The 50s, all over again (but better!)

The 1950s are great, but kiosk computers (without my own flash drive) are not. So, along that train of thought…

Best Buy — Embrace your Inner Geek

I love Best Buy, and I hate Best Buy. I think they both can fit in the same sentence. If I  could write a slogan for Best Buy, it would be something along the lines of “Embrace your Inner Geek,” if it isn’t already taken.

The Good News

Best Buy is an electronic superstore. If it can play movies or music or games or Windows, you’ll find it there, somewhere.
And if it is movies or music or games… welcome to the store!

I was pretty sad when I heard the Virgin megastores had closed. I never had the blessing to see one myself, but if I could remake in my mind, I would only make the media section of my local Best Buy a little bigger. Best Buy has virtually every genre of movie available, and customer service reps will (or should) be walking around, asking if everything is all right, and helping you look up products and offering to order them in for you if they don’t have them in stock.

Maybe it’s just a small-town thing. But I love it.

Of course, I love the section catering to the niche market of Japanese animation enthusiasts the most — the otaku. Way out in the boonies, there are no stores that stock Japanese animation, save for the occasional title at the local Movie Gallery, perhaps. But Best Buy boldly puts out a whole shelf of the stuff! It has much more, of course, if you care to look.

The Bad News

The Geek Squad makes me cringe, and I would never, never trust a computer in their service. Maybe it’s just because I’m a computer geek myself, or maybe it’s because I’ve seen a friend shell out a couple hundred dollars to fix a problem that shouldn’t have been there, and could have been resolved with a little extra elbow grease.

Geek Squad has been exposed once with claiming a working, virus-free computer was bogged down with viruses and had to be replaced. It has also “accidentally” stumbled on child pornography. It makes me wonder how much they have also “accidentally” stumbled on that isn’t illegal that they might have kept to themselves? I’m sorry, I don’t want Geek Squad to go through my stuff.

Another random gripe: Watch out for cable prices. RadioShack will gouge you a little less when you need to buy a cable for a printer that didn’t come with one. Of course, cableless printers inherent to lazy printer manufacturers, so don’t blame Best Buy on this one.

The Bottom line

If Best Buy would let me, I could live there. Watch a little anime on a flat-panel TV, eat a little food and sip a Red Bull, then curl up somewhere in the audio adapters section for the night’s sleep…

It’s been a while

and I discovered Terapad has added an extra gig or two of space for file storage, in the way of pictures etc. Isn’t that great? Unfortunately, saving pictures from Terapad usually gets you a crappy BMP as a result, so I’m more or less neutral about the changes. (Unless you click Save Target As…, anyway.)

Darn it Favre!

I liked Brett Favre. Really.

Unfortunately the poor man has done quite a bit to overstay his welcome. He could play football until he was fifty or even ninety for all I cared; he was the complete spirit of the Green Bay Packers and nothing less.

And then he had to leave.

What a mistake. During his going-away speech, the final, tearful, halted speech that he made, everything stopped as much as it had during September 11 a few years ago. He announced that he was stepping down and wouldn’t return.

But, believe it or not, Brett has returned to the world of football! And, like the Green Bay Packers, I have also rejected him as well. Why? He can’t keep his promises. If he didn’t decide to leave, I’d be okay with him existing for a little longer. But he decided to leave, so for heaven’s sake stay out of the game of football. A guy who doesn’t keep his promises doesn’t deserve dignity, especially at his high rank.

But it could have been worse; at least Favre didn’t pull a Clinton on his fans.

Bad People (or, I’m not one of those!)

Call me paranoid one more time, but there are people who enjoy annoying others, especially if they’re compensating for their own foolishness. I’ve seen it happen on occasion, and it’s not pretty. Unfortunately, one can’t really point out these people unless they are nearly perfect themselves, something that I am not.

Is it possible that someone be cold and cruel and not aware of it? Yes. Should normal people try to avoid this? Definitely. But do we succeed? In some sense, we never do, although we certainly try. But hearing somebody say “I guess I’m not as nice as I thought…

P. S. If you think that I classify as a Bad People, please tell me so that I can reform and be a Good People again. Thank you.

Media Today

Like what’s-his-name on Fox’s Half Hour News Hour, I suddenly feel the compulsion to rattle off some random thoughts of my own. These, however, are related to the media, specifically, movies.

• First off, what about Harry Potter? I hear he gets kissed in this latest movie installment, and that was enough to give it a PG-13 rating. Not that I’ve ever been a fan of Harry Potter, far from it. Frankly, even with all the anime I watch, it doesn’t come this close to fantasy. One woman is monopolizing on the world’s desire to become gods.
• I just discovered today that all the cartoons I liked when I was a kid (The Great Mouse Detective, the Rescuers Down Under, Atlantis: The Lost Empire) were strongly influenced by Japanese art. Maybe this has something to do with my “accidentally” discovering anime in 2005, and why I enjoyed it so much.
• Speaking of things for kids, what about that cartoon series with the big transforming robots? Yes, Transformers as a “live action” movie hit theaters, and no, the latest reincarnation of the immortal series is not the best ever. With the language at a tense maximum, the sexual innuendos hitting hard, and the violence a degree or two higher than we expected, it’s quite a shock. Even so, enough interest was generated to grab the attention of a car company, a few toy companies, and a studio that is either re-releasing the old Transformers series or creating a new one. Heck, might as well take the kids to see the movie in theaters, too.
• After finally breaking down the “anime is only for kids” barrier, I’m now faced with the “anime is only for adults” one. A friend gave me a stat that said that “50% of anime is porn.” Now, I’ve read around. According to Central Park Media, only 5-10% of its anime is classified as “adult.” This statistic, of course, refers to the graphically violent anime as well, making the “porn” stat go even lower in theory. Just remember, friend, 37% of statistics are made up!

Wind!

Ladies and gentlemen, the people of Wisconsin are wimps. Case in point: Yesterday, the Stevens Point School District canceled its schools.

Why? The answer is surrounding you right now.

The leadership of Stevens Point was afraid of a little wind. Someone went outside and said to themselves, “Air. Moving air. This is bad.” So they canceled school.

Naturally, I assumed there would be a better reason to close school than just wind. But I checked out a satellite weather report. The closest clouds were in North Dakota, two whole states away. Tornados were not an issue, although either five or seven touched down in our good state last night.

Face it, Point: You really are pathetic. You were afraid of a little wind. Beware, now, the sky might fall this September, might want to cancel school for the month.

No News is Good News

No news is good news with today’s media. What have you been hearing on the media recently? Only until very recently, the airwaves were filled with the news that a bigoted talkshow host had called a basketball team a bunch of bunch of nappy-headed ____ and now everyone and her brother want an apology for those statements.

I think it’s disgraceful too.

It’s disgraceful that anyone who’s important enough to own a TV station is saying that disgraceful word on air in attempt to rebuff the first person to say it. So that’s what you hear. Oprah mentioning that she wants the scoundrel who said “nappy-headed ____” to apologize. Not to mention every teacher of every social studies class telling asking about their opinion on the talkshow host who called a basketball team a bunch of ____.

What’s even more disgraceful than this opportunity to use dirty words in the media is the “intolerance” that brings about the opposition. See, the guy could have insulted every single player on the basketball team individually, using worse names if he wanted to. But since he insulted them all together, he was guilty of being bigoted against a certain group. If someone is going to attack anything, it should be insulting opinions on the radio, period. Not just when someone insults a group, but when his speech goes out of the boundaries of social acceptance. The rebuttal against the talkshow man in question is very appropriate, but it should have come sooner, and not for so vague an offense.

Bad Day

Today was a remarkably bad day. It started off at school during first hour. Not even. Before our regular classes, we were called to homeroom, and before school began, this is where I was, looking around. With no warning, one of the lenses of my glasses popped out. I lost the screw but (thank God) not the lens. After taking the recusant lens to my locker and getting back to class, I picked up a pen so that I could study and write some more in preparation for my History test. The pen was even faultier than my glasses (if such were possible). It spurted ink onto both of my hands at such levels that I was tempted to discard of it and clean my hands, if it was not the only writing utensil that I had. 

In Social Studies, there was indeed a test, one that, after the day’s events, I had not felt remarkably ready to attempt. But I attempted, and the results of which I can only expect to be disastrous. I felt a little better by wasting my mind away on a computer during study hall, but as I left (for lunch), what was left of my glasses managed to fall to the floor. I was so caught up in the crowd that I barely retrieved them. 

I was prepared to turn in a large project (job shadowing) for accounting, and, lo and behold, when I checked through my work I found that the three-page report I had typed the day before contained an enormous error — it had ommitted half of Page Two. And on top of that, I had come to class late, and without a pencil.  I was fortunate enough to borrow a pencil from the girl who sat behind me in that class. She noticed my dilemma and commented, “It must be your Friday the Thirteenth.” Tell me about it. She let me keep the pencil. Just to end the day on a bad note, I had forgotten my glasses (safely secured in my locker) at the end of it all. I turn up from school now feeling just a little bit miserable with only the hope of a good meal driving me on.

That digital camera

Sorry to rant (as if this set of posts is for anything but rambling), but do you remember the digital camera that my dad gave my mom on Christmas? It still hasn’t been touched. That makes it four months and two days.

How many days has that been? According to http://www.jeffpalm.com/dayssince/:

It is 99 Days since then.

What a joke.