it's all speculation, regardless of what NASA has to say.

*Apparently there were a few cases where accelerator pedals actually did get stuck leading to uncontrollable acceleration, but those were few & far between.

Mongolian BBQ & Tips

Over on Tesh's Blog a culinary discovery led to him making a comparison between Mongolian BBQ and MMOs, which I promptly rerailed into a rant on Tipping.

If you're not aware, Mongolian BBQ is where you start out by grabbing a bowl (that's you, personally, who grabs the bowl) and filling it (usually to overflowing) with your choice of ingredients. You pay the cashier who takes the bowl and hands it off to the cook (sometimes they're the same person) who empties the bowl onto a large (very large) hotplate, stirs the mixture with over-sized chopsticks until the food is hot and any meat ingredients are cooked, before scraping it off into a second bowl which he hands over to you.

At some point I guess you're supposed to drop a dollar into the Tips jar, conspicuously placed on the counter next to where you're standing waiting for your food.

But why?

What service have you been provided that warrants a Tip?

Not only have the cashier and cook done nothing more than some other fast food places, they've actually done less.

You yourself "took" your own order by gathering together the desired ingredients. And while the staff had to put the food items out for you to be able to do that, but they did no more than the servers at Quiznos or Baja Fresh, who keep the salsa & condiment bar stocked with fixings.

All the cashier did was ring up your transaction, just like the cashiers at every other Fast Food establishment.

All the cook did was cook/heat up your food, and while he did so right there in front of you, he did nothing more than the guy at The Steak Escape who cooks your cheesesteak sandwich right in front of you.

Do you leave a Tip at Quiznos, Baja Fresh, or The Steak Escape? I don't. Why should I?

Now don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't believe in Tipping, because I do IF the service warrants it.

The waitress at Leroys? She takes my order, brings me coffee, refills my cup, brings me more creamer if I run out, and checks if I need anything, homemade salsa or marmalade, napkins, etc. She takes care of me. She works for, earns, and deserves her tip.

But the guys at Mongolian BBQ? What did they do to earn a Tip? What did they do above and beyond every other Fast Food place that makes them so special that they deserve a Tip? Merely working in the service industry does not warrant being Tipped. Just because you made my lunch does not warrant being Tipped. In my opinion if you want a Tip, you have to earn it.

Now maybe I'm wrong here, but if so, explain how.

Explain to me why I should leave a Tip at Mongolian BBQ, but not at Quiznos, The Steak Escape, and Baja Fresh?

What about McDonalds? Shouldn't I Tip them? Because let's be honest here, the staff at McDonalds do more to enhance my dining experience than the staff at my local Mongolian BBQ.
McDonalds provide me with a clean restroom, Mongolian BBQ doesn't.
McDonalds prepare my food for me. I have to do that myself at Mongolian BBQ.
McDonalds provide me with tables & chairs, which they keep clean; Mongolian BBQ don't.
McDonalds provide my kids with a place to play so I can relax and begin slipping into a food coma. Mongolian BBQ don't do that.

What does Mongolian BBQ do that their staff deserve to be Tipped?