I Actually Would Vote for B.B. Rodriguez

Vote Robot!


Didn't we just have an election between two robots?  I, for one, do NOT welcome our new robot overlords.  


As you may or may not know, I'm a fan of Wil Wheaton's celebrity board gaming show Table Top, and have even subsequently bought 3 of the games featured.  Yes, Pandemic is one of them.  Anyway, one of the games that hasn't been featured on the show is the timeless classic "Monopoly." 

Monopoly hasn't changed in quite some time, aside from the various novelty versions that have appeared from time to time.  The properties are all the same, the colors have been constant, the railroads are all still the same, good old Uncle Pennybags hasn't aged a day, and you can still go to jail for stepping in the wrong spot...pretty standard for a game based in New Jersey.  As with all timeless classics, fiscal responsibility eventually takes precedent over history and heritage, and Hasbro (Parent company of Parker Brothers) has now felt the urge to crap all over everything. 

Well, maybe not everything...but at least one thing. 

The company has set up an online vote, since nothing on the internet can possibly have its integrity challenged, to replace one of the iconic player tokens with one more stupid.  Currently, there are the Race Car, Top Hat, Battleship, Thimble, Boot, Wheelbarrow, Iron, and Dog.  Everyone wants to be the Race Car, and whoever picks last ends up as the Iron, and complains that he had to be the iron last time.  There are five new tokens set to replace one of the standards, which are a Guitar, Cat, Helicopter, Diamond Ring, and Robot. 

Obviously the diamond ring is stupid, so forget that one.  The cat is simply to shut up cat people who think that since there's a dog, there should be a cat.  The helicopter would be okay, if its design weren't so lame.  The guitar is a popular choice because music is currently not represented in any way in the game.  But, the only possible choice here is the robot.  Not only is it Adorable, but it represents the next stage in human evolution which has always accompanied the player tokens.  Monopoly is very much like a time capsule, showing society's place at the time the game was published.  Property values are adjusted for inflation, man's technical evolution is shown in the tokens (from clothes and sewing, to ironing, to scientific advances like cars and boats), and the overall goal is to gain as much money as you can at the total and humiliating expense of other people.  It's human heritage in box form, and it deserves to honor robotics.  Go vote, everybody!!

What Did The Five Fingers Say To The Face?

“It’s sad to think that kids today will grow up thinking that a Pop Tart is a better fake phone than a banana.”  - Actual Work Conversation

Your job must be incredibly dull if you just sit around and talk about this crap all day.

Well, this was just a lunch conversation, but it does happen more often than would probably be considered "normal."   

So, we all know the time-honored tradition of holding a fist up to the side of your head with your thumb and pinky fingers extended toward your ear and mouth, respectively.  This is meant to symbolize a telephone receiver, with the thumb representing the speaker, and the pinky mimicking the microphone.  Everyone knows what this means.  

The Banana Phone is a similar concept which is also highly recognizable, and Even Has Its Own Obnoxious Song.  One end of the banana is inserted into the ear, while the other end is positioned near the mouth to provide the appearance of talking on the phone.  This is all well and good.

Here's the problem:  Phones don't look like that anymore. 

83% of all phones now resemble a Black Rectangle, perhaps with a colorful skin on the back.  The iconic image of the receiver with two ends has really lost its place in the world and needs to be replaced.  A Pop Tart does, in fact, make a much better phone analog now than a banana.  I would also recommend replacing the thumb-pinky gesture with that of the open palm of the hand, with all fingers extended and pressed together.  Sure, at first, it might look to the uneducated as if you're slapping yourself in the face extremely slowly, but it will catch on eventually.  You just need to make sure you're ahead of the curve.  You are welcome. 

There Must Be A PC Emulator Somewhere

Does anyone else dream about playing 30-year-old video games that they never even liked?

And we go diving, once again, into the swirling miasma of randomness that is Jeremy's mind.  We really should leave a trail of bread crumbs or something.  

So anyway...not long ago, I had an unusually vivid dream involving video gaming.  I'm not entirely sure why...I don't play video games all that much these days.  Regardless, in my peaceful slumber, I was playing a rousing game of the 1979 Atari classic "Star Raiders," or "Star Raider" as the first run of cartridges mistakenly said.  If you're not familiar, it's a space adventure game where you're piloting an interstellar Star Cruiser (Number 7 to be precise) in an all-out battle with the Zylon race.  The evil Zylons are rushing to destroy the human Star Bases positioned randomly around the galaxy, and it's your job to destroy them all of their ships before they get a chance.  This involves Hyperwarp travel, photons, outer-space dogfighting, timing, strategy, and situational awareness not common to 1970s video games.  

Here's A Gameplay Video by somebody who's not completely atrocious at the game.  There are other videos of people who totally suck, and those may be more entertaining, but don't really help my cause here.  Those are left as an exercise for the reader.  

Anyway...I never particularly cared for the game.  I wasn't especially awful at it, and certainly knew my way around the controls seamlessly, but I never wanted to put in the time to get better.  I'm okay with that.  I'm also not 100% sure where my old Atari 400 is at the moment, but I'm reasonably certain it hasn't been powered on in a number of years, and I doubt all the necessary keyboard keys still work.  Stupid membrane keyboard...

So why it was that the Galactic Chart from this game popped into my head not long ago is a complete and total mystery to me.  What I can tell you is that I successfully saved the Star Base from Zylonic destruction thanks to my quick thinking and impressive piloting.  You are welcome, Star Base. 

The Hockey Color Commentator Used That One All The Time

I never understood the phrase “Head over Heels.”  My head is usually over my heels

A darn good arrangement.  I would think that in most cases, if you heels were over your head, you'd have a problem, not the other way around.

Exactly!  I don't see what the big deal is about being head over heels about something.  There's also a similar expression involving either a tea kettle or a tin cup which makes even less sense.  

I certainly understand that if I were carrying my tea kettle around and I fell so that I was, in fact, sitting on it, there would be some damage done to my person.  But generally speaking, I'm not carrying a tea kettle.  I'm reasonably certain I don't own a tin cup.   

Breaking Bad Has A Good Example As Well

In TV and movies, whenever people start chanting something, they never show how awkward it must be when the chanting stops

 Uhm...yeah.  Okay then.  Don't you think it would just die out naturally?

I'm sure the chanting stops, because life in movies always tends to go on, but we never get to see how it stops.  It's pretty much the exact opposite of a Slow Clap that grows into a standard round of applause.  But, just like a round of applause, you don't really know who the last person was to clap, and you don't really want to be that guy, either.  So who is the last person chanting, or how did they all know to stop at the right time?  

It's a problem.  

See, one of the great examples of this comes from a movie I'm not allowed to talk about base on the first two rules of Fight Club.  Anyway, there was a scene where Meatloaf gets shot (Pretty sure that's the first time I've written that sentence ever), and dies.  The assembled begin chanting his name.  His Name Is Robert Paulson.  The scene ends with everyone still chanting over and over.  We don't really know why they thought chanting was important right about then, but it happened, so we just go with it.  At some point after Edward Norton leaves, the chant would have had to die out, lest Project Mayhem get derailed because everyone just stands around chanting all day.  After who knows how long of a session of chanting, people have to have come to the realization that they were accomplishing nothing and decide to stop chanting, but other people would keep going.  Depending on how the percentage of chanters and non-chanters changes over time, you could have people standing there amidst chanting for quite some time...maybe even start up again not realizing that they weren't done yet.  Eventually, there are angry stares from non-chanters pointed at the people who just won't shut up and get out of the kitchen, guilty looks from the people who took too long to realize the gig was over, and just an awful lot of awkwardness.  They never show that in the movie. 

Yon Is A Good One, Too

New Year’s Resolution:  Start using the word “Thither” more often


And you decided to talk about it hither rather than somewhere else?  


Art is important.  All types of it...images, music, literature, moderately nonsensical blathering on a website.  It's all amazing.  The reason, of course, is that it provides future generations of a cultural snapshot of a specific time in history.


Two issues.  One...if future generations are actually reading this, they've got issues.  Two, is the word "Snapshot" even appropriate anymore?  Discuss.  


Anyway...I love to read....


You hate to read.


I don't hate to read...I just tend to fall asleep if I'm doing fewer than two things at a time.  Also, as I've mentioned before, I listen to audio books, and that's the same thing.  I've recently taken to reading the classic "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas (Warning:  Link Contains Adult Language, and yes, it's what you think it is).  Anyway, it's an old book, written in 1844, so it contains a lot of really old-fashioned phrases.  Some of which are much more amusing than others.   One of the words used fairly often in the book is the word "Thither" meaning, basically, "Over there."  Personally, I love this expression, and I feel that it needs to make a comeback.  I also feel that I'm just the person to start it. 

They Moved Off The Imperial System Years Ago

I’m a little sad to see the day that Congress is more competent than the NHL

Happy New Year everybody!  Nearly the entirety of 2013 is ahead of us, which means lots more of whatever this stuff is that Jeremy dumps on the world.  Lucky us!  It appears he's going to start the year with a rare and special political rant.  

A new year always holds new promise.  Things will get better, people will be better, and end to pestilence, and famine...and pestilence.  

This mildly obscure cartoon quote comes to you courtesy of "The Hub" which will begin airing Animaniacs cartoons again starting next week.  Faboo!  

The last gasp of 2012 was chock full of excitement that nobody really wanted.  The Fiscal Cliff, the end of the world as we know it (For the record, we still feel fine), and the NHL lockout were prime examples.  I'd like to focus my rageface on the NHL, if I may...but not just yet.  

See, the "fiscal cliff" was important.  We, as a country, spend a large amount of money, technically referred to as a "Metric Crapload."  We use it to buy stuff people need...like an army, and retirement because not everybody can work forever, and a helping hand for people who lose their jobs because the "Job Creators" find it more financially beneficial to move the jobs to foreign countries that don't provide these services.  Lately, to the horror of many, the government decided to use some of this money on the most unholy thing of all...hospitals.  I'll wait for you to finish gasping.  Long ago, we stopped collecting enough money to pay for all of this stuff, and an active decision was made to collect even less.  Sure, it was beneficial to us as individuals, and may have even been what we collectively needed at the time, but it took into account growth in economic sectors that was unsustainable and no longer existent, as well as many of those jobs that are now gone.  Net result...it's not what we need now.  So we fight over deficit spending versus revenues, what services need to be provided and who's going to pay for it.  And the way we reach decisions now is not to agree to disagree and work out a mutually beneficial solution, but to bitterly and divisively argue in whatever public forum we can find, yammering on and on about how we're right, and the other side is destroying the process, and to use tactics instead of negotiations until we're at the very edge of actual ruination to actually do anything.  Then, we finally come to the agreement everyone knew we'd make all along, we blame the other side for causing it to happen the way that it did, and finally publicly ridicule the results because it's not what we wanted.  

At some point in that last paragraph, I mentally switched from Congress to the NHL, and you didn't even notice. 

See, the two entities are frighteningly similar, and not in just the levels of arrogance and stupidity about facing the issues before them.  They both have major economic problems brought on by their own policies, they both involve tense and heated negotiations between two parties with heads that the other side despises, and they're both using the exact same brinksmanship tactics to extract a minimal gain from the other side that is far more than made up by the damage caused by dragging out the process as long as they have.  

I guess I just had lower expectations for Congress.  

They've actually come up with enough of a solution for the Fiscal Cliff to kick the problem a couple months down the road (Yay!  More whole months of this crap!), while hockey sits in a self-generated limbo not-so-slowly descending into oblivion.  

Don't get me wrong...I'm not blaming Gary Bettman for all of it.  Though, I truly think that the best PR move the NHL can make after this fiasco is over is to give him his walking papers the next day.  After the last CBA negotiation the NHL went through, which cost the league the 04-05 season and most of the casual fans' respect it had as a professional sport, there was supposed to be a new era of co-ownership and cooperation between the league and its players.  It was supposed to be the Golden Era, and in many ways it was, but the figurehead of the lost season (Bettman) remained.  The league started crying foul not long before the CBA expired last year (right after popping the champagne and toasting another year of record revenues), and the players union caught wind of something funky in the air, so they did the worst thing they could have possibly done and hired Don Fehr to lead them.  Yes, the same Don Fehr that cost baseball the 1994 World Series.

Now, seeing Don Fehr on the other side, and knowing that they had a tough negotiation ahead of them, the league responded by doing the worst thing THEY could have possibly done.  They offered the most egregiously foul CBA proposal they could cobble together, with a 25% pay cut, restriction after restriction on the players, and all to the benefit of the league owners.  Instantly, any thoughts of cooperation were shot, the co-ownership became a fairy tale, and instead of two groups working together to solve issues for the greater good, it was once again Us vs Them, and the lockout began.  

Let's play "What If?"  What if the league had started working with the players on solving the financial issues last year instead of waiting until the CBA expired and blaming the issues on them?  What if the players union didn't hire Don Fehr?  What if Gary Bettman had stepped down after the last time he destroyed the sport?  What if Congress actually worked together instead of spending their time trying to convince me that they have it oh so rough, and the other side is pure evil?  What if Congress is bored now and wants to help sort out the NHL's issues? 

I don't even want to think about that.