And still I can’t find a better Christmas album than Christmas With The Vandals.
Seriously, it’s the best Christmas album in existence.
Of course, I spend nearly every Christmas feeling isolated and desolate, so your mileage may vary.
Seriously, tell me this doesn’t look fan-fucking-tastic.
Now, I just have to find someone willing to watch it with me.
So, I decided, what with the massive ice storm, insurance would be a must. If I’d realized that being old and accident free for a long time equated to such cheap rates, I’d have done this sooner. But not through Esurance.
I decided to get quotes from Geico and Esurance. If they were too high, I’d have shopped elsewhere.
Esurance- This was my first stop. The site was easy to use, moved quickly, and so on. Filled in my info. The quote? More than $800 for six months. On top of that, they wanted nearly $330 down. While I could pay that, it offended me, so on to Geico.
Geico- Just as fast, just as easy to use. The total for six months? $310. $52 now, $50-something a month. If I wanted I could have selected any number of payment plans, and it was just a great experience.
Needless to say, I went with Geico.
Lately there’s been some radio spots talking about Salvation Army bell ringers. A line from these goes something like this-
“When someone puts money into our red kettles, they expect change”
Try and read that without laughing. And now, to see if AutoUpgrade handles the move to 2.7.
There’s a few things that can really screw up how you feel when presenting someone with a gift. Especially if it’s a lady that you don’t really know all that well.
A) “Oh, thank you” with a wooden smile.
B) A look of terror that you’ve dared approach them with something in hand.
C) A speech about how they feel about guys coming on to them that rattles on until you feel like backhanding them whilst yelling “Listen, bitch, I was trying to make a friend”. That… I don’t suggest that response.
So, naturally, the last thing I expect is for someone to explode with delight. At best you get some genuine warmth for thinking of them, and everyone leaves with a bounce to their step. I handed her a book, Blindsight, and she just about had some kind of joyous meltdown. I’ve never seen someone so genuinely happy. It was the holy grail of gift giving, it was something they honestly appreciated. I left the building practically floating.
You wander over to a client’s house, and see something like this steamy pile.
That’s right, some undoubtedly fine work called The Pink Swastika.
I… what… uhh… huh. So, let me get this straight, the gays did it? That’s your big answer? The Nazis slaughtered millions because they were either homos or homophobes? Riiiight.
You know, I don’t get moral outrage over homosexuals. I feel the same way about having sex with a man as I do eating avocados. Which is to say that while gross, unpleasant to consider, and certainly not on my list of things to do today, it has nothing to do with morality. Not stealing? That’s a moral issue, in that it alters your place in the social contract pretty significantly. Spreading a man’s butt cheeks with my love-butterknife? That’s just an issue of aesthetics, of what I find personally desirable or distasteful.
Oh, right, the lot that are bitching aren’t doing so because of morality, because they don’t know what that actually means. They’re talking about some fucked up rules in a messed up book. I’m talking about the large group equivalent of empathy. You know, is this action, or group of actions, going to have a deleterious consequence on my society? Murder? Generally yes. Theft? Yep. Rape? Uh huh. Consensual sex? Hmmm… nope. Sex shows, porn, and all that, can at least be a valid place to argue and discuss, because they’re commercial institutions, and as such have to be weighed by a people to determine how well they fit the structure. I’m not saying I mind them, but that I at least understand someone questioning if such things are good to have around, or to what extent. Some “sex” activities are so vile, to me, that I would never talk to someone again if I found out about it, but I wouldn’t call it amoral, just damaged. They should still have access to whatever civil liberties everyone else has.
While I’m ranting away, I think we, as a country (USA in case it isn’t obvious), need to decide whether marriage is a religious institution or a legal one. If it’s religious, then why does it change the way you file taxes? If it’s legal, why is not available to all citizens? I’m not even sure if anyone has considered that this aspect of life may not need to be so integrated with how we go about our civil business, or our religious business if you hold to such things.
named Sara. I love her dearly. However, sometimes when exchaning emails I feel like I’m taking part in some sort of Turing test. Here’s a perfect example-
I send-
“http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/mushrooms-glow-in-the-dark/4821
Also, how familiar are you with the works of Jean Claude Van Damme?”
The second part there, if you’re curious, is because I want to lead in about this new movie called JCVD. Anywho, here’s her response-
“That was great, and so was the commentary below.
Thanks!”
It’s so generic that I’m vaguely concerned that I’m actually exchaning emails with a particularly well designed virus on her computer. Anyway, just thought it was funny, figured I’d share.
Seeing as this is, from what I gather, a big shift in how Python is bolted together, I’m actually rather glad I’ve never gotten around to doing much with it. We’ll see if I can invent some excuses to learn more about it now.
But seriously people, the fucking library, and fucking Wal-Mart, are not fucking daycare centers.
What the hell is wrong with you idiots? You have a title that is virtually guaranteed to push units, and a lot of them, so you add some bullshit to it, in an effort to make it tough to steal.
Let me inform anyone that hasn’t figured this out- Any game that isn’t online only, and probably a few that are, has copy protection broken within a day or two of release, if not before. I don’t know how much it costs to license crap like secuROM, or how much time it takes to actually lace it into a software release, but I’m willing to bet it’s not insubstantial. You should roll that money into something useful, like Christmas bonuses for the code monkeys and art guys.
Want to know when I’ve had trouble with copy protection? It’s always been on games I’ve bought, and I always download cracks for them. Always. The reasons for this are twofold-
A) If a game installs every resource it needs to my hard drive, why the hell should I dig out a disc to play?
B) Copy protection is oddball software, and causes oddball issues at oddball times.
Some companies take the approach of patching the copy protection out shortly after release, which is commendable, but begs the question of why they bothered paying for the privilege of loading this crud just to work on removing it. Allow me to assure you that it does dick all in regards to stopping zero day pirate releases over the interwebs. Nor does it stop the only real problem with piracy, which is “companies” selling hacked copies to the naive, which I can least see as you losing a sale on.
You guys really shouldn’t worry about it. Implement some basic online key checking, with phone backup, to keep the retards happy, and forget about it. It won’t stop it, but you’ll stop having to spend so much money and effort on it.