Yes, it's offensive, but I also I think it's an inspired social commentary on the absurdity of the misguided emulation of (wrongly perceived) black culture.
Discuss.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Now THAT'S Racist!
Yes, it's offensive, but I also I think it's an inspired social commentary on the absurdity of the misguided emulation of (wrongly perceived) black culture.
Discuss.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Rewired: Part Three - The Minuses of Hulu Plus
Price: $7.99 per month
Days to pay for itself (compared to cost of cable): 1.6 per month
It's been well over a month since we cut cable, and we're surprisingly happy with our new set-up... With one exception: Hulu Plus. First off, here's what it is: Hulu Plus is a streaming service available through the PS3, Roku, mobile Apple devices, and a few select TVs/Blu-ray players. Hulu Plus has over 400 shows and 800 movies available for streaming to your TV/game console/mobile device.
They have some good shows (Nova, X-Files, Firefly, Law & Order SVU, Spaced, Little Britain, Daily Show, etc.). They have a plethora of crap shows (Airwolf, Time Tunnel, Major Dad, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, etc.). They have a bunch of shows I never watch, but that people seem to like (Family Guy, Glee, Jersey Shore,30 Rock, etc.).
It sounds like a pretty good deal for 8 bucks a month until you realize that the standard version of Hulu has four times the number of shows FOR FREE. I can watch Simpsons, Venture Brothers, Fringe, Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy, etc for free on Hulu, but NOT on Hulu Plus. I realize that it's a licensing issue, but I really don't want to shell out $8 per month just to watch Nova with commercials (sometimes thrown in mid-sentence).
The selection isn't even the worst bit. I don't know if Hulu Plus won an online auction for a load of Soviet-era Bulgarian technology, but that seems to be what their running their service on. Damn near every show you watch will skip ahead, freeze, or (if you're lucky) completely lock-up so that you have to manually re-boot the PS3. It's ridiculous. I have never had that problem with Netflix's streaming service, but It happens constantly with Hulu Plus.
The one thing I can say that I really like about Hulu Plus is that they've started to make available a load of Criterion Collection films, and seem to be adding in more all of the time. That's good. When I was trying to watch Nobuhiko Obayashi's 'House' The film kept locking-up and it took me over 2 hours to watch an 88 minute film. That's not good.
Don't believe the hype - There's no "race" between Netflix and Hulu Plus, that'd be like a race between a Ferrari and a filing cabinet. Hulu Plus could be a great service if they work out the bugs in their system and focus on securing more licenses for current shows. That looks like it is a long way off, so until they work out their myriad flaws, I can't (in good conscience) recommend Hulu Plus to anyone. Then again, it's still better than Comcast.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Very Young Dog
-or-
Puppy, Puppy, Puppy, Puppy!
This one is Jenny's, so I'm leaving the naming up to her, but it looks like she's going to be called Leela (I wanted to name her 'Amaterasu-Ō-Mi-Kami', so it's probably for the best that Jenny took over that duty).
And, yes, I know that the pic is out of focus, but it is nearly impossible to get a picture of the puppy that isn't a golden blur. Deal with it.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Hasta la Vista, Crazy.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Rewired: Part Two - Broadcast n00bs
Price: $22.09
Days to pay for itself (compared to cost of cable): 4.5
It's funny how you you forget that there's free television floating in the air all around you. We're lucky enough to have one of the few functioning outdoor antennas jutting majestically from the side of our apartment - We've had the second TV hooked up to that for years. Once we cut the cable I bought a cheap digital antenna for the main TV. It took no time to hook up, and after a 5 minute auto-program we had 55 free channels. Some of them are even in English (It must be impossible to sell cable to the Spanish speaking populous of Chicago, hence my new axiom: He's so good, he could sell cable subscriptions to Mexicans). Anyway, after some acclamation to not being able to pause, rewind, or skip through the commercials and having to move the antenna around occasionally when a signal drops, it isn't all that bad. Plus, it's kinda cool to rediscover ephemera you never thought you'd ever need again, such as TV listings.
With our current set-up, I'll get all of the Bears games and most Cubs/Blackhawks games. I'm gonna miss NFL Red Zone, but I can't justify paying $1800 annually for 16 afternoons of football coverage. We get 7 PBS stations, which is pretty sweet, and I discovered that they telecast the Roe & Roper show everyday on NBC 5.2 - SCORE! All in all, I'm not noticing too much of a difference. It seems that PBS always has something on worth watching, and there are several news programs scattered throughout the day (this morning I had my coffee to Al-Jazeera English, which probably landed me on a watch-list somewhere). I'm good-to-go with my cheap-ass antenna, just don't bother me between 8PM and 9PM (CST) on Fridays - I'm watching Fringe, motherfuckers.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Rewired: Part One - Enter the TVoid
I looked at the Comcast bill and saw that we were shelling out nearly $150 a month for HD cable with a DVR and HBO/Showtime (including the city tax). Then I made a list of all of the shows that I'm watching on a weekly basis. Here is that list in it's entirety: Fringe. I then expanded my list to all of the shows I watched regularly over the last year: Fringe, Venture Brothers, Dexter, True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, Walking Dead, and Sons of Anarchy. Then I threw in Idiot Abroad, which we just started to watch (but not V, which I watch but can't figure out why I'm bothering to watch it). I totaled up all of all of those episodes per year and divided it by the cable bill per year and came out to... It's costing me $20 per fucking episode! Are you fucking kidding me?!?! I'm being robbed!
Now I'm taking the cable money and spending (a small part) on several different technologies/services and will be doing a series of posts on each item/service. Look for new posts in the days and weeks to come as I try out the alternatives (HD Broadcast, Hulu Plus, Netflix, etc.) and have some time to process my experiences.
Keep tuned.
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Strange Saga of the Menstruation Gate
Prologue:
I'm still watching Nate's 'mentally different' dog (see preceding post). That I'm fine with. What I'm not so fine with is that Cheyenne is quickly approaching her special lady-time*, and I have nightmarish visions of my apartment turning into this:
Further complicating the situation is my belief, as a Dogon bushman, that menstruating females are unclean and must be confined to a menstrual hut for the duration of their shedding of the uterine lining. Unfortunately, I couldn't track down a menstrual hut seller on Amazon that was willing to provide free shipping to Chicago, so I opted for a metal baby gate instead, thus transforming my kitchen into a de-facto menstrual hut. I'm praying like fuck that the sky god Amma is okay with that. So, I order the menstruation gate from Amazon and it is scheduled to be delivered on the first of the month. You know what else was scheduled to be delivered on the first of the month? 20+ inches of motherfucking snow, that's what. The parcel was delayed a couple of days, which is completely understandable, even though our street was clear throughout. As of Thursday evening, the UPS tracking info indicates that the package is scheduled to be delivered sometime on Friday. Cool.
Day I (Friday):
Was up and going at 8AM just in case I got a go-getter delivery driver. There were a load of errands to run, but I decided to hang-tough (like a New Kid) and make sure that I didn't miss the UPS guy. I sporadically checked the UPS Track and Confirm status just to make sure that everything was on schedule. When I refreshed the tracking info at 1:30 I got "1:27 P.M. - The customer was not available on the 1st attempt. A 2nd attempt will be made." Dicks! Either they were outright lying, or the sign I had taped to the front door was overly vague:
My feeling on the matter is that if you are unable to decipher that sign, you probably shouldn't be driving.
Screw those guys. I decided that since I wasn't going to get the package, that I should focus on trying to get my Jeep out of the garage in case I had to go and pick it up. It took 30 seconds to get the Jeep out of the garage and an hour getting it dug out and the 10 feet back in**. I was stuck. Now I had to make sure that the menstruation gate was delivered to my door.
I called up the UPS 1-800 number to make sure that the parcel would be redelivered. I got through their automated telephone hell; "If you want to know where your motherfucking parcel is say 'motherfucking parcel'.. I'm sorry I did not get that", only to be transferred to a busy signal THREE FUCKING TIMES.
Okay, this is war.
I prayed to Amma to hold off the bloodworks through the weekend and begun waiting for Monday.
Day II (Monday):
Evidently there had been a 'Super Bowl' of some sort over the weekend, but I hadn't really notice as I had become menstruation gate obsessed. With the weekend gone, I was ready for those fuckers. By 8AM, I had a pot of coffee in me and all of my 'necessities' out of the way. At any time of the day I made sure that I wasn't any further than 50 feet from the doorbell. I spent lengths of time with my forehead pressed up against the window. Waiting... like a crouched panther.. strapped with a thermonuclear bomb. Hell, at one time in the day a doorbell rang in some fucking 1-800-Flowers commercial and I ran downstairs just to be sure. I was running to the window every time I heard a diesel engine passing. Listening. Watching. WAITING. Around 4:30 I caught the UPS truck driving by, and sure enough when I checked the Track and Confirm status it came up as: "4:41 P.M. - The customer was not available on the 1st attempt. A 2nd attempt will be made."
Again? So the were admitting that this was the first attempt and that they were just fucking with me on Friday? And now a 'delivery attempt' involves driving by at 30 MPH? Oh, fuck you guys! It's not like you have to deliver the fucking menstruation gate to some remote fucking fly-speck village in the Mopti region of Niger. I live on a main thoroughfare in one of the largest cities in the United States. C'mon, this shouldn't be too fucking hard, people! Yeesh.
Here's a suggestion; focus less on cheap buzzwords such as "logistics" and work on delivering some motherfucking packages, you brown-short wearing cunts. As for logistics, you suck at it.
Day III (Tuesday):
At this point it's me against the clowns in brown. I'm jacked up on a mix Red Bull and pure hatred which makes me slightly more high-strung than a methed-out chipmunk. I'm waiting... No, I AM waiting personified. To compound matters, they start doing construction on the empty storefront below us, so with every new noise the (not yet menstruating) dog freaks out and I run to the window.
Around noon the doorbell rings. I'm downstairs in 10 seconds flat, swing open the door with an "A-HA!" and scare the hell out of the mailman. I ask him if he's seen any UPS scum in the vicinity. He mutters "Uh-uh", shoves Jenny's catalog order at me, and runs off. I begin to suspect that he's in on the conspiracy, possibly an undercover UPS agent sent to check my alertness.
Around 2PM I catch sight of a box truck in the unloading zone down the street. I run out and stare hatefully at the Snap-On Tools truck that was brazen enough to deceive me. At 3PM I chase a FedEx truck down the street just for the hell of it. Around 4:30 I notice my landlord outside and decide to take a break from pressing my forehead against the window whilst swearing and go down and say "hi". I'm in front of the apartment talking to Jimmy for about 20 minutes... Well, talking for 5 - bitching about those UPS fuckers for 15. I head back up to recheck the order status and get: "4:31 P.M. - The customer was not available on the 2nd attempt. A 3rd attempt will be made."
Okay, let me get this straight: You tried to deliver the parcel to the apartment while I was standing in front of said apartment? Trust me, I would have noticed. Hell, I probably would have run-up and tackled the guy once he stepped on the block. I would have chased a truck down the street swearing, had one driven past while I was out there. You fuckers aren't even trying now. I go upstairs, make another phone call to the UPS not-line, get disconnected again, throw a tantrum, decide to send UPS an e-mail, compose e-mail, get stopped half-way through due to the '500 character' limit, remove all obscenities, finish writing e-mail, notice that I still have several characters left. At this point I AM a burning hatred of UPS.
Around 5:30PM a UPS truck stops across the street and delivers a package. Before he can drive off, I scream "Gimme my menstruation gate, you brown bastards" out the window. The driver looks around, quickly jumps into the truck, and speeds off, I notice (thankfully) that the driver is a white dude.
Around 11PM Dena calls up and asks me if I want to meet up with the Valtrex Squad for some drinks. Fuck it, I need to get the hell out of this place. Jenny agrees and shoos me out the door. I head down to Quencher's - Drink. Then head across the street to The Mutiny - Drink more. By 2AM I'm substantially less crazed and very drunk.
Day IV (Wednesday):
Roll off the couch at 11AM. Mutter something about "UPS cunts" and grab some aspirin for the fucking headache. I make some lunch, and around 1:30PM the doorbell rings. It's my motherfucking menstruation gate; Praise be to Amma! I was so damned surprised that UPS actually bothered to deliver the parcel that I was downright giddy when I saw that brown bastard (yet another white guy). I didn't even care that the package looked like it had been re-routed through Vanuatu - I had that fucker! Later that evening Jenny and I started to put it together. Some pieces were scratched and slightly bent from the shipping, but nothing too serious. Definitely nothing worth sending it back and going through that ordeal again. I actually had it, and then I knew a happiness that can only be known between a man and a menstruation gate.
Here it is in all of its majesty:
Epilogue:
The dog hates it. Actually, it's more of a 'terrified of' than a 'hate', then again, she's terrified of helium-filled balloons so a new gate is bound to be horrifying. I don't care. We're ready for Cheyenne's special lady-time and I don't have to worry about the three week run of her menstrual-show. I'm fine with that.
To top it all off, UPS called in response to my e-mail and woke me up at 9AM this morning. I know it was exactly 9AM because the phone was ringing at the same time the alarm was going off. I was half asleep, so I started to say that I got the parcel and was going to let that be the end of it before the UPS rep foolishly mentioned that UPS had tried to deliver the package several times before I was available and that I was lucky that they allowed an extra delivery for me. I woke up damned quick and gave her the WHOLE bloody story. She seemed disturbed. Very disturbed. I was thoroughly amused by her horror. I win.
---
*Fun Fact: Dogs menstruate twice a year for 3 whole bloody weeks at a fucking time!
**4-wheel drive doesn't work if 3 tires are off the ground and the remaining tire is on a sheet of ice. In fact, 4x4 stands for 4" deeper and 4' further.
I'm still watching Nate's 'mentally different' dog (see preceding post). That I'm fine with. What I'm not so fine with is that Cheyenne is quickly approaching her special lady-time*, and I have nightmarish visions of my apartment turning into this:
Further complicating the situation is my belief, as a Dogon bushman, that menstruating females are unclean and must be confined to a menstrual hut for the duration of their shedding of the uterine lining. Unfortunately, I couldn't track down a menstrual hut seller on Amazon that was willing to provide free shipping to Chicago, so I opted for a metal baby gate instead, thus transforming my kitchen into a de-facto menstrual hut. I'm praying like fuck that the sky god Amma is okay with that. So, I order the menstruation gate from Amazon and it is scheduled to be delivered on the first of the month. You know what else was scheduled to be delivered on the first of the month? 20+ inches of motherfucking snow, that's what. The parcel was delayed a couple of days, which is completely understandable, even though our street was clear throughout. As of Thursday evening, the UPS tracking info indicates that the package is scheduled to be delivered sometime on Friday. Cool.
Day I (Friday):
Was up and going at 8AM just in case I got a go-getter delivery driver. There were a load of errands to run, but I decided to hang-tough (like a New Kid) and make sure that I didn't miss the UPS guy. I sporadically checked the UPS Track and Confirm status just to make sure that everything was on schedule. When I refreshed the tracking info at 1:30 I got "1:27 P.M. - The customer was not available on the 1st attempt. A 2nd attempt will be made." Dicks! Either they were outright lying, or the sign I had taped to the front door was overly vague:
Screw those guys. I decided that since I wasn't going to get the package, that I should focus on trying to get my Jeep out of the garage in case I had to go and pick it up. It took 30 seconds to get the Jeep out of the garage and an hour getting it dug out and the 10 feet back in**. I was stuck. Now I had to make sure that the menstruation gate was delivered to my door.
I called up the UPS 1-800 number to make sure that the parcel would be redelivered. I got through their automated telephone hell; "If you want to know where your motherfucking parcel is say 'motherfucking parcel'.. I'm sorry I did not get that", only to be transferred to a busy signal THREE FUCKING TIMES.
Okay, this is war.
I prayed to Amma to hold off the bloodworks through the weekend and begun waiting for Monday.
Day II (Monday):
Evidently there had been a 'Super Bowl' of some sort over the weekend, but I hadn't really notice as I had become menstruation gate obsessed. With the weekend gone, I was ready for those fuckers. By 8AM, I had a pot of coffee in me and all of my 'necessities' out of the way. At any time of the day I made sure that I wasn't any further than 50 feet from the doorbell. I spent lengths of time with my forehead pressed up against the window. Waiting... like a crouched panther.. strapped with a thermonuclear bomb. Hell, at one time in the day a doorbell rang in some fucking 1-800-Flowers commercial and I ran downstairs just to be sure. I was running to the window every time I heard a diesel engine passing. Listening. Watching. WAITING. Around 4:30 I caught the UPS truck driving by, and sure enough when I checked the Track and Confirm status it came up as: "4:41 P.M. - The customer was not available on the 1st attempt. A 2nd attempt will be made."
Again? So the were admitting that this was the first attempt and that they were just fucking with me on Friday? And now a 'delivery attempt' involves driving by at 30 MPH? Oh, fuck you guys! It's not like you have to deliver the fucking menstruation gate to some remote fucking fly-speck village in the Mopti region of Niger. I live on a main thoroughfare in one of the largest cities in the United States. C'mon, this shouldn't be too fucking hard, people! Yeesh.
Here's a suggestion; focus less on cheap buzzwords such as "logistics" and work on delivering some motherfucking packages, you brown-short wearing cunts. As for logistics, you suck at it.
Day III (Tuesday):
At this point it's me against the clowns in brown. I'm jacked up on a mix Red Bull and pure hatred which makes me slightly more high-strung than a methed-out chipmunk. I'm waiting... No, I AM waiting personified. To compound matters, they start doing construction on the empty storefront below us, so with every new noise the (not yet menstruating) dog freaks out and I run to the window.
Around noon the doorbell rings. I'm downstairs in 10 seconds flat, swing open the door with an "A-HA!" and scare the hell out of the mailman. I ask him if he's seen any UPS scum in the vicinity. He mutters "Uh-uh", shoves Jenny's catalog order at me, and runs off. I begin to suspect that he's in on the conspiracy, possibly an undercover UPS agent sent to check my alertness.
Around 2PM I catch sight of a box truck in the unloading zone down the street. I run out and stare hatefully at the Snap-On Tools truck that was brazen enough to deceive me. At 3PM I chase a FedEx truck down the street just for the hell of it. Around 4:30 I notice my landlord outside and decide to take a break from pressing my forehead against the window whilst swearing and go down and say "hi". I'm in front of the apartment talking to Jimmy for about 20 minutes... Well, talking for 5 - bitching about those UPS fuckers for 15. I head back up to recheck the order status and get: "4:31 P.M. - The customer was not available on the 2nd attempt. A 3rd attempt will be made."
Okay, let me get this straight: You tried to deliver the parcel to the apartment while I was standing in front of said apartment? Trust me, I would have noticed. Hell, I probably would have run-up and tackled the guy once he stepped on the block. I would have chased a truck down the street swearing, had one driven past while I was out there. You fuckers aren't even trying now. I go upstairs, make another phone call to the UPS not-line, get disconnected again, throw a tantrum, decide to send UPS an e-mail, compose e-mail, get stopped half-way through due to the '500 character' limit, remove all obscenities, finish writing e-mail, notice that I still have several characters left. At this point I AM a burning hatred of UPS.
Around 5:30PM a UPS truck stops across the street and delivers a package. Before he can drive off, I scream "Gimme my menstruation gate, you brown bastards" out the window. The driver looks around, quickly jumps into the truck, and speeds off, I notice (thankfully) that the driver is a white dude.
Around 11PM Dena calls up and asks me if I want to meet up with the Valtrex Squad for some drinks. Fuck it, I need to get the hell out of this place. Jenny agrees and shoos me out the door. I head down to Quencher's - Drink. Then head across the street to The Mutiny - Drink more. By 2AM I'm substantially less crazed and very drunk.
Day IV (Wednesday):
Roll off the couch at 11AM. Mutter something about "UPS cunts" and grab some aspirin for the fucking headache. I make some lunch, and around 1:30PM the doorbell rings. It's my motherfucking menstruation gate; Praise be to Amma! I was so damned surprised that UPS actually bothered to deliver the parcel that I was downright giddy when I saw that brown bastard (yet another white guy). I didn't even care that the package looked like it had been re-routed through Vanuatu - I had that fucker! Later that evening Jenny and I started to put it together. Some pieces were scratched and slightly bent from the shipping, but nothing too serious. Definitely nothing worth sending it back and going through that ordeal again. I actually had it, and then I knew a happiness that can only be known between a man and a menstruation gate.
Here it is in all of its majesty:
The dog hates it. Actually, it's more of a 'terrified of' than a 'hate', then again, she's terrified of helium-filled balloons so a new gate is bound to be horrifying. I don't care. We're ready for Cheyenne's special lady-time and I don't have to worry about the three week run of her menstrual-show. I'm fine with that.
To top it all off, UPS called in response to my e-mail and woke me up at 9AM this morning. I know it was exactly 9AM because the phone was ringing at the same time the alarm was going off. I was half asleep, so I started to say that I got the parcel and was going to let that be the end of it before the UPS rep foolishly mentioned that UPS had tried to deliver the package several times before I was available and that I was lucky that they allowed an extra delivery for me. I woke up damned quick and gave her the WHOLE bloody story. She seemed disturbed. Very disturbed. I was thoroughly amused by her horror. I win.
---
*Fun Fact: Dogs menstruate twice a year for 3 whole bloody weeks at a fucking time!
**4-wheel drive doesn't work if 3 tires are off the ground and the remaining tire is on a sheet of ice. In fact, 4x4 stands for 4" deeper and 4' further.
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